The Essential Changes Of New Life Series

Intro

Out of respect for being fully transparent... I want to tell you that this past Monday morning I stood before the honorable Judge Mark Young at the SM Courthouse...and he told me that I was looking at potentially 3 to 4 weeks time...I was allowed to temporarily return home...where naturally I thought about the consequences of such time away... and then the very next day... I received a call... that I had been set free by the court.

The case had been settled...and I was free... free from jury duty.

Some of you look disappointed...just jury duty.

For me ... facing a month of time and becoming free of that...was a big deal.

And it makes me think of how big the news of the Gospel is...the news of being set free from the judgment that brings death...and the freedom to live forever.

When one realizes that his death had been a sacrifice... and his resurrection proclaimed life beyond death... it changes everything.

This is part of what we find in the Book of Colossians... continue in a series...about how Jesus changes everything.

Let me again offer a brief background...

After the resurrection of Christ... the scope of what was at hand filled those first lives... they couldn’t be contained...and hundreds were accepting the news...and claiming him as their Lord.

And then comes a remarkable conversion...that of a religious leader named “Saul, who was also called Paul.” [1]

Paul was the one God chose to send into the wider world... particularly the Roman ruled world that had come to rule over a vast portion of the known world. Rome had extended it’s reign into Asia... it what is now modern day Turkey...and the major city of Ephesus was now it’s major center.

Paul was there for over 2 years... during which time a man Epaphras’ began to serve alongside him...and then went back to his home town of Colossae and shared the good news... and a new local church community was formed there.

Let me just pause here and say that God may put it in your heart to go to your sphere of relationships... even your home town... and share about Christ.

Often God does this. He calls us back to our former cities to minister to our own people. You may have a different idea of what God wants you to do with your life. But Jesus may say to you what he said to a man in Mark 5:19:

Mark 5:19

Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.

In any case, the apostle Paul didn’t plant the church in Colossae. Epaphras, his coworker, planted the church. But Paul had a fatherly concern for the church and cared about how it was doing.

So he begins his letter...

Colossians 1:1-2

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.”

There is something subtle but quite significant in these simple words... he refers to them as those who are “in Colossae” but also “in Christ.”

He identifies them with two realities... two dimensions of life...one is the location they live in... but the other is the life that they now have in Christ.

As we focused on last week... he concludes this section... explicitly describing the reality of two kingdoms.

Colossians 1:13-14

For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

What is at hand is nothing less than being rescued from a kingdom of darkness. This world is ruled in darkness. Darkness represents that which is outside of God....outside of the source of everlasting life and love.

In such darkness...we cannot see who we really are... and we live in a world in which every vain claim to power and authority will rule over us.

But through the death and resurrection of Christ... God has rescued us.

When Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice... he bore the consequence of our separation from God...and acceptance of his sacrifice for us becomes a means by which we can be reconciled to God. And when he rose from death... he declared that God still rules over created life.

Jesus brought nothing less than that which offers liberation... a release to all who have been held captive by the powers that rule this world... with a call to now “enter”...to become a part of... the eternal Kingdom under God.

There’s been a transition of authority in their lives.

And all who receive this transition... are living in a subversive position in this world. We live amidst this kingdom...but under the authority of another kingdom... the kingdom of God.