Christ Church Sermon, All For Love: Punishment or Pure Love, March 8 2026

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Today's scripture is from the book of

Colossians chapter 2:es 9-14.

For in Christ all the fullness of the

deity lives in bodily form and in Christ

you have been brought to fullness. He is

the head over every power and authority.

In him you were also circumcised with a

circumcision not performed by human

hands. Your whole self ruled by the

flesh was put off

when you were circumcised by Christ.

having been buried with him in baptism,

in which you were also raised with him

through your faith in the working of

God, who raised him from the dead. When

you were dead in your sins, and in the

uncircumcision of your flesh, God made

you alive with Christ. He forgave us all

in our sins, having canceled the charge

of our legal indebtedness, which stood

against us and condemned us. He has

taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

Thanks be to God.

>> Well, good morning everyone.

As we continue in our Lenton sermon

series called All for Love, uh we're

resisting the urge to rush. We're not

sprinting ahead to Easter, we're not

skipping on to the celebration. We want

to stay at the cross long enough to

allow the cross to kind of speak to us.

And today, I want to sit with a question

that quietly shapes a lot about our

faith. When Jesus died, what was

happening? Was it punishment or was it

pure love? Because how we answer that

question determines how we see God. It

determines how we see ourselves. It

determines whether we approach God uh

cautiously or confidently.

I think most people grew up with this

picture of God in their head that went

something like this. God is holy. God is

angry. We are guilty. And Jesus steps in

to calm God down. Does that sound about

right for a lot of people? So, when you

look at it like that, the cross looks

like a form of punishment aimed at Jesus

so God can finally tolerate us. Now,

even if we don't say it that bluntly,

that idea kind of leaks into our

spiritual lives, right? We could tell

that because we pray like we're

interrupting somebody who is annoyed. We

repent like we're trying to talk God out

of being angry with us. and we worship

like we're trying to earn our way back

into the room. But Paul in Colossians 2

gives us a very different picture. One

that doesn't shrink God's love or

sanitize God's holiness, but holds them

together in a way that that really

changes everything. Listen to these

words again. For in Christ, all the

fullness of the deity lives in bodily

form. When you were dead in your sins,

God made you alive with Christ. He

forgave us all our sins, having canceled

the charge of our legal indebtedness,

nailing it to the cross. See here,

Paul's giving us three movements that

help us understand what is happening on

the cross. The first one is who is on

the cross. The second one is what is

nailed to the cross. And the third one

is what does the cross actually

accomplish? Now Paul begins with a

sentence that kind of hits like a bolt

of lightning. He says,"For in Christ all

the fullness of the deity lives in

bodily form." Now, that is not soft

language. That's not symbolic language.

That's not even poetic exaggeration.

That's Paul saying that when we see

Jesus, we are looking at God. Jesus is

not God's assistant. He's not heaven's

middle manager. He's not plan B because

humanity messed up plan A. He's not a

wise teacher that just had a tragic

ending. Jesus is the fullness of God.

Not a part of God, not a slice of God,

not a representative of God with a

badge, but the fullness of God in human

body. Which means that when Jesus

speaks, God is speaking. When Jesus

heals the leper, God is healing and

touching the leper. When Jesus weeps at

the grave, God is weeping. And when

Jesus is hanging on the cross, God is

there. And that changes everything.

Because many of us, again, if even if we

wouldn't say it out loud, picture the

cross something like this. God's up

here, Jesus is on the cross, and we're

somewhere in the middle. As if God is

distant and furious. As if Jesus is

again trying to calm God down. as if the

cross is some kind of divine argument

between justice and mercy.

But Paul won't let us think that way.

Paul says the fullness of God is in

Christ. So at the cross, God is not

watching from a distance. God is not

demanding a sacrifice from far away. God

is not detached. God's not just waiting

for payment. God is in it. God is

stepping into our violence. God is

stepping into our sin. God is stepping

into betrayal, to injustice, to mockery,

to the nails, to the suffocation.

God isn't outsourcing

suffering. God is absorbing it. So, if

we ever wondered what does God look

like, Paul says we should look at Jesus.

When sinners came near to Jesus, Jesus

didn't recoil or run away. When the

ashamed showed up in front of Jesus,

Jesus didn't add more shame. When the

broken interrupted Jesus, he didn't send

them away. When people doubted Jesus, he

didn't humiliate them. And when people

failed Jesus, he restored them. And then

when the world built a cross and said,

"We reject you." Jesus didn't respond by

saying, "Well, I reject you, too." He

stayed. He stayed when it hurt. He

stayed when it was unfair. He stayed

when it would have been easier to call

power down and end it. He stayed. You

see, that's not God acting out of

character. That is God revealing God's

character. So before we even get to the

question, is this punishment or is this

pure love? We got to realize that the

one on the cross was not a third party.

The one on the cross was not a divine

scapegoat. The one on the cross was God

in the flesh. And that changes the tone

immediately

because the cross is not God against

Jesus. The cross is God for us at a

great cost to himself.

Now Paul shifts the focus. He moves from

who is on the cross to what is nailed to

the cross. He writes, "When you were

dead in your sins."

Everybody say dead.

That tells me you're not dead because

you could say dead.

>> But he says when you were dead in your

sins, not weak, not confused, not a

little off course, dead. Now that word

is not meant to insult us. That word is

meant to tell the truth. Dead means we

can't fix it with our effort. Dead means

we can't polish ourselves into

righteousness. Dead means we can't

outgrow guilt just because we get a

little bit older. Older. Dead means we

don't need advice. Dead means we need

resurrection. And deep down, we know

what this is like. How many of you ever

tried harder in your life and still fell

short? Okay. Right. We we we do that all

the time. How many of you have ever

promised, "I will never do that again

than five minutes later." Right? We

carry regret that doesn't fade as we get

older. Paul says that is death. But here

comes the turn. It says, "God made you

alive with Christ. God forgave us all

our sins." All. Not just the respectable

ones, not just the public ones, not the

sins that we've already confessed. All

the sins we remember, the sins we try to

forget, the sins no one else knows

about, the sins that we're still

wrestling with, all. And then Paul, as

only Paul can, goes into this courtroom

image, right? He says, "Having canceled

the charge of our legal indebtedness,

nailing it to the cross." Now, picture

this for a second. In the ancient world,

debts were written down. Charges were

documented. Accusations were listed.

That's how they did things. So, if you

owed something, it was written in ink.

So, Paul tells us there's a record

against us. Not just the things we did,

but the debt that those things caused.

The moral IOU. The weight of I can't

undo this. The shame that whispers in

our ear at 2 a.m. The me memories that

tighten our chest. The quiet fear that

whispers to us if people really knew.

Paul says God took that record, those

accusations, those debts, those case

files, and nailed them to the cross.

Notice what Paul does not say. He does

not say God nailed us to the cross. He

does not say God nailed love to the

cross. He says God nailed the record of

our debts to the cross. So what was

condemned on the cross? Not a person,

but our debt, our condemnation, our

accusations,

our guilt. It's as if the cross becomes

this public bulletin board. You know,

the worst truth about us is posted there

in full view. No denial, no

minimization, no pretending. And then it

is canled. Now, canceled doesn't mean

ignored. It means paid. It means dealt

with. It means no longer legally

binding. I mean, some of us know what it

feels like to have something hanging

over our head. Do you ever make a

decision that you wish you could take

back? You know, a season in your life

that makes you wse, a relationship

that's fractured, words you can't unsay,

a habit that keeps circling back. Maybe

even it's a secret that we hope stays

buried. And beneath all of that is this

underlying question. What if God sees me

the way I really am?

Well, Paul says, God does. every line in

the ledger, every hidden motive, every

failure, God sees it all clearly,

whether we hide it or not. Now, before

you panic, Paul also says instead of

turning away, God took it from us. God

didn't excuse it. God didn't deny it.

God didn't pretend it wasn't there.

Instead, God took it to the cross. That

means on the cross, God is not saying to

us, "How dare you?" On the cross, God is

saying, "I will carry it."

Our debt was real, but it's no longer

ours to pay. It's what was nailed to the

cross.

And now Paul lands the plane, so to

speak. He canceled the charge. God

canceled the charge. God forgave sin.

Forgave us. God made us alive. I mean,

let me put it this way. The cross didn't

just make forgiveness possible. The

cross accomplished forgiveness.

Paul doesn't use tentative language

here. He doesn't say God opened a door

that we could go through. God created an

option. Paul says God cancelled, meaning

wiped out, erased, nullified, not

minimized, not negotiated down. God

didn't put our sin on a payment plan.

God canled it. And then God made us

alive.

Doesn't say God improved us. It doesn't

say God coached us. It doesn't say God

gave us a second chance to try harder.

It says God made us alive. That is

resurrection language, which means it

can't be reduced to merely some cold

legal transaction. Sure, Paul uses legal

language here. Charge, indebtedness,

cancelling. But Paul's using courtroom

imagery not with the goal of being more

paperwork for us to fill out, but with

the goal being a relationship. The

result is not merely our file is

cleared. The result is we are made alive

with Christ. That means we have restored

connection. Alive means breathing again.

Alive means not hiding anymore. Alive

means being brought back into communion

with God who we were created for. So God

didn't just want to change our status.

God wanted to restore our relationship.

God didn't just want our debt gone. God

wanted us home.

So is the cross punishment or is the

cross pure love? Well, Colossians 2

frames it this way. The cross is not God

finding someone to punish so he could

finally love us. The cross is God loving

us so much he deals with what is killing

us. You see, the cross is love with

teeth. Love that refuses to ignore sin.

Not because God hates us, but because

sin destroys what God loves. And God

loves us. Now, how many parents do we

have here today? As parents, you get a

glimpse of this. When your child is

sick, you don't stand at the end of the

bed in disgust and look at them and say,

"Why did you let this happen to you?"

You may think it, but you don't say it

to your kids.

What do you do? You move closer. You sit

beside them. You say, "Let's deal with

this." Now, sometimes that means giving

them medicine that tastes awful.

Sometimes that means uh a treatment that

is uncomfortable. Sometimes that means a

procedure that hurts before it heals. We

do all of those things not because we're

cruel, but because we're committed,

because we love our kids too much to let

sickness win. At the cross, God's not

venting anger on a substitute so God can

calm down. At the cross, God is stepping

into the infection of sin and saying, "I

will absorb this. I will deal with this.

I will not let it destroy what I love."

So God cancels the charge. God forgives

the sin. God makes us alive. Not so God

can finally tolerate us, but so God can

walk with us.

The cross is not God reluctantly saying

after receiving punishment that

everything is satisfied. The cross is

God loving us enough to defeat what is

actually killing us.

So God isn't in in it to just punish us.

God is committed to saving us with pure

love and he was willing to go all the

way to the cross to do that.

Let me be pretty direct here as we close

because I think this is where some of us

tend to live. We believe Jesus died for

sins. We're just not sure Jesus died for

our sins. We believe grace is real. We

sing about it. We nod our head at it. We

might have even told somebody else about

grace. We just don't trust it quite that

much when we're looking at our own life.

When we're looking at our temper, when

we're looking at our habits, when we're

looking at our thought life, when we're

looking at our regrets, when we are

looking at that thing that we promised

to never do again and then do it again,

or that season we still feel embarrassed

about. Grace sounds beautiful in theory.

We just have a hard time accepting it

when it gets personal.

So, here's what happens. Lent becomes a

self-improvement season. Now, we don't

say that out loud, but underneath these

thoughts keep creeping into our mind.

Thoughts that say, "If I could just get

myself together a little bit more. If I

could just clean this up. If I could

just be more consistent. If I could just

prove I'm serious, then maybe, just

maybe, I'll be ready for Easter." As if

resurrection is a reward for our

progress. or forgiveness kicks in once

we've tried hard enough. But Paul says

something that blows that logic

completely apart. When we were dead, say

dead.

>> When we were dead, God made us alive.

Not when we were impressive, not when we

were disciplined, not when we finally

gained control. Not when we gave up the

right thing for Lent. Go ahead and eat

as much chocolate as you want.

Not when we had spiritual consistency

going. Nope. God made us alive when we

were dead.

Dead people don't improve themselves.

Dead people don't climb towards God.

Dead people don't get spiritually

organized. Instead, dead people are

acted upon. Just ask anybody who works

in a hospital. Dead people are rescued.

Dead people are brought back to life.

Which means that our salvation did not

begin with our strength because we were

dead. It begins with God's love. Here's

the part that a lot of you might need to

hear. If God loved you there in the dead

place, in the messy place, in the

ashamed place, God's not waiting to love

you later. God's not holding back

affection until you stabilize. God's not

measuring your performance before

deciding to come close to you. The cross

happened at our worst, not at our best.

So that voice that you hear in the in

your head that says once you get it

together, then God move will move

towards you. That's not the voice of

God. That's not the voice of the gospel.

The gospel said says God moved towards

us when we couldn't move at all. God

made us alive when we had nothing to

offer. God canceled the charge when we

couldn't afford to pay a scent. So let

is not about earning our way towards

Easter. It is about letting ourselves be

loved in the places we would rather

hide. It's about trusting that the God

who met us in death is not intimidated

by the places where we're still

unfinished.

Because if God loved us when we were

dead to sin, God is not waiting to love

us now till we are better. God has

already decided.

and the cross is the proof.

Let's pray. Lord, we're so grateful that

your love doesn't depend on anything

that we do. You saw our life. You know

our life. You know our sins. You know

our mistakes. You know where we've

messed up. You even know where we've

done things well.

And in spite of all of that knowledge,

you still come to us offering us love,

taking all of our debts, nailing them to

the cross, and offering us grace that we

can't even begin to understand.

All you ask of us is that we receive

that love.

This isn't about anything that we do.

This isn't about anything that we are.

This is about recognizing that without

you, we were dead.

But with you, we are made alive. May we

receive that love

and then may we share that love with

others.

Amen.