The Centrality of the Cross - Colossians 1:19-23

All right, we are continuing with our series in Colossians.

I'll turn my microphone on.

All right.

And we're confronted in this passage with the image of the cross.

And I was thinking about this, how certain images and symbols have a way of not only

being immediately recognizable to us, but many images and symbols have a way of evoking

a lot of emotion in us.

Correct?

So look at this first image I want to show you.

We see this image.

Anybody know what this is?

Yeah, it's Buddha, right?

It's not like the comical fat Buddha, but it's more the traditional statue of Buddha.

And when we see this, many of us immediately recognize it for what it is, but there's

probably not a lot of emotion tied to it, right?

You might feel some level of pity for people who were deceived by a false religion, but

that's maybe it.

Or what about this image when you see this?

Which one's this one?

Israel.

Israel, right?

Yeah, this is the Star of David, so we see this and we immediately recognize it.

But again, there's probably not a lot of emotion, except maybe pity.

Again, for people who were so close to the kingdom and yet still so far away.

So what about when you see this image?

Anybody know what this one is?

Islam, right?

The crescent moon and the star.

Now this is where it becomes maybe less recognizable as a symbol, but you definitely get more emotion,

right?

Because once you realize that this is the symbol of Islam, you start thinking about

all of the many heinous acts of violence carried out by radical Islamists all throughout

our world.

And so there's a great deal of sorrow connected to this.

Or how about this one?

Anybody know what that one is?

Yeah, so communism, right?

That's the symbol for communism.

And this is where we start getting a little tense, right?

Because you're thinking, in the past it started out kind of easy.

How far are we taking this?

Stay tuned, all right?

So this is a symbol for communism, again, recognizable.

And this is one that you feel sorrow about when you think about it, because you think

of the horrors of communism throughout history and what it's done.

And probably for a lot of us, there's a lot of pity connected to this, because for whatever

reason the upcoming generations are obsessed with communism and socialism, and they think

it'd be a great idea, even though history has proven that it is never a good idea, right?

So there's a lot of emotion that starts to come through with this one.

Now there are some images that are so heinous that I can't even show them to you.

And I think you're all probably thinking of the same one.

We've been going down and down and down and down.

So what about a swastika?

Obviously it's not going to be on the screen, okay?

We don't have a swastika to put on the screen, but do I even need to show that to you?

You all know what it looks like, right?

Every single one of us.

It's ingrained in our memory, and when it comes to the Nazi symbol, we immediately start

thinking about the horrors of the Holocaust.

We start thinking about what the Nazi regime did throughout World War II and even beyond.

And so there's a lot of emotion that is brought forth with that sorrow, pity, anger, frustration.

It's one of those symbols that is going to evoke emotion in you.

But what about this one?

That's the last one I want to show you.

What about that one?

Right?

We all recognize that symbol.

It's arguably the most horrific and disturbing of all that I have shown you.

Because we look at the cross today, and it's immediately recognizable to us, but did you

immediately feel any emotion when you saw it?

You might have thought of an emotion, but did you feel anything?

We incorporate the cross into our daily lives.

It's all over our church buildings.

We even have it on our jewelry, our necklaces, earrings, things like that.

And so what we've done with the cross is we've taken away what it originally stood for and

how people would have originally perceived it.

It's definitely not harder to look at than some of these other things that we've looked

at.

But you have to understand that at the time Paul was writing to the Colossians in the

first century, they would have had as hard a time looking at a picture of a cross as

we do looking out of Swastika.

That's how horrific this image was.

But yet here in modern Christianity, what have we done?

We have sanded the wood of the cross.

We have washed the blood from the cross, and we have cleaned it up so that it's no longer

this horrific image anymore.

You see, there was even a push in Paul's day here in the first century, there was a push

to eliminate the cross from Christian conversation.

They didn't want to have anything to do with Christian pictures of the cross.

They didn't want to talk about the cross because it was the worst possible way to die.

When people saw the cross, they thought of Rome, not Jesus.

They thought of Rome and their torture devices, and they said, this way to die is reserved

for the worst of the worst.

So there were Christians who were saying, hey guys, can we all come to an agreement?

We all need to stop talking about the cross because no one's going to want to join the

faith if we keep talking about this horrific way to die.

What's so sad is we still see a bit of this today.

There are many preachers in our world today who when they get up on a Sunday morning,

they just want to tell you about how much God loves you and how they want to tell you

to just focus on God's love for you, and they'll say, hey, God loves you and he has a wonderful

plan for your life.

They get that message every single Sunday.

Many people want to reduce the faith down to nothing more than just try to do good things

and try to be a good person.

Many popular preachers, I promise you, you look them up, most of the popular preachers

in our world today, they do not even talk about sin in their churches because they say

sin makes people feel bad and people already feel bad enough so when they come to church,

we want to make them feel good.

So we don't talk about sin.

It seems like the main goal of most popular preaching and most popular churches today

is to fill their churches with as many people as they possibly can.

And you can't do that by calling out sin.

You can't do that by confronting sin, and you can't do that by preaching the cross

as the only solution to sin.

And yet we would all do well to remember the wise words of Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones who said,

we preach not to fill our churches, but to save sinners from hell and the two are not

the same.

You can preach to fill your church or you can preach to save sinners from hell, but

understand this, they are not the same.

It all hinges upon the centrality of the cross of Christ.

And so the question I want us to consider together this morning as we look at this passage

is why is the message of the cross essential to our faith?

In other words, why can't we be like the people in the first century and just move past the

cross?

Why can't we just stop talking about it, showing pictures of it?

Why can't we stop emphasizing?

Why is it so essential for our faith?

I want you to start in verse 19 with me, if you have your Bibles verse 19, for in him

all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all

things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross and you who

once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds.

Now we're going to pause there for a moment because I want you to look at your Bible and

notice the emphasis on Jesus here.

It's in him and through him and to him.

And what is the result?

The Bible says he is reconciling all things to God.

Now we read that, but here's what you do.

Being a stupe reader here, if the Bible is saying that Jesus reconciles all things to

himself, it's presuming a problem, is it not?

What is the problem it's presuming?

That all things need to be reconciled.

If Jesus is reconciling all things to God, it must mean that all things are separated

from God or to use the word that Paul uses here, alienated.

Now it's interesting in Greek that word alienated, it refers to people who have estranged themselves

from God.

So why are sinners separated from God?

It's not something that God did to them and it's not something that they have passively

endeavored to end up in, it is people who have estranged themselves from God.

And so Paul is talking about here the problem of sin.

When Adam and Eve sinned against God and rebelled against him, they invited sin into our world

and the Bible tells us in Romans 5.12, therefore, justice sin came into the world through one

man and death through sin.

And so death spread to all men because all have sinned.

So here's the problem, sin separates us from God and so since all people sinned, death

spread to all people and therefore all people now are separated from God.

And to make matters even worse, the Bible says in Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin

is death.

So all of humanity has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and this means that every single

person, all of humanity stands condemned before a holy God deserving death and damnation for

our sins against God.

Does this sound like a popular message church?

Is this going to pack the pews this one?

No, probably not, but it's exactly what the Bible says.

The Bible says you need to understand how bad your situation is so you can appreciate

how good the good news of Jesus actually is.

And if you think that's as bad as it gets, it only gets worse from here because here's

what I've encountered.

When I tell this to people, and I've had this conversation with so many unbelievers, I can't

even keep track of them at this point, but I'll tell people, I remember, for instance,

I was working in Charleston and I was working with this young lady and we were having this

conversation and she said, well, I believe I'm a good person.

And she said, I believe that if I just love people, then when I die, God's going to let

me into heaven.

And I said, well, God doesn't let good people into heaven.

And she said, well, what kind of God doesn't let good people into heaven?

And I said, well, the Bible says no one is good.

That's why only one good person has ever gone to heaven and that's Jesus Christ.

But I remember having this conversation and her response to me was, okay, if it's not loving

people and trying to be nice, then what can I do?

And see, that was the issue.

And that's the issue I've encountered with so many people.

When I tell them you're separated from God, you have sinned against God, and because of

your sin, you deserve death and damnation, their first knee-jerk reaction is, well,

just tell me what I need to do then.

And we start thinking of all the things that we can do to make it better.

I'll start coming to church.

I'll start treating people better.

I'll try to be kinder.

Hey, will the church take a check?

Because I'll write a check.

If that'll get me into heaven, I'll do that.

I'll do all the things I can to get back in God's good graces.

And so it's interesting, when you tell people this problem, we recognize that there is a

debt that needs to be paid, don't we?

We recognize that there is something that needs to be done, a price that needs to be

paid.

And that's actually what this word reconciled communicates here.

The word reconciled in the Greek, it referred to an exchange.

So you could exchange hatred for friendship.

And what happens?

You'd say the people are reconciled.

Or you could exchange hostility for peace, and then you have reconciliation.

But most of the time, it referred to an exchange of payments for goods and services.

But here's where it gets even worse for us.

Since we are the ones who have sinned against God, meaning we are the offending party, it

means that we are entirely dependent upon God to reconcile with us.

And if God does not reconcile with us, we will remain alienated from God.

All right, so I want to try to put this in terms you can understand.

If God doesn't choose to reconcile with us, there's nothing we can do.

Here's how you understand it.

Let's say I were to sin against my wife, and I've done something against her, I've sinned

against her.

I can go and apologize to her 500 times.

Men, yes?

Yeah?

I can go apologize 500 times.

I can do all the dishes.

I can do the laundry.

It'd be messed up, but I would do it.

And I would fold the laundry, and that'd be messed up, but I would do it.

I could take care of the whole Honeydew list.

I could do everything I could think of to get back in my wife's good graces.

But listen to me, unless she chooses to forgive me, there's nothing that I can do.

Right?

Because she's been offended, the final step of reconciliation lies completely with her.

And in the same way, church, you need to understand that since God is the one who's been sinned

against, reconciliation is entirely up to God.

If he were to choose not to reconcile with anyone, we would all be doomed.

And so I need you to understand this about salvation.

God always moves first in salvation.

It is never us.

I know there's a lot of popular preaching today that says, hey, you need to get right

with God.

You need to make that first step back to God.

And listen, your heart's in the right place.

You just got it backwards.

God is the one who moves first.

He is the one who initiates reconciliation.

And if he never did that, nothing we did would ever be enough.

We move in response to him.

That's why the Bible says in 1 John 419, we love because he, what?

First loved us.

You see, loving God isn't even possible unless God first loves you.

No matter what it is, we always move in response to God.

We never go before him.

And so this is the problem as we have laid it out here.

We're alienated from God because of our sin.

We owe a price to God because of our sin.

And unless God and his mercy decides to pursue reconciliation with us, we are all doomed.

It's bad, yeah?

Okay.

But then how does Jesus take care of this problem for us?

Well, the Bible says he takes care of the problem of sin and its wages by the blood of his own cross.

It says that he shed his own blood to pay the price of our sin.

And this is sometimes referred to as the great exchange church.

A great exchange happened at the cross where we get to give Jesus our sin and God gives us the righteousness of Christ.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 521,

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin,

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This is why the cross is necessary, church.

You see, at the cross, we exchange our sin for Jesus' righteousness.

At the cross, we exchange our sin for Jesus' righteousness.

And I truly believe that no person can claim to be a Christian who is not absolutely floored and humbled by the reality of this truth.

That God would take our sin and in exchange, he would give us the very righteousness of Christ.

It makes no sense to us, does it?

I remember the very first time I ever heard this and God opened up my eyes.

I was at North Greenville and we were going to hear a guy preach.

I was kind of bribed to go hear the guy preach.

I was not a Christian at the time, but my buddy who was an outdoor leadership major,

he said, I'll take you kayaking if you come to listen to this sermon with me.

I was like, I want to go kayaking, so let's go.

So that's why I went to hear him preach.

And I remember listening to him preach and it was the first time in my life where someone was explaining this.

And I looked to my buddy and I'm like, there's a catch, right?

He's like, what are you talking about?

I said, this doesn't make sense.

He said, what do you mean?

I said, the preachers up there telling me that I can just give my sin to Jesus

and God's going to give me Jesus' righteousness even though I'm not a Christian,

even though I have hated God, even though I have lived a life of disobedience,

even though I'm now living in ways that are unpleasing to him.

This preacher is saying, I can just give it to Jesus for free and I get His righteousness for free.

And my buddy goes, yeah, that's the gospel.

And I was floored in that moment.

And I wanted to take God up on that offer before he changed his mind

because he's getting the short end of that stick.

Is he not?

I think one of my favorite parts about this is that the beauty of the great exchange

is that it puts every person on equal ground

because it doesn't matter what your background is.

It doesn't matter what your past is.

It doesn't matter if you grew up in church.

It doesn't matter if this is your first time in church.

The Bible is telling us here that God has initiated reconciliation at the cross of Christ.

He has moved first by sending His Son to die in our place.

And He's saying, for any person on earth, rich or poor,

if you have great education, if you have no education,

no matter what your background is, He's saying, any person on earth

who will transfer their sin to Jesus, the Father,

will transfer Jesus' righteousness to your account.

And so we're all on equal footing.

I love the way that Augustine said it.

He said, there is no saint without a past, and there is no sinner without a future.

So no matter who you are, reconciliation with God,

it doesn't come by you trying to do something or love people more.

It comes by Jesus' death on the cross.

I want you to notice what Paul says next in verse 22.

He's now reconciled us in His body of flesh by His death

in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him.

Now he's talking a lot about death here.

And what you have to understand is, like we said at the beginning,

dying on the cross was one of the most, if not the most, horrific way to die.

And some people think it's the most horrific way to die throughout history.

And yet there were people who were worshiping a crucified Savior.

So I want to show you this picture.

And you might have difficulty making it out.

We'll see.

Oh, we don't have a picture.

Okay.

Emily's saying no.

So no picture got added there.

That's okay.

There's a picture of a piece of graffiti.

It's one of the oldest pieces of graffiti that we have ever found.

And it was found in Rome in about 200 AD.

And what it depicts is a man on a cross.

And he's got the body of a man, and he's got the head of a donkey.

And next to the cross, there's a young man whose arms are raised in worship in front

of this figure.

And in Greek, it says, Alexi Menos worships his God.

This is one of the oldest pieces of graffiti we have ever found.

And what it's doing is mocking Christians for worshiping a crucified Savior, even depicting

Jesus with the head of a donkey.

And it's because people at the time believed that it was ridiculous to worship someone.

They said to Christians, why would you worship this man who died on a cross?

You see, at the time, they believed that death was the ultimate conqueror and could not be

defeated.

And for a time, they were right.

So you see, when you think about it, the absolute worst thing that sin can do to anyone is what,

church?

Well, so worst thing sin can do to us.

Kill us, right?

Death is the ultimate trump card of sin.

It is sin's final trump card.

It is the ultimate victory.

But when Jesus chose to die for us in our place on the cross, he exhausted the punishment

of sin.

And he put death in the grave.

That's why the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, death is swallowed up in victory.

Oh, death, where is your victory?

Oh, death, where is your sting?

The sting of death is sin.

And the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

So how has death been swallowed up in victory?

It's by Jesus dying on the cross.

Because when Jesus died on the cross, he exhausted everything sin had to throw at humanity.

He exhausted death itself.

And when he rose again on that third day, he proved that death had no hold over him.

He proved that death had no power over him.

And it was a promise to all who would believe in him that this life is yours in Christ.

I want you to see here, church, at the cross we see the death of death and the death of

Christ.

At the cross we see the death of death and the death of Christ.

The Bible tells us that ever since mankind's first sin, death has reigned and ruled in

this world.

But the Bible also tells us now that Jesus has disarmed the power of sin and death and

he reigns.

When Jesus rose from the grave, it was a confirmation that the Father found his sacrifice pleasing.

It was a confirmation that death had no hold over him and that the power of sin had been

broken and by his victory, believers are now freed from the fear and the finality of death.

Believers have no reason to fear death anymore.

But I think we forget that, don't we?

It's because death was never supposed to happen in the first place.

It was not part of God's original design.

We brought death into this world and so we're still greatly affected by it, but we have

to learn, especially as believers, to see death for what it truly is.

I mean children understand this concept better than we do.

I remember last year when my Papa Couch died, I was heartbroken at losing my last grandfather

and as the man of the house, I had to go and tell my children that Papa Couch had died.

And so I was preparing myself to do this and I went to my oldest son, Judah and I said,

Judah, buddy, I'm sorry, but Papa Couch died last night.

The first thing he said to me was, well, that's great.

He was four, okay?

He said, well, that's great.

And I was like, Judah Chapman, why would you say something so horrible?

And he looked at me and he was visibly confused, visibly confused.

And he was like, well, he's with Jesus now, right?

I said, yes, technically, okay?

He is.

And then just in the innocence of a child, he looked at me and said, well, then that's

better.

And that's great that he gets to be with Jesus from now on.

Isn't that amazing that a four-year-old seems to have a better understanding of death than

Christians who are 40 years old?

Even as a four-year-old, he understood that for the believer, death is not a punishment.

And death is certainly not final.

For those of us who believe death has no power over us anymore, rather than being a punishment

for sin and rather than being eternal separation from the loving presence of God, death is

just a transition into eternal life now and into the loving presence of God.

You see, I need you to understand, church, this is not possible without the cross of

Christ.

It is His death on the cross that satisfies God's wrath towards our sin, pays the penalty

of our sin, reconciles us back to God and makes peace between us and God.

Here's what I need you to understand this morning, church.

Listen to me.

Humanity has only two options.

Somebody will pay for your sin.

And it'll either be Jesus on the cross or it'll be you on that final day when you stand

before the Father and He says, depart from me, you worker of lawlessness.

I never knew you.

So it's either going to be Jesus or it's going to be you, which is why you can understand,

for unbelievers, death must be terrifying.

I would not want to be an unbeliever and die because we know that for them it leads to

judgment and eternal damnation.

But as a believer, we have no fear of death.

I'm probably too comfortable with death.

Anna and Jordan both tell me this and make it clear all the time that I am too comfortable

with dying, but it's the reality is I have no fear of death because I know that when

I die, the first face I'm going to see is the face of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And that is sweet to me, is it not?

And when I do die and I see His face for the very first time, I am going to know in that

instant that I am in for an eternity of peace in His presence.

And this is only because of Jesus and what He has done for us on the cross.

There's one final reason before I start crying up here that I wanted to show you this morning,

verses 22 to 23, look at what it says.

He's now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death in order to present you holy and

blameless and above reproach before Him.

If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope

of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven and

of which I, Paul, became a minister.

All right, so I want to do a poll real quick.

How many of you this morning feel holy, blameless and above reproach?

Anybody?

All right, yeah, that's the way it should be.

All right, so the Bible says here, Jesus died to present us holy, blameless and above reproach,

and yet all of us are sitting here going, we're not that, okay?

We are anything but that.

Some of you might be thinking, Pastor, I've already sinned since I got to church, so let's

just move on here, okay?

And so the question that we have to understand or come to terms with is, if the Bible says

Jesus died to present us this way, clearly God sees us this way, and clearly we're not,

how do we reconcile these two?

How do we reconcile between what God calls us and how He sees us with what we actually

are?

And I was trying to think of a way to explain this to you, and I probably could have thought

of a better way, but here's what I've landed on.

Have you ever seen those polarized glasses display in like Bass Pro Shop or something?

Anybody know what I'm talking about?

You've been there, okay?

Yeah?

All right, so you go to this display, and you basically, you see a picture, and without

the glasses, you can only see so much.

It's a picture, and you kind of make out a couple different things, whatever.

But then you put on the polarized glasses, and as you know, all of a sudden the picture

transforms, right?

You can see things that you weren't able to see before.

Now, here's what you need to understand, literally nothing about that picture changed at all.

You get that, right?

Like it's not a magic trick they're doing every day.

Nothing about the picture changed.

You just saw it in a new way because you were using certain lenses.

And in the same way, the way that God reconciles calling us holy, blameless, and above approach

when we're clearly not that, is because now the Father views us through the lens of the

Gospel.

And because He views us through the lens of the Gospel, He sees something entirely new.

In fact, we see here because of the cross, God now sees sinners as saints.

Are you a sinner?

Yes.

Are you a saint?

Yes.

It feels weird to say, but in the eyes of God, you are a saint, but it's not because of you.

It's because of Jesus.

And it's because when God's looking at this sinner, He's looking at you through the lens

of the Gospel, and He sees something entirely different.

Before the cross, there was nothing to shield us from the eyes of God.

There was nothing to hide us from the one who sees all things.

We were laid bare before Him, but because of Jesus and His death on the cross and through

faith in Jesus, God now looks at us through the lens of the Gospel.

He no longer sees sinners, He sees saints.

If you're a believer here this morning, when God looks at you, He no longer sees your life

of sin.

Instead, He sees Jesus' life of perfect righteousness.

When God looks at you, He no longer sees faithlessness.

He sees Jesus' perfect faithfulness.

When God looks at you, He no longer sees a person deserving death, but He sees Jesus'

death on the cross.

One of the best things about being a Christian this morning is that when God looks at you,

He no longer sees a no good dirty sinner with a marred past.

He no longer sees an enemy.

He no longer sees someone who's alienated and hostile in mind.

When God looks at you, He sees a son, He sees a daughter, and a joint heir with Christ Jesus.

That is who you are in the eyes of God, and that is because of Jesus' sacrifice on the

cross.

Now let me issue a word of warning here as well.

It's good for you to remember that you're not perfect.

We agree?

Yeah.

It's good for everybody to know that, remember it.

It is good for you to know and understand and remind yourself often that you are just

a sinner in desperate need of the mercy and grace of God.

Yes?

Yes.

But here's the warning.

The world, the flesh, and the devil are going to constantly try to remind you of who you

were rather than who you are.

The world, the flesh, and the devil are going to constantly try to put all those old labels

that used to describe you back on you and remind you of them and convince you that that

is still who you are.

That's just that, that ex-con.

That's just that adulterer.

That's just that liar, that thief, that manipulator.

That's that no good dirty rotten sinner.

And they will try to convince you that that is still who you are.

But I want to remind you this morning that the Bible says through faith in Christ, you

are an entirely new creation.

The Bible says the old is gone, the new has come, and you don't put old labels on new

merchandise.

Okay?

So it's good for you to remember you're not perfect, but do not let the devil, the world,

the flesh put something on you that no longer describes you because you are a child of God

through faith in Christ.

I just want to make sure that we are assessing ourselves and our lives with the same lens

that God is using for us, okay?

Let's just make sure that we're both viewing ourselves through the lens of the Gospel.

More than anything this morning, I just want you to know and realize and never forget how

essential the cross of Christ is for everything.

It's because of the cross that we have forgiveness and reconciliation and peace and redemption.

It's because of the cross of Christ that sin and death have been defeated and we share

in the victory of Jesus.

It's because of the cross that God now sees us through the lens of the Gospel.

And so we cannot be like a lot of popular churches and preachers and shy away from the

cross.

We cannot get away from the message of the cross.

We cannot stop preaching the cross.

We need to be like Paul where he said, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ

and him crucified.

That is our hope.

That is our message.

That is our all in all.

Amen.

Let's pray.