"All Things Reconciled" Colossians 1:20-23 Sunday Morning Worship Service

This morning, though, we're going to continue our study of Colossians in chapter one.

So would you look down at your scriptures?

I'm going to read our text for this morning, beginning in Colossians 1, verse 19.

Colossians 1:19

Colossians in chapter 1.

God's word says this 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 were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he is 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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Of course, the new and pernicious superstition to which he referred was Christianity, which entirely seemed to spit in the face of all that the noble people of the ancient Roman and other societies would have found true and good and beautiful.

Christianity, with its values and with its proclamation that there is one God who became a man, a Jewish man, in the backwoods of Galilee, and then died, not a heroic death like Socrates of old, but died naked and alone, the most shameful death possible, the death of a common criminal or a slave, the death of a cross.

That proclamation was absolutely abhorrent to everything that the sophisticates of the ancient world found good and true with regard to morality and religion and politics and all the rest.

And yet Christianity continued to spread.

And so some have said, well, it's because it appealed to the poor, and Christianity is a religion for the poor.

But many have pointed out that that's just historically inaccurate.

Martin Hengel, the 20th-century German historian, writes in his little book, just simply titled Crucifixion, that the proclamation of the cross would have been equally abhorrent to the poor of the ancient world.

It was the poor, in fact, who are most familiar with the idea of carrying your cross through the streets only to be hung upon it and die shamed and alone.

And the message of Christianity was one of a supposed son of God who was unable to help himself in his most bitter hour, and called anyone who had wanted to be a disciple of his to take up your cross and carry it.

There's absolutely nothing apparently inherent in Christianity that would have appealed to the poor, to the rich, to the young, to the old, particularly because at the heart of Christianity was a cross.

We take for granted in some corners of Christianity in the modern world, the cross is a symbol of the love of God, but that was not the case in the ancient world.

No wonder that the first depicted crucifixion of Jesus Christ was actually it's found inscribed in a wall on the Palatine Hill outside of Rome, where there is a little inscription on a wall of a man being crucified with the body of a man and the head of a donkey, and a man beside him bowing down, and an inscription that reads, Alexamenos worships his God.

That was what the ancient world thought of Christianity.

And Paul takes that and says, But that's at the heart of what we believe.

The word of the cross, Paul says, is the message of the gospel.

But they're equated.

The message of the gospel, Christianity is the word of the cross.

So we could ask the question, so why did Christianity continue to spread?

And why has it transcended time and language and culture and class?

And Paul would simply answer, as he does in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God for salvation.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

Paul would just say, the gospel continues to advance because it's true.

Because it's it's true that God became a man.

He became a Jewish man to fulfill the promises to Israel, he was crucified outside of Jerusalem, and he resurrected from the dead.

And the word of the cross is being proclaimed even to the present day among all creation, and God is actively intervening in people's lives to open their eyes to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ crucified for me and for my sins.

And what Paul does in the little passages before us is he summarizes the message of the cross.

What is the meaning of the cross according to the Apostle Paul?

And he could sum it up in a number of ways, but in this text, the way he sums it up was through one word: reconciled.

The meaning of the cross is it is the way that God has provided for God to be reconciled to sinful human beings and to all of creation.

So this morning I want to study this text under that heading of reconciled, and what we'll see is three truths that Paul teaches us in this passage about reconciliation.

First, the need for reconciliation, the means for reconciliation, and the results of reconciliation.

So let's just walk through those quickly.

First, what we see in the text is the need for reconciliation.

You see that, look down at your Bibles in verse 21.

Paul says, You who are once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds.

There's a contrast between verse 21 and verse 22, what you were and what you are now.

But he's writing to people who now believe in the word of the cross and reminding them of what they once were.

You were alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.

Alienated just simply means to be separated from.

Paul parses this word for us in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 18, where he says, to be alienated is to be cut off from the life of God.

Ephesians 4:18

This is the natural default human condition.

We're born into the world, cut off from the life of God, alienated from God.

Why?

Well, Paul in this text says, because at the end of verse 21, we're doing evil deeds.

A holy God, who by his very nature is absolutely pure, righteous, and just cannot be in close communion with sinful people.

Isaiah chapter 59, verse 2 simply says, Your transgressions have made a separation between you and God.

Isaiah 59:2

If God is absolutely pure and you do evil things, then of course there's going to be a separation between you and God.

Who's defining evil here?

And very simply, in the scriptures, evil would be anything that fails to meet the moral perfection of God.

So evil, in a sense, isn't something active, it's something passive.

It's the lack of something.

It's the lack of conformity to the character of God.

And we commit evil deeds both in the things we do and the things we don't do then.

Because we do things that are violating the perfection of God's perfect standards.

We also fail to do the good things that we should do.

So we commit evil deeds both in omission and in commission every single day.

One of the questions that I think naturally we follow up with is, but what about all of the good things that I do?

Sure, there are things that I do that I'm not proud of, but what about the good things that I do?

And one of the ways that the scriptures answers this is summarized by one of my favorite old dead people, Jonathan Edwards, who in one of his books on virtue, he summarizes the difference between what he calls true virtue and common morality.

And this is kind of a youth pastor summary of his very philosophical teaching.

But the difference between true virtue and common morality would be this.

True virtue is good deeds that flow from right motivation.

Common morality would be the deeds, the external acts, without the inward motivation being right.

What do we mean by that?

Well, people do good things all of the time.

People are honest, for example.

It's good to be honest, it's bad to lie.

People are honest for all kinds of different reasons, though.

And Jonathan Edwards would ask, if you're being honest, why are you being honest?

Uncover the motivation that is generating your honesty.

And if you dig back a few layers, you will inevitably be able to encounter very self-interested motives that are driving your acts of honesty.

For instance, one of the reasons that we find ourselves being honest is out of pride.

Religious people don't want to be like those pagans out there in the world.

We want to be good religious people, and so we're honest.

But the same is true for secular people who don't want to be like hypocritical religious people.

We're the good people.

Often what is driving our external good deeds, our common morality, is pride.

We feel that we're better than other people.

We love being right.

There's perhaps nothing more addictive in human nature than feeling like I am right.

But we could dig further and we would find all kinds of other motivations.

It might be fear that's driving us.

A religious person might fear the wrath of God.

And so I'm doing whatever I'm doing because I'm just so fearful.

If I do good things, not bad things, then I'll escape the punishment.

But a secular person is acting out of fear as well.

On a horizontal level, we're acting out of self-interest.

We would like to escape the consequences for doing bad things.

So right now in higher education, there is a furor over what to do about artificial intelligence in Chat GPT.

Because if you give a student an essay prompt, write me a summary of Christopher Columbus's life, although that would probably never be given as an assignment in modern school.

Well, a student can just type that into chat GPT.

Write me a five-paragraph essay about whatever you would like.

So how do you detect cheating?

This becomes a very interesting question.

You might ask the question on a student's end.

If a student actually goes through the trouble of doing the work when there is an availability to not do the work and cheat, why would they do it?

One of the reasons might be that, well, they think that they could get caught.

And so they would like to not suffer the consequences.

Ultimately, then what is driving your good deed in this instance is self-preservation.

All of these are just examples of what Edwards points out when he draws this distinction between common morality and true virtue.

Common morality is you're doing a good thing, but if you look close enough, you will find that what is driving it is a selfish motivation.

Well, what would be the right motivation?

Very simply, in Scripture, what's the first commandment?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength.

That's what you're made for.

You're made to know God and love God.

Any good action that is driven by any mingled motivations and not purely out of love for God for who He is is just common morality and not true virtue.

Now, common morality is good.

It makes the world a better place.

I like to live in a world where people are honest and not liars.

And I kind of don't care what their motivations are because it just makes the world a nicer place to live.

But crucially, no matter how honest you are, you're when your motivations are mingled by selfish interests, none of your good acts please God.

Because the only acts that would please God are those that are truly virtuous, that are driven by a motivation to love God.

Now, one of the simple ways you can see this is true is just think about this reality.

All of your acts ultimately are relational.

So think for a second about perhaps the greatest relationship in human nature is that of a marriage.

Two persons becoming one flesh and sharing life together.

Now, if a husband thinks that he can just do external acts, driven by whatever self-preservation motives and get away with it, he'll find sooner or later he's sorely mistaken.

Am I right?

So if a husband takes his wife out for dinner on her birthday and she asks him, This is so delightful, why are you doing this?

And he looks at her and says, Well, I did a risk reward analysis and I decided it would be better to go through with this than to have a fight with you.

Well, now you're gonna have a fight.

Because she's not gonna be pleased by that, because the external act is not sufficient.

A true relationship is a relationship where the acts are driven by the right motivation.

A right answer would be because I delight in you, I love you, there's no other place I'd rather be than here with you.

Now, if that's true on a horizontal human level, how much more so is that is vertically with the infinite eternal God who made us for his own glory?

The only motivation that would please God would be that of a heart driven by, consumed by, love for God.

Now, if we are honest with ourselves, we just don't do that.

So all of our deeds, even the good ones, ultimately are evil deeds.

And it's right here in the text.

Look at verse 21.

We're doing evil deeds because we're hostile in mind.

That is, our minds are not naturally fixed on loving God.

Our minds are set on ourselves.

We set ourselves as our highest priority and we act primarily out of selfish interest.

We are in enmity with God, separated with God.

We're not consumed with God, we're consumed with ourselves.

And so Paul says the consequence of that reality is that we are alienated, separated from the life of God.

He summarizes this reality in a number of texts throughout his letters.

He says in Ephesians 2, we're separated from Christ without God and having no hope in the world.

Ephesians chapter 5, we're just born into darkness.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Or in Titus, he says that because we're separated from God, we're foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

In other words, we are in need of reconciliation.

But the rest of this text describes how God has provided a means of that reconciliation.

That's the second thing we see in the text.

The means of reconciliation.

Look down at verse 21 again.

You who are once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled how?

In his body of flesh by his death.

Then look up at verse 20.

God who is pleased in all his fullness to dwell in Christ, verse 20, through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

I just want to draw your attention to those two phrases.

We're reconciled in his flesh by his death and by the blood of his cross.

And I want to point out that that is Old Testament liturgical language.

That is language drawn from the Old Testament sacrificial system to describe and explain what Jesus was doing in his death on the cross.

So we need to recall for a moment what was happening in the Old Testament sacrificial system was that an animal would be brought before God.

And Leviticus of all the books of the Old Testament describes most thoroughly what happened in the sacrificial system.

And I want to draw your attention just to one verse.

The very beginning of this book in Leviticus chapter 1, verse 4, says that when you're bringing an animal, you lay your hands on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.

Leviticus 1:4

That is, that animal stands in your place and bears the judgment that your wrong deeds deserve, so that all the justice that's required against wrongdoing can be satisfied, and the worshipper can be freed to go and enjoy God's presence and worship him.

That's what Paul is saying is happening in the cross.

Jesus is a substitution, he is a sacrifice, a substitutional sacrifice, who in his death on the cross stands in the place of sinful people, and all the judgment that their sins deserve from a holy God falls in full force upon Jesus.

And because his death satisfies all the demands of God's justice, when he resurrects from the dead, there's no more justice due to anyone who would trust in Jesus.

He's the substitute who removes our judgment and brings us into the presence of God.

But there's one other thing I want to draw your attention to.

The reason I chose this verse is notice the process that a person has to go through in the Old Testament when they're bringing this animal before God.

He shall lay his hands on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him.

Why does he lay his hands there?

What you're doing in this act is you are you're confessing, you're agreeing with God and saying, I am who you say I am.

I really am sinful, and you really are so holy, and you're the judge of all the earth, and you ought rightly to judge me, to condemn me for my sin, and I could agree with you.

And I'm coming humbly and begging, please accept this sacrifice in my place.

I want to know you, I want to be in your presence, I want to be right with you, I want to be reconciled to you, and I'm confessing I have no hope of achieving that in my action.

My only hope is in trusting that you would receive this sacrifice in my place.

And when that happens, God accepts the sacrifice and receives the worshiper into his presence.

Paul is saying that's what Jesus is.

If you would come to Jesus, who is the ultimate sacrificial victim, who stands in your place, enduring all the judgment that your sins deserve, the full atonement has been made.

But if you would receive it, you have to come with two open hands and lay hold of Christ.

You have to do what the Old Testament worshiper did.

You have to agree with God that I am alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.

I really do deserve judgment.

My only hope is through Jesus.

And you have to come for yourself and with two hands of faith lay hold of Jesus for yourself.

You have to throw yourself off of any trust in your own deeds upon Jesus alone.

And when you do, God accepts you, places you in union with Christ, brings you into the fellowship of the Trinity, grants you the title of sonship, adoption, and makes you an inheritor of all that belongs to the Father.

That's the means of reconciliation in this text, which leads to the third thing, the results of reconciliation.

We've seen our need of reconciliation because we're hostile in mind doing evil deeds.

The means of reconciliation is through the blood of Jesus Christ, and finally the results of reconciliation.

And I would like to break this out a little bit because there are two results of reconciliation in this passage: a universal and a personal result.

Let's talk about the universal result of reconciliation first.

To do that, let me jot your eyes back up to verse 15.

You'll remember that verse 15 through verse 20 is a hymn where Paul extols the supremacy of Christ.

In verse 15 and 16, he extols Jesus for being supreme in all creation.

Look at verse 15.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth.

Jesus is supreme over all creation because he created everything, heaven and earth.

And then in the subsequent verses, he goes on to say that Jesus is supreme in the new creation.

Look at verse 18.

And he is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

So Jesus is supreme over creation because he's the creator, but he's supreme in the new creation because he came into this fallen world, was crucified for sinners, resurrected from the dead, and his resurrection from the dead is the grounds on which there can be a new heavens and a new earth where all those united to him will dwell with him forever.

He's supreme over creation, he's supreme over new creation.

But look at the rest of verse 19 and 20, which we left off and didn't cover last week.

Let's look at them now.

Verse 19 says, In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

So all that is in God is in Christ.

And the fullness of God that has been eternally in the Son comes into the world.

Why?

Verse 20.

Through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven.

So Jesus comes into the world to reconcile all things back to the Father.

All things, whether on earth or in heaven.

Let's ask a question.

What do you think in this verse all means?

Yeah.

You are very excellent exegetes.

All means all.

It's very clear because we just saw a parallel in verse 16.

Jesus is the creator of all things, whether in heaven or on earth.

And now in verse 20, he comes into the world to reconcile all things back to God, whether in heaven or on earth.

It's the same two components that he's talking about.

All things are created by Jesus, and all things will be reconciled to God by Jesus.

Now, what does that mean?

If Jesus created everything, why does he need to reconcile it to the Father?

Now let's think about the word reconcile for a moment.

Reconcile just means to make an exchange.

Relationally, it would be to exchange a hostile relationship for a friendly relationship.

Things are wrongly ordered, reconciliation makes them rightly ordered.

So to reconcile all things back to God implies that things are not in right order.

The created world, all things in heaven and on earth that God has made, are not rightly ordered.

They're not in a right relationship with their creator.

Does the scripture say anything about that?

It's kind of the whole story, isn't it?

God creates the world, He creates human beings in his own image and likeness, able to know Him and enjoy Him forever, and they rebel against Him.

And because of their rebellion, they're alienated from Him, apart from the life of God.

But it's not just human beings who are separated from God and wrongly related to their Creator, it's also all of the created order.

God places a curse on this earth so that there's disorder and disaster and chaos.

We see this in many texts.

One in the New Testament would be Romans chapter 8, verse 19, where Paul writes that the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

Romans 8:19

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

That text is saying the same thing Colossians is, that the world is wrongly ordered.

It's not rightly related to the creator.

But there's coming a day when God will come to this world and he will reconcile it.

He will restore a right relationship between his created world and the creator.

Jesus speaks about this when he says he's going to come and set up a kingdom.

And as he's talking about the coming kingdom, some of his disciples ask him, Lord, we've given up everything in order to follow you.

Will we receive any reward in that day?

And Jesus says to them in Matthew chapter 19, verse 28, Truly I say to you, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Matthew 19:28

That word regeneration is sometimes translated new world.

Jesus says that when he comes to establish his kingdom, he's going to regenerate the heavens and the earth.

That's the story of Scripture that culminates, of course, in Revelation chapter 21, where John writes that he hears a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.

That's the story of Scripture.

The world is not rightly related to God, but Jesus has appointed a day when he will come and he will reconcile all things back to God in a new, regenerated heavens and earth.

That's what Paul is talking about in this text.

But how is Jesus going to do that?

Look down at the passage again in verse 20.

And Paul describes the manner in which Jesus is going to reconcile all things to God with this little word.

Look at verse 20.

Through him to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace.

So Jesus is going to reconcile the created world back to God by making peace, where we could say with the synonym pacify, which I think captures the idea more clearly.

The concept here is that of a sovereign over an empire that has gone amok.

So there's a parallel concept in the ancient world.

People who are receiving this letter in Colossae, they live under the thumb of the Roman Emperor.

The Roman Emperor is the sovereign over an entire empire stretched out across the ocean.

And occasionally there would be a province that would rebel against the sovereignty of the empire.

And Caesar would act to reconcile that rebel colony back to himself.

And the way that he would reconcile the rebel colony back to himself is that he would send an army who would pacify it, not by throwing a parade and throwing out free candy, but by crushing the rebellion and restoring order.

So that in the rebellion they were wrongly related to the Caesar, but after the army has pacified them, they are back rightly related to Caesar under his sovereign authority.

Now, you could argue that Caesar didn't have a right to actually do that.

He was wrong and unjust in his actions, and I would say, duh.

But you cannot argue with this principle that the creator has rights over his creation.

God is the sovereign over all the earth.

And Paul's picking up that concept and applying it to God in this sense.

God is a sovereign over all the earth, and the earth is in rebellion against God, and God is just and righteous and holy and has a just prerogative, nay, the obligation to reconcile all things to himself by pacifying rebellion in his good creation.

When he comes to make a new heavens and a new earth, he will reconcile it back to God by executing judgment that will purify the creation from all that is in rebellion against the creator.

Now, we've just read Revelation chapter 21, which is the culmination of the story of Scripture, that new heavens, new earth, that God is going to pacify this rebellious creation and bring it back into order and it's going to be good.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

God will be with his people, they'll be his people and he'll be their God.

But the way that we get to Revelation 21 in the Bible is through reading Revelation 19, which says that the way Jesus is going to bring that new heavens and earth about is by appearing in judgment.

Revelation 19, he appears as a warrior on a white horse, ready to make judgment and to reconcile the word world back to God.

Here's just one verse from that text.

From his mouth, from Jesus' mouth, comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.

He will tread the winepress of the fury of God the Almighty.

That's what it means for Jesus to reconcile all things, whether in earth or in heaven, back to God by making peace.

He's going to pacify the rebellion in the created world by passing judgment on all that is in rebellion against the Creator.

Now, if that's where this text ended, this would be a really sad letter.

But Paul continues to write.

Through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

How is it that Jesus pacifies the world and reconciles it back to God?

It's through judgment.

But two kinds of judgment.

There is an end of days judgment in which God will rid the world of all rebellion and make a heavens and earth filled with righteousness and peace.

But that world is going to be populated by people rightly related to God, enjoying him for all eternity.

And the way that is possible is because there has already been a judgment executed against sin.

There's already been a divine judgment against rebellion.

And it happened on a cross in the blood of Jesus.

On the cross, as we already said, the meaning of the cross is that on the cross, God becomes a man and stands in the place of sinful men and bears all the divine judgment.

All the judgment that God is going to execute at the end of days to rid the world of all rebellion has already been poured out in full force upon the only begotten Son.

He's already drank down the cup of all the judgment due to human sin, turned it over and declared, it is finished.

The reason that that happened was so that when he comes again to crush all rebellion in this final judgment, he can do that without crushing us.

Because if you come and with two hands of faith take hold of the means of reconciliation, if you take hold of Jesus now, then you pass through the judgment into life.

All of the judgment that God will pass on rebellious creation has already been set passed on Jesus and his sentencing on the cross.

The offer that God is making in the world now is one of amnesty.

Come to Jesus and be hidden from the wrath to come.

What Jesus did on the cross was he did something no king would do.

What king would do this?

When you rebel against Caesar, he doesn't volunteer to take your judgment in your place.

He executes it summarily, without a thought of you.

But this king, the king of our world, said, I'll endure that for you.

The way that you can escape it is not by withstanding it, but by hiding yourself in Jesus, who already endured it in your place, for your sake.

This is the offer of the gospel.

This is what Paul is talking about in the word of the cross.

That's folly to the world, but to those who have their eyes open to behold, what the scripture says about me is right.

I am alienated from God and hostile in mind and doing evil deeds.

And there is going to be a day when God will pass judgment upon even me.

And you see Jesus in his cross alone bearing the wrath of God, and you see glory because you see the means by which the sovereign of the universe is offering to wipe clean your slate and bring you into his arms forever and ever.

That's the means of reconciliation through the cross, and the result is that all of creation will be reconciled to God, and all of those who have hidden themselves in the cross will find themselves partaking in that new creation where God will be your God and you will be his people.

That's the universal results of reconciliation.

But there's a second result of reconciliation in the text I want to touch on, and that is the personal results of reconciliation.

You see that in verse 21 and 22.

Let's look at those verses once more.

Verse 21, you who are alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.

That is, the results of Jesus' work on the cross get applied to you individually, personally.

There's something remarkable about the way Paul's talking about this here.

In verse 21, he puts the you in the emphatic position, as though he were saying, I've been talking about this sovereign Christ who's supreme over the entire world, who's more than you can even begin to imagine.

And he's going to reconcile a new creation back to God.

And then in verse 21, he says, And even you, even you will get to partake in that because the fullness of God was crucified on your behalf.

How shocking, how amazing, how wonderful that God in eternity past took thought of you, sought you out, paid the price for your sin, hunted you down by his spirit, and drew you to himself.

Even you get to partake in the reconciliation of all things back to the Father.

Look at the language he uses in verse 22 to describe that.

He has now reconciled in his body of flesh in order to present you holy, blameless, and above reproach before him.

I think it's worth just walking through those three words.

Let's take them backwards.

Above reproach is a legal term.

That is, there's no blame that could be brought against you in the courtroom of God that could stick.

Same thing Paul says in Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Who will bring a charge against God's elect?

Fully and forever, you are vindicated in the courtroom of God, because atonement has been made for all your sins, past, present, and future, in the cross of Christ.

And God looks at you united to Christ, and he sees you clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and he counts you forever, vindicated, accepted, justified, adopted.

You are above reproach before God.

The next word he uses, just working backwards again, is without blemish or blameless.

And that is language from the Old Testament sacrificial system.

A lamb that will be brought to be offered as a sacrifice for sin had to be a blemisless lamb.

A lamb without blemish or spot.

It had to be perfect because that's what God requires.

God is perfect, he accepts perfection in the new heavens and new earth.

And this language that's applied to us in verse 22 says, that's the way God looks at us.

He looks at us as spotless, clean, beautiful.

There's one other place that this word is used in the New Testament.

It's in Ephesians 5.

I want you to flip over like two pages in your Bible to Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

And Paul uses this language to describe the church.

Ephesians 5 is where Paul is talking about the analogy of the relationship between husband and wife to Christ and his bride, the church.

And listen to the way he describes the church in these words.

In Ephesians chapter 5, look at verse 25.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Paul writes, Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

Now listen to this, that she might be holy and without blemish.

That is the way that Christ looks at his church.

There's a very personal analogy here.

If the first word that we looked at above reproach is like legal language, you are right in the eyes of God.

This other language of being holy and without blemish is very personal language.

As a husband looks at his wife and glows with joy over her, delights in her, takes pleasure in her, so infinitely more is that just a faint, faint little flicker compared to the infinite joy and delight Christ takes when he looks at you, a member of his bride.

You who are once alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and without blemish, delighting in you, the fullness of the radiant power of God flowing full force upon you for all eternity, looking at you and saying, You are beautiful.

I delight in you.

The final word that he uses here is holy, which we already encountered in this letter.

So I think it's worth just reminding ourselves, holy isn't primarily an ethical term in these letters.

It's primarily a relation term.

It's a designation that you have been set apart to belong to God and be used exclusively for the service of God.

So let's just put these together.

You who are alienated, you who are separated from the life of God, you who your life was characterized by doing good things out of self-motivated interests.

God has opened the eyes of your heart to recognize that I am separated from the life of God.

I am, as we heard in the testimony and baptism, I'm separated from God.

And there stands Christ on a hill outside of Jerusalem with you, bearing the wrath that you deserve, resurrecting from the dead, promising that one day he's going to come to execute judgment, to wipe away all rebellion, bring in a new heavens and a new earth, and he's calling you and asking, offering to come to me.

Be united to me.

Have your sins wiped away.

Be counted above reproach in the courtroom of God.

To be counted as absolutely without blemish, spotless and beautiful in the eyes of God.

To be purchased by God, to belong to him and be used by him alone for all of eternity.

And Paul then turns in verse 23 and says, If indeed this is yours, verse 23, continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shipping from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

That is, in one word, Paul says, if this is yours, don't leave Jesus.

Where else are you gonna go?

Don't leave Jesus.

That's what this word means to be moved.

It's to leave Jesus.

And Paul is saying there's nothing higher, nothing deeper, nothing broader, nothing sweeter than knowing Jesus.

Don't leave Jesus.

And there is a sense in which that is the point of the whole letter to the Colossians.

We only have one problem ever a too small a view of Jesus.

And Paul wants to grow our view of Jesus so that as we have an expanding view of Jesus, our hearts will be increasingly drawn towards him so we won't leave him.

There is nothing greater, nothing deeper than knowing Jesus.

Isn't it good news that the God who is at work in the world and his mighty power is empowering you to persevere knowing Jesus?

The same scriptures that tell us not to leave Jesus also tell us that God will enable us to persevere.

In 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 10, Peter writes, And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

1 Peter 5:10

To him be the dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

That is good news.

It's good news worth singing about, and that's what we're going to do to close our service.

So let me invite Jesus and musicians forward, and would you bow with me in prayer?

Father in heaven, we do indeed thank you and extol you that you have granted to us a great salvation through the death and resurrection of your son.

Lord, all that we have is in you.

So we ask that you would, having worshiped you together as your body, as your bride this morning, that you would confirm, strengthen, and establish us.

We pray that you would cause us by your spirit to bear fruit in every good work, to persevere with faithfulness, with gentleness.

We pray that you would conform us and knit us together in love.

Lord, we ask that you would do the things that we can't do.

That you would draw our hearts closer and closer to Christ.

Lord, you're worthy of our love, affection, you're worthy of our obedience and our loyalty.

We ask that you would by your spirit confirm in us your calling and election.

And we pray these things in the name of Christ.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.