Reconciled - Colossians 1:21-23

You are listening to an audio sermon from Harvest Bible Chapel, York Region.

For more information, visit HarvestYork Region.da.

Turn to uh Colossians uh chapter one.

We're gonna be in verses uh 21 uh down to 23 today.

Um but I thought we could start uh this morning off with just kind of like a nice cold chill running down our spines.

Sound about right?

Does sound good?

Go ahead and throw the uh the picture up there.

It it's a little bit dark, but um I think you probably get the idea.

Anyone know who this is?

Pink baby.

That's right.

This is my uh my five-year-old daughters, um, four-year-old daughters, forgive me, um most prized possession.

And uh this thing is uh Pink Baby has kind of become like an Instagram legend in the last little while because uh she continues to break down and uh cause us all uh night sweats and uh and those kinds of things.

And so as you can see here, um this doll is destroyed.

Right?

This doll is destroyed.

It's got the wrecked neck.

Um it's a little challenging to see in the dark here, but that left eye or the right eye there is gone.

So it's like this super creepy thing out of a horror movie.

Um and uh I mean it's not hard to see that this thing is uh it's wrecked, right?

Uh Anja's Ang's mom actually tried to fix the thing by sewing its neck up, so that's actually uh a kind of an old picture.

Um but let's be honest, let's not kid ourselves.

This thing is uh heading for the scrap heap uh in a hurry.

Right?

Why do I say all that?

Why do I get into all of that?

You can take that picture down.

I think we've had enough nightmares for one day.

Um but the reason I mention all that is because today uh the key word in our text is the word uh reconciliation, uh the word reconciled, and it really means uh one of its meanings is to fix something that's been wrecked.

Okay, to fix something uh that was wrecked.

Now, that wrecked thing being referred to here in the text is our relationship with God.

Okay, it's our relationship with God, and uh and our sin is the culprit.

Our sin is what wrecks all of that.

But here's the the amazing reality of the gospel it's that Christ has reconciled us.

He has reconciled us to himself, he made a way when we couldn't.

All right, he repaired what was broken, he settled the dispute, and all of that was so that we could know him and then be made new.

So we could know him and be made new.

And there's lots of different places in Scripture where it talks about this.

And so we're gonna read from ours right now.

If you would stand uh right now as we read God, we honor uh the Lord and the reading of his word.

Uh Colossians 1, 21 to 23.

It says, And you who are once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in the 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, thanks a lot.

You can take a seat now.

We've already prayed, we're gonna keep going here.

And so this morning, what we're gonna be looking at are really the implications of being reconciled to Christ.

The implications.

What does that mean for my life here going forward?

See, the thing that we need to realize, and for many of us, it's just to remember, it's that God wants us to operate a certain way.

Do you understand that?

God wants us to operate a certain way in our life, in the way that we think.

Okay, so according to his blueprint, really, is what we're going for.

And when we do, when we operate his way, that's when we grow.

That's when we become mature.

We become more effective tools in his hands for ministry.

We have greater joy, we bring him greater glory.

And listen, as followers of Jesus Christ, that should be what our heart wants.

Okay, on some level, yeah, we're all wrestling with our flesh and with sin and all that kind of stuff, but deep down, on some level, you should want all of these things.

Okay, so here's the first thing, then we're gonna get uh into it.

You've got notes there with you.

Uh if you grabbed a bulletin, it's this.

Okay, Christ has reconciled me to himself, which means I'm done.

Okay, I'm done living like I used to.

I'm done living like I used to.

Now, this passage is really all about how God's people live in light of what Christ has done for us on the cross.

Okay, that's what this passage is going at.

It's for Christians.

Okay, but here's the thing.

What if you don't know him personally?

Right?

What if you don't know Jesus and and you don't have a relationship with him?

Like for you, maybe someone invited you to church here today.

And this is maybe for you, your very first time in church, and you're like, this is kind of weird, I'm not used to this.

Or maybe you like heard us, heard about us on the radio or online, and you just kind of come in off the streets and you are here, or you're somewhere in the journey and you're trying to figure all of this out.

What does it mean?

And where do I stand?

All of that kind of thing.

Okay, what about what about you?

Okay, well, let me be really straight up.

Uh, really straight up with you, right off the bat, right out of the gate, as we get going.

And really to do that, I've got to kind of frame this in sort of like a good news, bad news, good news scenario.

Okay, good news, bad news, good news.

Ready for this?

Okay, here we go.

Here's the first part of good news.

The first part of good news is that you were created by a God who passionately loves you.

Do you understand that?

Do you understand that God is creator of all things?

He created the universe, he created all planets, he created ours, he created um the sun, moon, and stars, he created mountains and streams and rivers and animals, and then to top it all off as his kind of crown jewel on his whole creation, he created you and me.

He created us.

We're like the cherry on top, and we are we are precious in his eyes.

That is all very good news.

He created you to know him and to be in a relationship with him, and for that to function really well.

Okay, that's the first part of good news.

Here's the bad news.

The bad news is that we blew it.

Yeah, we blew it.

You blew it, I blew it, we all did.

Every single person who's ever lived has messed up that relationship with God, the way he created it.

Okay?

The verse, uh verse 21, if you take a look at that now in your Bibles, as we kind of work through this here, it says, And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.

Okay, this is what our sin does to us.

This is what our sin does.

It makes us enemies of God.

It means that we are hostile.

It means that we are alienated, we are separate from him, it means that we do evil deeds.

And all of that, all of that drives a wedge between us and God.

All of it does.

See, the thing is, God is a holy God, which means he is righteous, he is perfect, and when he created us, he has the right to decide how things should go.

And when we sin, that's really pride in our hearts creeping up, saying, No, I should decide how things work.

And so all of us, we were from our first parents, Adam and Eve, were born with a sinful nature.

Now, before you go blaming it on them, we also choose to willingly sin.

Right?

We do that.

And all of that has wrecked everything between us and God.

And you know what?

Because God is a holy God, because he is righteous, because he is good, he can't just pretend that sin never happened.

Sometimes I think we would love him to.

Can you just kind of sweep that under the rug for me and uh we'll just kind of call it even?

No.

Because he's good, he has to deal with it.

He has to deal with what is wrong.

Okay?

And we can't.

We can't, we can't fix any of that.

None of our goodness, none of our moralism, none of that bridges the gap between mankind and God.

Kind of think like a like a body of water that's been tainted and poisoned.

All right?

It's like us being moral to try and fix the problem.

It's kind of like us saying, well, I'm gonna pour some some clean water in that poison water hole.

That'll fix it.

No, it won't.

No, it won't.

It's not gonna fix it at all.

And so that's really the problem, the dilemma between us and God.

We can't fix the problem.

And because of that, God has to punish sin, and sin equals death.

And the end result that all of mankind is heading towards is an eternity in hell, separation from God, pain and judgment.

Okay, that's bad news.

Trust me, I get it.

That's bad news.

Here's the good news, though.

The good news is that it is possible for you to get right with Christ.

It is possible, and it's through a word that the Bible uses uh uses called repentance.

Okay, repentance really means to kind of honestly and sincerely apologize.

So when you understand that you have sinned against God, you can apologize to him and turn to him.

And what you have to understand is that God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die the death that you and I all deserved.

And so God poured out all of his wrath, all of the punishment for sin for all time on Jesus so that he didn't have to do it on you.

And for you to know God, really what it takes, is for you to believe that what Jesus did on the cross was enough for you, enough to secure your salvation in God.

And so the good news is that you guys can do that right now if you haven't yet.

You can do it.

You don't have to wait for this service to end.

You don't have to wait till next week.

You can do that right now.

And I would encourage you to do that.

I would challenge you to do it.

And if not, if you're still kind of wrestling that out, come talk to me after the service.

Come talk to somebody up here.

And we would love to pray with you.

We would love to just answer your questions or any of that.

So that's kind of the good news, bad news, good news scenario.

Okay, but what about those of us who are in the room who do know Christ?

Right?

There's a lot of us.

What about us?

We'll take a look at verse 21 again.

Okay, it says, you who once were.

Okay, you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.

Okay, this is describing who we all were before we came to know Jesus, before Christ, before reconciliation.

Now, have you ever wondered why the Bible spends or often reminds us of what we were like before we got saved?

You ever wondered that?

Like, what's with this kind of look back?

What's with the look in the other direction?

Why wouldn't it focus solely on kind of who we are now and who we're becoming and uh and all of that?

What's with this look to the past?

What's with this approach of reminding us of our old self in our own life?

Well, I can tell you right now, it's it's not to serve as some sort of beatdown from God to us.

Like, ah, I'm just reminding you, this is who you used to be.

Don't you ever forget it.

Okay, that's that's not what God is going for here at all.

He's not trying to make us feel like we're junk.

He's not trying to make us feel like we're garbage.

Okay, I love Isaiah 43.

There's a couple of really uh great verses in that.

Verse 4, this is what God says to his people.

He says, You are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you.

Okay, that's that's incredible, right?

We don't deserve that.

We don't deserve that at all.

But that's how we that's how he treats us.

He loves us.

And he's not just toying with our emotions and messing with us when he gets us to consider the fact of our old life.

Later in Isaiah 43, verse 25, he says, I, even I, am he who blots out your transgression for my own sake and remembers your sins no more.

Isaiah 43:25

He remembers our sins no more.

And so God isn't this God who just throws our sin in our face all the time.

Okay, he's not.

He forgives us, he moves on, and he doesn't hold our past against us.

And so, again, the question what's with this reminder of our past here in Colossians chapter 1?

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

Okay, well, a big part of it, we need to understand this, a big part of it is to understand our new identity.

It's to remind us of that.

This is who you are now.

So to remind us that God sees us differently now, and so should we.

We should look at ourselves differently now.

Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes I kind of get caught in the trap of kind of thinking that I'm just garbage.

Right?

You ever do this?

You're reminded of your past, you're reminded of your sin, you're still kind of carrying that with you, and you're like, man, I'm I'm dust.

Right?

I'm the worst, and I can't get anything going.

And right, and that's what you're thinking about all of the time.

And I and I beat myself up about it.

And and I think in these terms only.

And that is the real danger for us.

Now, do I sin?

Yeah, I do.

Yeah, I do.

And we're gonna talk about more uh that more later.

Okay, but there's more to it than that.

And namely that God doesn't look at me like that anymore.

Do you know that?

Do you believe that about yourself?

That God doesn't look at you like that?

There's a big picture going on here that we tend to lose sight of uh real quick.

Yeah, and sure we mess up and and uh we were a mess for sure.

Um, and we do need to be able to give our sin an honest look, but realize that God does not look at you like that.

You are not garbage, you are not junk, you are not a disaster and a mess.

Okay, he doesn't treat us like that.

He looks at us and he sees a new creation.

Okay, he sees a new creation.

He treats us as his beloved children.

He treats you like that.

Do you know that?

Okay, when he when he looks at us, he sees sons and daughters of the king.

He has adopted us into his royal family now.

When God looks at you, he sees royalty, not dirt, not junk, not this piece of trash.

Not at all.

If you're a Christ follower here today, that's how he looks at you.

That's how he's looking at you on your best day, that's how he's looking at you on your worst day.

That floors me.

I think that's incredible.

Listen, one of the most important things that we need to learn to do as Christ followers is to see ourselves as God sees us.

And this is difficult for us, this is challenging, but we are his and we are valued.

And the point here of this verse is it's reminding us of who we used to be, for the point of actually reminding us really of who we are now.

Right?

This is who you are now.

You're not like that.

And this is who you're becoming in Christ as God continues to work in us.

And so when we start to see ourselves as Christians, it's our approach to life, our approach to how to live, it begins to change.

I don't want to live like I used to live.

I don't want to make all those same dumb mistakes.

I don't want to be just about my schedule, my desires, my game plan.

That's not who I am anymore.

I don't want to give in to these things time and time again.

I don't want to gratify my flesh.

Okay, I'm done living like I used to because Christ has reconciled me and He's brought me to Himself, and He has a much better plan in store than that old way of living and thinking.

So let me ask you this.

How have you been living lately?

How have you been living?

Think about the last week or the last month.

Have you been living as though you're alienated?

Have you been living as though you're hostile in mind?

Or have you been doing evil deeds?

These are all things that the verse says.

Hey, if that's you, you're like a free man who continues to live in his unlocked jail cell.

Do you realize that?

You're free, but you're continuing to live as though you're not.

You're not alienated.

Okay, you used to be, but not anymore.

Okay, and whenever we get tempted to give into our old habits or our old thinking or wrong actions, let's remember that Christ has reconciled us.

We're not who we used to be.

And we're done with that old life, that old way of operating.

Now, uh a crucial thing that we need to kind of realize here is that wrong action always happens as a result of wrong thinking.

Okay, wrong action always happens as a result of wrong thinking.

Or if you want to flip that around, wrong thinking always leads to wrong action.

Wrong thinking always leads to wrong action.

It will at some point, anyways.

And so if you've been stumbling lately in your walk with Christ and things aren't going so well, and your life is starting to look like the old life, you just need to adjust your thinking.

That's kind of the first step here.

Renew your minds, as Romans 12 talks about.

And the truth is you've probably lost sight of how amazing your reconciliation is and how all of that has now changed your identity.

Okay, in fact, it's quite likely that you haven't really thought about reconciliation at all.

And you've gotten away from that, and you're thinking more about your own desires, and maybe it's sin or or pleasure.

It's my way that's best.

And so that's where kind of your head space is at.

And so if you want to change the way you live, you've got to start by changing the way that you think.

You've got to think rightly about who God is and what he's done.

And really the main way that we do this is by flooding our minds, flooding our lives with the truth of Scripture.

It's so, so important that we do that.

That we're in God's word regularly, daily, so that that's washing over us, and the Lord through his Holy Spirit begins to change us kind of through that.

And I would encourage you to study some of the great verses on reconciliation so you get a more comprehensive understanding, and so that truth begins to change and melt your heart.

So I'm gonna give you just a couple of verses.

You can jot these down here.

I'm gonna go kind of fast, but you can jot these down, some of the great verses on reconciliation.

First one, Romans 5, verse 10.

Romans 5:10

Here, Romans 5, verse 10.

Romans 5:10

2 Corinthians 5 verses 18 to 21.

2 Corinthians 5:18–21

Ephesians 1, verses 3 to 10.

Ephesians 1:3–10

And then Ephesians 2, 5 to 18.

If you didn't quite jot all those down, just come talk to me afterwards.

I can send those to you.

Okay, but as you do this, as you study these things, your thinking will start to change.

Okay, and that will, in time, lead to new desires.

It will lead to new desires.

You know, I don't want to pursue what's sinful.

I want to pursue what honors Christ and righteous things.

And it will result in new actions.

Your life will begin to change, and you will become even more like Christ, practically speaking.

Alright, here's the second thing in your notes.

Christ has reconciled me to himself, which means his work in me has just begun.

His work in me has just begun.

Check out verse 22 here.

Verse 22 says, 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.

Okay, so we see here again what Christ did.

He reconciled us.

He did that to himself.

He did it by his death on the cross.

And we see what his purpose was in that.

Now, being holy and blameless means that we are pure.

Christ is making us like himself.

He's ridding us of the sin and the shame and all of that that comes from all of that.

We're without blemish now.

That we're above reproach is kind of like taking it a little bit a step further.

It means that no one can bring a charge against you.

Isn't that an amazing thing?

No one can say, hey, you're dirt.

No one can say you're junk.

Because Christ has reconciled you.

When God looks at you, he sees Christ.

He sees what Christ did.

Okay, we're above reproach.

Okay, so he reconciled us to present us before God the Father.

Okay, and so Christ is basically like, here are my people, God.

They're clean now.

They're no longer marred by sin because I have purified them.

They are spotless now.

And this is all because of what I have accomplished for them.

They're holy, they're blameless.

Now, important question.

Is all of this something that Christ has accomplished or something that Christ will accomplish?

Yes.

The answer is both.

The answer is both.

It is something that He has done and uh and something that He will do.

And so to get this, I think we really need to have a good understanding of what salvation is.

And I think a lot of us have kind of a two-dimensional understanding of salvation, and we need to, that thing needs to become 3D.

Alright?

And so here we go.

I heard this good kind of definition on salvation that's been really helpful for me.

But salvation is the entire process of bringing a sinner from death to life.

Okay, salvation is the entire process of bringing a sinner from death to life.

And there's that includes kind of four elements or four key doctrines, and that is predestination, justification, sanctification, and glorification.

Okay, so four, four elements to our salvation.

We're just gonna go through these really quickly here.

Okay, the first one is predestination.

Okay, predestination is the reason.

That before time began, before God created anything, before any of us existed, God chose those whom he would save.

God chose those whom he would save.

And what is he doing now?

Well, he's at work drawing his elect.

He's drawing those whom he has predestined into a relationship with himself.

Now, that whole idea of predestination, that's something that causes Christians to squirm.

Okay, it does.

And some people are really uncomfortable with that.

And what about the whole thing where I choose Christ and I can reject him and all of that?

We're not getting into all of that today, but some Christians, and don't be one of these, get to the place where they just flat out reject predestination.

The problem with rejecting it is that the Bible talks about it.

Okay?

It talks about it.

And you can just jot down Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

If you're wrestling through that or you disagree with the doctrine of predestination, let Ephesians 1 take you to the mat, okay, because it'll do that.

Okay, so predestination is the first thing.

Second thing, justification.

Justification.

So this is what happens to you at the moment that you put your faith in Jesus Christ.

It means that you have been declared righteous.

You have been declared righteous.

And so God looks at you as one who has been made clean through the work of Jesus Christ.

And it really means that positionally, your salvation is secured.

It means that you've got heaven waiting for you.

Heaven is guaranteed.

Positionally, before God, you are clean.

You are pure.

You are without blemish.

All of that.

Justification is an amazing, amazing thing.

And so earlier, when I challenged some of you to put your faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, if you haven't already, I was talking about justification.

I was talking about that.

Be declared righteous.

Galatians 2, 16 is a great verse on that.

Okay, so we've got predestination, justification, sanctification is the third one.

Third one.

And this is really the process of becoming more holy.

The process of being made holy.

And so, yes, we've been predestined and we've been justified, which means saved positionally.

But practically speaking, we still sin, don't we?

We still sin.

None of us are perfect.

We've all got things that we're working through and uh and all of that.

Okay, we still sin.

And so Christ, through his Holy Spirit, works in us from the moment that you get justified until you draw your final breath.

He works in your life sanctifying you, making you more holy, ridding you of all of the junk in your life, and producing fruit, bearing fruit, changing you.

Okay, that is sanctification.

And that is a long and sometimes very messy process.

And so I think we really need to get out of our minds this idea that once I get saved, it's gonna be like easy sailing.

I can just put my feet up and and and kind of just take it easy until the Lord calls me home.

It doesn't work that way.

Salvation's difficult because we've got pride and our pride runs deep, and we want to do what we want to do.

And God, through his spirit, will change us, and that's sanctification.

Hebrews 10, 14 jot that down.

Good verse on sanctification.

Okay, last thing predestination, justification, sanctification, now glorification.

Glorification.

And this is when God calls us home to heaven for eternity.

Okay, looking forward to that.

Okay, but this is where we'll be giving, given brand new, glorified bodies.

I love it when Paul says in Romans chapter 7, who will deliver me from this body of death?

Romans 7 · chapter mention

You ever feel like that?

Man, this body is death.

Right?

I'm getting older, I'm growing the wrong direction, all of that.

I've got sin.

This thing is hard, it's difficult.

Who will deliver me from this?

Well, Christ will.

And it's called glorification.

It's when he calls us home to be with him.

We won't be plagued by sin anymore.

We won't be plagued by the corruption that our sin causes.

None of the effects of sin, none of the shame, none of the guilt, none of that is going to affect us in glory.

And really glorification, excuse me, glorification is where our salvation reaches its culmination.

Okay, that's the final stage.

Philippians 3, uh 21.

Excuse me, one sec.

Thank you, wife.

Alright, so when you have this concept, uh this concept of what salvation is, okay, I think it really helps us to now understand our verse here, verse 22, because it's really a case of the now and the not yet.

So Christ has now reconciled us, absolutely, and he presents us holy and blameless and above reproach, but he will also really do all of that, he will bring that to completion when he calls us home.

So it's the now, he's done it, and it's also the not yet.

It's still gonna happen.

It's something that he has accomplished and something that he will accomplish.

Now I love this.

This is what MacArthur says about our reconciliation.

He says, God sees us now as we will be in heaven when we're glorified.

He views us clothed with the very righteousness of Jesus Christ.

The process of spiritual growth involves becoming in practice what we are in reality before God.

Love that.

It's incredible.

Okay, so what's our takeaway here?

What's our takeaway?

Okay, Christ has accomplished so much by reconciling us, but the reality is his work has just begun.

His work has just begun.

He's just starting with me.

He's just starting with you.

Yes, he's brought us into a relationship with himself through reconciliation, and that absolutely informs my identity and your identity when we're tempted to forget it.

And it gives us joy and it and it causes us to be grateful now, for sure.

But he's not done yet.

Do you live like that?

He's not finished, he's still working in you.

He's got some things to do yet.

He's still gonna perfect you.

And then he will present you before God as his final finished product.

Okay, here's the question for you.

Are you letting him do this?

Are you letting him do this in your life?

Or have you put the brakes on it?

Are you uncomfortable with the fact that sometimes Jesus makes us uncomfortable?

And so have you kind of erected walls and Lord, I you've gone far enough in my life.

I don't want you to do any more.

Okay, you are are you on board with his plan to make you new?

See, one of the great follies of the church is that so many of us only ever think about justification and glorification.

We only think about those two aspects of salvation.

You know, heaven's waiting for me.

So I guess I'll just do whatever now.

My work here is done.

You know, don't forget about sanctification.

Don't forget about the growth.

He's got work to do in your heart, and he involves you in that process, and he's got great things that he wants to do in you.

He's got great things that he wants to do through you before he's ready to call you to glory.

So don't act like you've arrived.

I'm saying this to myself as much as I'm saying it to you.

It's easy to.

Is your heart open?

Is your heart soft?

Is your mindset and your attitude to just let the Lord you do whatever you want?

Lord, I just come before you on my knees.

Lord, you accomplish it.

He's not done with you.

Don't shift this thing into neutral and coast into heaven.

Okay?

That's one of the biggest reasons why the church in North America is super lame.

Because we've all got our feet up and we're coasting.

Okay, his work in us has just begun.

Are you letting him accomplish his plan in your life?

Okay, last thing here.

Last thing.

Christ has reconciled me to himself, which means I press on in the hope of the gospel.

Okay, I press on in that.

Now, so far, uh you might be kind of thinking, well, okay, Mike, I I I think I hear what you're saying, and you know, I I I want to see Christ at work in in my life, and you know, I I want to see him perfect me, and I want to grow in holiness, but man, this is hard.

This is this is difficult.

Man, you you don't realize how how difficult my marriage is.

You you you don't understand this this issue in my life, these these sinful things.

I don't seem to be gaining any any traction with them.

And I'm discouraged.

I'm frustrated.

Or I'm confused.

I don't know what to do.

I feel I feel like I'm trying here.

Listen, I I get it.

You know, maybe maybe I don't understand your specific situation, but I mean I I'm in the middle of my own sanctification just like any of you are.

Right?

And and and I understand this thing is it's just a dirty grind sometimes growing in Christ.

It's not all bells and whistles and flowers and gumdrops.

It's not.

Right?

It's tough.

It really is.

Here's what uh here's what verse 23 says, and this is so key, check it out.

It shows us what to do.

It says, 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.

Okay, so let's walk through this really quick.

First of all, that word if there at the beginning of that.

Um says, if, if you continue in the faith stable and steadfast, you'll be presented holy and blameless.

So hang on a second.

Does this mean that that God will bring me to the place of glorification only if I work for my salvation?

But it kind of looks like that, right?

We'll be presented holy and blameless if you don't shift.

You know, if you if you work hard.

Hang on, I thought salvation was by grace through faith.

I thought it was a gift.

I thought I don't have to work for it.

It's not by works.

It kind of sounds like he's saying that I need to work for my salvation.

Well, hang on, he's not saying that at all.

Okay, he's not.

And the idea here, really, in that verse, by that word if, is it's kind of similar to what we saw last week in Pastor Paul's message in uh John 15, verse 8.

John 15:8

You'll remember this.

It says, By my um, by this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.

You remember that verse from last week?

Okay, so in our verse, he's saying that true Christians prove that they're saved, prove that they're actually Christians, through the fruit that they bear.

That fruit being, okay, in our verse, that they continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting.

Okay, that's what a real Christian looks like.

That's who Christ ultimately glorifies.

Okay, if you truly know Christ, you will persevere through the difficulty.

You'll do it.

You absolutely will.

So Christians, I'm using quotation marks here, Christians who who who bail on their faith, who end up abandoning all of that, really what they do is they prove that they weren't really Christians in the first place.

Right?

Because true Christians have Christ in them.

Right?

We have Christ in us.

He is giving us the strength to persevere.

He's giving us the energy, the desire, all of that.

Keep going here.

It says, continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting.

Not shifting from what?

Well, not shifting from the hope of the gospel.

The hope of the gospel.

Listen, the main reason why any of us get to the place where we're discouraged, where we're frustrated, where we're down, maybe even despair or confused is because we do what this verse tells us not to do.

We've shifted from the hope of the gospel.

We've gotten away from all of that.

Now, how do we do that?

How do we get back to a good place?

Well, the reason we shift from the gospel is that we really forget what the gospel message is.

Paul Tripp, I love it and I've said it before, he uses the word, uh, the phrase gospel amnesia.

We struggle with the fact, we forget that that Christ has saved us from sin and we are we are free, we are we are blameless.

He did all of that for us, and we can't do anything to it.

It's a gift, right?

And we suffer from gospel amnesia.

And what I mean by that is we kind of become like a piano that's out of tune.

Piano that's out of tune.

How do pianos get out of tune?

Well, largely because they've been left sitting there unused.

Right?

And you go to use it, and the thing sounds horrible, and it and the thing doesn't work the way it's designed to work.

Okay, shifting from the hope of the gospel means that we've let our hearts, we've let our minds shift away from the truth of the gospel.

We've let it get out of tune.

Because there's hope that the gospel brings us.

And so if you don't have hope and you don't think about that kind of thing, it means you've lost sight of the truth and the message of the gospel.

In large in part, the message is that we've been reconciled.

We've been reconciled.

We are his now.

We need to allow that to inform our thinking.

We need to allow that to inform our behavior.

And when we don't, we we stop working properly.

Our priorities change.

We we dabble in things that we used to dabble in.

We we pursue pleasure at all costs.

We don't care about the things that Christ cares about.

And of course, we get discouraged and frustrated and all of that, and even to the point of despair.

And so all of us here, as we're sitting here, we really need to think and ask ourselves the question: what is my hope in?

What is your hope in today?

Okay, what is it?

Is my hope grounded in the fact, the truth, that God loves me more than I will ever grasp?

Even if I spend every waking moment between now and my dying breath thinking about how God has loved me and studying it, I still won't get to the depths of it.

That's how much God loves us.

Do you think about that?

The fact that He has saved you from sin, that He's working in your life?

You've got this amazing, undefiled reward waiting for you on the other side?

Do you think about that kind of thing?

Or is your hope in something less?

Is your hope in something less?

And again, like I just said, this is something that we all need to spend time assessing.

It's not something where, like, in 30 seconds you can figure out what your hope is in.

Okay?

Unless you've spent a lot of time thinking about it before.

We've got to prayerfully ask the Lord to reveal our hearts.

Lord, what am I putting my hope in?

I've heard a great line that our sin blinds us to our own blindness.

We are so blind, all of us.

We all have corners of our heart, we just don't see.

And maybe for you, those are some of the areas where you even put your hope in.

And it's not in Christ and what he has done.

So think about that.

Do a spiritual inventory.

Take the time this afternoon, take some time this week in your quiet time, praying, Lord, reveal to me, what is my hope in?

Is it in money?

Is it in relationships?

Is it in having a house?

Is it in the right job?

Is it in shopping?

Is it I don't know.

What is it in?

Figure out what your hope is in.

Okay, the fact that you've been reconciled to Jesus Christ means that you have all the hope in the world.

You have all the hope in the world.

Put it this way: the world is out there looking for hope.

It is looking for meaning.

They're finding it in all the wrong things and ultimately not finding it at all.

You have it.

You have it.

Don't forget about it.

Don't lose sight of all of that.

So don't let your hope get out of tune.

Think about it constantly.

Talk about it when you're at a small group, talk about it with your family, with your kids, with your spouse.

Talk about it when you're meeting and hanging out with people here at church.

And as you do that, the way that you think, the way that you act, even the way that you feel, your emotions, all of those kinds of things will begin to get in tune.

They will.

And you'll start to function the way that Christ has intended you to function.

And all the challenges of life, they're not gonna go away.

Sorry, I wish I could say that.

They're not gonna go away.

But they won't paralyze you anymore either.

They won't trip you up, they won't send you into the ditch because you've got that hope in Christ and what he is doing in you and what he's got promised for you right out front and center of your mind and in your thinking.

Listen, your relationship with God, it's not wrecked anymore.

It's not wrecked, it's been made new, it's been fixed.

He has reconciled you.

So it's up to us really to fall more in love with that truth, to pursue Christ and that new reality.

And as we do, we'll grow and we'll change.

Let's pray.

God, we uh come before you and and um Lord, if we have any humility in us at all, we'll recognize that uh we don't really have the first clue as to how amazing you are and how amazing the the truth and the reality of the gospel is, Lord, that you have saved us and it's a pure gift that we receive.

We don't work for it, we don't, we can't earn it, none of that.

And Lord, I pray that that truth would change our hearts, Lord.

I pray that it would change our thinking.

I would pray, I pray that it would change our way of life.

I pray, Lord, that we would be excited to live for you, God.

Lord, I pray for those who are here and they're they're twisted up right now about wrong thinking and wrong action and and pursuing just things that are not eternal, Lord, and don't bring you glory and don't please you, Lord.

I pray that you would you would fill these people with hope.

Hope that you are at work, Lord, that you are good, that you are on our side.

Lord, if you are for us, who can be against us?

Lord, that is an amazing verse in Scripture.

Lord, I pray that we would rest in that.

Lord, I pray that that would drive us forward.

I pray that people would see that joy coming out of us because of that reality.

And I pray, Lord, that we would be effective weapons in your hands to promote the gospel, to share the gospel, to see it go forward, Lord, that people would get saved and grow and come to know and love what we know and love.

So, God, would you do that?

We admit that we're weak.

We admit that we still have a long way to go.

But Lord, I pray that you would do this in us, Lord.

I pray that you would encourage this church.

We pray all of these things in Christ's name.

Amen.