Our Gospel Standing – Colossians 1:21–23 (Sept. 6, 2026)

And open up your Bibles to the book of Colossians.

That's where we're at this fall.

We're still in the first chapter, just making our way kind of verse by verse through this book, looking at the supremacy and the sufficiency of Jesus.

This morning, we're just going to look at three verses.

We're going to look at verses 21 through 23 of the first chapter.

If you don't have a Bible with you, no worries.

There should be one under a chair around you.

But you can also find the passage in your bulletin this morning.

There's some pages there that you can take notes on.

This morning, we're going to look at our gospel standing.

Now, let me tell you my absolute least favorite part of every single week.

That is when I watch the video of the sermon I just preached.

I do it every week.

I don't know if you've ever watched a video of yourself, maybe especially a video of you speaking.

It's the worst.

It's agony.

You start to have these sort of thoughts.

You're like, does my voice really sound like that?

Like, that's not how it sounds to me.

You start to think, what is my face doing in that moment?

What am I doing with my hands?

Why am I doing that with my hands?

Did I really just say that?

Guys, that's every week for me.

And I endured this anguish because I need it.

It helps me see the things that I don't often see, uh, things that are distracting that I do and say.

Now, this won't be any surprise to any of you who have been here for a while.

My number one offense every single week is I sway.

I rock back and forth.

Now, I need you to know this from the bottom of my heart.

I'm trying.

Like I'm trying really hard.

I think I'm actually getting better.

I think it would be helpful for you to know some things about me.

When I was young, I used to bounce in the car.

Uh I had that much energy.

I had to roll back and forth to fall asleep at night.

Like I did that till I was almost a teenager because I had so much energy.

My entire life, I have not been able to stay still or stand still.

Ever.

So I just need you to know I'm trying, I know it, I see it.

My issue is more severe.

Clearly, I have some problems.

But I think a lot of us struggle to stand still.

I think we're all prone to shifting or swaying or moving.

And then just think about it.

When is it most difficult for you to just stand still?

Especially kids, maybe you can think about this as well.

I think often it's when we're bored.

It's when we get really kind of fidgety.

We start to move around because we're just bored.

We want to do anything else other than just stand.

I think sometimes it's fatigue.

Sometimes we struggle to stand still because our feet are hurting.

Our legs are aching.

We're struggling to keep standing.

Sometimes it's temptation.

You might imagine a kid who's standing by his mom trying to stand still while she's talking to a friend, but then he hears the ice cream truck sirens in the distance.

That's really, really difficult to stand still.

Or he sees some kids in the background playing at the pool.

It's really difficult to stand still.

Sometimes it's opposition.

Imagine that same kid climbing, pushing, pulling on his mom or dad, them struggling to stand still in that conversation.

You can imagine maybe a weatherman standing in hurricane force winds, or if you've ever been on a subway train and you try to keep your balance.

There's a lot of reasons, and watch it is difficult to stay standing or to stand firm.

We as a people are prone to shift.

And that's most true spiritually.

That's most true in our Christian lives.

And interestingly, for all the same reasons.

Some of us this morning, church, are bored.

We're just going through the motions if we're honest.

Some of us we just sang and we don't even remember really what we sang.

We weren't even really thinking about the words that we were singing.

We weren't even really thinking about the one to whom we sing.

You know, sometimes I think Jesus is almost like a new appliance, exciting at first, and then just becomes part of the routine.

Some of us are bored, church.

Others of us are tired.

Christian life is hard.

Some of us, you're you're striving for holiness, you're fighting sin.

It's easy to become weary and doing good.

Others of us are tempted.

We hear sirens, not of ice cream, but of false teaching and sin.

Begin to think, maybe there's another way, a better way than just Jesus.

Maybe I can get what Jesus offers, but maybe in a little bit of an easier way.

Or maybe I can give Jesus some of my life, but I can keep some of my life with me.

Or maybe I can have Jesus and I can have the world.

Sometimes we can be tempted.

Still, others of us are opposed.

The winds of this fallen world, the shaking earth of suffering, makes it almost feel like shifting and swaying is inevitable.

We're just not sure that we can stand firm.

See, here's the reality: all of us, at least in some form or fashion, are prone to shift from the gospel.

Prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love.

And Paul has one message for us this morning.

In one sense, it is the overarching message of the entire letter he is writing to the Colossian church.

Here's our main idea this morning.

Don't shift from the gospel that saved you.

Don't shift from the gospel that saved you.

Let's look at the passage, verses 21 through 23.

Follow along as I read it.

Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds, as expressed in your evil actions, but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him.

If indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard, this gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.

See, here's what I think God wants for us this morning.

I don't think it's merely to tell us, don't shift from the gospel.

I think he also wants us to hear why.

Why is it that we should never even consider shifting from the gospel?

I think that's what Paul wants us to see in this passage this morning.

That's what Paul hopes to show us, and he wants to show us by using a contrast.

It is Paul's favorite uh rhetorical device.

So there's really just two points that we're gonna look at this morning.

First, the contrast and then the call.

The contrast and then the call.

The contrast is this we're gonna look at the gospel that saves us.

That's our first point.

Now, I sort of didn't give the whole truth.

It really is three points.

Because in this first point, I'm gonna have two subpoints that are pretty considerable.

And the first of those two subpoints are who we once were.

So if you look at verse 21, we're gonna see who we once were.

Notice how Paul starts.

He says, once you.

And that you in verse 21 is emphatic.

You might imagine it being boldened or underlined.

Paul wants to make sure that we see this you because he's just had this glorious hymnic description of Jesus Christ.

And now he says, But you, Colossians, you need to hear this.

Here's who you once were.

Now that you is important, and it's a you that is stark because it's you and not others.

How tempted we are to think, even when we hear this passage this morning, to go, well, that's not for me, it's for my neighbor, it's for my friend, it's for a family member.

No, Paul wants to say, No, no, no, you.

This is for you.

Paul is describing who we once were, church.

In fact, Paul is describing the state of every single person outside or apart from Christ.

And here's how he describes it.

Look at verse 21.

He uses three key ideas.

Once you were alienated, hostile in your minds, doing evil actions.

Now, church, we don't often like to think about or talk about who we once were.

And if we do so, we tend to romanticize the past.

We we want to move on from the past.

And the Bible wouldn't tell us that we need to dwell in the past, but it would say this: that it is essential that we not forget who we were before Christ.

And so Paul is gonna show us that this morning.

And the first thing that he tells us is that we were alienated from God.

Now, that's a powerful word.

And maybe it's a word that you're not incredibly familiar with, but I get you, my guess is you can get there pretty quickly.

Because at the heart of that word is the word alien.

And you shouldn't think in the UFO sense, you should think stranger, foreigner.

What Paul is saying is that you were estranged from God.

You were separated from Him, you were cold to God.

Now, I think sometimes we don't really grasp how awful a state that is.

Think about this first, that God is the creator and the sustainer of everyone and everything.

He is the source of all life, hope, joy, and love.

So here's what this means.

To be alienated from God is like being thirsty and cut off from water.

It's like being out of breath and cut off from clean air.

The one who is separated from God has a soul that is becoming parched and shriveled and suffocated.

The ancient church father Augustine used to say, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him.

But you know what?

It's worse than just that?

Because there's also a relational component to alienation.

See, we're not just cut off from a resource, but from a relationship.

Now, I imagine every single one of us has had this experience.

You've had a relationship and a key or core relationship that's gone sour?

It's become strained.

You know what it's like when there's this kind of undercurrent of tension, of hardship, of bitterness, of hurt in a relationship.

There's friction.

You know what it's like to be in the same room with a person, not even really saying anything, but there's so much being said, and there's this sort of almost palpable chill in the air.

You know what it's like to be with someone and know they're really frustrated with me.

And maybe even to know, and they should be.

See, we know what it's like to have that sort of relationship.

And depending on how fundamental that relationship is, that sort of icy tension bleeds into every part of our life, doesn't it?

Man, if you're disconnected from a spouse or a roommate or a really close friend, from a son or daughter, you know that you're thinking about that often throughout the day.

It taints nearly everything you do.

Well, friends, God, our Creator, is the most fundamental of all relationships.

To be alienated from God is to know a coldness or a tension that follows us everywhere, that is inescapable.

You know, it's one thing to be cut off from God's generous love and joy, but it's a whole other thing to live under his wrath.

Friends, to have spurned the one for whom we were made.

It's a terrible thing to be alienated from God.

And Paul tells us you once were alienated, and then he tells us something more that you were also hostile.

Paul wants us to know that this alienation didn't just happen to us.

God created us for fellowship and friendship with him, but we alienated ourselves.

We made God our enemy.

We chose to be hostile in our minds to God.

Now, maybe that seems too strong to you.

Maybe, especially if you're not a Christian here this morning, maybe maybe you might have a thought like this.

You might say, Well, God isn't my enemy.

I don't have anything against him per se.

I might be indifferent, but I'm not hostile to God.

And trust me, I get the sentiment.

And I think that could be true if God were just another creature.

But he's not.

He's the creator.

He created you.

And he created you for himself.

See, church, this is what Paul wants us to understand.

To be indifferent to God is actually to be at enmity with God.

See, this is really Paul's point and what it means to be hostile in our minds, that apart from God's grace, we don't want God to be God.

That's what it means to be hostile.

We don't want God to be God.

We don't want Him to have authority over us.

We don't want Him to be able to tell us who we are.

We don't want God to be able to tell us what we must do or how we should live.

I don't think it's hard for us to see this.

Fundamentally, we are a defiant people.

I I I think that's even hard to deny.

I mean, if you just look at some of the facts, what is one of the very first words a child screams?

No, or mine.

Right?

It's it's that sort of thing.

It's defiance.

If you want to know defiance, just go hang out with a two-year-old.

Some of you have young kids, you're like, oh, I know that defiance really, really well.

Yeah, that's just the beginning.

Because there's others in here who have teenagers.

And some of you are teenagers.

Still others have college students.

And then I'm gonna say it, there's old people too.

I think the older we get, and I'm learning this, the more stubborn we get.

The older you get, the less you want to be told what you must do.

Nobody can tell me what to do.

That might be the slogan of humanity.

Youngest to oldest, you can't tell me what to do.

But we don't just say that to each other.

We say that to God.

We are hostile in our minds.

We were we are fine with God until he tells us to do something we don't want to do, or he tells us not to do something that we want to do.

We're fine with God as long as he isn't God.

That's the truth.

See, church, I don't think it's hard to see what Paul is saying.

That we were hostile in our minds to God.

Then he tells us more that we were also evildoers.

See, finally, Paul tells us that such thoughts, they didn't just uh stay and they don't just stay in our head, they express themselves.

What we think is expressed in our actions, and not just any actions, particularly here, evil actions.

The hostile thoughts in our mind become evil actions.

Apart from God's grace, we do that which is evil.

Now, again, I think we'd like to balk at a statement like that.

I think we want to say something like, Well, I know I did dumb things, I know I did some unhelpful things, but evil, man, that feels too strong to us.

And yet, I think if I gave you enough time and you really thought about it, you can think of some evil things you've done.

But let me go at it a different way.

I want you to think about all the evil you would have done if you had not been restrained.

I think we miss this.

Do you do you know what restrains us from doing so much evil?

It's actually God.

God's common grace restrains evil in this world.

Can you imagine a world without any of the things that God has given us to restrain evil?

Can you imagine a world without government or law or enforcement?

Can you imagine a world without God's word?

Can you imagine a world without marriage or the family or society or even the church?

Can you imagine a world without human limitations?

Can you imagine a world in which we could do whatever we wanted to do?

You know, there's this refrain in the book of Judges everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

Like we hear that and we're like, that's terrifying.

But do you see the hypocrisy in that statement?

Because most of us long for a life in which we can do what is right in our own eyes.

And at the very same time, we are terrified of a world in which everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

Why is that?

Because we think our eyes are good, and everyone else is wrong.

Friends, that is such a foolish way to think.

John Bradford, he was an English Protestant in the 16th century.

He was martyred for his faith.

He saw some prisoners walking by, and here's what he said: He said, There but for the grace of God go I.

A little bit weird way of saying a phrase, but here's what he means.

Bradford is seeing people who have done and lived wickedly, and he says, Except for God's grace, that's exactly how I would live.

Church, that's the truth.

See, Paul is clear about who we once were apart from God's saving grace in the gospel.

We were alienated from God, we were hostile to his word and ways, we were actively inclined to that which was evil.

That's life outside of Christ.

See, I think this is helpful for us.

Sometimes, if we're fighting boredom or fatigue or temptation or even persecution or suffering in our Christian life, here's something that would help us.

We need to remember who we once were.

We need to remember what God has saved us from.

And that will help us to never shift from the gospel that has saved us.

And yet, Paul doesn't just tell us who we once were, he also tells us who we are now.

Look at verse 2.

That's the second sub point.

See, not only do we need to remember what Christ has saved us from, we need to remember what Christ has saved us to.

Friends, it is amazing.

Because Paul doesn't just drive us down in the deep mire of our sinfulness and just to leave us there.

Or even just to highlight its hideousness.

No, he does so to point us to something far more glorious.

He does so to show us the wondrous glory of the good news of Jesus.

It's a contrast.

He shows us the depths of our sin in order to show us the heights of God's grace.

And look how he does it.

But now, verse 22 says, You were alienated, hostile, evildoers, but now.

Now, if this were Hollywood, here's what would follow.

But now you've changed.

But now you've pulled yourself up.

But now you've conquered your past.

Demons.

Hollywood is simply movie after movie after movie of people who have risen from the ashes in their own power, who have found some sort of hidden strength within them.

That is not Paul's message, friends.

Look at what Paul says.

But now he, not you, he.

Who is that he?

God himself.

Look at verse 22.

But now he, God, has reconciled you by his Christ's physical body through his Christ's death.

Friends, if you ever wonder what kind of God we have, this is a wondrous reminder.

We alienated ourselves.

We made God our enemy by our sin.

And He brought us back to Himself.

Not us, Him.

That's what the word reconcile means.

It means to bring back together again.

It means it has this idea of reunite or restoring a relationship.

Now note the time signatures.

Now He has reconciled, has reconciled.

That's past tense.

Paul is saying to these Christians and to us this morning, church, that we are right now reconciled to God.

Church, we are no longer alienated from God.

No, we've been brought near to God.

We've been made right with God.

We have peace with God.

And these aren't just words, church.

They're life.

But I think we need to think a little bit harder about how important and how wondrous this gift of reconciliation is.

Because this means that God has saved us in order to bring us into full, true relationship with Him.

Let me just get theological for a second.

Just a little deep in here.

Remember who our God is.

He is the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit.

That means to be reconciled to God is to share in the fellowship and the friendship, the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Here's what that means: it means to be invited and welcomed into the joy and the love that the Father has for the Son and the Spirit, and the Son for the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit for the Father and the Son.

This beautiful friendship, we actually get welcomed and invited into.

It's a wondrous thing.

I wonder if you've ever been welcomed into a friend group before.

You ever been maybe new in the office or new at school, maybe even new to church?

You felt like you were out on the outside, sort of looking in.

And then someone said, Hey, come join us.

And their friendships became your friendships.

Some of us don't ever forget something like that.

But do you know what's being said here?

Imagine a friendship that is eternal, that's perfect, that's full.

That's what we've been invited into, church.

Now, just a quick application.

Do you see why it should be such a joy to share the good news of Jesus with other people?

Friends, evangelism is not a burden we have to do.

It is a blessing in which we get to actually welcome people to the Jesus who welcomed us.

Do you see why the very heartbeat of being a Christian must be hospitality?

Why it should be our absolute joy to welcome other people into our lives, into our relationships and friendship, into the family of the church?

Because God has welcomed us into His while we were yet His enemies.

Friends, it is a wondrous truth.

See, God saved you so that you could know Him and be known by Him.

He saved us to make us friends.

He saved us for fellowship and communion and friendship with Him.

I wonder if that sounds too good to be true to you.

Look at what, 1 John chapter 1, verse 3.

1 John 1:3

John says this.

He says, What we have seen and heard, we also declare to you.

That's Jesus.

That's the good news of Jesus.

They saw it and they heard it from Jesus.

And he says, Here's why we've declared the good news to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us.

Come, come, and we're inviting you into the fellowship we have.

What is that fellowship, John?

And indeed, our fellowship was with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

We have friendship with God the Father and God the Son.

Do you know that the Bible again and again speaks of salvation in relational terms?

Jesus Christ calls us his friends.

We've been adopted into God's family.

We are the bride of Christ, we are the body of Christ.

Friends, we are a people for God's own possession.

The Lord is our shepherd, we are his sheep.

The Holy Spirit indwells us.

Friends, this is the truth of the gospel.

See, here's what reconciliation means: the God of the universe, the perfectly glorious and good God, is for us and with us, knows us, and we can know him.

We walk with him, we live in him.

He's never done with us.

This God speaks to us through his word.

He listens to us as we pray.

He guides, directs, and cares for us through his providences.

He fellowships with us, ministers to us, comforts us through his people.

He dines with us at the Lord's table.

He is with us always by the Spirit.

Always.

It is a glorious thing to be reconciled to God.

That begs a question, doesn't it?

How can an alienated, hostile, evildoer be reconciled to God?

Well, here's what Paul says at the end of verse 22.

Look at it.

By his physical body through his death.

I think both of those his are Christ, by Christ's physical body through Christ's death.

It's a little bit of a clunky phrase in English, but I think the meaning is really clear.

That we are reconciled to God through the death of Jesus.

But how does that work?

How does his death reconcile us?

Well, let's just fast forward a chapter.

I'll have it on the screen for you.

Colossians 2, verse 14 says this He, Jesus, or He, God, erased the certificate of debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

Colossians 2:14

Now we're gonna talk in more depth about what that verse says, but at its very kind of big picture, what that means is that our sin, our debt, its penalty, our alienation from God has been taken away, erased, gone.

How?

Paul says it's been nailed to the cross.

But but what was nailed to the cross?

In our passage, Paul says Jesus.

His physical body was nailed to the cross.

How is it that our sin and its penalty and Jesus' body can both be nailed to the cross?

Well, that must mean that somehow our sin was on Jesus.

That Jesus in some way wore our sin, that he took our sin and its penalty upon himself at the cross, that he died the death that we deserve.

Do you remember our call to worship this morning, 2 Corinthians 5, 21?

God made the one who did not know sin, Jesus, to be sin for us.

So that, with the result that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.

This is what theologians call the great exchange.

Our sin placed on the sinless Christ, his righteousness placed on us sinners.

He gets our sin and its consequences.

We get his righteousness and rewards.

And that's not just a fiction, it's a fact.

Look at what Paul says right after that.

Why did Jesus do this?

Verse 22, the end.

To present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him.

God reconciled us to himself through the cross so that we might be presented holy, faultless, blameless before him.

Now here's what that's talking about.

It's talking about the last day.

See, the Bible is really clear, every single person will stand before God on the last day.

We will all stand before God in judgment.

But here's what Paul says, Christian, that you will stand on that day holy, pure, righteous, godly, Christ-like.

That on that day you will stand before God faultless, spotless, without any sort of blemish.

On that day, Christian, you will stand blameless, unable to be accused.

Nothing against you, nothing could be against you.

See, church, one day we'll stand before our Maker.

And we will stand not as his enemy, but as his friend.

And we will stand before him, uh, not as one who is full of sin, not as one who is guilty and ashamed and loaded down with failure.

No, we'll stand whole and upright and truly righteous in Christ.

We'll stand before the one we know and are known by.

And then we'll see our Savior face to face.

And then we will know an eternal fellowship and friendship with our God and with his people.

Then we will know an everlasting joy and hope and life and satisfaction.

And we taste that even now, church.

That's who we are in Christ.

That's the good news that has saved us.

That's why we should never shift from the gospel that saved us.

See, that's the contrast.

Now let's look at the call.

I've already mentioned the call a whole lot of times.

Verse 23, don't shift from the gospel.

Now here's how we know this is a call.

Look at verse 23, the first word.

If.

That's just not the word we wanted to see.

Like when you read that word if, you're like, oh, there's a condition.

Some of you are like, there's a catch.

There's always a catch.

Yes, holy, faultless, blameless.

If.

Friend, I need you to know that it's not that kind of if.

It's not a gotcha if.

It's actually the best kind of if.

It's the if that we need, it's the if that we should be thankful for.

But it is a real if.

Like, don't miss that.

Paul says there's a condition to our being presented holy, faultless, and blameless before God on the last day.

And what's that condition?

Look at it.

That we remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

Now, these are architectural terms.

Everything in here is architectural.

Grounded means uh laying a foundation.

It means to be founded and built on something.

Paul says you need to remain founded on the gospel.

Steadfast means a movable.

It means uh we don't uh move away from something.

It means, Paul, it continues, to not be shifted away from something.

Paul is saying it means to stand firm on and in the gospel.

We don't move past the gospel, we don't move beyond it, we don't move away from it.

Now, friends, the inclination of our heart in light of Paul's contrast, who we once were apart from Christ and who we are in Christ should be why would we ever want to shift away from that gospel?

But you know what?

Paul gives us another reason why we should never want to shift away from that gospel, even in this verse.

Because look at what he says right after that, verse 23.

This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.

Now, admittedly, this might be the most confusing statement in this passage.

Because when you read that, and I think when I read that, our first thought is wait a second, is Paul saying that this gospel has been proclaimed to all creation?

And if we think about when Paul wrote this, we would have to go, well, it hasn't been proclaimed to all creation.

We could probably even say today, in one sense, it has not been proclaimed to all creation.

But that's not Paul's point.

That's not what Paul is trying to say.

What he's trying to do is tell us what this gospel is.

He wants to give us more information about this gospel.

He's saying this gospel that you shouldn't shift from, the gospel that you heard, it is the gospel that is proclaimed in all creation.

Here's what he means by that: it's the gospel, the only gospel, the gospel of all creation.

Now, church, I think we need to grasp this better and more fully.

Because sometimes I think we live and act as if the gospel is for some and not others.

I don't think we have a lot of confidence in the gospel sometimes.

I think we uh look around to others and sometimes we shrink back from sharing the hope that we have in Christ because we go, I don't think the gospel could save them.

I don't know if this gospel is for them.

I don't think they could ever believe this gospel.

See, I think we often diminish the gospel.

We try to put the gospel in a cage.

But Paul is telling us, here's why you should never shift from the gospel.

Because there is no other gospel in all creation.

Because it is the only gospel for all creation.

And you know what?

2,000 years later, everywhere we look is evidence that what Paul says here is right.

Think about it just for a second.

This gospel has saved the drug addict, the arrogant academic, the lowly orphan, the eastern mystic, the good old Midwesterner, the radical terrorist?

This gospel has saved young, old, rich, poor, male, female, royal, prisoner, and prince, servant and master, the elite and every man.

Seriously, I just want you to think for a second.

Is there a category of person that you can think of in which God has not saved through the gospel of Jesus?

And not just saved, but transformed, made new.

Friend, you need to know this this morning.

If you're not a Christian, you need to know that this gospel is for you.

Maybe you've been in church for a long time and you've sort of gone through the motions, but you've never really understood.

Wait a second, this is for me.

Friends, it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter how you grew up, doesn't matter what you've done, doesn't matter where you've come from.

The good news of Jesus is good news for you.

Jesus is able and willing to save you.

And church, if that's the case, why would we ever want to shift from this gospel?

And yet sometimes we're still tempted to do so, aren't we?

What does it look like to be tempted to shift from the gospel?

You know, sometimes we're tempted to shift from the gospel when the praise and prizes of this world become bigger in our hearts than Jesus.

Sometimes we're tempted to shift from the gospel when the concerns of daily life drown out our devotion to Jesus.

You know, sometimes we're tempted to shift from the gospel when we find our identity and our works for Jesus rather than his work for us on the cross.

Or when we base our Christian life on how much we do for Christ instead of how much Christ has done for us.

We're tempted to shift from the gospel when we make our Christian life actually more about us than about Christ.

So easy to do, church.

You know, we're also tempted to shift from the gospel when we devote ourselves, our whole selves, to other so-called saviors.

We're tempted to shift from the gospel when the gym becomes our church, when the therapist becomes our Bible, when politics and news and social media become our daily bread.

We're tempted to shift from the gospel when vacations and hunting and shopping and college football, when they become the means of grace.

We're tempted to shift from the gospel when we look more forward to Saturday than we do Sunday, when Saturday becomes our Sunday.

Friends, there's all sorts of ways in which we are tempted to shift from the gospel, which means when we are tempted to put any other thing as having more precedence in our hearts and lives than Jesus.

That's why this if is here.

That's why we should be thankful that it's here.

Because this if is a warning and it's a warning we need.

The promises of the gospel are not true for those who walk away from it.

If we shift from the gospel, if we trust in something else, anything else that we build our lives on, if we don't remain grounded and steadfast in the good news of Jesus, then we will not stand before God on that last day, holy and faultless and blameless.

We won't know reconciliation with God.

Friends, we need to be 100% clear on this.

We must never expect a fellowship and friendship of Christ without or apart from faith in Christ.

There's no unbelieving people of God.

See, Paul is warning this church in Colossae, you can't play with false teaching and not get burned.

You can't toy with idolatry and sin.

You shift from the gospel and you shift from any hope of salvation.

Friends, this is a real warning.

And we should not disregard it.

But it also shouldn't worry us.

You need to know this, Christian.

Paul is not worried.

Paul is not worried at all about the Colossians.

Paul does not believe that these Colossians are going to shift from the gospel.

In fact, in verse 23, that's the probably the meaning of that indeed.

That's why he has that there.

Paul does indeed believe they will remain grounded and steadfast in their faith.

Why?

Because they're such great Christians?

Because they have less dangers around them?

They have such a good community around them.

No, no, no.

It's because they have such a great God.

That's why Paul is so confident, because he knows that the God who gives faith is the same God who preserves it.

That the God who saves is the God who keeps.

That genuine faith and genuine Christians persevere.

Here's our how our confession of faith states it.

It says this we believe all genuine believers endure to the end.

Their persevering obedience to Christ and attachment to his people are the primary mark.

It's how we see that they are genuine believers.

And it distinguishes them from superficial professors, those who profess faith in Christ but don't possess faith in Christ.

And a special providence watches over their welfare, and they are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation.

See how helpful this is?

How do we know?

A genuine Christian.

They persevere in faith and obedience and attachment to the church, the people of God.

They don't shift from the gospel.

But how is it that they persevere in faith?

How is it that they stand firm in the gospel?

God's providence watches over them.

And God's power keeps them.

I grew up often hearing this phrase, probably many of you maybe have heard it too.

Once saved, always saved.

I don't think it's necessarily wrong.

I just think it can be very misleading.

I heard one pastor say it a little bit better: once saved, always believing.

That's actually the promise of God.

See, church, we are a people prone to wander, to sway, to shift.

But you know what?

We trust in the God who never shifts, who never saves, who is unchanging.

The God who always keeps his promises and his people.

See, we sang it this song last Sunday.

I could sing it every Sunday.

Christ our hope in life and death.

Friends, this is the very hope of our faith, though, too.

This is the very hope that we will continue to believe.

Here's what it says: Who holds our faith when fears arise?

Who stands above the stormy trial?

Who sends the waves that bring us nigh, bring us back unto the shore?

The rock of Christ.

Fear, storms, temptations will come, and church, we will not ultimately shift.

Why?

Because Christ holds our faith.

Friends, Christ holds our faith.

Our faith is in his strong hands.

In 1993, Dr.

Albert Moller became the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.

It was an astonishing event.

Moller at the time was 32 years old.

And he was taking over as president one of the most prestigious seminaries in the world.

And he was also taking over at a time when they had largely shifted from the gospel.

Most, majority, if not almost every single professor had denied the central tendency of the Christian faith.

Many of them even denied the resurrection of Christ.

Dr.

Moller came in and his first convocation, his first opportunity to address all the students and staff and professors of the seminary, and his message was simple.

Don't just do something, stand there.

Exact opposite of what we've always heard.

Don't just stand there, do something.

Moller said, don't just do something, stand there.

And then he articulated point by point the biblical gospel.

His point to this community, this seminary was the same point that Paul is making to us.

That the first and foremost thing we must be concerned with as Christians is that we stand and stand firm on and in the gospel and we never shift from it.

Because it is our only hope.

It is the gospel of all creation.

And it is the good news that saved us.

Church, may that be true of us.

May we never shift from the gospel that saved us.

And may we know that by God's grace and the power of the Spirit, we won't.

We won't.

Church, let's pray.