So, our text this evening is Colossians chapter 1, verses 21 through 23. You can find that in your pew Bibles on page 1168. That's page 1168. It's Colossians chapter 1. For those who were not aware, my wife and I, we were in Pennsylvania over the summer. I was interning with a son of Escondido United Reformed Church, Reverend Robert Godfrey. My last Sunday there, I was exhorting in the evening service, and I told the congregation there, "Fear not, my wife and I would continue the following Sunday our streak of attending church with Robert Godfrey the following Sunday." I did not know that my streak of following Robert Godfrey preaching in the morning would continue the next time I exhorted here. So I've continued that on. But it's good to be back with you all this evening.
Colossians chapter 1. I'm going to start actually at verse 15 for context and read all the way down through verse 23. Here is God's holy word: "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, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 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. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 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."
And that concludes the reading of God's word this evening.
So, as I just mentioned, I was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at Zeltenreich Reformed Church, and if you've ever had the chance to be there, one of the things that you would notice is they have a graveyard or a churchyard next to the church. It's an old building, so it has that feature with the church. So one of the things I would do when I was working, to break up or take a break, would be to go out and walk through the churchyard. Now, you might be thinking that's kind of a weird place to go for a walk, but it was the best option I had at the time. So, as I was walking through the churchyard, I would just observe the various dates and the tombstones. And the dates overall spanned across three centuries. You had some that were born in the 1700s, even, that were there.
One tombstone that I observed the dates for had the date the birth date of 1836 to the death date of 1925. And It got me actually to think about that person's life. It was rather interesting. I thought about all the things this person would have observed throughout their life. One thing that stuck out to me was that this person lived through two of the greatest wars that this nation has ever been a part of. They lived through the Civil War, the American Civil War that is and then they lived through World War I Now, war is a terrible thing. I realize on the West Coast, the familiarity with the American Civil War is not as fresh as it is for those of us from the East Coast, but in the case of the Civil War, it was even more bitter in many ways. Here, you had a fledgling nation that was breaking apart, but it wasn't just about the nation; the proximity of it all. You had friends and family being split apart. They were alienated from each other. In fact, all war alienates people from one another.
But as I was thinking about this and this person's date, one of the things I recognized was this: person witnessed the alienation in the nation at the time, but they also witnessed the reconciliation of the nation. And that brings us to Colossians this evening in the passage that we're considering.
Before Christ's atoning work, salvation could only come through being a member of God's covenant people, Israel, the Jews. Now, Epaphras, who Paul tells us in the beginning of Colossians, brought the gospel to them. Before he brought the gospel to them, they still had no hope because they hadn't heard the gospel. So, even though we're talking about 20 years from the time of Christ's death, they still had no access into the kingdom of God. They were still alienated. But upon believing in the gospel that Epaphras preached, which he received from Paul, who received it from the other apostles and from Christ himself, upon receiving it, they became reconciled to God through Christ.
And it was through Christ alone that this reconciliation happened, and yet this reconciliation also we find out had a purpose. They were not going to be left the same as who they were before coming to saving faith, but rather, as they responded, the Holy Spirit was going to work in their lives, and we find out that it was not just their status that changed, but it was their whole lives that would be changed.
And in this text, then, we find that the reconciliation with God is in Christ alone, and that it also has a purpose. And that purpose is that believers would be presented holy, blameless, and above reproach before a holy God.
To see that this evening, we're going to consider the past life of a believer, the present life of a believer, and the future life of a believer. So: past, present, and future are our three points we're working with this evening. And I will say up front that the third point will actually be a little bit longer, so I say that for the note takers who might be running their time, going from point to point or unless that's just me when I'm taking notes! But let's dive into the text here.
So, as we read for context, all the way back in verse 15 verses 15 through 20 there is a cosmic scope of Christ being extolled as the Son of God, and in this, it's not just that He's the Son of God, but that we find that He's the Creator. He's the Creator of all things, but then He's also the Redeemer; He reconciles all things to Himself. And He did it through the cross. This is a broad truth that Paul is bringing to them. In the greater scheme of the letter, it has more that it's doing, but for our purposes, we see that this broad truth then opens the door for Paul to narrow the scope of his focus. He goes from this broad truth to this particular effect of that truth. The particular effects, that is, of Christ's reconciling work.
And this is where Paul begins in verse 21. He says emphatically, "And you." Now, as you read this, you see that there's a paragraph break, but in the Greek, it's actually one long paragraph. But then, all of a sudden, he shifts who he's talking about, and he says, "And you who were once alienated."
See, it's not as if here paul if you're a listener from colossae it's not as if you're listening and Paul's saying, "He reconciled all things," and you're included," it's not a casual thing. He's getting their attention, saying, "He reconciled all things, and you! You who are once alienated!" As well he's drawing the attention to them, it wakes them up. So what he's saying is, "You, you all, were formerly alienated from God."
Now, the word that he uses for alienated it means to be a stranger or a foreigner. In his letter to Ephesians, Paul uses this word multiple times. In one instance, he uses it in reference to the Ephesian people being alienated from God by the fact that they were alienated from the covenant community. But later, he uses it in relation directly to God. And that's how he's using it here. That is, these people were strangers or foreigners to God himself.
Now, think about that. That's quite a thing: to be separated, not even knowing you're separated from God, but to be separated from Him. And yet it gets worse, as Paul adds on. If you look with me at verse 21, he says, "And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds."
He didn't just stop there, saying they were alienated. He really brings to bear the burden here, stressing the fact that they were enemies in their mind toward God. Now, the word "mind" that is used here, it has the idea of a disposition or an attitude. So it's not that they were just enemies that they were foreigners. But they were actively enemies in their disposition or their way of thinking toward God. This enemy, this hostility in them, it was active. It wasn't a passive thing.
And in fact, later in Colossians, in chapter 3, verses 5 through 11, Paul will list off certain sins that were amongst them as evidence of this. He says, for instance, he says, "Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." And then he adds that though they once walked in the ways of anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from their mouths and lying to one another, they were to all put those things away. It wasn't as if sin had completely been eradicated even in their lives. It was still present.
In all of this, Paul's stressing to them, though, that they were completely apart from God, Both inside and out. Even the best of the people in Colossae, by human standards, the best of the best, the most generous people there. They were still separated from God. They had no relationship with Him whatsoever.
Now, without saying it, Paul's teaching here calls to mind for us the doctrines of original sin or total depravity. That because of Adam's sin, it fractured the relationship between man and God, and because of Adam's sin, all men were born into sin. And they have the guilt of Adam. They're stained by that sin. Everyone who has lived on this planet since Adam and Eve has been alienated and hostile in their mind toward God.
And this is what Paul's teaching. It applies not just to the people of Colossae. But here, what he's doing for the Colossian people, what he's doing is he's drawing their minds to think right now: "What was my life like before I came to faith? What was my life like before I heard this gospel and I believed it?"
Now, it's political ad season, if you haven't noticed. It seems everywhere you look, there's a political ad. It's not even if you're watching TV on cable; it's even if you're watching a YouTube video, they're slipping in an ad somewhere, one place or another. One of the ads I've consistently seen is an ad saying that Ronald Reagan has a message for me. Maybe you've seen this ad, but basically, it's recording a speech from Ronald Reagan, ahead of one of the elections, I'm not sure which one, where he was asking the voters as they head to the polls the next day to consider what their life was like in the previous four years.
And that's what Paul's doing with the Colossians. "What was your life like?" But for us, so too, I asked this question this evening: "What was your life like before you came to saving faith in Jesus Christ?"
Now, acknowledging that there's many of us in here this evening who cannot remember a day that we did not believe in Jesus Christ, let me ask it this way: "What would your life be like had you not known Jesus Christ? Where could you have ended up in your life without Jesus Christ in your life?"
Let those questions sit for a little bit.
Now, from here, Paul, he immediately moves from the past into the present situation of the Colossian people, and that takes us to our second point this evening: that is, the present life of the believer.
Now, as emphatic as Paul was by drawing to attention that he's talking directly about the people in Colossae, now he's just as emphatic about the change that took place upon them coming to faith. So he says, "And you, who were once 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 blameless and above reproach before him."
He's doing the same thing. He's very emphatic about "he has now reconciled in his body of flesh." We don't get that sense, necessarily, as we read it, but that's what he's doing here. He's drawing that contrast: "This is how you were, but this is where you are now."
All of what they were before alienated strangers or foreigners to God, hostile in their minds, enemies of god all of that had now changed as they had been reconciled in His body of flesh by His death; that is, Christ's death. All of what had disrupted their relationship with God because of their sin and being alienated from God had now been repaired. They were reconciled, brought back together upon their faith in Christ.
Now, consider reconciliation for a second with me. When reconciliation happens in relationships, usually it is the offending party who initiates the process of reconciliation because they are the one at fault. But here, who initiated the reconciliation process? Remember, they were alienated and they they were in some sense blissfully unaware that they were alienated. albeit deep down there is a sense that they did know they were alienated Romans 1 but here, who is the one that initiated this reconciliation process? The Colossian people? They were not on a search. They did not go to Jerusalem to find out about some new religion that was popping up on the scene in the first century. The Colossian people were not looking for the Apostle Paul to hear from him. And yet this gift, the truly good news of the gospel, had found its way to the city of Colossae.
Now, Paul's here. He's bringing them up to speed. Again, he's telling them, "This is where you were, but this is where you are. This is what has happened."
See, this is where you were before the cross: you were alienated; you were far away from God. But now, because of the cross, it led to different events that had happened. As I mentioned earlier, Epaphras heard Paul preaching, and Epaphras went back to his people in Colossae and he preached the good news to them because he loved them and he wanted them to hear this gospel. And they received it. The Colossian church received it. They heard it. They found out that the debt that they had was nailed to a tree. They were reconciled to God through Christ. What a massive difference between the past and the present!
But when we think about the grand context of what's going on here, it's it's even more profound. What exactly has happened? If you think about where we're at in history at this point that the letters read or written: the church is not some global church that it would be within the next few hundred years or even the next millennium. It was very small; it was very tiny. It's not as if they were finding out about this popular movement that was taking the Roman Empire by storm, and yet this good news of the gospel came to them and they received it. There was nothing about Colossae that made it any different from any other city in the Roman Empire. And yet we know there's other cities in the Roman Empire that did not receive this gospel. And yet it found its way to them. It came to them. They didn't go to seek it out.
Now, think back to the questions that I asked earlier. "What was your life like apart from Christ? What would your life be like apart from Christ if you didn't know Him? What would we all be like without Him?"
One word: hopeless. Hopeless.
And that's where the Colossian people were. They were hopeless. That's where we were.
Now, for those who came to saving faith later in your life, you did not find Him. Now, there might have been seeds that were dropped in the fields of your life, so to speak, and it would have been building up towards the time that you came to the saving faith, but you ultimately weren't seeking Him. He sought you.
But for you, if you grew up in the church and you cannot remember a day that you didn't believe in Christ, why is it that way? Surely you did not have a say in the matter if you don't remember a time that you didn't believe. In His providence, you were born in a situation where that's just how it came to play out. Still, in that sense, He sought you out.
Of the countless number of people who have lived and who currently live and will live, the gospel has come to you. The Spirit has regenerated your soul. Christ has reconciled Himself, or reconciled you to himself, to His Father as well. How can we do anything else when we think about it this way but exclaim, as we sang earlier, "What heights of love, what depths of peace, in Christ alone our hope surely is"?
But as majestic and glorious as this truth is, the reconciliation is only part of it. And reconciliation, brothers and sisters, it wasn't just a matter of evening the scales or a reset with how we stood before God. But there was a purpose. And that's where we go as we consider our third point this evening: the future life of a believer.
As the passage says, the Colossian people were reconciled to be presented before God as holy, blameless, and above reproach. Holy, because only one who is holy could stand before God. Next, Paul uses the word referring to being morally blameless. That's where we get blameless. It's speaking about the moral sense here. And then "above reproach, that's translated with the idea that you are presented before God without accusation. In other words, no accusation can be made against you.
This was their future for the Colossians. It is who they would continually become in this life. It's who they will ultimately be when they enter glory. Calvin says of this that Paul is speaking to them about the newness of their reconciled life. They weren't going to be the same. They were heading in a different direction.
And yet Paul adds, though, right after this, he adds a warning that seems to almost be out of place. If you look with me, and you look at verse 23, he says, "If indeed you continue in the faith."
That seems to raise some questions. Is Paul here is he really saying, though, it's a toss-up for whether they persevere in their lives? Why is he using that?
Commentators have noticed that even though, as we look at the translation, it can be a little ambiguous, commentators have noticed, though, that Paul uses this way of talking to oftentimes communicate confidence. Confidence in what will happen. One commentator, Douglas Moo, he concludes that Paul is saying, if, and I'm sure it is true, you will not depart from the faith." So, to put it into the verse here: "If, and I'm sure it is true, you continue in the faith, stable, steadfast, not shifting from the hope."
There's a confidence here. But it causes us to have to think: why that is still needed there? Why did Paul have to pause with that? He's just told them, "Look, this is why you were reconciled. This is where you're going. And there's a confidence that this is going to happen." But yet, why is there still a sense of warning here?
Well, this ultimately ties in with the issue that Paul was dealing with throughout all or That he will deal with throughout all of Colossians, That is, in Colossians, there was a threat to the gospel, a threat to the sufficiency of people having faith in Christ alone for their salvation. And against that gospel, some were now beginning to teach. They were teaching that, "Sure, you can believe that, but you had to believe in additional things as well. Those were needed. Christ was not sufficient enough."
In chapter 2 and chapter 3, Paul will specify what some of these things were. Specifically, he refers to some worshiping angels, and that being a sign of their sincere faith. He will speak of those having visions, and that being a sign of sincere faith. And for others, there were legalistic rules they had to follow, and that was what would attain them their salvation. And still further, there were also philosophical thoughts that were permeating the air at the time.
But what Paul is doing here with this warning, but also this confidence, is he's asserting the glorious gospel. This is where salvation is. It's in Christ alone. There's nothing else that's needed. No one else, nothing else can get you there. No one else and nothing else will present you holy and blameless and above reproach.
It's as if Paul's saying those other things, when he gets to them, but he's already beginning to think about it. He's saying, "Those other things are worthless. Anything else you can think of, it's worthless. Christ's reconciliation was not for you to chase after those things. He already has it figured out. This gospel you've heard, That's where it is. That's the truth you need. Why would you turn to anyone or anything else?"
Now, it's easy for us to point the finger at the Colossians and call them foolish. "How could you spurn this gospel message that you've heard?" But this goes on in our own day. How frequently have we seen once professing Christians publicly denouncing their faith? Or, for some we know who have denounced their faith, they've turned to atheism, or they've turned to a progressive form of Christianity. Still others, they turn to Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, New Age, Eastern type religions. But all of those things, they have things in common with these appeals that were being made by these false teachers in Colossae. There's different elements to those things that draw people to them.
And so for us, we need just as much to be aware of these things. And if we are honest, we face similar tendencies in our own lives at times, don't we?
For some, they find a sense of fulfillment in whatever is going on in the political sphere. For others, they might find fulfillment in how well their sports team is doing. Still, for others, it could be their careers and how well their careers are going, and that then dictates where their mood is at. If it's going well, they're happy. If it's not, they're down in the dumps. Still, for others, they might worship celebrities. They might worship pastors. They might worship politicians, athletes, what have you. And for others, they might find their fulfillment in the different experiences they have, or wanting to be on the right side of history according to the standards of man.
All these different kind of things. They vie at our hearts as believers. And I'm just as guilty of being susceptible to these things at different times throughout my life. But none of these things, None of these things are sufficient. None of these things can reconcile us to God.
Think for a moment about the sins you've committed in the past in your life, or sins that you currently wrestle with. Could any of the things that maybe you turn to could they wash away the stain of that sin? Could they allow you to be blameless before God? Could any of those things you turn to, in light of those sins, could any of those things present you without accusation, morally blameless? No.
Or what about if the election turns out the way you hope? Will that allow you to appear before God holy and blameless and above reproach? Or if you succeed in your career, will that be the greatest thing that's ever happened to you? No. None of these things are sufficient enough.
In the right places, these things are not inherently wrong. Don't misunderstand me. But it is Christ and Christ alone who has reconciled us and done so much more than any of these things could offer us.
The fact is, as I said, no person, thing, or activity can reconcile you and then present you before God as holy, blameless, and above reproach. Why would we look anywhere else? It's only through Christ that this can happen.
And as those who are reconciled, we are indeed established and firm and not shifting. This is where that confidence does come in. Sure, we may fall, but we know we have been forgiven by the blood of the Savior. And we know we have the gift of the Spirit who has enabled us to follow Him, to be convicted of our sins and turn to Him when we fall, that is.
Christ did not reconcile us to be who we were before, and He didn't reconcile us to chase after these other things. He reconciled us that through His Spirit He would work in our lives and we would be transformed, and that ultimately, when we stand before God, we would be blameless; that we would be holy and above reproach.
Now, as we wind down, recall how I alluded to the reconciliation that occurred in America between the American Civil War and World War I. There's an account that was shared prior to World War I from the Pennsylvania National Guard, who was the first National Guard unit to serve in an act of foreign war, and they were marching through a city in the deep South. I forget what city it was, but as they were marching through this city in the deep South, there was something that had changed. There was something that was different. Not even a hundred years had passed since the American Civil War, but something changed. The Southerners were loudly cheering for these men from the North as they were marching, wishing them well, knowing that they were going off to fight in the war.
Now, as I thought about that person whose tombstone I observed, and you think about that span of life, what a reconciliation that must have been for them to witness! Something that seemed impossible at one point now was not just restored but It was even better it was stronger than before. And yet all of that pales in comparison to the reconciling work of Christ.
As impossible as that had seemed, it was even more impossible with where we stood without Christ before God. For we were alienated, strangers and foreigners to God, and we were enemies and hostile in our dispositions, in our attitudes toward Him. But thanks be to God, through Christ's death on the cross, we have been reconciled to Him.
And that not only were we reconciled to Him, with our sins forgiven but that by His Spirit He continually renews us, and it is His righteousness that will be credited to us. It is already credited to us, where upon standing before God we will be seen as holy, blameless, and above reproach.
Why would we turn to our former way of life? Why would we look for anything else for fulfillment in this life when in Christ alone we have all that we need?
May we indeed continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not move away from the hope of this gospel.
Let's pray. Merciful Father, we thank You for the gift of Your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank You for His reconciling work on the cross, that our sins would be forgiven, but that also that we would have the hope of new life in Him. We thank You for the gift of Your Spirit who works to make us holy, blameless, and above reproach. And we thank You for the hope, the sure hope that we have that when we come before You and enter glory, that we will be holy, blameless, and above reproach. Lord, as we go through our week, remind us of these truths. Remind us that it is in Christ alone that our hope is found. Lord, help us to continue to follow after You and seek You in all our ways.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.