Joy Unspeakable

As we continue our study through St Paul’s letter to the Christians at Colossae, today we focus on verses 12 through 14 of chapter one. Here are those verses in context as we begin at verse one:

 “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. ³ We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, ⁴ since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; ⁵ because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel ⁶ which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth . . . ⁹ For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰ so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹ strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience, joyously ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. ¹³ For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

 

With this context in our minds, let’s return to verse 12 which reads of the Father who “has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” But that text ought to raise the question for every thinking person: HOW did the Father qualify us? What did we have to do to meet God’s qualifications for acceptance into His eternal family and to share in the SAME inheritance of the saints of God who have gone before us?

 

First, I pause a moment to remind us of an extraordinarily important point about ‘saints.’ As I pointed out last week, no church body or group of theologians has the authority to declare or decide who is a saint. As we have seen in our studies through the New Testament, only God has that authority, and He does so solely based on the righteousness He alone imputes to a person because of their faith in the atonement Jesus paid for their sins. That is why the New Testament writers called the sinners-saved-by-grace ‘saints’ in such diverse churches as Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Colossae, and so forth.

 

So, back to the question of the qualifications God has set for acceptance into His eternal family with the saints in light. Is it that we are religious, meticulously following specific rules and rituals? Does He qualify us because we come from a religious family – that the destination of heaven sort of rubs off on us? Do we get to share with the saints in light by living a good life, like helping little old ladies and men across the street?

 

What does the Bible tell us? Well, listen to what Paul wrote to Titus as it relates to our ‘qualifications’: “When the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)

 

Mercy: God does not deal with us as we deserve. Grace: God deals with us as we do not deserve. Listen again to Ephesians 2, a text I hope you have memorized: “You were dead (necrotic) in your trespasses and sins . . . and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ  . . . . ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:1-8)

 

In other words, God’s grace is His undeserved favor. And so, again the question: What have we done for God to qualify us for eternal life? Answer? Nothing. We were dead in our transgressions and sins. Dead people can do nothing but slowly rot away.  What qualified us (past tense) – and what qualifies us (present tense) – is God’s grace and mercy, both of which should, which MUST lead us to live virtuous lives of integrity, holiness, and sexual morality. “For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.” 1 Thessalonians 4:7  And, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14 

 

And because of God’s grace and mercy, Paul tells the Colossians – and us – the Father “rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

 

Note again the past tense of the verbs. At that moment of our conversion to Christ, we were rescued from the domain of darkness and death and transferred to the Kingdom of light and life. We were redeemed. Forgiven. It was all a fait accompli. An established fact. It was done. Finished.

Let me tell you a story to try to illustrate the point of being transferred from one place to another. I was three or four years old when my father brought me to the beach to escape the summer heat of our apartment. I still remember splashing in the water, squealing as the gentle waves surged and ebbed around me.

 

I suppose he was only a short distance away when he turned his back for a moment, but during that moment, a wave knocked me off balance and plunged my face beneath the water. More than 70 years later I still remember becoming instantly frantic, I fought to regain my footing as each successive swell threw me under again and again. Frantic grew into terror as the current swept me deeper beneath the waves.

 

Then, from nowhere, strong arms suddenly pulled me free. Within moments the lifeguard rescued me and transferred me from the watery danger and onto the safe sand.

 

But the story of my rescue and transfer to safety did not stop with that lifeguard. And there is not a person here who will not be able to identify with what I am about to say about the Great Lifeguard.

 

As I grew into my teens and early 20s, I was swept along by swells of a myriad of temptations, drifting from one rebellious and immoral pleasure to another. Life ebbed and flowed gently around me – until a wave suddenly knocked me off balance.

I tried to regain my footing, but each attempt met powerful and successive waves that pulled me deeper toward sin, desperation, and finally, despondency. It was September 18, 1972, when I suddenly knew – intuitively—that my future promised an ever-increasing bondage to those very things I once thought gave me freedom. I knew I could no more stop doing what I knew to be wrong than I could prevent the ocean's currents.

 

I was in my navy barracks room when in despair I cried out to the One I had for so long ignored and begged Him to deliver me from myself. And I still remember His rescue.

 

Someone told me about Jesus. They told me of God’s promise of forgiveness and of His power to change my direction – JUST AS the Holy Spirit gives YOU the privilege to tell others who desperately need to hear that same good news.

 

All I needed to do was ask God for mercy. And suddenly, from nowhere, strong arms pulled me free from my spiritual darkness and sin's talons. My guilt and fear gave way to assurance and peace. I’d been rescued by my merciful and compassionate Lifeguard who never leaves me, never turns His back for a moment. It was He who suddenly transferred me from certain and eventual death onto the Rock of eternal salvation.

 

Oh, how glorious was my sudden sense of freedom. I’d been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Ransomed from the power of darkness and transferred to the Kingdom of Christ Jesus.

 

Many of you knew Mike, one of the long-time residents here at Ashwood. He’d valiantly fought cancer for a few years but recently resigned himself to the obvious truth that he was losing the battle. He entered home hospice in his apartment about a month or so ago.

 

I visited Mike several times over the last few weeks as he lay slowly dying – and his dying was for me an encouragement to behold. And I remembered the words of assurance the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at

Thessalonica: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14)

 

I think Paul could have also written: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not FEAR as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.”

 

I knew from our conversations, Mike didn’t fear death. He knew in whom he believed. He knew – and told me often – he knew he was going home to the Father. He knew – he looked forward to it – that he would soon be with his wife, Karen, and with all his family and friends who’d predeceased him.

 

He KNEW he’d been rescued and transferred years earlier from the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of Light when he turned his life over to Christ and received forgiveness of his sins. He knew Jesus’ blood had washed them as far as east is from the west. He knew Christ’s atoning sacrifice paid the penalty his sins each deserved. Mike lay in his bed at peace. Without fear. He was just quietly waiting for his call home.

As Fanny Crosby exulted: Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it! Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; Redeemed through His infinite mercy, His child and forever I am. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; Redeemed, redeemed, His child and forever I am.”

 

Well, I need to start bringing this to a close and so let’s turn to verse 14 where Paul tells his readers their rescue and transfer is accomplished through Jesus Christ, “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

 

Ever since Genesis chapter three when Adam and Eve chose the Serpent over God, all humanity has faced one of only two choices: Satan or God, darkness or light, eternal life or eternal death. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a third option. Listen to Elijah rebuke the people of Israel: “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” 1 Kings 18:21

 

A millennia later, the Lord Jesus said something similar to His generation: (Luke 11:23) “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.”

 

I hope we never forget this Biblical truth. God gives humanity only two options: Light or Darkness; Christ or Baal – a euphemism for Satan. Jesus said it clearly enough, (John 8:12) “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness but will have the Light of life.” Again, He emphasized: (John 12:35) “Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.”

 

Unless people are following Christ, they are walking in darkness – spiritual darkness – and they typically don’t even realize it. And without repentance and an intentional change in direction, they will not realize it until it is too late. An eternity in the Lake of Fire with their unknown master – Satan – will be the torturous eternal destiny for all who, either consciously or unconsciously, chose to remain in the domain of darkness.

 

I need to say it again for emphasis. We are either a child of God or a child of Satan. Children of God know to whom they belong because the Holy Spirit witnesses with their spirit, as St Paul wrote to the church at Rome: (Romans 8:14-16) “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.”

As I just said, Satan’s children usually don’t know they belong to him because they’re walking in darkness (See John 12:35). Listen again to the apostle: “If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, ⁴ in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  2 Corinthians 2:3-4

 

That’s also likely why Scripture counsels everyone: “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5)

How might one test themselves? Well, here are some suggestions to make sure you are walking in the true faith of Christ:

 

1 Peter 2:2 “Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”  If you don’t hunger for God’s word, you might be deceiving yourself into thinking you’re a Christian.

 

Isaiah 55:6 “Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near.” If you have no desire to seek Him in prayer, you might be deceiving yourself into thinking you’re a Christian.

 

1 Peter 1:1-2 “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ.” And Peter told the religious leaders of his day, God gives the Holy Spirit only “to those who obey Him.” (Acts 5:32) So, if you are not seeking to live a holy life in accordance with God’s commandments, you might be deceiving yourself into thinking you’re a Christian.

 

Test yourself.

 

It would be both wise and instructive to consider those who thought they were saved and were subsequently shocked at the Judgment to learn they were being cast into outer darkness. Here is only one example. It’s from Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

 

I close today’s message with this reminder – one which I hope will serve as great encouragement to every person here who’s placed their faith and their hope in the Lord Jesus Christ:

 

Our Creator has Himself qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light – not on the basis of what you have done or what you do, but only on the basis of what He has done for you on Calvary’s cross.

And because of Calvary’s cross, our God has rescued us from Satan’s domain and has transferred us into the glorious and eternal kingdom of Christ Jesus in whom – and this is the last point I will make this afternoon – in whom we have full redemption and the full and irreversible forgiveness and pardon of our sins.

 

To reflect on these truths surely is joy unspeakable and full of glory.

 

Amen

 

He Means what He Says

 

My text today comes from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Christians at Colossae. Here are the first ten verses from chapter one:

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth; just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit. For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God . . . 

 

Let’s take a moment to remind ourselves of the title Paul uses of himself: He calls himself an apostle. The word, to remind us all, means to be sent by someone in authority with the authority of the sender.  The social, religious, or academic credentials of the apostle are totally beside the point when God Himself does the sending. 

 

Of the twelve apostles of Christ, Peter, James, Andrew, and John were fishermen. Matthew was a hated tax collector. We do not know for certain the occupations of the other seven apostles, but it is likely they all were common laborers. Paul, of course, was the only exception. Called as an apostle after his experience on the Damacus road, we know he was well-respected among his peers as a religious scholar. I think it is worthy of note – especially to those of us who might feel some tendency toward pomposity about our own credentials, whether they be of academia, or wealth, popularity, birth, or whatever – I think it is of note what Paul said this about his ‘credentials’:

 

“If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more; circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless. But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. (Philippians 3:4b-9)

 

And because he was sent by God, we in the 21^st century also ought to pay close attention to what he says because his words are not those of a Doctor of Theology, or even a so-called Church Father, or esteemed high-ranking church leaders of the past or present. We are obligated to God to read this letter – its encouragement, its exhortation, its challenge, its warnings – as we must regard all God’s commands and instructions from one end of the Bible to the other.

 

And if he was an apostle to those at Colossae, then yes, he is an apostle to us at Ashwood Meadows.

 

At the very outset of his letter, Paul addresses the intended recipients as ‘saints and faithful brethren in Christ.” This point is also important AND it is instructive for us at Ashwood. We know from the rest of his letter – and we will look at that a bit more closely in follow-on messages – we know these men and women in Colossae were NOT ‘saints’ as we might think of what it means to be one. They had their share of human frailties.

 

For example, listen to this section of the letter from chapter three: “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices . . . (Chapter 3:5-9)

 

See?  They struggled with sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, malice, lying, and so forth.  I am reminded of Paul’s similar words to the saints (as he called them) in Corinth. The city was known throughout the Roman world as wicked and sexually immoral, and it seems from Paul’s two letters to that church, a number of those in their congregation were still acting like their godless neighbors. Yet, he wrote in his introduction to his first letter: To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .. (1 Corinthians 1:2)

 

It was not that they were saints because they had no sin. Paul called them saints because they’d been justified by their faith in Christ’s atonement. Their ‘sainthood’ was not based on what THEY did, but only on the basis of what GOD did for them.

 

This is not an insignificant point of theology. When Paul wrote to the church at Rome, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” (Romans 8:1), the word ‘justified’ – as we have noted in past sermons – means to have been declared by God as righteous.

 

Application? If you belong to God through your faith in Christ, you can consider yourself what God considers you: Justified. Righteous. A Saint.

Now we ought to ACT the part.

 

Paul then continues his letter to the Christians at Colossae: “Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel.”

 

You and I are not Christians in a vacuum. We believe in Jesus, we learned of Jesus through the words, teaching and sacrifice of others.  Likewise, others hear of Jesus through our words and teaching and sacrifice.

 

That’s how the gospel message has spread since the Great Commission Jesus left with us in the last verses of Matthew’s gospel: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

 

And note Paul’s comment regarding the outcome of our faith and service for Christ: “Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.”

 

It is good and necessary that we often be reminded of our forever home awaiting the Christian in heaven. Listen to Revelation 21:1-5, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. . . . . and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

 

Heaven. A place where God makes all things new. The Holy Spirit speaking through the apostle assures us an eternity without pain or sorrow or disease or death, or loss, or loneliness.  That is only part of the hope laid up for us in heaven through the work of God Himself. I say it is only part of the hope because, again, as Scripture tells us: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”  (1 Corinthians 2:9)

 

The Holy Spirit continues through His apostle in verse 9:  For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

What is God’s will that Paul prays we will have knowledge of? The Scriptures from one end to the other detail God’s will for us. For example:  1 Thessalonians 4:3, 7 - “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality . . . For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.”

 

What is sanctification? That we walk in holiness of mind, body, and action. That we purposely and intentionally separate ourselves from all that can lead us into temptation and sin.

Paul also asked God to give the Colossians spiritual wisdom and understanding. And what is wisdom? Here is Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” And Job 28:28  “‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; And to depart from evil is understanding.’”

What constitutes a godly understanding? The text tells us: Departing from evil is understanding. And no one needs a Ph. D to know what is evil. Paul gives us a list of examples in his second letter to Timothy: “For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of  good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.” (2 Timothy 3:2-6).

Have you watched the news lately? Sexual perversion, murders, riots, thefts, political and religious corruption. The list today is nearly endless. And it seems to me that only those who understand the signs of the times in which we live know that we are living in a time prophesied by the prophets. Listen to Isaiah 5:20-21 “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!  Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight!”

It ought to be self-evident; The Christian is not to live like the non-believers, and the godless, and the superficial religious pew-sitters. Rather, as Paul continues in verse 10 of this first chapter, we are responsible to God to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

Indeed, Scripture makes it clear from one end of the Book to the other, the entire purpose of gaining wisdom and understanding is to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him, to bear fruit for Him, and increase further in the knowledge of God. We are responsible to God – and may He help us to do so with increasing success – to walk in a such a way as to please Him. Listen to the psalmist:

Psalm 1:1-3 “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.” He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.”

What kind of fruit do you want to bear for the Lord?  The New Testament talks of ‘fruit’ in context of drawing men and women, boys and girls toward His glorious salvation; It consists of sharing with them the wonderful news of forgiveness of all past sins, that they can be called a child of God, that He will rescue them from the power of Satan, the domain of darkness, and receive the gift of eternal life.

Don’t you want to hear God say to you after your death, “Well done, good and faithful servant; Enter into the joy of your Lord”? (Matthew 25:23.)

I will continue this series of messages through the book of Colossians over the next several weeks, but in conclusion of today’s message, let’s review quickly what the Holy Spirit, in the beginning verses of St. Paul’s letter to the Christians in the city of Colossae – and to us here at Ashwood – the Holy Spirit sets out to encourage every Christian to do several important things:

1. Regard ourselves as saints whom He has purposely set apart for His work – whatever that work might be for us at this stage of our lives.

2. Because He considers us ‘saints,’ we should strive every day to walk in a manner worthy as saintly followers of Jesus Christ – putting aside malice and gossip and greed and envy and immorality, and all other sins that want to cling to us.

3. We should make it our practice to grow in spiritual wisdom and understanding of God – through the reading of and reflecting on His word, and through prayer – and for Catholics among us, through the reverent reception of the Sacraments.

4. Finally for today’s message, we should seek opportunities from the Holy Spirit to share with others the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

God promises all who strive toward sanctification, who seek to be separate from the ungodly influences of the various media and from those who scoff at the very idea that God will judge the living and the dead – He promises even the elderly among His people: (Psalm 92:14-15) “They will still yield fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and very green, To declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

That’s His promise. And He always says what He means and He means what He says.

Can it Be Forever Gone?

 Did you ever wish you could undo what you’ve done? Did you ever wish you could start all over with a clean slate? Well, you can. That’s precisely what God has done for everyone who comes to him, trusting Him that his word is true, His promises are true; And when He tells us, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

 

For the one who trusts Christ, all sins from their past are gone. They have a clean slate in much the same way as the heavens and the earth will one day be done away with and God will create a new heavens and earth. Listen to Revelation 21:1 as John writes: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.”

 

Listen also to Isaiah 65:17 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.

 

And now 2 Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”

 

In the new creation everything will be new – land masses, flora, forests, continents, the stars, the planets – even the air we will breathe. All new.  And in the same way, God sees everything new in the life of those who come to Christ by faith. Every sin in our past is gone, covered with the blood of Christ. A clean slate.

But even more than that, while it is true that every time we now sin we muddy that new slate . . . BUT (and this is critical to remember) when we confess and repent, the Holy Spirit of God immediately restores the slate to its original post-conversion pristine condition. This holds true even for the sins we commit in ignorance, not knowing we have sinned, which happens all the time. But God, who knows our hearts, who knows we want to live holy lives – even things we do in ignorance God wipes completely clean.

 

For example,  Referring to the Day of Atonement when the High Priest took the sacrificial blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat, the Book of Hebrews reminds us: “Into the second [part of the Tabernacle] only the high priest enters once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance.” Hebrews 9:6-7

 

We find such assurances also in the fourth and fifth chapters of Leviticus. The psalmist likewise addresses sins committed in ignorance when he writes: “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.  Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression.” (Psalm 19:12-13)

 

All of this, and so much more in God’s word, obviates completely, it fully erases the supposed necessity, of Purgatory for the cleansing of sins – even those sins of which we are unaware. God’s word will forever supplant the traditions and the arguments of apologists and theologians.

 

Well, all of that is my introduction to today’s message – a rather long introduction, yes, but necessary because I want to set the proverbial stage for what now follows.

 

My text for today is from Romans 4:4ff “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: (And here, Paul quotes from Psalm 32): Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

 

I’ve spoken of this many times in the past decade that I’ve been your pastor, and I will speak of it many more times in the future as the Lord gives me opportunity because biblical truth simply cannot be overstated or overworn.

 

So, David wrote: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

Many of you remember the context of David’s two psalms – the 51^st and the 32^nd. After his adultery with Bathsheba and her subsequent pregnancy, David attempted to cover-up his sin by having her husband, Uriah, killed in battle. When the prophet Nathan accused him of doing what he did, David knew that according to God's law, there was no sacrifice he could have made that would have washed away his damnable sins. Death by stoning was the only possible option for God’s justice under the Mosaic Law.

But when David confessed his sins, Nathan told David: “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Samuel 12:13) In other words, God said to David through the prophet, “I forgive you.”

David wrote those two psalms in the aftermath of his confession and God’s subsequent remission of his sins. Listen to this text from Psalm 51: “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.”

We don’t know how much longer it was after he wrote the 51^st psalm that he wrote the 32nd, but the text Paul cited in his letter to the Christians at Rome is from that 32^nd psalm: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

I wonder if we hear it often enough – God is a God who loves to forgive sinners. He loves to wipe clean our sins. Listen to this representative Old Testament text from the prophet Ezekiel:  “Now as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus you have spoken, saying, “Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we are rotting away in them; how then can we survive?”’ Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’ (Ezekiel 33:10-11)

Yes, God LOVES to forgive the truly penitent, and I think now of the adulteress in John 8, waiting to be stoned for her sin. Many of you remember the story. After the religious leaders left one by one, Jesus said to her: “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” (John 8:11)

In other words, as Paul wrote to the Christians at Rome – and by extension, the Christians at Ashwood Meadows: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1-4)

No wonder Paul also wrote to the Christians at Galatia: It was for [such] freedom that Christ set you free; Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

I think it can also be said that we ought not place on ourselves the yoke of guilt for repented sins washed thoroughly by the blood of Jesus. Surely, “The sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10

Think for a moment about the penitent thief on the cross next to Jesus. When he asked the Lord to remember him when He came into His kingdom, the Lord Jesus promised him: “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43). In other words, Jesus told him, “I forgive you. It’s done. Your past will no longer be held against you. You have a clean slate.”

It’s the same thing He tells you who confess and repent of your sins. “I forgive you. It’s done. Your past will no longer be held against you. You have a clean slate.”

Murderers, adulterers, thieves, liars, blasphemers – the list goes on and on throughout the Bible and Church history right up to this day in 2026. To every penitent – EVERY penitent, the Savior promises: “I forgive you.” It’s done. Your past can no longer be held against you. You have a clean slate.”

And by the way, that clean slate is exactly what justification means: being declared righteous by God. It is what forgiveness—called remission in some translations—means: God treats those sins as though they had never been committed.

To me, that means whatever I’ve done in my life – and I’ve done so many horribly wicked things in my life – the Almighty Judge of all the earth will never hold any of those sins against me because Jesus atoned for my sins, and with that atonement brought me eternal justification, forgiveness, and remission of those sins.

And He has done the same thing for each of you here who have confessed your sins to Him – the big ones and the so-called little ones. Your faith in Christ’s atonement has resulted forever in eternal justification, forgiveness, remission of those sins.

To shout ‘hallelujah’ seems somehow too anemic a response from we who have been redeemed, cleansed, reborn by and through the blood of the Lamb.

Did you ever think how hurtful it is to God who tells you that you are forgiven and we respond in unbelief? Did you ever consider how it must grieve the Father when we say – out loud or in our hearts – I can’t be fully forgiven unless I suffer in some way for my sins – even when You say they’re forgiven.

It’s like when we had small children in the house, four or five-year-olds who did something wrong, stole a cookie from the cookie jar or some such thing, and then, feeling guilty, apologized. And so, we took them around and told them we forgive them, everything is okay now.

But how do you think you’d have felt if for days, weeks, even months the child lived under a shadow of guilt, not believing he’d been forgiven, that you really didn’t mean it when you told him all was okay now?

In an infinitesimally small way, isn’t that how it is with our Father in heaven? We’ve done wrong, we feel guilty about the wrong and we’ve confessed and repented before God who then tell us we are forgiven. He tells us the sins are forgotten. He tells us those sins are purged from His memory, as Scripture repeatedly assures us. And yet some of us live days and weeks and months and even years under the shadow of that guilt.

That’s why the terrible invention of purgatory is so popular amongst so many people because they don’t believe the Father when He says they are forgiven, that the sin is forgotten, that it has been purged from His memory.

Let me remind us of the passage in Luke 18:16-17. Jesus told His disciples, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.”

Why is that? One reason might be because little children trust what their parents tell them. And so to the adults in this sanctuary, including myself, God help us to become as a child and trust what the father says.

CS Lewis’ comment about this issue is right on the mark: “I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”

In 2005, David Phelps and Kyle Matthew wrote the song Gentle Savior. Listen to some of the lyrics: “Why can’t I walk away from my regrets/And why is forgiveness so hard to accept/My past surrounds me like a house I can’t afford/But You say, "Come with me, don’t live there anymore"/Gentle Savior, lead me on/Let Your Spirit light the way/Gentle Savior, lead me on/Hold me close and keep me safe/Lead me on, gentle Savior.”

You might remember what God said to Peter that day he was waiting for his companions to prepare lunch. Luke tells us that while he was praying on the rooftop of the home he fell into a trance “and he saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, and there were in it all kinds of [unclean according to the Law of Moses] four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. A voice came to him, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.” Again, a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky.” Acts 10:9-16

What did Peter do after the Lord told him, “What the Lord has cleansed, no longer call unholy, or unclean”? He brought the gospel message to Gentiles – a nation he formerly considered unclean – and they believed the gospel.

My brothers and sister, it does no violence to the whole of Scripture to extrapolate from the Lord’s comment about unclean food to say, “Whatever sin God has cleansed through your repentance and faith in Christ, no longer consider yourself unclean.”

Listen, please to this application: We cannot hope to effectively tell others that THEIR sins can be forever gone if we don’t believe it of our own confessed sins.

Let me close this message this way. As I prepared this message I had an imaginary conversation with the Lord about my past sins. It went something like this:

“Lord, do you remember when I did that terrible thing?

He said, “No, I don’t.”

I pressed the point: “But, Lord, you must remember that day and who I was with. The memory resurfaces time to time. It was a horrible thing I did.”

And God responded, “No, I don’t remember. You confessed that sin to me a long time ago and I promised to forget what you did. I promised to wipe that sin from your account. I promised to never again remember it. I promised to cast it as far as east is from the west, and I always keep my promises.”

 

God has promised you the same as He promised me – to forget your confessed sins. Listen to this last text for today, this one from Jeremiah:

 

“I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people . . . [and] I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

 

Christian: Be at peace. Live for Christ with a conscience cleansed by the blood of Jesus.

 

Amen

Effective Evangelism

 

The last thing Jesus said to His disciples before His ascension was: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

 

Let me repeat a portion of this text for emphasis. Jesus commanded, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” By definition, a disciple of Christ is one who obediently follows the Master and assists Him in spreading the gospel message. A disciple is one who, as the prophet Isaiah wrote: (Isaiah 52:7) “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news,
Who announces peace . . . who announces salvation.”

 

So, the focus of my message today addresses the question, how might we be effective evangelists for Christ, effective sharers of the good news of salvation? To answer that question, let’s look at our primary text for today in Paul’s first letter to the Christians at Corinth.

 

(1 Corinthians 3:9-15) “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

 

It should be clear from this text that Paul is using the construction of a house as an analogy to our working together with God to build the kingdom of God. In his analogy, Paul makes at least two points germane to our effectiveness as evangelists, as co-workers with God in building His kingdom. The first point: Jesus and only Jesus is the foundation of God’s kingdom. The second point: Be careful what materials we use in our construction.

 

Let’s spend some time with that first point – Jesus is the only foundation of the house, which is also called the Church – meaning the people of God as one Body with Christ. The Church, according to Scripture, is not a building or even a denomination. It is Christ’s body with Him as the head. Here is  Colossians 1:17-18 “He [Christ] is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.” 

 

That Christ is the foundation of the true Church is immutably central to saving faith. But it’s crucial we understand that foundation is the Jesus as described in the Bible, not the Jesus of our own making. The Jesus of the Bible is much more than a gentle Lamb; He is also a consuming fire. Listen to the apostle John’s description of Christ:

 

Revelation 1:14ff “His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. ¹⁵ His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. ¹⁶ In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. ¹⁷ When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man.” 

 

Paul – indeed, all the New Testament writers – write about the Jesus through whom alone the world was created. If you know your Bible well, you know the New Testament writers speak of the Jesus who is Almighty God incarnate in the form of a man. They write of the Jesus who is the only door to eternal life, which means that everyone – Jew, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, agnostic – even Catholic or Protestant – who denies the Jesus of the Bible is self-condemned and unavoidably doomed to an eternity in the Lake of Fire.

 

That might seem a harsh statement, but it is a harsh reality for all who follow the Jesus of their own desires instead of the Jesus of Scripture.

 

The New Testament writers tell us about the Jesus who demands obedience to His all His Commandments. They do NOT write about the Jesus who is updated with every century or in some cases with every decade to fit in with the culture. Such satanic-birthed lies are evidenced all around us. Just think of the churches you may have attended for a while, or heard about or read about where, for example, same-sex marriage is promoted, or abortion is an acceptable means of birth control. Whether in Catholic churches or Protestant, such evil is sweeping across pulpits and pews.

 

For example, you might have read a recent news article about Yvette Flunder, the lesbian pastor of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ in Oakland, California. She contends that the Bible needs a third Testament because she doesn’t agree with the Scriptures that address sexual immorality.

 

No, the Jesus of the Bible demands repentance from sin, a repentance which must always lead to a turning from that sin. If our repentance is not accompanied by a commensurate intent to turn from that sin, then that repentance is a worthless in God’s sight – to whom we all will give an account at the Judgement.

 

Listen to CS Lewis speak to this point about sin and repentance: “We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker’s and even with laughter.  But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble.” C. S. Lewis

 

So, to not belabor the crucial point, the Jesus of the Bible is the only foundation God provides us upon which to build our lives AND to build His Church. Which now brings us to the second point, the second element of effective evangelism. With Christ as the foundation of the Church, we must be meticulously alert to the materials we use to build on that foundation.

 

Again, here is Paul in our text: Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:12-15)

 

God separates into two categories what we use in our building His Kingdom, in sharing the gospel with others. The first category are things of value and permanence such as gold, silver, and precious stones. The things of inferior quality, things perishable, things cobbled together, He categorizes as wood, hay, and straw.

 

Many of you remember the fable of the Three Pigs and the Wolf. Three little pigs went out into the world to seek their fortunes. The first pig built his house of straw, the second from sticks, the third with bricks. One day a hungry wolf came along and demanded of the first pig: “Let me in! Let me in!”  The pig refused and said, “Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin!”

 

So, the wolf huffed and puffed and blew the straw house down, forcing the pig to flee to his brother’s house made of sticks.

 

The wolf followed and said to the second pig, “Let me in! Let me in!” When the second pig refused, the wolf huffed and puffed and blew down the house of sticks. Then both pigs ran to the third pig’s house made of bricks. When the wolf demanded, “Let me in! Let me in!” the three pigs refused.  But this time, although the wolf huffed and puffed, he couldn’t blow the brick house down and the pigs were safe.

 

I hope the point of the fable is clear as it relates to building God’s house, God’s kingdom. So, what constitutes inferior and temporary materials that will be burned up at the Judgment, and what constitutes valuable and durable materials that will last into eternity?

 

Poor motives certainly qualify as inferior building materials. Why do we do what we do, say what we say, go where we go?  Is it for self-aggrandizement, or is it to point others to Jesus? The Lord Jesus addressed this question in His sermon on the mount when He said, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)

 

And Matthew 6:2-4 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” 

 

For good reason the Scriptures warn, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways,
according to the results of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

 

We can EASILY deceive ourselves into believing our motivations are admirable. But as Solomon also warned: (Proverbs 16:2) “All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the Lord weighs the motives.”

 

A note of encouragement here: The Holy Spirit will not allow the honest Christian, the one who truly seeks the please God, to remain unaware of his or her impure motives. James tells us: “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:5) In other words, if we want to serve and to build with pure motives, we only need to ask God to reveal to us our true motives; and if He shows us what we are doing is rooted in self, we merely need to repent and ask Him to change our hearts. It’s really that simple.

 

The essential point here is that whatever we do for the Lord as we co-labor with Him in building His kingdom must be done from pure motives if we hope to build with valuable and permanent materials. (1 Peter 4:11) “Whoever speaks,” the apostle Peter wrote, “is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

 

Compromise is another perishable and worthless material that will be burned up at the Judgment. When we speak the good news with others, are we more concerned about offending them by speaking truth, or by offending God by not speaking it?

A pastor in this town told me he doesn’t speak about abortion because he doesn’t want to offend anyone in this congregation. Another pastor in this town joked from the pulpit that he wouldn’t speak about the Biblical directives of how wives must be submissive to their husbands. Why? I can only speculate it was because he didn’t want to offend the women in the congregation.

 

It is the fear of offending congregations that many pastors compromise the hard truths, the inconvenient truths, the annoying truths of Scripture and won’t talk directly about sin but rather speak around those issues in the most general terms. It’s why many in the pew rarely if ever hear their pastor speak specifically about fornication, adultery, homosexuality, same-sex, marriage, transgenderism, and all the other demonic social ills sweeping across the Church.

 

Well, let’s start bringing this message to a close. We’ve looked VERY briefly at building materials of poor and transitory quality. There are others we could have examined, but I think you can extrapolate from what we’ve already seen to what other inferior materials might be. So now, let’s look at building materials of eternal value, what Paul spoke of as gold, silver, and precious jewels.

 

As we should expect, Scripture helps us here. Listen to Paul’s final words to Timothy – and by extension, to us: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, ⁴ and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

 

In other words, tell other about the Jesus of the Bible, without compromise and without seeking either praise or reward. 

 

Listen now to Peter: (1 Peter 3:15) “Sanctify [set apart] Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.”

 

In other words, living holy lives has eternal value. We cannot hope to effectively tell others of Jesus if we ourselves do not openly and consistently seek to obey Jesus.

 

Another valuable material for building on the foundation of Christ is our maturing in Christ. What we do not want to find ourselves as those to whom Hebrews was written: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.” (Hebrews 5:12)

 

How does a child of God mature? I hope we all know the answer to that – study God’s word: “Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”  And be consistent in prayer –“But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. (Jude 1:20);

And routinely fellowship with other Christians, “Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

 

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

 

We cannot effectively make disciples unless we build on the foundation of the Jesus of Scripture and with valuable and permanent materials.

 

On October 12, 2019, the Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans partially collapsed, killing three. Investigations found weak structural elements and questionable material quality.

 

In 2021, in a suburb of Miami, the South Champlain Towers collapsed, killing 98 people. Investigators linked the disaster to the poor quality concrete used in the tower’s construction.

 

Too much is at stake – ETERNITY is at stake – for us to cheat the Lord, to cheat ourselves, and to cheat others by not, for any reason, building Christ’s kingdom according to His blueprints.