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:
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
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