God Who Reconciles & Preserves

Polycarp was one of the early Christian heroes of the faith. He lived between the years 70 and 155 AD. One of the things that really marks him out is he was a disciple of John the Evangelist. The man who wrote the Gospel of John in our scriptures, he was a disciple of him. And so, he wrote a letter. We know somewhat about his life from that. He was a man who taught and preached perseverance and God's preservation. and he had an opportunity to prove it. He is one of the most famous Christian lives of the early church because he was martyred. It was one of the most famous martyrdoms because of his testimony and his faith in God. The early church, they valued the faithfulness that was leading to death. The early church was under persecution. Their lives were threatened. And so, the most popular Christians weren't the ones that were invited to big conferences. They were the ones who had died for their faith, trusting in Jesus Christ to the very end. Polycarp was brought to trial, was asked to recant his faith, and responded with this, 86 years I have served Christ and He never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me? His faith was put to trial. He had the opportunity there to recant or to persevere. This was a clear, hard decision. But unwaveringly, knowing that Christ had loved him, saved him, and kept him for these 86 years, wasn't an option. He had built up a life of perseverance. Even to the point where they normally would nail you to the burning wood. But he said, you don't need to nail me to the wood. My commitment to Christ will keep me there. This morning, we're going to look at what God does for us and He calls us to do, and that is to persevere. The message this morning is this. God reconciles us by His death and calls us to persevere by faith. God reconciles us by His death and calls us to persevere by faith. Our text this morning is Colossians 1 verses 21 through 23. Let's turn there because we'll be walking through this text and there is an outline for the sermon in the back or through the door. If you did not get one, that may be helpful for you to follow along with our sermon. Verse 21, 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." Last week we looked at the high exalting Christ's hymn. Christ is the firstborn of creation. Christ is the head of the church. We looked at how Christ is exalted as the creator and the Savior of the world. It was a grand focus on Christ because that's where our theology and Christian lives and worship has to begin. Here he makes a very clear, sudden change of emphasis. Look there in verse 21. And you. He begins with who Christ is and then he focuses on us, Christians, and tells us what Christ has done for us more explicitly and precisely and what Christ has called us to. There are three parts to this text. Verse 21. Paul reminds us of who we were. We were once alienated. We were once hostile among. We were once evil in all of our deeds. Verse 22, Paul declares our new status. We're no longer alienated. We are reconciled by his death. And then verse 23, Paul calls us to persevere in the faith. Some very important doctrines are going to come out of this passage that are important for us to know as Christians. First, we're going to meditate upon who we were and how powerful our sin nature is and how scary it is and how much we should be in caution of it and protected against it. Secondly, we're going to praise Christ for what He has done for us in His death. And then third, we're going to look at the doctrine of perseverance. We're going to hear the challenge and the call of Paul to persevere. And here we're going to look at the relationship between faith and works, preservation and perseverance. Let's begin with our first verse, verse 21. And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, Here we see that by nature we rebel against God and remove from His presence. There's three descriptions of who we once were. There's three descriptions of who we are without Christ. We're alienated, we're hostile in mind, and we're evil in every deed. Let's first look at how we are removed from His presence. Alienated. held off at a distance. Our sin, apart from God's grace to draw us close to Him, causes us to be at a distance from God. The reason is, He is holy. And being a holy and glorious God, He cannot be in the presence of our sin without consuming us. This is, again, why Moses could not see all of God's glory. He was a sinner, not yet perfectly claimed and purchased by the death of Christ. We are sinners. We see this alienation best take place in the Garden of Eden. God created us to know Him, to love Him, and to be loved by Him. To know His personal, intimate presence. That's what Adam and Eve got to enjoy in the Garden. And it wasn't God who chose to send this out. It is us. It was Adam and us in Adam that chose that we know what's best. We chose to forsake His law. We decided we knew better than God. We decided that we did not want His loving, righteous rule. We wanted to rule ourselves. And the necessary consequence of us rejecting God, of us denying God and rebelling against God, is that He cast us out. We were thrown out of the garden and then we were protected from ever going back in. And we, as sinners, have all been alienated ever since. That is, until Christ came to seek us. You see, the consequences of sin is that we're held at a distance from God. His wrath and His holiness, His anger is against us as sinners. We continue to cling to our sin even today. We decide that we will choose our sin rather than to obey God. Christian, do you ever feel like God is still distant? Do you ever still sense a feeling of alienation? Do you ever pray and it feels like the prayers only hit the ceiling? When you're trying to seek God, you don't hear Him, you don't experience Him. You feel like you're just talking and no one's listening. We go through seasons where we experience alienation, a sense of alienation. If we're truly believers, we must remind ourselves that God, if He has reconciled us to Himself, we are His children and no longer alienated. Our experience deceives us. If we ever, as Christians, feel as if God is distant, we need to do two things. First, we need to remind ourselves of God's love. Our feelings Our experiences, they can deceive us. While we may be praying and seeking and never feel like we're getting that connection God has promised us, that doesn't mean that connection isn't there. That means there's something wrong that we need to pursue further. But if God has said He loves us, He loves us. If God has reconciled us, we are reconciled. We need to fight our deceptive experience with God's Word. That makes us aware and sure that God has called us. We need to go deeper in prayer and fasting and scripture meditation to make sure we are reminding ourselves of who God is and that He keeps His word. Secondly, we need to think about this feeling of distance in light of the gospel. That means we need to start pursuing, is there a sin in my life that is causing this feeling of distance? The first thing you need to do is ask, What sin was revealed to me that I did not repent of that I can trace back this feeling of distance? When did I start feeling this alienation? When was the last time I experienced the intimate presence of God? Trace back and look, what is that gross sin that God revealed that you refused to give up? Or what is that self-righteousness That counting yourself worthy and holy, when did you stop pursuing Christ? That's when you started feeling alienated. But God's presence has always been in you with the Holy Spirit. Let's continue to think about our sinful condition with the next two phrases. We're hostile in mind and evil in every action. We were rebellious in thought and deed. Hear what Paul also says in Romans 8. As a sinner, our mind is set on the flesh. The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. See, our hearts apart from Christ, our hearts apart from the Holy Spirit coming in and regenerating and illuminating and converting, our hearts are opposed to God. It's fighting God. Our hearts have the posture of fighting. Our minds are opposed. They're hostile. They're wanting to fight against. We cannot submit to God unless He actually does a good work in us first. It is our internal sin, the thoughts, attitudes, and desires, and imaginations that are opposed to God. It's not what we take in that makes us evil. It's actually what is produced in our hearts that comes out that makes God's wrath fall upon us. Here are the words of Jesus in Matthew 15. Do you not see that whatever goes into your mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart. And this defiles a person. From the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. See, it's what we produce in our minds. It's the ideas and the desires that come out of our sin nature. That's what makes us hostile against God. That's what causes God's wrath to be against us. Now, Christian, if we're all honest with ourselves, or non-Christian, what kind of thoughts do you have throughout the day? Where does your mind wander? How embarrassed would you be if someone actually got to peer in to the kinds of things that go through your heart and through your mind? You see, our hearts, those internal sins, what we produce, they're much more evil than our actions. We know how to clean up what we say and what we do. It's what's inside of us that's disgusting. The more honest we are, the more we see what is inside of us is truly gross. We don't want anybody peering in there, but God peers in there. And He says, I love you. He says, I'll heal you. He says, I'll forgive you. We should be embarrassed of the things that come in our minds and through our hearts. We need to be on guard against those things. This is why we need to be transformed in our minds. We need to protect against those imaginations, those ideas that we entertain, thinking they're not that dangerous. I can control it. It'll never come out. Then we'll be transformed in our minds by thinking about the gospel, thinking about who Christ is and what he's done for us. We just set our minds to the things above, as Paul will tell us later in Colossians. Being outwardly changed is not enough. God wants to begin the work here, so that whenever we are actually living out the Christian life, it's not self-righteous, it's the fruit of what God is doing. Here's this charge from Paul in Philippians 4a. Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. You see, it is the things that we're going to put in our minds that will affect us. Our hearts are already simple enough to produce sin. When we start feeding ourselves more garbage, it's only going to produce more garbage. We need to be careful of what we think about, what we meditate upon. Children especially. Protect your minds now. Do not let your mind and your meditations be upon sinful things. Be upon lustful things. Be upon anger. Protect your mind because your innocence cannot be regained. Once you lose it, your mind is forever corrupted by that. Christ can save you. He loves you anyway. But there's consequences of every thought that we capture. Begin by meditating upon God and His good gifts. Get a Bible promise book and just meditate upon all the promises that God has given you and let that be your delight. The second part of this evil is not only hostile in mind, but evil in action, evil in deed. The relationship of our mind to our action is very important and Paul lays this out in Romans 1 very clearly and very explicitly. Paul says God gave us up to our lustful passions and the result was that we dishonored our bodies. He says that God gave us over to our debased minds and the result was all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, strife, murder, deceit. Now Romans 1 is describing That alienated person, the person who is opposed to God and fighting against God. That sin is still present within us. Yes, we've been saved from it. Yes, God has declared us innocent. But that sin still lingers. Do not trick yourself into thinking that you can control those little guilty pleasures of imagining sin. Fight what happens in your mind and your heart so that it does not come out in your actions. Our evil, our sin, is just looking for an opportunity to burst forth at whatever opportunity. I've been humbled within the last few hours of this. I was frustrated. I wrote an email. I did not plan on sending that email. I voiced my frustration in that email, and it got sent somehow. I didn't send. Maybe God did. Maybe Lillian did. I don't know. But it has hurt my relationship with a dear friend and a dear brother. You see, my sin that I let fester took opportunity. When that sin takes opportunity, it hurts. It hurts us. It hurts others. Be careful of the kind of sins we harbor. Why is it important to remember who we were? First, the greater we understand the depths of our own sin, the greater we're going to cling to Christ. The greater we see how evil our thoughts are and our heart is, the greater we're going to depend upon Him and thank Him. Secondly, We must remember what's inside of us so that we never stop fighting it. We never arrive. Until Christ calls us home, we never arrive. We must continue the fight. We still suffer under the causes of our sinful heart, even if we are forgiven of the guilt. Let's go to verse 22. A clear, hard transition, but now Verse 22, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him. By grace we are reunited to God as if innocent. This is very similar to Ephesians 2, 12-14, which if you weren't here for the introductory sermon, these two letters were most likely written together. Let me read that passage, which you'll hear the same message echoed. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace. who has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility." Now, the first verse says we're hostile in our minds, so we are fighting against God, but this refers to hostility in another way. There's enmity between God and us, and it's actually God against us. Without Christ, God's anger is against us because we are rebellious. God hates sin. God is holy and by nature, by necessity, must hate sin and will punish every sin. What's amazing is that while we are fighting and kicking and screaming and spitting and punching, He comes to save us. The Father in His love comes to seek us, to disarm us, to forgive us, and to bring us home, to invite us to a feast we've never imagined. We could not even imagine how sweet it will be. To know Him again face to face. To know Him in His sweet fellowship. To know Him in His love. To receive the greatest love, the infinite love of God. To be reconciled. To be forgiven. Now, this is the difficult part of the Gospel. How can God forgive sinners and still be just? He must punish every sin. He must punish every sinner. His wrath is not satisfied until death takes place for every sin. How can God present us blameless while also being just? Well, that comes in the very next phrase. He reconciled us in His body of flesh by His death. Now, verse 18, Jesus is referred to as the head of the church, His body. That's His figurative body. That's us. Here, Paul refers to a different body. It's the body of flesh. It's the incarnate body. God Himself, particularly the Son, the second person of the Trinity, He ascends and He goes and He takes upon Himself an exact likeness to us. He becomes perfectly human as in the original Adam's sense. He's a second Adam. He is without sin. The purpose of that is that he might die. You see, God was going to punish all of us for our sin. God will punish all of us for our sin. There will be a hell for us. An eternal damnation and condemnation for us because of our sin. Unless there's a way for God to punish our sin without punishing us. And that's Jesus Christ. He came into this world, He was a perfect human being, He was perfectly obedient, perfectly righteous, so that He could be nailed to the cross and die in our place. Instead of God pouring out His wrath upon us, if we believe in Jesus Christ, God pours out the wrath that we deserve on His Son. The perfectly innocent one who does not deserve to die He dies so that we, when we believe in Him, no longer face death, no longer face judgment, are no longer held culpable. But instead, we receive life, an eternal life. See, He reconciles us by the incarnate death. God Himself came to suffer for us. The third part of this verse. He reconciled us to present us blameless. So, if we look at this passage, verse 21 was referring to our past. We were alienated. Now what? We have a new status. We are reconciled. He then looks forward to the future when we will be presented blameless. This is something that none of us have actually been able to at least experience yet. When we will be presented blameless to the Father, the Son will usher us in. He will take us and He'll say, Father, this is the one that I died for. Bring him into the banquet. Bring him into the feast. This is our hope. The day He will not only stop counting our guilt against us, but He'll wash away all of our sins. He will take us. He will cleanse us. We are supposed to be longing for this day where we'll no longer have sin that keeps us from pure and perfect worship. Longing for the day where we can praise Him with a perfect hallelujah. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth and all the heavens are full of His glory. The first thing He's going to present us, there's three things here and they do parallel the other three. We're presented as holy, blameless, and above reproach, without reproach. We weren't alienated, hostile, and evil. God's standard is that we be holy as He is holy. We can't do that. We're too hostile in our hearts and our minds. God does not relax His law. Rather, He dies for us. Therefore, the holiness that Christ has, the righteousness that Christ has, that is counted to us. We who are completely unholy and completely undeserving of His holy presence, we are given a new standing because of Christ. So that we can enjoy God. The second two, blameless and irreproachable. None of our sins will be counted against us. I mean, how many of you walk through your minds and the imaginations and you thought those things are so wicked? Let me walk through actions and thought, how is God going to forgive me? If we believe in Christ, every sin is forgiven. We are no longer held culpable. We are no longer counted as guilty. No one can accuse us. This means in Christ we have no fear. We no longer tremble. We have reverence for God, but we no longer have fear because of what Christ has accomplished. This means two things for us. As I prayed earlier, we are called into His presence with boldness. The Epistle of Hebrews continues to repeat this over and over again. We are to go into Christ's presence, into the Father's holy of holies, with boldness. As Chris taught us Wednesday night, we are to trust the goodness of God that calls us into His presence to call Him Father. To speak to him as a father. To make a request known to him as a father. To thank him and praise him as a father. If this is difficult, I challenge you, or I call you to look at Hebrews 12. There's a contrast. We no longer go to Mount Sinai with fear. No, we trust the great high priest who marches us right up the mountain of Zion into the presence of God. Look at how the author of Hebrews calls us to go in boldly. The second thing we should meditate upon in response to being blameless and without reproach, we must remember that no accusation can condemn us. Satan's number one strategy for disabling Christians is to remind them of their sin. To make them feel guilty. To push upon them, look at your thoughts, look at your ideas. How could God love you? Look at what you've done. Satan wants to tempt you with his lies to think that you're still guilty. To think that you cannot be lovable by God. But the truth is we're not lovable, but God loves us anyway. We are forgiven in Christ, the great declaration of God's love that he sent his son to die for us. Fight the lies that you're still guilty because he knows that if you're guilty, you're completely disabled from being productive in the kingdom work and you no longer find joy in Christ. Look for competence in Christ. Finally, our third point, our third verse, verse 23. 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. Here there's a very important word. It's only two letters. It's if. How does this if function in this verse. It's a very important matter because our confidence actually hinges upon how this if works. There's really three options and I'm going to tell you there's two dangers to avoid. Let's first look at the first two which are dangers. The first way of reading this if is to say that our salvation is conditioned upon obedience. As if We must keep ourselves in God's salvation. As if we can deny Christ who has sought to reconcile us. As if we must keep our salvation as if one could be saved and then lose their salvation. Many teach the loss of salvation. Because of verses like this, 2 Peter, Jude, some passages in Hebrews, I'll be honest, if we only had Jude and 2 Peter, the most straightforward reading of those passages would be, maybe we could lose our salvation. But I don't think that is accurate, and I'll explain why. The second danger is this. We could dismiss this entire passage as necessary, under the mantra of, once saved, always saved. There's a danger in that mantra. Now, I believe that once you truly are purchased by the blood of Christ, you cannot lose your salvation. But if we hang that banner over our heads, we lose the real thrust. We lose the real call to perseverance. We lose the main focus of assurance. It's not a decision that we made a long time ago. It's on persevering and trusting Christ. Perseverance produces assurance. Let's look at our third option. What Paul is saying is that if we have been given faith by God, that if Christ has reconciled us, then we will endure. If Christ has called us out of the darkness and into His light, if God has reconciled us, He will preserve us and that will produce perseverance. We must realize that if we truly are God's children, we cannot lose the status of being God's children. But we also can't hang our hat on that and then start to rest. No, Paul calls us to fight. Christ has been our victor. He is Christa's victor. He has won the battle over sin and death. But that doesn't mean we just now relax. No, that means we take up our arms and we fight for the glory of God. There's three arguments that I think will help us understand how this F one of God has called us he preserves us and therefore will persevere the first one is probably you're going to be your most favorite it's grammatical the grammar of the passage actually already shows you that Paul is expecting perseverance this is a conditional clause if but it's a special kind of conditional clause if you don't want me to walk through the Greek you're welcome but it's a confident conditional clause. Paul is actually giving a formula of a conditional clause that is already confident. He is expecting obedience. He does this twice in Ephesians. I think it'll help us to see what this looks like from the way Ephesians was translated. Let's go to chapter 4, verses 20 through 21. But that is not the way you learn Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth in Jesus. The same kind of clause that Paul uses in Colossians 1.23 is the same clause he uses in verse 21. But here the translator for some reason said assuming rather than if. As you look at this you can see Paul is saying you will do this assuming. He already assumes you've heard of Christ. He already assumes the positive outcome. Secondly, let's look at the context. He's declared what our past was. We were alienated. He's declared what our new status is. Reconciled. He's declared what our future hope is. Being presented blameless. How do you get from the present state to the future hope? The call is to persevere. To continue. You don't just have faith in a moment. You have faith that builds and grows and continues in steadfastness and stability. Third, theologically, as I appreciated Ben's prayer, we have to reason with all of Scripture. We don't just have 2 Peter and Jude. We have all of Scripture. We have Philippians 1.6. He who began a good work in you, he will complete it. That's preservation. He who called you, he will end it. Or Romans 8, the golden chain, he who justified you, he will glorify you. Or what Ben prayed, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. If he has claimed us, if he has called us, he will keep us. Nothing can separate us from the God who reconciles us. And let's look at this call, and I want this to be a charge to persevere, as if your very life depended upon it, because it does. Continue is the charge. It's modified positively by steadfast and stable, and negatively by not shifting from the hope. See, the Colossians, they were shifting. They were wanting to trust in rituals. They were wanting to trust in other beings, angels. They were shifting. And Paul said, keep your hope steady, steadfast, focused on the only one who can save you, Christ the Creator and the Savior. I thought about these words, steadfast and stable. One word came to mind. Christians need ballast. That's the undergirth of a boat. It's what keeps it stable. You don't see it because it's under the water, but it's the deep, Part of the boat that keeps the whole boat afloat and keeps it from tottering. We need ballast. How do you get ballast? You don't get ballast by being busy and serving in the church. That is not the production of ballast. That is not pursuit of ballast. Ballast comes from one source. It is the rock, Jesus Christ. Ballast only comes when we find absolute confidence in what Christ has done for us. We cannot trust in how busy we are and how much we've served. We can only trust in that great, deep truth that Christ, Almighty God, has died for us. He must be the foundation. He must be the deep parts that keep us from wavering. That's why young Christians are oftentimes somewhat moody. They don't have that ballast yet. They continue to worry about how evil they are. As sin is revealed, they worry, could God still love me because of this? They haven't gotten the ballast. There was nothing lovable to begin with. It was all God's work. This is what our psalmist talks about in Psalm 1. The tree planted by the river, those roots, that's the ballast. It isn't uprooted in any way. It's got deep roots that are soaked in the water of God's Word, the truth of God's declaration. We are forgiven and God loves us. So, how do we continue faithfully? How do we develop ballast? Well, there's nothing novel here. God's told us how to get ballast. You read His Word. You meditate upon it. You memorize it. You learn to trust it completely. You pray to God. You fast. When there's a sin that's being revealed and it's this weighty or there's a matter that you don't think you can handle, you pray and you fast. You fellowship with other Christians. You hear how God is teaching them. You find senior saints who can point you to God's Word and get you through difficult times. The problem in much of the evangelical world is that these things become ends in their own. Read your Bible, pray, fast, fellowship. These are means to an end. When we do these things, we must do them with the purpose of loving Christ more. That's our end. When we do these things, when we practice them in the disciplines, it's always for the purpose of knowing God more and loving God more. This prepares us to fight. God wants to stabilize us in Christ, prepare us, build us up, and get us ready for battle. Because life is not a playground. This world is not a place where you play. This world is full of sin. This world is full of destructive temptations that if we put our guard down, we will be destroyed. This world is not a place to put your guard down. It's a battlefield, a battlefield for souls, a battlefield for our souls, for our children's souls, for the souls of this entire world. Are we seeking God to have the depth so that we can then be armed to go out and do battle? We must gird ourselves with God's truth. We must set our hearts and our minds and our entire being on persevering depending upon Him. Finally, in verse 23, we see the cause of our continuing and it's the hope of the gospel. The hope of the gospel that's going out into all the world. The hope of the gospel that God is producing. We must set our hope not on this world and make it our playground. We must do battle knowing that there's an end and there's a beautiful end. One that we're going to remember in the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is pointing us back to how Christ died for us and pointing us towards that great banquet feast where we get to enjoy His loving presence forever. Persevere in the faith by relying upon the faithful God. Now how many of us when we read about Paul, when I was talking about Polycarp thought, I would be that guy. If I was ever tested, I would say, burn me at the stake. Who wants that opportunity to make a great declaration and a testimony of God under those kind of pressures? We all think we could do it. I see some of that saying, no, I don't want to. We all wish we could. Here's the thing, Christian. We have an opportunity to proclaim Christ in that way every week, every day, every hour, every minute. See, every time sin creeps in and tempts, that's an opportunity to deny yourself or deny Christ. We don't need the stadium. We don't need the judge. We don't need the fire. We can make a decision every day, every minute, with every temptation. Are we going to deny ourselves? Are we going to deny the temptation? Are we going to deny Christ? Persevere in his love, persevere in his faithfulness, and fight against the temptation. And don't do it by yourself. Bring other saints into the battle with you. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we look forward to the day when your church militant will be the church at rest. Give us that hope Help us, Lord, to see with absolute eyes of faith that that hope is sure so that we fight the good fight and we run the race. Help us, Lord, to trust in you our victor, to trust in you our substitute for what you've done for us so that we are built up and ready to go to war. War against our own desires and our own temptations and our own thoughts. We go to war proclaiming your gospel, fighting the accusations of the evil one, and kicking down the gates of hell. Help us, Lord, to do these things with the trust of what You have already accomplished and what You have called us to. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.