12.06.11 AM Sermon Forgiveness through Christ. (Colossians 2:13-15)
This day we are privileged to be witnesses of the baptism of a believer in Christ Jesus.
This we celebrate - for Christ has done a work in Linda’s life that she testifies to through baptism.
And I want to highlight this morning for us something about that work of Christ in a believer’s life.
In our current sermon series, we come to some verses in Paul’s letter to the Colossians which are entiry appropriate for this occasion.
Paul’s words about the Forgiveness that is gained through Christ Jesus.
He begins by stressing the fact that we as humans are in a precarious predicament.
We all are sinners and our sins cause us to be dead to God – to put it bluntly.
What is more, we are powerless to help ourselves, or save ourselves from our sins.
We are powerless to bring about the great change in our circumstances that is so desperately needed.
We are spiritually dead and we will stay spiritually dead as far as it depends upon us.
No amount of trying to be good, of trying of please God, of trying to lift ourselves up out of the pit we find ourselves in will work.
But the apostle Paul thankfully reminds us in these verses that for the Christian, for the one who has accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, that person is no longer to consider themselves dead to God, but now alive to God, because their sin has been dealt with.
For God, in Christ, has stepped down into the pit himself, he has taken our place, and through him we may know forgiveness and life in all its fullness.
There are two images of the forgiveness that is offered to us that Paul presents to us in this passage:
1. He cancels our debts
Sin is pictured in scripture as a debt that we owe, or a bill that needs to be paid off.
The trouble is, we have no means, no capacity to be able to pay this debt of sin off.
Paul speaks of a “written code”. The perfect law of God, stands over us and condemns us.
We have failed to meet God’s perfect requirements.
The Bible teaches that even one trespass, one law broken, would cause us to be guilty of breaking it all.
That all, without exception, have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
That there is not one human being who is righteous. Not one without sin.
We here have a great problem. What can we do with this debt of sin?
You see, Sin costs, and a price must be paid for it. There is a price tag on sin.
But Paul reminds us of how Christ Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, the only perfect man, who did not deserve to pay the price, who did not deserve to die, lays down his life willingly and by so doing takes that written code and nails it to the cross.
Jesus final word from the cross “Tetalestai!” Paid in full.
The debt, the price is paid. The IOU of sin has been cancelled. “He forgave us all our sins” (v13)
What if someone offered to pay off your remaining mortgage? Or your student loan?
What about a debt that you knew you could not pay off, and it could be wiped out completely.
You could be freed from it? How liberating!
How much more should we rejoice if our sin is paid by Jesus Christ!
The debt of sin is paid by Jesus Christ as he hangs upon the cross for you and for me.
The innocent dying for the guilty. The spotless dying for the stained. The perfect dying for the mess-ups.
Has your debt of sin been dealt with?
As Jesus was crucified, Pontius Pilate had nailed to the cross Jesus’ indictment, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” Yet Paul is graphically portraying your and my sin nailed to the cross.
As though the notice instead read, “This is Jesus, who dies to pay the price for your sin.”
He can take your sin and cancel it. Here is the great exchange.
“What is ours becomes his, and what is his becomes ours.”
Our sin is laid on him and his righteousness, his right relationship with the Father God is laid upon us.
We now can stand before God free from accusation, free from sin, whole, complete, not guilty, forgiven!!
He assumes our debt and we receive the riches of his grace.
In Christ the prophesies of Isaiah and Jeremiah are fulfilled.
Isaiah 43:25, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”
Isaiah 44:22“I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”
Jeremiah 31:34 “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
2. He defeats our enemies
The second picture that Paul presents of our salvation is that of a victorious Roman general who returns home and celebrates his victory by marching into Rome in triumphal procession to the cheers of the adoring crowds. Behind him displayed, for all to see, are the spoils of war, including the defeated soldiers and their generals. They are stripped of their dignity, rendered powerless, publically humiliated and held up to contempt.
Tom Wright points out the irony of the cross in this picture that Paul presents. He says, “The ‘rulers’ and ‘authorities’ of Rome and of Israel - … the best government and the highest religion the world at that time had ever known – conspired to place Jesus on the cross. These powers, angry at his challenge to their sovereignty stripped him naked, held him up to public contempt, and celebrated triumph over him.”
We might add that it was not only the human powers that put Christ upon the cross, but that all the evil powers of cosmos took part in this ancient axis of evil to ensure that the Son of God was put to death.
What glee must have been theirs as Jesus was arrested, tortured, humiliated, hung, a cursed man on that tree, dying, suffocating, and then gave up his final breath. They had killed him, they had done their worst.
But they did not know what they had done.
In fact, though they had done their worst, God was to achieve out of it his best for the whole of humanity.
Rather than trapping him and doing away with him, they were themselves being caught and defeated.
For as Tom Wright continues, the paradox of the cross is that in reality “God was stripping them naked, was holding them up to public contempt and leading them in his own triumphal procession – in Christ the crucified Messiah.”
Christ’s enemies’ trump card was trumped.
The cross was a double-cross – the enemy is outwitted and defeated.
In this world we normally understand that an enemy has to be defeated by the exercise of greater power.
But God defeats his enemy through weakness.
Dignity is normally associated with majesty, but in Christ his glory is the shame of Calvary.
Normally we pursue and safeguard success, but Christ embraces defeat.
Normally pain is avoided, but Christ willingly accepts it.
In the weakness, shame, pain and defeat of the cross there is the opposite at work, there is strength, glory, healing and victory in Christ.
Christ is Victor, over sin and death.
They are a dealt with and defeated enemy – no longer to be enslaved by or feared.
In winning this victory against his enemy, Christ reconciles us to God.
We are brought back into a right relationship with our loving heavenly Father, where we had been estranged from him.
In baptism, we see the outward picture of what has happened inwardly in the life of the believer.
Here is a demonstration, a testimony, of death to sin and self, death to the old way of living, of a joining Christ in his death and a rising with Christ in newness of life, free from condemnation.
Sin has been nailed to the cross, death has been defeated for the one who is in Christ Jesus.
The question for us here this morning is this:
Do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?
Have you received for yourself the forgiveness that is offered you through Christ’s death upon the cross?
And are you living in the light of that forgiveness, living free from condemnation, free to follow him, exercising grace and mercy to others?
RESPONSE [Read Acts 2:22-41]
Questions to Ponder
12th June 2011
Read Colossians 2:13-15
1. Have you experienced forgiveness of your sins through Christ Jesus? Reflect upon passages about God’s promise of forgiveness, such as Isaiah 43:25, 44:22, Jeremiah 31:34. Bring to him anything that would hold you back from pursuing him (see Hebrews 12:1-13, 1 John1:5-2:2)
2. The Lord taught his disciples to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12) Is there anyone that you are not forgiving for whatever reason? Reflect upon Matthew 18:21-35.
3. (v15) “… having disarmed the powers and authorities, [Christ] made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” What are you afraid of, or what do you live in fear of? (see Rom 8:31-39)
4. Read Romans 8:1-17. What does this passage say about living by the Spirit? How does living by the Spirit of God enable us to overcome fear? What was the significance of Pentecost for the early church? How do we as church today need to rediscover the ‘meaning’ and ‘effect’ of Pentecost?
5. Why are Believer’s Baptism and Church Membership appropriate ‘faith’ responses to what Christ has done on the cross? (see Acts 2:36-41)