Hope Church LV Sermons
The Incomparable Christ :: Colossians 1:14
You know, with every generation, there is a new vocabulary. This was never more evident to me than it was a couple of weeks ago when I went and preached our student camp here at Hope. Now, if you don't know my history for the first seven years I was in ministry full-time, I was in student ministry. That's what I did. But it's been 15 years since I was involved in student ministry and it's been seven years since I even preached a student camp. So it was quite a culture shot for me to spend the entire week with our teenagers here at Hope. It was awesome. I loved it. But I understood again every generation has its own vocabulary, right? So I was thinking about that going into camp and I'd kind of been joking back and forth with our student pastor, Pastor Scott about needing to learn the vocabulary. So on my drive up to the camp, I get this text message from Pastor Scott and he's telling me what my opening line for the camp ought to be. I want you to look at the text message on the screen. "What's the haps?" "Dudes, I hear you had a Narnar bus ride, but we're up in this business and that's legit yolo." I knew in that moment. I needed a special manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God to make it through camp. I was in desperate need of the gift of tongues if I was going to be able to preach to the students in any way that they were going to understand me. Every generation has its own vocabulary. Now we did that to my parents. I know in my generation, if you're from my generation, you remember everything was good was bad, right? I mean, that's kind of the way we confused everything. But it's not just true in generations, it's also true in cultures. Every culture has its own vocabulary and usage of words. I went for the very first time in 1998 to the nation of South Africa. I've been now every year since then. But when in 1998, for the very first time to South Africa, and I thought this won't be too bad. I mean, everybody there speaks English. I was able to preach in English because everybody uses English. If you don't know much about the continent of Africa, there's so many dialects and languages that if they didn't speak English, they would not be able to communicate with each other. So everybody in Africa speaks two, three, some of them six, seven different languages. It's very condemning to us here in America with our educational system in Africa. They still speak seven, eight, nine different languages and don't have near the opportunities to be educated that we do here on the continent of the Americas. When I went for the first time, I'm thinking this isn't going to be too bad. They speak English. I speak English and I get there and I remember the first day or two, we're sitting down in a restaurant there in Johannesburg. And I need a napkin. I'm sitting at the table, and so I turn to the server and ask for a napkin. Well, in South Africa, a napkin is a baby diaper. They call what we call a napkin a serviette. And so when I ordered a napkin, they looked at me like, "What?" Every generation, every culture has its own vocabulary, and here's the point. If you don't understand the words they are using, you will not understand the message that is being communicated. The same is true with the Bible. If we do not understand the words that are being used in the Bible, we will miss the message that is being communicated. And that is never more true than it is, I think, in the verses that we're going to be looking at this morning. If you have your Bible, go ahead and turn to Colossians chapter 1. If you are visiting with us as a church family, we are just walking straight through the book of Colossians together as a family of faith. We're just going verse by verse through this wonderful New Testament letter. We began a series last weekend within the context of Colossians chapter 1 called "The Encomparable Christ." There's a section of Scripture right here in the middle of chapter 1 where Paul is writing to this church in Colossae, and he's specifically dealing with these false teachers that have come into the church at Colossae. And they've begun to raise question about two things. They've begun to raise question about who Jesus is, and secondly, who they are as Christians because of who Jesus is. And so Paul writes what scholars believe to be, one of the greatest sections of Scripture in all of the Bible on the person and work of Jesus Christ. So we've set aside seven weeks to just unpack these verses and dig into these truths about the person of Jesus Christ who is beyond comparison. We said last weekend that the big idea is that there is nobody like Jesus. But as we dig into verse 14, that's where we are today. Colossians chapter 1, we're only going to look at verse 14 this morning. But as we look at this simple verse of Scripture, Paul uses two words that we need to be sure we understand. One of the words, we're going to have trouble understanding because it's not a word that we use with regularity today. The other word is a word that we use a lot, but unfortunately our meaning of the word today and what's meant by that word in the Bible are very different. Colossians chapter 1, look at verse 14, here's what it says, "In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Let's read that off the screen together. You ready? One, two, three. "In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Two words here. First word, redemption. Redemption is not a word that we use as regularly today as they did and the day that Paul wrote this letter. The word redemption has the idea of paying a ransom. William Barclay, a great word scholar, said that it means the buying back of something which was in the power of someone else. Now although this word today, when we hear it, may not mean as much to us and it may not bring the imagery to us that it did to the recipients of this letter that Paul wrote. In Paul's day, this word had great significance and here's why. One of the defining yet horrific marks of the Roman Empire was slavery. Slavery dominated the Roman Empire. Let me show you a quote from John Madden, not the football John Madden, but a article that he wrote that was published by the University of College in Dublin, Ireland. This is what it said about this Roman Empire. Those slavery was a prevailing feature of all Mediterranean countries in antiquity. The Romans had more slaves and depended more on them than any other people. It was a society and a civilization that was built on the backs of slavery. In Rome itself, just in the capital city of the Roman Empire, there were approximately six million people who lived in the city of Rome during the time that Paul wrote this letter. In the city of Rome, of the six million people who lived there, two million of them were slaves, meaning that one out of every three people in the city of Rome were in bondage to slavery. Throughout the Roman Empire, there were approximately 10 million slaves in the Empire. Now there was one unique aspect of slavery in the Roman Empire that had not existed in prior civilizations. In the Roman Empire, slaves had the opportunity, the hope of being set free. Although they were slaves, although they lived in bondage to a master, a slave could live in the Roman civilization with the hope, with the possibility of being set free. Now on rare occasions, the owner themselves would set a slave free, but the most common way that slaves were set free was through a process known as redemption. Here's what it meant. The slave owner would set a price for each slave that he or she had, and a friend or a family member or someone who was close to you that was free could save up their money. For some, it meant a lifetime of savings. This wasn't just a small price. This wasn't just like going out on our day-to-day and buying a car. What it would have cost them would have cost them most of their life savings, and they would save sometimes for year after year after year after year until they'd finally saved enough money that they could go and redeem this slave, and they would go to the slave owner, and they would offer this payment for them as a ransom. The slave owner would accept that payment and turn that slave over to the person that had paid the ransom, and then that person would set them free. Can you imagine what it must have been like to have lived most of your life in slavery? To wake up every day of your life knowing that you lived at the whim and desire of someone else. The slave, you were nothing more than a piece of property to be used. Can you imagine what it must have been like the emotion of the moment when they were given the news? Your redemption has been paid. You have been set free. Listen, if you are a Christian, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you cannot only imagine what it is to be redeemed. Listen to me, you have been redeemed. You say, what do you mean by that? Let me tell you. Let me tell you what I mean by that. The Bible says you go all the way back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned against God. Sin entered the human race and every person since Adam and Eve has been born into this world. We talked about this last weekend in verse 13. He described the domain of darkness. That's what the bondage is. Since Adam and Eve, every person has been born into this world, dead to God, and alive to sin. We've been born captive to sin. We've been born dominated and defeated by sin. We've been born as slaves to sin. Because of our lifestyles of sin, the Bible says that there was a debt that we owed. We looked at it last weekend, the wages of our sin is death. Because of our sin, our price of redemption was eternal death, not simply physical death. It was eternal death because our sin was against the Holy God. Some people have erroneously, and hear this carefully, some people have erroneously believed that this debt that we owed that Jesus came to pay, he paid to Satan. That is not true at all. No, it was the holiness of God that demanded that the law of God be satisfied. Because God is holy, he could not be and chose and would not choose to be in fellowship with sin. His holiness demanded that our sin debt be paid. But as sure as the holiness of God demanded that his law be satisfied, the mercy of God demanded that he be the one to satisfy it. Listen to the way the Bible describes it in 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 18, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood. As of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. Listen, in order for you and I to be redeemed, in order for us to be set free from the bondage of sin, in order for us to be set free from the captivity of sin, somebody had to pay the price, the price of eternal death. Why did Jesus come into the world? Let me tell you why he came. He came as our kinsmen redeemer. He came as one who'd set his heart on us to redeem us from the bondage of sin. Jesus offered his life as he turned, that's why only Jesus was qualified. He was eternal God. When he died, it was an eternal death. Jesus died on the cross for our sins to pay for our redemption and through the blood of Christ you and I have been set free. Here's a definition of redemption. Let me give it to you. redemption is the purchasing of our freedom from the bondage of sin. Look at me. If you are in Christ, you are free. I want to show it to you in the Bible. Turn over to Romans 6. If you don't have a Bible, you can look on the screen. Romans 6 verses 6 and 7, look what he says, Paul says, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be, what does it say, slaves to sin for he who has died is what does it say, freed from sin. Here's what that means. If you, as a believer, are still allowing sin to dominate your life, you are believing a lie, that is not who you are anymore, you are free. Let me tell you what's happened to a lot of Christians. A lot of Christians are living the picture I'm about to describe for you. We were in captivity to sin. Our lives dominated by sin and the flesh. The prison door was closed. We were in bondage. Jesus paid the price for our redemption and the prison door has been opened, but let me tell you where a lot of Christians are living, you're still sitting in the cell. It's time for you to walk in the freedom that has been purchased for you through the blood of Jesus Christ. Don't you let the enemy tell you this is who you are. Listen, that is not who you are anymore. Don't you let your flesh tell you this is just the way you're always going to be. Listen to me. That's not who you are anymore. That may be who you were in your flesh, but that is not who you are in Christ. You have been redeemed and you have been set free by the blood of the Lamb. That's the first word. Listen, if you don't understand that word, you're not going to understand the message. I'm not preaching yet. I'm going to get to the message in a minute, all right? We're just introducing the words right now. Let me give you the second word, forgiveness, forgiveness. At its root, the word forgiveness means to send away. This is a word we have a hard time grasping today because our forgiveness is very different than God's forgiveness. Now, this is a word unlike redemption. We use it a lot. The problem is we just don't mean what God means when we use it. We'll say, "I forgive you until I need it." And then I'll go drag it back out right into the forefront, right? Husbands, wives, come on. You've been forgiving only to hear it again. And again, and again. Let me give you a definition of forgiveness. The removal of the guilt of sin, past, present, and future. That's a good place to say, "Man," right there. Hey, I told you this last week. This is the truth. Listen to me. The greatest thing that could happen to you during this seven week series is you start believing about you, what the Bible says about you. If you would just begin by faith to accept as truth, not the lie that the enemy says, not the lie that your flesh tells you, but if you could just by faith begin to say, "Lord, I don't feel it. I don't understand it, but by grace, God by faith, I accept what you say about me to be true." Did you hear that definition? The removal of the guilt of sin, past, everything you've already done, and that one we can kind of wrap our heads around, present what you did on the way here in the car, future, and future. You mean the stuff I hadn't even done yet? You do know that when he came, all your sin was still in the future, right? I want to give you some biblical pictures of forgiveness that I hope will forever change your life. There are four of them from the Old Testament, and then we're going to get to the sermon this morning, all right? If y'all are laughing like you think I'm kidding, I'm going to give you four pictures. The first one has to do with this idea that our sins have been sent away from us. We don't have time to read it, but in the Old Testament book of Leviticus chapter 16, you can read about the day of atonement and what they would do on the day of atonement and what they would bring to goats. One of the goats, they would sacrifice on an altar as a picture of the blood that Jesus would one day shed for our sin to bring our forgiveness. You know what they do with the other goat? You know what they call it? You may know? Yeah. The scapegoat. What'd they do with the scapegoat? The scapegoat symbolically took all of the sin of Israel on it, and the priest led the scapegoat out in the wilderness, far away from the people of God as a symbol that God had removed their sin. Can you imagine the joy and the camp as they watched the scapegoat leave with all the guilt of their sin? How far has God separated our sin from us? Let me show it to you. Psalm 103 verse 12, listen what it says. Look at it as far as the, say it out loud, east is from the west. Now you remember when this was written, right, several thousand years ago when the popular opinion was the world was flat, right? Yet God in His sovereignty who created the world inspired these words to be east and west. Why did He say east and west and not north and south? When you travel north, eventually you will travel south, right? Because you will hit a pole and you will be coming south. There is a measurable distance between the north and the south. You head out of the parking lot today going east. You will be traveling east forever until you turn around and decide to head west. The distance between the east and the west is infinite. It is immeasurable. Listen what he said, as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. God has taken our sins, guilt, and separated it an infinite distance away from us. That's good news. Amen? Let me give you the second picture. Micah chapter 7 and verse 18, listen what it says, look at it on the screen. Who is a God like you who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights an unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. Yes, you will cast. Look at that little underline word. What is it? All. Is that past? Yes. Is it present? Yes. Is it future? Yes. All our sins into thee. What does it say? Depths of the sea. You know how deep the ocean is, that it's the deepest part, 36,000 feet. Now to give you a box to put that in, you know how tall Mount Everest is at its highest peak? Just over 29,000 feet. So the ocean at its depth is deeper than the peaks of the mountains at their height. To give you another frame for that, Mount Charleston, here's 11,000 feet at the top. 36,000 feet deep are the depths of the sea. We never lost something in the ocean. When I was a little boy, we'd go to the ocean down in the Gulf, we'd go down to what they call the Redneck Riviera down in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm not making it up. That's what they call this. You'd see Bub out there in overalls on a beach, you know, that's where we'd go. Well, my dad was not a guy that was really built to lay out on the beach. You know, my dad, my dad's six foot four, about 350 pounds, and my dad always said if he layed out on the beach, he's afraid they'd push him back into the water. So my dad, we would get to the beach early in the morning. My dad would walk straight out about, I don't know, 100 feet, 150 feet out as far as he could go to still stand up in his head, be just out of the water. And he would stand there for eight hours and just all day long in the ocean. I remember when I was a little boy, I'd swim out there on a raft or something to be, try to be out there close to him. And I remember one time my dad lost his glasses in the ocean, and I was probably a young teenager at this point, and my dad's glasses fell off, and I mean, they fell off right at his feet, and we're standing in probably five feet of water, and they're just gone. I mean, you lose something in the ocean and five foot of water, and you'll never find it again. And the Bible says God has taken the guilt of your sin and the guilt of my sin, and he has buried it in 36,000 feet of water. Here's what that means. God has placed all of our sin in a place where it will listen, never surface again, never. Let me give you another picture. Isaiah chapter 38, the last half of verse 17, listen what it says, "It is you who has kept my soul from the pit of nothingness, for you have castes it again, all that past present and future, all my sins behind your back." That phrase behind your back refers to the middle of your back. I want you to do something. I want you to sit up on the edge of your seat, all right? It's classroom participation time. Sit up on the edge of your seat. Now I want everybody to try to look at the middle of your back. Come on. You've come to a discovery, right? It's not what? It's not possible. You know what the word says? God has placed all of our sins in a place where he will never look on them again, never. Let me give you the last picture, Isaiah 43 verse 25, listen what it says, "I even I am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." Now that does not mean he forgives and forgets, because if he forgot he would cease to be God. Let me tell you what it does mean. He sovereignly chooses to never remember them again. Spiro zodiaces is a great biblical scholar. I want you to look on the screen at the way he defines this Hebrew word remember, all right? Look at it. Here's what he says. Meaning to mention, to recall, to think about, to think on, to be remembered, to acknowledge, or to make known. Now I'll leave that up there for a second. God has chosen to never mention the guilt of my sin again. God has chosen to never recall. You ever come into the presence of the Lord as a Christian and say, "Lord, I'm sorry again." You know what the Father says? Again, I don't recall what you're talking about. You see, his forgiveness is not like our forgiveness. You do something to me, I'll forgive you, I want to forget it, but the Father's forgiveness? Listen, He doesn't see you the way you see you. He sees you clean. Not because I deserve that. If you missed last week and you got to go back and listen to the mercy and the grace of God, right? It's because of His mercy and because of His grace. I've been forgiven. Now, that's the introduction. I want to give you three important truths this morning and we're going to hit them quick. But you had to understand what I've explained to understand verse 14. Here's the first truth, redemption and forgiveness are complete in Christ. Back at our text, Colossians chapter 1 and verse 14, listen to what it says, "In whom we have redemption," the forgiveness of sins. You see, we hear this amazing truth about redemption and forgiveness. The first question that we want to ask is, what do I have to do to get that kind of redemption and forgiveness? What do I have to do? That's the question that religion wrestles with. You see, the reality is we're asking the wrong question. And all religion, Islam, Mormonism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and even Christianity when it takes on the form of religion is answering the wrong question. And that's why we come up with man's attempt to somehow earn redemption and earn forgiveness through a set of do's and don'ts or rights and wrongs or rules and regulations, ceremonies and rituals. That's what religion is. You boil any religion down, don't you call it whatever you want to call it. Any ism, Vance Abner says ought to be a wasm. You call it whatever you want to call it. Here's what all religion is, religion is man's attempt to somehow through a system of do's and don'ts, rights and wrongs, rules and regulations, systems and ceremonies, it's man's attempt to somehow overtake my past and make myself acceptable to God. You know the problem with that? It's impossible, no matter how much, listen, I can be so religious, I can get baptized until I'm as wrinkled as a California raisin. I can memorize every verse in the Bible, but it doesn't change the fact that I've sinned against God. The question is not what? The question is who? The verse begins in whom? Don't miss that. In whom we have, present tense, in whom we have redemption. You see, in Christ, God did for me what I could not do left to myself. Well, we're going, I'm going to give you a sneak preview. What Colossians chapter 2 up on the screen, Colossians chapter 2 verses 13 and 14, we're going to get here in a little bit. I want you to hear, you're going to forget by the time we get there anyway, so I'm going to go ahead and say it this morning. Listen what it says, "When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven." I love that tense, having forgiven us, all our transgressions. I love that, having forgiven, it's done, all past, present, future, how? Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, what end the world is that? Let me tell you what that is, it's so good. In Roman culture, any time somebody was convicted of a crime, the judge would write out what they were guilty of. It's called the handwriting of the ordinances or these decrees of debt. That's what it's called. The judge would write those things out and that's why when Jesus was crucified, you remember they put that above His cross, above His head on the cross? He's the king of the Jews, why? Because that was what they found Him guilty of. They found Him guilty of trying to be the king. They would write these things out and when they would execute someone, they would post them so that everybody knew this is what He's guilty of. And the Bible says this decree is hostile against us, here's what it means. He's constantly in your face saying you are guilty, you are guilty, you are guilty before God. The Bible says on the cross, Jesus took your certificate and Jesus took my certificate and He nailed it to His cross. Here's what that means. When Jesus died, what was the last thing that He said? It is finished and the Greek, it's italesti, it literally means paid in full. Our certificate of debt, our redemption and our forgiveness has been completed, everything that needed to be done to redeem me of my sins and to forgive me past, present and future has been finished in Christ. That's why Paul said in whom we have. What we hope to have or even we will have. We have. Listen to what John MacArthur said. God knows how we were, how we now live and how we will live the rest of our lives. He sees everything about us and start naked reality, yet He says, "I am satisfied with you because I am satisfied with my Son to whom you belong. When I look at you, I see Him, and I am pleased." And forgiveness are complete in Christ, let me give you the second one, redemption and forgiveness are continuous in Christ. In whom we have, it's present and active, meaning you could translate it this way. In whom we continuously have. Here's what it means. My relationship with God never changes. You didn't get it. You just shouted, "Is that something if you would have?" Here's what it means. Look at me. I want you to get this. There is nothing you will do today, nothing that will make God love you less or more. Nothing. You see, this redemption and forgiveness is continuous. There's nothing that you and I can do today that will cause God to go, "Boy, I love Him a lot more today. Look at there." Or I'm so disappointed in Him. God never sees you that way. Why? Because He sees you as His Son, Jesus, not because I deserve that, but that righteousness has been imputed to my account and that redemption and that forgiveness is ongoing. My relationship with Him never changes. You say, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What about 1 John 1, 9?" Let's put it up there. Christians love this verse. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Pastor, it sounds there like this forgiveness thing is conditional. No, no, no. See, you're confusing. If you read the context of 1 John 1, you're confusing relationship and fellowship. I didn't say my fellowship with God doesn't change. My relationship with God doesn't change. I said, "What do you mean by that?" Here's what I mean by that. There are some days me and my kids aren't all speaking terms. Right? Mom's dad. Mom's dad, you know what I'm talking about? Now it's not really because I don't want to talk to them because of what they've done. They don't want to talk to me, right? You see, when I sin against God, it breaks the fellowship. I'm still this child. Listen, my kids, we may not be on speaking terms, but they're still my kids. I don't love them anymore or less. My kids don't have to love God for me to love them. I pray my kids love God, but I love my kids whether they love God or not because they're my kids. They belong to me. My fellowship with God gets broken when I sin, but not because God doesn't want to be in my presence, it's because I don't want to be in His. And first John says that to restore the fellowship. The word confess, you know what it means? It's a Greek word, homo logato. It's two words put together. The word homo means the same. The word legato means to say or speak. You know what it means? To say the same thing. You know what it means? It means to agree with God. Lord, you're right. I'm wrong. God to thank you for your forgiveness. Let me give you the last truth. We got to finish. They're waffles to be eaten. Sin and forgiveness produce devotion to Christ. I know what some of you are thinking, Pastor, you go preaching this message, doesn't that mean that people can go live however they want to live? I mean, if redemption and forgiveness is settled in Christ past, present and future, doesn't that mean I'm just going to live however I want to live? Yes. But if you've experienced this redemption and forgiveness, it changes the way you want to live. I'm going to prove it to you. Luke chapter seven tells a story. I'm not going to read it. It's a long text. But I encourage you to read it. It starts in verse 36. It goes to the end of the chapter. Jesus is in the home of a Pharisee, this religious person, and they're talking, having dinner. And in the middle of a dinner, this prostitute bursts through the door. She takes a vial of perfume scholars tell us what have probably been her life savings in a bottle. And she breaks open that bottle, and the Bible says she lays at the feet of Jesus. And she's anointing his feet with that perfume. And the tears of her face are falling on his feet, and the Bible says she takes her hair and she is wiping the feet of Jesus with her hair. And the Pharisee says, "Well, if Jesus knew who this woman was, he would not allow her to do that." And Jesus says, "Son, let me teach you something; let me tell you a story." He says, "There were these two debtors that owed the same person, one of them owed just a little bit, and the other one owed a lot." And he forgave them both. Jesus said, "Mr. Smarty Pants, which one of them do you think was the most grateful?" The Pharisee said, "Well, I guess this is the one who owed the most." And he said, "She loves much because she has been forgiven much." And you've experienced, I don't know about you, but I know me. Week in and week out. So many of you come out or you'll send me an email, tell me how much you loved, the message how much God spoke to you, listen to me. I say this with all sincerity, I'm the most shocked guy in the room when you tell me that. You know why? Because I know me. See, you only know me up here, I know me. I know the choices I've made. I know that I'm the last person on planet Earth that deserves to get to stand up here. Don't you think for a second that those who stand up here are better than you? We've just been forgiven a lot. And when you've tasted his redemption, and you've experienced his forgiveness, it produces a devotion. Nobody's got to give me a set of rules. My heart is not how close can I get, my heart is how far can I get away. Not Lord, where's the line where I can still be good and not sin, but let's get so far away from it that we're so close to Him, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin. [BLANK_AUDIO]