WHAT JESUS DOES FOR US PART 5

JESUS RECONCILES US

Colossians 1:19-23.

Colossians 1:19-23 (CSB) - ¹⁹ For God was pleased [to have] all His fullness dwell in Him, ²⁰ and through Him to reconcile everything to Himself by making peace through the blood of His cross — whether things on earth or things in heaven. ²¹ And you were once alienated and hostile in mind because of your evil actions. ²² But now He has reconciled you by His physical body through His death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him— ²³ if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith, and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard. [This gospel] has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a minister of it.

INTRO:  This is part 5 in our Easter series, “What Jesus does for us.”  So far we have seen that Jesus forgives our sins, He opens our eyes, He takes care of us, and He restores us.

This Palm Sunday, we are going to look at the fact that Jesus reconciles us.

Everyone has an opinion concerning Jesus.  Some say that He is the Son of God, some say that He is a good teacher, some say that He was a good man.  Even time magazine in their December 6^th, 1999 edition proclaimed Him man of the Millennium.  It reads, “The memory of any stretch of years eventually resolves to a list of names, and one of the useful ways of recalling the past two millenniums is by listing the people who acquired great power. Muhammad, Catherine the Great, Marx, Gandhi, Hitler, Roosevelt, Stalin and Mao come quickly to mind. There’s no question that each of those figures changed the lives of millions and evoked responses from worship through hatred. It would require much exotic calculation, however; to deny that the single most powerful figure — not merely in these two millenniums but in all human history — has been Jesus of Nazareth. Not only is the prevalent system of denoting the years based on an erroneous 6th century calculation of the date of his birth, but a serious argument can be made that no one else’s life has proved remotely as powerful and enduring as that of Jesus.”

But you see, all our opinions about Jesus are just that, opinions.  Opinions really aren’t anything if they are not based on truth.  Our opinion on Jesus must be based on this one ingredient – truth.

I like what C.S. Lewis said about the differing opinions on Jesus: It is a very foolish thing when people say, "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept
His claim to be God."  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic -on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.
He did not intend to."  (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity ).

The truth that we base our opinion of Jesus on is found in one source – Scripture, or the Holy Bible.  All other evidences rise or fall according to what the Bible says about Him.

One thing that the Bible does declare about Jesus is that He is a reconciler, or He has reconciled us to God.  I looked up that word, reconciled, and here is what it means: “to restore to friendship and harmony.”

Isn’t that beautiful.  And that is what Jesus dead with His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave.  He restored us to friendship and harmony with God the Father.

Since our opinion about Jesus Christ must be founded on Scripture alone; we are going to ask six questions that our text answers this morning concerning Jesus Christ and the fact that He died for us. 

Here they are.

1.  Who is Jesus – The embodiment of the fullness of God.

v. 19 - For God was pleased [to have] all His fullness dwell in Him,

A.     In Colosse, to which this letter was written too, they were struggling with an early form of what is now known as Gnosticism.

1.      Basically, Gnosticism teaches that Jesus was a created being, one of many spiritual beings between man and God, who reached his higher level through Gnosis, or knowledge.

2.      They taught that the spirit of man was good but the flesh or body of man was bad, thus, they said, God who was perfect goodness, would not and could not dwell in flesh, therefore Jesus was not born of woman.

3.      A modern tale of Gnosticism can be found in books like: The Davinci Code, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Thomas, and so on.

B.     In this letter that Paul wrote, he refutes this teaching head on.

1.      He says in this letter, that not only did Jesus reconcile us through the body of His flesh, but He states that in Jesus dwelt the fullness of God.

2.      This is just like what the Author of Hebrews wrote.

Hebrews 10:5 - Therefore, as He was coming into the world, He said: You did not want sacrifice and offering, but You prepared a body for Me.

C.     The word fullness in the Greek means that God’s total divine power and attributes dwelt or resided in Jesus.

1.      You see Jesus was completely God and completely human.

D.     What does this mean for us?

1.      That the power of God to fully and totally reconcile us to Himself resided in Jesus.

2.  What did He do – He died for us to reconcile us.

v. 20 - and through Him to reconcile everything to Himself by making peace through the blood of His cross — whether things on earth or things in heaven.

A.     Remember what that word reconcile means, to restore to friendship and harmony.  It can also mean to bring back into proper relationship.

1.      This word for reconcile is only used three times in the New Testament.  It is used to describe the restoration of a previously existing relationship: what mankind had at the garden of Eden.

2.      You see, sin put us at odds with God.

3.      Jesus, through His work on the cross, bridged the gap between God and man, making it possible for us to have a relationship with Him.

B.     You will also notice the word, peace in this verse.

1.      The Greek word for peace here means: “absence of hostility, to bind together.”

2.      You see, sin made us hostile toward God and the things of God.

3.      The Sacrifice of Jesus brings us back into peace, the absence of the hostility having been removed.

3.  Why did He die for us – because of our total depravity.

v. 21 - And you were once alienated and hostile in mind because of your evil actions.

A.     We were alienated.

1.      This was our position, our state of being.

2.      It describes isolation, loneliness, and a deep sense of not belonging.

3.      It means to be cut off in the Greek, or separated.  This is the spiritual state of man.

B.     We were hostile toward God in our mind.

1.      This before coming to Christ defines our attitude before God.

2.      Those who are not followers of Jesus Christ are living in rebellion against Him and His ways, and His will.  They are hostile toward Him.

3.      You don’t see them that much opposed to other religions and philosophies, but when you begin to talk about Jesus, the run toward the hills.

4.      Why, because their very nature made them enemies of God.

Ephesians 2:3 – We too all previously lived among them in our fleshy desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and by nature we were children under wrath, as others were also.

C.     We were engaged in evil actions.

1.      Our natural way of living was to follow our own evil inclinations.

4.  How did He reconcile us – through His death on the cross.

v. 22a - But now He has reconciled you by His physical body through His death...

A.     You see, the difference here between Christianity and Gnosticism is that Jesus came to earth in a physical body, and inspite of the temptation to sin and all the other things around Him: He never did.

1.      And in this physical body He bought us reconciliation and redemption, with His death at the cross.

2.      He did what knowledge, positive thinking, religion, and what no other person could do.

3.      He became the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that He can take us who were once hostile toward God and make us at peace with Him.

5.  Why did He do this – To make a perfect people for a perfect God.

v. 22b - to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him.

A.     Living a perfect life is a lofty goal, we should all have a goal to live better in life.

1.      But we are never going to accomplish this.

B.     But Christ presents us to the Father three ways:

1.      Holy – set apart unto Him.

2.      Faultless – not that we don’t have any faults, it is the fact that our faults have been washed away by His blood.

3.      Blameless – The accusations against us are also done away, because God is now with us.

Romans 8:31b – If God is for us, who is against us?

6.  What is the evidence that Christ accomplished what He set out to do – By us staying grounded in the faith.

v. 23 - if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith, and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard. [This gospel] has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a minister of it.

A.     There are a number of people who have head knowledge, or were maybe raised in church, or maybe attend church because it is the social thing to do, but they have no evidence of salvation.

B.     You see, you are a New Creation.

1.      The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.

2.      If this is true, then His Spirit is what works in us, compelling us to stay grounded in God, and steadfast in the faith.

3.      You may say, but it is a free choice, and I will agree.

4.      But if you have been changed, no matter how strong the pull of the old way of life might be, there is a new pull, and I honestly believe that this new pull is stronger than the old pull.

5.      How is this, because this pull is God working in you.

Ephesians 2:10 NLT – For we are God’s masterpiece (His workmanship).  He has created us anew n Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.

CONCL:  In conclusion, how can we make this applicable to everyday life.

• Make knowing and studying Scripture a priority in your life.
• Establish a time of prayer to fellowship with Him.
• Recognize your position with Christ – you are seated with Him in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
• Persevere – hang in there.
• Ask for the help the Holy Spirit.  Be filled with Him, His presence, and allow His purging so that His fruit can be produced.
• You are a child of God – walk in it.