The Reality of Reconciliation
Notes
Transcript
Handout
This passage is about our God-given identity. We live in a world that talks a lot about our identity being found in how we feel, what we do, our ethnicity and many other ways. Yet our true identity lies in God alone, given to us through the reconciliation of Jesus, the All in All.
Live, then, in the identity Christ has given you.
We need to ask ourselves these three questions:
Who were we?
Who are we?
What are we to do with that reality?
Colossians 1:21 .
21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
The phrase “you, who once were” reminds us who we were before being reconciled by Jesus, the All in All.
We were not in harmony with the triune God.
Who were we?
Paul and Timothy give a description of who we were: “alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds”.
The Greek word for “mind” διάνοια (dianoia) is translated in the LXX as “heart”. Paul and Timothy are using it to refer to the core of our being, or the nature of our being.
We, at our cores, were alienated and hostile to God.
Alienated speaks of the status of our relationship with God. It was not in communion with him, but estranged.
We were more than just ignoring him though, we were hostile in our attitude toward him, for every sin we committed was against the triune God.
Being alienated and hostile in our natures, we produced all kinds of evil deeds, bringing more death and pain into the world. This was our nature. Paul says it this way in Ephesians 2:1-3.
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Jesus puts it this way in John 8:44
44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Who were we?
We were children of the devil.
That is who were, but it is not who we are.
Who are we?
Jesus, the All in All, has reconciled us who have received him and believed in his name to be children of God, as John writes in John 1:12-13.
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
We are children of God. Like the Matthew West song, “Hello My Name Is” proclaims:
Hello, my name is child of the one true King
I’ve been saved, I’ve been changed, and I have been set free
Amazing grace is the song I sing
Hello, my name is child of the one true King
Colossians 1:22 .
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,
We are children of God through the reconciliation of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Paul and Timothy want us to understand that Jesus was not an angel or a spiritual being that inhabited a body. He is God in flesh and bone, and he, in that flesh, through his substitutional death, reconciled us to the triune God.
Jesus’ reconciliation did not leave as we were in our nature, but transformed us, presenting us to the triune God as children of God that are holy, blameless, and above reproach. It is his righteousness given to us.
We are holy - set apart for God as God’s children. Live, then, in the reality of one set apart to God as his child.
We are blameless - all our sins are forgiven on the cross. Our past, present, and future sins are forgiven. Agree with Jesus about the reality of your forgiveness. You are blameless. Stop agreeing with the devil by accusing yourself and living in the shame of your sin. Receive God’s forgiveness, celebrating your blamelessness in Christ. Live, then, in the reality of one who is blameless, not agreeing with the accuser.
We are above reproach - Jesus’ sacrifice is sufficient, once for all sin. There is no higher court to appeal to concerning the verdict Jesus has given you. We must stop sitting in judgement of ourselves and listening to the false judgement of the enemy. Rather, choose to live in the reality of being above reproach by the reconciliation of Jesus, the All in All.
Paul sums all this up in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Colossians 1:23 .
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.
Living in our identity is contingent on being in the faith.
“The faith” is in reference to receiving and believing in the work of Christ on the cross, validated through his resurrection. We must continue to believe and receive this work in our lives. This belief is a gift from God, as Paul says in Romans 12:3.
3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
So we continue to respond to the faith given, creating a heart that is stable and steadfast in the hope of the gospel. The words “stable” and “steadfast” in the Greek are idioms for structurally sound buildings, reminding us that we build on Jesus, who is the very cornerstone of the church and of our lives.
Our perseverance comes not from ourselves, but as a gift from God.
Living in our identity as children of God, we persevere through doubt and unbelief, holding to the gospel which has spread over all the world.
Paul is a minister of this gospel of hope (as are we), which reconciles us to the triune God.
We, as children of God, holy, blameless, and above reproach, living in the reality of reconciliation, bring the message of reconciliation into our homes, our neighborhoods, our villages, our towns, our cities, our nation, and the world.
Let’s live in the reality of reconciliation.