See What God Has Done

Today I want to dive into Colossians chapter 1 15-20

But before we do that I just want to back up and look at verses 12-14

English Standard Version Chapter 1

12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

You have been qualified.

Olympics—I enjoy watching the best in the world compete, so many good stories of sportsmanship and even Christian witness

Favorite--Cole Hocker 1500 meter race

Hocker was not a favorite to win this race

Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigsten—won gold Tokyo Olympics 4 years earlier

Britain’s Josh Kerr—gold at the world championships

These guys were favored and had a heated rivalry with each other—a lot of trash talking

Either one of them could have won this race. No one was talking about Cole Hocker, even though he had already

Indiana state title in high school

NCAA championship at Oregon

Multiple titles in USA track and field competitions

And this year he was the silver medalist at the World indoor track and field championships

Still, few people were talking about him

And so, in the Olympic final of the men’s 1500 meter race, Hocker lined up against a very strong field, including Norway’s Ingebrigsten and Britian’s Kerr

The guns sounded and it seemed like the race was going to wind up just as everyone had predicted— a shootout between Kerr and Ingebrigsten

Going into the last lap, Hocker was 5th

You know, winning an Olympic medal must be an amazing accomplishment—you are going against the best in the world

But you know, what, you don’t get there if you don’t qualify

You can be considered the best in the world

But that doesn’t mean that you automatically get an Olympic medal. You don’t even automatically get to compete in the final

You have to qualify

You have to get past the USA’s olympic qualifications

you have to get past the preliminary heats, the quarter finals, and the semi-finals, before you can race and possibly win a medal

You have to qualify. You have to be good enough

the emphasis is on you. It’s up to you and your coaches and you to qualify for the final event and maybe win an award

And you know, that’s the way that a lot of people approach Christianity and their relationship with Jesus

It’s the way a lot of people think when they think about our final reward

They say, “Well, I just don’t know if I’m good enough”

I don’t know if I’ve done enough

Some folks, when they approach the end of their life on this earth and contemplate going to be with Jesus, they say, “Well, we can hope, can’t we?”

Helpful to know to whom Paul is writing

He is writing to Gentiles

you know, a lot of Jews who had come to faith in Jesus still had this idea of, “Well, we’re Jews. Of course we qualify. Of course God is pleased with us and will give us a reward some day. Of course we can expect to share in the inheritance that He has for us. We’re Jews!”

But the Colossian Believers were Gentiles.

They knew good and well what the Jews thought of them

They knew that they didn’t have the birth or the nationality to qualify

And there was nothing that they could do to change that

On top of that, there were some other challenges

Remember in our intro to Colossians, we talked about some false teaching that they were encountering

One of the aspects of this false teaching was , “Hey, you don’t qualify, unless you believe or practice like this”

It had to do with belonging. Do I qualify, or belong in this new group? This church? Do I qualify as a saint? or believer?

Because in chapter 2, Paul tells them

Do not let anyone pass judgement on you in questions of food and drink or festivals

verse 18, “Don’t let anyone disqualify you, insisting on certain life styles or worship of angels, etc.

Don’t let anyone disqualify you. Why?

Because (back to our passage today) we don’t qualify ourselves to partake in the blessings and in the inheritance that God has prepared for us

I don’t qualify myself, and no one here in this room qualifies me

And no one here gets to say for certain whether or not I am disqualified

Because it isn’t us who do the qualifying and disqualifying

It’s not me who by putting in enough effort and training and discipline, as an Olympic runner does, qualifies myself to share in an award at the final race

On the contrary, it is GOD

Paul says, I thank God who has qualified you to share in the inheritance

There is a reward waiting for the people of God. There is an inheritance. And it’s not just for anybody. It’s for the people of God.

It is for the saints. And you need to be qualified to receive it.

But here’s the amazing thing:

We don’t go out and train for years to qualify ourselves and win the prize

Rather, it is God, who qualifies us

That’s not to say there is nothing we do. Jesus is pretty clear that in order to be His disciple and follow Him, you need to count the cost. It’s going to cost you a lot!

But it is God who declares us qualified to enter into His Kingdom and receive the inheritance that He has for us

Isn’t it amazing to think that He has an inheritance waiting for us

We are co-heirs with Jesus Christ

And that inheritance is described for us here in the following verses

And what we discover is that this inheritance that is referred to is not only a future reality. In other words, it’s not just heaven that he is talking about. But it is now

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness

In WW 2, there was a horrific event called the Bataan death march

took place in the Philippines

Japanese forces overwhelmed American and Filipino forces on the Bataan peninsula

And rounded up 75,000 of them and forced them to walk over 65 miles to a prison camp in sweltering heat with almost no food and water

Those who fell or couldn’t make it were shot

When they reached the prison camps, the conditions were absolutely appalling...

No medical help

Very little food and water

Constant threat of execution hanging over them

Especially as General MacArthur’s army began closing in

Those who survived this recall believing that they would not make it out alive…things looked pretty bleak and hopeless for them

They needed a miracle,

And they got one, at least some of them did

American forces mounted a daring night-time rescue mission in which they hiked over 30 miles to get into place

they created a diversion with an airplane and breached the prison walls and rescued over 500 prisoners

These men were delivered at a time when things seemed pretty bleak

It says here in Colossians, He has delivered us. This verb tense is past imperfect tense, if I’m not mistaken

That means, it is something that HE, that God has already done and is continuing to do

He has delivered us

You know, I think that it is hard for those of us who have been born into solid, Christian families, who have actively taken part in church and Christian community, those of us who have tasted the goodness of God all of our lives...

it is hard for us to think about the fact that all of us needed to be delivered

Some of us, though, even those of us who have been Believers in Christ for a long time, for some of us, maybe all of us, there have been times in our lives when we have been brought up short and forced to realize that bondage to sin is a real thing

We have been forced to come face to face with the “sin which so easily besets us”, as it says in Hebrews.

But for others, maybe we tend to excuse sin like it’s no big deal.

Some of that may come from the way we talk about it

“I have a sin problem”—kind of like I have a stubbed toe or a gash on my head

Yeah, it’s a problem that I’d kind of like to get taken care of. I know it’s sort of an issue, but it’s not really affecting my life that much, so there’s no real urgency

The way that we talk about this might not cause us to have much urgency or realize the seriousness of our condition away from Christ

But look how Paul describes this:

He says, “He (God) has delivered us from the domain of darkness.”

What is a domain? It is an area owned or controlled by a ruler or government

The Greek word used here means authority or power

He has delivered us from the power of darkness or the authority of darkness

he is saying, you once lived or [more accurately] were held captive in a land of darkness

Not a place that you wanted to be. Yet were held there by a power which had taken over this realm

Much like the prisoners in the Bataan death march.

They were taken into a domain controlled by the Japanese, and it was a dark place.

They were far from home and had no control over what happened to them

I think that this is how the Bible would describe what it is like to be apart from Christ.

You are in the realm of darkness

Not only are you apart from Christ, but you are without hope

Totally unable to help yourself.

You might want to get out, but you can’t

You need to be delivered.

And that is why Paul says, “GOD has delivered us”

He has done for you what you were unable to do for yourself. We weren’t allowed to leave that domain of darkness, but God came in and delivered us

And transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son

You know back to the prisoners in the Philippines,

It wouldn’t have done much good to simply go in there, blow a hole in the prison fence and neutralize the guards, and yank open the doors to the prison barracks and yell, “You’re free!”

And then leave again

Yeah, they might have had a taste of freedom. But it wouldn’t have been long before the Japanese forces would have rallied and closed in and they would have been right back where they were

And possibly in worse shape than they were before

No. Not only did they need to be delivered, the needed to be transferred.

They needed to be escorted back to where their freedom was secure

They needed to come back into the territory or domain that was controlled by American forces, and ultimately be transported home to America

There was no middle ground for them; either they were prisoners, or they were free

And you know, this is something that I think we need to lay hold of

For us, it is the same way. There is no middle ground for us. At least, I don’t believe that Scripture would teach that there is

We are either in the domain of darkness, or we are in the Kingdom of God’s Beloved Son, Jesus

And BTW, I was struck by the words that Paul uses here

When talking about the area of darkness, he calls it a “domain”

But when talking about where Jesus rules, he calls it a “kingdom”

And I wonder if that is an intentional distinction

He calls the area of darkness a domain, not a kingdom

He doesn’t even mention the deceiver who is in control of this area

It’s almost like, yeah, there is this domain and there is some control there, but it’s not a kingdom.

The person in charge there does not have ultimate authority there

But he’s allowed to act like, or think he’s in charge for now

But when talking about Jesus, Paul calls it The Kingdom of God’s Son

The Person in charge there, isn’t just some lower level official. He’s THE KING.

Ultimate authority and power lies with Him

Even, I would say, over the domain of darkness.

He is King even over that domain

But the picture that we get here is, We can’t be half way in between. God doesn’t deliver us and then say, “Well, have fun. If you decide to come to my Kingdom, that’s great. But if you just decide to live out there somewhere and create your own kingdom, that’s OK too.”

But, unfortunately, I think that some Believers do try to do this

We all think that it’s pretty cool to be delivered. We like that

But many people resist being transferred heart, soul, and body into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ

They say, “Yeah, deliver me from those pesky sin habits, but…not sure if I want to be heart, soul, and body in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ

Because, here’s the thing. Being transferred to the Kingdom of Jesus means that you are in a new realm

And in this realm, Jesus is King. And He demands total allegiance.

In this realm, He is King over our hearts, our lives, our thoughts, our words, our emotions, our actions, the kind of clothes that we wear, the way we use our time, our money…everything.

He is King over that

And the reason that Jesus is King is because God has granted this power to Him. Jesus said, before leaving this earth, “All power, or all authority, has been given to me in heaven and in earth”.

God has granted this power to Jesus. He has a Kingdom and it is to this Kingdom that God transfers us when He delivers us

But there is something in us that can rebel against the Kingship of Jesus because, well, we like to “have our own life too”, don’t we?

We don’t know if we like the fact that Jesus wants to be King over every part of my life

But He does. And we can’t live halfway in between the domain of darkness and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ

In Matthew 12, Jesus makes it clear that there is no neutrality when it comes to Him and His agenda, or His Kingdom

If you aren’t for me, you are against me, He said

If you don’t gather with me, you are scattering

And so for us, there is a clear division for us

If we can’t say for certain that God has transferred us to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, then it’s a pretty strong probability that we are in the domain of darkness

But I don’t know why we should be so scared about the Lordship of Jesus Christ

Because, look at the kind of King that Jesus is

Paul goes on to say that it’s in Jesus that we have

redemption,

the forgiveness of sins

Redemption:

Refers back to the word “delivered” vs 13

Redemption means to be ransomed or released

Sometimes when someone is kidnapped, or forcibly detained, the kidnappers will demand a ransom

or a sum of money before the will consider letting their captive go

The kidnappers have control of this person, and they put demands on this person’s life

IN the same way, our sin, the sin of all mankind put us in a situation where we needed to be redeemed.

There was a payment that needed to be made

We were under the control or the spell of sin, and there was a payment that needed to be made

In one of my favorite stories of all time, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”

Edmund, one of the four children in the story, falls under the spell of the white witch and commits the terrible act of betraying his siblings to her

Fortunately, they are all rescued by Aslan, the Lion

But the white witch demands the life of Edmund.

And she cites “the deep magic” that demands the life of a traitor

Edmund was a traitor and and rightly belonged to her

But Aslan offers his life to her in place of Edmund’s and she accepts thinking that once Aslan is dead, all of Narnia will be under her control

But, not being able to see the future, she doesn’t realize that there is a “deeper magic” which says that Aslan would not stay dead but come to life again

Which, of course, happens. And Aslan leads the Narnians against the witch and her minions, conquers them, and kills the witch

IT’s a kid’s story, but as a kid, it helped me get a clearer understanding of what was at stake in my case, OUR case

Because of my sinfulness, I was a traitor too

And Satan had every right to demand that I belong to him and he could do with me what he wanted

But Jesus redeemed me

He said, “I will offer my life in place of his.”

And Satan said, “Hey, that’s a pretty good deal”, not being able to see the future and understand that he had just ensured his own defeat”

Jesus, by His death and resurrection bought us back, paid the price for sin

He redeemed us

And He also forgave us.

indicates the state of having a particular obligation removed or ignored in a given relationship

In a guilty state, there is the obligation to pay for our sins somehow

In a forgiven state, that obligation has been removed

There is nothing to pay for

And there is so much that we could talk about when it comes to forgiveness

God has forgiven us in Christ Jesus. He demands nothing from us when it comes to payment for our sins

That has all been taken care of

And that is the same way that he asks us to live with each other

Many of us struggle with forgiveness because when it comes to wounds that we have received from others, they are hard to forget, aren’t they

And we say, “I don’t know if I’ve forgiven that person, because, well, I still remember what they did to me, or said to me

Yes, probably so. But the question is, do you hold that person to an obligation

Do you have someone in your life that you feel like they still owe you something because of what they have done?

They owe you an explanation or an apology or something

Then you haven’t forgiven them. You are still demanding something from them

You want that hurt or that trespass to be paid for

Well, Jesus has paid for it.

Your sins, and the sins of those who have sinned against you

That obligation has been removed

That person doesn’t owe you anything

And when you can come to the place of releasing that person in your heart from the obligation to pay for the hurt that they have caused you, then you have forgiven them

Yes, you may still remember the incident, but you have forgiven them

This is what God has done for us in Christ Jesus

Qualified us to receive an inheritance

Delivered us from the domain of darkness

Transferred us to the kingdom of Jesus Christ

Redeemed us

Forgiven us

This is a lot to be thankful for

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