2.13-15

Scripture reading: Colossians 2:13-15

Text:  Colossians 2:13-15

Introduction:  This morning we are going to start out with a little quiz.

1)      The first question, where you here last week?

2)      Where you listening last week?

3)      How often is the Bible accurate, some of the time, often times, or all the times. 

If you were not here last week, you missed it, and unless you go online when we get that set up or you borrow the tape you will not know what happened!!

The first year I was in college I had no idea what the cost of school was going to be.  I had saved up quite a bit of money the summer before and I thought I would have a year paid for.  However, after that first semester I was not going to be able to make it through the year.  I was working and going to school and could not make head way on the bill.  While I was home during the Christmas break I received a call from a very dear family, they wanted to pay the rest of the semester for me.  I can’t tell you how relieved and free I felt.  This bill that had weighed on me for months was all of the sudden released and I was free from its grasp!! 

Central Idea:  Believers are set free from the torment of the debt that owe, as a result of our Sufficiently Supreme Christ.

Old One - Believers should be completely convinced in the complete power of Christ in our lives.

Main Transition:  This morning we pick up where we left off last week.  We discussed the first two pictures of Christ that establish His Supremacy in our Salvation.  Today we finish those out with the final three before Paul begins to instruct us on how it should change us and cause us to act.  So this morning we will see Christ as the One who forgives, He is also the One who cancels debt, and finally Christ is the triumphant king.

I.  Christ as the One who forgives (13)

            A.  You were dead to God

1.  Your condition before you met Christ was one of worthless eternal value.  You could not please the Lord, nor could you do anything good in the world without your sinful condition get in the way.  Just as something that is physically dead is unable to do anything, so too where you spiritually before God.

2.  It was caused by your transgressions – the word means everything from the unintentional to out right blatant sins

3.  What helps us to understand that Paul is speaking of the spiritual condition of each one of us he returns to the uncircumcised and the argument started earlier.  If you are a believer you have been circumcised without hands, that means that we are set apart as God’s people, identifiable as one of God’s. 

            a.  Paul is now on the back side of that argument

b.  Once again He confronts the heresy that you will get to heaven through one of many routes.  He says that if you are not one of God’s, you are uncircumcised spiritual and you are dead to God because of your transgressions against Him.

            B.  Christ caused you to have life

                        1.  Eph. 2:5 helps us understand this truth of being made alive with Christ. 

a.  The word means that we are brought together with Christ to be made alive.

b.  This means that we are dead, then in our conversion we were joined to Christ to be made alive spiritually.

                        2.  This is a powerful and direct statement about the work of Christ.

a.  Paul is asserting as he has many times already that Christ is fully God, as it is only God that can bring the dead to life

b.  But He is also revealing over and over again that any attempt to eternal life without Christ will fall well short and in fact will remain in you being spiritually dead with no hope of eternal life.

            C.  Christ forgave your rebellious heart

1.      This means that Christ represented the only way that you could be pardoned for your sins.

Illustration:  In our country the only one that can pardon a criminal is the highest of the government, the president can, governors of each state can in state related cases.  They are the only ones that can allow a prisoner convicted of the crime to be set free and forgiven of their offenses against humanity.

a.       For those of us as believers we have been set free from our crimes against God.  Christ is the only one that can pardon us and He does so for all who will come to him and trust in Him alone to save them from the sentence that they deserve.

b.      But notice who took the steps toward pardon, in verse 13, it was Christ who pardoned us.

2.  Notice what condemned us, our transgressions against God, those things that we do that are either unintentional or intentional that are sin against God, buy those we are condemned. 

Transition:  Are you willing to admit that you were dead to Christ?  Without Christ you were not only dead, your works were as filthy rags, but after Christ you are made alive in Him and are no longer the slaves of sin.  No one, not even yourself can change your standing before God except Jesus Christ.  Have received the Pardon from Christ? Christ isn’t yet done either as we see the picture that He is also the One who cancels debt.

II.  Christ as the One who cancels debt (14)

            A.  Our mounting debt

1.  We have established that without Christ we are working not to eradicate debt in our spiritual lives, but rather we have no choose but continuing to mount it before God.

Illustration:  We all understand that there is tremendous pressure and heart ache when there is no enough money to pay the bills.  Most of us have had to learn the hard way that once you begin to struggle with money the debt just piles up, before long the creditors are hassling you to pay your bills.

2.  This is the same type of condition we find ourselves in spiritually, except with physical money you can go make more or spend less and get out of debt, but with spiritual debt there is only one way out and if you do not take it you will continue to drown in it.

            B.  Christ wipes away your debt

1.      Christ cancels out debt literally means that Christ wipes our slate clean.

Illustration:  On the wall in the foyer is a fame with a charred piece of paper in it.  That paper is a copy of the note that was at one time on this church.  When it was paid for our bill was totally wiped clean. 

a.       With Christ we didn’t pay anything, He paid it all, notice that the passage does not say that the debt was forgiven, it was canceled out by something.  It was canceled out because the price was paid, Christ paid it by dying for your transgressions.

b.      You might say well I never charged anything on my account with God.

c.       But look at the statement, you see each and every time that you sin whether that be intentional or unintentional you establish a decree against your account, now you say well I didn’t know, God never told me what I had to do

d.      The word decrees means, “the rules and requirements of the law of Moses; carrying a suggestion of severity and of threatened judgment.”  This means that the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law of Moses are used as standard by which you are measured, we all are lacking

2.  This is why these decrees are hostile to us, we cannot live up to God’s standards.  If we miss just one we are condemned by it.  That is why Paul says in Galatians that the Law is a School Master intended to bring us to Christ.  But before you get down and depressed about your situation continue on

C.     Christ nailed it to the cross

1.      Notice that this does not say that Christ taped it to the cross or thumb tacked it to the cross.

2.      The passage says that Christ nailed it to the cross, this is final, it is removed and paid for.  Doesn’t that just reveal to us the finality of the debt that we owed? 

3.      While we could do nothing about it Christ did something about it.  It took your account statement and nailed it to the cross, stamped paid in full by the blood from His own body.

Illustration:  The way that the real estate note found its way onto the wall in the foyer was that when the building was paid for the paid for note was sent and as a sign of release from the bill some of you were involved in the burning of the note, to say it is over, this bill is complete and we will not owe anything on it anymore.

Transition:  This is total and complete forgiveness.  On the cross of Jesus your list of debts was hung, it was nailed there never to again be held against you, if you will just accept the offer.  As a believer in Christ can you begin to see and live out that Christ is truly sufficiently Supreme, there is nothing that can take away from the powerful fact about Christ, and to prove it we see that Christ is the Triumphant King.

III.  Christ as the Triumphant King (15)

            A.  Christ is Triumphant

                        1.  Christ disarmed Satan and his fallen angels

                        2.  The word literally means “stripped him” 

                                    a.  Satan was stripped out his power to stop the plan of redemption

b.  He was also given the death blow promised in Genesis 3:15, Christ dealt the blow to the head that God promised He would.

            B.  The parade of the world’s power holders

1.  The imagery here is of the Roman Generals that would parade their captives through the streets of Rome.

2.  Christ paraded Satan and his minions as a sign of complete victory over sin and death.

            C.  Christ is supremely sufficient

1.      Christ is completely triumphant over the forces of Satan and the war is won.

2.      Christ forgives, causing you to be transformed, from dead to alive, Christ cancels debt in order that you are pardoned from the consequences of violating God’s standard, and Christ is victorious

3.      This all adds up to complete salvation, complete forgiveness, and totally triumph, This is why Paul says in Galatians 6:14, But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to the me, and I to the world.

Conclusion:  As I read through this passage and began to draft the outline, my heart quickened and my eyes filled with tears as I considered the consequences of Christ’s work on my life.  We must not be light hearted about this passage.  Do you realize what a privilege it is to be called the children of God.  We cannot fathom the love of God yet we begin to understand a little bit of it when we consider the sufficiency of Christ.  Do you see now that Christ absolutely paid for sin there is no working your way to heaven.  You need the only one who can nail your filth to the cross and say it is finished.  It is the purpose of this passage that we are so convinced of the supreme sufficiency of Christ that we cannot remain silent any longer.  Are you absolutely convinced?  There is no room for doubt in this passage, Paul boldly says that there is only one way to heaven and that is Christ, because He is the only one capable of causing you to live spiritually as a result of His sacrifice, because before you were or maybe are today, mounting up debt that will one day be called in and you will be forced to pay it.  For those that have trusted Christ your bill was hung on the cross with the words paid in full stamped across the front in the blood of Christ.