Sustaining Grace

Big Idea

Tension: How does Christ keep his people from the time they are reconciled until he presents them totally sanctified?

Resolution: By keeping them in the faith through the preaching of his gospel by his servants.

Exegetical Idea: Christ keeps his people from the time they are reconciled until he presents them totally sanctified in the faith through the preaching of his gospel by his servants.

Theological Idea: Christ keeps his people from conversion to eternity in the faith through the preaching of the gospel by his servants.

Homiletical Idea: Christ keeps you in the faith from salvation to eternity by hearing gospel preaching by his servants.

Outline

Introduction: How will God keep you? How will you persevere?

Have you ever kept a new years resolution?...

Our life before Christ

Alienated - This word often refers to a relational estrangement.

Hostile - This word often refers to two political entities that are at conflict with one another.

Mind - Paul says it’s not just that you are on the wrong side, rather, your thoughts, your intentions, your mind is set against him.

Evil Deeds - Yet, it is not just your mind, your loyalyt, you intention is set against him, it is that you were actively engaged in acts against him.

Christ’s Life for us

Reconciliation - Yet, it is God himself who has taken action to remedy this situation. God himself has taken action to reconcile you, to bring you back into his family, to transfer you from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of his beloved Son.

In the body of his flesh - HE did this by taking on a human body. What’s interesting is that this word flesh almost always has this idea of sin. Is it that the Son was sinful? No, it is, as 2 Cor 5:21 says, he became sin so that we might become the righteousness of GOd. It is, as Galatians 3:13 says, he redeemed us from the curse by becoming the curse. In other words, it is not just that he became human, it is that he bore human sins.

Through his death - And what did he do with this sin? He took it to the grave. He took it on his back, he took on our sin, our curse, wickedness, and took it straight to the cross. He suffered the ultimate estrangement, he suffered the ultimate firing squad - the cross of God’s wrath.

Because he was estranged, we are reconciled. Because he was cut off, we are grafted in. Because he was cursed, we are blessed. Because he was condemned, we are justified. Because he was sold, we are redeemed. Dear friends, The good news of the gospel is not that you are better than you think you are, actually the opposite is true. It is that the mercy and grace of God in Christ are still deeper than that!

Transition: Why did he do this?

So he may present you - he did it with the purpose of presenting us before himself. So that, in eternity, he may unveil you and behold you. Much like an artist looks at his painting when he finishes, or a mechanic admires the work he has spent all day doing, or a construction worker wipes the sweat off his brow in satisfaction of a hard day’s work, so at the end of eternity, God wants to look on the work he has done for and in you and say, “It is very good.” And he wants to present us, not only as htose who are reconciled, but

Holy and Blameless, Without fault before him - as those who are holy and blameless. As those, who, Paul will say later, are “mature” in him. THat God’s intent in reconciling you was not only that he could bestow upon you that righteous status which you have in Christ, but is so that you start to actually look like Christ. He not only wants to give you positional holiness, justified, declared righteous, redeemed, but he wants to give you experiential holiness, transformation, sanctification, the “fruit of righteousness.” This was God’s intention from teh very beginning of Eternity (Eph 1:4). Dear friends, God’s plan for your life, more important than having a good job, or having a wondeful marriage, or having obedient children, or having a great house, more important than any of those things, as good as those all are, is that you might be holy, even as he is holy.

The Preservation of the Saints - And here we see that there is a clear connection between being reconciled or saved, and between our eternal status. In other words, you can’t chop this sentence up. ANd that gives great hope. If God saves us, he keeps us. That just as surely as God reconciled you to himself in Christ, so God will ultimately transform you. If you and I have been bought by the blood, we will surely be saved by the blood. When Christ died for me on the cross, he redeemed all my sins, past, present, and future. What claim does Satan have on me then? Will not God surely finish what he has begun? Just as Phil 1:6 says…

From beginning to end, everything is Christ’s work - What this shows us is that there is not one single part of our salvation, from reconciliation to glorification, from conversion to eternity, from the time we walked down the aisle to the time that we walk into his throne room, that we can take credit for. Everything is to his credit. Every single last bit of salvation is by him and through him and for him.

If you remain in the faith

If you remain in the faith? - Now, maybe you say, wait a minute. This says if. So does that mean we can lose our salvation? Now people hwo love Jesus disagree about this issue. But that being said, purely from these verses we are talking about today, that vs. 22 shows there is such a clear connection between the beginning of our faith and the end that I don’t htink you can split those things up. So this if cannot apply to just the end. So he doesn’t say “you’ve been reconciled and if you remain in the faith then he will present you.” But he says, he reconciled you to present you before himself, if you remain in the faith. In other words, our remaining in teh faith is not a condition for whether or not we lost our salvation, but whether or not we ever had it int eh first place. In other words, he keeps us so we might keep the faith. He holds onto us so we might hold onto him. He preserves us so we might persevere.

Now I think Paul is so wise here. Because Paul does not say, well if someone became a Christian when they were 5 or 6 in VBS, but they never come to church, never bring their kids to church, never got baptized, never read their bible, their life is not one bit different than if they had never put their faith in Christ, then they aare kept. But rather, true fiath endures, true faith remains. Paul is saying, does this faith last. Does it bear fruit. Does it remain.

Now, we all have had seasons where our faith has ebbed and flowed....

the faith - Now, the question here, is what he means by the faith. Well, I think there are two aspects to this. “the faith” on the one hand means the “content of the faith.” or the things that we believe in. The facts of the gospel - that Christ is both man and God, that he was crucified for our sins and rose again on the third day. But I think that there is also a subjective element in the gospel. As 1 Pet 1:8 says… it is not enough to believe the facts, but it is to love, admire, and yearn for Christ. That true faith in Christ has love for Christ. I don’t think you can ever divorce our faiht in Christ from our love for him.

stable and steadfast - This uses language from the arena of construction. It means founded on something that is solid and concrete. Something that won’t move.

not shifting - THis is the same kind of language that is used to political chaos. And what Paul means here is that our fiath in Christ keeps a clear head. It doesn’t go from one thing to the next, but it maintains this pure hope founded on him.

From the hope of the gospel - This gospel, of course, is the Word of truth. And this hope, I believe, is the hope of eternity. It is the hope that, at the end of the day, we will be resurrected even as he is resurrected. It is the hope, that because he lives, so will we. It is, as Colossians says, Christ in you, the hope of glory.

So now, maybe that is Exhilerating to you, but maybe it’s a bit daunting. Maybe you’re like, well, wait a minute, how in the world am I going to hold onto Christ, how am I going to remain in this kind of faith?

what we heard which has been preached - Here is God’s gift to sustain you until that day. It is the preaching of his word. It is the same word which you heard when you became a Christian, it is the same word that is preached under the heavens, it is the same word that the Colossians had heard preached every single week until then. And Paul’s point is, if you came to Christ by the preaching of his gospel, you will remain in Christ by the preaching of the gospel. You are preserved to persevere, and you persevere by God’s sustaining grace - the preaching of his word. (Romans 10:17)

external word - This is what the Reformers used to call the “external word.” That is, it is not a word that is deep inside me, that I have to explore it. No it is the word that comes to me from the outside. It is an alien word. It is the word that slays me again and again, week after week. It is the word which again and again, week after week, raises me ot the dead. God’s gift to sustain you in the faith is nothing else than the regular preaching of his gospel.

of which I, Paul, am a servant - And it is this word, Paul says, that he is a servant of. - NOw, we will be talking about this quite a bit next week, but it’s worth saying now, that God calls servants to preach his word. That I, and Doug, and whoever else steps into this pulpit, is God’s gift to you. God has given me to you to preach his Word. And that is God’s sustaining grace, his means of keeping you in the faith.

Big Idea Reveal: Christ keeps you in the faith from salvation to eternity by hearing the gospel preached by his servants.

Application

Gospel Preaching

God gives the preaching of his gospel to you to sustain you

You have to keep hearing it

Preserved to Persevere:

You are preserved, kept, held on to

Hold onto him.

Conclusion: Keep holding on to the one who holds you