“Delivered” - Colossians 2:13-15

When people say God does not want us to party… um are you crazy? The parties the Israelites threw shames the parties of today. Especially, when victory is won! Check out Rome. Plutarch’s description of the three-day Triumph given the Roman General Aemilius Paulus upon his return from capturing Macedonia.

Oh there were … Great scaffolds were erected in the forum and along the boulevards of Rome for spectator seating, and all of Rome turned out, dressed in festive white. On the first day, 259 chariots displayed in procession the statues, pictures, and colossal images taken from the enemy. On the second day, innumerable wagons bore the armor of the Macedonians. As Plutarch tells it:

… all newly polished and glittering; the pieces of which were piled up and arranged purposely with the greatest art, so as to seem to be tumbled in heaps carelessly and by chance: helmets were thrown upon shields, coats of mail upon graves; Cretan targets, and Thracian bucklers and quivers of arrows, lay huddled amongst horses’ bits, and through these there appeared the points of naked swords, intermixed with long Macedonian sarissas. All these arms were fastened together with just so much looseness that they struck against one another as they were drawn along, and made a harsh and alarming noise, so that, even as spoils of a conquered enemy they would not be held without dread.

Following the wagons came 3,000 carrying the enemies’ silver in 750 vessels, followed by more treasure. On the third day came the captives, preceded by 120 sacrificial oxen with their horns gilded and their heads adorned with ribbons and garlands, next Macedonian gold, then the captured king’s chariot, crown, and armor. Then came the king’s servants, weeping, with hands outstretched, begging the crowds for mercy. Next came his children. Then King Perseus himself, clad entirely in black, followed by endless prisoners. Finally came the victorious general,

… seated on the chariot magnificently adorned, dressed in a robe of purple, interwoven with gold, and holding a laurel branch in his right hand. All the army, in like manner, with boughs of laurel in their hands, divided into their bands and companies, followed the chariot of their commander; some singing verses, according to the usual custom songs of triumph and the praise of Aemilius’s deeds.

Wow look at the celebration of victory. This is a small picture of the great victory we have in Christ. What Christ accomplished and what He had overcome is so far beyond what we have seen and what many many many have celebrated over the years pictured in all world history. None of it has lasted the sands of time, except the celebration of the victory of God that many devout Christians celebrate everyday and even more celebrate ever week on the Lord’s Day.

The death, The burial, and The pivotal resurrection of Christ, God the Father demonstrated a great victory over the evil powers of this world, in effect making “a public spectacle of them.” He wants us to see that though they still exist, they are defeated. Thus, we need no longer fear the outcome of our battle with evil. Yet we do. Many of us still live in fear concerning the things that are around us, the powers that be, those who have the power and maybe even the ability to ruin us in every possible way. We as the church fear the world. We fear the people. We fear the circumstance and situations that happen because of current cultural endeavors. We fear the media, we fear the press, we fear the very expressive person that lives down the street. We fear what people will do to us if we speak the truth.

We have seen many Pastors and church leaders who cannot answer questions on the biggest platforms showing the wold world that we fear man! We are afraid of everything that the Lord has already defeated. Its already done, the victory is won, the enemies have been paraded across the world. Why do we fear? We fear because it is not our lives we are worried about… it is our lifestyle. And the pattern of this world is in control of that. We want the defeated enemies can give. And so God has ripped them of their power and we are giving it right back to them. We are loving the world and we are afraid that they wont love us back. He delivered us from Egypt and all we want to do is go back. Why do we do this? This is what we needed to be delivered from. This is what we needed to be shown. This is why Christ had to die. We will overcome this. We will defeat this… Because they are already defeated. Christ has conquered! We have conquered! And we will conquer!

Colossians 2:13–15 NLT

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.

Dead in Sin

Alive with Christ

The Greatest Victory

The first thing we will look at today is the all important subject of what it means to be totally depraved or dead in sin. The second thing we will explore is what the Lord had done to bring us forgiveness and bring us from death to being alive in Christ. Finally, we will see not just the beauty of forgiveness but the actual great victory that was won and that their ain’t no party like a Christian party cause a Christian party don’t … Stop.

Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to forget the defeat of all that we fear and the dead seduction of the defeated, it is the truth of the scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit that will help us to see that we not only have victory over the defeated and we are no longer dead, but that we will continue to be victorious over them in Christ; alive in Christ alone.

I. Dead in Sin

- Total depravity.

A. What does it mean for us to be totally depraved? St. Augustine prayed “Lord command what you will, and grant what you command. Ole Pelagius did not like the second part of the prayer. No way… if that is the case then you are saying that we are morally unable to do what the Lord commands. And so the debate began and still continues today.

B. Total depravity is not suggesting that we are as bad as we can be. Shane people who are not Christian do good things everyday. Right, it simply means that we are not as good as we should be. And there is the button. The reason we are confused with this is because of our incessant need to compare ourselves to others when we judge good things. When the pollsters come out they ask the question if we believe that we humans are all basically good… majority in our culture will say yes. Sure good people do bad things from time to time, but come on Shane nobody is perfect. Ahhh but, when we do not judge right and wrong by looking at people as the standard, when we look at God it is a different thing. God requires us to be perfect.

Matthew 5:48 NLT

But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

When we compare ourselves to the standard laid out by scripture as to what is right and wrong, we come up way short. But Shane I’m not like those evil people out there who kill and rob banks they are way worse than me. They are the evil ones not me. They have real guilt not me.

James 2:10 NLT

For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.

C. Another thing… even when we do good it is suspect.

Isaiah 64:6 NLT

We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.

D. Motive is everything.

Matthew 15:8 NLT

‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

E. Argument with Jeanine and need her to make me dinner so I apologize.

F. This is what Paul is illustrating when he says that we were dead because of our sins. The greek word is Nekros… dead. Clearly and simply defined as a corpse. We were spiritual corpses because of our sins. And this should not be a surprise…

Genesis 2:15–17 NLT

The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

G. Paul is making is super clear that when Adam and Eve ate of the tree, they died along with all of humanity. We died. We are dead.

Ephesians 2:1 NLT

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.

1 Timothy 5:6 NLT

But the widow who lives only for pleasure is spiritually dead even while she lives.

H. The description is death. It is a radical situation. A radical situation that requires as radical solution. See this is why we gotta stop saying things like we are broken in sin, we are weak in sin, we are stained in sin. This is a result of our cultures high view of man a low view of God. We were utterly corrupted tat we are dead… not broken. Brokenness implies that we could be fixed. Weak implies that we can be strengthened. Stained implies that we can just be cleaned. We are not simply bad people that need to be made good. We are dead people that need to be made alive. (Jack)

I. Again, it is a radical situation. A radical situation that requires a radical solution. We needed to be born again. We needed to be made alive.

II. Alive with Christ

- Life and Life more abundant.

A. Without Christ, we can do nothing to get life. There is no life without Christ. And what we need is life. Not fixing, not healing, not cleaning, not strengthening. We are dead and need to be made alive. And there is only one who can raise the dead. There must be a sovereign blessing of life from God. The scriptures show that when Elijah stretched himself upon the dead boy, his heart beat against the stillness of the boy’s chest until it brought life. Even so, Christ must lay his full life on our deadness on the cross—and then comes life!

B. If you are a Christian today, we were all once dead. But through Christ, supernatural surgery was performed. He did not fix our heart, heal our heart, clean our heart, or strengthened our heart. And not only were were delivered from the death of sin, but he delivered us from the guilt of sin. The record of our sins have been nailed to the cross. In other words… as far as the east is from the west so far he removes our sins from us.

C. The story is told… Martin Luther experienced the reality of this truth in a dream in which he was visited at night by Satan, who brought to him a record of his own life, written with his own hand. The Tempter said to him, “Is that true, did you write it?” The poor terrified Luther had to confess it was all true. Scroll after scroll was unrolled, and the same confession was wrung from him again and again. At length, the Evil One prepared to take his departure, having brought Luther down to the lowest depths of abject misery. Suddenly the Reformer turned to the Tempter and said: “It is true, every word of it, but write across it all: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.’”

D. We are alive in Christ. In Christ we have life and life more abundantly.

III. The Greatest Victory

- This is the Gospel of Jesus.

A. So you see here… Christ has conquered! We have conquered! And we will conquer! In light of all this, why in the world would anyone look to anyone but Christ for fullness? The only way we can have life and to be alive is in Christ and in Christ alone. Everything to comes against us is defeated by Christ and Christ alone. Don’t go elsewhere.

Isaiah 55:1–2 NLT

“Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink— even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk— it’s all free! Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food.

Revelation 22:17 NLT

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Let anyone who hears this say, “Come.” Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life.

B. There is life and life more abundant in Christ. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost.

1 Peter 2:24 NLT

He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.

1 John 4:9–10 NLT

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

C. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your hearts that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved. All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

D. It is life and life more abundant found only in Christ. Death where is your sting?