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Colossians 1:19-23, "The Hope of Christmas" · Clifford Baptist

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  Speaker A: Welcome to the November 30th sermon from Clifford Baptist Church, 635 Fletcher's Level Road in Amherst. Today's scripture is Colossians, chapter 1, verses 19 through 23. And the sermon is entitled the Hope of Christmas, delivered today by Associate Pastor Nathan Williams.
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  Speaker B: The good thing about all you can eat buffet is you don't have to be. You're not stuck with what you order. You can go back and scoop on your plate whatever you want, whenever you want, how often as you want, and. And you just get a mix of everything as you desire. And that's nice for a buffet, but it's not good when we're putting our faith in a real God and putting our hope in a true gospel that addresses our actual needs. So Paul writes a message reminding this church of who Jesus was, what Jesus had come to do, and how that was central to everything. There's no mixing in other things. It's all of Christ or none of him, all of that he is, and all that he has done. There's no other bonuses added on, no extra credit. Jesus is the center of these people's hope. And in the few verses leading up to verse 19, where we're going to begin today, Paul reminds this church that Jesus is the image of God, who is the firstborn of all creation. And. And he is the one who created the world. He is the one who is sustaining the world. He is the reason for which the world was made, and he is the head of the church. He is the firstborn of the dead. He brings new life. And in everything he is preeminent. In everything he is supreme. In everything he is first to the point where there is no second. And then we see in verse 19 him explain this. So in verse 19, he says, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 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. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the hope of Christ, a certain hope that does not put us to shame, Lord. And I pray, as we look at your word this morning, that you will reveal to us just how great Christ is, just how certain his hope is. Lord, may that brightness shine in our lives, showing us where we have put other things in his place, where we have not trusted in him with the faith that we're called to have. Lord, I pray that you will sanctify us in your truth, for your word is truth in Jesus name. Amen. So in these few verses, Paul reminds the church in Colossae that the arrival of Christ has brought us hope because of his person. So who he is and by his work, what he came and did. And if there's one sentence that we could walk away with and it's the arrival of Christ has brought us hope. And not just hope, a wishful dream, but he has brought us certain hope. And that is why we take time in a busy time of year to reflect on his coming and to think on what he has done for us. Because that is our only hope. And this passage shows us why, gives us three things that his coming has made possible and even more than that, his coming has made certain. For those who believe, the arrival of Christ has brought us a hope of rescue, a hope of reconciliation and a hope of restoration. Let's look at verse 19 again. Paul says, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell that first word. For is Paul beginning to unpack and give support for everything he's been saying about Christ, everything he's been praising and showing how great Jesus is, He is giving support for that. And that support is found in what Jesus has done in order to be able to rescue us. A more familiar Christmas passage is Probably Matthew chapter one, when the angel appears to Joseph and Matthew chapter one, verses 23 and 24 tell us all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. So verse 19 here is one of my favorite Christmas passages because it drives home the truth of what was going on in God's mind and God's heart in becoming a man to be Emmanuel, God who dwelt with us and that is our hope of rescue. We see God's motivation here. This is mind boggling to me. Then we read in verse 19, don't miss this phrase. It says in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. All that God was, was pleased to dwell in him. So when we celebrate these picturesque manger scenes, yes there is a child being represented, but the fullness of God dwelt in a man. And that is beautiful because that gave us hope of rescue all of his fullness. Jesus is not just some superhuman or kind of divine creature. He is God incarnate, or God in the flesh. And that is the only reason we have hope at all in this life. And Paul doubles down on this in the next chapter. In Colossians, chapter 2, verse 9, he's even more clear. He says, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. The whole fullness of deity, the whole fullness of God, everything that makes God God is Jesus Christ. We don't get a subpar secondary rescuer in Christ. We get God himself. And his motivation is that it pleases him to come to us in the flesh. It pleased God to take on flesh that matters. I remember being given chores as a child, and every time my mom asked me to do a chore, I always smiled. I smiled, said, absolutely no. That's not the truth. I probably shouldn't start off with lying up here. I would complain, I would complain, I would moan, I would groan in agony. And I'm glad my mom put up with me all those years. But we know what it's like to have to do something that we despise doing. I think sometimes this lie gets in our head that I'm glad that we have Jesus. But I wonder if God really wanted to become a man or if he felt like he was forced to do it just because of how much we messed up. But this passage shows that the fullness of God became a man. And it says also that he was pleased. It pleased him. He delighted in it. It brought him joy. He wanted to become in the flesh. Now, if that isn't hope of rescue, I don't know what is it. The God of the universe wanted to rescue us by becoming a man. He became a man to walk alongside us, to meet us in our brokenness, to give us hope from his good pleasure. That is a beautiful hope of Christmas. We rejoice and worship God not just because he has happened to make a way for us in Christ, but He found pleasure in doing so. He's a good, wonderful, loving God who wants to rescue us, and that makes him all the more glorious. And his method, his motivation is clear here, but his method of rescue also is it was to dwell, to dwell with us, to live among us, to be where we are. This is a really big book and a lot of confusing things in it, but basically the gist of it is God made man to be in relationship with him. And man Rebelled against him, threw him off, shattered that relationship because of our sinfulness. And we were out of relationship with God to where now broken, sinful humanity cannot be with the holy righteous God. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. But after that, what happened? They were sent out. They couldn't be with God. The very thing for which we were made, God is who we were made for. We can't be with. That is the tragedy that is our lives apart from Christ. But God was pleased to come to us, to dwell with us in our mess. We know what it's like to have a conflict with someone and you're just so mad at them, you're like, well, you're going to stay over there. I'm going to stay over here. You don't talk to me, I'm not going to talk to you. You might get a few grunts towards each other, I don't know. But that's. That's about it. There's a division. And Christ comes and makes the first move to be with us even before we realize we need Him. He comes to dwell with us in all the fullness of God. All that God is in the flesh had some miraculous effects on the world as he walked in it. All you have to do is look through the Gospels. When Jesus walked up to something that was unclean, he didn't become unclean by touching it. He was so full of God, he was God that He made that thing clean. So in a leper that all the Jewish people had to avoid. Because if they touched the leper, not only could they get physically contaminate it, but spiritually they could become defiled according to the laws. Jesus could touch a leper and not be affected, but then heal the leper entirely. Because the fullness of God was dwelling with us. When Jesus, who was God in the flesh, came across people who were sick, who were possessed with demons, people who were lost when he encountered them, he wasn't negatively affected by them. He. He changed their lives. So when Christ came to dwell in the broken, sinful world, it became a tsunami of change to where he was undoing the brokenness that the sinfulness of humanity had brought. And his method was to meet us in our need to the point, as we're about to see, of encountering death. Let's look at the next few verses here. Verses 20 through the first part of 22. And through him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you who once were alienated and Hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. He is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. We see, yes, Christ coming in the flesh. The fullness of God coming to dwell with us gives us hope of rescue because he's here to help us. But the second thing we see in this passage is the arrival of Christ has brought us hope of reconciliation, the hope of being helped and put back in right relationship. If you've ever needed help from a paramedic, they come to your house in your need, they do the emergency stuff to make sure you stay alive, they take you to the hospital and then do they follow you the rest of your few weeks of recovery? No, they hand you off. They've done an important task. But then doctors and other healthcare professionals walk with you to help you get back connected to normal life. Jesus isn't just a rescuer who's a paramedic who just gets us into the door of help and then leaves us. He does what's necessary to reconcile us, reconnect us with the source of life itself, which is God. And we see that in these verses because in Christmas, if you remember chapter one of Matthew again, the angel's talking to Joseph. He says, she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. And we see here what God in the flesh, dwelling with us does to save us from our sins. He brings about reconciliation of everything. That's something that blows my mind. It says in verse 20. And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven. I think it's important to understand what it means to reconcile. It's to bring something back into the state it was started in or it was supposed to have. I mentioned the example of friendship. We encounter this a lot. You get a conflict with someone, you reconcile with them. When you get the hard feelings aside, you forgive each other and you can be in relationship and enjoy being with someone again. Christ did what was necessary to bridge the divide that we had made with God by our sinfulness and our rebellion and pushing him away. We had a holy, perfect God and a sinful, rebellious people who could do nothing to get back to God. So God became a man, dwelt among us, and then did what was necessary to reconcile and bring us back to the relationship with God your soul longs for. And we as humanity were made for. And he does that not just for people, but for all things, whether on earth or in heaven. That does not mean that when Christ came to reconcile us, he then got back the Ocean, then got back the moon, then got back the sun. He is the Creator of the universe, everything is his. But what he was reconciling all things back to is when he put man in the garden, he gave him dominion over the earth. So when mankind rebelled against God, our sinfulness affected everything we had dominion over. It broke and corrupted the world. That's why we see so much suffering around us. That's why even among things that are not human, we see violence and pain. Because the world we were to have dominion over, we have corrupted through our sinfulness, beginning with Adam. And now we just continue it with our own sinfulness sometimes as humanity. But Christ came to dwell with us, has now made a way to reconcile all of earth back into right relationship with God. Because Jesus has come to take dominion on the earth. If you want to read Romans chapter 5. There's a beautiful passage talking about Adam and how his sinfulness corrupted all people. But then how Christ came and through his perfect work in life, he has become the new Adam. It is actually beginning to bring about good and fix what humanity had broken. And in verse 19 of the chapter says, for as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. What Christ has done through his life and as we will see his work on the cross, is that all the sinful and broken corruption that we have infused into the world, into the cosmos around us, he is healing in making new. And I take time on this point because it matters. When Christ reconciles us, he's not just reconciling us to float away from this world, to be in the sky forever. He is reconciling us back in relationship for us to live with with him forever in the new heavens and the new earth, which he can do because he not only has reconciled those who believe in him, but he has reconciled the corruption of the world back in right relationship through him. So when we see the hope of he is making all things new, it's because of his life and his death on the cross to reverse what we had done to the world. And it's not just for the world, it's for us, those who believe. In verse 21, Paul stops just talking about Christ in these grandiose language and words. He gets personal. He says, and you. Which means what he just said by making peace by the blood of his cross doesn't just apply to God's kind of fixing the brokenness we've made, but then pushing us to the side. He wants us as humanity to be a part of what he's doing. He wants us to be reconciled along with what he's doing. He does that through his death on the cross, and he brings about peace. He brings these back to how they should be through what he does. And he can do this through his death, because just like when he would touch a leper, he wasn't affected by it, but he would change the leper. When Jesus encountered death, death didn't mess him up. He defeated death and he conquered the grave and rose again, showing that the fullness of God cannot be hindered by the sinfulness of man. The fullness of God cannot be stopped by the wickedness and the corruption that we have brought because of how worthy and valuable he is. If you ever spent any time online, you might have stumbled upon these videos where these guys who I guess make a lot of money off of posting things online, walk into little country restaurants, walk into fast food chains, and they buy like a $1 drink and then leave outrageous amount of money as a tip. And they make a video about it. Everyone sees it. You have the waitress or the worker crying over what they've done. And they were just. They had so much worth and their money that they had that they could walk into someone's life, leave a little tip, and change their world in the same way. When Christ in all the fullness of God came into the world, his worth was so great that when he died for sins, it wasn't just all he could muster to pay the debt, but he had reserves, infinite reserves to then give us inheritance, to give believers hope of new life, to give us new hope in relationship with God. And that is quite astounding because look at what we humanity are like. Look in verse 21 again it says, and you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. This is a pretty dark description of what believers once were and those who are not believers currently are. He gives us a few facts. He says, you were once alienated, a foreigner separated. No connection with hostile in mind. There's no passive human. They're either seeking God or they're hating God. They're either desiring him or despising Him. See here, once you were hostile in mind doing evil deeds. The evil deeds are the overflow of the broken, corrupted, sinful hearts that humans have. Just like a warrior behind enemy lines. I used to watch all these little war movies as a kid and there were some that Steve McQueen or somebody was behind enemy lines, but he was an alien in that place. He was on enemy territory. He didn't have good intention towards the guards and towards the soldiers that he was an enemy of. He was an alien. But he was also hostile in mind while he was behind those lines. And that led him to fight them, try to throw them out of the way to get in the way of what the enemy was trying to accomplish. But that was the disposition of that person. We, we don't just casually naturally love God. We are hostile to him and we're aliens to Him. We don't fit. He doesn't make sense. We don't fit with Him. He doesn't really make sense to us. And we kind of are annoyed by him and want nothing to do with. Not kind of. We are. We despise Him. And that's why we live how we live. When we ignore God's word and live how we want, it's because part of our hostile mind is there. But Christ has come to change that, to reconcile that type of person back into right relationship with God. And he reconciles us by his body of flesh, by his death on the cross. So when we trust in Christ, his work on the cross, his worth as the Son of God, is sufficient to put us in right relationship with God by what he does and by what he does alone. For we, by trusting in him, can find new life in relationship with God, connected to the one that we were made for. And that begins to change things. If you ever had a real conflict with someone, you might have a conversation where you get reconciled. You might have made up for some wrongs. You've apologized, forgiven each other, and you might be okay. But that's a long road to be thriving in a friendship with someone that once was broken. You still have to build back trust. You have to make new memories. You have to begin to grow with that person again. In the same way, when Christ comes to rescue us and to reconcile us with God, he doesn't just leave us where we're just in this neutral state of reconciliation with God. He is remaking us to be restored in our relationship with God, to find wholeness in our relationship with God. That's the third hope we see in this passage. The arrival of Christ has brought us hope of restoration. Look at the end of verse 22 through verse 23, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. 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. Jesus purpose in reconciling us to God isn't just to fix a little problem, but to bring us back to the thriving of abundant wholeness of life that can only be found in right relationship with God. In order to present us before God not as broken, shattered things, but as holy, blameless, above reproach believers, which if you look at those three things, it's a pretty stark difference than what we just read before. Alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds to now being holy, which means to be set apart, sanctified in right relationship with God and for his purpose, blameless, you can't. There's nothing that can be held against you. There's no blemish to that person who's blameless, no defects that are defiling to them and also above reproach, or there's no reproof, there's no accusation or no surprise evidence that can be brought up to then ruin that person's standing before God. That means something substantive, something great, something real has to happen in a believer to go from just being hostile to God and then Jesus coming to rescue them, bringing them right relationship with God. But then to become restored, something miraculous has to happen. And by Christ's work on the cross, he makes possible for God's presence to be among his people, to live in believers lives, for his spirit to change someone from the inside out. We don't stay neutral and then just add Jesus onto our life. Jesus changes the believer forever and over their whole life, continually changes them to make them wholly blameless and above reproach. Much like we learned as elementary school, caterpillars go into a cocoon and then come out a beautiful butterfly or sometimes a not so beautiful moth. Believers, when they put their hope in Christ, they pass through the cross of what Christ has done, and through the cross of denying themselves and crucifying themselves in the world. And they come out the other side, a beautiful, radiant, holy saint of God. That's restoration. That's what you were made for. That's what I was made for. And our hope of that is only in Christ. Everything else we run to in life, whether it's some fad to try to get in better shape, a better career, to make more money, to impress other people, to have nicer clothes, clothes to have nicer stuff, to be more popular, everything we go for to try to fill that desire to be holy, blameless and above reproach will fall short and leave us empty. But Christ will make us holy, will make us blameless, and will make us above reproach. If our faith is in him, our faith must remain in Christ and not mix in anything else in our life. It's not Christ starts us off and then we do the rest. Our faith must be squarely set on him in everything. And that gives us hope. It's not our accomplishment or our perfection that accomplishes this. It's what Christ does. I want us to look at the last part of this verse. It says, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard. Paul gives a real condition here. Scholars like to debate what's going on here, but there's a real condition of if indeed you continue in the faith, you have this hope. If you continue to trust in Christ and hold on to him, it doesn't matter how many ups and downs you have in life, if you're holding on to Christ through it all, this is your hope. But when we stand before God, we've had a real condition of do we hope in Christ? But the basis of this restoration has always been what Christ has done and doing through us. This is very relevant because when Christ comes and we put our faith in him, it does take a moment to have faith in Christ and to be changed. But true faith never lasts a moment. True faith remains to the end. True faith doesn't go back to just being a hostile alien who just doesn't live for God, but then claims that, well, my hope is in Jesus? No, if your hope is in Christ, you hold on to him and you follow him in everything with all you have. So our hope is, are we trusting in Christ? It's not just do we say we're trusting in Christ. Does our life show that we're trusting in Christ by following his commandments, by living in obedience to him and trusting him? Because we were restored for a purpose we see at the end it says, which has been proclaimed. So we should not shift from the hope of the gospel that we've heard today, which has been proclaimed in all of creation under heaven, in which I, Paul, became a minister. So the you that Paul's talking about was also him at one time, and he now has a purpose in what the hope Christ has given him. And we also, if your faith is in Christ, have a purpose, have a mission from God. If you want a little bit of reading, go to Second Corinthians, chapter five, and it's laid out for you. The love of Christ that we now have as believers compels us, controls us. We've been given a ministry now of reconciliation. Your mission in life as a believer is to help reconcile people back to God. To put them back in right relation. You do that by showing them Christ through your words, sharing the hope of the gospel and through your actions, showing the fruit of the gospel in your life. So this holiday season, this Advent season, as we reflect on the arrival of Christ and the hope that he has brought us, it's not something passive. We now as the church have an active role in being that hope for others. We're to be those reconciling people back to God. We're to be pleased and dwelling among those in need, reconciling people back to God and into community in restoring and helping people to get back on their feet to follow Christ in love, not judgment and hate. And we can only do that if we keep our eyes set on Christ and what he has done for us and rest in his hope this season. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Your word never returns void. So Lord, I pray that your word has shaped our minds and our hearts to be the people you call us to be. And Lord, thank you for the hope we have. Not in of ourselves, but in Christ alone. So Lord, today I pray if anyone does not have that hope or they shifted away from that hope, they will see their need to find the reconciliation, the restoration and rescue that can only be had in Christ Jesus name. Amen.
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  Speaker A: Clifford Baptist Church invites you to join us for worship every Sunday morning at 11am for more information about our church, please call our church office at 434-946-0555.