Colossians 1:21-22

Colossians chapter 1 beginning with verse 20 reading through verse 22 our focus is on verses 21 and 22 and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in heaven or things in earth or things in heaven and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. Yet now have he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this morning. There’s a story about a new name. native boy who went to visit a missionary’s house in a foreign country and when he got to the house the missionary there gave him a cube of white sugar. He never had it before in his life. He never seen or tasted sugar. It was an entirely new experience and so when he went back home he told his father that he had this sweet white stuff. His father began to ask him, well, does it taste like so-and-so? Does it taste like this? Does it taste like that? And he named several substances. The boy, however, couldn’t answer his father’s questions. So he raced back to the missionary’s house and he said, can you give me another cube of white sugar? Because my dad wants to know what it tastes like, and I don’t know how to explain it to him. And so he, he said, he he got another piece of sugar and took it back so his father could see how sweet it was. The only way for anyone to understand the bliss of reconciliation is to taste it yourself. Reconciliation with God has a sweetness about it. And only the person who enjoys it knows it. The apostle descends here from the glorious doctrine of reconciliation through Jesus Christ and his work on the cross to the particular application of it, and you have the reconciled is what our text refers to. It’s important to you know how doctrine relates to you, personally. And so we see Paul here applying it and talking about their reconciliation to God. And we have a greater appreciation for its value. Now, let me begin this morning by saying this morning by saying this. He talks here about your miserable condition under the state of a corrupt nature to begin with. He says here, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. He says you were alienated. The apostle here would have you take note of what you were before being reconciled. out to God. What you were before being gathered into the body of Christ and being one of God’s people. You had no fellowship with God. You were without God in this world, according to Ephesians 212. You were strangers to the covenants of promise where the grace of God was revealed. You had no bond. of friendship with the Lord. What did you know about that promise? I will be his God and he shall be my son. What did you know before conversion of the sweetness of walking with God? You had no communion with God. You didn’t delight in his laws. You didn’t delight in his attributes. You did not delight in his providence over this world. God was not in all your thoughts. You lived afar off from God. You had no interest in drawing near to God. Now, this is not a state which you gradually reached over time for the scripture says that from the womb you were estranged from God because of your fallen Adam. You were alienated. And then he says, you were enemies. Ah, my friends, you go through this world. You were a lover of pleasure. than a lover of God. You were an enemy of God’s person. Some deny there is a God, but a lot wish there were not a God. They wish they could get rid of God if they could. They live as if there is no God. My friends, is it true that what we did know about God we didn’t like. We despise the fact that he was a sovereign God. God. We denied his omniscience. We detested his justice and holiness. We didn’t like the God of the Bible. Let’s look at things as it really was. We didn’t like that God. That God was really diametrically opposed to who we are. We love darkness rather than light, and God is light. You were an enemy of God’s purposes. Before you’re converted you, we were. really detest the fact that God has any control over your life at all. That he would determine anything about your life. You want to look upon yourself as the master of your own fate of your own life. You control things. And yet when you open the Bible up, you find God does. You do like that. One interest did you have in doing or even knowing the will of God. Why, you went through this life trying to please yourself? That’s what your focus was upon. If you had a Bible, it sat around and it collected enough dust on it, you could probably write the word damnation with your finger on it, because you weren’t reading it. What do you care about? What did you care about the will of God? You murmured. You quarreled about God’s providence over you in this life. you would charge God with being unfair or unequal in his determinations. You’re unhappy with how he did rule the world. If you even give him that credit. You cast away God’s law. You’re not subjected to it. You chafed at its restrictions. You were an enemy of God’s son. Perhaps you denied his deity or his real humanity. But the truth is, most people just ignore Christ altogether. as they go through this life. They do take Christ upon their lips once and a while when they’re cursing. That’s about it. They oppose his offices. They’re not listening to Christ’s prophet. They’re not appreciative of the blood and sacrifice of Christ as the priest. They do not have a willingness to have Christ rule over them as king. They treat with contempt the gospel of Christ thinking it is foolishness. You were an enemy of God’s spirit. Whether you deny his person, or whether you ridicule his operations of grace, the whole idea that I have to be born again. It’s ridiculous. Or you mock the scriptures he inspired. You don’t take them seriously. You’re enemy of God’s people. You know those crazy people? Those religious fanatics that you shunned and despised who you considered ignorant and foolish. They’re the spoilers of your peace. You felt like Ahab when Elijah came to meet him. You’re a troubler of Israel. You’re the cause of all the trouble. You don’t like the truth, they proclaim. You’d like to silence them. And on and on we go. But in all these ways, we look at ourselves before conversion. maybe it wasn’t as overt as all that I painted for you this morning. But the truth of the matter is, you are an enemy of God. That’s what the scripture says. That’s what you were like. You were alienated from him and you were an enemy to. Now notice this observation here. A couple of things. One is this. God wants to have you see your miserable condition so that you would get out of that miserable state. If you don’t know Christ, this morning, here’s what the message is, this is the way you are. All your misery in this life can be found in the fact that you are separated, alienated from God, and an enemy of God. Then you need to examine yourself regarding this matter. Whether you know God or not. What category do you fit in? Do you see yourself as the prodigal son who perhaps has squandered every good gift given to it. Do you find yourself in a far-off land, in a miserable state? Do you mourn the foolishness of your ways? Have you ever come to yourself and realize how much better off you would be if you were reconciled to God? Are you now willing to confess, I’ve sinned against heaven, and return to the Lord in repentance? The scripture says, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man, his thoughts. and let him return unto the Lord and you will have mercy on him, for he will abundantly pardon. Doesn’t the scripture indicate to us that the story of the prodigal son teaches us something about God and the welcoming of the repentant sinner? The scripture says about the prodigal son, and he arose and came to his father, and when he was yet afar off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. Doesn’t scripture indicate that God welcomes the sinner who repents? And so the message is if you find yourself here in this category of being alien and enemies toward God, obviously the need is to repent, to repent. But let’s look at this from a believer’s perspective. God would have you remember the pit from which you’ve been rescued. you. This is what you were. This is how you were when I reached out and saved you. Right now you have peace with God. You’ve been reconciled to God. But you were in as desperate a situation as everybody else in this world. You need a sense of God’s mercy to you, kept fresh in your mind, so that you say, there go I, but for the grace of God. You need to be, kept from being puffed up with pride about your present state as if somehow or other, you deserve credit for being reconciled to God. We don’t have to think highly of ourselves. Indeed, we were in very desperate states, conditions when God reached out to us and spirit us. We need our love drawn to God because he rescued us from this miserable condition. That’s why we’re told about this. that we keep fresh in our minds of this truth. Your miserable condition under the state of a corrupt nature, alienated in enemies. And then he says here, secondly, the cause of your miserable condition in your mind by wicked works, he says. This entity that you and I had with regard to God comes back to its root cause here in the mind. The soul is the seat of hostility toward God. We find here it’s not merely the affections, but the understanding of the will, the whole inner man, the heart of man, is opposed to God. Thus, it is the mind in particular that stands in need of being renewed as the scripture indicates to us. Every thought of his heart, the Bible says about man is only wicked continually. Because your understanding is darkened, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. So great is our depravity that exists in the mind because of the fall that man is an enemy of God. In this corrupt state, men are haters of God, according to Romans 130. Scripture says this, if the world hates you, as Christ’s disciples, know that it hated me before it hated you. He that hateth me, hateeth my father also. This man who loves darkness enjoys evil with the lights in it. He’s diametrically opposed to God. Now notice it’s common to deny your mind is so depraved to pray that it becomes a hater of God. You know, Paul talks about man’s state here. But people would say, well, that’s not me. There was a man who discovered, a man who was discovered with a gun and a dog trespassing on someone else’s woodland property. And the man claimed he was only looking for mushrooms. He wasn’t honey. The landowner felt the man’s pocket, and there was something soft in his pocket. It was a rabbit. He said, I found that laying dead next to the mushrooms I was looking for. I’m not poaching. And we look at that and we laugh at that story because we know the truth of the matter is all the evidence is against you. In the same way, man would like to say, I’m not a hater of God, but when you really boil it down, when you get down to man’s actual state and what he’s really like, all the evidence is against him. A man tries to minimize it. man is ignorant of his own heart. It’s deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can really know it? But the indication is most people would say, No, sir, you’ll never make me believe that I’m a hater of God. They may admit they’re a sinner. They may admit they have done evil things in this life, but no, I’m not a hater of God. Such is the thinking of the world. My friends, as life goes on and things happen in your life, the evidence comes to the surface. The God who has given him so many good things in life perhaps crosses his path in an unexpected manner and things change in the hostility surfaces. Perhaps there’s some heavy rains in the dam burst and all of a sudden this man’s house and his business is flooded and washed away. Where the earthquake comes along and swallows it up whatever the case may be and he loses everything in his home and his business is utterly destroyed and there he stands in the midst of the ruins with clenched fist shaking his fist toward heaven. Angry with God. And he curses God to his face pouring out the most horrible, blasphemous words against God. He can no longer deny then he’s a hearer of God because what was in his heart all along finally? surfaces. The heart being deceitful is such that you don’t know the true state of the hostility you have toward God prior to your conversion. But the scripture indicates this is the cause of your miserable condition. Your heart isn’t right. And therefore it engages in evil works. You that were some sometimes alienated in enemies in God in your mind by wicked works yet now hath you reconciled. Your deliverance thirdly this morning from this miserable condition. The reconciliation accomplished by Christ must be applied to you. You see the word now there. Previously Paul had spoken of the reconciliation that Christ had purchased for the church by the blood of the cross and here the apostle makes application to the Colossian believers in particular. It speaks of the time of their conversion. When God by His Spirit, on the basis of Christ’s works, the reconciliation Christ’s purchased to them, and they were saved. They were saved by the offering up of Christ’s body on the accursed tree. He bore the sins of his people and made reconciliation for them. We see here that Christ’s a body needed to be incarnate for that body to die in order to be it to be sacrificed. Reconciliation is affected in time, not an eternity. So the reconciliation applied, accomplished by Christ has to be applied to you. Now your reconciliation is demonstrated by a changed mind, will, and works. Look at verses 9 and 10 again. Back in chapter, in this chapter one. For this cause also, since the day we heard of it, do not cease to pray for you and desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that you may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful, and every good work increasing in the knowledge of God. That is contrasted with what we see in verse 21 about you being aliened and enemies in your mind by wicked works. The difference here comes out. Scripture says in Romans 12, 2, and be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The believer’s mind is spiritually renewed so that you are now granted wisdom or knowledge about the divine mysteries. And this new thinking enables you to live differently, to walk in a different manner. This is the scripture is the walk in newness of life. Once your mind was occupied by wicked works, now it’s occupied with how do I please God? How do I please my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ? We do all things under Christ. Here is a good test. and to evaluate whether you’ve been reconciled to God, what’s your mind focused on? Are you focused on, how do I live to honor the Lord, or are you focused on merely pleasing yourself in the wicked works you want to do? I read a story about a famous king of Poland who did very many brave deeds in his day. He confessed that he owed his excellent character and his behavior to a secret habit that he had formed. It seems that he was the son of a noble father, and he carried around with him a small portrait of his father at all times. And so when he, before he went into battle, he would look at that portrait and nerve himself for bravery in the battle. When he was in the council chamber, he would look at that portrait secretly, and it would enable him he thought to be more royal and more noble in the way he handled himself. he would say to himself, I don’t want to do anything to dishonor my father’s name. Now that’s the grand thing that the Christian has to do. That’s how we are to live our life. To carry about the will of God in our hearts so that our actions are directed by the will of God. So you’re delivered from this miserable condition. Fourthly, the final end of your deliverance from this miserable condition. is found here in verse 22. To present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable and unreprovable in his sight. Now, if you would, look with me also to the book of the Ephesians. Chapter 5, there’s a parallel passage that most of you are familiar with. Chapter 5 in beginning with verse 25. Christ loved, husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that should be holy and without blemish. The church here is being prepared as a bride for her husband. husband. Remember, we’re still looking at what Christ is doing with regard to the church here in this passage. And so Christ is going to present to himself a glorious church without any spot or wrinkle, any corruption, any evil, so that, as the text says, will be wholly unblameable, unreprovable. This is what Christ had in view when he suffered and died. and he still has this in view in his intercessory prayers and in the preparations he’s making for us. On the last day, Christ will deliver up the kingdom to his father, and he will say, behold, I and the children that thou hast given me, because we’re going to be reconciled to him, and the end result of this reconciliation is to be in this state that he mentions here. It’s true that in this life, we never reached that marvelous state that were unreprovable, or they were without fault. But that is the ultimate goal of reconciliation. And it’s true also that all who are designed for heaven in the future are prepared for heaven in this life. Yet the highest degree of sanctification in this life is much beneath what we’re going to be when Christ returns and we’re glorified. Now, let me make this observation. You cannot be truly reconciled to God if you remain in your former iniquity. How can you say that you’re reconciled to God? Christ reconciled you that you might be presented before him as wholly unblameable and unreprovable in the sight of God is far. Christ died to free you from slavery to sin. How is it that we can live any longer than in that state? If there is reconciliation, there has to be some type of sanctification of life. There has to be. The Bible says being made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. Romans 618. Carnal professing Christians, I use that in quotations, professing Christians here, deceive themselves when they pretend that they have salvation when there is no corresponding sanctification in their life. Because, you see, it goes against everything that Christ died on the cross to do. The Bible says in 1. Peter 2.24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, sin should live righteously. Live righteously. My friends, God did not give up his son on the cross and have him suffer to free you from your sins so you can live as you please and do whatever evil you want to do. No. God has shed upon you his grace and all the blessings of his love that you might be restored to his image. Nothing less is the goal. So examine your life. See if you’ve been reconciled to God. Has God changed my thinking? Has He changed my life? Because Christ’s reconciliation always produces that as a result. Well, that native boy had a hard time explaining to his father what that new white substance was that was so sweet that was called sugar. And so he wanted to go back and get another cube for his father so his father could taste and see. Reconciliation is a sweet thing with the Lord. But we have to taste it for ourselves. We can talk about reconciliation all day long. The question is, are you reconciled to God? And if you are reconciled to God, remember the pit from what you’ve been dug and appreciate what future you have as a believer in Christ. And therefore be thankful to God. But this is the goal. This is where we’re heading as the people of God. Let us close with a word of prayer this morning.