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February 8, 2004 |
"Holiness" |
Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Christ in You: the Hope of Glory"
Colossians 1: 1-29
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I am going to ask you a question today. I just want you to think about it.
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And I want you to know, it is a "no-brainer" question.
In fact, before I even ask, I am certain I know the answer.
Have you ever had a conflict in any relationship?
Perhaps it is with your spouse or your employer or a friend. In the conflict you were vigorously disagreeing with one another and both of you end up hurt, confused about how to mend the rift, and are like these two people standing back to back, arms crossed, neither willing to turn and make any attempt toward amends.
Ever been in that kind of a tough situation? What can you do? What are your options?
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Well, you could do nothing. Just leave it be and believe that, "Time heals everything."
I know of one work situation where the people in this company were so conflicted that they had to call in consultants to help sort out what had happened and where it began. Do you know what they discovered? The massive problems began one morning when the woman who usually prepared the coffee didn't do it, someone else did, and this first woman took offense. And it went on from there. They did not talk, but had all kinds of things in their heads and those thoughts began to affect the way they related. They treated each other "as if" the other person was how they believed. And after several months this disagreement had caused a rift in the entire company! All because of coffee.
So, one option is to not do anything at all. Time, then, only made matters worse.
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Another option is to be the first to turn around. Scripture tells us that if we remember that someone else has something against us, to GO to them, to turn first. To do all in our power to live in peace. We are called to be reconcilers!
Why is that? IT is because God is the great reconciler. God is not angry at people and needing to be reconciled to them. Jesus' death did not reconcile God to man, but God was there in Christ reconciling people to himself. God knows we are alienated; we are enemies because of our own behavior, so made a way.
God was there in Christ to reconcile all things TO HIMSELF.
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Say: God did it! For that is the truth. Jesus was not reconciling His Father to us.
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That is backwards! No God as in Jesus reconciling you and me and all people and all of creation and all of the invisible realm to Himself -- making peace through the cross.
What has this reconciling God accomplished?
A. First, God has you covered.
Not like the old gangster movies where one thug says, "Hey, bugsie, you go first, I have you covered…"
More like that picture from Exodus 33 where God told Moses "You stand on this rock by me and as I pass by I will place you into a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand." Remember that? Reconciliation changed our identity for it placed us into the rock, into Christ.
Before, I was alienated from God. I was an enemy. I was without God and without hope. But hope came through the Gospel.
And God took my alienated life and my enemy status and
reconciled me with this purpose: "to present me HOLY in His sight,
WITHOUT BLEMISH and FREE FROM ACCUSATION!"
Read those words. Do they sound like a description of YOU, today, in your life? Are you Holy, without blemish, and free from accusation?
According to the GOSPEL, God has placed us in Christ so that the character of Christ is ours by God's decree. We are all these things right now. At the same time, we are growing into all of them, over time. But right now God sees me "just as if I never sinned."
The change of identity from enemy to friend is entirely of grace. God changed our clothes, covered our sin, so, now sees us through the character of Jesus.
The High Priest Joshua in the book of Zechariah is a picture of us. During the time of the exile, Zechariah sees Joshua stand before God's throne in filthy clothes and hears an angel of God give the order: "Take off his filthy clothes." He then says to Joshua, "See I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you" (Zechariah 3:3-4).
All the Colossians did to receive this new identity is have faith in Jesus. In 1:4 Paul has written, "we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus…" They trusted, and God placed them in Christ to present as the Word has stated.
FAITH is what places you into Christ and keeps you there. Moses was covered in that rock because he trusted God to do what He had promised.
Likewise, faith keeps us in this place. God has you covered. Tell Someone.
The Colossians were surrounded by those in the church not holding onto the hope of the Gospel that "God did it, I'm covered." Instead, like I spoke of last week, they believed in Jesus plus ceremony, plus angels, plus asceticism, or Jesus plus empty philosophy. That is why Paul warns them, saying: "if you continue in your faith…"
Saving faith is an anchored hope in what God has done not a hope in our rigorous disciplines or asceticism. In any cult or world religion, there is no such hope, the adherent only trusts in his own works for salvation.
So, don't be moved from the hope held out in the Gospel. God has reconciled you through Christ's physical death. Lay hold of that hope and cling to it. And then, with Paul, be willing to share this hope with others. "This," Paul writes, "is the Gospel I am proclaiming." God did it! I'm covered!
B. And Second -- through reconciliation -- God has done more! There is the revealed mystery of God's astounding plan.
Jesus had said to the disciples "the Holy Spirit will be in you" (John 14:17) and "I will be in you" (John 14:20).
That was the promise. In reconciliation, God covers us and FILLS US!
Christ in you, the hope of Glory, Paul writes.
As God dwelt in the middle of the camp of Israel and traveled with them, so God dwells IN you. He has set up His tent in your heart.
Our bodies then are the temple of the Holy Spirit. This causes Paul to ask in the book of 1 Corinthians, whether we should take the members of Christ, our bodies, and join them to a prostitute? And his answer is "No, never!"
Are you tired of what you see in the mirror each morning? Do you think that you are too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short, have too many wrinkles, etc? Then, remember you are only looking at the old bulb which will one day be planted and come forth some magnificent flower. The body you see is dying because of sin, but all the while you are being inwardly renewed.
You cannot see the real you. The real YOU is deep within where Christ has taken up residence. The phrase, "Christ in you, the hope of glory," points to the real transformation within, the weight and splendor of God's presence that will reveal someday a "you" you cannot imagine.
Who knows what is ahead of us? Even the Apostle John wrote, "We are children of God and what we will be has not yet been revealed, but we know that when we see Him we will be like him!" The Apostle John found angels in the experience described in his book of Revelation, so magnificent to behold he was tempted twice to worship them! So, what would you or I be tempted to do if we beheld a brother or sister in Christ as they truly are?
This is what prompted CS Lewis to ponder:
"It is a serious thing …to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare," wrote CS Lewis. "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal!" (Weight of Glory, essay, publ in Theology, Nov, 1941).
Truly people are immortal. Immortal horrors or everlasting splendors!
God did it. I'm Covered. I'm filled.
And I am thus blessed to bless others -- to proclaim this Gospel that has covered me and this Christ that has filled me. "We proclaim Him," says Paul. We don't proclaim anything less than the fullness of Jesus.
The plan of God is to touch this world through you and through me.
Look I was once turned away from Him, now I am turned toward Him, embracing Him, and can turn to others whom He wishes to reach through me, and tell them of Jesus too.
Be covered, be filled and be ready to tell others!
III. We proclaim HIM!
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