Colossians 1:19-23: Coming Back To God

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and, through him, to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the
gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

Introduction
On December 10, 2008, in front of the Oslo City Hall in Norway, Martti Ahtisaari will receive one of the world’s most prestigious awards, the Nobel Peace Prize “for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflict”[1] He has been a regular envoy for the United Nations and other countries in helping to resolve turmoil in Kosovo, Namibia, Northern Ireland and Indonesia.

The amazing thing about the Nobel Peace Prize is that they give it out every year. That’s right, we need to keep celebrating peace makers because we are so good at creating crises. In fact, in 2000, Martti founded the Crisis Management Initiative, a non-profit organization which helps the peace-making process.

Now, in the previous verses, we just talked about how Jesus was unique. He was unique because was God made flesh, because he was the firstborn, because he created everything and holds everything together and because he started the church. With this last point Paul is going to start talking about how the church was put together.

This week, we see Jesus was unique because of his mission. What was his mission? Peace with God. Peace with God. Not just a cease-fire. Not just a flag of truce, run out white flag. Peace with God.

In these verses, Paul paints a picture more bleak--more desperate—than any he has painted up to this point. In verse 12 of chapter 1, we were unqualified. In verse 13, we needed rescue. In verse 14 we were slaves in need of redemption. Each of those pictures shows us as lacking something. But listen to Paul’s language here:

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your
evil behavior. – Colossians 1:21

Sometimes we draw a picture showing a canyon between us and God. We can’t get to God on our own. And that is true. But it is worse than that. We aren’t even facing God. We are walking away. These are the words of broken relationships; angry words; betrayal; apathy and contempt. Worse than a war between nations or a border dispute or a coup d’état, we are a world at war with God.

Is God an impersonal force for good? Is he the personification of the rules that are written down in the Bible? Is he the balance scales, weighing the good things we have done against the evil things we have done? Think about what I just said: “Is He…?” He. A personal pronoun. Remember the 2nd commandment? No graven images. That commandment goes on to say:

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a
jealous God… – Exodus 20:5a

Where you see “LORD” in that verse, it is the name of God: Yahweh. When the Israelites asked Moses about the God who was rescuing them from Egypt, Moses gave them the name that God told him on the mountain: Yahweh. Impersonal forces don’t have names.

Let me go one step further: “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God.” Impersonal forces aren’t jealous. God says: I have chosen you. I have given you a special place in my heart. I have loved you. Don’t you start looking around. Don’t let anyone or anything have that place in your heart that is mine alone, because I am a jealous God.

Sin is not a weight on a balance scale. It is not arrows missing a target. It isn’t check marks against your name on the blackboard. Sin is hurting a God who loves us and striking out at the ones He loves. God is jealous of our affections. He loves. He gets angry. And because he is God, he is the guardian not only of his own heart, but he is also the referee between you and me. He is the defender of the weak and the oppressed, the widow and the orphan, the unfairly accused and abused.

What we have done to God and what we have done to each other places us against God. We are alienated. We are enemies. God loves us but God is also fair.

In the movie The Princess Bride, Grandpa says, “Who ever said life is fair? Where is that written?” Life isn’t fair. So why do we keep expecting it to be fair? The question isn’t “Why does the bad guy win?” but rather, “Why do we expect it to be any different?” We keep expecting the white hats to ride in and save the day. We keep waiting for the girl to recognize the bad guy for what he is and fall for the good guy.

Would it be fair if embezzlers inherited a fortune? Would it be fair if liars got what they didn’t deserve? Would it be fair if the envious got more than they ever coveted? If the murderers got away without punishment? If the disloyal survived the betrayal? No, it would not be fair. We know it would not be fair. But it is exactly what we ask from God.

We want fairness. We want justice. But we need mercy. We need forgiveness. But, forgiveness comes at a cost. The Bible says:

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood and
without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. – Hebrews 9:22b

Forgiveness is not free. When we forgive, we don’t require a blood sacrifice. Forgiveness transfers the cost of the sin to the forgiver. This was still true in the Old Testament. The blood of a lamb or a bull could not buy forgiveness. Because that obedience and respect was the sign that you were serious about the relationship with God. If you left that out, you missed the point.

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt
offerings. – Hosea 6:6

God wants to find us. He leaves the 99 to find the 1 and you are the 1.

Forgiveness is not free-it transfers the cost to the forgiver. Jesus paid, not for our sin, but for our forgiveness.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in
accordance with the riches of God's grace. - Ephesians 1:7

You see, only you can pay for your sin. But only God can pay for forgiveness.

God’s Peace Making Plan: Sending the Savior (vs. 19)
Forgiveness requires that the forgiver pay the cost. And the only cost sufficient was the blood. The only answer for the world was for God to be made flesh and shed his blood, as it says in verses 19 and 20:

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.-Colossians 1:19

Last week we talked about how Jesus was the image of the invisible God. Paul used a dangerous word: icon to describe how Jesus’ carried the full significance of God in human flesh. But that word icon was a double-edged sword. It illustrates the double-edged sword of communicating spiritual truth (or any truth, for that matter) into a world prepared to misunderstand at every turn. Sort of like being a politician.

The trouble with the word icon was that the Colossians might think Jesus was just the image and nothing else. Sort of the hollow-chocolate-Easter-bunny version of God. Is that all Jesus was: the reminds-me-of-God, Savior? No! Paul clears it up by saying that in Jesus had the fullness of God. This wasn’t just the smell-of-apple-pie Jesus, this was the fullness-of-apples-bursting-through-the-crust Jesus.

In order for the God’s peace plan to work, it had to really be God. In order for God’s peace plan to work, the blood had to be real. It required someone both human and divine. If Jesus was just the hollow chocolate Easter bunny of God, he wouldn’t be able to take on the sin of the world.

Go back to verse 19 and circle the words “all things” Jesus had to be God in order to carry out forgiveness on such a scale. To bring back the world to God. This isn’t God sneaking a few of his best disciples out the back door of Planet Earth before he lights the blowtorch. This is a wholesale evacuation of Planet Earth, taking anyone who is willing. This is the Titanic with enough room in the lifeboat for everyone. But there is only way to safety: Jesus.

God’s Peace Making Plan: Reconciling Us (vs. 20-22)

…and, through him, to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth
or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once
you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil
behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death
to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.
— Colossians 1:21-22

In the movie National Treasure, Ben Gates is sitting down next to the FBI agent at the end of
the movie, having discovered the most fantastic treasure of all, but caught in his own guilt. The FBI agent puts his elbow on his knees and says, “Somebody’s gotta go to jail, Ben”

God did not—indeed, could not—shortcut the requirements of fairness. Job said:

It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert
justice. – Job 34:12

Somebody’s gotta go to jail. Forgiveness is not free for the giver. But at the same time, God was not content to leave us without hope; to let us wander into the darkness without the chance to come back to the God who made us. For each one of us, God has two goals:

1. Reconciliation. Verse 20 says that “and, through him, to reconcile to himself all things.” To himself. The end of God’s movie for the world includes a reunion between people: you and God. God left the 99 to find the 1 and you are the 1. And when you return, he rejoices; he throws a party. The relationship is restored.
   
2. Restoration. Verse 22 says that he desires to “present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation…” Do you want to come into heaven as the ugly step-child? Does God admit you grudgingly? Is the list of your failures forever foremost in His mind?

Somebody’s gotta go to jail and that somebody is Jesus.
Some people assume that because justice is delayed that justice is forgotten. Or some assume that justice delayed is the impotence of God. Where is God? Why doesn’t He do something. He is doing something. In Greek, patience is not a passive verb. It literally means: to suffer long or carry long. Like in 1st Corinthians 13 where it says “Love is patient” it really says: “Love suffers long.”

He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

Patience from God is not incompetence or blindness: it is love. It is justice deferred as long as possible to allow as many as possible to be re-united with him. That includes you and me. He is patient with us. He has waited for us to come back to the one who has loved us. The window of opportunity is open for each man and woman before patience expires and justice is enforced.
This idea of holy and without blemish come from the world of the sacrificial alter. When a lamb or bull was chosen for the sin offering, it was set apart for God (holy) and it was a perfect animal, without blemish. When Jesus went to the cross, he was the perfect sacrifice and, when we come to Christ, we identify with him, so that his death is our death and his life is our life:

…having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith
in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. – Colossians 2:12

God the Father accepted Jesus and now he accepts us as fully as Jesus. The Bible says that Jesus:

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him,
because he always lives to intercede for them. – Hebrews 7:25

As it says in Colossians 1:21: free from accusation.

God’s Peace Making Plan: Changing Me (vs. 23)

…if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope
held out in the gospel. –Colossians 1:23a

The gospel is meant to be life changing. If it is not life changing, it is either not genuine…or we are not. Your life should gradually progress in the same direction as God’s. It may not be a straight line, maybe sort of a spiral; maybe a jagged line.

Do you want a sneak peak of you, 100 years from now?

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness (the
icon) of his Son. – Romans 8:29

You are destined to look like Jesus. You were set apart for God, now act like it.

The greatest tests of a man or a woman are the commitments they make. The decision of a moment, made in the spur of the moment may show great bravery or foolishness, but the thousands of choices which result from a commitment are the truest form of heroism.

That heroism is also consistently saying “Yes” to God and “No” to the world. The gospel hasn’t changed. Sometimes we need a history lesson, a reminder of where we have come from and where we are going so that we are renewed in the choice we have made to be devoted followers of Jesus.

Conclusion: Changing The World
Paul ends his letter by inviting the readers to join him in the service of the gospel.

This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature
under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. –Colossians 1:23

On January 24th, 1848, men working in the tail run of a new saw mill in Coloma found nuggets of a shiny metal: gold. After confirming the news, Samuel Brannan, a newspaper publisher in San Francisco set up a shop to sell gold-panning supplies and then walked the streets of the city shouting, “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River” From those humble beginnings, tens of thousands of people from Latin America, Europe, Australia and Asia and, of course, the east coast of the United States rushed to California to make their fortunes in gold.

We have found the gold: the good news of Jesus. Paul speaks with the voice of experience; someone who has had to make tough choices for his decision to follow Jesus. But it is a bit of a strange sentence: Paul has become a servant of the good news. Something about the good news is so powerful, so compelling that it changes Paul’s life. Does it change ours?

Does the gospel compel us? I see people outside the church more worried about whales than souls. I see people inside the church worried more about dirty carpet than cleansed hearts. I don’t want to make people guilty but I do want to redirect their joy so that what makes God celebrate also is what makes us celebrate.

[1] http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2008/