In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij examines Colossians 1:20-23 and Paul’s reminder of the change Christ has accomplished on behalf of believers. Christians need to remember what they have been saved from to draw even more lovingly after Jesus Christ.
1. The condition in which God found us prior to the act of grace (21a)
2. The present standing of believers in grace (20, 22a)
3. The future position of believers after receiving God’s grace (22b-23)
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Summary
We are reminded of the dramatic contrast between our former condition apart from Christ and our present standing as reconciled children of God. Drawing from Colossians 1:14-23, this passage teaches us that we were once alienated, hostile in mind, and engaged in evil deeds — but through Christ’s atoning work, we are now reconciled, forgiven, and will be presented before the Father as holy, blameless, and beyond reproach.
Key Lessons:
- Apart from Christ, every person is estranged from God, living under the domain of darkness without realizing the depth of their spiritual condition.
- The natural mind is hostile toward God and incapable of forming correct thoughts about him — only God’s Word can correct our thinking and reveal who we truly were.
- Christ’s blood reconciles, cleanses, unites, and overcomes — transforming enemies of God into friends who are at peace with him.
- The goal of Christ’s redemptive work is to present believers before the Father as holy, blameless, and beyond all accusation — a glorious and eternal result that should motivate faithful living.
Application: We are called to remain firmly established and steadfast in the hope of the gospel, refusing to be moved by opposition from friends, family, culture, or false teaching. Understanding the depth of what we were rescued from should produce humility, gratitude, and wholehearted devotion to Christ.
Discussion Questions:
- How does reflecting on who we were apart from Christ — alienated, hostile, and engaged in evil — deepen your appreciation for the gospel?
- In what ways does the culture around us reflect the ‘darkened mind’ described in Colossians 1, and how should that shape how we engage with the world?
- Knowing that Christ will one day present you before the Father as holy, blameless, and beyond reproach, how does that truth change how you think about your identity and daily choices?
Scripture Focus: Colossians 1:14-23 — the central passage tracing humanity’s alienation from God, Christ’s reconciling work through his blood, and the believer’s future presentation before the Father as holy and blameless. Supporting passages include Romans 5:10, 1 John 1:7, 1 Peter 1:18-19, and Ephesians 2:13.
Outline
- Introduction
- The Condition God Found Us In
- Estranged from God
- Under the Domain of Darkness
- Hostile in Mind Toward God
- The Idol-Making Mind
- Engaged in Evil Deeds
- The Darkened Mind in Culture
- Our Present Standing: Reconciled to God
- The Future Position of Believers
Introduction
Okay, you can take your Bibles and turn to Colossians. Before I begin this morning, I do want to mention that this time of year is a great time to get in the habit of reading through the Bible next year.
Probably one of the best habits I began to gain victory in was reading through the Bible every year. I started, fell off the wagon, started again, and then finally I read through the Bible every year, and it’s been very beneficial.
We do have some daily Bible readers. They have a Psalm and a proverb, Old Testament, and a New Testament every day. It’s got the date right there. All you do is open it up to the date and read that passage of scripture, and it becomes something where you want to get up and read the word of God.
We have a couple over there. We have the MacArthur Daily Bible, which is the New American Standard, and then we also have the Everyday Bible, which is the English Standard Version. Whatever one you would like to buy, one’s about twenty dollars and the other one’s twelve dollars.
I really do recommend you starting that habit. The new year is a good time to do it. If you’re going to do one thing that’s worth it, it would be to start reading through the Bible.
By the end of the year, either you read through the Bible halfway, three quarters, or all the way. If you get all the way through it, that’s a victory. It starts forming that big picture of the whole scripture in your mind, and it’s amazing actually.
I would recommend you do that. I would admonish you today: if you don’t have a one-year Bible, get one apart from your regular Bible that you use and start getting into that habit. Amen.
“If you’re going to do one thing that’s worth it, it would be to start reading through the Bible.”
All right, let’s look at the word of God and let me have a word of prayer. I do want to also mention that next week is going to be a different kind of Sunday.
Next Sunday, we’re going to have a baptism service with two people getting baptized, and we’re also going to have a deacon ordination. COVID kind of put us off track a little bit in doing those kinds of things, at least the ordination, so we’re going to have our deacons and ordain them next week.
They get the asterisk off the bulletin, and now they’re full deacons. They do a lot of work around the church—a lot of ministry and mercy ministry.
We are also going to license Pastor Dave Kaposha to the gospel ministry next week, and we’re going to lay hands on them and recognize the gifts and abilities God’s given them—the deacons and Dave.
The elders will lay their hands on them, pray for them, and let them know that these are our elders and these are our deacons in the church. We want to do that because it’s commanded in scripture, and we want to make that public.
So we’re going to do that next week. Just be ready for that, and I’ll be using scripture that has to do with those kinds of things next Sunday.
But right now let’s have a word of prayer and we’ll get into Colossians 1:20-23.
Lord, thank you this morning for your people. Thank you, Lord, for bringing them out. Thank you, Lord, for how you’re working in their life and how you’ve been working in their life all this past year.
Lord, we know that when you started, you will continue until the day of Christ. Lord, we want to be faithful. We want to put off our sin and be more holy this year than we were last year.
Lord, I pray and thank you so much for the scriptures that transform our mind, that cause us to think like you want us to think, to think biblically and have the mind of Christ on how to look at life, how to look at ourselves, and how to stand firm in the truth no matter what comes down the pike.
That we would not be wavering to and fro by everything that’s being thrown at us, but we would stand firm in the truth. As we do that, Lord, we know it produces in us a joy and a peace that nobody else could have except the children of God.
I thank you for that. Bless us now as we look at your word. In Christ, I pray, amen.
Today I’m going to be looking at Christ’s relationship to the redeemed before and then after conversion. I’d like you to look at the scriptures. I’m going to read verses 14 through 23.
Colossians 1:14-23: “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place in everything.
For it was the father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.
If indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.”
In this book of Colossians, it was written to warn against error which was in evidence in those days, and it also is in evidence in our day. People believed back then that between themselves and God there was a long shadowy line of beings—angels who demanded worship and pacification—and that Jesus was one of these, taking Jesus out of his rightful place and lowering him.
Whatever Satan uses from his toolbox of tricks, the enemy’s goal is always to distort biblical doctrine and the true God-pleasing way of living the Christian life. But specifically, the enemy’s ultimate goal is designed to rob the Lord of his central, primary place.
From Genesis to Revelation, it’s all pointing to Christ. The enemy wants to cloud and distort that true redemptive work and even the person of Christ.
These distortions of truth and heresies want to spoil the Christian, cheat you, take you captive, and move you away in order to cloud and distort what Christ has done on behalf of all who would believe in him.
That’s why we find in chapter 2, verse 8, that we are to not let anyone take us captive through philosophy and empty deceit, but we are to live rather according to the doctrine of Christ.
We’ve already learned in our text that Jesus Christ is the preeminent one in salvation, the salvation of sinners. No other person could redeem us, forgive us, transfer us out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God’s son, and make us fit for the Christian life and ultimately to be in the presence of God.
No one else could do that. No one else has done that except Jesus Christ. So we are to give thanks to the father because of so great a salvation that has been given to us by the Lord, because he has qualified us, made us fit, rescued us, transferred us, and bought us.
This is the glorious character of this salvation that the Lord has given to us as his children. God the father has delivered you, who are truly believers in Christ, from that domain of darkness. The lights have been turned on, and he has also brought you into the kingdom of Christ.
One day we will have the full benefit of that when we’re actually there, but we are there now. In that movement towards the consummation of everything, God is also doing something else. He’s changing your nature, giving you a new heart, and changing your heart.
In our former condition apart from Christ, we were in such a terrible, spiritually dead state, and we didn’t even really know it. We thought of ourselves as free, not realizing that we were under the control of the domain of darkness and that we were enslaved to our own sins.
The word of God is the only place that we can get a clear, realistic picture of the tragic condition of all of us prior to receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. Even if you haven’t yet repented of your sin and received Christ as Lord and savior, you are presently in that condition. If you have received Christ as your Lord and savior, then you are in a new position.
Here is a snapshot this morning in our text of all people who were apart from Christ and those who are presently apart from Christ. It is beneficial for us to often remind ourselves of what we were before.
When you read scripture, you find out, “Well, I didn’t think I was like that,” but then the scriptures describe how God really saw us and how we really were. It kind of humbles you and realizes and magnifies the gospel to see how great salvation really is, how much you didn’t deserve it, and how much mercy and grace God has given you in the work that was done on your behalf so you can be saved and made right with God.
The Condition God Found Us In
It just makes you want to be a more faithful servant of Christ. The first major point this morning I want to stress is this: in verse 21, the condition in which God found us prior to the act of grace. The act of grace is God giving you the free gift of eternal life, which you received.
Notice in verse 21 it says, “Although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds.” There’s a lot in that little passage of scripture. We see the bad news about who we really were prior to Christ.
This is the bad news, and you need to know the bad news. Even as a believer, you need to go over the bad news once more, because it’s very humbling when we begin to think about what God has done.
“It humbles you and magnifies the gospel to see how great salvation really is, and how much you didn’t deserve it.”
Estranged from God
Now notice under this first title that we see apart from Christ, you and I were estranged. Notice what it says in verse 21: “and although you were formerly alienated.” That means we were estranged.
Human beings were created in God’s image, created good and innocent of evil. As the word of God says in Genesis, “Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and God created man in his own image, and the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.”
God created us to have fellowship with him. Adam and Eve had fellowship with the Lord in the garden. But we became aliens, we became estranged from God, and that means we were strangers to God, separated from him.
After Adam sinned, rebelled, and disobeyed God, mankind fell into sin and died spiritually. Sin brought chaos upon all of humanity and even the whole universe.
Because of Adam’s sin, the universe was cursed, and we were cursed because of Adam’s sin and rebellion. That brought disease, murder, all kinds of social disorders, earthquakes, hurricanes, wearing down the whole of creation.
It’s still wearing down the earth and the universe. It’s like falling apart like an old garment, and that was all because of sin.
But what sin really destroyed the most was the image of God in man. That was shattered. It brought this curse upon our natures, and the sin nature has been passed down to every human being ever since.
Like Paul said in Romans 5:12, “Through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all have sinned.” Now we have a bad and rotten heart, a rebellious nature toward God.
“Through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all have sinned.”
Jeremiah said the heart is more deceitful than all evil and is desperately sick. Even when King David sinned against Bathsheba and committed adultery, and then sent her husband Uriah into the hottest part of battle, knowing he was going to be killed—committing murder—what does he cry out after that crime?
“Lord, create me a clean heart.” Sin destroys things, it shatters things. Now, why is the world in such confusion, such evil, such sorrow, such bitterness, such pain and suffering? Why do we see that all over the place?
Under the Domain of Darkness
Well, the answer to that question is right here in Colossians 1:13, where it says, “For he rescued us from the domain of darkness.” Now what I’m pointing out there is that we were under the power of the evil one, Satan himself.
We live in Satan’s domain, where spiritual wickedness resides. After Lucifer fell from God because of his pride, he has hated God ever since. Satan is in the world and the world is in his embrace.
First John tells us the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. The devil wants to keep the lost in the dark; he wants to keep them ignorant of the gospel of light.
Paul even says, “The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they may not see the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” The enemy wants to delude and trip up the saved, rob them of their peace and joy, stifle their growth, and ruin their testimonies as children of light.
He wants to get them off a firm footing. That’s why we see in verse 23, which is part of the conclusion of this passage. Notice what it says: “If indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel.”
This is why Paul is writing. He doesn’t want false teachers or false doctrine, or people who bring false communications about what the truth is, to shake you and move you off your foundation.
Believe me, in the true gospel there is a firm foundation. We’re standing on solid ground. Don’t let anybody move you from there. Satan wants to move you from there. He knows he can’t get your soul anymore, but he could ruin your life in the sense of ruining your testimony, to get you to go back into sin.
Darkness is actually ungodliness. It’s opposition to God, it’s estrangement from God. It includes all kinds of dreadful evils, which involve the evil state of the heart and the mind, the power of sin, the tyranny of error, the slavery of corruption.
These things are everywhere you look, and they are characteristic of human nature and human existence. It’s everywhere.
“In the true gospel there is a firm foundation, we’re standing on solid ground. Don’t let anybody move you from there.”
However, if the devil did nothing, if he left you alone, the world would still be full of evil and wickedness. Why is that? Because there is evil in us.
Some people will say, “Well, I never thought of myself as evil.” That’s the point of scripture. This is how God saw us. We didn’t see ourselves that way, but God saw us that way. It is good for us to see who we were, so we can know the change in who we are now in Christ Jesus.
In fact, if you look at Colossians 3:9, notice what it says: “Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices.” We practiced evil every day of our lives, but we didn’t think that way about it; we didn’t look at it that way.
The very term “alienate” in this verse points to people having a settled alienation from God and living life apart from God. You and I used to live as if there was no God. Even though we could have been religious, we could have been quote unquote good people, but we lived and decided things apart from being responsible to our creator and to God.
The psalmist had already pointed this out in Psalm 10:4, where it says, “The wicked in the haughtiness of his countenance does not seek him; all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God.’” They are living a kind of independent, autonomous life and think they are free, but they are not.
Their attitude toward God is a continual state of hostility. We were all slaves to sin. The bad news is that all people are estranged from God and are under God’s judgment.
“The bad news is that all people are estranged from God and are under God’s judgment.”
Hostile in Mind Toward God
That’s just the first little thing it says in the text. And unfortunately we are not done giving the bad news. Because if you look back at verse 20 of chapter 1, we saw that apart from Christ we were estranged, but also apart from Christ we were hostile in our mind.
Notice what it says: “and although you were formerly… hostile in mind.” That you and I were hostile in our thinking. In other words, we were enemies in our mind toward God and toward truth.
Everyone born in the world is by nature an enemy of God, a hater of God. Even again Paul says in Romans 5:10, “for if you were enemies.” See, we didn’t think of ourselves as enemies of God either.
We didn’t think of ourselves as Ephesians says, futile in our mind, darkened in our understanding, ignorant of the ways of God, hard of heart towards God. And yet that’s exactly who we were. That’s why we needed to be saved.
Even way back in Genesis, right before the flood, why did God bring the flood, the worldwide flood, upon the world? Because God saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.
Now you can’t say that’s the other guy, that’s me, that’s you, that’s who I was. That’s why we need to be saved, and that’s why God has to do a work on our heart to be saved, because there’s nothing we can do to rescue ourselves from that condition.
I believe it was at one mall evangelism, a young girl came up, right out of high school. I think she just graduated, and I asked her the two diagnostic questions. The first question being, have you a comfortable place in your spiritual life, that for sure if you die today you go to heaven, or is that something you’re still working on?
The second question would be, if you were to die and stand before God, and God would say to you, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you tell him? Those are the questions.
And so she kind of gave a works-based answer, and then she said to me, I always believed in God. And I said to her, are you sure about that? Because the Bible says that can’t be the case, because we’re all sinners, dead in sin, alienated from God.
Well, that’s about as far as I got, and she was highly offended by my response, and she stormed off with her boyfriend pulling him along the way. But people, you meet people who say, I always believed in God, and I would have to say honestly, you haven’t.
You believed in a god, but it wasn’t the God of the Bible. It was a God you formulated in your own mind. Because see, that’s all the natural mind could do. It cannot do anything but formulate idols in their mind.
So someone who says I’ve always believed in God must explain themselves as to what they mean by that statement. According to the Bible, that can’t be without qualification, without a testimony. That’s why when you say, if you believe those things, well then give me your story. How did that happen? How did you get right with God?
And usually when a person has a confused look on their face when you say that, they have no testimony, because they don’t understand the gospel. Now that’s a sad state, and you and I could have been there at one time in our life, but thank the Lord he doesn’t leave us alone.
The Book of Romans states emphatically, it says, “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God, and does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.” So that is our mind.
Romans 8:7: “The mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God, and does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.”
It doesn’t matter how smart a person is, how much education they have, how much experience they have in life, their mind is unable to formulate correct thoughts about who God is and what God has done. God has to do something.
The Idol-Making Mind
People who think God is this or God is that, with their own thoughts apart from the authority of God’s word informing their understanding, will make a God for themselves out of their own contemplations. The word for that, theologically and scripturally, is idolatry.
We like to make idols, and we do so. We make a God that will conform to what we like and what we don’t like. And you could even call that God Jesus, all right, and yet it’s not the Jesus of the Bible.
According to scripture, that’s a violation of the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me.” In this first commandment, the absolute sovereignty and preeminency of the creator is insisted upon. Since God is who he is, he will tolerate no competitor or rival. His claims on us are paramount and absolute.
If the people were not worshiping the true and living God alone, then they were worshiping some other God. There are other gods besides idols of wood and stone. There’s money, there’s pleasure, there’s power, there’s fame, there’s fashion, there’s gluttony, and a score of other things could be an idol, which really makes self supreme and usurps the rightful place of God in our affections and in our thoughts.
“Money, pleasure, power, fame — a score of things could be an idol, which makes self supreme and usurps the rightful place of God.”
The natural person, apart from Christ and the word of God, does not seek God and does not live for God’s glory. He is always ready to blame God and criticize him for everything. According to them, if anything goes wrong, God is at fault, and they feel that God is unjust, unfair, and aloof to their life.
Outside of Christ, this gets the mind, gets God all wrong. Why is that? Because the Bible tells us so. This is who we were.
In 1 Corinthians 2:14, the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. Why? Because they’re foolishness to him. He cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.
1 Corinthians 2:14: “The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, because they are foolishness to him; he cannot understand them.”
The bad news is all people are estranged from God. All people are hostile in their thinking toward God. And again, our text in Colossians 1 is still not done assessing our further bankruptcy apart from Christ.
Engaged in Evil Deeds
Because a third thing it says under this first point is that our condition prior to the act of grace is that we were wicked in our actions. In verse 21 it says, “engaged in evil deeds.” You and me were not passive in our wickedness. We were engaged in our evil deeds, we were into them.
We love darkness and hiding what was below the surface in our hearts. Isn’t that what the gospel of John tells us? That this is the judgment, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
It says that all over scripture. Ephesians says it like this: that we have become callous and given ourselves over to sensuality and the practice of every kind of impurity and greediness. The Bible just describes us, and why, when it begins to describe us, we have to say, that was me, that was you, that’s where we were heading.
If you look in Colossians 3:5, I want you to notice something. I want to kind of highlight the sins the people, the Colossians, were involved with in their culture.
In Colossians 3:5, it says, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to, what? Immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, which amounts to idolatry.” And then notice in verse 7: “and in them you also once walked, and you were living in them.”
See, we loved our sin, we cannot deny that. We loved what we were doing. Whatever gave you pleasure, whatever gave you fun, whatever gave you something that delighted your soul, that’s what you did. And usually it was something you did in the dark, you didn’t want anybody to know, you were trying to hide it, keep it down, let’s not talk about that.
But the Bible says no, that’s who you were. Why? Because your mind was darkened, that you were dead in your sin. So that’s what our lifestyle was.
“We loved our sin. Whatever gave you pleasure, whatever gave you fun — that’s what you did. Your mind was darkened, you were dead in your sin.”
The Darkened Mind in Culture
Just, if I can give an example of how the darkened and hostile mind in opposition to God and truth goes against God’s design, as it works in our present-day society. If I were to ask you a question, would you agree that according to scripture, God has created human beings as male and female, and has given parents the mandate to raise their children? What would you say? Right?
A lot of people in the world would say that’s a given. Yet that very principle is under attack in a huge way in our culture.
Today the question is: who owns the child? The choices between the parents, who have taken the trouble to have and raise the child, or the educational bureaucracy, which is more likely than the parent to look upon the child as an asset, or in other words, a social engineering project to rearrange government and society.
The child is a commodity. The fallen darkened mind thinks it knows best in relationship to a child’s orientation sexually, what the direction of their life should be like, rather than the parent knowing best.
Whereas children are now being taught that sexuality is fluid and can take them anywhere they want to go, anywhere their desires would go, anywhere the culture would want them to go. And may I add, this is being done usually without any input or approval of parents. Parents often find out later that a gender fluid book was already read in the class to their children, and they find out after the fact.
This is the darkened mind and where it usually goes and what it produces. Today there are all kinds of sexual sins, all kinds of perverted lifestyles that are being presented as alternative normal lifestyles.
This is normal, and that’s how they want to present it. They are often packaged with a new vocabulary so as to soften the perverted connection that it has to it.
The horror of these promoters of such things has a target audience in mind, and usually their audience are preschoolers, ages three to six. That’s to target the young minds while they’re still being developed, so they can get them when they get older.
Many school boards are approving of books promoting the LGBTQ lifestyles to the innocent minds of children, without the parents’ knowledge or approval. In fact, one such book that has been approved by many school boards is already being read in classrooms across the country, which is titled “Julian is a Mermaid,” authored by Jessica Love.
It is a book about transgenderism, a young boy who sees men lavishly dressed as women on a subway that he’s riding. He goes home and thinks about dressing up just like the three ladies, into a mermaid costume, and to be involved with the mermaid parade that’s coming up.
It’s a book that is praised as a jubilant picture of self-love and a radiant expression of individuality. It also received an award, and yet this is offering up children on the altar of demons.
This is the age-old lie: has God said it? Doubt is cast by way of a question. Did God strictly create human beings as male and female, or can we mess with that?
In the darkened mind and its hostility against God’s design, they feel they have the right to disregard the normal design for their perverted design. This is where the fallen darkened mind sets itself up against God, showing its hatred of God’s design, showing its hatred of that which is good and innocent.
For this reason, that’s just one example of where a darkened mind that is in rebellion against God actually heads in a culture, and we’re living in it right now.
But before we blame too many people, you and I were the ones who helped that. The reason I say that is because this is who we were: people with filthy minds, people with twisted selfish desires, creatures with darkened hearts, engaged in wicked actions. That’s who we were.
Remember this: before anyone can receive the good news of the gospel, one must understand the bad news. We need to continue to understand the bad news about ourselves, and in turn it makes the good news so much more clear and so much more glorious.
“Before anyone can receive the good news of the gospel, one must understand the bad news.”
That it would cause us to praise God for what he’s done, knowing that we really had nothing to do with it, it was all God doing it. This is where the marvel of the gospel comes in, what Christ came to do while we’re in this condition.
Our Present Standing: Reconciled to God
While we’re in this condition, Christ did something. Now I want you to look back at Colossians 1:22.
It says, “Yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, in order to present you.” Now this is what the Lord’s done.
This second major point is that this is our present standing as a believer in grace. The believer in Christ is reconciled with God. That word reconcile means to change from a hostile position to a friendly disposition.
God changes his position towards us, and now we’re friends of God because of what Christ has done. This means there’s no more estrangement, there’s no more alienation, we’re no more enemies of God.
“Reconcile means to change from a hostile position to a friendly disposition. There’s no more estrangement — we’re no more enemies of God.”
You don’t have to reconcile friends, but you surely do have to reconcile enemies. And we had to be reconciled to God.
Jesus will reconcile all things that exist, once for all, permanently. We saw that in verse 20: “through him to reconcile all things to himself.”
At Peace with God Through the Blood of Christ
That means we have a restored relationship with God because of Jesus. The second thing in our passage is that as believers in Christ, we’re at peace with God.
Up to verse 20, it says, “Through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross.” That will be a restoration not only of the universe but of relationships. God makes peace with us because of Christ.
No longer hostile towards God, but at peace with God, and we know it now. Sin has ruined everything in heaven and earth, and yet Jesus’ death on the cross changed everything for those who believe.
Corruptible things like silver and gold are the kind of things that do not procure redemption. These things are by nature perishable, subject to decay and destruction. You cannot buy and earn salvation.
But the Bible tells us that we have been bought, and we have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ blood is pure. According to 1 Peter, it says, “Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver and gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”
The blood of Christ also cleanses us. In 1 John 1:7, it says, “The blood of Christ his son cleanses us from all sin.” God does more than forgive; he erases the stain of sin and he presents us as being cleansed before him.
Also, the blood of Christ Jesus unites us. In Ephesians, it tells us, “But now in Christ Jesus you were formerly far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” The blood takes godless sinners who are far away from God and makes them righteous and brings them near to him.
The blood of Christ also overcomes. It says in Revelation 12, “They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb.” We are at peace with God because of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:18-19: “You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver and gold, but with precious blood, as a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”
His death and the shedding of blood are both the same thing in scripture, even though it may not mention blood. Death represents the way he died. He died for what reason? So we could have peace with God.
Forgiven and Freed from Condemnation
But also the believer in Christ is forgiven by God. Back up to verse 14, it says this: “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” At the end of this verse it shows us that redemption and forgiveness go hand in hand.
This word translated forgiveness means to send away, to cancel the debt. The heavenly Father through Christ not only set us free and transferred us to his kingdom, the kingdom of his Son, but he also canceled every sin debt so that we cannot be enslaved again or condemned by them.
Neither can Satan condemn us. Satan can’t even make an indictment stick anymore because we are at peace with God, we are forgiven by God, we are reconciled to God, and that is the beauty of the gospel.
“Satan can’t even make an indictment stick anymore, because we are at peace with God, forgiven by God, and reconciled to God.”
But what is the result of all that? Where does all that lead? What does the bad news that leads to the good news actually lead to, and become very practical for us?
The Future Position of Believers
Well, look at verse 22 of chapter 1, and here’s the third major point: the future position of believers after receiving God’s grace is this. It says in verse 22, “Yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.”
That’s where it leads. That’s the result. Here’s the great and eternal result of Christ’s relationship to the church and the body of believers. He’s done this so he can present you and me before the Father. That’s why he’s done it.
This word “present” could be used as a word that indicates one who is placed before a court of justice, or it could be used in a sacrificial metaphor. I believe the sacrificial metaphor fits the context because in it is an Old Testament picture of animals which were qualified to be brought before God as a presentable sacrifice.
If the animal was not qualified, it could not be presented before God. In other words, animals which were without flaw and worthy to be offered to God was the Old Testament way of doing it.
So in our context here, it is redeemed people who are presented before God, not for sacrifice. The sacrifice has already been offered and accepted by the Father in Christ Jesus. Jesus is not going to present us to the Father as a heap of filthy rags, but he will present his church, his children, the sheep of his pasture, as what it says in verse 22.
Presented Holy, Blameless, and Beyond Reproach
First, as holy before God. Holy means you’re cleansed from all sin and you’re separated now to God.
Also, secondly, the believer in Christ is presented before God as unblameable. That means without fault, without blemish, absence of anything amiss in a sacrifice that would render it unworthy to be offered. We are worthy sacrifices that God is going to offer, Jesus is going to offer to the father.
And then thirdly, it shows us here that we as believers in Christ are free of all charges before God. It says that we’re going to be beyond reproach in verse 22. That means unchargeable, unaccused, free from all accusation. That’s who we are going to be before God.
“We are going to be beyond reproach — unchargeable, unaccused, free from all accusation. That’s who we are going to be before God.”
And if we think of it like that, what a glorious gospel it is, that God while we were yet sinners died for us and expressed and demonstrated his love toward us. Should we not live worthy of that high calling?
Should we not live in a way in which we learn to hate sin and to love Christ and serve him with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength?
Standing Firm in the Gospel
Christ must be the object of our faith, and we must remain stable and steadfast, not letting anything or anyone move us away from the hope of the gospel. That means friends, family, co-workers, culture, whatever it may be.
When you come to Christ, there’s going to be plenty of opposition for you to give it up, to get over the phase, to throw in the towel, right? But don’t do it, because this is a great salvation, and this is what the Lord has rescued us from, and you could have never done that yourself.
No one else could have done it, only Christ could have done it. And that’s why you and I are precious gifts before the Father by Christ, and that’s the way we ought to think of ourselves.
We’re no longer what we used to be. We are something brand spanking new, and God made us that.
“Christ must be the object of our faith. We must remain stable and steadfast, not letting anything or anyone move us from the hope of the gospel.”
Lord, thank you this morning that the word of God is convicting, deeply convicting. The word of God is also deeply freeing.
It frees us from bad and wrong thinking. It frees us from looking at life wrongly. It frees us from seeing you in a way that we should not, but properly in the way we should.
It frees us from guilt of sin. It frees us from anything that could hold us down, and it makes us humble under your mighty hand.
Lord, we thank you for the truth of scripture, that you’ve taken us from a position that was tragic to a position that is glorious. You offer us, Lord Jesus, before the Father someday as sacrifices that are blameless, pure, and holy, that no one can bring a charge against.
For this we give you all the honor and the praise, and I ask it and pray in Christ’s name, amen.