The Provision of Peace

Transcript

JRS 23
12/24/2022
The Provision of Peace
Colossians 2:13-14
Jesse Randolph

Well, on behalf of the pastoral staff and the elders here at Indian Hills Community Church I just want to say Merry Christmas! It’s wonderful to have you here and I pray that this season has already been a wonderful opportunity to rejoice and reflect in the reality that God sent His Son into the world as a babe in Bethlehem, fully God and fully man, on a mission to rescue and redeem sinners like you and me. To seek and to save that which was lost.

I’m sure that many of you have noticed that each and every year right around this time when it’s ten below zero that one of the major magazines, whether it be Time, or Life, or Newsweek, they’ll plaster on the cover of their magazines what they think Jesus of Nazareth looked like.
You’ll see Him there in one of those magazine racks with His white tunic and His long, flowing hair and those soft and understanding blue or green eyes. And then somewhere on the cover, you’ll see some provocative title. For instance, in a December 1999 Time magazine ran this title, “Jesus at 2000: Novelist Reynolds Price offers a new Gospel Based on Archaeology and the Bible.” In March of that same year, 1999, Newsweek titled one of its editions, “2000 Years of Jesus: Holy Wars to Helping Hands: How Christianity Shaped the Modern World.” And then in May of this year, 2022, Life magazine published an edition with the title, “Jesus: How His Life, Miracles, and Devotion Changed the World.”

Now what each one of these magazine titles has picked up on (whether their editorial teams were aware of this or not) is a question that Jesus Himself asked of His disciples during His years of ministry here on earth. Many of you might remember the scene. There at Caesarea Philippi, due north of Galilee, at the base of Mt. Hermon where Jesus asked His disciples in Matthew 16 [verses 13-15], “Who do people say that the Son of Man is”? His disciples, every quick to reply, replied saying “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” To which Jesus shot back, “But who do you say that I am?”

See, that question, “Who do you say that I am?” or, putting it slightly differently in our context today, “Who do we say Jesus is?” has been asked an uncountable number of times over the centuries. And an uncountable number of answers have been offered in response to that question which in many cases have been uninformed and wild stabs in the dark. I’m going to give you just a sampling here this evening. An appetizer-sized serving of who people have attempted to say that Jesus is over the centuries. Here we go. These are not supported by yours truly, I’m just reporting the facts here what people have said about who they think Jesus is. So fasten your seatbelts. One, Jesus was an itinerant Galilean. Jesus was a devout Jew who had some intramural debates with other Jews about how to properly interpret Judaism. Jesus was a skilled and upright teacher. Jesus was the greatest and noblest of all prophets. Jesus was a contemplative sage like Socrates or Confucius. Jesus was a guru like Gandhi. Jesus was a good moral man. Jesus was the pinnacle of humanity. Jesus wasn’t human at all, instead He was a phantom or an illusion or a hologram. Jesus was a healer. Jesus was a hero. Jesus was a political figure. Jesus was a military figure. Jesus was a social revolutionary. Jesus was the perfect embodiment of divine love. Jesus was a symbol for whatever satisfies our innate human craving for a more full and meaningful life.

See, that question, asked by Jesus back in Matthew 16, “Who do you say that I am?” has prompted a litany of questions and a litany of answers over the centuries. As though the question Jesus asked His disciples there was intended to open the matter up for broader debate and speculation. As though the question Jesus asked His disciples there allows us two thousand years later to engage in rampant, subjective speculation about who we think Jesus was and is. That’s why we hear people say things like, well “to me, Jesus is…,” and “for me what Jesus was all about is…,” “in my opinion, Jesus’ mission was…” Friends, Jesus didn’t give you or me or the editors of Newsweek or Life or Time or Jordan Peterson or Elon Musk or the philosophers or pundits or prognosticators of the last two millennia, He doesn’t give us license to ponder or speculate about who He was and is or what He came to do. Because in reality He has revealed for all time in His Word who He is and what He came to do. And what He came to do as we’re about to see is He came to bring peace.

We’re in the middle here at Indian Hills of a five-part Christmas series that’s titled “Peace on Earth.” And tonight’s short message (short, I promise) falls right in the middle of this ongoing Christmas series that we’ve been in. As I’ve laid out for our people here the past several Sundays, peace is the one thing that mankind craves most. And peace is the one thing that eludes mankind most. Hence, the state of the world that we live in today. Hence, the disquieted nature of the souls of all of mankind staring up at the ceiling at the fan that’s blowing around wondering what is the meaning of this whole thing. Peace is what was promised all the way back in the days of Isaiah 750 years before Christ was born. We just read his prophetic words he said in Isaiah 9:6, “For a child,” 750 years before the birth of Jesus he says that. “A son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Peace is what was proclaimed by the angels in the heavenly host in Luke 2:14 which we also just heard read, when they declared, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” As we’re going to see tonight, peace is what God ultimately did provide and has offered through Jesus Christ. See, that little baby in the manger in Bethlehem was and is the eternal Son of God. The Christ Child who was wrapped in cloths was and is the Savior of the world. That smallest and seemingly most vulnerable little life was and is the hope of all creation. The One who came offering terms of peace to sinful and undeserving mankind.

With that, we’re going to be looking just briefly this evening at Colossians 2:13, 14. And if we can, we can get those verses up on the screens, so you can follow along. Colossians 2:13, 14, if it gets up there, great. It says, “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”

Not your typical Christmas passage. There’s no mention of a manger here. There’s no mention of shepherds there. No mention of a star, or magi, or Joseph, or Mary. Have I picked the wrong verse? You know, I’ve been exhorting our people not to miss Christmas. Have I missed Christmas by picking that passage? No.

While the focus of our verses tonight is admittedly more on the cross of Calvary than the manger in Bethlehem, as we’ve seen over and over in this little Christmas mini-series, that Bethlehem was always aimed at Calvary. The baby who once lay in that manger would reveal Himself to be our sin-bearing Savior. And because of what He would grow up to be, as He grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man [Luke 2:52] -- and because of what He would eventually do, absorbing the wrath of God on our behalf on a rugged Roman cross -- we who once were far off from God, we who once were alienated and estranged from God, we who once were staring down the barrel of the judgment and wrath of God -- would instead be offered peace with God through Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. Which is why again, this evening’s message is titled “The Provision of Peace.”

Let’s take a few minutes to work briefly through that passage tonight. In it, we’re going to see two stages of the life of the person who has accepted God’s provision of peace. Two stages of the life of the person who has come to faith in Christ. And as we’re going to see, the first stage is all about who that person once was when they were (past-tense) dead in sin. And then the second stage comes when we see who they are (present-tense) now alive in Christ.

Let’s look backwards first. Let’s look at the former state of the person who has since accepted God’s offer of peace, starting with those words, Colossians 2:13, “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh.” Now when Paul says here, “you were dead,” he is saying that your former state was once death. Spiritual death. Each one of us has inherited a sinful nature from Adam. Romans 5:12, “through one man sin entered into the
world.” Each one of us then went on with that nature to indulge in various sinful desires and passions in keeping with that nature. And each one of us stood opposed, because of our sin, to a holy and righteous God -- who because of His holiness and righteousness simply cannot overlook or allow or tolerate the presence of sin. And because of all of this, each one of us, as Paul says here, was dead in our transgressions, meaning in our sin. Spiritually dead, spiritually lifeless, spiritually flat-lined. And facing the judgment and wrath of God on account of our sin.

Now looking back here at verse 13, Paul next says that we were dead in the uncircumcision of our flesh. Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles, and this is a Gentile way of saying with that word “flesh” that we were dead on account of those sinful impulses, those lustful passions, those base desires which dominate the life of the non-believer. Paul then, here, is attributing spiritual deadness not only to those outward and observable ways in which we sin, but also to those underlying lusts and desires that are at the root of those sins.

So, what Paul has described here so far in verse 13 is a very apt summary of the state of any unbeliever in the room here tonight. Whether you are young or old, whether you are churched or unchurched, whether you are black or white, whether you’re rich or poor. Friends If you haven’t put your faith in Jesus Christ you currently live in this realm, which Paul is describing as a state of spiritual death. You not only were but you are “dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh.” Though you are physically alive, though your lungs are functioning, though you have active brain waves, though your heart is ticking, the reality is you have no spiritual heartbeat, you have no spiritual pulse. Spiritually speaking you are as dead as a door nail. You are so locked in sin’s grasp that you are unable to respond to God. You are so blinded to the objective, revealed truth of God’s Word. So that when you come to a place like this, of course, what we preach and proclaim -- that God created the world in six literal days, that Jesus is returning one day on a white horse, that God hates divorce and hates adultery and hates drunkenness and hates lying and hates homosexuality and hates transgenderism and hates pornography and hates lust -- of course, those truths will make no sense to you. And of course, those truths may offend you. That’s how spiritually dead people think. See, those who are dead in their transgressions and the uncircumcision of their flesh are dead men walking. With no spiritual life. With no eternal life to look forward to. Rather, slowly shuffling their feet toward the precipice of a real eternal torment in hell. And with that, this might be the bleakest Christmas message that’s ever been preached. Thanks for hanging in there with me because we’re about to turn a corner.

Look at what comes next in verse 13. He says, “He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.” And with those words we go from the first stage of the life of a Christian who once was dead in sin to this second stage of now being made alive in Christ. We who were once spiritually dead sinners have been brought to life and made alive together with Christ. Because God saw fit to rescue and redeem us by saving us and because He has sovereignly regenerated us, causing us to be born again, the Christian, the follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, the trophy of God’s grace, has been forgiven of all their transgressions. And this, brothers and sisters, has to be the most glorious truth in all of Scripture. That sin can be forgiven and washed “as white as snow” as Isaiah 1:18 says. That sin can be forgiven and declared as Psalm 103 says, “as far as the east is from the west.” And note that the forgiveness that is offered through Christ and enjoyed in Christ is total. It says all our sins are forgiven. Not some. Not a few. Not some from only fifteen years ago. But not the ones that will happen in the future. No, all of them. Past, present, and future. And now, having been washed and cleansed and redeemed, we can have this fellowship and relationship with our holy Creator. Joy to the world indeed. What joy that should bring us! What passion that should bring us! We should be like David in Psalm 32 when he says, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!

Next in verse 14 Paul gives us this picture of what forgiveness looks like after telling us that we’ve been made alive, and after telling us that we’ve been forgiven, he elaborates further on what he means. Look at what he says in verse 14, “having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” What we have here is a word picture of a document you and I have all signed at some point. What we have here referred to is an IOU. A document where we are pledging to repay the debt we owe someone. A pledge that is often backed up with some form of collateral in case we fail to make good on our promise. Paul is carrying over this idea of the IOU to the spiritual realm, what he calls a “certificate of debt.” But the One all of us owe this debt to is not to Union Bank or Cornhusker Bank or First Interstate Bank. The debt that is owed is to God. God is the Creator and Ruler of everything. He has made us in His image. He has laid down His rules of conduct for us in His Word. And His expectation, His right expectation, His holy expectation, is that we would honor and obey Him. That we submit to Him and follow Him. That we adhere to His holy standards and seek to do right by Him in every area of our lives.

But we’ve failed. We’ve failed God. We’ve failed to obey Him. We’ve failed to honor Him. And not just some of us in the room. All of us. That’s Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And our sins stand as conclusive evidence that we have failed to give God the allegiance He is due. And now the IOU has come due like a mortgage that is in default. That “certificate of debt,” verse 14 says, is “consisting of decrees against us.” God has given us decrees. He has given us His perfect standards laid out in His Word. And those decrees are written on our hearts, like Romans 2:15 says. But we have violated those decrees. We stand accountable and exposed before God for violating those decrees. And all of that is wrapped up and written into this certificate of debt. And this certificate of debt, verse 14 goes on to say, is now “hostile to us.” There’s no wriggling out from under this certificate of debt. There’s no way that we’re going to be able to smooth talk our way out of this one. Our name is on it. We’re in violation of it. And we can’t deny it.

But then comes this amazing turn of events in verse 14, this amazing change in fortunes. As amazing as anyone could ever experience or hope for. Look at what it says. God has, for those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, “canceled out” that same certificate of debt. Canceled it out. The word here for “canceled out” means to wipe it out, to blot out. I think of the old White Out bottles we used to use as kids. It means to cause something to disappear by wiping it from existence. And then, the text goes on to say, “He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” He’s taken away our debt. He’s wiped our debt clean from the old ledger. Completely removed it from the picture. But then it says not only cancels it, not only takes it away, it’s “nailed it to the cross.” Paul here, of course, is referring to the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. In causing Him to be nailed to the cross God has provided for the full cancellation of the entirety of our sin debt. I can’t think of six words in Scripture that ought to cause the Christian to exhale more deeply, to hope more expectantly, to sing more loudly, to rejoice more fervently than those. “Having nailed it to the cross.” Because wrapped into those words is the reality that for those who have trusted in Jesus Christ, for those who have repented of their sin and turned to the Lord in saving faith, God has broken the chains of bondage to the sin which once enslaved us. He has freely forgiven our sins. He has discharged the mountain of debt which, on account of our sin, we had racked up. We had violated God’s standards. We had no excuses. We had nowhere to hide. We had nothing with which to repay. We had no redress to pay Him back. But Jesus Christ, this text says, wiped the slate clean. He took our certificate of indebtedness. He removed it from us and He cancelled it in His death. Reminds me of the line from the old hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul,” which so beautifully captures the point of this verse where it says, “My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”

Let’s take it all the way back to the beginning of this message and the question that was posed.
Who is Jesus? Who do we say that He is? Here’s the answer, friends. And note, this answer is not prefaced with “I think” or “I feel like” or “to me.” The answer is prefaced with, “Scripture says.” Scripture says that Jesus is the predicted and promised Prince of Peace. The one who was prophesied of by Isaiah. The one who was proclaimed by the angel Gabriel. And the crowning moment of this Prince’s peacemaking mission came as He wore a crown of thorns. As six-inch nails were driven through His palms and through His feet. As mockers and scoffers wagged their heads as He labored and suffered and tried to breathe. As shards and splinters of wood lodged deeply into His flogged and lacerated back. As a spear was jammed into His side. He surely was experiencing no peace in those hours on the cross. Rather, He, scripture says, agonized and felt abandoned and alone. But peace is what came to us through the agony He endured there at Calvary’s cross.

We’ll close our time in Colossians 1:19. Same letter that we’ve been in this evening. Same letter we’re looking at tonight where Paul says these words. Colossians 1:19, jot it down if you would. He says, “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him,” that’s referring to Christ, “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” What amazing truths to celebrate and commemorate this Christmas Eve. And what an amazing Savior we are worshiping this Christmas. That little baby in the manger in Bethlehem would go on to die that gruesome and awful death. So that sinners like you and me could be reconciled to God, and so that we could seek and actually have, true peace. “Peace through the blood of His cross.”

Let’s pray. God thank you so much for Your word and the truth that it contains. Thank you for this wonderful season of Christmas. That we have this opportunity to rejoice in the birth of Your Son, the coming into the world of Your Son, the incarnation of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we have seen this evening, His mission didn’t end in a manger. His mission took Him to the cross so that sinners like us could have an opportunity to be restored to You as we trust, not in our works, not in our deeds, not in our so-called goodness, but rather in His sufficient and atoning work on the cross. If there’s anyone here this evening who does not know You Father, I pray that tonight would be the night. That they would come to know Christ as Savior and Lord. That they would put aside the pride. That they would put aside the experience with religion. That they would put aside their own sense of knowledge of who they believe Jesus is and rather wrestle with the scriptures, see what they say about who Jesus is and what He came to do and come to Him in saving faith. We thank you Father and we pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.