Jesus-Centered Transformation (Centered #4)

This past week I had lunch with a college student I have gotten to know through campus ministry. He had been out of state all summer at an internship, so we caught up over a meal. He had a fantastic summer, and it was so much fun to hear everything he learned — including some personal decisions he made. He decided to get in shape and lost thirty-five pounds. He was feeling great. It was just a genuinely good three months.

After we went our separate ways, I found myself reflecting on that hour, and I realized it had been a remarkable one. Because in that single hour I got a glimpse of his past, his present, and his future.

I heard about his past — the opportunities of the internship, the crazy things that happened, the situations he got thrown into, and the things God did in him through all of it. And because of those things, I could see the benefit right there in the present. Not that he had been especially immature before, but I saw more maturity now. Not that he was ever a braggart, but I sensed a real humility. And along with it, a genuine confidence — the kind that comes from realizing I cannot do this on my own.

Which also gave me a glimpse of his future. He had a settled sense of being on the right track, of knowing where God was leading him.

I hope our time together does something similar for you. As we look at the Scriptures, I hope part of you is humbled — but I also hope you walk away with confidence, encouragement, a little more maturity, and a sense of peace. Because what we are going to see today is that if you follow Jesus, God has written a story, and today you get to see your spiritual past, your spiritual present, and your spiritual future — and the difference that makes.

The Text: Colossians 1:21–23

“And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”

A Word First to Anyone Who Is Not a Christian

If you are here or joining online and you are not a follower of Jesus, I want you to know I am glad you are here. You may not believe this, but we actually started this church for you. When my family moved to town, we had zero interest in pulling Christians out of other churches to start something new. Our goal was for people who had no church home, who felt spiritually disconnected from God, to begin a relationship with him — and we believe that relationship comes through Jesus Christ. So we wanted to help people find Jesus and follow him. That is still our heart.

If that is you, you belong here. Bring your questions. We may not have everything figured out, but we will seek it out alongside you.

But I need to be honest and fair with you: what you will hear today is about Jesus followers — people who already believe the gospel message and have put their identity in it. That does not mean you should check out. Just the opposite. Lean in. Really listen. Take notes. Write down your questions. Because if you listen now, and the day comes when you recognize the truth of the gospel and want to give your life to the one who gave his life for you, you will already have a head start on understanding what God has done on a spiritual level.

Where We Are in Colossians

This is our fourth week in Colossians. One thing to know: Paul never went to Colossae. Most of the letters he wrote that we have in the New Testament went to churches he planted. There were only two churches he wrote to that he did not start, and this is one of them. So he is writing to people he has never met, living in a city he has never visited. But when word reached him about this new church, he was so excited that he wrote them a letter essentially to say welcome to the family of God — while also making sure they truly understood what they had heard.

Four weeks in and we have already heard Paul talk about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus over and over. It is the theme of this book. It is the foundation. It is the fabric woven through everything he writes. Having traveled all over the Mediterranean planting churches, he had seen and heard a great deal — including churches he helped start that took in other teaching and drifted away from the gospel. He does not want this brand new little church to make the same mistake. That is why he keeps coming back to it.

And in these three verses, here is what he wants them to see: here is who you were in your spiritual past. Here is who you are now in Christ. And here is who you will be — what God intends to do in you.

Your Spiritual Past

Verse 21: “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds…”

He begins with and you, which signals that what follows is tied to what he just said. And who did Paul spend last week talking about? Jesus. He gave us the most poetic, powerful, beautiful description of Jesus in all of Scripture. We saw that Jesus is not merely another man — he is God. God of all things, over all things, creator of all things, sustainer of all things, and reconciler of all things.

Now, having said all of that about Jesus, he pivots: and you. He shifts the focus, but somehow this Jesus is now tied to them.

Alienated

I am not a Greek scholar, so I lean on tools. One I use is a parallel Bible, which lets me see how multiple translations handle a word. Here the variety was striking. One translation says stranger. Another says far off. Another says cut off, which struck me as harsh — until I looked up the Greek word, which is about sixteen letters long and which I will not attempt to pronounce.

It means: to be shut out from one’s fellowship and intimacy.

That sounds a bit like a husband in the doghouse, except it is far worse — because it is not for one night. It is permanent separation. We were cut off, shut out from God’s fellowship, from his intimacy, from relationship with him.

Hostile in mind

But that is not enough description for Paul. He adds that we were hostile in mind. We thought like an enemy. In fact, in Romans 5, when Paul is describing the gospel, he uses that exact word: we were enemies of God.

Doing evil deeds

And we did not merely think like enemies. We lived it out. He says we were doing evil deeds.

I do not know about you, but this is where I start to get uncomfortable. This is beginning to sound like a fire-and-brimstone sermon — maybe I should have a big wooden pulpit to pound on. It has been relentlessly negative: alienated, hostile, evil.

We are uncomfortable because we operate with a different definition of evil. Our definition is murder. Rape. The actions of Hitler and Stalin. And do not misunderstand me — all of that is absolutely, horrifically evil.

But for God, all sin is evil. Because for God to be God, he is perfect. He is holy. He is the very definition of righteousness. If God allowed anything unrighteous, anything imperfect, anything sinful into his presence, he would no longer be perfect. It simply cannot work. If we in our sinfulness tried to walk into the holy presence of God, we would be vaporized. And because he loves us, he does not want that. So he cannot simply let us in — because even our smallest sin is evil.

Which means that little morsel of gossip you passed along at the lunch table? Evil. That lie you told your spouse or your kid or your parent to protect your reputation or cover something up? Evil. Those thoughts you had about that person, or about that group of people? Evil.

It is not because we Iowans see each other as anything but nice. The standard is not one another. The standard is not well, at least I’m not as bad as that guy. The standard is God. And we fall so far short that even our best attempts land woefully below it.

Because those evil deeds flow out of that hostile mind. Think about it. When you tell a lie, is your first thought this will glorify God? No — it is to protect yourself. When you pass along gossip, is it to glorify God? No — it is to make someone think well of you, or to tear someone else down. When you lust after someone who is not your spouse, is that glorifying God? No — because in your mind you are using their body for your own gratification.

It is all about us and not about him. So we are hostile in mind, and set against him, which leaves us alienated.

But remember — for Jesus followers, this is who they once were. This is not who they are now.

Your Spiritual Present

Verse 22: “…he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death…”

We heard that word reconciled last week in verse 20, where we saw that Jesus, as God of all things, is also the reconciler of all things. But Paul wants to be unmistakably clear — he is writing to people he has never met, so he does not want to assume they connect the dots. He wants them to know: you are part of “all things.” Jesus has reconciled you.

And notice the word now. This is who you are in the present.

Which means that if you follow Jesus and you are struggling with something right now — an addiction, a thought pattern, a behavior — God does not look at you and see someone alienated. He does not view you as his enemy. You are his child. He loves you. He has reconciled you through the death of Jesus on the cross. Verse 20 last week told us we have peace with God through the blood of the cross.

So if you have put your faith in Jesus, God loves you and God is for you. Hebrews 12 tells us that God disciplines those he loves, so yes, he may discipline you, because he knows this sin is not what is best for you. But you are no longer alienated. He is not throwing you out. You are his.

Holy, blameless, above reproach

And why does he reconcile us? “In order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”

I am going to ask a question, but please, nobody raise a hand. Is there anyone here confident enough to say you are completely holy, completely blameless, and completely above reproach? Do not raise your hand, because if you do, you are lying.

None of us. And yet look at what Paul says: you are now reconciled in order to present you as holy and blameless and above reproach. Present tense.

This is what many theologians call the now and not yet. In the eyes of God you are now holy and blameless — because your salvation never depended on your works. We fall woefully short there. Your salvation depends on Jesus and his work on the cross. And because your standing with God rests on what Jesus has done, that is settled. It is finished. That is why you can be completely forgiven.

And yet, even though God sees you now as holy and blameless, he is still working in you. God exists outside of time, and because he is outside of time, he sees the whole thing at once. When he sees your future, he can look at you in the present and say, I already know who you become. He already sees you there. And that is precisely why he can step in and minister and work. It is called sanctification — he works on you, molding and shaping you into the image of Jesus, helping you love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived.

So even though that is the process on this earth, in the spiritual realm, if your life is in Christ, you are now holy and blameless. And what God is doing is calling you to start living out who he already sees you to be.

That is your present. You have been transformed. Once alienated — now, through Christ, reconciled, holy, blameless, and above reproach.

Your Spiritual Future

Verse 23: “…if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard…”

That opening word makes a lot of people uncomfortable. There is something in us — maybe the Iowan, maybe the American — that wants to attempt these things on our own, to somehow earn our way to God. You have just heard that salvation is not based on our works but on the work of Jesus. And now: if. Okay, here it comes. Here is what I have to do.

For some people that produces defeat: I will never be able to do enough. How would I even know when I had done enough to make God happy? And that leads to fear. For others it leads to apathy, and they check out. For others it leads to legalism — more, harder, faster.

But notice: Paul does not ask you to add anything.

He does not say if indeed you read the Scriptures more. Or if indeed you attend church more. Or if you wear the right clothes, avoid the right substances, stop saying certain words, stop lying, stop whatever.

He says: if indeed you continue.

How did they come to know Jesus? How did they move from their spiritual past to their spiritual present? Through the gospel. So how do they move from their spiritual present into their spiritual future? Through the gospel.

All Paul is asking is that you continue with the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. That is what all of this is about.

“Not Shifting”

Which is why he says to be stable and steadfast — and I love this phrase — not shifting from the hope of the gospel.

Let me illustrate. Many of you know I am a Kansas City Royals fan, which brings a certain amount of pain into my life. I grew up a couple of hours north of Kansas City in southwest Iowa, and I spent many nights listening to games on the radio with the volume turned way down because my parents thought I was asleep. This was back when they were actually good.

So I grew up hearing all the Royals slogans. Every year the marketing team produces one. In 2014 they got clever and started working the word “Royal” into the slogan. That year the team shocked everyone and made the World Series, losing in game seven with the tying run ninety feet away at third base. So close. Maybe the marketing department decided it was good luck, because they kept the word in — and the next year they won the World Series. Proven.

Now, in 2019 the theme was “Always Royal.” I have a theory about why, and I cannot prove it, so I may be way off. All those stars who won the championship in 2015 became free agents in 2018, and a small-market team could not pay what those guys were now worth. So they got scooped up by other clubs. And I suspect my lowly Royals realized they were not going to have a very good team — so the message became: those guys who left brought us a championship, they will always be in our hearts, they will always be Royal. That way, when they succeed, we succeed, because our team certainly is not going to.

Now picture this. Someone passes away and arrives in heaven. All the jokes have them met at the gates by Peter, but let us say Peter got the day off and Jesus is covering the shift.

The person walks up, and Jesus says: Hey, I recognize you. You were a Christian from 2002 to 2017. Oh, that’s right — those really tragic things happened, and you started doubting my goodness, which led you to doubt the Scriptures, which led you to doubt the gospel and everything you had been taught, and you wandered away and became an atheist. Or wait, was it Buddhist? Well — always Royal. Come on in. It’s fine.

I think Paul would look at someone who says, yeah, I did the Christian thing for a while, but I’ve moved on, and respond: wait a second. Did you not understand? Do you not realize the story? The God of the universe, creator of all things, made you in his image. He knows your name. He knows your story. And even though your sin kept you separated from him, even though you were alienated, he took you and transformed you out of that spiritual past into this spiritual present. So why on earth would you head into the future by a different route?

Why It Is Hard to Continue

Paul does not want the Colossians to hear all these other messages and conclude that maybe what they believed was not quite right. He is saying: do not shift. Stay here. Because everything else around us will fade and change.

Continuing is hard for two reasons.

First, there are so many voices

Our culture constantly tells us what to believe, what to do, how to be true to ourselves. And it looks at someone who claims to be a Christian and calls that outdated, closed-minded, oppressive — you need to move on.

But I am now approaching fifty years of life, which is long enough to have watched all of those things change. The positions everyone was excited about when I was a teenager — the ones you absolutely had to hold, the ones that made Christianity look out of date — if you held those, ten or twenty or thirty years later you would no longer be in the right camp. You used to be part of the cool group, an activist for those very things, and now you are on the outs because you did not keep up with the times.

And guess what: the people who feel certain right now that this is the message to post and broadcast and make sure everyone knows — in twenty or thirty or fifty years they will not be accepted either. They will get canceled.

If you try to build the foundation of your life on whatever the current cultural narrative is, it will shift out from under you, and you will find yourself standing on nothing.

That is why Paul does not want you falling for the idea that something better has come along. He is saying there is nothing better than Jesus. He is God of all things, over all things, creator of all things, sustainer of all things, reconciler of all things. Why would you move away from that? Jesus is wonderful. He loves you. He is for you. All you have to do is continue.

Second, life is hard

How are you supposed to continue when the God who supposedly heals does not heal you, or the person you love? How do you continue when the bank account stays in the negative? When God does not seem to answer your prayers for a spouse, or a child, or whatever it is? How do you continue when God simply seems silent?

If you are following God only for the benefits in the here and now, you are probably going to end up deeply disappointed.

Paul went through genuinely horrible things. If anyone ever had an excuse to give up and quit, it was him. And yet here he sits, imprisoned in Rome under house arrest, already shipwrecked, already flogged repeatedly, telling the Colossians: continue with the gospel. It is worth it.

Because when all is said and done — when the cultural narratives are quieted and muted, when the struggles and the pain are finished because this life is over — you will be standing on the firm foundation of the gospel. You will stand before your God, and he will welcome you into that secure future, because he has transformed you. You are no longer spiritually alienated. You are reconciled. You are holy and blameless and above reproach. You are his, now. And if you simply continue with that, he will lead you into that beautiful, eternal future.

This Should Give You Confidence

Here is what happens when you really grasp this story about yourself — when you see what God has done in taking you out of that spiritual past, into this present, and leading you into that future. It instills confidence. Because you start to realize it is not about me and what I have to do. It is about him and what he has already done.

And then you find yourself wanting to continue.

So if you follow Jesus: will you continue?

And to those of you who do not yet follow Jesus — I warned you at the start that this was addressed to believers, because you cannot continue. But you can begin. So let me invite you: would you let today become your spiritual birthday? Would you let today be the day this journey starts — the day God takes you out of that spiritual past and gives you a new spiritual present? Would you let him make you his child, reconcile you through the death of Jesus on the cross, so that in God’s eyes you become holy and blameless and above reproach, so that he can begin working within you and then send you out to be a blessing to the world, to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved?

Would you let today be the day it begins?

Let Us Pray

Father, do what you need to do. These next holy moments are yours — as we sing, as we take communion, as we pray. For the Jesus follower who is struggling, instill them with the confidence to continue. For the person who has never been on their knees before you, let today be the day they begin.

Holy Spirit, move powerfully in this place. Speak — whether through your own voice or through the songs. Let today be the day it starts for some. May they confess their sin, wanting their spiritual present to become their spiritual past, wanting you, Jesus, to transform them because of what you did on a cross and through an empty tomb.

And for the person who knows this story but for whatever reason has never let it become central — let today be a day of confessing that, and of humbly and gladly falling to their knees while you remind them of the story you are writing.

I fully recognize that I so often do not live like I am holy, or blameless, or above reproach. Too much of my mind is still about me and not for you. So let the transformation begin right here, and then extend to my church family.

As I prayed at the beginning, I pray again at the end: there is no way I can say the right words for every person and every story in this room. But you are a sovereign God who knows all and is over all, and you can. So I trust that you will say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done — that you will open hearts and minds, and that we will hear and respond.

Because you, Jesus, have written a beautiful story. You are taking us out of that spiritual past of alienation into this beautiful spiritual present as your sons and daughters, reconciled to you. And I look forward to seeing what you do in us and through us in the future, as you lead us to love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived. In his name, amen.