Colossians chapter 1 as we're working our way verse by verse through this glorious letter written by the Apostle Paul to the believers there in Colossae. The theme of the book has been the supremacy of Christ. We know that contextually that there have been those that have been perverting the gospel that have been seeping into the sphere of the church, saying that Christ is good but he's not enough, that faith in Christ is important but that it's not enough. And Paul writing with the authority of God shows us that Christ is indeed enough. The gospel is not a Jesus plus, it's a Jesus only gospel. It's why we love, as you see on the front of this pulpit, the solas of the Reformation. We believe that salvation is by Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, by the scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone. And we're not saved by Jesus plus our works. We're not reconciled to God by the finished work of the cross and then trying to be nice, although believers should be godly, then what has been done on the cross of Christ is sufficient for our salvation. There's no more that can be done. There's no work that can be added. In fact, Paul would be writing to the churches of the region of Galatia and say that if anyone would add to what Christ has done, let him be accursed by God. So the gospel is Christ saves by his own merits and only his merits. The theme today of this pericope of Scripture, verses 21 to 3, is this, that we are reconciled to God by the finished work of Christ on the cross. So if you have your copy of God's word in front of you, we're gonna begin in verse 21 and just read through verse 23. This is the word of God. And although you were formerly alienated and enemies in mind and in evil deeds, but now he reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death. in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach, if indeed you continue in the faith firmly grounded and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. Let's go to the Lord and ask for his help this morning. Lord, I pray that I would be filled with the spirit as I proclaim these glorious truths from your inerrant, inspired, infallible, authoritative, and sufficient word. Lord, open up our hearts as you did Lydia in the book of Acts, that we might receive the things that are preached this morning from the scriptures. Lord, that not only receive them, but Lord, that we might walk them out. Lord, that we might treasure them in our hearts. Lord, that we might worship you more passionately and fervently and be bold in our gospel proclamation throughout this coming week. Lord, I pray, Lord, that the saints would be encouraged to know that they've been reconciled by the finished work of Christ, but Lord, I also pray for those that don't know you in a saving way that Jesus is the only mediator between God and man, that Jesus is the only way that we can be saved and to spend an eternity with you in heaven, that Jesus is the only way the only truth, the only life, the only one that reconciles us to God. Lord, I pray, Lord, that because of the work of the Holy Spirit, many will believe today. May Christ be honored and glorified, and we ask all of this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're so glad that you're with us this morning. Friends, with the gospel of Jesus Christ is rightly called the good news. We've all heard that our whole life, right? Little kids in vacation Bible school, the good news, the good news is that Jesus went to the cross. The meaning of gospel itself, the Greek term euangelion, literally means good news. The idea is that kings would lead men off into war in the ancient world and would have a victory in that there would be a crier that would return to represent the king, an ambassador of sort, and will be proclaiming the victory. The good news, the euangelion. The good news is that sinners can be reconciled to God. That's the good news. Reconciliation to God is the theme of our text this morning. It's one of the great benefits of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a term that's descriptive of our relationship to God the Father, that we're reconciled. As we heard from our dear friend Pastor Joseph last week, we've been gifted with so great a salvation. The salvation is a great gift from God. The New Testament gives to us different words that describe this great salvation and different correlating aspects of it. For instance, we have the word justification that's repeated over and over through the book of Romans. It simply means this, it's the status of a sinner that's guilty before God that is declared righteous through faith in Jesus Christ. That's Romans 8.33. And by the way, the word justification is the central motif of the whole book of Romans, all 16 chapters. The second term I want to discuss is the term redemption. And what it means is that a sinner who stands before God as a slave but then is granted freedom. We see that in Romans 6, 18 to 22. The third term here, again, we're talking about this great salvation that's been won for us in Jesus Christ. The third term I wanted to express this morning is the term forgiveness. It is a term that describes a sinner standing before God in great debt because of violating God's holy law. But then this debt has been paid by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and forgiven. The fourth term is the term adoption. Adoption, it's a term that describes the sinner before God as a stranger, but through the vicarious sufferings of Christ, he becomes a son. No longer a stranger, but a son. The text today describes this great theme of reconciliation, this great truth. this great reality by which a sinner stands before God, now listen to me, as an enemy, an enemy. But through the vicarious sufferings of Christ and His atoning work, we become friends of God. It's very clearly given in 2 Corinthians 5, 18 to 20. Each one of these five terms I've discussed are very descriptive of what God's done for us in Christ. We've been reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. This word reconcile, it's a very powerful word in the New Testament. It's often used to describe peace that's been made between two warring entities. Sometimes there can be warfare in marriage, right? Shouldn't be, but we're sinners and sometimes we don't get along and we're selfish. In 1 Corinthians chapter seven, Paul is exhorting wives not to leave their husbands. He says, but if a wife leaves, she is to remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. Katalasso is the Greek term. It has the idea of reestablishing a proper and friendly interpersonal relationship after that relationship has been disrupted or broken. So in the context of 1 Corinthians 7 in a marital union that's become estranged, that estranged relationship is to be reestablished. It's a reconciling of a relationship. In verse 22 of our text, it says, but now Christ has reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death. Another term here is used, the same root, but it has a prefix, epokataloso. This verb here, verb has an added preposition that acts to intensify the term. So here's the idea, that we are fully reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. We are utterly reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. So the idea is of a total, abundant, lavish reconciliation that has been made. So what Paul's doing in this pericope of Scripture is doubling down to show that Jesus Christ's death has fully and finally reconciled our relationship with God, talking to believers, talking to those in the church of Colossae, talking to those who have fixed their hopes exclusively upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He's saying that there's no other work that's needed. And here's why he's saying it. For those of you that have been with us, false teachers have crept into the church. And as I mentioned before, they were insinuating that Christ was good. but in so many ways that there was more needed, that he was not enough for salvation. They wrongfully and sinfully were teaching that Jesus was just one of many emanating spirits and that others were needed. Paul here is confronting that lie with the truth that is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, Paul double dips his pen and ink and writes to show that Christ has totally, fully, lavishly, and finally reconciled us to God and that there is reconciliation in no one else. So reconciliation is the overarching theme not only of our text this morning, but the whole sum of the Bible itself. Say, well, what is the Bible all about? If you could just give me in one sentence what is the meaning of all of Scripture that God has come in the flesh in Jesus Christ, lived according to the law perfectly, died according to the curses of the law substitutionally, and by his death has reconciled us to God. That's what the Bible teaches. The Bible gives us so many different facets of this reconciliation, but the purpose of the condescension, the purpose of Jesus Christ becoming flesh was that he might reconcile us. Are you listening? Reconcile us to God. He left the glories of heaven. He entered into the miseries of earth for this purpose, that he might reconcile us to God. That's why we see Paul pleading with the church there in Corinth, which was off tracks in so many ways. He said in 2 Corinthians 5.20, be reconciled to God. that the greatest gift that's ever been given was to satisfy the greatest curse that's ever been handed down, that we might be reconciled and receive the greatest salvation that's ever been given. That he might reconcile us to God. But reconcile us for what? Well, the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 59-2 says, your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you that he does not hear. I'll tell you, if the church has ever been erring in one area, it's been in the doctrine of sin. We've quit talking about it. The greatest malady of man is not our nuisances of culture, or lack of pay or a lack of salary. The greatest problem facing mankind is that he's estranged from God because he's a sinner, that God is thrice holy. The prophet Isaiah said, holy, holy, holy. And as R.C. Sproul rightly said, it's holy, holier, holiest, that he is a transcendent holy God. And according to the book of Habakkuk, he hates sin. His eyes are too pure to behold evil. And so Isaiah writes and he says, your sin is your problem. Your sin have separated you, your sins have separated you from God so that he will not hear you and he has hidden his face from you. The glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ is found in 2 Corinthians 5.19, and this is what it says, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not holding their transgressions or trespasses against them. Let me ask this question to you this morning, my friend. Have you been reconciled to God? Well, I've been trying, Pastor Derek. I'm not perfect, as everyone knows. My friend, all of your labors trying to reconcile yourself to God are vanity. You'll labor the flesh off of your bones and still die in your sins. We cannot reconcile us to God. We must have a mediator. We must have a savior. We must have one that is above us, transcendent to us, perfect, and so unlike us in so many ways that he must come and pay the price that we might be reconciled to God. So let me ask the question again, have you been reconciled to God? First of all, we see in verse 21 the need for reconciliation. It's very clear in the text. Let me just give you a little data before we go on. I read a letter that was written by Ligonier Ministry that was organized and founded by the late R.C. Spruill. It was an article that he had written and posted that 46% of evangelical people, like you and me, believe that at nature and overall, people are just basically or intrinsically good. That's a very concerning statistic in light of what we read in Romans 3 and even in our text. It concerns me in this way, it undermines our need for reconciliation. Well, if I am a good person, why do I need reconciliation with God? Listen, no one's going to seek God for reconciliation unless we come to terms with what the Bible teaches about our condition spiritually, our dilemma before God as a sinner. Isaiah boldly declares that our sins have made separation between us and God. This understanding of reconciliation is fueled by a right understanding of separation, that we're cut off, alienated. This is not a new doctrine. This is not the New Derrick translation. This is what our Bibles teach in both Old and New Testaments. I want you to note that the beauty of reconciliation is contrasted, first of all, by our alienation from God. Verse 21 again, look at it with me, my friend. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind and engaged in evil deeds. And as I've mentioned, quoting Isaiah 59 too, the greatest dilemma of a sinner is that he's cut off from God, he or she. And whether a little boy or a little girl, David declares boldly that we're born with a sinful disposition, that we've inherited from Adam, that federal head of all of humanity, a sinfulness that needs reconciliation, that we're separated from God. That's the condition of all men natively. This is what that means, that we do not have communion with God. We do not have intimacy with God. We do not have relationship with God because we have been alienated. We've been cut off. That term alienated, the original language, means to be estranged. Grammatically, it's a perfect passive participle that gives the idea of being in a continual state of alienation, a continual state of separation from God. Rightly said, it means to be cut off from God always, cut off from God. In Ephesians chapter two, starting in verse 12, Paul was writing to the believers, he says, remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were formerly far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who made both groups, those Jew and Gentile, into one, and he broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity." Hold on to that word, the enmity. which is in the law of commandments contained in the ordinances, so that in himself he might make the two into one man, thus establishing peace, and listen to this, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity, that all lost Jews that need Christ, and all lost Gentiles that need Christ, have their reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the God-man, the one that came in the fullness of time, and by faith in his name, we have reconciliation and restoration. This is good news. Let me clear up a little confusion that culture throws at us. We are not God's children by creation. We are God's children by recreation. I'm not saying that we're not God's property because all things belong to the Lord, but we are not in his redemptive family just because we've been born. We reject and denounce the doctrine of universalism that says all men everywhere are saved despite who they are, what they do, or what they believe. The Bible doesn't teach that. We are God's children by recreation. That means we must be born again. We must be reconciled. Why do we need reconciliation? Well, our sin separated us from God. As I said, one of the most untaught doctrines is the doctrine of sin. But listen, brothers and sisters, sin is cosmic treason against God. Sin is an affront to God. The wages of sin are death, Romans 6.23 tells us. You think in terms of the creation story, how Adam sinned against God in the beginning, it separated God from man. We know that Adam was ostracized from Eden, he was alienated from God. We see in Genesis 3, 21, that after God had exiled Adam from the garden, which is descriptive of a separation between God and man, that God came to man and clothed him with the bloody skins of animals. God clothed him with the skins of a sacrificial animal, and on the basis of that sacrifice, there was reconciliation made. We see that even in the earliest mentions of the gospel, which would be Genesis 315 and Genesis 321. We see substitution there, that those innocent animals died, so that corrupted sinful man might be clothed, that alienated man might be reconciled to God." All that points forward to thousands of years to the cross of Christ, where Jesus Christ, by the wisdom of God, went to the cross that he might repair the breach. We're all familiar there at the cross that Jesus Christ was separated from the familial relationship to the Father for the purpose of reconciliation. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And here we read in between the lines that the thunder of the Spirit comes to our own hearts that we might be reconciled to God. that the son was separated from the familial fellowship with the father, that you and I might be brought near to him. It's a glorious thing. It's a glorious truth. It helps me realize that reconciliation is not an easy solution. That God reconciling sinful man to himself was not a cheap, easy fix. It comes thunderously crashing down upon the idea of cheap grace. It helps us to understand the cost of the cross. That God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. That God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That there on that cross is perfect innocence. There on that cross is God incarnate. There on that cross is perfect innocence and fully God dying in the place of sinners that we might be reconciled to God. So the price of reconciliation is so expensive, it takes the blood of the Son of the living God to make adequate payment that we might be reconciled. The second truth, the beauty of reconciliation is seen best as it is contrasted by our attitude. Not only our alienation, but our attitude. Look at verse 21 again. We were formerly alienated and, what does it say there? It says hostile in mind. And then verse 21. One translation here says that we were formerly alienated and enemies in our minds, which I believe to be a better translation. The word there, ektheros in the Greek, literally does mean to be an enemy. We were formerly alienated and we were enemies in our minds. Subjected to hatred, subjected to hostility. It literally means to be at enmity with someone. A lost man is not neutral whenever it comes to God. That he has an attitude of dissidence. that he has an attitude of hatefulness toward God. We'll go back to Romans chapter 1 and read in verse 18, that God has revealed himself to man through the things that he has made, but men revolt in wickedness and rebellion and suppress the truth in unrighteousness. There's a natural dissidence in the mind of man against God. Jesus taught that light had come into the world in John chapter three, that men loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. But everyone who does evil, he says, hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. Here again, I'm arguing that there is an enmity between holy God and sinful man, a hateful attitude. I remember when I was a teenage boy, mom sent Vera Curtis up to witness the gospel to her hell bound boy. That I had such a dissidence towards God, I made that righteous woman weep. I mourn about that to this day. But before I came to know Jesus Christ, there was a dissidence, there was a hatefulness in my heart toward God. And listen, that's the default position of all sinners. All men before Christ, enmity, hostility, these contaminate and vex the mind of a sinner. It's their disposition of hatefulness. It's our way of thanking, having evil thoughts towards God. We see it in Psalm 2. The psalmist wrote, why do the nations rage and the peoples meditate on a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh and against his anointed saying, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us. Basically that is saying that we will not have this man rule over us. We love the idea of salvation. It's the issue of lordship that we have a problem with. We will not have Him rule over us. But if Jesus is not your Lord, He's not your Savior. Ephesians 4, 17 and 18, again, just bringing a biblical perspective upon this tainted mind that is hateful toward God. It says in verse 17 and 18 of Ephesians 4, that the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind being darkened in their understanding. Why? Because they're excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that's in them because of the hardness of their hearts. You see? This alienation from God is personal, relational. This hostility of mind that the scripture's speaking of in verse 21 is a state of mind in a unregenerate person toward God. Unwilling to have the lordship of Christ ruling in their lives. Wanting freedom from his bonds. Let us tear their feathers apart. Let us cast away their cords from us. We will not allow him to tell us what to do. We need reconciliation because our minds are defiant and that we are willfully opposed to God. I'm just lifting this straight from the scriptures. Like Dr. Lawson says, it's not hard to see, it's just hard to swallow. That's God's diagnosis of our dilemma. The third feature here, the beauty of reconciliation, is seen best as contrasted by our actions. Look at the end of verse 21. He talks about how we were formerly alienated and hostile in our minds and engaged in evil deeds. Notice the progression there. Alienation or separation from God, a hateful attitude toward God, and then engaged in evil deeds against the truth of God. Helps us realize that being alienated from God is not a passive position, is it? It's an act of revolt against the sovereign rule and authority of God in our lives. So our evil deeds reveal that we have hostile minds. Our hostile minds reveal that we're alienated from God. And our evil deeds evidence godlessness. Amen? I want you to notice how the evil deeds flow from alienation, how the evil deeds follow the hostility of mind toward God. In other words, we sin because we're cut off from God. We sin because we're cut off from the life of God. so that there's a fundamental problem that's driving our sinfulness, that we are, as Paul says to Ephesus in Ephesians 2, 3, we are by nature children of wrath, even as the rest of mankind. Jesus pinpointed the problem with the Jews in John 5, 42. He says, but I know you that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. By the way, that's the default position for us non-Jews, us Gentiles, because sin has separated us from God. We're cut off. We're estranged from the hope of God, alienated from the life of God, separate from the presence of God, and we need reconciliation, beloved, because we're alienated from God. Do you see it? This is our position before God. We're positionally destitute, we're psychologically deranged, and we're persistently defiant against God, and we need to be reconciled to God. Romans 5.10 says, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. That's the need for reconciliation. Verse 22 shows us the provision for reconciliation. It's very powerful. So what Paul here is contrasting with the Colossians, he's contrasting what they were with what they now are. Do you see it? He says, you were formerly alienated, but he has now, right? But now. He has reconciled you and he's done that through his son Jesus Christ. He sent his son into the world to reconcile enemies to himself. Isaiah 58, 12 calls the Lord Jesus Christ the repairer of the breach. I love it. He's the repairer of the breach. What breach are you talking about? That breach of separation between sinful man and holy God? Paul wrote to Corinth in 2 Corinthians 5 and 19, and he says that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not holding their trespasses against him. The greatest need that we have is reconciliation. The greatest provision is for reconciliation that God did not withhold, but he sent his only begotten Son into the world to reconcile sinners to himself. We needed an arbiter. We needed a go-between. We needed a mediator. We had no power nor desire to be reconciled to God. We needed God to do the work for us. What the law was weak that it could not do in itself, God did for us in the likeness of sending his own son. And who is Jesus Christ? The repairer of the breach, the reconciler. It makes me want to jump up on this pulpit and do a dance. that I've been reconciled to God. I'm no longer an enemy. I'm no longer estranged. I'm no longer cut off. I'm no longer hell bound. I'm no longer a slave to sin. I've been reconciled to the cross of Christ, and I'm a child of God. God supplied for us a perfect mediator, someone to transact for us. Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2 verses 5 and 6, and he says, there is one God and there is one mediator also between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom. That literally means a payment for all, the testimony given at the proper time. I want you to note, first of all, the benefactor of this reconciliation. Look at verse 22. The language here is just so powerful, and it's just plain and clear, isn't it? Man, I hope you've got a pen or a highlighter, and you're just underscoring and highlighting these words, and that you go home and meditate upon them. Here's what it will do. It will fuel you to worship God, and that's why you've been made. Yet he has now reconciled you, in verse 22, Let's back up. It says, yet he, he's talking about Jesus Christ, the preeminent one in verse 18, the head of the church. Verse 20, the one that reconciles all things and makes peace with the blood of his cross. That's the he. It says that, yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body. I like how Paul doubles down on body because the heretics were saying that Jesus Christ, the God-man, has not come in the flesh. Paul says, oh yes, he has. And that he's reconciled us in his fleshly body through death in order to present us before God holy and blameless and beyond reproach. That'll preach. That's good. It's a good spot for you to say, Amen, Pastor. That is good. Such were some of you, right? So it's talking here, this he, the benefactor. Again, I mentioned in verse 18, Jesus being the head of the church, the one that's preeminent in all things. Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ that's made peace with God between God and man through the blood of his cross in verse 20, that's reconciled all things to himself in his death, verse 20. And Paul is telling us that Jesus' fleshly body was given to death and that death, listen to me, that death mediated Reconciliation between God and every sinner that believes the gospel of Jesus Christ. Y'all are gonna have to forgive me, it's ragweed season. I can't hardly hear anything, my ears are full of junk. And so if you talk to me, I'm not ignoring you, I'm not hearing you. So it's been a rough last few days with my allergies. But listen, verse 22, look at this. It's a picture of the cross, isn't it? The power of the cross of Jesus Christ to reconcile sinners like the one you're looking at. To an offended God that's been outraged by my sins. that my sins had made separation between me and God. The cross looms over time as an eternal monument of the love of God put on display in the lordship of Jesus Christ that gave his life up to reconcile sinners to God. This is for all those who believe. This is a portrait of the Lamb of God standing in between holy God and sinful man as that substitute sin bearer. There our Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross as the suffering servant, he feeling the pain of the nails being the God-man, feeling the pain of the thorns shoved down on his brow, suffering on the cursed tree under the law and its curses, bearing up underneath it. drinking down the wrath of God that was due be for my sins. It so provoked the Hebrew writer and the spirit of God, inspiring him to write in chapter 13, verse 12, therefore Jesus also that he might sanctify, that word there literally means to make holy, agios, to make holy the people through his own blood he suffered outside of the gate. And again, I call back some context that these proto-gnostics or docetists would deny that Jesus had a physical body. They would say that it just looked that way, but he did not come to flesh. And Paul here is literally telling them that Jesus Christ reconciled sinners through his fleshly body, through death. That the God-man was suspended upon that cross of wood, that upon the cross he suffered, there he bled, and he died to reconcile sinners to the Father. Ephesians 2.16 says that he might reconcile them both in one body to God, listen to this, through the cross. By it, the cross, having put to death the enmity. This is language of divine love. This ought to cause you and I as Christians to gasp with gratitude, to sing with thanksgiving and thankfulness to God that has reconciled us to the Father. This ought to be the content of our worship. This ought to be the joy that causes us to witness Christ on the street. We are not dead in sin. We're alive under God. We've been reconciled to the bloody cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave his life up to reconcile us. The cross is an eternal monument, therefore, an eternal monument that looms over time that declares reconciliation. Reconciliation. That God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not holding their trespasses against them. And then you scroll through the scrolls of your mind to John 19, 30, that which you've read on the pages of Holy Scripture, and you read that great statement, it is finished. Jesus upon the cross, dying, giving his life as a ransom for many. And he says, it is finished. And what was he saying other than this? That reconciliation has been made for every person. Are you listening, little children? Are you listening, teenagers? For every person that puts their trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and yields their lives to him as Lord. It is finished. Tetelestai in the Greek. So do you see what the Colossians were? They were alienated. What were the Colossians? They were hostile in mind. What were they doing? They were engaged in evil deeds. Listen, I see my face in that, don't you? The Word of God is a mirror that puts its thumb right on the pulse of the problem, and the problem is you and I are sinners, and we are separated, and we need a Savior. And Jesus Christ came in the fullness of time to reconcile sinners to God. But now, he says, I like the legacy standard, the way it emphasizes, but now you are reconciled through the cross of Jesus Christ, that his death has reconciled you. Now, listen, let me ask you a question. Have you had a moment to where you can say, but now? Yes, I was alienated. Sure, pastor, I was hostile in mind. I was angry, rebellious, sinful, sinful in all of my deeds and acts, but now... Back in 1987, there was a but now moment for Derek Melton. For up until that time, for 22 years of my life, separated from God, alienated, cut off, hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds. And the Lord came to me and convicted me of my sins. And I saw the glories of this wonderful Savior, this mediator between God and man. And I called out to Christ, repented, turned from my sin, believed the gospel, submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, reconciled to God. Let's see, now maybe you're in your sins today. Possibly you've been in church your whole life, maybe even heard the truth, but you're still overcome and bound up by your sins. Even today, as you're listening to Pastor preach, you're separated from God, you're hostile in your mind, you are engaged in evil deeds. Let me give you a word of encouragement. There's a but now moment if you'll put your faith in Christ. If you'll repent, meaning that you'll turn away from your sins and believe the message of the gospel. If you'll believe that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and that you need this one mediator to reconcile you to God, you will be reconciled both now and forever. Acts 4.12 tells us, and there is salvation in Jesus Christ's name and in no other name. Listen, this reconciliation is for you, and it's found only in the life and death and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Look to Him and live. Call out to Christ and be reconciled to God. Be ye reconciled to God. Note the benefit here. We looked at the benefactor. It says, in order, I mean, verse 22, midway through, put your finger on it in your Bible, in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. This is why Jesus Christ came. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. Here's what salvation is, Grace Life Prior, it's the transfer of the riches of Jesus Christ, of his perfections into the account that you previously filled up with your poverty and death. Salvation is the positive righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ granted to every believer's account before God. It's the perfect merit of Christ put to the demerit of your sin and the judgment that it deserves. You say, Pastor, it sounds like good news. I say, that's good news. That's euangelion good news. We have sinned and we deserve judgment. Ezekiel 18, the soul that sins shall die. We deserve Judgment, we deserve separation. We deserve to be cut off. We deserve to be cast into the eternal torments of hell. But Jesus Christ, dispatched by the Father in heaven, comes to earth and lives a holy life, never sinning, the one that deserves glory, the one that deserves honor. Listen to me. On the cross, he took your place and my place in death. and he gives us his life. Paul would write to Corinth and say that God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So here's salvation in simplistic terms. Jesus takes your sins and the curses that they bring on. and he gives you his righteousness in return. And that God treats you as though you were righteous because he treated Christ as though he was sinful, even though he was not. And I want you to note these glorious terms and how they describe every Christian. He says, because of Christ, because of mediation, and because of reconciliation presents you holy and blameless beyond reproach. Let me just give a moment to describe that to you. Holy is the Greek word hagios. It's a term that describes being separate from sin but being set apart unto God. It has to do with my relationship with God on the basis of our union with Jesus Christ. That God counts us, that God considers us, and that God treats us as though we had never sinned. It's what's called forensic righteousness. It's a legal declaration that God considers the sinner as sinless because the merits of the sinless Christ are put to your account. And God looks at you and sees his son's merits and says, welcome in good and faithful servant, enter into the joys that's been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And you're thinking, you're scratching your head, but I was a knothead on earth. but you believe Christ and God put the righteous standing of Christ into your account. And he lets you in joyfully and zealously, not because you are worthy, but because his son is worthy. That God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. God was in Christ, not holding their trespasses against them. That's the good news of the gospel. The second term here is blameless, emimos in the Greek. It means to be without stain. It's used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that's called the subtuagent in Numbers 6-4 to describe the sacrificial animals that God required to be brought in the day of atonement. And they were to be without spot and they were to be without blemish. Here, the same term is used in the New Testament as it refers to Jesus Christ as God's Paschal Lamb, His spotless, blemishless Lamb. In Him was no sin. The Scriptures tell us over and again that Christ was sinless. And it references you and I with regards to our reconciliation, listen to this, that God looks at us as though we had a perfect, blameless character. Some of y'all are thinking the good news is great news, and what a right deduction that you're making. It is great news. Beyond reproach here, another term, it goes beyond blameless, it means that no one can bring a charge against you. That's what Paul was saying in Romans 8.33, who shall bring a charge against the eclektos of God. This is the verdict of God. In order to present you holy and blameless and beyond reproach, how did that happen? That he reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death. He breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the captive free, Wesley wrote. That there on the cross, Jesus Christ absorbed the wrath of God. He paid in full the ransom price to reconcile you to God and that whenever you believe upon Christ, the credit of Christ is put into your account and God looks at you through the substitute Jesus Christ. There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Man wants to make me sing. The psalmist breaks out into exhortation in Psalm 103, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Listen to this, bless his holy name, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits, who pardons all of our iniquities, who heals all of our diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion, who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like eagles. That's an Old Testament way of saying He has now reconciled you in the body of His flesh through death in order to present you before Him holy and blameless beyond reproach. It's the same gospel song. What are those benefits? Not that you would get rich on this earth, but that you would have eternal riches stored up and in wait for you because of what Christ has done, that we have a reward. And Christ is the mediator of the New Testament, a better covenant that we might be right with God. Let me close with the proof of reconciliation in verse 23. The proof of reconciliation. There are only two kinds of people, saved ones and lost ones. But there are two kinds of lost people, those that know they're lost and those that do not. There are those that think that they are reconciled, but they're at enmity with God and they don't understand or know it. There are those that sat in church for years and are still in their sins. Frighteningly, Jesus warned, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles? And I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Fearsome words. So what is it that characterizes reconciled people? What is the foremost evidence of it? Continuance and the faith. Look at verse 23, if indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established, instead fast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. Let me clarify something, Grace Life. Paul here is not speaking of the possibility of true believers defecting He's speaking of false converts and their failure to continue with Christ. Perseverance is the evidence of saving faith. Enduring to the end proves true salvation, Matthew 24, 13. Greek expert and scholar Kenneth Woust says the idea is assuming that you continue in the faith It is not the retention of salvation that's in the apostle's mind, but the possession of it that would be shown by their continuance in the gospel. He's saying that it's not the retention of salvation that Paul's speaking about in our text, but the possession of true salvation that's evidenced by continuation. So once again, I reiterate, perseverance is the fruit of saving faith, that when God reconciles, God keeps that person to the end. That's why I believe you sing so loudly and joyfully, when I fear my faith will fail, he will hold me fast. When the tempter would prevail, he will hold me fast, right? If the idea here is that Christians will lose their salvation, it would indict God of impotence to keep his promises. He promises he'll not lose one. He promises that he'll complete the good work that he began. So what's it talking about then? Well, 1 John 2, 19 says, they went out from us, but they were really not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. but they went out so that it would be shown that they are all not of us. God says that he will complete the good work he began in us, Philippians 1-6. We're not singing vanity when we sing that he will keep us his people and that he will hold us fast. Jude 24 says he is able to keep us from stumbling and to make us stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy. Listen to John 8 31, this is Jesus. If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples. One source says, this is directed against the false teachers' assurance that the gospel they had heard needed to be supplemented if they wished to attain salvation. This is spoken against, into the context of false teachers. The proof of genuine conversion, the proof of true, biblical, Holy Spirit-given reconciliation is that a true believer will persevere by the grace of God, by the hand and power of God. John 18, nine says Jesus doesn't even lose one of his. Psalm 138 verse eight says that he will accomplish that which concerns you. John 6, 37 and 40 says that all the father gives to him will come to him and that he will raise all of them up on the last day. Irrefutable evidence. The proof of reconciliation is that we keep on with Jesus, right? He keeps his own. We thoroughly believe that God is sovereign in all things, including our reconciliation, and that he will keep his people. Let me mention a few things across the scan of scripture. Just think about this, that whenever Joseph's own brothers dropped him into that pit, God didn't give up, did he? Whenever Moses says, here I am, sin Aaron, God didn't give up. Whenever the delivered Israelites wanted Egyptian slavery instead of milk and honey, God didn't give up. Whenever Aaron was fashioning a false god, at the very moment that Moses was face to face with the true God, God didn't give up. Whenever Samson was whispering to Delilah and Saul was roaring after David and David was scheming against Uriah, God did not give up. Whenever the Word of God lie forgotten and the idols of man stood glistening, God did not give up. Whenever the children of Israel were taken into captivity in the Babylonian era, that God did not give up. Whenever the Lord Jesus Christ became flesh and blood in his infancy and was to be a victim of assassination, even before he turned two years old, God did not give up. In Jesus' life, whenever those from his own hometown tried to push him over a cliff, God did not give up. Whenever the innocent Christ was accused of blasphemy, by a people that did not fear Yahweh. God did not give up. Whenever people were spitting in the face of our Lord and His sufferings, He did not spit back. Whenever bypassers were slapping Him, He did not slap them back. Whenever a Roman whip tore into His side and blood and water poured forth, He did not turn around and command the angels to whip them to death and return. He did not give up. When human hands fastened the hands of Christ to the cross of Calvary with nails. It was not the soldiers that held the hands of Christ steady. It was the hand of God that held them steady because God never gives up. And he will not give up on his people. Are you reconciled to God? Young child, are you reconciled to God? Teenage boy, teenage girl, are you reconciled to God? Are you still at enmity? If the Lord would come with the shout of the archangel tonight, would you be with Christ? If in dark providence, if you would be diagnosed with an incurable disease, and you die before the morning, would you be with Christ? Look at our text one last time. And although you were formerly alienated in enemies in mind and in evil deeds, but now he reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death, in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach, if indeed you continue in the faith, firmly grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister." 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20 says, be reconciled Dear friend, there's no such thing as purgatory. There's no such thing as penance paid to get your soul out of the dungeons of darkness. The apostle Paul says, today is the day of salvation. Do not harden your heart as the fathers did in the day of provocation. Be reconciled to God. Teenagers, young men, young ladies, little children, be reconciled to God. Church member that's unconverted, be reconciled to God. Coming to church but having no evidence of Christ in you, be reconciled to God. This is a solemn, weighty, glorious gospel moment. Those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved through Christ. Lord, I pray that you would