I'll just be reading Colossians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 as we continue our series through this epistle. We've come to these two verses here. Again, this is God's holy word. Take heed how you hear it. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. A few weeks ago, I was in a unique situation. I found myself in a pool with a bunch of kids. The other adults that I was with had left the pool. They were fixing lunch for some of the other children and And I was just playing along, just kind of taking my time, knowing that the line was kind of long and this wasn't going to get out of the pool. And kind of minding my own business, tinkering around with my own kids in the pool. And I noticed some bubbles, some movement, kind of just a little bit off into the halfway shallow, halfway deep end. And I noticed that it was actually a child just floundering. foot two feet under the ground, under the water, the surface of the water. So I immediately went over there and I took my hands and I put my hands under the armpits of the child as it were and I lifted them up and they started crying and coughing up water and it was a big scene, at least to some degree, and the child was drowning. The child was helpless. The child needed to be delivered. The child needed to be delivered. And that picture, that scene helps us understand something about who we were outside of Christ, helpless, helpless to the devil's power, helpless to the power of our own sin. And it shows us something about the power of God in delivering us from such a state. And you here this morning, you know something about this deliverance. You've felt, you've experienced Christ by His Spirit pulling you out of the muck of sin and of the devil. Some of you here may not have experienced that. You may be wondering why it is that you always do the same types of sinful things You may need to experience that deliverance. Paul is addressing a church. He's addressing people who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. He's been telling them about his joy and his thanks for them. They have exercised faith in Christ Jesus. They discern the truth of the gospel. They're growing in their knowledge of God, and he wants them to be thankful. And in verse 12, he says, giving thanks to the Father, this is his prayer, that they would give thanks to the Father for how he's given them this inheritance. And verses 13 and 14, in some sense, really go to give them yet more reasons to give thanks. Yet our version rightfully sets it apart as its own sentence. Because it's more about what God has done for His people than necessarily a reason. He's describing something of salvation here. And what we learn here is that God has delivered His people from the dominion of darkness and from the penalty of sin. That's part of salvation. God delivering his people from the dominion of darkness and from the penalty of sin. And I want to speak to you on that lesson under two points. First, verse 13. Simply, we see here the deliverance from the dominion of darkness. Verse 13 says again, he has delivered us from the power of darkness. Now Paul is attributing this deliverance to the work of the Father. He says he, that's referring to the Father. And it would be appropriate also to speak in such terms about Christ, about even the Holy Spirit. We learned this morning in Sabbath school how there's one God, the Triune God. We pray to the Triune God. We don't just pray to the Father, even though there's There's a measure of appropriateness in addressing the Father. There's a measure of appropriateness in describing deliverance to the Father He's chosen us. It's His plan that Christ executes and that the Spirit applies. And this is something that has happened. We can speak of salvation, and you often read this in scripture. Paul talks about we are being saved. There's a sense in which we haven't been saved. There's a sense in which we're waiting to be saved. But this is something that God has done. What is that? Well, a deliverance from the power of darkness. There's two things, at least two things implied by this phrase, the power of darkness. I'm telling you, I'm changing up to dominion. Often this word power, It's getting that idea. It's not just power or strength, but it applies to certain people in a certain situation. Dominion. Both the dominion of Satan, his kingdom, but also the power of sin. Now, we see both of these types of things mentioned. Satan and sin in Ephesians chapter 2. The question is, Who are we by nature? If we don't understand who we are outside of grace, then we won't understand grace. Ephesians chapter 2, Paul says in verse 1, And you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. What does it mean to be dead in trespasses and sins? Verse 2, And when she once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. That's Satan. His power. The spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. He's working in them. He's exercising his power upon them. But we also see in verse 3 this other aspect of darkness. And that's sin. our sinful flesh that we've inherited from our father Adam. Verse 3, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And we're by nature children of wrath just as the others. God takes us. The Father takes us in this situation. Now I want to elaborate a little bit on this dominion. Satan and sin. And you need to know that you are either right now under the power and the influence of Christ and his kingdom or Satan and his. Acts 26, verse 18, Christ is speaking to Paul. This is what he wants Paul to do, to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan and the power of Satan. Satan controls people, as it were, something akin to how Pharaoh controlled God's people in Egypt. He ruled over them. He had his minions applying his authority to them. The devil keeps people ignorant. He keeps them ignorant. It's one of the ways His power comes out. The gospel is all through this city. I mean, I preach the gospel in this pulpit by God's grace. There's other men who do. The gospel is on the internet. The gospel goes out when you go out throughout the week. And yet there are so many people who don't even know The facts of the gospel. Even now, they know a lot about movie stars, sports stars, maybe science, maybe philosophy. But they're ignorant of the one thing that's most needful. It's because the devil exercises his authority in that way. 2 Corinthians 4. verses three through four, but even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded. He's blinded them. He's keeping them in ignorance. It's the power of Satan. We also have in this phrase, The power of sin is a little different. I want you to think about it. Sin is not a person, okay? But the Bible speaks in such terms. We, by nature, as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, we have a sinful flesh. We can't, without God's grace, please Him. We can't please God without his help. Romans 8.8, So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Jesus says, Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave to sin. Perhaps you've wondered, You know, why is it that people just keep doing the same things? Take very obvious examples like drunks on the side of the street, drug addicts. I mean, all sin is addictive. It's part of us. It's not the power of a drug. Man is enslaved to sin. apart from God's grace. This is the power of darkness upon all humanity, all mankind outside of Christ. Now I want you to, there's several things to think about really here, I want you to think about whether or not when you go throughout your week and you drive around the city and you interact with people, Whether, and you see their sin, maybe they sin against you, maybe they treat you poorly. Do you have compassion on them? Do you think about what you would be like if God had not put you in a godly home where you heard the gospel preached all your life? Or if he had not snatched you out of such a situation? Compassion. Some of you may be able to remember what it was like to be outside of Christ. I never remember a day where I wasn't a Christian, just from my experience. I grew up in the church. My parents taught me the Bible. Some of you may be able to remember that. I want you to think about it because it will give you some empathy, some compassion for them. My brother, his senior year in high school, tore his ACL and his MCL, and I think some other ligament in his knee, playing football. My senior year in high school, the last game, the very beginning of the last game, I tore a ligament in my knee. I remember my brother, who's really, he's kind of a tough guy really, but he was very sympathetic. He knew what it was like. He knew what it was like to tear your knee up and go through the pain and disappointment. Do you have compassion on people who are in the dominion and the power of darkness? Now, if Christ, if the Father through Christ by the Spirit is delivering us from the dominion of darkness, We also need to, and He is, we also need to realize that He's bringing us to a place. Not neutral. Just kind of as a side point. There's no neutrality. There's no neutral person. There's two types of people. Those under the dominion of sin and Satan and those under the dominion of Christ. So part of this glorious salvation is that God in Christ transports us into the kingdom of the son of his love. Notice that's what the text says here. He has delivered us from from something but to to something and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love now conveyed. I actually looked this up in the dictionary. It means to transport, to transfer. We might use that word a little differently now. The idea is specifically, the Greek word here probably entails to the Colossians this idea of colonization. I want you to think about colonization for a moment. Now, we might kind of have a negative connotation to that. Taking someone from their nation and transporting them to another physical location. But this would be a good thing if you were a slave and in bondage in one nation, and given rights and citizenship, and you had a fair and just king in another land. This is what's going on. There's being a transfer into the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of the Son of His love, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is king. He rules. He has power in this land, in this place. He has authority. Now, sometimes the kingdom is called the kingdom of God. Sometimes it's called the kingdom of heaven. Here it's called the kingdom of the sun. It's the same kingdom. And now it most manifests itself in the church. Talking about the church. Bringing God's people to himself and to other Christians. The passage that we read in Mark chapter 5, pictures this for us. Here's this demon, where the power of sin and the devil especially is manifested very clearly. And I've preached on this before, perhaps some of you remember, but it's Jesus that's drawing him. He didn't worship Jesus, he prostrated himself. There's a better translation. The demons are still in him, they're talking for him, and he casts the demons out. He banishes them, He rescues this man, and this man is now sane, he's subdued by Christ the King, and by the Spirit of the King. This is what God does through Christ, by His Spirit, to all of His people. He rescues them. He rescues them. He gives them life, spiritual life, where they may not be slaves to sin. Romans 6 11, likewise you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Part of who we are as Christians is we're no longer slaves to sin. I want to encourage you with this. Think about what this means. Think about the sin that you still wrestle with. God's people still sin. But the thing is, is that we're not slaves to sin. There's been a definitive change. The chains have been broken. This is a great point to think about as far as hope. Some of you might be struggling with some issue. You've been struggling with it for years. I want you to think about the kingship of Christ. Yes, the Bible says a lot about the means of grace and how God's working in you and you work it out and those type of things, but I want you to think about hope for a moment. Especially if you're in the pits right now with your sin. You're a Christian. You understand about deliverance and such, but you can't shake a certain sin. Some of you may not appreciate this illustration as much as others. I'm aware of the weakness of some of my illustrations. But I have always identified with sports. I'm an athlete. whether it was football in high school, or basketball, or rugby in college, I identify with the idea that there are certain people on a team, any given team, that the other teammates look to to make the plays, to hit the home run, to throw the touchdown pass, to make the tackle, to do whatever. You're in this match, you're in this game, and it's difficult, and we're all fighting, but you know what? He's gonna make a play. And I've seen how, you know, if the star player gets hurt or something, that it really crushes the morale of the team. And what I'm trying to say is you have, you have the champion. You have Christ. You have that playmaker. Keep fighting. Don't lose hope. Keep fighting. Look to him. He's going to win the game. He's delivered you. from such power." Now this is part of the deliverance that we have here. We actually have a double deliverance. The word in verse 14 is redemption, but it can have this, it's the same idea as deliverance. God has delivered his people from the dominion of darkness and from the penalty of sin. See this in verse 14. Text says, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Now, this deliverance, the nature of this deliverance is called redemption. Very similar idea. It's not the same type of thing as my illustration I opened up with. This power of the water and gravity and the inability to come out. This is more of something future. Something that's coming. Something that's pending. Judgment. Because of sin. There's a penalty that's going to be paid. The nature of this deliverance is described as redemption. And it's specifically or even more described as the forgiveness of sins. In whom we have redemption. Which is the forgiveness of sins. Verse 14. One commentator writes, that redemption signifies a deliverance effected by some ransom. given for bringing him who is delivered out of his miserable condition." So you see deliverance and ransom and redemption are all being used together. We have this in our vocabulary. You can go to a carnival, you can go to a fair, kids, and your daddy can pay the man or the woman at the booth money and you get tickets and you can redeem those tickets for cotton candy or for prizes or whatnot. You see, there's a price that's being paid. And the result of that is the forgiveness of sins. Sins have been literally, as it's said, that they go away. That's what's being talked about here. And the means of this redemption First off, let me read this verse to you here. 1 Corinthians 6, redemption is described as a payment of a price. Verse 20, 1 Corinthians 6, for you were bought at a price You were bought at a price. This is the nature of what's going on here. Now how are we bought? Does God or do you actually give your pastor or somehow to God money? Is that how you do away with the penalty of sin and get your forgiveness? Now listen, this may seem silly to you, but this is what the Roman Catholic Church still does and certainly did in the past. You may have heard of Johann Tetzel in Germany. You know, if you throw a coin into the bucket, every time you hear the ring, a soul from purgatory springs. That's what motivated Luther. Listen, Luther's like, you can't buy the forgiveness of sins. That's not the means of redemption. What's the means of redemption? The blood of Jesus Christ, the death of the God-man. That's the means. The text says, through his blood. Now some of you may not have these words in your Bible, and that would take me away from my topic, but you do need to know that this idea is certainly biblical. The Bible speaks of the blood of Christ being the means of our redemption. 1 Peter 1.18, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ." How were you redeemed? With the precious blood of Christ. Christ died on the tree. He paid for sin because God is just. God is just. God could not have, because he had chosen to redeem his elect who were sinners, he could not have just declared amnesty. He is a just God. What would you think of a judge A compassionate judge who saw that this drunk who had killed a family, a driving drunk on the road, was very sad, just full of sorrow for what he did. What would you think of the judge who just said, you're good, you don't have to pay for anything? He would be compassionate. He wouldn't be just. See, God saves his people. to the death of his own son. He had said in several places, in Ezekiel it says that the soul who sins shall die. God is still just and saving his people because Christ died for them. Now this is useful for us because we face people, maybe even in this room, who certainly in your family, certainly your spouse, who have sinned against you. They've done wrong to you. And God would call you to forgive them. God forgives sinners through His Son. Think of the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. where we're called to forgive on the basis of our own forgiveness. We're called to have an attitude of love and forgiveness toward those who come to us seeking such reconciliation. That's the whole point of the parable of Matthew 18. A man is forgiven by his master of all these debts and he goes to this lower servant and demands payment. And when that master hears of it, he throws the first servant into jail. Jesus says, so my Heavenly Father will also do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brothers his trespasses. Are you struggling to forgive people? I was speaking a while ago to a woman who who was weeping and she was weeping not so much out of sorrow but out of anger for something that someone had done to her that she was not letting go. She let it fester. This person had apologized, this person had sought forgiveness, recognized what they had done What this lady needed to do was think about Jesus. Think about her own sin. What you need to do if you are struggling to forgive someone. Whether they have repented and come to you or not, be ready to forgive them. Because of what God through Christ has done for you. I want you to think about the fact that God through Christ has sent your sins away. He has let them go. Now this text also tells us something about not just the nature of redemption and the means of it, but to who it comes. Who it comes to. Paul says, in whom we have redemption. In whom we have redemption. The Bible teaches that only certain people are going to receive the forgiveness of sins. Paul is talking about himself and the Colossians. Now he does not say in this passage of Scripture, even though it would be true in a certain sense that those who do the will of God are forgiven. In a certain sense that would be true. He doesn't even say here that those who believe in His Son are those who are redeemed. That would certainly be true. He describes them as in whom they are in Christ. Referring to the son in the previous verse, the kingdom, the son of his love, in whom we have redemption. I want you to think about who you are as a Christian. Are you one who follows the Lord Jesus? More or less? I hope so. I think so. Are you one who's trusted in Christ? I've trusted in Christ, you say in your heart. Now, I want you to push pause. Some of you here may not be believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a sense in which the people here are those who believed in Christ. Christ says to Paul, I quoted this verse to you earlier, He says, Paul, I want you to go and I want you to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified and by faith in me. by faith in me. Now I speak to you this morning as God's people, as those who exercise faith in Jesus Christ, but do you exercise faith? Are you one who's put your trust in Christ? This is what you must do. Now Paul doesn't say that here. That's true. Everything I said is true. How does Paul describe the recipients of the forgiveness of sins? This is what I want you to think about. Because there's great consolation in understanding who you are. You're in Christ. Now, there's two types of people. I've told you this. There's those who are under the power of Satan and their flesh. and those who are under the power and influence in the kingdom of Christ. But it's also true to speak in this terms, in Adam and in Christ. Who are you represented by? This is Paul's way of speaking about Christians. In whom? Ephesians chapter 1 verse 7. Speaking to the Christians in Ephesus, verse 7 says, "...in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." Who are Christians? They are in Christ. That is who they are. Verse 11, "...in Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him, who works all things according to the counsel of His will." Verse 13, "...in Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed I want you to think about the idea of whether you can trust in your own works, trust in your own actions. One of the things that we always have to keep in mind as Christians is that God does not, listen to me. God does not love you because you obey Him. I want you to think about that. God loves you because He loves Jesus Christ, who's perfect, who's done all that you have not done. Think about, I kind of skipped this verse actually. He says this phrase, the kingdom of the Son of His love. The Father loves Jesus Christ. Who are you? Are you in Christ Jesus? If you're in Christ Jesus, then the Father loves you. You have a plenteous forgiveness in Him. Some of you may really struggle with whether God has forgiven you. I can tell you by God's grace, at least at this point in my life, I've never been someone who really has wrestled with assurance. I just haven't, by God's grace, totally by God's grace. I've never really wrestled with whether God has forgiven me of my sins. Some people do. You might. You might have committed terrible things, said terrible things, done things that you would never want anyone to know. And the devil, the devil comes after you. Well, if God's really gonna forgive you, don't you need to clean your act up? Don't you think you need to do a few things to earn his favor? The gospels for sinners, people who've done terrible things. Christians are people who are in Christ Jesus. It's a great consolation. It's a great comfort. God has delivered his people from the dominion of darkness, from the penalty of sin. When I lifted this child up, I discovered who the child was and who the parents were, and I turned to her father and I said, hey, she can't swim without her floatie. And he didn't know it. He was tending to his other children. He didn't know what was going on. He was so grateful. His wife later communicated to me how thankful she was that I had delivered their child. This is what God has done for you. This is why you should be grateful. This is why you should give thanks. This is why God is not over burdensome. When He says to you, love me with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your strength, all of the time. Do you love your Father? Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you devote yourself to Him? He saved you. He's delivered you. Love Him. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for what You have done through Your Son in delivering us from the power of the devil and from our sin and from the penalty of it. Father, we come to you giving you thanks. We ask that you would encourage us, that you would grant us greater love for you. Father, we ask that you would Encourage us and give us greater confidence, not in ourselves, but in your son and his perfect work and his perfect life. We ask in his name. Amen.