Colossians 2:13-14

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One summer during high school, a friend and I spent nearly our entire summer riding bikes around town, having fun, doing all sorts of things that kids do, mainly stayed out of trouble. But we got ourselves into a little bit of trouble when one day we were really hungry. It was about lunchtime and so we went to a local bar and grill that my friend would go to quite often with his dad. We’d go in and we didn’t have any money. My friend said, it’s okay. “My dad has a running tab here at this restaurant. We can just order what we want and it’ll go on the tab.”

And so we did, and we started making that a more regular habit. Hey, we’re hungry. Let’s go over and eat. And before we knew it, my friend’s dad came rolling up into his driveway as we were sitting in his garage working on our bikes, and he said, you guys ran up a huge tab. I think you’re going to be going to work with me for the next two weeks in order to pay it off.

So it came back to haunt us. We had run up this great debt on someone else’s bill, and now we were indebted to him. Now, this is a slightly silly example, but this is also how it works quite often when it comes to sin. When you and I end up breaking God’s law and we make mistakes, we make terrible, selfish decisions. We’re running up a debt. A debt that we can’t repay, a terrifying debt. A debt that we deserve to suffer and die for. To die eternally for. But we have a loving father in God the Father who comes to us. And even though he knows and understands that this debt that we have worked up is one that’s beyond our capability to repay. He forgives us of that debt.

Let me share with you a verse, a really powerful verse from Colossians chapter two that speaks about how God forgives us our debt.

Colossians 2:13 and 14.

God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)

Our debt was nailed to the cross and to the person that was on the cross in our place. We have a Savior, Jesus, who came and said, I’m going to pay your debt for you. And because of that, there is no longer any debt that you and I have as we stand before God. There is no anger. There is no fear as we stand before God, everything that should separate us from God: it’s been nailed to the cross. It’s been nailed to Jesus, and he has paid for it in full.

What a gift. What an awesome treasure this is that you and I have in our Savior Jesus. He has removed our debts from us. He had it nailed with him to the cross. Our sin is now forgiven, wiped out. So we now stand before God. And God smiles at us. And he says, my beloved children, yes, your debt has been paid. You have nothing to worry about. Do not be fearful. Do not run away from me. Instead, know that I am your loving father and I am here for you. What a gift that is. Glory be to Jesus for covering our debt of sin.

Peace be with you.

Genesis 1:27, Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:24

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In Genesis chapter one, God says this about Adam and Eve.

God created the man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

That Bible passage tells us that we are created in the image of God. All human beings are created in the image of God, both male and female. What does that mean? I think many times we wonder, does that mean that we have eyes like God’s eyes or nose like God has a nose or fingers and toes like God has? Well, it’s good for us to keep in mind that God, in his essence, is spirit is what the Bible tells us. Obviously, in the person of Jesus Christ, he takes on human flesh, doesn’t he? But in his essence, God is spirit. So he doesn’t have those things like the way that we have. So what does it mean that human beings are created in the image of God?

Well, a very helpful passage for us to consider is Colossians chapter three, verse ten, and it says this.

Put on the new self, which is continually being renewed in knowledge, according to the image of its Creator. (Colossians 3:10)

That passage talks about the new self, sometimes referred to as the new man. Or we talk about as we come to faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ, we are a new person, right? We are born again as well. And it talks about that new self as a new self that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. So it talks about the image of God in connection with this new self, that it’s being renewed in knowledge. And so I think that gives us a lot of insight into what it means in the Bible when it talks about Adam and Eve being created in the image of God, that they had perfect knowledge of God and of his will, they had a perfect relationship with him as well.

And there’s another passage that goes along with it from Ephesians chapter four that says this

Put on the new self, which has been created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians 4:24)

Again, it refers to that new man or new self as it mentions there, but it says, what’s the connection? Well, it’s been created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. And so that’s another aspect of the image of God that we are righteous and holy as well too. So both those things are true knowledge of God, a perfect relationship with God, but then also that holiness and righteousness, all of that is part of what it means that human beings were created with the image or in the image of God.

So why aren’t we that way today? You know, why aren’t we righteous and holy? And why do we sin? And why is our relationship with God broken? Well, it’s because of sin, isn’t it? As Adam and Eve fell into sin, they lost the perfect image of God. Maybe another way is to think about it as being clouded or tainted by sin. And so there isn’t that perfect knowledge of God. There isn’t that perfect relationship with God. We were separated or divorced from him by our sin, but also we ourselves aren’t perfect. We are corrupt because of sin.

And yet, the good news for us is to know that by faith in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, through trusting in him, that relationship and that image is restored, that God has given us a new self. We are a new creation, new people in Christ, and that in him God is restoring the image of God in us. He is giving us that knowledge of him. He is sanctifying us by His Holy Spirit, making us holy. And one day we will be perfectly holy as we see God face to face in life eternal, not because of us and the things that we have done, but only because of Christ and what he has done for us, and how he has given us new birth and made us a new creation, giving us God’s image in full, a perfect image once again in glory. Amen.

Colossians 2:13-14

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Hi, I’m pastor Luke Ulrich. I want to share with you a couple of verses from Colossians chapter two, verses 13 and 14.

Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)

Let me ask you, can a dead person choose to be alive? Can a dead person choose to be alive? No, it doesn’t work that way. If you’re dead, you can’t make yourself alive. In this verse, in the beginning of this verse, verse 13, we hear that we are dead in our trespasses. And elsewhere in Scripture it also talks about how we are dead because of our sins. We are spiritually dead before God. We are as good as dead. As a dead person can’t choose to be alive. We can’t choose to be spiritually alive. We are without hope. If it were left up to us, we would be totally lost and forever dead. But what’s the good news? The good news is God chooses to bring us life. An outside source who has power over death shares that victory over death with us.

We can’t choose to be alive. But God, who brought everything to life at the very beginning. Our Lord Jesus, who spoke to Jairus’ daughter, who spoke to the young man in the coffin outside the city of Nain, who spoke to Lazarus as he was still in the tomb. Come out. Our Lord Jesus has power over death. We have a God who has power to give life. And that’s proven especially in this Easter season, where we consider how Jesus himself rose from the dead. Proof to us that he has power over death.

He’s the one who now comes to us, who should be dead before God. And he says, you are alive. He speaks life into our hearts as he points us to what he has done for us, what our Lord Jesus has done, how he lived a perfect life for us, how he went to the cross, how all of our sins were nailed to the cross with Jesus. I love that verse from Colossians 2. And because of that, we who should be spiritually dead are now alive, not because of what we have done, but because of what God has done.

Jesus desires you to be alive and to be alive with him forever in heaven. And you don’t even have to worry about doing anything to have it. We simply put our hope, our trust in Jesus. We hear this message of what he has done for us. We believe in it, and the gates to heaven are then open to you and to me. This is good news. This is good news that can motivate you and me today as we can go out into our lives, we can live fearlessly, not worrying about death, not worrying about all the fearful things of this dying world. Because you and I have life, life handed to us from God. Thanks be to Jesus. Peace be with you.

1 Corinthians 10:1-3, Colossians 1:13

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Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! It is the joyful Easter season right now in the church, and it’s such a wonderful time. I remember as a kid just going into church early on Easter morning and smelling those Easter lilies and that fresh baked bread and muffins and that Easter breakfast that was cooking in the oven. What a wonderful, joyous, celebratory feast that Easter can be for us as Christians, as we rejoice in everything that Jesus our Savior did for us.

Interesting family tradition we always had at Easter time was the old movie The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston was always on TV and we would watch that. And I always remember that it was a striking movie, right? And it tells the story of the Exodus, God’s people, the children of Israel, how they were able to be delivered from slavery in Egypt. He led them out by a mighty hand. The ten plagues that he worked to get Pharaoh to let his people go. And then they went, traveled out of Egypt and God led them through the Red Sea on dry ground. What a miracle. And you always remember that image of Moses standing there with the waters being separated. This is a beautiful picture for us as Christians of our baptism. Saint Paul tells us in first Corinthians chapter ten he writes,

For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea [The Red Sea], and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And all ate the same spiritual food. (1 Corinthians 10:1-3)

The children of Israel passed through the waters of the Red Sea, and this was a picture of their liberation from slavery to Pharaoh. For us in baptism, we are set free from a very real Pharaoh. That Pharaoh is the devil, Satan. He was the one who once held us in slavery to sin and fear. And he made us do the works of iniquity, and we were pushed around by him and abused by him. But then our Savior Jesus came to set us free. Jesus is the greater Moses who showed up on the scene and delivered us from the devil. And he did this by his death on the cross, where he paid for all of our sins. He took the punishment for our sins upon himself, and he ransomed us and paid the ransom price for us so that we might be free, so that we would be set free from the devil’s dominion of darkness. As Saint Paul tells us in Colossians one,

For he [God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son. (Colossians 1:13)

And so we pass through the waters of Holy Baptism. We’ve been set free from that old Pharaoh, Satan. We’ve been set free from our sins and from death. And now we journey together as Christians on our way to our promised land, and we journey through the desert wilderness that is this world. We know this place isn’t our permanent residence. We pitch our tents here for a while, for a time in this life. But we’re journeying together toward our promised land, the promised land of heaven, God’s heavenly kingdom, where Jesus is leading us to as his dear followers.

So we follow him through this life, and he provides for us on the way. He feeds us even with bread from heaven, with manna from heaven. We think about in Holy Communion, where we receive his very body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. We’re journeying together and Jesus is leading us, and one day we’ll pass into our promised land. We’ll cross over the waters of death, and there be with our God forever and joy and in peace. And what a comfort this is to us. And what a beautiful picture the Exodus story is of our baptisms. And so we rejoice that Christ has brought us over. We have passed over with our Lord Jesus from death to life. With him we have all things, we are forgiven and we have eternal life. And so all thanks and praise be to Jesus, our risen Lord and Savior. Amen.

Leviticus 11:12, Matthew 11:28, Colossians 2:16-17

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Do you like clam chowder? I do, but am I sinning when I eat it? Because in the Old Testament, God clearly commands the Israelites not to eat shellfish. Leviticus 11:12 says,

Every creature in the water that does not have fins or scales is detestable to you. (Leviticus 11:12)

So does God just not like clam chowder or oyster stew? And what if I do? That’s a question, an objection sometimes that has been raised by a number of people. They say we Christians are being inconsistent because we’re keeping some of God’s laws, but others like to abstain from shellfish, we’re not following. And it’s a fair question. We want to be consistent in following God’s law. Thankfully, it’s also a question that has a clear answer in Scripture.

See, in the Old Testament, God gave many laws to the Israelites, and some of these were civil laws that regulated the government of Israel. And these help to set apart Israel as God’s holy chosen nation. They also were given ceremonial laws which would have regulated their worship life and would have included things like sacrifices or festivals or dietary restrictions. These also set them apart from the nations of the world, set them apart as God’s holy chosen nation. At the same time, they pointed ahead to the coming Christ to Jesus.

Think about the sacrifices of sheep or other animals. They were to point ahead to the Lamb of God. They were also to show that blood must be shed, that there must be death to pay for sin. Think about the commandment to keep the Sabbath day, to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. There were to take Saturday as a day of rest. This was to point ahead to the one who would say,

Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

These laws were fulfilled when Christ then came. He came in fulfillment of these laws. And that’s shown to us in Colossians 2, where Paul writes.

Therefore, do not let anyone judge you in regard to food or drink, or in regard to a festival or a New Moon or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were coming, but the body belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)

The other laws that were given to the Israelites were God’s moral law, and these are summarized in the Ten Commandments. This is God’s will for his people for all time. And these are reiterated in the New Testament by Jesus. Thankfully, Jesus also came in fulfillment of the moral law. He fulfilled it for us. He lived a perfect life, always following his father’s will. He lived a perfect life of love towards his Heavenly father and towards all those around him. And then, as the Lamb of God, he gave up his life on the cross as the sacrifice needed for the sins of the world. And in so doing, he paid for your sins, my sins, and all the sins of the world. You are forgiven. Through faith in Jesus, you’re credited with his perfect fulfillment of God’s law, and God sees you as his own dear child, as an heir of eternal life in heaven.

So now the question is, how can we thank God for his sacrifice? Well, there’s no need to keep his ceremonial law or his civil law. Remember, that’s fulfilled in Jesus. But we do still have his will for how we live and love towards him and those around us. That’s summarized in the Ten Commandments. That’s the moral law. As those who know how Jesus fulfilled the law for us, won heaven for us. It’s our privilege, it’s our joy to live lives of thanks by living according to his will, by showing love to him and to all those around us, so that they might know the hope, the fulfillment of the law that we have in Jesus.

May God bless us as we live in the love that we know. Amen.

Colossians 3:3

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The wedding rings on your wedding day. The money that you make at your job. Secrets that you don’t want anyone else to know. These are all things that you want to keep safe. You don’t want to lose them. And so in order to keep them safe, you might entrust them to someone else.

The money that you make at your job, you might entrust to a bank in your checking account or savings account. The wedding rings on your wedding day, you might entrust to the best man, and he’ll keep them safe. Hold on to them until that time in the wedding ceremony, a secret that you don’t want anyone else to know. You might tell a friend, a close friend, someone you know will keep it to themselves.

We all have something that is more precious and valuable to us than all of those things. We have life, eternal life, all in Christ Jesus our Savior. Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that we would have forgiveness of all of our sins. And that we would possess life and salvation. And this life we have in Jesus became ours on the day of our baptism, and through those waters we were connected with Jesus and what Jesus has done for us and what he offers to us so freely. Our sins were washed away. We died to sin. Our old life with sin is gone. We now live and have eternal life. We are raised with Christ. We are alive even now.

But in him we also have that eternal life, and we want that kept safe and secure because it is so precious and so valuable to us, is more precious than anything else we could ever have or ever possess in this world. A priceless treasure. But living in this world, we sometimes wonder if it truly is safe and secure.

When we experience the results of living in this sinful world, that still has an effect on us every single day. Does that affect the life we have in Jesus? Can something so horrible in this world, can that take the life we have in Jesus away? Or is our life kept safe and secure? Is it kept in a secure place for us? After reminding us that we are raised with Christ, who himself was raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians in chapter three, verse three,

For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3 EHV)

Jesus, who gives us our life, as redeemed children of God is the very same person who keeps it safe and secure. Who better than Jesus to keep it safe and secure for us? We may not be able to see the life we have in Jesus right now. We will see it. And we know that it’s ours. We are certain of it. It is hidden away, locked away. And nothing can ever take that life away from us and is kept safe and secure. And it will be seen and forever enjoyed. But for now it is kept safe, hidden away with Christ. Amen.

Colossians 2:8-9, Colossians 1:12-14

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Our Bible passage today comes from Saint Paul’s letter to the Colossians chapter two. He’s speaking here to Christians who have learned to know of God’s grace. And then we hear verse eight.

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, which are in accord with human tradition, namely, the basic principles of the world, but not in accord with Christ. For all the fullness of God’s being dwells bodily in Christ. (Colossians 2:8-9)

Many years ago when I was in high school, a friend of mine went to a carnival and he brought quite a bit of money with him, which today would be about $200 worth. And while he was there, he got talked into doing what they call a Coke bottle tip, where you take a little hook and try to pull a Coke bottle and make it stand up straight. And the man running the carnival, the vendor, was able to keep him playing this game for such a long time that he finally got all of his money away from him. It ended up being what would today be about $200. And my friend was so mad at himself that he was duped by this individual. They claim that carnival vendors can often spot easy targets and they even change what they say to people depending on what they know about them and what they can tell about them by just looking at them. And it’s all part of the game ultimately to try to get some money away from them. And so what’s at stake is really not a lot necessarily, although in my friend’s case, it was.

But Saint Paul is discussing a game in a sense that’s with much higher stakes. In fact, the highest stakes, and that is our relationship to Christ as our Savior and by faith in him, the very hope that we have of going to heaven. Early in the letter, Saint Paul reminds us of the blessings that we have of knowing Christ. Listen, he says,

[God] has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:12-14)

But now he’s warning his readers about being deceived by people telling us other philosophies and view of life. And in our culture, there are many voices out there speaking to us and calling out to us, wanting to lure us away from our faith and our Savior. And some of them will appear to appeal to our intellect, maybe trying to come up with arguments and philosophical positions that appeal to our intellect. Other voices may appeal to our sinful cravings inside of us. Some may try to tempt us away with worldly prizes and wealth. But all of these in some way, shape or form will appeal to our sinful pride.

And Paul is saying be careful and aware of the motive in the heart of the person calling out to you. Whoever comes to you with deceptive philosophies wants to ultimately rob you and steal things from you. But in order to accomplish that, they have to do something that sounds flattering or they have to say something to us that sounds like it’s going to give us something beneficial. But in the end, it ends up being deceptive and something to steal from us. The Greek word that Paul uses here is the word for being cheated, just like my friend got cheated out of all that money. It’s a word we might use in a case of fraud. It’s the only place in the New Testament where this is used. It literally means to be carried away like a spoil of war, that someone picks you up and carries you off like a spoil of war. And that’s really what Paul is warning us about.

I’m sure that my friend later warned his children about being careful of going to the carnival and to protect their money and things. The faith that God wants us to protect, which is certainly much more valuable. That takes some vigilance on our part to protect that faith. And God does that by always bringing us back to the feet of our Savior who has won our hope of heaven for us and given us the forgiveness of all of our sins. And by staying close to him in his word, there will be great blessings for us. Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it. Amen.

Colossians 1:18

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Today I want to talk a little bit about the church. Now, when I say that word church, maybe you think of your local congregation, the building that you go to on Sundays, maybe you think about the people that sit next to you in the pews as you hear God’s Word, as you return your thinks and prays and prayers and in hymns. But remember that that word church is also used in another sense in scripture, not just the local group of believers, but it’s used in a wider sense, too.

When Scripture talks about church, in that sense, it means not just the people that you can see. It means not just a physical location or a building. It’s talking about the church, meaning all believers everywhere who understand that Jesus is their Savior. Who have faith that Jesus is the Son of God and has died for the forgiveness of their sins. Colossians one verse 18 says this

Jesus is the head of the body, the Church. (Colossians 1:18)

Now, there are few things that I want to remind you about what scripture teaches us about this invisible church. First is that it belongs to God. Jesus says on this rock, I will build my church. Jesus is the head of it. He’s saying that there is one there is one unity with him, one union of all those who put their faith in him as their Savior from sin.

Two is that people are added to this church every day. Sometimes in our local congregations, in certain parts of the world, we may not see this growth. Maybe your church is growing, maybe it’s not. But we know that God’s Word works. We know that his word and his sacraments create faith that the Holy Spirit works through these things to create believers. And so we are promised that wherever that word is proclaimed, wherever God’s Word goes out, that it never returns to him empty, it accomplishes the exact purpose for which God intends it to accomplish. It never returns to him empty.

We know that we are members of this church only by grace. It’s not because of our parents. It’s not because of of how many times we go to our local congregation. It’s not because of anything we do, but it’s because of what Jesus has done for us. He died on the cross. He lived perfectly. He has redeemed us from all of our sin and now has given us this gift of faith that unites us to him. And since we’re united to him, we are united also to one another. We have been made members of this invisible church only by the grace of God.

And the final thing that we are reminded of in God’s Word, and that I want to remind you about, is that the gates of hell will never prevail against the Church of Christ. It may look bleak at times. Christ Church may be persecuted in certain areas of the world. It may look like people are running away from the truth of God’s Word. But we know that it does not belong to us, that it belongs to God, and that He has given us his word. The gates of hell will never prevail against that. It will never fall to evil or to the work of Satan.

So remember that, yes, while you are a member, hopefully of a local congregation, which is a massive blessing to us, God gives us these local congregations for us to be places where we can gather together with other believers to hear his word, to gather around his word and his sacraments, a place where we can go to receive his word, his absolution, his forgiveness, or we can receive baptism, where we can receive his Holy supper in Holy Communion. We are also a member of His invisible church, this worldwide union of people who know that Jesus is their Savior, this union of people who find their hope and their joy in what Jesus has done for them. A union that is not just made up of people who are alive, but people who have died in the faith, those saints triumphant, who are gathered together at the foot of Christ’s throne right now, a location where we will join them one day in faith and in the perfection of the creation that Christ has promised for us. We look forward to that day. We strive for unity here and now, and we look forward to it when it’s complete in eternity. Let’s pray.

Jesus, we thank you for making us members of your church. We ask Lord that as we celebrate the unity that we have with all people everywhere who put their faith in their hope in you. We ask that you would bless our local congregations, that you enable us to use the individual gifts and abilities that we have to proclaim your gospel in our communities. Be with us, Lord, as we strive for that unity always rooted in your Word with the purity of your word as the most important thing in your name we pray Lord, Amen.

Colossians 1:13-14

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The Old Testament is full of these rules, these customs and rituals that seem so foreign to us today. One of the most interesting ones, in my opinion, is the custom of the Avenger of Blood. This is not a Marvel character. This according to God’s Old Testament law was a person who had the legal responsibility for seeking vengeance for his family. If somebody was killed, whether it was by accident or on purpose, the closest male relative of that person who had died had the legal responsibility to chase after the person who was responsible for that death and kill them.

Now, this might sound extreme, but God put in some safeguards so that it wouldn’t be a free for all. He established in his word, six cities of Refuge. These were cities that were spread throughout Israel that were easy to find and easy to get to. They were evenly spread out so that you could find one or get to one within about a day’s worth of running. And once you were in that city of refuge, that avenger of blood couldn’t touch you.

Now, the example given in numbers is with two lumberjacks. They are in the woods, cutting down trees and as one lumberjack swings his axe, the head of that axe flies off and and kills his coworker. The person who accidentally killed his coworker better start running because the avenger of blood, once he hears about this, is required to chase after him. Now it’s usual in Old Testament times that the person would reach a city of refuge. Now, once in this city of refuge, the elders of that city would have to make a judgment about whether or not this death was accidental or not. If it was not done on accident, they would hand over that person for punishment.

If it was an accident, they were not free to go. They had to stay in that city of refuge. They had to live there away from their family, away from their home, until the death of the current high priest. Now, again, this sounds so strange. It makes us wonder why this kind of thing is in the Bible. Like so many Old Testament customs and rituals, what this does is it points us to Jesus. What this custom does is it exposes to us some of God’s nature, some of his heart.

God’s nature is one that wants to offer us forgiveness, that desires to give to us his grace, his undeserved love, that offers to us refuge. We need that grace and that forgiveness because we too are on the wrong side of the law. Not man’s law, but God’s law. We have fallen short of his expectations, and we have to admit that we have sinned. As a result, we deserve punishment and God’s law is clear. The punishment that we deserve as lawbreakers is death. We deserve eternal separation from our righteous God.

Now, unlike these people in the Old Testament Israel, we can’t run away from the consequences of our actions. But God still desires to offer us grace and forgiveness. The City of Refuge that he has established for us, the City of Refuge that he offers to us is his Son. Jesus is our City of Refuge. So in our sin, in our failure to live up to God’s law, we don’t have to run away. We don’t even have to leave our home. We simply must turn to Jesus in repentance and faith. And it’s that gift of faith that unites us to our refuge. And as long as we are united to Jesus, that punishment of death. It doesn’t come near us. As long as we are in Christ and He in us, we are safe.

Now Jesus is able to be this refuge for us because he was perfect. You never once sinned. And then on the cross there, he gives himself for us. There on the cross, he carried in himself everything that we’ve ever done wrong. And he suffers our punishments that we would never have to. Through Christ we have forgiveness. Through him we have that grace, that refuge, that we seek. The Apostle Paul, he emphasizes all of this in his letter to the Colossians and in chapter one, verse 13. He says

He [Jesus] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14)

We pray, God, we thank you that even while we were still sinners, you sent your Son to be our redeemer and our refuge. Through your words, strengthen our faith, enable us to turn away from our sin and towards our Savior for forgiveness, grace, and redemption. Amen.

God’s peace be with you.

Galatians 3:27, Colossians 3:3, Philippians 1:21, Philippians 2:6-8

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So tell me about yourself. Who are you? What do you, what do you like? How would you describe yourself? Go ahead to even pause the video for a minute and just think. How would you respond to that? How would you describe yourself?

The way you describe yourself is important because it tells us a lot about how you define yourself, where you find your identity. Like maybe you the first thing you say is, well, I’m, you know, like for me, I might say, like, I’m a pastor. You might say you’re a, you’re a mother, you’re a father, you are a student. You know, you work here. You work at a bank. You work these other places. And we think about all these various things that we do or our relationships. And often we look for our identity there. And those things are good things. But there’s weaknesses to finding our identity in those places.

There’s weaknesses there for a couple of reasons. Part of the reason why there might be a weakness there is that those things in life can change. Relationships can change. What you do for a living can change. So then when it changes, then you can start to have an identity crisis. Well, who am I? That’s also problematic because where you find your identity actually drives very much of what you do. It drives your decisions. It becomes to be what you live for because if you find your identity somewhere and that becomes so important for you, it can become the driver for your life because you need to keep that identity. And something that starts to drive your life, can begin to do what really God was meant to do. It can begin to take over the place of God in your life.

There’s a better place to find your identity. To go find your identity we can go to God’s Word to see what God says about us. If you go to the book of Galatians, it talks about how we have been baptized into Christ. You, if you’ve been baptized, you’ve been baptized into Christ, which means you’ve been clothed with Christ. So when God sees you, He sees the perfect life of Christ. And Christ also then being the Son of God, Christ is God, God when He looks at you, He sees a spitting image of himself. Your primary identity when you look in the mirror should be that I am in Christ.

Maybe instead of thinking yourself as a Christian, maybe use this word. It sounds maybe a little bit weird, but say I’m, I’m a Christ-in. I’m somebody who is in Christ that defines you. I mean, if you look at Colossians chapter three, Paul says that your whole life is now hidden in Christ. That is who you are. So now what does that mean for how you live your life, though? Because all these other things, we think about where we get our identity have to do with living my life in my relationships, what I do. How does our identity now connect with the way we live our life?

Well, I want to take you to Philippians chapter one in verse 21. Paul says that for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. I think the second part of that statement is easier to understand, and the first. To die is gain, as a Christian, that becomes pretty clear to us. So we understand, we know, that because Jesus died and rose again, we are set right with God. We know that promise that Jesus said that when you close your eyes to this world and open them, you will be with him in paradise. And we’re looking forward to resurrection. We know that. So to die is gain, that makes sense. But what does it mean to say to live is Christ?

Well, the second chapter of Philippians helps with that. When you look to the second chapter of Philippians, Paul talks about how Jesus did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but he humbled himself and took the form of a servant. That section, there’s a lot of big words. It can be a little bit confusing sometimes, just so kind of just to boil it down. What does it mean? It means that that the Son of God could have stayed in the comforts of heaven. But instead he humbled himself because his father had a job for him to do. He humble himself and became a servant to live that life you and I were meant to live, but don’t. To lay his life down and to die on the cross so that he could then rise again and give us new life.

When Jesus lived in this world, he was living as a humbled servant, carrying out his father’s plan for the good of those around him. As you think about living and Paul says to live is Christ, for you life is the same way. You are first and foremost a servant. Here because you have a job from your father. That job can change over time. Sometimes your primary thing will be to take care of little kids. Some day they grow up. You know, you might have a job here and then a job there. Those things can shift. But what doesn’t shift is that you are a Christ-in you are somebody who is in Christ. Your whole life is hidden in Christ. You are a servant carrying out your father’s work as you looking forward to that day of life with him. You are a Christ-in that’s who you are.

Genesis 1:27-28, Colossians 1:15-20

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So what are you doing here? Why are you here right now? Now, I’m not just asking about, like, why are you watching this devotion video? I’m asking the bigger picture. The bigger picture question, like, why are you here on this planet? What is your purpose? What’s the meaning of life? I know. I just went there to that big picture question. What is the meaning of life? And I know people talk like it’s this big riddle, like no one can really know the answer to that question. But actually, if you look through the pages of Scripture, the first pages, we can get some insights to why we are here.

If you look back to when God created humanity, when God created Adam and Eve, you go to Genesis chapter one verses 27 to 28 to say this.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

God created humanity in his own image, in his likeness. See, when God did that, God was doing something very purposeful. I mean, how does an invisible God visibly put on display what he looks like in this world? It’s by creating you and me, creating people with the purpose of being walking pictures of him. God gave humanity the authority over the world to go and to live and act into and to work together so that we could display his character and his goodness and his love in the world. Humanity was created to be a walking picture of God.

It’s a pretty incredible purpose. Now, unfortunately. Do you always live in a way that looks like God? I know. I sure don’t. None of us do. In many ways we, throughout the day, live in ways that don’t look anything like God. And as people who are created to live in a way that looks like God in many ways, you can look and feel like, Man, our lives are just a real disappointment because we just failed to be that. And and no wonder, no wonder God calls out our sin when we were created for so much more than we often live for.

But there’s good news for us. If you go to the New Testament, to the Book of Colossians, there is this incredible section talking about Jesus. Jesus who is fully God, but then also fully human, and notice what it says about him. So we pick up in verse 15, says

He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He is a human who is a walking picture of God. He is what you and I were created to be. When you see Jesus, you see God. Jesus is God becoming human. So He could live that life you and I were meant to live but don’t. And then he could lay that life down and die on the cross in order to pay the price. To take the justice for all the ways that you and I have not at all acted like God. And then He rose again to resurrection. Life rose again to give us a new life so that through faith in him, we now have that image restored through faith in Christ.

When God looks at us, He sees us as the image of God as walking pictures of God. And as we live in our faith now, we get to begin to live out what we were originally called to be. We get to begin to live in our purpose when God, the Holy Spirit works in us. And in Galatians five, it talks about these fruits of the spirit love, joy, peace, kindness, all these good things. When those things come out in you. You are walking in your purpose because you are showing the world what God looks like. In First Corinthians Chapter 12, it says that each of us actually has a unique manifestation of the Spirit. God, the Holy Spirit shows up in you, in your life as a Christian. Why are you here? What is your purpose? To be a walking picture of God.

Colossians 4:5-6

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Do you ever feel like you’re being watched? Like your every move is being observed? Well, I can assure you you’re not going crazy. You are being watched. And so am I. And so are all Christians.

I’m not talking about some big government conspiracy, talking about the fact that the world, the unbelievers, are watching us as Christians. They’re monitoring what we say, what we do, how we respond to difficulties in our lives. And they’re making some judgments about Christianity.

I’ve heard from some unbelieving friends that one of the biggest turn offs to Christianity is hypocrisy of Christians not practicing what we preach. They are watching us. And we know that we failed. We failed in representing Jesus and our Christian faith.

That’s why it’s such a comfort to know that Jesus did not fail. Jesus lived a perfect life of love in thought, word, and deed. And they gave up that life on the cross to pay for the sins of the world. Yours and mine. He rose again on the third day so you can know you are forgiven. As those who are forgiven, we recommit ourselves to representing him in everything that we do. To living in love toward those around us.

We follow the directive of our Lord given through the Apostle Paul in Colossians 4, where he writes,

Walk in wisdom in the way you act toward those on the outside, making the most of your opportunity. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you know how you are to answer each person. (Colossians 4:5-6)

Are we being watched? Yes. But what an opportunity to show and to share Christ’s love. May God bless us as we do. Amen.