The Gospel “And You”

The Gospel is the total work of what God has done to reconcile a sinful world to Himself.  The Gospel finds its climax at the cross of Jesus  and there will be an eternity of praises to sing and stories to retell of Christ’s great work.  So how can the Gospel be summarized here?

“And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grouned and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel…”  – Colossians 1:20-23

Alienated:

The Gospel is built on the cold hard truth that sin separates us from God.  We live in an age where the voice of God-haters are well heard.  Their hatred for God betrays their so-called disbelief in God.  I find it rather contradicting to hate something that doesn’t exist.  Still, one doesn’t have be bold protestor of God be “alienated” from Him and become His enemy.  Our sin natures do that.  We are corrupted to the core, and though we may compare ourselves with other people more sinful than we, we are all lacking before a morally perfect God.

Why and what do we owe God?  We owe Him because He owns us.  We are created in His image, we are stamped with God’s ownership.  The thing we owe Him is restitution for our rebellion.  Our nature to rebel was inherited from our parents; the presence of our conscience confirms that we are rebels against God.  Volumes and volumes have been written on explaining this inherited depraved nature to rebel.  People have made  excuses for themselves pointing the finger at God for allowing this nature to be reproduced into all people.  However let us all quickly agree, God is not under our scrutiny.  We have absolutely nothing that qualifies to make judgments on God’s character.  Our role as the created is to trust the Creator.  God wrote a whole library on why He can be trusted.

Our debt we owe God is such a debt that unjustly declares war on our Creator.  Insomuch that we are considered enemies on opposite sides.  In this opposition against God there is no bargaining for God’s acceptance.  Our condemnation is not based on the lack of good works in our lives, but that our very natures are in rebellion to Him.  Commune with your conscience and hear the truth of this.  All are sinners and God rejects sin.

Making Peace With God:

It’s hard for a person to make peace with God without first admitting the debt.  Why is it that peace is such a hard thing to come by in the Middle-East, the Korean conflict, or in broken relationship between families and friends?  Because one side or even both sides are not fully admitting their guilt in the conflict.  Before long, the process of peace becomes buried in an intense struggle of trying to untangle years of strife.  Rest assured, God did not wrong us in anyway, rather we have every reason to be thankful to Him.  But God haters will still hold onto their hatred rather than see sense. In order to be thankful to God, they will have to first give up their pride, and with their hearts trust that God is right.   This is something sinners cannot do unless God’s grants a special grace.

That special grace is Jesus.  He showed angry, God-hating sinners what God’s heart is truly like.   Much unlike the accusations people make against God, Jesus came to serve people.  Jesus wasn’t just a man, He was God in man showing man God’s intentions.  He washed people feet showing humility.  He loved people rejected by society showing His compassion.  He forgave people rather than judging their sins (although He is totally within His rights to judge all people). He labored for those who could never pay Him showing us His unconditional love. The only good reason I can think why Jesus did these things lowly acts of service is because the great love it took to perform them is the very heart of God.  God is full of compassion, more willing to forgive than to punish.

I know its hard to submit yourself to perhaps a very arrogant boss at work everyday, but you do it..  Or perhaps you feel its difficult that you are made to submit to an unfair parent, teacher, or even police officer, but you do it.   If you are able to submit to these unfair authorities, then why cannot you submit to a just and loving God?  I will guarantee you that after submitting yourself to God through Jesus, submitting yourself to other authorities in your life will become easier, even preferable.  So don’t allow your pride to continue to rule you.

If you are willing surrender to God, then Jesus is waiting for you with His open arms.  Jesus is God’s way to receive sinners to Him and call them sons and daughters instead of enemies by nature.

New Nature–New Position

Some folks who come to Christ never quite fully realize their new status in Christ.  Some people don’t realize just how much of a sin debt that was forgive. Some folks think that their sin wasn’t really all that sinful.  I trust if you are one of those people that you will take a long look at the cross, that is what our sin costs.  Our stance with God changes from enemies to family just like that once we accept Christ as our mediator.  But thats not all that changes.  We receive a new nature entirely.  Before sin ruled in our hearts not even given us the option to please God.  But now a new nature resides giving us the choice to choose between pleasing God or pleasing ourselves.  Yes, we still have a choice, that freedom to choose even after receiving our new position in Christ.  What then ensures us that we will choose to please God rather than self?  Thankfulness.  If you are like me, you hate that feeling being indebted to someone.  You borrow some money from a friend but the whole time you feel that you are in his or her debt.  Or if you break something of somebodies, you have that terrible feeling until their property has been restored.  With our new position it is not like that.  In Christ we owe God nothing.  Jesus has fully paid our debts.  All the things we broke and all we owed was paid for by Christ on the cross.  When debts are already paid in full there is nothing left to pay.  We do not owe God in Christ.  So what is left then?  An eternity of thankfulness, beginning now.

We serve God because we Get to serve God.  We do not serve God because we are mandated or forced.  Our service is not done out of debt but out of thankfulness.  If someone says feel we owe a great deal to God, they are correct in a sense. But Jesus did not pay our debts to enslave us for eternity, instead He gave us freedom to serve God out of a thankful heart.  This is motivation to serve Him out of thankfulness rather than debt is absolutely what God has in mind for us.  Some people may still choose to serve out of debt, but they are truly missing the joys of serving God out of a thankful heart.  To reckon that we are no longer in debt to God is not a prideful position.  I will be first to admit my position in Christ was not merited by my own doing, but by God.  If Jesus calls us to be free then we are free indeed.  And freedom comes us with the purpose of serving God out of a thankful spirit.  It is God preferable choice for us to be thankful rather than enslaved.

Thankfulness gives rise to love, compassion, patience, endurance while indebtedness gives rise to bitterness, envying, perhaps even hatred.

So believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, trust that His work on the cross was enough to make you perfect in God’s eyes.  Then serve Him not because you are enslaved to Him, but because through Jesus we learn to be thankful and love our God.  Serving out of love is willing and light service.  It doesn’t “feel” like work when we do it out of love and thankfulness.