God’s Big Rubber Stamp

Imagine you received a document that recorded all your sins. As you read through it you were more and more ashamed. You knew it was all true. You had no excuse, your goose was cooked. Just holding this book in your hands would make you sick. Layer after layer you were guilty. It is hundreds of pages of single spaced type. You are in trouble, big trouble. The problem with life is that it is linear. It is sequential. One thing follows another. You simply cannot go back and undo what is in the past. The Disney movie Lion King has a song that talks about life as a circle. But for us as individuals it is not a circle at all. It may seem cyclical, but it is still linear. So our past is real, and we cannot change it. Time travel is a fiction.

The Bible often refers to our sinful self as our flesh. It is even called “this body of death.” This is the baggage we received from Adam and all our own sin too. The gospel is that God has a way of completely removing this thing that is dragging us down to hell. It is a miracle surgery! “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,” (Colossians 2:11 ESV) This “circumcision of Christ” is a reference to his crucifixion. The flesh can be totally cut off by our uniting with Christ by faith. The Bible says we are crucified with Christ. The book of the record of our sins is canceled and nailed to the cross. Listen to this “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14 ESV)

What a fantastic promise. The record of debt is canceled and nailed to the cross. Canceled and nailed, yes! We cannot go back and “un-sin” the sin, but God can cancel it by nailing it to the cross of Christ. We can, by faith in Jesus Christ, be fully free from our record of debt. Oh, what a relief. God will cut off your body of death when you turn to Christ. All your recorded sins can be canceled by the power of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Imagine that book with all your sins recorded in it. Imagine God stamping it with a huge rubber stamp dipped in the blood of Christ “CANCELED!” Praise God!

Stereos and Carnivores

Wow, the words of Colossians are so good! Here is from chapter two.

“Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.”

Paul has been talking about how amazing Christ is when he describes him as the one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Do you want to know the truth? It is in Christ. The image is as if Christ were a mine with diamonds and gold hidden within. The deeper you dig into the mine the more treasures you find. The mine is infinitely deep. All the treasures are hidden in this divine mine. He is the creator, the sustainer, and the ruler of all. If we spend our effort pursuing the knowledge of Christ we are pursuing the uniting factor of all wisdom and knowledge. We are never called to dumb it down or to know less. We are always called in Scripture to more knowledge.

Notice that Paul says he is motivated by a sense of security. Going to an airport, courthouse, or any government building has changed since 911, hasn’t it? We are very aware of security these days. In our spiritual lives our sense of security must be even higher. There are people out to try to ruin us. Paul says that he was concerned that people in the church could be deluded by plausible arguments. Without a solid, deep, knowledge of Christ we are vulnerable.

Paul next says that he is happy about their “good order and firmness of faith in Christ.” He is confident even while he is warning and teaching them. Being absent, still in spirit he sees their firmness and it brings him joy. I love this word “firmness.” It is the Greek word stereo. Yes, we get our common word “stereo” from this word. It means firm, steadfast, and has the sense of three dimensional or spread out. In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) it is the word in Genesis 1 for space. Space is like a tent: spread out with expanse and depth. It is three-dimensional. In a stereo the music is split into left and right sides. Some of the music comes out of one speaker, and some out the other, so it sounds deep and three-dimensional. 3D movies have an amazing sense of space in them. You can almost touch the images and see them spread out in depth. This is what our faith needs. It needs to be deep and multi-dimensional. When we are boring deeply into the mine of Christ we will have a faith that is firm. To withstand difficulties, our faith must be stable and deep. It cannot be simply one or two-dimensional, it must be spread out with some expanse to it. Otherwise we will be easy targets to those with plausible arguments.

I am preaching from Hebrews these days. The same Greek word, stereo, is used in Hebrews 5: 12 & 14 to describe the “solid” food that we should all be able to digest. The author of Hebrews is lamenting the fact that the church is unable to understand deeper teachings because they are only used to feeding on milk and not stereo food. Good teaching does not dumb it down, or “put the cookies on the lower shelf.” Good teaching seeks to elevate the learners so that they can become teachers too. Deep multi-dimensional teaching is the means to achieve this goal. The evangelical church has failed in this effort to a large extent over the last thirty or forty years. I really think that the message of Hebrews is completely current for our day. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food…” (Hebrews 5:12) Are we raising a generation of dependent vulnerable infants, or a generation of eager self-defending meat-eaters? Let’s raise some carnivores for Christ!

God's Health Care Delivery System

Health Care Delivery System

In Colossians 1:24 we find an amazing statement by the apostle Paul. Here is the verse: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,”

As always the entire passage is marvelous and needs to be carefully examined, but let me just get to the point of this verse. It begs the question, “Whatever could be lacking in Christ’s afflictions?”

From the context we find Paul rejoicing in being a “minister” of the church. The word “minister” is the word diakonas in Greek. It is the word from which we get deacon. It means servant or waiter. Paul is the servant of the church as a stewardship from God to “make the word of God fully known.” This word of God is the mystery that God has chosen to reveal to his saints. Paul says it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” So how is this service position of Paul’s filling up some lack in Christ’s afflictions?

Christ’s afflictions are perfect. As it tells us in Hebrews, Christ’s death was a once for all action. It needs nothing added. The only thing we, or any servant, can add is bringing the good news to those who need to hear. God has chosen to make it known to certain individuals, and he chooses to use us in that delivery system. Paul found that being a part of God’s delivery system is very painful. There are many obstacles. There are enemies everywhere we look. Satan does not want us to fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. He will do all in his power to stop you and discourage you. The obstacles can even be “well meaning” members of the church!

Paul says he rejoices in his sufferings for the sake of the people in Colossae. The church is worth our large or small sacrifices. Listen, whenever you try to be a part of God’s delivery system you will run into opposition. Let us follow the example of Paul. He kept reminding himself of his calling. God called him to the lofty task of proclaiming Christ! He calls this task toil and struggling. Let’s keep at it though, because God is working through us to reach his saints. He is using us to be his health care delivery system. He has secured all the healing anyone needs, but we bring that healing to a sick world. God uses us!