Food
for Thought:
He/We Have Won
A Summer
Sermon Series: The Jesus I Want to Know
June 10 , 2007
Dr. Mark Ruppert
Colossians 1:15-20
I don’t know about you but I want to be on
the winning side of things. We want our team to go all the way and
win the championship, no matter at what level. We want our
Cleveland Cavaliers to beat the San Antonio Spurs and bring the NBA
World Championship to Cleveland. Now I realize it is not always
possible to win all the time and we need to be gracious winners as
well as gracious losers but the bottom line is this- whenever I went
out to play basketball whether at the high school or college level
there was one objective- when the buzzer sounded at the end of the
game the objective was to have more points than the opposing team.
If a person is a follower of Jesus then, let me be perfectly clear,
we are on a winning team. Does that mean things are going to go
smoothly all the time, no bumps in the road? Not on your life.
What it does mean is that Jesus has won the
battle and God has defeated the powers of evil that are still
present, that are still enslaving and, yes, even crushing human
beings today. In the bigger scheme of things the battle has been
won and it is the Church’s responsibility to implement the victory
of the cross in the world in which we live.
You know there have been and there always will be false teachers
in the Church of Christ. That is why when you turn on your
television set or radio and listen to some of the “Prosperity Gospel
Preachers” you better be careful not to get sucked in to a theology
that is unbiblical. Paul wrote the book of Colossians to a
community of believers who, up until a certain point, had remained
faithful to what they have received of the faith. Their faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ and their love for all the saints (Colossians
1:4) is proof enough that Paul says to them in Colossians 1:3, “In
our prayers for you we always thank God, the father of our Lord
Jesus Christ.”
And yet there was an issue that had Paul extremely worried. He
had found out that “false” teachers were deceiving some of the
Colossian Christians, they were deceiving and dazzling them with a
certain philosophy, and there were those who were being pulled away
from the centrality and sufficiency of Jesus Christ. This teaching
became known as “the Colossian heresy,” and was a form of
Gnosticism. Gnostics means, more or less the intelligent
ones. These Gnostic teachers were fed up with what they
believed was a simplistic Christianity and they wanted to turn it
into a philosophy to be aligned with the other philosophies of the
day. But let me just stop right here and explain what the Gnostics
believed. They believed that God was separated from the world, in
terms of distance, and that God had not directly created the world.
They believed that creation took place by way of a series of
emanations—each more distant from God, until those furthest from Him
created the material world. This philosophy then rationalized that
matter was evil and spirit was good.
And since God was spirit then God was good, and the evil material
world could not have any contact with Him. Now here me out as I put
beside Christianity these Gnostic beliefs. Christianity said that
God came in the flesh in Jesus Christ. Christ loved, forgave and
reconciled the world. Gnosticism said this couldn’t be, for if
Jesus was the Son of God He could not dwell in the flesh because all
matter is evil. So Jesus must have been an “emanation” from God.
At best Jesus would have been a graduation of angels. So continue
this line of reason with me and the Gnostics would have said that
Jesus did not really live as a man; His suffering on the Cross was
not real; the resurrection was pointless because Jesus never really
lived as a material being in the evil flesh. (The Communicator’s
Commentary, Galatians, Ephesians…, Dunnam, p. 327)
So you see what Paul was up against in the Colossian church. But
there was this pagan world that also made it difficult for the
Church. Those early Christians lived in a world of ‘powers.’
And back then if things went wrong you didn’t blame people but
the gods. It was the gods, those supernatural beings that caused it
all. Artemis was hostile to Pan, Earth to Apollo, virgin Athena to
loving Aphrodite…. (Pagans and Christians, Penguin, 1988, pp.
236-7)
So there was this earthly battlefield and a heavenly battlefield
and the powers of darkness were always and forever a reality. Look
with me at Colossians 1:13-14 where Paul says, “He [meaning God] has
rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the
kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the
forgiveness of sins.”
So if there are powers of darkness and therefore evil, and if God
is the God of goodness, life, holiness, and on and on then there is
going to be a battle between the forces of good and evil.
The people back in Paul’s day lived in a world of ‘powers’ or
forces that were beyond their control. What about us today? Who
would you say runs our world? Is it the world leaders, the
politicians? Given our complex world today they might see
themselves as helpless and say they are the victims of ‘forces’
beyond their control. If things go well they might take credit but
if things go bad, well it’s the economic forces. Do we physically
see these forces? No, but they are powerful. Look at the politics
in the Middle East- it has been and it is a mess. Things keep
shifting as the sands do when there is a windstorm. Look at the
Darfur region of Sudan and the genocide going on there. There is
talk of global warming. So let me summarize- there are
environmental forces, there are political forces, there are economic
forces and the list goes on and on. Can we touch and see these
forces? Oh, some maybe associated with certain human beings but if
the people are out of the picture the force is still there. “The
only significant difference between us and our pagan ancestors
appears to be that they recognized the situation and gave the forces
vivid names, while we hide behind the gray obscurity of vague words,
in order to go on flattering ourselves….” (Following Jesus,
N. T. Wright, p.16)
Which brings us back to what Paul wrote to the Colossians. He
thanked God who had, as we read in verse 13, rescued them from the
power of darkness, and had transferred them into the kingdom of his
beloved son, in whom we have redemption, in other words, the
forgiveness of sins.
When you think about it, the language Paul is using could be
compared to what we read about in the book of Exodus- it is Exodus
language. For just as God freed His people from the hands of the
Pharaoh and brought them out of Egypt, so Paul is telling the
Colossian Christians that everyone can be transferred from the grips
of the powers that entrap us and enslave us into the kingdom of
Jesus. How can this be? Because Jesus is, as it says in verse 15,
“the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”
And this invisible God is the one who created the world, who
cares for the world, who sent His only Son to save the world, and
who calls us to follow the one who saved not only the world, but
us. What is it that enslaves us that we need to be set free from
its grasp that keeps weighing us down? Is it money, debt, an
unwillingness to put our faith in Christ and not the things of this
world? What is enslaving us right now that only Christ can set us
free?
There are three points I want to make about the powers and
Christ’s relationship to these powers. First, all things in
heaven and on earth were created …through Christ and for
Christ (vs. 15-16). So this means that even the powers would be
in this list of things. God’s intention was to have an ordered
world, a structured world, not a world that is filled with chaos and
turmoil. And so even the powers or the forces were to be a part of
the world. But something happened along the way. We humans gave up
our responsibility in God’s world and we, in essence, abdicated our
responsibility to the powers and forces. Think of it this way- when
we misuse God’s gift of sex we give over our power to Aphrodite and
she will gladly take control. When we are not responsible with our
money we give over our power to Mammon and Mammon will take
control. And the list goes on and on. And look, let’s be honest,
when the powers take over we are doomed. Just read the newspaper,
it happens all the time.
Second, Paul wants the Colossian Christians to know that since
they are in Christ they don’t need to give in to the powers. If
you read the second chapter of Colossians you will see where Paul
shares his concerns for the Colossians and he warns them against
following after the teachings of the false teachers. Listen to this
translation of Colossians 2:13-15 and follow along with me in your
Bibles. Paul says, “When you were dead in your sins, and in your
physical uncircumcision, God made you alive together with Christ.
He forgave us all our sins, because he blotted out the record of our
legal offenses: in fact, he nailed it to the cross. He stripped the
powers and authorities naked; he made a public example of them; he
celebrated his triumph over them!” The powers were not able to
use the cross to defeat Christ rather the cross and the bleeding
Christ defeated the powers. Friends, the love of God is
stronger than all the powers of this world and so we can boldly say
He/We Have Won.
Third and finally, the powers have been reconciled to
Christ. Verse 20 says, “and through him God was pleased to
reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by
making peace through the blood of his cross.” Christ has defeated
the powers but has not destroyed them. Sex, money, economics,
politics, etc., etc. are still with us. God in Christ is making a
New World that is under the authority of Jesus Christ. Do we give
up worshiping Aphrodite? Yes. Do we somehow become a sexless
being? No. Do we give up worshiping Mammon or money? Yes. Do we
stop using money? No. God intended the powers to serve Him and to
serve and sustain us in healthy, Biblical ways.
Friends, the battle has been won and we can be on the winning
team. We just need to give up giving in to the powers, the forces
that have a hold on us. God has defeated the powers of evil that
enslave us and crush us. So we don’t have to give in to them. He
won it all for us on that cross at Calvary. We just need to stay on
the winning team- Christ’s team. Because He won, We have won too.
Amen.
Key Points
Introduction: I
don’t know about you but I want to be on the winning side of things…
Jesus has won the
battle and God has defeated the powers of evil that are still
present, that are still enslaving and, yes, even crushing human
beings today
False teachers in the Colossian Church
“The Colossian heresy”- Gnosticism
Gnosticism means the _________
ones
What Gnostics believed…
The pagan world also made it difficult for the Church- Christians
lived in a world of “powers”
The battle between the forces of good and evil
What about us today?
Three points about the powers and Christ’s relationship to these
powers
First, all things in heaven and on earth were created…
_______ Christ and ____ Christ vs. 15-16
Second, since the Christians are in Christ they don’t
need
to give in to the powers Col. 2:13-15
The powers were not able to use the cross to defeat Christ
rather the cross and the bleeding Christ defeated the powers
Third, the powers have been ___________ to Christ vs.20
Conclusion: We need to stay on the winning
team- Christ’s team. Because He won, we have won too.
Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.)
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