God's mission in Christ: You.
I mean it. God sent His Son to live a perfect life, to take the past, present, and future sins of the world on Himself, and to put to death those sins on the cross SO THAT there would be no separation between Him and YOU.
But don't worry, I'm not saying that the Gospel is all about you, it is ALL about Christ, about Jesus and what He did FOR you. If you think the Gospel isn't that big of a deal because it doesn't apply to you:
1. It is that big of a deal with or without you.
2. It does apply to you.
Let's see what the Word of God says about God's mission in Christ:
Colossians 1:15-23
"15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,
16 for through him God created everything
in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
17 He existed before anything else,
and he holds all creation together.
18 Christ is also the head of the church,
which is his body.
He is the beginning,
supreme over all who rise from the dead.
So he is first in everything.
19 For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
20 and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
21 This includes you
who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault."
Okay, awesome message. See ya'll again tomorrow!
BUT SERIOUSLY! We were his enemies!! but He has reconciled us to Himself! through Christ's death! so now we are allowed in His presence!?! AND WE ARE HOLY AND BLAMELESS AS WE STAND BEFORE HIM?! WITHOUT. A. SINGLE. FAULT. WHAAAAAAAATTT?!?! (Pardon my punctuation.)
And this is our part. Not that we have to do anything to earn being reconciled to Christ, but in order to keep this GOOD NEWS fresh in our lives and our hearts...
When did you first hear the Good News? Were you born in the church so when you were laying in your crib your Father gently explained this to your little form of kicking life? Were you at youth group? Was it at school? I mean when did it really click for you? When you received that assurance (like insurance but a-ssurance; confidence, ownership) when you heard the Good News.
I know we like to buff up our testimonies and making our faith moments about fireworks and the heavens tearing themselves open and God pointing at us from His throne saying, "Jacky, I love you!" "(Insert your name here)!"
But I mean this moment can be a subtle one. One without recognition from peers and our leaders and parents, but it happens like a light switch: This is Good News and it's is for me.
I may have been saved in the midst of the camp fireworks where God's love rained down from heaven like puppies and kittens but this Good News clicked for me sometime before then. It was probably at youth group in the midst of the note passing and people biting the edges of those Styrofoam cups but I remember hearing Jesus' testimony, HIS love story for us, and the light just kind of came on.
But the end of this passage in Colossians says our job is not to drift away from the assurance we received when we heard the Good News. It says to believe this truth and stand firmly in it because this assurance, God's depth of love for us is so solid we can stand on it and stand firmly, confidently, owning this truth.
Let's turn to Romans chapter 8 and see how it mirrors this section we just read:
Romans 8: 8-11
"8 So now there is NO condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has FREED you from the power of sin that leads to death. 3 The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
9 But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you."
Now what's our job again? Is our job to talk nice about Jesus like he's a distant relative visiting for a short time? Is it our job to not sin because that's something we can just not do if we try hard enough? Oh! To earn God's love through hours and hours of effort?
No.
"23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News..."
Continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. You know how you keep from drifting away? YOU FIND SOMETHING STURDY TO TAKE ROOT IN! Or in our case, someone. Jesus Christ.
In John 14:6 Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, nobody comes to the Father except through [WHO?] me."
God's mission in Christ was to reconcile the world to Himself, and Christ did that. He reconciled us to the Father. He fixed that broken connection. In Colossians it says that Jesus existed before anything else and He holds all creation together. Jesus is our spiritual superglue! Seriously!
Now if you think sin is stronger than Jesus as our spiritual superglue then take it upon yourself tonight or tomorrow or the next day to read Romans 6 where Paul addresses the fact that sin's power over us, over our connection to God is broken.
So this is where we're going to end it tonight: we're going to watch this video clip that for me is the Gospel message from a secular movie and then we're going to take some time to respond to this Good News through worship and prayer.
The movie is Man on Fire. I don't expect many of you to have seen it because it is quite violent but we're going to be watching the ending scene. The story is Denzel Washington has been hired to be the bodyguard of Dakota Fanning who is surrounded by an area where a wave of kidnappings has occurred. In the movie Dakota Fanning gets kidnapped, Denzel spends the rest of the movie brutally kicking butt and taking names to Dakota Fanning back.
We're at the very end of the movie. Denzel has negotiated with the kidnappers: Dakota Fanning's release for one of their guys that Denzel has taken captive, and Denzel's life.
http://youtu.be/O7naObA6U94
When I watched this in the living room with the non-believing half of my family I bawled because I saw the Great Exchange here. I saw the Gospel. God's exchange. God's Mission in Christ was this exchange. That we may have life. And here is where my kids at camp went into worship and prayer and where I would hope you at home would go and do the same.
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