Jesus Paid it All! - Part B

If it's true that you are complete in Him, my question is this, why are you looking for completion anywhere else?

Why are you looking to be fulfilled in anyone or anything else, if you really can't be? And I want to say to you, live your life and have relationships, but don't look to any relationship to totally satisfy you, because every human relationship will fail. Every human will fail you at some point, disappoint you. Human relationships, no matter how good and healthy, are bound to fail you at some point.

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That's connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now we're in Colossians 2 as we join Skip for today's study. And so you are dead in your trespasses and sins and this is where the good part comes. This is where the Easter part comes. It says, He, verse 13, has made alive together with Him.

He made us alive. By the way, this is the purpose of baptism. Some of you are going to get baptized after the service.

We can't wait for that. The purpose of baptism is not to make you alive. It's to show that you've already been made alive.

It's simply a portrayal, we like to say an outward sign of an inward change. We like to tell people when they're getting baptized, welcome to your funeral. We're going to take you, stand you up in the water, and this is all symbolic, and then we're going to put you down.

We're going to have you hold your nose, put you down backwards, and that's a symbol of you died and we're burying you now and we'll keep you under the water. A second, bring you right back up as a symbol that you've been raised to newness of life. And Paul said in that metaphor of Romans where he talks about that, even so we should walk in newness of life to portray that. So that's circumcision and baptism. He cleansed my past. Second reality, he canceled my debt. Go back to verse 13 because he says he made us alive together with him.

Okay, good. That's good, Paul. He made us alive. How did he do that?

How did he make us alive? What's the next phrase? Having forgiven you all your trespasses.

That's how he did it. Forgiveness. When Jesus was stapled on a Roman cross, in his suffering, he made seven statements on that cross. And the first words out of his mouth, remember what they were? First words. Father, forgive them.

Why was that the first thing out of his mouth? I think it's because forgiveness is man's greatest need and forgiveness is God's greatest accomplishment. So, Father, forgive them. Now I can pray that prayer.

Now it's possible for people to be forgiven because of what I am doing. I read an article this week that got my attention. Listen to the title of this article. The title is Two-thirds of Americans Know Their Sinners. That's a great, that grabbed my attention.

I wanted to read that article. So I started reading the article because I've always had a hunch that people who aren't saved know they're sinners. I know they try to humanize it and philosophize it and get cute about it, but deep inside, they know they live in a deficit.

They know that. And the article says as much, two-thirds of Americans know they're sinners. According to one research group, 67% of Americans say they are sinners and most people aren't too happy about it.

It goes on to say, as America becomes more secular, the idea of sin still rings true. Okay, so now what? Now that I figured out I'm a sinner, now what? Now get forgiven for it, right? Come now, let us reason together, Isaiah 1.18. Though your sins are as scarred, I'll make them white as snow.

Though they be red like crimson, I'll make them like wool. Psalm 32, blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven. Blessed means happy. A happy man is a forgiven man. Blessed is the man, happy is the man, whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. So how does he forgive us? Well, what does it say right after that? Having forgiven you all trespasses, now he paints a picture of forgiveness.

Now he chooses a different metaphor, a different analogy. Here it is, verse 14, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Now you see that phrase, handwriting of requirements? Some of your Bibles say certificate of debt. Literally, the phrase is something written by your own hand. It referred to an autograph or a a written certificate of debt, handwritten by the debtor himself, acknowledging that he owes you. We would look at that as an IOU, an admission of debt, an admission of guilt. So Paul is saying, you folks had an IOU in hand. You admitted, like the survey says, that you're sinners. Now you admitted your failure.

You announced your guilt. Jesus came along and wiped it out, literally wiped it off, wiped it off. If you have an old King James Bible, it's actually the best translation of this verse, blotting out the handwriting. Picture somebody with a sponge or a cloth blotting something out. That is really the meaning of it.

Now let me explain the analogy, the word picture, the metaphor. In ancient times, before they had a printing press and before they had paper, they would write documents on two different types of material. One was called papyrus, made out of bulrushes that grew by rivers. Another was called vellum, v-e-l-l-u-m. It was thin hide of an animal. It became a writing surface. But the inks in antiquity, the ancient ink did not have an acid content to it. So it wouldn't penetrate the material. It basically just sort of sat on top on the surface. And so sometimes you could write a whole document, but if you wanted to use that vellum again or papyrus, you just wipe it off, right?

Like a whiteboard and a magic marker and start again. So I think that'd be kind of cool. I'd like to get a ticket like that.

If I got a ticket by a police officer and said, you're guilty, man. You owe like a hundred bucks. Thank you very much. And I just wipe it off.

I'm good to go. So he took the handwriting of requirements and he blotted it out or he wiped it off. And it says, nailed it. The handwriting of requirements, verse 14, he's taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. How many of you know that in ancient times when they crucified people, the Romans insisted that the crimes of that victim be posted above that victim.

So everybody could see what he's guilty of. That's why when Jesus died, they couldn't pin anything on him. All they could write is this is Jesus of Nazareth. He's the King of the Jews. But typically they would say insurrection, murder, thievery. They list all the crimes as if to say, this is what happens if you cross the Roman government. So let me throw up on the screen a translation called the J.B. Phillips translation.

He was a great translator from England a while ago. This verse, he translates it this way. Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments, which always hung over our heads and has completely annulled it by nailing it over his own head on the cross. That captures the truth. The guilt that hung over your head because you knew you weren't worthy.

You knew you've blown it. He's wiped it away by nailing it to his own cross, putting it over his own head. Great story, true story I hear. I've read about it. Martin Luther said he had a dream one night where Satan appeared to him, and Satan came with like a long list, several pages, scrolls of Luther's life, a record of Luther's sins, written in Martin Luther's own handwriting.

So it fits this perfectly. And in the dream, here's Satan kind of like, I don't know if he had reading glass or what, but he's looking at all the sins of Martin Luther, and there's Luther on the other side. And in the dream, Satan says, is this all true? Did you write this? And Luther's going, yeah, that's me.

I did it. And scroll after scroll, page after page, reads the list of his sins, and says the same thing. Is this true?

Did you write this? And just by the end of this, he's feeling so low and so humiliated because it's all true. And Satan is ready to leave, having totally humiliated Martin Luther.

Satan's ready to leave the scene. And Martin Luther says, wait, hold on, it's true, every word of it, but now write this across the top of all that, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son cleanses a man from all sin. It's true, but so is that.

So is that. There is no tyrant worse than guilt. When you know that you failed and you live with that failure and you carry around that guilt, and having that guilt removed is the most liberating and wonderful feeling. And I've told you before that my own salvation experience, I was 18 years old.

I was in San Jose, California. I'm watching Billy Graham on television. I prayed the prayer. I received Christ. I didn't hear a voice, never saw lights, but I felt something. And what I felt was lighter. It's like I was defying gravity.

It's like I feel buoyant. I feel like a burden has been lifted. I guess I felt like what Isaac Watts wrote in that great hymn of his when he said, at the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith. I received my sight and now I am happy all the day. The joy that accompanies that kind of guilt lifting is phenomenal.

I experienced that. So he cleansed my past. He canceled my debt. And let's close where he closes this paragraph. Verse 15, he crushed my foes.

He crushed my foes. Verse 15, having disarmed principalities and powers. And you see that phrase principalities and powers?

You know what he's talking about? It's a phrase used six times in the New Testament. Every time he uses the phrase principalities and powers, he's referring to angelic beings, principally demons, malevolent angelic beings, the ones who hassle you and tempt you. Principalities and powers, having disarmed principalities and powers, he, Jesus, made a public spectacle of them. He's still referring to the cross that he's been talking about in verse 14.

Making a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. Okay, now he changes metaphors yet again. And he's speaking of a military victory. Here's what he has in his mind.

When he writes this, everybody understood this, but you and I don't. Two thousand years ago in Rome, when Roman generals conquered an army, conquered an enemy, there was always a triumphus, they called it, a Roman triumph that took place in Rome for that general. And there's plenty of historical records we have of that. For example, the historian Plutarch writes that when General Aemilius Paulus, the Roman general, defeated the Macedonian army, that they had a three-day triumph procession in Rome. So day one, they brought out 259 chariots of the enemy filled with statues and riches and pictures, parading it through the streets of Rome to the applause of the crowds. On day two, they had wagons that were filled with the armor of the slain Macedonian soldiers who died. On day three, the captives were paraded through Rome, the POWs of the Macedonian army. Also, the captured chariot of the Macedonian king was put on parade, also the crown of the king and the armor of the king. And at the end of the parade on day three, the victorious general Aemilius Paulus himself.

It was sort of the icing on the cake. He would march through the streets. All of that was a Roman triumph, a public spectacle. So Paul is using that metaphor. Since that also happened at the cross, let me give it my translation. When Jesus died on the cross, he took a victory lap. He took a victory lap. He sat on the cross. Another statement, it is finished.

I would state it a little bit differently. I don't want to add to the scripture, but it's like he said to Satan, checkmate, checkmate. Now I can forgive people. Now for generations, people who have been in your clutch and subject to your lies can now be made free. It is finished.

Completed transaction. Checkmate. He did that on the cross. It was a triumph.

It was a public spectacle. I think you know, if you don't, you need to know that every demon in hell wanted to stop the cross from happening. They had a hunch that this would be the end of their reign, that the cross could somehow strip them of the cross. They could strip them of their power with the redemptive work of Christ. And so throughout the life of Jesus, they tried to stop the cross on a number of occasions. Satan tried to get Jesus killed when he was a baby in Bethlehem by having Herod come up with that insane plan.

Let's just kill all the babies in town. He escaped. That didn't work. So later on, Satan wanted to get Jesus thrown off a cliff in his own hometown of Nazareth.

That didn't work. So Jesus is in the wilderness and Satan comes to tempt him and offers him a deal. He says, you know what, if you'll just bow and worship me, I'll give you. I'll give you what you came for. You came for the world.

You came for the nations of the world. You came to go to a cross and redeem them. You don't have to go to the cross.

I'll give it to you if you'll worship me. There's a little verse, I don't know if you've noticed it, but it's tucked into 1 Corinthians chapter 2, where it says, none of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. The rulers put Jesus on the cross and were thinking, finally, it's done.

Oh no, pal. It's just beginning. You are really playing into God's hands because Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It's all part of his plan.

So at the cross, he disarmed principalities and powers, made a public spectacle of them, triumphing or parading, triumphing over them in it. I know what you're thinking. Some of you are going, that sounds good on paper, but if you could see my life, you would know that I am being tempted and hassled by a very powerful and active Satan. So if all of that is true, and he has been disarmed, then why do I still get tempted? Why do I still experience spiritual warfare? All of that is true, but here's what I'm saying. You no longer need to fear the outcome.

You see, when he took a victory lap, it's because he knew the victory parade is coming, the true parade. Revelation chapter 20 pictures that end time parade. It says, the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever. So yep, you're still hassled by Satan, by demons. You're tempted, you're tested, you're tormented, but ultimately they can't be victorious. Ultimately, no matter how you blow it and fail and you feel you don't make it up to speed, ultimately, simply because you believe in Jesus, he's going to get you to heaven.

Nothing stopping that. That's why Paul writes Romans 8 this way, yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present or things to come or height or depth or any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. That's a good place for an amen right there.

A fun little question on the side. Why does Paul, and it's hard to even answer this, but why do you think Paul feels the need when he talks about the cross to throw in the principalities and power thing, the parade over them? Why does he have to throw that element in? Can he just say, look, we've been baptized, we've been circumcised, we've been resurrected, and there's a financial arrangement where he wiped out everything against you. Could he just end there? Why the, oh, and by the way, principalities and powers have been vanquished.

Here's why. Part of the Colossian heresy is that they were worshiping angels. They believed in emanations, good emanations, bad emanations, all angelic beings, all sub-gods that they thought you need to get a grip on and understand and go through and work your way to God. And so, he just says, go back where we started, go back to what we looked at last week, verse 10, it says, and you are complete in him who is the head of all what? Principality and power. So, Christ is enough. He did it all. Don't worry about demons, don't worry about angels.

He is the head of all principality and power. So then, if it's true that you are complete in him, my question is this, why are you looking for completion anywhere else? Why are you looking to be fulfilled in anyone or anything else if you really can't be? And I want to say to you, live your life and have relationships, but don't look to any relationship to totally satisfy you because every human relationship will fail. Every human will fail you at some point, disappoint you. Go ahead and have a career and enjoy the status of that career, but if you are looking to your career for your ultimate fulfillment, you're going to be sorely disappointed. You can't provide that.

Go ahead and go to school and get educated, but all of the degrees and smarts and all that stuff won't satisfy you. Live your life, but I'm saying, live your life for the one who gave you real life because, back to this truth, you're his. You're his because he made you, and now you're his because he bought you. You're his, you belong to him, and he completes you.

And please don't buy into the stupid, lame, worldly philosophy. You know, it's good to have Jesus. He's sort of a good spoke in your wheel, good to add a little religion on the side.

No, he is everything. He is all in all that in all things you might have the supremacy. You're his because he made you.

You're his because he bought you. And if he didn't yet finalize the transaction because you haven't surrendered your life to Christ, if you're lost this morning, if you're dead and you know you're dead, that's so good. You see, a person who's spiritually dead and doesn't know he's spiritual, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.

I don't need anything. So bad, hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. A person goes, yeah, I'm part of that two-thirds. I know I'm a sinner. I don't feel good about it.

Okay? If you know that, that's such a sign that God is working in your life. Don't let the guilt hang over your head. Jesus would step up and say, let it hang over my head. Let your guilt hang over my head. Let me wipe away anything against you and make you my child.

But I won't do it unless you let me do it. That's Skip Hiting with a message from the series, Always Only Jesus. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Now, here's Skip to share how you can keep these messages coming your way to connect you and many others around the world with God's word. As Christians, we have a calling, and that is to win souls for Jesus, even as we await our glorious future with him in heaven. And so our goal is to come alongside friends like you to encourage you to keep sharing Christ with others as long as you have the chance to do so.

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Thank you for your generosity. Tomorrow on Connect with Skip Hiting, Skip tackles the subject, of what can happen in your life when religion gets off kilter. Some people will say, well, I am a religious person and I follow this belief system. And so I am looking at religion as portrayed here in the book of Colossians under these three categories. It's rules without reasons. It's systems without substance.

It's beliefs without Bible. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection. Connect with Skip Hiting is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.