When God Overruled Sin

The fact that you are here today in Christ when your life was like that in the past is an indication that God graciously overruled sin in your life. Have you done enough good deeds to outweigh all the bad stuff you've done in your life? When you stand before a holy God on Judgment Day, will you be good enough to get into heaven? Hello and once again welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I'm Bill Wright. Today as Don continues teaching God's people God's Word, he'll bring our series titled, Are You Good Enough for God, to a powerful close with a lesson called, When God Overruled Sin. Be sure to stay with us till the end because Don is going to share a final word on this powerful subject.

Right now here is our teacher with today's message from the Truth Pulpit. I invite you to turn to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1, just to kind of see a before, during, and after perspective on the way that God overruled sin in our lives. Colossians chapter 1 verse 21 says that although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet he is now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. If indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. Whether you lived a long life of sin or a relatively brief life of sin before the Lord saved you, let's consider our lives in light of these verses. You see a little bit of a spiritual biography for each one of us that are in Christ in these verses. Paul says that that you were formerly alienated.

You were hostile in mind and engaged in evil deeds. I should ask as a preliminary matter, have you made that kind of self-assessment? Have you judged yourself in light of Scripture and said, yes that's true of me. That's part of being a Christian is that we disclaim, we reject any kind of claim to self-righteousness. We are born into sin. We cannot, could not, would not have saved ourselves. And as we as we grow in our physical lives, as we mature in age, we we develop a bent towards sin that expresses itself in different ways in different lives. There's a spectrum that would be represented even in this room. Some show that they are alienated from God by their outwardly wicked and sinful and defiant lives.

And you can see it and it's there for everyone to see. Some show their alienation from God in a spirit of self-righteousness that says, I don't need a Savior. I don't need the gospel.

That's good for you, but I don't need a crutch. I'm fit for heaven just as I am and I don't want to hear about your God. And so their self-righteousness is a display of their alienation. Some show they're alienated from God by by their passive lack of interest in Christ or in His Word. They have no real affection for Christ. They have no desire, no understanding for the Word of God. They're not interested in spiritual things. Their life is built around this life. They may be outwardly moral, but their indifference and their cold and hard and stony heart toward the Christ who gave His life for sinners is a sure sign that they are dead in sin and alienated from God. Because no one who belongs to this Christ truly could ever have an attitude of indifference toward Him.

And those illustrations simply remind us wherever we might fall on that continuum. Scripture reminds us and these illustrations remind us that there was a time, my Christian brother, my Christian sister, there was a time before Christ saved you where you were hostile toward God. You were alienated from Him. Your life showed it. Your heart showed it. Your cold and dead eyes were a display of the fact that you were alienated from God and the life of His Spirit was not within you. Your life was not marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, all of those fruit of the Spirit that Scripture speaks of. And what I want you to see as we reflect on that, as we look back on our lives together, that that was no small thing.

That was not inconsequential. The outcome of those things is death and eternal judgment. Prior to your salvation, you were helplessly and hopelessly lost and unable to save yourself and unwilling to save yourself even if you could.

As I've said in the past, you were in a black room with no windows and no lights and blindfolded and dead and totally unable to see. That was you spiritually. And yet, here we are, and you find yourself in Christ. The fact that you are here today in Christ when your life was like that in the past is an indication that God graciously overruled sin in your life. Somewhere, at some time, you were brought under the sound of the gospel. Somewhere, someone spoke the word to you, either in a sermon or a private conversation on the printed page, perhaps over the radio, television, whatever the case may be.

The outward circumstances are inconsequential compared to the greater principle that we're recognizing that Scripture speaks to here. That in the gospel, in that act of someone somehow bringing you the good news that Jesus Christ is a savior of sinners, that he died and rose again for sinners just like you, and that he gladly receives all sinners who come to him and graciously, gladly grants them forgiveness with no prior conditions. You can just come to Christ and be saved today, this moment.

Words to that effect were shared with you. What I want you to see, brothers and sisters, is the the personal and the particular providence of God that he used to bring you under the sound of the gospel. Born into a Christian family, introduced you to Christian friends, you wandered into a church off the street for reasons that were unknown to you at the time. Somehow, you get the point, somehow God brought you under the gospel. And under the sound of the gospel, you heard that the Lord Jesus Christ saved sinners. You heard that he shed his blood as a ransom for sinners just like you. And there was a stirring in your heart that says, I need that.

I want that. I'm drawn to this. I must have Christ. And you asked him to save you, and what did he do?

He did. The Holy Spirit convicted you of sin. The Father drew you to Christ. Beloved, understand that if you are here in Christ, you were saved not by an act of your human insight, not by an act of something that you did unprompted. Because remember, look back at verse 21 with me, let's not forget where we came from. You were alienated.

You were hostile in mind. And so if you were convicted of sin and you came to faith in Christ, what has happened to you is nothing less than the God of the universe, the creator of heaven and earth, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ intervened personally in your life and overruled sin so that you might come to Christ, be saved, and be welcomed into the family of God. That's great. That's wonderful.

That is amazing grace. And if those things are true of you and you do belong to Christ, look at yourself now as we look at the present aspect of your biography in this wonderful passage from Colossians in verse 22. Notice the past and present dimension. Past tense, verse 21, you were formerly alienated. Verse 22, yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Fellow member of the family of God as we gather together, we look at that and we remember Scripture teaches us that as Christians, Christ has reconciled you to God with his own lifeblood. And in a church of our size, we can say things like this and know that the circumstances of which we speak as different painful things in life have affect our body, the church over time. What I would remind you of and what I would have you take comfort in is to remember this, that the sorrows of life, the disappointments of life, the griefs of life are all by their very nature temporary.

They don't last forever. The gift that has been given to you and your salvation is an eternal gift. The outworking of which, the fullness of the blessing of, we haven't even begun to see yet. And what you have in Christ, what you have in the lovely Lord Jesus Christ is a pearl of great price that is worth far more than anything that happens in this life, be it good or ill. We have in Christ the greatest treasure in the universe and God has graciously, gladly, willingly given his son to you that you might be brought into his family. And that means that there is hope in the midst of our sorrows.

That means that there is something of a transcendent, glorious wonder that has a value that earth cannot take away. And sometimes it's when life takes away that which is dear and precious to us that we are better able to see more clearly the wonder and the value of Christ and his inestimable worth and his great complete sufficiency for us to satisfy every longing of our broken hearts. In Christ we have the greatest of the great.

In Christ we have the blessed rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys. In Christ we have the one dearest to our soul. In Christ, beloved, you have a Savior, you have a friend, you have a brother in heaven who will never be taken away from you.

That's sweet and precious in this life, in this broken world in which we live. He has reconciled you to God with his own life blood. The guilt that you have felt in the past over your sin has been settled. The accounts have been settled with God.

You don't carry that any longer. My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. See that is a balm for a broken heart to realize that a gift like that has been given to you. It's humbling, yes, because we didn't earn this.

We didn't deserve it. But we realize the grace and the love and the mercy and the kindness and the patience of God because Christ made the, made a full payment for the penalty of your sin for everyone who would ever believe in him. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1 7 says, this passage that we're looking at, he has reconciled you in his fleshly body through death. Though once you were the enemy of God, now you have been reconciled and made his friend. And as I love to say, we have a brother in the throne room of heaven representing us even now before a holy God carrying out an interceding for us in an unbroken way until we're reunited with him and see him face to face.

A friend who sticks closer to a brother, a brother who gladly owns us and bears the name Son of God and shares it with us. In Romans 5 verse 8, we're reminded of this past and present nature of our salvation. Romans 5 8 says that God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners past tense, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. The gospel never gets old, does it? The wonders of Christ never become a tiresome thing to hear again and again, do they? To the redeemed soul, we never tire of looking at the word which unveils to us this one who is more precious to us than life itself. Mark this that it's not just that he's forgiven our sins. That would be wonder upon wonder enough.

It's not just that though. He saved you in order to transform you and to present you before the throne of God, blameless and beyond reproach. Look at it there in verse 22. His reconciliation had a purpose beyond this life. The day will come when he will present you before the Father, holy, blameless and beyond reproach. And just as you have confessed Christ here on this earth, he will gladly confess you before his Father and say, that child belongs to me.

That one belongs here, my Father, so to speak. Blameless, without reproach. There will be no shrinking back for us at the throne of God because we will be clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ. That is why he saved us is for that ultimate destiny. And all purchased at the price at Calvary 2,000 years ago that we'll remember with these symbols in just a few moments.

So here you are beloved. You now stand before God justified, declared righteous, declared in God's sight that that all of the demands of the law have been satisfied in your life. Not on your basis but because the righteousness of Christ has been counted to your benefit your guilt, your sin charged to Christ's account and he paid for it on this cross that we remember 2,000 years later. So your guilt placed on Christ where he bore the stroke of God and suffered punishment in your place, here you are now with his perfect righteousness credited to your account.

Nothing more to be demanded at the bar of God from you. God has declared you righteous, beloved that means that God accepts you in Christ and the reason that you are in that position is because God by nature is a loving God toward his people. You know God sent Christ because he loves us. It's not that he loves us because Christ died for us as though as though he needed to be changed by an action by Christ for the Father to love us. His disposition toward us was always loving that's why we're here and the love of Christ the death of Christ was an outflow of the love of God. He so loved the world that he gave his son and one day beloved one day soon enough will be done with the evils of this world, will be done with its sorrows, will be done with our own sin, will be done with our own lukewarm inadequate lives and we will find ourselves in the presence of our Savior sharing in his glory and looking fully at the face of our beloved because Scripture says we will see him face to face. You will see the face of the one who changed your life and rescued you from eternal damnation.

You'll see him in just a little while longer. Beloved do you see how God has overruled sin and its consequences in your life? You should have been banished forever from his presence. You should have by what you deserved shared a destiny with the devil and his angels but instead this glory is before you with a foretaste now fully belonging to you. Don't you see that God has overruled sin in your life? Look at this unseen work as it is unveiled and revealed to you in Scripture and give him thanks. Give him your praise.

Give him your worship. What happens between now and that entrance into glory? You walk with Christ and you grow in his grace. Look at verse 23. It says if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I Paul was made a minister. Paul here is describing the natural consequence of the new birth. Those who are truly born again will continue in the faith and so don't read that verse and think that somehow God now leaves it up to you and between now and glory it all depends on you to make it happen.

That's not the case. The grace of God is so encompassing and so certain and his his love and his purpose of your blessing is so settled in heaven that God himself guarantees the outcome. He will perfect his purpose of presenting you in heaven holy and blameless and beyond reproach. This is a work of God that he will carry out to the end and so beloved think about it this way.

Think about it this way. The same God, the same Christ who overruled your sin in your unbelieving life, the God who overcame sin in your life as an unbeliever now will continue to subdue sin in your life and sanctify you until you enter safely into his presence. Philippians 1 6. I'm confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 2 13 for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. The Spirit given to you as a down payment of greater glory to come. This is overwhelming to be on the receiving end of such undeserved love and undeserved kindness, undeserved patience, undeserved mercy. We're greatly blessed. So of course we pursue righteousness in the years that or days that God gives to us but we do so as a glad response to this gracious work not as a work that is necessary for us to finish the work of salvation on our own and by ourselves. God is at work in you beloved and and and take heart gather in the full picture of all of this glory because we all need it as we stumble our way through our Christian life don't we as we get weary of our own sin as we get weary of the struggle not just with circumstances but the struggle from within battling sin from within feeling like there are more losses than wins in your spiritual life beloved look at all of this and see the great overruling purpose of God in your salvation and realize that he is favorably disposed towards you that this is a God of love and grace and patience toward his children he knew your sin before you committed it and he saved you anyway Christ went to the cross long before you were ever born so he knew fully in advance what you were like and received you anyway and poured all of this grace out on you anyway and so that's what we remember God is at work in you to accomplish his purpose and to make sure that the work that he began is finished will be completed and you will never be lost from his fold no one Jesus said can pluck them out of my hand that's the position that you're in if you're in Christ today purchased with blood at a cross 2,000 years ago that's Don Green bringing our series called are you good enough for God to a close here on the truth pulpit friend if you'd like to find out more about Don and his ministry just go to the truth pulpit calm once more the truth pulpit calm and friends that's all the time we have for today I'm Bill Wright inviting you to join us again next time as Don Green continues teaching God's people God's Word here on the truth pulpit