COLOSSIANS 2:6 23

This is Kevin Hamilton. Everyone say hi, Kevin Hamilton. Hi. Hey, Josh. Hey, there.

So Kevin is part of our normal everyday people who are gonna come forward and read the scripture that we're studying for the day. A few things you might want to know about Kevin. Kevin is Laura's dad, so that's one thing. Second, Kevin is a retired pastor himself, so you might know him from that. From Sardinia, Ohio.

Third, Kevin. Kevin serves in Whitewater, kids, so you might see him out there. And fourth is this. I know many of you have had loved ones in hospice care in Cincinnati, and you may have very well run into Kevin, who's a pastor in the hospice care system. And so I've had many friends who don't even come here.

And they say, man, I met Kevin, and Kevin's part of your church, and he was such a blessing to us. And so Kevin's an everyday guy, and he's gonna read the scripture for us today, and it is a privilege to do so. And by the way, it's a privilege to be up here with you, Josh. Laura gets nervous when I grab my mic. By the way, I'm so thankful for Josh and Heidi and their family.

What a blessing they are to this ministry and an encouragement to me. So thank you. Thank you.

I'm going to begin in verse 6 there in Colossians 2. So then, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness, see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ, all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form. And in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority in him.

You were also circumcised with a circumcision not done or performed by human hands, a circumcision that again was ruling our flesh, but was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins. Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross and Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross. Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day.

These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen. They're puffed up with idle notions.

By their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belong to this world, do you submit to its rules? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings.

Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom with their self imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body. But they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. Thanks, Kevin.

Well, please have a seat. Good morning. Good morning. If we've not met, my name is Josh and I'm glad you're here. Whether today is your first time or your first time back or your thousandth time that you've been here.

I believe deeply that it's God's desire that as we're gathered together, that he would build us up in faith. I believe that he's faithful to meet us right where we are, right whatever we walked in with. He's faithful to meet us there. And he has something in mind for us, very specific for each of us, if we would be willing to hear it or do it or be challenged by it. And so, before we jump in, I would just like to pray and ask for his blessing today and that he would show us what he's after in us today.

Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for meeting us here today. Thank you for your word. I pray that you will just illuminate to us the beauty of the truth of your word, even in this bit of a clunky section of scripture that's got lots of stuff wrapped up in it.

Would you just give us ultra clarity on what you're trying to say? So speak to us through your Word and God, make me your mouthpiece today that I might just say the things that you want me to say. So lead us by your Holy Spirit, open our eyes to what you have in mind for us today and help us to be willing to do what you're asking us to do. In Jesus name, Amen. Well, today we're in week four of this series that we've been walking through the Book of Colossians.

And as part of our vision at Whitewater, we say we want to be a people of the Word. That means we're in the Word and the Word is in us. And so we've been encouraging everyone to join us through reading through the Book of Colossians. And some people are choosing to do that. In about 15 minutes a day, you can read the whole book of Colossians.

In about five minutes a day, you can read a chapter. Just a minute or two a day, you can read the section of Scripture that we're studying for the week. And there's something that happens well beyond the cognitive when we are in the Word, the Word is working on us. And so I hope that you'll join us, if you haven't already. It's not too late to join us and dig in the Word today.

As we look at this new section, there's a lot, like I said, that's kind of clunky around this. It's a lot of weeds to get through. But under all of that, when we do the work, there's some beautiful stuff. Stuff. And the truth is, as we're in the Word, God has far more to say to us than I could ever say to you in the 35 minutes that I have with you each week.

That just gives me 52 chances if I was preaching every single Sunday. The Holy Spirit has more in mind for you in the Word. And so I'd encourage you to ask him to be your guide. That's part of his work. I don't know if you realize that part of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives is to teach us through Scripture, that he illuminates the text to us and helps us to understand it.

We've said that the Book of Colossians is actually a letter written by the Apostle Paul to a group of at least three churches in the area of Colossae, that's in southwestern modern day Turkey, so straight east of the Mediterranean Sea. And in this letter, Paul is directly addressing some false teaching that's begun to creep into the church and to distract these young churches from the simple gospel truth. Paul says that all of this is actually lies from the enemy that are blinding and distracting us from the one true gospel, which is that Jesus, life, death and resurrection is enough. Period. That is the Gospel message.

Anything added to Christ is a distraction. Why Paul says that all of this is because Christ is the foundation of our faith. This is why it matters so much. Christ is sufficient. And if we're willing to die to our sin and die to ourselves and come under the lordship and rule and reign and authority of Christ, we not only receive salvation, we not only get to be associated with King Jesus, but what we looked at last week is we are in him, he is in us.

We are sealed with the Holy Spirit, with Christ, in God the Father. And possibly we are given a new identity, not just with Christ, but Christ. Our identity is Christ. And Paul says because he now dwells in us, this can be our reality. Now, we spent a lot more time last week looking at that, so if you missed that, please go back and listen.

There's some foundational stuff there. But Paul says that the reason God has offered and accomplished all of this is, yes, so we can live a new life in Christ. But beyond that, it's also so that we can represent Christ to others so that they can have the reality of this life in him too. After the second service last week, I had so many great conversations. It was the same conversation on repeat.

It was, I'm jacked about this. I'm so excited. I love what you said. I would love to share my faith. I would love to share the gospel with those around me.

How. Where do I start? I'm riled up, but where do I start? And so I just want to say, we're a how to church. We don't want to just talk about it and have it in our heads and nod and smile and agree.

We want the gap between conviction and action to close, and we want to help close that. And so I want to give you some very simple homework that'll be the very first step in this process. And it's okay. We got time for ourselves to grow in this and come nearer to Christ and that gap can close. So here's our homework this week.

Everybody do this. Everyone can do this. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit this week to open up doors for meaningful conversations with people who don't know Jesus. That's it. I'm not even asking you to pray that you can get them baptized this week.

I'm asking you to pray that God would open up doors for meaningful conversations. And then here's the challenge. When he does pay attention and step in that's the homework this week. You don't have to save them in Walmart parking lot. Okay?

Just step into a meaningful conversation. Now, if you are ready to take a step beyond that, we also want to make available something to you if you're ready for it. Part of being a how to church is when we see hungry people and they just need to know how we wanna help provide the way. So on Sunday, July 27, between the services, we're gonna have a workshop. Our disciple making team is doing a workshop on how to share the gospel with others, how to share the good news with others.

It's gonna be super simple, super practical. And our aim is that you walk out of that room and you go, oh, I can do that, I can do that. So we want to make it as simple as easy or simple as easy. As simple as possible. So July 27, between the services in the great room.

If you'd like to do that, please register online and let us know or stop by the information desk just so we know how many to expect. If you want to know what it looks like when God's people are paying attention and stepping into this responsibility of making Christ known to others, consider this. The book of Colossians we said last week was written about 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. And inside of those 30 years, you go from Jesus and 12 guys in Jerusalem, and it expands over 30 years to cover an area of about 1 million square miles, reaching as many as 30 million people. That's amazing.

Now, of course, not all of them have heard the gospel, and not all of them who heard the gospel accepted it. But the gospel has expanded to encompass an area that covers about 30 million people in 30 years. So to help us imagine this, let's say instead of starting in Jerusalem, Jesus had started in Cleves, Ohio, which didn't exist. Of course, in 30 years, the gospel would have reached a giant circle, if you can imagine this in your head, all the way up at the top in the Northeast, encompassing Boston, coming around to the southeast to Atlanta and Orlando and Dallas and Denver and Minneapolis. That's how big of a circle the gospel has expanded out to inside of those 30 years.

And that's all without cars, without cell phones, without phones at all. No Internet, no billboards. Just everyday people sharing the gospel story with others. And that's how big it got. Now, this movement, I told you, started with Jesus and 12 knuckleheads.

And the entirety of Jesus ministry only lasted about three years. And in 30 years, 30 million people. Now consider that now here, 2,000 years later, we're in Cleaves, Ohio, and we are talking about about the same Jesus proclaiming the same gospel message. And when you consider that the Americas were not even discovered for another 1400 years after Paul died, it's a miracle that you and I know the same gospel that began there. And this should stir our hearts to imagine what it would look like if we normal everyday people were just sharing the gospel truth with other normal, everyday people.

If we could simply say yes. Yes to walking in step with the Spirit, yes to praying that God would open doors to meaningful conversations, yes to paying attention to what God is doing and stepping in, and yes to living like the gospel is still urgent and is still for everyone. If we said yes to that, imagine what our sphere of influence might look like now. The book of Colossians is calling us beyond knowledge, beyond belief, beyond gathering, beyond conviction into a completely new way of everyday living a life that is in Christ, in Him, in us, so that we are showing Christ to the world, animated and motivated by his power. Paul simplifies this new way of living down to two keystone verses.

We read them. It's the first two verses of Colossians 2 in the section verse 6 and 7. And I'm going to spend the majority of our time today in these two verses because they're so pivotal. These will be great verses to memorize and keep in your arsenal. It says so then, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness.

So let's break down the language here. That word for receive. Just as you receive Christ Jesus is Lord. It literally means as you've taken up or assumed an office, a responsibility with a title. He's saying that since you have taken up Christ and assumed this new identity, you are now an ambassador of Christ.

You have a responsibility. So continue. And the verb form there is constantly and without ceasing forever, continue to live your lives in Him. Some translations say walk in Him. This is language used all throughout the New Testament that just shows us this is normal stuff.

It's as normal as walking. We practice this every day. Walking in Christ is not only for super special things. You don't just do that on Sunday mornings. It's not just for when we die and we get to go to heaven.

Walking in Christ is for everything. Every day. Now that means you're an ambassador on Friday afternoon when you sit down after working all week or at 2am when you're feeding a crying baby, or you're an ambassador on vacation or at school or in retirement, or at the nail salon or at work. And in chapter three, Paul puts it this way. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.

Paul's saying, everything we do can be, if we allow it to be. Ambassadors, gospel living. So continue to walk in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught. Now, I don't know about you, but when I read that, I think, okay, this is the work that I need to do. I need to stay rooted in Him.

I need to get built up in Him. I need to strengthen my faith as I was taught. Here's the interesting thing. The verb form here is very specific. It's perfect passive.

Now, this is in the weeds, but it's really significant. Perfect passive means two things. This is something that's already been done and it's something that's being done to us, not by us. Christ is the one who's doing that. So Paul says, walk in him in the everyday stuff, as he is keeping you rooted.

He's already rooted you, but as he's keeping you rooted, as he is building you up, as he is strengthening your faith. And then the next line is so significant, it's overflowing with thankfulness. And now the verb form switches. This is our job. Christ does all of the rest.

This is our job. Overflowing with thankfulness. And under the complexity of the language, we see that overflowing with thankfulness isn't just describing what we do, it's describing the kind of people.

In other words, we aren't just people who give thanks. We are thankful people. It's who we are. If we have taken up this identity in Christ, he is holding us rooted in Him. He is building us up and strengthening our faith.

And we are actively, nonstop, ongoing thankful people, constantly overflowing with gratitude and thankfulness. It's not occasional thankfulness. When things are going well. It is excessive. It's visible, it's contagious.

It's like carrying around a fire hose that is on in every direction you turn. You are spraying thankfulness all over the room, all over your family, all over your workplace, because you can't even stop it because you're a thankful kind of person. This is what Paul is describing. If our reality is that Christ has done all the work and that we have salvation in him, what could possibly keep us from overflowing with thankfulness pouring out everywhere? Paul says, it's when we take what we have been given, Christ and Christ alone is enough.

And then we turn it into human man made religion, rule, following traditions and ceremonies. Why would this kill our thankfulness? Because when we make it about rules and ceremonies and traditions and human effort, we start to believe that we had something to do with our salvation. We start to believe that since our hands are dirty, suddenly we. We did this.

And what that does in us is it kills our affection for this salvation that has been realized in us. And it dulls our gratitude and thankfulness and it shrivels up that hose to a trickle and then it's dry. And then we're arrogant and prideful and legalistic. Paul says, this is what's at stake. We've got to be careful.

Colossians 2. Eight, he says, see to it that there is no one who takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, in accordance with human tradition, in accordance with the elementary principles of the world, rather than accordance with Christ. You know what the elementary principles are. You work for it and it is owed to you. So when we are working for our salvation, thinking that we're the ones doing it, we're saying, christ, you owe me this.

You owe me the phrase, see to it. See to it that no one. It comes from the Greek word blepo. It's not a soft suggestion, it's a sharp command. It is watch out, exclamation point.

Watch out for what? That no one takes you captive. The imagery here is intense. It's the violent seizing of prisoners or looting the defeated enemy. Paul is saying, don't get dragged off like plunder with this stuff.

Don't let anyone steal your mind, your joy, your thankfulness, or your allegiance through this kind of deception. This is why Paul keeps using language like this all throughout his writing. In Ephesians 6, he says, Always be alert. In First Corinthians he says, be on guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong. In First Thessalonians he says, so then let us not be like others who are asleep.

Let us be awake and sober. Watch out, wake up, is what he's saying. These are not passive encouragements. These are wartime commands, orders. We are in a spiritual battle and we cannot afford to fall asleep at our post.

In the military, when our soldiers are in active war zones, they are required to keep their weapon with them at all times. That means when they're sleeping and when they're eating. And in active war zones, even when they're showering, they gotta have quick access to this. Why? Because they're in enemy territory.

Something is trying to kill and destroy them and they cannot be caught asleep. Paul's telling us the same thing. Stay spiritually armed, stay alert, stay awake, keep your head on a swivel, pay attention, watch out so that you don't fall into this slumber and drunkenness of man made religion. And don't miss that. Paul isn't warning.

This is really interesting. He's not warning about an outside enemy. What's happening in Colossae isn't that there are guys with pitchforks and clubs and swords outside trying to drag them away. It's that there are ideas coming into the church, being taught in the church that are very quietly dragging. They don't look like enemies.

They're far more dangerous than obvious enemies. They sound smart, they seem spiritual, they might even have good intentions in what they're doing. But if they lead us away from Christ and Christ alone, even slightly, they're leading us into captivity. Recently one of my kids was at lunch with another student and they were talking and found out that this other student was a part of the Mormon Church, the Church of Latter Day Saints. And my kid asked them, hey, how are our churches different?

Like what makes your church different from my church? And they said, nothing really. We're all Christians, we all believe in Jesus and we all use the Bible. And that sounds nice, except there's a blaring problem with that. It's just not true.

Our Latter Day Saints friends do not believe that Jesus is co eternal with God the Father. They believe he's a created spirit who is spiritual brothers to Satan. They believe that we can become gods ourselves. You will not find any of that in Scripture. They talk about Jesus, they reference the Bible, they use the word Christian.

And still some of the most foundational, important teachings of the New Testament, they just ignore them and add to them man made hoops to jump through. But let's bring this even closer to home. Something that may have seemed or still seems very normal to us. Who grew up on the west side. How many of you grew up believing or maybe even still believe that if you want to sell your house, you buy a little statue of St. Joseph and bury it in your yard.

If you don't know about this, this is very common Catholic tradition. It says that you, if you want to sell your house, you get a small St. Joseph figurine, you bury him upside down near the for sale sign facing the road, and then you pray to him and he will help you sell your house. Now to Be fair. This is not an official teaching of the Catholic Church, but it's widely practiced. So much so you can buy St. Joseph Home selling kits at Catholic bookstores and on Amazon, you can look it up.

This is a completely man made superstition. There's no foundation in scripture. But let's go a layer deeper. Let's go a layer deeper. Maybe you were taught growing up that you should pray to Mary or to saints to ask them to speak to God on your behalf.

This is an official teaching of the Catholic Church. And then very often what gets added to this official teaching of the Catholic Church is that if you are praying and Jesus doesn't do what you've asked him to do, then you should pray to Mary because Mary has extra pull with Jesus and she'll convince him to do something for you. And this is rooted in the story of when Jesus turned water into wine. He said at first, I don't want to do this, this is not my time. And she said, come on, do it anyway.

And he does. And so the idea is the saints and Mary, they can sway Christ to do something for you. Now. Now we're getting into the realm of Christ replacement. Now we're getting into the realm of Christ manipulation.

This is dangerous territory. Now hear me, please hear me. I am not here to mock where you came from. I'm not. I know for many people these are heartfelt acts of devotion and faith.

Absolutely, I believe that. But they are man made additions. Scripture and Paul would say, watch out, watch out, be alert, be careful that your trust isn't quietly shifting from Christ to a ritual or an object or a human figure. This matters because even well meaning traditions can become dangerous when they distract us from the Gospel, when they cause us to put our hope in something or someone other than Christ alone. Anything that dilutes the one true Gospel by adding human earning is an attack from the enemy.

It's attempting to drag us away as plunder. Christ and Christ alone is the Gospel. This is Paul's message over and over and over. He says in verse nine, for in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. And in Christ you have been brought to fullness.

He is the head over every power and authority in him. You were also circumcised with the circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self, ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all our sins.

Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross. Now, what's all this talk about circumcision? And then we get this hard left turn into baptism. I'm going to save the circumcision talk for the next six weeks.

We're going to do a whole series just on circumcision. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

That would be great though, wouldn't it? Everybody's favorite topic.

This is a direct swing against the legalistic Jews who taught that Gentiles had to become Jews first to receive salvation, which by their law required circumcision. Paul says, listen, communion isn't the point. Circumcision isn't the point is what I meant to say, not communion. Circumcision isn't the point. In fact, circumcision is just an outward sign of something, a shadow of the real thing.

Baptism is now like the new circumcision. Sorry for the descriptive language here, but baptism is the symbolic act of cutting off the old dead flesh and throwing it away in order that we can step into a new covenant with Jesus and be raised to life with Him. Now, I'll reiterate just a moment. Baptism is not what saves you any more than circumcision is what saved them. It is Christ's work on the cross, his blood alone through our faith, that brings us salvation.

That is it. Hopefully you've heard already that next week we're going to be celebrating a baptism Sunday. And if you have never been baptized by immersion, by a decision of your own, and you are ready and you would like to. To do that, we would love to be a part of that. We have little cards that say, baptize me on them.

They're at the corners of the stage, they're on all the tables around. Grab one of those, scan that QR code and just let us know that you're ready. And if you'd like to have a conversation about it or you've got some questions about it, we'd love to have a conversation with you. Our team will be at the bottom of the ramp at the end of the service. I'll be up Here, you can stop by the information desk and then for next week.

A tendency that we have if we're already baptized is to think, oh well, that's a Sunday for all of those people that aren't baptized yet, this is a Sunday to stir up our own affections for our gratitude and thankfulness that we have because of what Christ has done in us. And so we're gonna celebrate. We're gonna celebrate what God has done in us. We're gonna celebrate what God is doing in some, some others next week. And we're going to continue our study in chapter three of Colossians.

But for now, back to chapter two. Back to chapter two.

In verses 16 through 19, Paul says again, stick to the Gospel. It's almost like he knows how human we are, that we are going to always try to add new things. Don't let anyone shame you for not adding these man made additions about diet, extreme self denial, worship of angels, going on about spiritual experiences, real salvation, he says, and spiritual growth comes from God. And then he reasons with them in verse 20. Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belong to the world, do you submit to its rules?

Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use. They're based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom with their self imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body. But they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Paul says again and again and again and again and again. This is nonsense. Don't get caught in this net. It cannot save you. It does not make you a varsity level Christian.

It all misses the point. Now as we close out this section that we're studying today, I want us to end right where we started. Back in verses 6 and 7. Will you read this together with me from the screens here? So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness.

Does that describe you? Does that describe you? Walking in Christ every day in all the little moments, fixing your eyes on him as Lord, trusting in his power alone to build you up, to keep you rooted, to keep, strengthen your faith abundantly and constantly overflowing with thankfulness, so much so that you're sharing your gratitude with others. Does that describe your life? And if we're dead honest, the room at large has to say a resounding no.

Man, we want that to be our lives. But no.

Why the gap?

I think this is the truth. I think many of us have forgotten, or maybe we never actually grasped the incredible reality of our unearnable salvation in Christ. When I was in high school, our youth group went down to East Tennessee. We went to a conference down there. We had some free time.

One afternoon, it was really hot outside, and so we went down to the river to this swimming hole on the river. It was this big public swimming hole. There's tons of people there. Cause it was like 100 degrees outside. And everybody's in the water and we're playing.

And it had rained the day before, and so the water was a little higher and the current was very strong. And I was out there, and I was watching this little boy. He was five or six years old, and he was in the water, and he slipped and lost his footing and immediately went in the water. And it was sucking him down the river. And I seemed to be the only person that noticed what happened.

His parents didn't notice. And I watched for a second, and no one moved. And so I ran out down the side of the bank. I got about 50 yards ahead of him. I got in the water and I came, caught him.

And I am literally. My heels are bumping down the rocks as I'm trying to stop us from getting sucked down the river. Because the water's up to my shoulders. And so we. It's everything I can do to get off to the side.

And I catch my breath, and he's crying, and I carry him back to where everyone was. And his parents missed the whole thing. They missed the whole thing. And so when I hand them their crying son who had gotten sucked down the river, instead of rejoicing, instead of sobbing and thanking me for saving their son's life, instead of telling everyone that their son and this story, and now he's okay, instead of that, they looked at me like, who is this weird guy that has my kid? They missed the whole thing.

They had no idea because they weren't in the water. They didn't know how quick the water was moving. They didn't watch him get pulled away. They had no idea that they could have lost their son that day. They completely missed it.

And their living son is in their arms, and they don't even know what they have. And I think too many of us have received salvation, and we are receiving it in our hands with indifference because we missed it. Because we don't realize how far Gone, we were.

They didn't realize. And we miss it. And it is time that we wake up, Church. It's time that we wake up to the reality that like Paul says in the book of Ephesians, he says, as for you, you were dead but God, this is my reality. As for me, I was dead but God, it's your reality.

You were dead but God. But if we're honest, we're more like, as for me, I was pretty good. I had a pretty good life and I sprinkled some Jesus sprinkles on top of it. And now I don't feel so bad about myself. And now I pray more.

And now I have friends at church. We have missed the point. And our salvation is in our arms and we've missed the entire point. It is time that we wake up. You were dead, I was dead.

No breath in our lungs, no pulse in our veins. We were dead but God, this is our reality in Christ. And it could only possibly be that we either missed it or we have forgotten that we are not overflowing with thankfulness and gratitude. It's time we wake up.

Verse 13 says that God has canceled our record of debt and he has nailed it. Cross. There's two pictures from 1st century Rome that are at play here. The first is at the top of the cross. When people were crucified, there was a sign up there that would have everything being held against them and the reason for why they were being crucified.

And Paul saying, your sin, my sin. Nailed to the cross. Nailed to the cross. So that if we had been there and looked up at that sign, there it is, my name, your name, our sins all laid out there. It is our sin that nailed him to the cross.

But the other beautiful picture is this. In first century Rome, if there was a structure that had a loan on it and that loan was, was paid in full, the lending institution would come and they would nail a declaration to the door frame that says, paid in full.

But God goes a layer beyond that and he says, God has canceled the record of your debt. He's canceled the record of your debt. The wind blew and that thing's gone, man. It is gone.

This is our reality in Christ. This can be your reality in Christ. We've got to wake up, Church. We've got to wake up.