Back in August 2011, The Wall Street Journal carried an article, ‘Reversing the Decay of London Undone’ by Dr. Jonathan Sacks, then chief rabbi in Britain.

Dr. Sacks stated, ‘In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint. All you need, sang the Beatles, is love. The Judeo-Christian moral code was jettisoned. In its place came: whatever works for you…’

He further observed, ‘The collapse of families and communities leaves in its wake unsocialized young people, deprived of parental care, who on average—and yes, there are exceptions—do worse than their peers at school, are more susceptible to drug and alcohol abuse, less likely to find stable employment and more likely to land up in jail…

‘Much can and must be done by governments, but they cannot of themselves change lives,’ he went on. ‘Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent…’

Gospel Centered Re-fresh. Let me suggest that more than ever we need a re-fresh moment of God’s good news. True and lasting changes in society occur when individual lives are transformed from the inside out through God’s mercy.

Consider Paul’s words in Colossians 2:13-15: And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him.

Paul is writing of the condition of the Jewish and the non-Jewish peoples. The Jewish people could not keep God’s written law, and the world that doesn’t know God fails to keep even the law of their own conscience. All men and women are morally bankrupt.

This biblical teaching is central to a Reformational understanding of humanity. Dr Ashley Null, a leading authority on Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Henry VIII, summarizes Cranmer’s anthropology this way: ‘What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.’ Cranmer understood that ‘the trouble with human nature is that we are born with a heart that loves ourselves over and above everything else in this world, including God. We are born slaves to the lust for self-gratification,….’

Captives. Furthermore, we are captive to spiritual forces we cannot defeat. Satan, holding himself out as a chief prosecutor, presents the catalogue of our failures to God. Being the demanding prosecutor he is, Satan insists that the penalty must be paid – something that God, in his justice, cannot refuse. And because sin is a capital offence we are all en route to a death we cannot avoid.

C.S. Lewis brilliantly captures these elements in the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Edmund has betrayed Peter, Susan and Lucy, and Aslan himself. The Witch demands Edmunds’ life. “He has broken the laws of the deep,” she insists. “He is mine,” she shrieks.  “His life is forfeit.”

God’s Intervention. In the busyness of life it is easy to forget the significance of Jesus’ crucifixion. Let’s pause and consider Paul’s words. He tells us that through Jesus’ death God has smashed the bars of our spiritual prison of self-interest and has cancelled the debt we owe. The charge sheet against us has been wiped clean. And in the same way that the indictments against Jesus were nailed to his cross, he has taken the indictments against us and nailed them to his cross as well.

Furthermore, Paul tells us that Jesus through his death has disarmed the demonic powers that we couldn’t overcome. Had those powers known the mighty power Jesus wielded through his voluntary sacrifice, they would have dismissed any thought of putting the Lord of glory to death (1 Corinthians 2:8). St. Augustine spoke of Jesus’ crucifixion as the devil’s mousetrap.

And so it is, supremely, that Jesus Christ once and for all abolished death for us. As John 11 records, Jesus says to all men and women, “I am the resurrection and the life, those who believe in me, though they die, shall live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25f). No longer should we fear death’s inexorable approach: God made you alive with Christ, Paul says in Colossians 2:13.

The cross is where Jesus turned our captivity into the glorious liberty of the children of God. The hymn-writers, Keith Getty and Stuart Townend wrote: This the power of the cross: Christ became sin for us. Took the blame, bore the wrath; we stand forgiven at the cross.

Transformation. Jesus’ death provides a fresh start in life for everyone who turns to him in repentance and faith.

FF Bruce in his commentary on Colossians (p.112) writes: ‘The message proclaimed by Paul to the Colossians remains the one message of hope to men and women in their frustration and despair. Christ crucified and risen is Lord of all.’

A prayer.

   Almighty God, our heavenly Father, like lost sheep we have gone our own way, not loving you as we ought, nor loving our neighbors as ourselves.

   We have done what we ought not to have done, and we have not done what we ought to have done. We justly deserve your condemnation.

   Father, for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, forgive us all that is past, and grant that from this time forward, we may serve and please you in newness of life, to the honor and glory of your name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The good news is, God has promised in his Word that when we confess our sins, he forgives us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Thanks be to God.

Years ago, I met an academic from China, who told me that when on June 4, 1989, the people’s army turned on the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, Marxism and Maoism within him died. He said he knew then that if there was such a thing as truth, it must come from outside human invention – from God, if he exists.

That night he went home and read from cover to cover a book he had been given years before. It was a New Testament. Reading it through at least twice that night he realized that here was a book that was beyond human imagining.

I introduce this conversation because many today are being swept along by the tide of current opinion that denies the existence of God. Indeed, occasionally someone says to me, ‘I don’t know what to believe. It’s difficult to work out what’s true and what’s not.’  And while this kind of comment is often true for the non-churchgoer, it can also be true for God’s people.

In troubled times, we may be tempted to allow a sure faith in Christ to be subverted. We may be tempted to doubt the substantial truth of God’s gospel; we may be tempted to so focus our faith on the important issues of human equality – yes, they are important – but lose sight of a prior, vital love for God and for the Lord Jesus Christ. And, in the extreme, we may be so attracted by the voices of the ‘new’ faith of atheism, that we come to deny the reality and the significance of Jesus Christ, and the true freedoms that he brings.

Come with me to Paul’s words in Colossians chapter 2:8 See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ…

Deception. Paul was convinced that God’s people in Colossae were in danger of losing the freedom that they’d found through their faith in Jesus Christ. They were vulnerable to being carried away by an empty philosophy that was being persuasively marketed. The framers of these subversive ideas do not seem to have been promoting an immoral life. Rather, they were promoting a world-view that distorted or subverted the truth of God’s gospel and faith in the Lord Jesus.

Now it’s fair to say that Paul was not against philosophy in its simple meaning of a love for knowledge and truth. But his language here of philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, speaks of philosophy that has its source in human reasoning. For Paul, God’s gospel was supernaturally revealed in the context of God’s acts in history. We can only come to understand the significance of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ because God has revealed it. Yes, we need to use our minds to understand God’s revelation in Christ, but our starting point is with his self-revelation in the Scriptures.

Consider what Paul goes on to write: For in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,

Divinity. God’s people in Colossae needed to refocus their thinking on Jesus Christ. They needed to ask again: Who is he? What does he mean for us? Paul says again what he has said in the previous chapter: Christ is truly God and man. While many find this hard to believe, the evidence is there that Jesus is a man who is also truly God.

Think of the miracles he performed— his ability to control nature, to heal the sick, to feed thousands, and his ability to raise even the dead. Furthermore, his actions reveal the compassion of a merciful God. Jesus didn’t do these things because he was a man of great faith. Rather, he did them because he was both 100% God and 100% man.

Philosophers and other religions may say that he was a great teacher or a prophet, but they don’t agree that he is God in the flesh. Yet, if the fullness of God lives in Jesus, if Jesus is truly divinity who walked amongst us, then he is the source of truth. Paul is not simply repeating what he has said about Jesus Christ in the previous chapter. Here he is telling us that in Jesus Christ we find the very essence of God.

God is love. And, notice, Jesus Christ doesn’t simply reveal a God of power and might, but one whose very nature is to show mercy. This is so important for us to know. Think of it this way. We say that God is love. But love is a relationship word. To say God is love, is meaningless unless God has someone throughout eternity to love. CS Lewis in Mere Christianity wrote: ‘Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, he was not love.’

The very existence of the eternal Son of God who has taken on human form, that Paul tells us about in Colossians, assures us that God is personal, and because his central nature is to love, is also a compassionate and merciful God. Here is the God worth knowing – the God whose nature is not just power and majesty, but love and mercy. Don’t be deceived.

In John 1:14 we read John the Gospel writer’s testimony concerning Jesus Christ: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

In Psalm 1 we read: Happy are those … whose delight is in the law, the revelation of the Lord.

A prayer: Almighty God, the protector of all who put their trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: increase and multiply your mercy upon us, so that with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal: grant this, heavenly Father, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

In an article in The Weekend Australian (July 11-12, 2020) Dr. Greg Sheridan, writing of the cancel culture forces at work within the West, concludes: ‘The West is under profound challenge internally and externally today. The irrational hatred of the West, within the West, is one symptom of a deep malaise…’

So, how can we live in a rapidly changing and troubled world? We need wisdom, understanding, and the strength to persevere that springs from a growing relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the opening lines of chapter 2 of his Letter to the young church in Colossae, Paul the Apostle writes of his agonized striving in prayer for the growth and rich quality of his readers’ faith. And in verses 6 and 7 we find keys that unlock the central theme of his letter. He writes: As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving (2:6-7).

God’s people can waver in their faith in troubled times because there is no change in their life, they are not growing in their relationship with Christ, and they have no heartfelt thanks to God, for who he is and what he has done.

So, let me identify three themes in Colossians 2: 6 and 7.

First, As you received Christ… so now live.

Paul expects the lives of God’s people to be shaped by a heartfelt love for God and a genuine neighbor love – the two themes that we find in the Ten Commandments and in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Having received Christ Jesus the Lord we are now to live in him.

We can think of it like this. When Christ moves into our lives there are many things with which he is not comfortable. There’s a lot of cleaning up to be done, repairs and renovation. But, as anyone who has been involved in renovation and repairs knows, it takes longer and costs much more than originally thought. You only have to watch the program ‘Grand Designs’ to see the truth of this.

It’s like this with our lives. It takes a lot longer and costs a lot more to make our lives a place fit for the king. The challenge is to make Christ Lord in all our affairs.

Paul develops examples of this in the second half of his Letter. In chapter 3:5 he writes: Put to death therefore what is earthly in you:…  Toss out of your life what doesn’t fit this new life with Christ. Is it lust or sexual immorality, evil desire or greed? Is it anger or rage, malice or slander? Do you always tell the truth? These things belong to the old self. Put on the new self which is being renewed after the image of its creator.

Second, As you were rooted… be built up;…

With mixed metaphors, one from botany the other from building, Paul stresses the need for growth. He doesn’t want God’s people to be stunted in their relationship with Christ Jesus.

Yet there are many who have accepted Christ – that he died for their sins – but who have never gone any further. Consequently, their faith has shriveled up and they have neither a biblical framework to discern the issues, nor the resources to remain firm in their faith in changing and uncertain times.

So how does growth occur? By focusing on ritual and ceremony at church? By chasing after ecstatic spiritual experiences?  No. A genuine growth in Christ rarely comes to people who are not spending time in the Scriptures. And this can true of churches. As ceremony increases, sermons become shorter.

There are times when we’re not motivated to dig deeper into the Scriptures. But sometimes God uses sickness or a crisis in life to awaken us to our need to read the Bible. Sometimes it’s not until we see houses and other trophies of the world for what they are – transient trifles that have a fading and passing splendor – that we see the lasting treasure of God’s truth. And that’s when we begin to grow.

As you were taught… be established in the truth, Paul continues.

For some years a little saying kept me focused on my need for consistent Bible reading: ‘No Bible, no breakfast; no prayer, no paper.’ Yes, the danger with this kind of line is that Bible reading and prayer become a law. But if it is taken as a guide it can be a useful reminder of our need for daily Bible reading and prayer. This is how we can grow in our understanding of God and a richer relationship with him.

And thirdly, …abounding in thanksgiving.

To have a thankful heart is to have a contented heart. How often do we get anxious because thankfulness to God is not part of our psyche. The sense of thankfulness within us is a real measure of our growth in Christ. We can’t get taken up with our own desires and moans and groans for long if a spirit of thankfulness to Christ is an essential part of our daily attitude.

When we know deep down in our heart that Christ Jesus is the Lord, that he is our good shepherd bringing good for us out of all the confusion, frustrations and challenges of life, we will find that, quite surprisingly, we will be able to press on with determination and joy in our hearts.

As you have received Christ… so live – honoring Christ through Godly living. As you were rooted… be built up, and as you were taught… be established in the truth – growing in a rich relationship with God through biblical understanding. And, …abounding in thanksgiving – with heartfelt gratitude to God.

A prayer. Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things, graft in our  hearts the love of your Name, increase in us a true faith, nourish us with all goodness, and so by your mercy keep us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

With the continued spread of Covid-19, concerns are being raised about the mental health of many who have lost their job, experience loneliness, or have a sense of helplessness – especially young adults. That is the generation that will experience the impact of the pandemic on their lives, not just now, but for years to come.

How can we help people, especially the young, find purpose and hope?

In Colossians 1:27 Paul the Apostle summarizes the essence of God’s gospel: Christ in you, the hope of glory. In the preceding two verses and the subsequent two verses he explains how people come to learn this. Speaking of his own ministry, he says that he was called by God to be a minister to serve God’s people and the wider world by making the word of God fully known.

Effective ministry. God’s plan to reveal himself to the world was not through miracles, but through words – spoken and written. Paul saw that it was his task to communicate God’s self-revelation fully and faithfully. This is important. It tells us that we don’t achieve a deeper insight into the Christian faith by having some mystical experience of Christ. The challenge of effective ministry is to equip people of all ages with an understanding of God’s Word so that they are drawn into a true and vital relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

An effective ministry on Sundays will help God’s people to read the Bible for themselves. Good preaching will enable God’s people to see from where and how preachers have drawn their teaching. As Paul says, the first task of ministry is to make the Word of God known.

Message of ministry. And so Paul speaks of the content of his ministry. For millennia God had kept the essentials of his plans wrapped in confidentiality. But now, Paul tells us, God has chosen to declare himself. His message is for God’s ancient people, the Jewish people, as well as, surprisingly, the non-Jewish world. Paul’s passion was to draw people to the heart of the gospel: Christ in you, the hope of glory.

There is an amazing simplicity to this. It is the kind of marketing line advertisers dream about creating. It can be summarised in just two phrases: Christ in you, and the hope of glory. On the one hand it is about a present experience, Christ in you; on the other hand, it speaks about a future reality: the hope of glory.

For many people Christianity is little more than a moral rule-book they must struggle to observe, or a creed they must mindlessly recite. Christianity for them is legalistic and dull. However, Paul wants us to understand that at the center of Christianity is a relationship. Christianity is about having Christ in our lives through his Spirit.

Many feel cut off from God— sometimes by feelings of failure or unworthiness, by feelings of ignorance or unbelief, or by their life situations. The great news is that if you are looking for God you don’t have to despair. Something has happened that has made it possible for us to experience supernatural reality in our lives – Christ in you.

And with a present experience of the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ, we also have the hope of glory. The presence of Christ in our lives now is only half the story. It is only a foretaste of something far greater that God has in store for the future. Christianity is not just a present experience but a future hope. Glory is waiting for us, Paul says. The good things that we have tasted of Christ living in us now are but a tiny glimpse of our future experience when we live openly in the presence God. The best is yet to be.

It is important to think this through. There are times when we feel disappointed with the way life treats us. In fact you may be disillusioned with Christianity because of life’s experiences: you had thought that becoming a Christian would solve all your problems. You may have thought that whatever was on your heart, you could put it to God, and await for him to act.

But becoming a Christian does not mean this. Our bodies are still subject to sickness, and jobs are still subject to redundancy. What the gospel message offers us in terms of life here and now is not transformed outward circumstances, but transformed inner spiritual resources – Christ in you.

Outwardly our bodies are wasting away, Paul writes elsewhere. Inwardly we are being renewed, day by day. Yes, the Bible speaks of a better world where there is no pain and frustration, or loneliness and grief. But we need to understand that this is a future world that we perceive by faith, not by sight.

However, the hope of glory is not some vague, wistful, ‘maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t, kind of hope’. It is a sure, confident hope, guaranteed by Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead.

How then can we help the many around us – especially the young generation – who feel they have no hope? We need to care for them and pray for them. We need to look for practical ways our local church can support them. For school-aged children and teens, perhaps through an after-school mentoring program which also has Christian education component. We need to pray that we, together with our churches will be proactive in bringing God’s good news to a troubled generation, so that they too may know, Christ in you, the hope of glory.

A prayer. Lord Christ, eternal Word and Light of the Father’s glory: send your light and your truth so that we may both know and proclaim your word of life, to the glory of God the Father; for you now live and reign, God for all eternity. Amen.

God’s people will sometimes have doubts about their faith, for there is much in life that threatens to undermine our confidence in a God who is good. How can a good God allow the continuing spread of the novel coronavirus, not least amongst the poor?

The only sort of faith that is immune to the silent question, ‘How can a good God allow these things’ is a blind faith, a faith that closes its mind to reality. Real faith has to confront the evil and suffering in the world.

Paul the Apostle in his Letter to the Colossians, speaks of humanity being estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. For many centuries the western world recognized the existence of God, but in recent decades it has arbitrarily dismissed him together with the notions of heaven and hell, good and evil.

Indeed, back in 2011 Jarvis Cocker in an interview with Decca Aitkenhead commented: “I think basically becoming famous has taken the place of going to heaven in modern society, hasn’t it? That’s the place where your dreams will come true. It’s an act of faith now; they think that’s going to sort things out.”

That said, there are some who define themselves as atheist but who say that only Christianity could have changed society from the brutalities of the Roman Empire to a culture where life has been respected. William Wilberforce, for example, because of his Christian faith, was a leader in the movement that legislated against slavery in Britain in 1833.

But I have to say that the step of faith that says God does not exist, not only ignores the evidence and experience of history it does not provide the solution to the ills of the world. A solution that is outside human invention is needed, because as history shows, no human solution has provided or can provide a just and lasting peace.

Let’s think about this. God could have written the universe off as a fiasco. He could have scrapped it and gone back to the drawing board. If the world was going to go this wrong why did he make it in the first place? That would have been an admission of defeat on God’s part. It would have meant that in some measure he couldn’t allow evil because he knew he couldn’t beat it.

The Bible tells us that from the very beginning of time, God was determined to defeat it. He decided on a much more costly strategy. He wouldn’t abandon this evil and ungrateful world that had rejected him. Rather, he would rescue it. Paul tells us here that when Jesus died on the cross he laid the foundation for a just and lasting peace.

Think of it this way. Suppose there is someone very close to you— a wife or husband, a brother or sister or parent – who profoundly hurts you. They trample over your feelings, ignore you, and have no respect for you. In spite of all your kindness they reject you. But now you see them in deep trouble. If you don’t step in to help them, it will be the end for them. What do you do? You could tell them to go to hell.

But supposing when you consult your feelings, you find within your heart a love that wants to see them restored to your family. What do you do then? You have to find the resources within yourself to absorb all the pain, the injury, and the anger, that boils up within you at the very sight of them, so that you can stretch out your hand and help them.

What we see happening on the cross of Jesus Christ is God, finding a way whereby he can absorb within himself the pain, the injury and the anger, that is rightly within him, when he looks at people like you and me who have hurt him and sinned against him.

And, Paul tells us, we know he succeeded, for the growing community of God’s people is the evidence of this. Because of Jesus’ sacrificial death these people have been reconciled with God and have peace with him. They now stand in his sight holy and unstained before him. John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace could say: I once was lost, but now am found…

Furthermore, the reconciliation Jesus has achieved has implications far beyond men and women. It will embrace the whole of the cosmos. From the time of the events recorded in Genesis 3, the universe has been under judgement. Romans 8:20f tells us that the creation was subjected to futility.

Because of Jesus’ death a day will come when God’s people will experience the joy of standing in the presence of Jesus Christ in all his glory. Indeed, we will find our true place in his creation as the new heaven and the new earth of truth and justice, perfection and peace are revealed.

So, when we have times of doubt, it’s useful to ask ourselves afresh whether any information has come to light showing that Jesus’ death and resurrection didn’t actually happen. For if Jesus did die and was raised to life we have the assurance that he is true, and that his promises will one day be perfectly fulfilled. Jesus Christ has provided the solution for a troubled world.

The big question we all need to ask is whether we will turn to him, freely acknowledging him as our Lord and Savior. Furthermore, will we admit that he alone has the authority to present repentant fallen men and women before a holy God, without blemish, freed from all accusation?