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Guest (Male): Describing the thoroughness of God's forgiveness for those in Christ is Pastor Tom Keller.

Pastor Thom Keller: He forgave all our sin. Let's personalize it. He forgave all your sin. He forgave each sin. He forgave the whole of your sin. He forgave every kind of your sin. He forgave any sin of yours. He forgave every sin of yours. He always forgave your sin. He forgave your sin thoroughly. Whatsoever sin you commit, he forgives. How does that sound to you?

Guest (Male): It sounds too good to be true, but it is true. How can this be? We'll find out on today's study the word with Pastor Tom Keller. Picking up at our study of Colossians, we're assured of this forgiveness because of our debt of sin was paid by another, by Jesus. The implications of this are far reaching, and the experience of it is something you won't regret. To illustrate this point before getting into our text in Colossians 2, here's Pastor Tom.

Pastor Thom Keller: I was sitting on a park bench next to a guy who took an apple out of his pocket. He cut it open and began to pick the seeds out. He popped the first two seeds in his mouth and began to chew them. I said, why are you chewing the seeds? He said, they make me smarter. Certainly you've read the reports. Uh no, I didn't. Does it really work? Can I have some? Oh, I can guarantee it works, but I want these. I'll tell you what. I'll sell you them a dollar a piece for these last three seeds.

I agree and I hand him the money. After I pop them in my mouth, I begin chewing and I stop and say, hey, wait a minute. For those three bucks, I could have bought a whole bag of apples. He said, see, it's working already. I got to tell you something. I told my wife this this morning. The little joke last week I thought was hilarious. I didn't think this joke was so funny. So what does that tell you, huh? I don't know what a good joke is. That's what it tells you. Well, did you ever buy anything and then sometime later really regret your purchase?

That never happened with a Ford, but it can happen with other things. It's called buyer's remorse. And you know some Christians actually start to believe that Jesus has buyer's remorse over purchasing them out of their sin debts. But does that ever happen? Let's take a close look this morning. Colossians 2:13 to 15. You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. If you're a student of the Bible, you know that these are a powerful set of verses intended to be freeing and comforting and bring us confidence both in the sufficiency of Christ's atoning work and through that the additional confidence in the finality of our salvation. But first, Paul presents man's dilemma that makes our redemption necessary in the first place. Colossians 2:13. You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.

This has overtones of a book we just looked at, Ephesians chapter 2. It says, once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. Do you remember your old life? You used to live in sin just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil, the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is a spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature, we were subject to God's anger just like everyone else.

And God's solution to man's dilemma pointed out in Ephesians chapter 2 the next two verses in Ephesians 2. But God is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. It is only by God's grace that you have been saved, which is the same solution Paul points to here in Colossians 2:13. You were dead because of your sins and your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Here it is. Then God made you alive with Christ for he forgave all our sins.

Notice that Paul says that you used to be dead, but now you're alive. Listen, if you're saved, do you remember what it used to be like when you were dead to the things of God? Do you remember that gnawing emptiness in the pit of your stomach, that guilt, that shame? I remember. Life was just empty, chasing after vain strivings. All of life just shades of black and gray. Then I surrendered my life to Christ and my life became alive, full color. I remember walking down the streets, sidewalks, putting my feet in the cracks saying, I don't want to go back.

I don't want to go back. Had all the sin I can hack jack. I don't want to go back. That's an old song, maybe some of you remember. I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back. I remember I just get teary eyed. Had all the sin I can hack jack. I don't want to go back. That's the old life. And you know what the world says about that new life, don't you? Many unsaved people look at us and say, man, I don't want any part of that boring life. Man, my life is exciting.

Why would I give all of this up? I have freedom. I have fun. I can live the way I want. You Christians live in such a restricted way. Well, let me ask you a question. If you had the choice to live outside of a cage or inside of a cage, where would you choose to live? Outside, right? What if the picture is this instead? Now where do you want to live? Inside the cage, right? Because of the protection. You know the story is told of a young Christian man, 16 17 years old, who is in this Christian cage, tiny, tiny little Christian cage.

His forehead pressed up against the bars looking longingly out at the freedom that everyone is experiencing outside that cage. And man, he says that looks really good. But as he lives a little bit longer, he starts to realize that these people swimming out in the freedom are being torn to peace limb by limb by sharks. He notices for the first time that this one guy's arm is ripped off, his one leg is ripped off, and he is laughing hysterically. And you say, listen guy, don't you don't you see you're being torn to pieces? Oh, you stupid Christian, look at you.

You live in a cage. He says, look at me. I'm free. You say, man, you're being torn to pieces. Ah, you you you live in a cage. I'm free. I love living this way. And you know folks, this is a problem a 16 year old has. He hasn't observed through those bars long enough. In your 30, you know what goes on out there. You turn guys, you know what goes on out there? You know what goes on out there? We all know what goes on out there. And then something really interesting happens. As that person takes that gulp and says, wow, I never saw that before.

And he starts to kind of take his forehead back from the bars and starts to settle back in and he starts to think, you know this cage is is kind of a safe place. An amazing thing happens and some of you have experienced this. All of a sudden that cage gets larger and larger and larger. And all of the things that you longed for and thought were outside the cage you start to discover actually inside the cage and the God put in there. And if you just would have turned around and been content in that cage, you would have discovered that he really did give you, would give you the desires of your heart and they're all within the confines of that protected space.

So when your friends say, your life is boring, I live in freedom, you can say to yourself, that's a freedom I do not want to enjoy. The Bible says we are free within the limits of God's law. That's where true freedom is. Bondage comes outside of those laws. Again, verse 13. You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away, then God made you alive with Christ for he forgave all our sins. How did God do this? Verse 13 says, he made you alive with Christ. There are three different Greek words for with that Paul could have used here.

Made you alive with Christ. The first is para. It means with, near, besides. The word meta means with, amid, among. But instead, Paul uses the Greek word soon, which denotes union with or together, but much closer than para or meta. It denotes companionship, resemblance of possession of completeness to be on one side to assist. So it says here that he made you in union with Christ, together with Christ. He made you a companion with Christ. He made you resemble Christ. He made you a possession of Christ. He made you complete in Christ. And on top of that, verse 13, it says, he forgave all our sins.

He forgave all your sins. Now in Greek, interestingly, there are 17 different Greek words for the word all. Pas is a word that Paul uses here over the 16 others. Pas it means each, all, the whole, every kind of, any, every, always, thoroughly, whatsoever. Of all of the other 16 words here are the three words that get closest to this this thought. The first is hapas. It means absolutely all, everyone, all things. Katholon means the whole, the entirety, and holos means the whole. But when Paul chooses his word for all, forgives all your sins, he chooses the most radical, most all inclusive word that he could find.

So how does this apply to me? How does this make a difference in my understanding of my salvation? Well, let's put it in context using pas in the definition. He forgave all our sin. Let's personalize it. He forgave all your sin. He forgave pas your sin. He forgave each sin. He forgave all of your sin. He forgave the whole of your sin. He forgave every kind of your sin. He forgave any sin of yours. He forgave every sin of yours. He always forgave your sin. He forgave your sin thoroughly. Whatsoever sin you commit, he forgives.

How does that sound to you? Paul uses the most extreme word to convey the most extreme, radical aspect of the salvation that he has granted you, that he forgave all your sin, past, present, and future eternally. You say, but that's not fair. It is not fair that he would do that for me. You know it's not fair. Do you want fair? Do you really want fair? Well, do you know what fair is? You dying to pay for your sins and going to hell. That's fair. I don't think we want fair. We want grace. We want justice and justice has been done.

You know I use this example. I accepted Christ when I was 10 years old. I went to a revival service at Midway, the home church, and I felt God calling me and I went forward and I gave my life to Christ. And so this is what happened. When I went forward that Sunday, whenever that was, evening it was an eve it was a revival evening, so probably a weekday evening. I came up to Jesus and I said, Jesus, and he's sitting over there. And I said, Jesus, would you please forgive me my sins and receive me as your son?

And would you please forgive me my sins? And I brought 10 years worth of sin to Jesus and I said, would you please forgive this? Well, that's what I brought, but look at it from Jesus's perspective. Jesus lives outside of the dimension of time. There is no future to God. It's all present tense, all present tense. He saw my future sins as well as he saw my past. So I only could bring what I brought. My first 10 years, maybe five four years of understanding sin. That's what I brought in this book, all my sins.

But when he came to the table, again living outside of time, he brought my sins from when I was 11 years old, 12 years old, 13 years old, 14 years old, 15 years old, a bad year, 16 years old, another bad year. And all of those sins that go up into the sky until until the day that I die, which he already knows. All my sins were on that pile. See, I can't bring more than I know. He can't bring less than he knows. He knew it all. So that was a part of the deal that he took when I got saved.

Now people will say, well, what if there's a sin in there? Now listen closely. What if there's a really big sin in there when I'm 20 25 that he won't take? I didn't know it yet, but there's something coming up that he's going to walk away from me from. Here's why that is not possible. Because the Bible says I can't even come to him unless he draws me. So if there's some deal breaker in here, he'd never call me, would he? Would he play the game to call me and then when I get there say, oh no, no, no, deal's off.

There's something coming up here that I can't know, no. He'd never call me. I could never be interested in coming to him unless he called me and he wouldn't call me unless he was going to take the deal. Do you get that? It is huge. It's huge. Now the timestamp on the analogy that I just gave you or the window of time when that analogy took place was when I was 10 years old. But the real timestamp, listen closely, the real timestamp of your salvation was not the year and day that you accepted Christ. The real timestamp, the real location of where that took place was on a hill called Calvary 2,000 years ago.

That's the timestamp. That's when it happened long before you prayed to receive Christ. Listen to this paraphrase of John Gill's commentary on Colossians 2:13, having forgiven all your trespasses. He says this was a past act, you being forgiven over and over, not only at the time of your conversion, but actually occurring at the time of the death of Christ whose blood was shed for the remission of your sins. Atonement was a single act done and completed once and for all time, including all your time, covering the full timeline of your life from the time you can you were converted until the time you die, all your time, all your time on earth.

Because forgiveness of sin is not done piecemeal or at different times, but was done once and at once on the cross and includes sin past, sin present, sin yet to come. And this forgiveness is applied universally to you, reaches to all your sin, including Adam's original sin and your actual sin before and after conversion. Sins of thought, word, and action. And this is God's act and only his, not men, not ministers, not angels. No one can forgive sin but God. And this is the peculiar prerogative of God. And it is owing to his abundant mercy and free grace.

Listen again. It's a single act done and completed once and for all time, including all your time. The timestamp of your salvation occurred 2,000 years ago. Hebrews 10:11 says this. Day after day, every priest stands and performs his religious duties again and again and he offers the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. The old covenant was just a repeating of sacrifices over and over which never was successful in taking away the sins. And Hebrews 10:10, the verse before this says, for God's will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all time.

That continual repeating of the sacrifices that never really took away the sins of man was accomplished once and for all times on the cross. How did Christ do this? Colossians 2:14, the next verse. By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. How did Christ do this? He did it by canceling the record of debt that stands against you, the list of legitimate charges that could be brought against you. And this is so powerful. Let me give you an example. Let's say you decide to start a business and you go to the bank and tell them you have $50,000 in cash down and they give you a $500,000 business loan.

Now over the next two years, the economy tanks, the business fails, and the bank calls in the loan. But you have no money. You spend it all in the business, not a zilch gone. You have a $100,000 equity in your home and the bank sues you to foreclose on your home and all future assets that you might accumulate in future years till they get their $500,000 bleak. But then out of nowhere, a rich uncle stops by and says, hey, come with me. Together you drive down to your bank, you meet with your loan officer, and your uncle takes out a $500,000 cashier's check and hands it to the banker.

Now what just happened here? Your entire debt has been paid. But here's the question that remains. Here's the question that must be settled. Can the bank still come against you? Can they still sue you? No. Why? Because the bank's claim against you has been satisfied. The debt has been paid in full. And it's the same way with our salvation. This is why when Jesus died on the cross, his last words were it is finished. And to tell a stye though, it means which I said before is a commercial term which means the debt has been paid.

I've said this before, but if there was a business, if there would have been rubber stamps in Jesus's day, every business would have had a rubber stamp that said to tell a stye. And people came in and paid a debt, they would have marked that paid in full, paid in full, paid in full. That's what it means. So nearly 2,000 years ago from the cross, Jesus looked at my life and my sin and said, I just fully paid your debt, Tom. But did this include only my debt until I was 10 years old? No, Jesus paid all of my debt.

He says, Tom, I paid all of your debt when you were 10, past, present, future. I paid all of your debt. And to add to that picture, look at what Jesus did with that list of legitimate charges that stood against you. Colossians 2:14. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. You know a good visual picture when you start thinking that you're still guilty, you're unforgiven for some past sin, I just suggest you picture that sin, just that one sin that you're struggling with, that one sin written on a piece of paper with a big spike through it right under Jesus's feet and the blood of Jesus washing right over that, washing that illegible cuz that's the truth.

He nailed that list of charges that stood against you to the cross. Now question, only my sins up until I was 10 years old and then he keeps adding more forgiven sins to that list hanging on the cross day by day as I commit them? No. 2,000 years ago, Jesus who lives outside of the dimension of time 0 saw all your sins in advance and forgave them all. Listen, why would I draw a timeline on my sin when I was 10 and picture God saying, I forgive you this much but no more than this? The rest of the payment Tom will come later year by year as you commit them.

No. He paid it all, my entire debt on the day I asked him for forgiveness, past, present, and future. And because of this, because of this, the writer of Hebrews says this in 10:23, let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. It's a promise. A few verses earlier it says this, because of this, and so dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's most holy place because of the blood of Jesus. And so we learn here that through Christ's death on the cross, verse 14 says, my full sin debt has been paid all past.

My sins have been forgiven. In verse 13, I have been made alive with Christ. And then I have open access to heaven's most holy place. Hebrews tells us right into the throne room of God. And I can walk into that throne room certain, confident in my welcomed presence because there's not a single charge left against me. But there's something else very significant that happened at the cross that day when Jesus cried out to tell a stye.

Guest (Male): And we'll look at that something else next time when our teacher Pastor Tom Keller returns here on Study the Word. We've been in Colossians chapter 2 today. Would you like to give this a second listen? Either go to our website at ccleb.com or visit our YouTube page. Simply subscribe to our channel at Calvary Chapel Lebanon and you can watch our services live or on demand. That includes this series in Colossians. For those interested in a CD copy, call 717 273 5633. Once again, that's 717 273 5633. Study the Word is listener supported. With your help, we're able to reach thousands of people all over the world.

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