Easter Sunday, Doorways to Your Destiny

Colossians chapter 2. If you don't have a Bible, just listen carefully as I read. There is an insert in your notes, a little blue one, that's the teaching for today. Verse 13. And if your babies get a little warm and it gets hot for them, please feel free to stand near the back there where the breeze is a little better and it might be more comfortable for them. All right, here we go. Colossians 2 verse 13. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. You probably expect on an Easter morning like this that the entire message would be about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the bodily resurrection of Jesus. That's the, in my estimation, single most important event in all human history. It's the crux of Christianity. Without it, there's no real reason to believe anything else that Jesus said. Without the resurrection, Jesus is nothing more than another teacher, prophet, or leader who came along and managed to fool some people and do some slick miracles. But with the resurrection, suddenly everything else Jesus taught takes on a whole new authority, doesn't it? Suddenly this person brings to life a perspective that no one else had. He's come back from the dead. This morning, however, I'm not going to do the predictable. I'm not going to talk about the resurrection. In fact, I'm going to give you all a vote of confidence today, and I'm basically going to assume that all of us here this morning accept the resurrection. You've studied the facts, both secular and biblical, and if you will, it's almost an inescapable conclusion that the resurrection was real. I'm just assuming we all buy it. We even heard some evidence of it today, in a testimony. So I'm going to have us look, rather, at what Jesus said prior to the resurrection that we should understand because there's so much reason to believe that it's true. Are you following me there? I want to have us compare what Jesus said with three other sort of life value systems and viewpoints that have to do with eternity and death and your destiny. And I'm going to use everyday language and images to do that. That's what this is all about, so let's begin. First of all, how many of you recognize what this is? Yes, it's a speeding ticket. Now we're all kind of safe in here. Let's be a little vulnerable. No cameras are running. How many of you have gotten one of these? You've gotten a ticket of some kind. How many of you have never gotten a ticket in all your driving career? Oh, look at that. Wait a minute, but how many of you have never gotten one and should have? I mean, you were doing something there, huh? Okay, you just didn't get caught. How many of you are driving on one right now? I mean, this is the real McCoy. I mean, this is a ticket. It has my name on it. No, it doesn't. Actually, it has the Passavant family. There's the Passavant names on here. This person was going 74 in a 55 zone. Wasn't me. I wasn't going that slow. No, that's... I can tell you, it's got our name on it. It wasn't Jonathan and it wasn't me. You draw your own conclusions. We have a few other drivers. They're not here to defend themselves, but it does say on here that this Passavant family member is going to appear on April 12th in a court and defend this charge in front of a judge and the issue is going to be resolved. It's coming. A day of reckoning. How many of you have ever been involved in a lawsuit? I mean, we're just friends. If you're in a business, you've probably been sued at least once, right? I mean, the church even gets it now and then from people. All right. What happens? Someone shows up at your door with some papers and says, you are summoned to appear in a court of law to defend these charges and you know a data set and people are going to show up and the charges... and someone is going to sit there and preside and in the end, on that day, those issues are going to be addressed, right? Don't put your hand up for this one, but some of you have received these in the mail. These are divorce papers. This is what they look like. Notice to Defend and Claim Rights Court of Common Pleas, Allegheny County. If you ever received these, I've been told that it's one of the most painful moments you can have. I mean, you've already gone through the anger and the loneliness and the bitterness and the betrayal and then the papers show up and it tells you right in here that you should take this paper at once to your lawyer and so on and the court will provide one for you and it goes on through and just it's a long complaint and it says on a certain day that you're to appear at a court of law in front of a judge or a magistrate and he'll hear the case and he'll decide on that day how to resolve this dispute. Maybe a few more of you would identify with this one. It's sort of symbolic. It's tax time, isn't it? This is a spreadsheet. I've never heard that wonderful news from the IRS. You've been chosen to come down for an audit and they say, you know, bring your accountant and bring your shoebox of receipts and your prayer cloth, whatever else you need and come and on that day you're gonna stand in front of someone and you're gonna present your case and it's gonna be resolved. Now, I think you're all starting to get the drift of all this. You see it, don't you? The way things operate in our culture, charges are served when a violation occurs, formal charges and they're presented to you and on a certain day you come and appear in front of an authority of some kind and on that day a decision is made rendering some solution to your situation. Now, what most people do not understand is this. Jesus says that in the spiritual realm similar laws exist and that when we commit violations of his moral law, Colossians 2, 13 and 14 we just read, says that there's a record kept of those charges of indebtedness which cite the violations of God's law that we participated in and that charge list is kept with our name on it and Hebrews 9.27 says there'll come a day when we will stand in front of the Supreme Court of the universe, the judge of all mankind and we will give an account for those violations. It's a day of judgment, the Bible says, a day of reckoning. Now, let's push the pause button for just a moment. How many here have told a lie? If you didn't put your hand up right then, you're a liar. So, we have we have a whole lot of liars here, right? I mean, let's just be honest. Remember, no one's taking shots here. How many have ever cheated on a paper? I mean, you were a kid, you looked over on your resume. You ever beef up your resume a little bit? Did you ever? Yeah, good. Now, we're getting some hands going up there. How many own a game? You ever move the goal back a little bit when you're playing your brother, you know? All right, so we got some cheaters out there real quickly, right? Okay, remember that now and your name is over this, right? Okay. Now, just be as honest as you can. How many here have ever just once in a while lost their temper a little bit? I mean, you flared. Oh boy, this corner here is violent. Okay, so we've got some ragers over here and every once in a while, not very often, but a few times, you've done that, huh? Okay, now how about this one? Anyone here ever had any like wayward sexual thoughts? Don't go make any moves, just wink, okay? All right, we've got a few of those, I can see. All right, probably most of us have had some wayward sexual thoughts when we've kind of gotten some inappropriate things going on in our heads and so let's put that up there as well, okay? Anyone here ever said something unkind to a person of another race or a minority group? Never thought anything or said anything unkind or kind of like a discriminatory, hmm? I wonder about that. I think I have, okay? Got a little bit of racism maybe, just kind of latent in there, not in everybody, but some of us have that, huh? I mean, I could go on. I mean, anyone here ever like been working at home and hit your thumb with the hammer and something came out of your mouth and you just... Do I have to put that one down too? Okay, we've had some cursing going on here and we could talk about some other things that all of us have kind of struggled. But you get the idea, don't you? I mean, if I pressed it, I could have a list of all of you and all the things that over your lifetime have accumulated as violations of the law of God. And dear ones, may I remind you that Jesus said in Matthew 12, 36 that we will give account for every careless word that's been uttered. He is far more detailed than I'm even attempting to be. And those certificates are kept with your name and the Bible says there's gonna come a day when you'll stand before a holy God accountable for this list and on that day he's gonna resolve the matter. Now in the Scriptures, Jesus transports us to some scenes where people face that final day of reckoning. And I want us to look at three of these groups that handled that day a little bit inappropriately. They weren't ready for it. They showed up on that judgment day and they didn't have the right answer. And it became their worst nightmare. Their eternal destiny was set never to be changed apart from God. Let's look at these are ways I hear many people that I know in the world dealing with this issue, okay? Number one here, door number one, we have what I want to call the spiritual optimist. Now see the spiritual optimist theme song is, don't worry be happy. I mean he kind of cruises through life, you know, his philosophy is do life for fun, chill back, you know. He says to himself, it seems to me, I mean there's no such thing as these charges and I mean whoever said so, right? I mean there's no day of reckoning. I mean God's gonna hold not me accountable. I mean there's no heaven or hell or if there's a heaven, I mean I might go there but and he goes on and I'm just, you know, life's a beach. It's a party. Party on. Now he never does any deep research on this. He doesn't read 10 or 15 books by people who've really looked into the matter. He just kind of believes it for himself. He sort of intuits it, you know. It's sort of what he's arrived at through his careful thought processes and when you ask him, now wait a minute, where'd you get all this? He says, well it seems to me that's the way it is. No charges, no accountability, no God and if he's there he'll kind of wink at my, you know, my situation and there's never, no way there's any hell. If there's a heaven, I'm sure I'll be included there and where'd he get all this? He just kind of thought it up. That's the way he thinks about it. Remember Leona Helmsley? That's what she said about taxes. Only little people pay taxes. She was the queen, remember that? It was beneath her. Don't worry, be happy was her theme song too and where did she end up? You see, dear one, what the Bible says to the spiritual optimist is this. What you think is so is an inappropriate response to the charges that have been filed against you on the day of reckoning. Jesus says you'll have to give an account for every careless one. It's not just going to disappear because you think that no one's watching and don't think, by the way, don't think you can just sort of finesse your way through it all when you get before the throne. The scripture that I quoted on your text inserted there is, you know, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom. The image there is someone who kind of gets before God and says, oh well, you know, God, my parents had me baptized when I was a baby. Does that count? And God says, no, uh-uh, that's not good enough. This is serious. And so I want to say to all of our spiritual optimists today and young people who have a tendency to sort of breeze through life and those of you who maybe have gone on just sort of drifting through it all, your optimism does not change the reality of your certificates. They're still there. And it doesn't change the reality of your court appearance that's sure to come. And it doesn't change the reality of the fact that God will be your judge on that day. Now, you're welcome to go on in your optimism, but life's not a beach and it's no way to prepare for an eternity. That's door number one. Door number two. On the polar opposite of door number two, yes, here he comes, we have our spiritual overachiever. We have a treadmill here and a hardworking kind of in the middle of life sort of man. Now, he's aware of his certificate, you see. I mean, he knows that these charges are real in his life. I mean, he's been carrying these around and he's looking back at his life and thinking, you know, I haven't always done the things I should do. And he knows that things aren't right and he knows he can't run the treadmill either. How about this? Let's turn it around. See if that works. Uh-huh. Okay. Well, the crew will get this working somewhere or another. Anyhow, there we go. And so what he does, he gets up on the treadmill and he starts through all these efforts to improve his standing before God. You know, I got, I'm gonna become more moral. I'll go to church more. You know, I'll get more involved in Cub Scouts and Little League and I'll recycle my trash and I'll do all these good things. And he gets on this religious treadmill and he does all these good deeds. And you know what? You know what I found? People get on this treadmill and they go faster based on, based on how far down they think they are. They work harder and harder if they think their life's that far of a mess. Now, what the Bible says to our spiritual overachiever is this. Hey, A plus on the old treadmill. I mean, that's fine. If you wanna go ahead and do those good moral deeds, if you wanna go out and visit people in hospitals and serve communion and pass out bulletins, that's fine. I mean, those are good things. But listen, those things do not have the power to erase the certificates of indebtedness. They don't have any bearing on these things. John the Baptist said of Jesus, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the only way these certificates get dealt with. Let me give you an analogy. We've been hearing a lot about whitewater these days, haven't we? Huh? Now, let's just assume something. This is not, I mean, all we can do is just kind of look at the evidence. We don't know what it all is. Nothing's been decided. But let's just pretend here there's no political nuance to this at all. But let's just assume today that Bill and Hillary Clinton are indicted for wrongdoing in whitewater. And they are charged, and they are given papers, and they are told to appear in court on January 15th, 1995. Well, in the meantime, let's just assume that health care reform passes and everyone gets health care. And let's just assume that on those next months between now and then, the crime bill passes and things settle down and violence-wise in the nation. And let's assume the economy just goes crazy and booms and grows. And let's just assume that education bill passes and all this stuff happens. January 15th shows up. They appear in the court of law. The prosecutor comes out with his papers, his charges. This is what they did. Here's the evidence. They're guilty. The defense attorney walks out and says, but your honor, I mean, we have health care now. We have a wonderful economy. I mean, our kids are getting the best education ever. I mean, violence and crime are way down. What's the judge going to say? Well, he's going to say, well, yay for your achievements and all of your administrative effectiveness. But all of those efforts have nothing to do with erasing the charges that are against you. It doesn't matter. Folks, those who are planning to stand before God on that day and say to him, well, you know, I did a lot of things in church, or I was a good this or a good that, or I tried my best. I want you to know God's going to say, but it doesn't have any erasing power for the charges that are against your life. Do you see the dilemma now? We have door number one. We have the optimist who kind of thinks, well, don't worry, be happy. And we have the overachiever here who thinks, well, I got to work hard to improve my standing before God. But neither of them deal with the issue. Behind our third door, though, we have a sharp 90s, what I'm going to call spiritually correct person. Now, this person believes there's a God, and she believes that these charges probably are real because there wouldn't be any justice in the world without them. I mean, face it. She's sharp enough to realize that the world runs by some kind of structure. There must be one in God's part of the world, too. So she accepts that. But she believes that all that counts is that you're sincere in how you approach God and how you would deal with these charges. She believes that all roads lead to God and that you'll find your destiny, whether you're a Christian or a Catholic or a Muslim or Buddhist or any other such thing. All that matters to the spiritually correct person is that you believe something sincerely. Now, interestingly, she hasn't done a lot of careful research either on that, but she has done enough reading to know that she's got some company. I mean, right now she's reading Betty Eadie's wildly popular bestseller, Embraced by the Light. You've seen it on the New York Times bestseller list. It details an after-death experience where this woman, supposedly dead for five hours, returns and says that Jesus told her some secrets. And one of the secrets Jesus told her, and I quote, is, we have no right to criticize any church or religion in any way. They're all very precious and important in Jesus' sight. And so Ms. Spiritually Correct thinks, how wonderful. I thought that's the way it was. And I want you to know, Ms. Spiritually Correct also has the full weight of the tide of our cultural kind of flow behind her, too, doesn't she? I mean, you want to stir up a little get-together or dinner party at your house sometime? You know, when things kind of flatten out a little bit? Just stand up and say, well, you know, I kind of believe that a billion Muslims and 800 million Hindus and 300 million Buddhists and 500 million other assembled religions are all wrong. I mean, you want to get some people kind of just a little bit teed off at you? Try that one sometime. I don't believe there's ever been a time in American history when the old drift has been against believing what we want to call today the narrow gate theology. I mean, the winds, they're a-howling against those who say there is one way. I mean, it sounds so discriminatory, so politically incorrect, doesn't it? So un-American. I mean, whatever crime you commit in America today, don't commit the crime of excluding anyone from your picnic. I mean, that's bad news. Did you know about what happened out of the earthquake site in L.A.? The federal government got out there with their relief checks. Did you read about that? And long lines of people waited to get their relief check. And when illegal aliens got up to the desk and the official said, well, I mean, you're a non-taxpaying, non-citizen, an illegal alien. There's no check for you. Did you read about that? There was big uproars. There was big protests. How could the government be so discriminatory to not give an illegal alien their check? That's the way it was. I mean, you see, in America, all religions have equal rights under the Constitution, as well they should. And the corollary in many people's minds is, live and let live. What's right for you is right for you, and what's right for me is right for you. Don't bother me. Don't be, say, or do anything that's exclusionary. But if you're a disciple of Jesus, you know the rub that comes right at that point, don't you? Because the resurrected Jesus, the one who verified His claims to be true by raising Himself from the dead, He said, He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Me. That's fairly spiritually incorrect. And then we're commanded as disciples to say those same things to people who ask. And folks, I don't know about you, but there have been many times in my brief sojourn with the Lord that I've had that lump in my throat, you know, over lunch with someone. When I go to tell them, you know, that Jesus said, no man comes to the Father but by Me, and I hear them, they look over at me and they say, now let me understand, are you saying what I think you're saying? You're saying that all those millions and millions of people all around the world who believe something else are wrong? How can you say that? I can only say it because He said it, and He was raised from the dead to authenticate it. It's not popular, but it's the truth. Jesus said, I am the door, not I am a door. But He invites everyone here, everyone hearing My voice, everyone whosoever will may come, He invites you, come through My door. So He's not excluding anyone, whosoever will may come, He says. And that leads me to my fourth door, and that's the door of the one that's spiritually alive in the grace of God. And He, you see, has had the wisdom to acknowledge that He has a problem of indebtedness, but He's chosen to take His certificate of indebtedness and apply it to the cross of Christ. And now He bows humbly and says, God, I receive Your sacrifice for my sins. And by the way, just a little pause here, how do we normally, when we have to execute criminals these days, how do we do it? Either injection, isn't it, or gas, or electric chair normally, right? Well, back in the days when Jesus was alive, the first century, I mean, it was a frightening spectacle because criminals were executed by crucifixion. And this was a gruesome thing, and it was so effective that the crime rate was real low, I want you to know that. And above every crucified person, there was a little insignia, a little plaque over the person hanging there, and it would say on that plaque why they were being crucified. Like it would say, for example, above one, for treason against the Roman Empire. And over another, it would say for murder, and it would name the person they murdered. Another one would say for armed robbery, or rape, or whatever the capital crime was. Now listen very carefully. Colossians 2.14 says this, it says that your certificate for your offenses was the plaque on top of Jesus' cross. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us, that stood opposed to us. He took it away, the code, nailing it to the cross. And it's as if you were walking down that street outside of Jerusalem, and you looked up imaginarily, and you see Christ there hanging, and there He is, the Son of God. And you say, He was a good man, that's not fair. And then you look above, and you see the plaque, and it has your sins on it. And you realize what God did. He did what spiritual optimism, and overachieving, and sincerity could never do. He erased our sin debt. He took it upon Himself. He bore the sacrifice that the Father would accept. And then the Bible says, God doesn't just then put it aside and deal with it later. God says it literally reads here, the word canceled is the word erased. He erases it. And I can't do that with this magic marker, but He erases it. So it's no longer there. Over your account, if you're in Christ, there are no charges. They've been dropped, paid for, and for. Do you see what I'm saying today? Do you get this? This is so important. This is the message that Jesus came to proclaim, and demonstrated as being true by His resurrection. And Jesus would stand there and say, don't be fooled by imitation lifestyles. Don't be fooled by optimism, or achievement, or sincerity. It doesn't hack it on that day. The only thing that's acceptable is that I bore your sin. I dealt with it. I paid your debt, because I love you. And we need to come to the cross of Christ today, on this Easter Sunday. And those of us who have the courage admit to God that we need Him, who is called the Savior of the world, to become our Savior. That's what Christianity is all about in a nutshell. And the Lord today is knocking on some of the doors of your hearts this morning. And I want you to notice something about these doors. These three all have handles. But you see, God does not come crashing into our life and say, you've got to do it my way. There's no handle on this door, just a plate. Because the only way that you can become a spiritually alive person by grace, is by you opening the door of your life from the inside. And saying, God, I need what only you can provide. And I open my life to it. Dear one, you may not understand it all. I don't. But you know enough to know today, that these charges are against you. And that a day is coming when you're going to stand before a holy God, and the only acceptable answer isn't going to be, well, you know, I just didn't think it was all real. Or I tried really hard to be a good person. Or I just went, you know, I was sincere about all my beliefs. The only acceptable answer is, Father, I've trusted in your Son. He's my sacrifice. I believe in Him. And you know what's going to happen if you do that? God the Father is going to get up from behind the throne, and He's going to walk out, and He's going to put His arms around you and embrace you, and He's going to say two words. He's going to say, welcome home. Come spend your eternity with me. So if it were tomorrow at high noon, would you be ready? None of us know how long it'll be. We just know the day is coming. And I pray today, if you're ready today, God is here in this place to hear your prayer. The Bible says that all we need to do is to acknowledge what God said is true, what we know about ourself, and ask Him to come into our lives, and He'll deal with it. Some of you have been wrestling with this for a long time. You're ready today to make that decision. You know that what I'm saying has weight in your life. Some of you maybe aren't ready. You're still kind of trying to figure this out, and some of you just don't know what you got hit with today. But you need to deal with it. And I want to say, if you're not ready, be courageous enough to resolve today, to keep pursuing the answer until you know that you know that your debt's been canceled, that your destiny is sure. Would you stand and pray with me, please?