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Clip from sermon preached on January 1, 2023. Hear the entire message at: https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/foskey/sermons/1223052543996/
The two most important words in this one long Greek sentence are the words alienated and reconciled because he says you're alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, but he has now reconciled you so that he can present you holy and blameless and above reproach.
So the two ideas that we see being juxtaposed are the idea of alienation and reconciliation.
What does it mean, I had fun with my Sunday school class this morning, I said what does it mean to be alienated and we sort of talked about what alienated means and I said what is an alien and of course our modern context we hear alien we think you know like aliens, but the idea of alienation, the idea of an alien is something that is outside, something that is not, something that does not belong, something that is foreign, right? You were alienated from God, you were separated from him.
Now how are we separated from God? Well we can go back into the Old Testament, what does it say? Your sin does separate you from him.
What was the very first thing that happened in the garden after the sin happened and God gave the judgments against the serpent and against the woman and against the man, what is the very next thing that happens? Exile, the sending out, the alienation from where they were, which was in the very presence of God in the most beautiful place, the most comfortable place, the most perfect place that had ever been created and now they are alien from that place.
The presence of God is no longer their abode because now when you come into the presence of God it's not comforting it's frightening.
Think about Isaiah, Isaiah the most holy man in all of Israel he faces God in Isaiah chapter 6 and what does he do? He recoils in terror, woe is me for I am undone and I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.
I recognize my alienation.