God Has Cancelled Our Debt

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. Our text for this second

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Wednesday in Advent is taken from Paul's epistle to the Colossians 2 .6

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-3 .4 Therefore, as you receive

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Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

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See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

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For in Him the whole fullness of the Deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

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In Him also you were circumcised, with a circumcision made without hands by putting off of the body the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised

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Him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

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God has made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses, by cancelling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands.

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This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities, and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him.

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Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, with regard to a festival or a new moon or a

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Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

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Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and the worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by a sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

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If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used, according to the precepts, human precepts and teachings?

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These indeed have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self -made religion and asceticism, and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

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If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

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Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

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And when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

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In the name of Jesus, hear again the opening stanza from the hymn that we just sang.

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Comfort, comfort ye my people, speak ye peace, thus saith our

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God. Comfort those who sit in darkness, mourning neath their sorrows load.

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Speak ye to Jerusalem of the peace that waits for them. Tell her that her sins

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I cover, and her warfare now is over. That is a good summary of the text that we are about to embark in tonight.

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We're in the book of Colossians chapter two, and it has great words of comfort for us.

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Last week, we considered the part of Colossians that talked about how we have been transferred from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of light.

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And God is the one who has done this for us. And today we're going to hear these amazing words that the record of debt that stood against us and opposed to us because of our sins has been canceled, nailed to the cross.

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This is great comfort, and this is the type of stuff that makes

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Christmas even so much better than you can possibly believe. Because the one thing that we needed more than anything was a savior, and that's who

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God sent. Not only did he send us a savior, he himself is our savior.

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And so we then pick up in Colossians, and it says this, kind of think of this context.

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Therefore, because you have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the sun, as then you have received

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Christ Jesus the Lord. Be walking in him. And you'll notice these phrases in Christ, in him, in, in, in.

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It's all about Jesus. You remember when Jesus said,

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I am the way, the truth and the life. We don't usually think of truth as a person.

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But Jesus says, I am the truth. You think of Pilate's question to Jesus when

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Jesus was on trial. When he said, what is truth? He almost asked the right question.

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It's not what is truth? Who is truth? Jesus is the truth.

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It's not a way in which we think, but this is the way that we need to think. And this is how Paul is writing that we are in Christ.

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He is everything. He is the head. So then as you receive Christ Jesus, the Lord be walking in him.

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This is what it means to walk in freedom. Not walking in Moses, walking in Christ, having been rooted and being built up in him and being established in the faith, just as you were taught and abounding and thanksgiving.

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And if you don't think you have something to be thankful for, wait till you see what's coming next. Now, a little bit of warning here.

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Paul gives us see that y 'all are not being taken captive through philosophy. Notice I said y 'all, right?

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It's a it's a plural you there. We need a plural you. And that doesn't sound like it's redneck.

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I'm just saying we need to talk to the people who do these things. Right. You know, because whenever say y 'all sounds kind of Southern, right?

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We're from Minnesota. Norwegians don't talk this way. They're a little more respectable that.

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But here's what it says. See that y 'all are not being taken captive through the philosophy and the empty deceit according to the tradition of men.

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And according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ, just by way of note here, if you know anything about philosophy,

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I know I've talked about this before, but if you know anything about philosophy, philosophy is a slippery thing.

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Right. You all heard of Plato. Yeah. You all heard of Aristotle. Yeah, I've all heard of her.

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You heard of Rousseau, Locke, Barclay, Hume, Kant. Right.

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How about Foucault, Derrida? Right. You've heard of these guys. Well, these are all philosophers. Well, philosophy is the proverbial generational king of the hill game.

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Plato ascended the philosophical mountain first, and then his student Aristotle came and knocked him off.

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And then the philosophers after Aristotle came and they knocked him off and they were at the king of the hill for a while.

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And so that's kind of the idea. And in the past few hundred years, we've seen the rise of the modernists. We've seen the rise of the logical positivists.

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And then we've seen the rise of the postmoderns. What's coming next? I don't know. But I do know this, that whatever is coming next, the guys, the philosophers now, they're looking at the king of the hill.

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The king of the hill is postmodernism. And they're trying to figure out how to get rid of it. In other words, philosophy is one of these things that you'd be kind of foolish to hit your wagon to.

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Because the school that's in power today falls tomorrow. And this is what the text says, that don't be taken captive through philosophy and empty deceit.

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These are according to the traditions of men. These are not according to Christ. And remember, Christ is the truth.

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What do all these philosophies have in common, whether it's platonic philosophy, Aristotelian logic, whether it's modernism, postmodernism, logical positivism or whatever is coming down the road next.

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Right. What do they all have in common? None of that has anything to do with Christ. And what's true today for the philosophers is anathema tomorrow.

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And so that's that's not the truth. That's something that moves. And it's according to empty deceit traditions of men.

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And yet there's lots of people in the church. Oh, man. You think about what happened in the church during the modernist period.

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What would happen is, is that the modernist philosophies were winning in the day. And everybody was paying attention to them.

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Oh, we've got to listen to the modernists. And so what would happen is, is that there were philosophers who became seminary profs and then the seminary students came in.

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And you know what they learned? They learned modernism and they combined it with Christianity. And when you mix

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Christianity with philosophy, you get nothing. Yeah, it's a mess.

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And then what happened? Well, when the modernists fell out of vogue, then came the emergent church and the postmoderns and they mixed postmodern philosophy and Christianity together.

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And you cease to have Christianity, right? We don't need any of that stuff.

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We just need Christ. He's the truth. And here's why Paul goes on for in Christ is dwelling.

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It doesn't say dwelt, dwelt past tense. Jesus is, if he's dead, moldering in the grave somewhere in Jerusalem, right?

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For in him is dwelling present tense, all the fullness of the deity in bodily form currently right now, right?

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And you are in him, you, you're in him being filled.

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Who is the head of all rule and authority in whom you also check this out?

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Have been circumcised with a circumcision without human hands by the putting off of the body or the sinful flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

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And yes, that includes you women. Yes, it does. This is a spiritual circumcision.

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All of you, anyone here not spiritually circumcised, right?

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Have you been there? Did somebody take water and say,

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I baptize you in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit? Well, if that's what's happened to you, you've been circumcised and here's what it says.

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Having been buried with him in baptism, there it is. You want to know what spiritual circumcision is?

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It's being baptized in whom also we have been raised through faith of the working of God, the one having raised him from the dead.

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So your heart has been circumcised in the waters of your baptism, in the waters of your baptism, you were buried with Christ and God has also raised you with Christ.

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In fact, do any of you still have sitting in a folder somewhere in your house, maybe in a lockbox of your baptismal certificate?

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Marilyn Matheson baptized in 1904. No, I'm kidding.

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No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was 18. No, no, that's a joke.

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But your baptismal certificate, think of it this way. You have a baptismal certificate.

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It says when you were baptized, many of you here, right there, right?

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That is your death certificate. You're already dead.

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You are already dead. Remember the movie Gladiator? Right.

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You met Maximus with that jarring, you know, soldierly speech that he gives and talks about how, you know, if you find yourselves walking amongst grains, then you're already dead.

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You're in Elysium, right? And this is what he says to his troops. Well, he's talking about if you find yourself, you know, in the middle of the battle walking among this beautiful place that you are somehow in Elysium, which is the

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Roman heaven, right? But here's the deal. You are in Christ. Christ has died and risen from the grave.

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You in your baptism were tucked into him, into his death, into his resurrection.

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All of these things God has already done for you. You are already dead. Sin no longer has mastery over you.

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Satan has no longer has mastery over you either. All of these things are true. This isn't figurative speech.

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This is the truth. You have been buried. Your heart has been circumcised. You have been raised. You are in him and he is all he is the truth.

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Indeed, you being dead and trespasses in the uncircumcision of your heart, of your flesh, back when you were before you were

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Christians, he, God made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all of the trespasses.

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Notice it doesn't say some, which I'm pretty darn excited about. This is a good thing because if you think about your life, think about your actions today, think about your thoughts, your words, your deeds, the things you did and the things that you kind of let slip by.

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And then you pull out those 10 commandments and you do a little comparative work.

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Oh, I'm short.

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I came short yesterday too. And the day before and the day before that one all last month, pretty much the whole year.

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Yeah, actually the whole year. And then there was the year before that. It's not looking good for me.

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It's not looking good for you either. Right. But it says this. God has made you alive together with Christ and has forgiven us all every single one of our trespasses.

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And here's what it says. Having wiped out the written document that was standing against us with its decrees, which was opposed to us.

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One of the ways I like to describe this, reiterate this, you all familiar with the end of time, the last day, the day of judgment, the day

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Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. It says the books are opened. And if you've been paying attention to your life, you might know a few things written in that book, the book with your name on it.

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Right now, a little bit of a note here. Sometimes I make attorney jokes, but they're not the people who

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I despise the most in the world. It's accountants. Okay. They're the worst of the bunch numbers.

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It's dark. It's magic. It's black magic. I'm telling you it's evil. Have you ever seen the books that they keep?

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They have ledgers, everything gets recorded. Have you ever had to turn in an expense report to an accountant?

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And then they sit there and go, this isn't balancing. There's fifteen dollars and forty six cents missing.

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Well, write it off. I can't do that. There's no mercy, no grace from these people.

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They're evil. I'm telling you. Right. Well, think of it this way.

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What's being described here? It's from accounting world. There's some kind of a ledger and it says this, that God has wiped out the written document that stood against us with its decrees or its orders or its records, all of those sins that you've committed.

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There's some accountant somewhere in heaven writing all this stuff down. That's why they're evil.

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So when you get to heaven and you're standing before Christ, he opens the book with your name on it.

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There's a whole section put together by accountants and it's not a good spreadsheet.

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It's awful. And here's the thing. They don't miss anything.

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Every single little penny, every single little sin, every nary word, every stray thought, every evil deed, everything you should have done, it gets written down in this thing.

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We're hosed. We are doomed, but the text says this.

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Because of what Christ has done for us, God has wiped out the written record, all of the documents, the, all those pages in the book torn out, no accounting in heaven, right?

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He's written, wiped it out. Indeed. He's taken it out of the middle, having nailed it to the cross.

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And to which I say that is proof. There will never be an accountant in heaven. Yes. Right. I'm very excited about this.

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So all of the ledgers, all of the spreadsheets, all of the documentation of your sin ripped out of the books, dink, dink, dink, nailed to the cross, written in blood, paid in full, boom, we're forgiven.

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We are forgiven. There isn't a single page in your book with any sins recorded that will on the last day be spoken against you.

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Christ has paid the debt in full. That's why he shouted out.

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It is finished. It is finished. This is good news.

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This is something to get excited about, true reconciliation, and he did it all for us.

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He stripped out all of it, nailed it to the cross. And then it says this, having stripped the rulers and authorities, he exposed them in public, having celebrated a triumph over them in him.

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You're thinking, what is that about? Well, think of it this way. Satan is described as the accuser of the brethren.

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At some point, Satan was up there accusing all of God's saints.

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Did you see what that person did? You saw that, didn't you? Oh, see, he got all of that documentation from the accountants and then he becomes a prosecuting attorney.

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See, they work together. But it's the accountants are the ones that are most evil. OK, so Satan's up there doing his thing.

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And and the demonic world is described as well, rulers and authorities up in the heavenlies.

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And so what Christ has basically done by bleeding and dying for every one of your sins, all of the accountants, all the demonic attorneys, they all are now proven to be liars and they're thrown out and they are triumphed over by what

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Christ has done on the cross. The end, get out of my court, he's innocent,

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I've bled and died for him. That's what Jesus says. Wonderful.

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Next verse. Therefore, and whenever you see it, therefore, you always ask, what's it there for?

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Right. Well, it's all of this because you're forgiven. So therefore, don't let anyone judge you regarding eating and drinking.

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Oh, thank you. Or in respect to a feast or a new moon or a

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Sabbath, which were a shadow of the things coming. But the body, the substance belongs to Christ.

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So the idea is this, the Colossian church was actually facing a form of the Judaizing heresy, but it was

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Judaism, the Judaizing heresy kind of mixed with Gnosticism. It's a really messed up system.

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And so what do we know about people who invent their own religions? How many religions are there in the whole world, by the way?

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Think I have one to know, there's really only two. There's two religions in the whole world.

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There's Christianity that says that God has done it all for you in Christ, and then there's every other religion just balled up into one.

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And that's one big religion of the law. Do these things and you will live. Pray towards Mecca five times a day.

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Right. Make your pilgrimage, give your alms, go door to door and tell people about Jehovah.

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Go to the temple and do all those secret ceremonies and learn the secret handshakes and do all these things, or it takes on more subtle forms.

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Well, you, well, you want to be saved? Well, that means don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew and don't go go with girls that do.

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And then you go to heaven. Problem is this. Although some of that actually might have something to do with God's moral law to say that your ticket to heaven is based upon what you do or don't do makes you the one who's responsible for your salvation.

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But what we just read says Christ has done it all for you. There isn't.

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Oh, it's just a mess. How do most people think? Well, I think what's going to happen is when

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I get to heaven, they're going to take all my good works and put them on this side of the scale and all the well, the inadvertent sins that I've committed.

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Don't they like that's how they like to talk, you know, because basically I'm a good person and they'll put them over here.

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And as long as my good stuff outweighs my bad stuff, I'm in. Here's the problem.

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All of your good works. Are tainted with the bad stuff, all of them.

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Scripture is very clear on this, even your best good work has enough sin in it that your good work could send you to hell.

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So we best not trust in this system. It's better to trust with the system that says

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Christ has taken all of your sins, bled and died for him, taken all the stuff that the accountants were working on, ripped it out of the book, nailed it to the cross, canceled the debt.

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Go with that, that one, not this one, right? Yeah. So because of that, because you are free in Christ, don't let anyone judge you with things that you have freedom to decide on.

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Drinking what you eat or don't drink with respect to a new moon, a festival or a Sabbath or even Christmas, any of you ever been lambasted by other

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Christians because you celebrate Christmas? If you haven't, don't push it, it'll happen in its own time.

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There's a big backlash going on right now. All of these are a shadow of the coming things, but the body, the substance belonged to Christ.

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So let no one decide against you while delighting in humility and the worship of angels.

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These are false religionists dwelling upon things that they've seen or visions being puffed up and in vain by the mind of his flesh and not holding to the head from whom the whole body being supplied and held together by joints and ligaments is growing.

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The growth of God, you see, even those people in the church who are chasing after all of this nonsensical doctrine, the end of the day, the bottom line is this.

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They're not holding on to him who is the truth. He who is the head, they're following after other things and they're leaving

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Jesus in the dust. But Jesus is our all and he is all.

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So if you've died with Christ, indeed you have, if you've died with Christ from the elemental things of the world, why is the living in the world?

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Do you submit to these decrees and regulations? Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch.

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These things which are these things are for those that are perishing in use according to the commandments and teachings of humans, which are indeed they have a they have an appearance of wisdom in connection with worship and humility and a harsh treatment of body.

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But all of these rules and regulations don't handle, don't taste, don't touch. They don't have any value in actually restraining the indulgence of the flesh.

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In fact, if all you're hearing is don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. Rather than God says this, you haven't done this, repent, be forgiven, bear fruit in keeping with repentance and see the difference instead of don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.

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If all you're hearing is don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, what's the thing you want to do? The thing that they're telling you not to do.

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I remember very distinctly my mom would tell me, don't, don't eat all the

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Twinkies. Did you eat all the Twinkies?

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Yeah. Why? Because you told me not to.

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Right? That's how the logic works. The thing you're constantly told not to do is the thing you end up wanting to do.

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Don't underestimate the fact you still have sinful flesh. So just simply telling people don't do that has no power whatsoever to actually restrain your sinful flesh.

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True restraint of the sinful flesh comes by preaching God's law correctly. And then preaching the gospel.

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The two go together. Only saying don't, don't, don't, don't, don't is law. It can't save you.

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It can only condemn you. But Christ is the one who disarms and totally takes away all the power of sin by bleeding and dying for it.

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It's the forgiveness of sins that takes away the power of sin. So if then you were raised with Christ and you have been be seeking the things that are above where Christ is.

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Seating at the right hand of God, be thinking the things above, not the things upon the earth.

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In other words, don't get all worried about all the things here. All this is passing away anyway. Right. You're thinking, well, haven't you seen the news?

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Politics is really a mess in the United States. When has it not been right? This republic has been on the brink of disaster and shipwreck so many times.

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It's not even funny. Remember that thing called the Civil War? Somehow the republic made it through that. Right. So don't get all stressed out about these things.

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Pray for good government, pray for good leaders and then get about serving your neighbor and your vocation and be thinking about the things that are above, not the things on the earth.

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And here's the reason why. Because you've died. You're dead. You are already dead and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.

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You're tucked into the ark of Christ. And when Christ appears, your life.

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Then you will also appear with him in glory. What amazing promises we have, what an amazing

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Jesus we have, who's overcome the evil of accountants and attorneys.

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And all of their dark arts and magical systems of keeping score and all that kind of stuff, disarmed it, setting us free, canceled the debt and we are in him.

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And on that day when he appears in glory to judge the living and the dead, you will appear with him.

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And you will be in him in glory forever, world without end. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly and thank you, thank you, thank you for forgiving somebody even as wicked as me in the name of Jesus.

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Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue, Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. And again, that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue, Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. We thank you for your support.

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