Alright, so we now continue our study of Paul's letter to the Colossians this morning. Turn with me please in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 2. I will be looking particularly at verses 13 through 15 this morning. Colossians chapter 2. And when you found your place in God's Holy Word, let's stand together for the reading of that word. First, let us pray for God's illuminating grace. Let's pray. And now, Lord, we pray that you would take this, your word, and by the blessing and the power of the Holy Spirit, make it an effectual means of grace in our lives as believers. We pray particularly, Lord, to overcome any blindness on our part, any resistance in our hearts to your truth. And so, Lord, do nourish us by the word and sanctify us by your holy word this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. The title of today's sermon is The Total Victory of Christ at the Cross. The Total Victory of Christ at the Cross. I'm gonna begin by reading an Old Testament passage from the book of Exodus. Exodus 15, the Song of Moses on the far side of the Red Sea. So this is Exodus 15, three through six. Listen now to the word of God. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army, he is cast into the sea. His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them. They sank to the bottom like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power. Your right hand, O Lord, has dashed the enemy in pieces. And then from the New Testament scriptures, Colossians chapter two, verses 13 through 15, here the apostle Paul says, and you being dead and your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God has made alive together with Christ, having forgiven you all trespasses. having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. So in this morning's sermon text, the Apostle Paul addresses the third of six errors associated with the Colossian heresy. This one concerns the cross and what Jesus Christ accomplished there. And you'll notice at this point that all of the errors of the Colossian heretics revolve around one core error in their thinking and their teaching. It simply stated the false teachers in Colossae didn't think that Jesus Christ in the gospel was enough. They came into the church saying that they believed in him, but whatever it was that they believed about Jesus, it wasn't to their way of thinking Savior enough to be rested in for salvation. And so what was lacking in Jesus as a Savior had to be made up some other way. And that was the real focus of this heretical teaching. The focus was not on Jesus, but on the other thing. that they taught had to be experienced and had to be done to bring about the completion of what Jesus, unfortunately, had left undone. In this way, confidence in Christ was undermined by this heresy, as the Colossian heretics drew Christians into a dependence upon themselves and their greater spiritual knowledge. And so here in chapter two, the Apostle Paul is disarming the trap of the Colossian heresy by demonstrating in various ways that Jesus truly is enough. And those who trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation, as I hope you all do, are truly complete in him. Paul's focus in verses 13 through 15. is upon what Jesus Christ accomplished at the cross. Was the death of the Son of God at Calvary only a partial victory, as the Colossian heresy implied? That's the question. In answer, notice these four things. First, notice the condition in which Jesus Christ found the Colossians. the condition in which he found them. In verse 13, Paul says, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. So the people of Colossae were sinners. As sinners, they had transgressed the law of God. They had become fleshly and filthy. And so we're spiritually speaking, Paul says, dead in their sins. Guilty before God, alienated from God, and condemned to death and eternal damnation by God, should they continue in this state. That's the spiritual condition in which Jesus found the Gentiles when he came into the world Of course, the same can be said of all people in the world, Jew and Gentile alike, but we are all fallen in Adam. Before Jesus Christ enters into our story to save us, we are, understand, vile and condemned lawbreakers, uncircumcised in heart, hostile to God, and so spiritually, and yet really and truly, dead in our sin. Secondly, notice what Jesus Christ had done to save the Colossians from their sins. Speaking up in the middle of verse 13, Paul continues saying, He, that is, Jesus Christ, has made you alive, together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses. having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us and which was contrary to us. So Paul there declares that Jesus Christ had prevailed to spiritually resurrect the Colossians who had believed in him for their salvation, raising them out of this state of death and sin and unto new life in him. And Jesus was able to do this, Paul says, because the Son of God had obtained for them his Father's forgiveness. And not just for some of their trespasses, but, Paul says, what? For all of them. The Father's forgiveness for all their sins. The handwriting of requirements that was against us, which Paul mentions in verse 14, refers to the sentence of divine justice, which would say of these sinners, they are guilty of transgressing God's law, and so they must die for their sins. But Jesus, Paul declares, had wiped that charge away. And with respect to the saints in Colossae, it was no more. The Christians in the city of Colossae had sinned in their lives, it was true, as all people have and do, but they were no longer condemned for their sins, for God in heaven had forgiven them. And Paul's point is that it was Jesus who did that. for the Christians in Colossae as their Saviour, and the thing was now done. And that's what Jesus has done for all of us. He's attained the forgiveness of our sins. Thirdly, notice where Jesus Christ has won the salvation of the Colossians. and of all Christians. Continuing in verse 14, Paul says, and Jesus has taken it, that is, this contrary, condemning decree, out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. To the cross. So it was at Calvary, where Jesus himself was nailed to the cross, that he won the Colossians' forgiveness. As their savior, he himself bore the guilt of their sins on that cross where He bled and there suffered the punishment of all of those sins in their place. And when He had drunk every last drop of God's wrath against their sins and satisfied the demands of divine justice, then the Father was pleased to grant His forgiveness to these sinners for the sake of His Son. And that's how these in Colossae who were formerly dead in sins had obtained new life through faith in Jesus Christ, their Savior. And as God Almighty did for these Gentiles in Colossae, so he does with everyone throughout the world who hears the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and believes in the Son of God and the saving victory of his cross. And then fourthly and finally, notice the enemies that Jesus Christ defeated at the cross. In verse 15, Paul adds that Jesus, having in this way disarmed principalities and powers, then made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it, that is, in the victory of his cross. In Paul's letters, principalities and powers refer to Satan and the powers of the kingdom of darkness by which sinners are spiritually enslaved in their lives, as the Pharaoh in Egypt once enslaved the Israelites and cruelly oppressed them. So by what power then does Satan enslave and oppress sinners who know themselves to be guilty of sin before God? Well, Satan is called, in Revelation 2.10, the accuser of the brethren, in that he holds the legal verdict of the law over a sinner and says in the court of heaven, his soul is mine, for he deserves hell for his sin. And if God is just, then that's what he'll get. And Satan is right about that. But Paul here shows us that Jesus Christ, the Son, having satisfied divine justice on the cross and won God's forgiveness at Calvary, is now leading Satan and all the powers of darkness in a triumphal parade. having stripped the enemy of his claim upon the souls of these Christians whom Christ has redeemed. And you can almost hear the city of God rejoicing as the King comes. So in summary, Paul teaches us here that Jesus Christ is the victor, not his cross is the victory, and that it is a total victory. Jesus having obtained the forgiveness of all our sins there, and so defeated all of our enemies there. The main point then this morning is this, that Jesus Christ, by his death on the cross, has achieved the total victory over our enemies. Jesus Christ, by his death on the cross, has achieved the total victory over our enemies. So as Christians, let's ask this morning, why is the death of Jesus Christ on the cross a total victory over our enemy? As Paul teaches here. I'll offer four reasons which together I think explain what Paul is here concluding. First, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the complete champion. He is in himself the complete champion. Anyone less than the Son of God, having borne a cross for us to Calvary, would have found himself undone by the overwhelming powers arrayed against him there. The justice of Almighty God, the perfect obedience required by the law, the utter foulness of the persons to be redeemed, the cruel torts and tortures of Satan's allies in Jerusalem, and of course, the powerful temptations of the old subtle serpent from the Garden of Eden. Only Jesus possessed in himself the stature of a complete champion, worthy to enter this battle and win. As Paul taught us back in Colossians 2.9, in Jesus Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. So Jesus Christ, the Son, is fully God. and therefore infinite in being, wisdom, power, holiness, et cetera. That's critical to understand how he, and he alone, could win the day at Calvary. But just as critically, Jesus has also, by the incarnation, by the virgin birth, become for our sakes fully man, and was therefore able to die for us, as our representative on the cross, and to sympathize with us ever after, as we heard him say from the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. So this, then, this is our day. A man after God's own heart, who steps out onto the battlefield against a giant greater than Goliath, when lesser men would not dare. To the eye, Jesus of Nazareth, silent, Condemned, bleeding, and bearing his cross to Calvary may seem an unworthy contestant against the unholy giant of the opposing kingdom. But our Savior, saints, is the Lord's anointing, his secret weapon, and a champion unlike any other that the world has ever seen. Secondly, Jesus Christ, though stripped naked, entered this contest fully armed. Though stripped naked, he entered the contest fully armed. We read earlier from the Westminster Confession of Faith that Jesus was, quote, thoroughly furnished or armed to execute the office of a mediator. So bodily he was naked, but spiritually he was armed. And who arms Jesus for this fight? Why, it was the very God whose justice had to be satisfied at the cross who furnished his son with everything that he would need to prevail at the cross, the contest that awaited him at Calvary. The knowledge of his father's will and heavenly desire in the son to please his father above all things. The awesome power, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity with which the father had anointed his son at his baptism. The high authority of the Son of God to speak and act on His Father's behalf as only He could. The unspeakable joy that was set before Jesus the Son in His Father's promises to Him as His Son. And Jesus' great love for those His sheep whom the Father had given to Him. And the counsel was of eternity that none, not one should be lost. These were the five smooth stones in the hand of the Lord's anointed with which he bore his cross to Calvary. standing toe-to-toe with the dragon and all his scales, and sore for his breath, the devil taunting him and breathing accusations against sinners like hellfire, and every one of them is true. These spiritual weapons of Jesus might have seemed insufficient to wrestle God's children from the determined grip of the oppressor, the Pharaoh, in our story. But truly, the Father in his wisdom had armed his son well. not with the bulky, worldly armor of King Saul, but with just enough spiritual weaponry to ascend the hill of Golgotha and win a battle for all Israel to the glory of the living God. Thirdly, Jesus Christ contested every enemy of his people at Calvary, every last one. With so many allied against One in battle. Guerrilla warfare might have seemed a good strategy for Jesus. Pick off a demon here, another one there. But instead, the son of David and son of God boldly summoned a whole army of Gog and Magog to meet him outside the walls of Jerusalem, that he might take them all down together like Goliath with one staggering blow. So first, all of our sins were there. at Calvary, all the blasphemies that we have uttered, all the greed, all the idolatries, all the perverseness, all the lies, all the cruelties of every conceivable kind, both yours and mine and those of countless others, the guilt of each one to be born by Jesus as he was nailed to the cross, a crushing deluge of vile and guilty sin. Secondly, Satan, And the howling powers of darkness were all there too, the whole God-hating spiritual world amassed to mock God's Son and smite Him in the Praetorium, animating the Jewish crowds in Jerusalem as they rioted and cried out before Pontius Pilate, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! All these devils loitered about the cross for hours while Jesus suffered the torture of crucifixion, taunting him and saying with satisfaction, he saved others but he cannot save himself. A very hell to be endured. And thirdly, death itself, which Paul, you know, calls the last of them. was also there at Golgotha, standing over God's beloved son like the grim reaper, pitilessly draining the life out of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross, drop by bloody drop as the man of sorrows was pulled down into the dark finality of the grave, and the father turned his face away. The ultimate experience of darkness and God-forsakenness in death. to engage in battle with all these foes together. At one time, loving his people, trusting in his father's love throughout the terrible ordeal of Calvary was, you understand, to defeat them all. With one stroke, as Jesus well knew. And that's what we see when we see him setting his face to go to Jerusalem. That's why God's Son went to the cross. That's what he went to do, to defeat them, all of them. The sin, the death, and the devil in one thunderous stroke. And fourthly and finally, when Jesus Christ then rose again from the grave, it was evident that he had truly triumphed over them all. When he rose again from the grave, it was evident that he had triumphed over them all. Stand with Mary Magdalene at sunrise on Easter morning and consider what has happened. We who believe in and receive Jesus Christ for our salvation can no longer be condemned for our sins after Calvary. For the Father has accepted the sacrifice of the Son and forgiven all. And the power of that sin once held over us by the love of sin has been eclipsed at Calvary and in our eyes by the glorious revelation of God's love for us all and his son. So he's not just won our forgiveness, in other words, he's won our heart. And all that he did at Calvary. As for death, both Hosea and Paul tell us that its sting is gone. after Calvary, and the victory of the grave no more. For Jesus had not just died on the cross, but willingly got down into the lair of this monster that we so fear, surrendering himself to its power as if to say to death, do your worst. only to come forth again laughing, clothed in our humanity, purified and glorified by the superior strength of his resurrection life. So much for death and its sting. And where does that leave Satan? On Easter Sunday morning, when Jesus has deprived the devil of the power of accusation, in God's court, having answered at Calvary every objection to our salvation. By God's grace, through faith, we are justified in Jesus, and there's nothing Satan can do about that now. And furthermore, as we read in the book of Hebrews, Jesus has also deprived the devil of the fear of death, an instrument by which he once cruelly oppressed us all our lives. One look at Jesus, risen and radiant in our redeemed humanity, and we know that we who are His will live eternally in Him. This, our enemy, thought he had stripped Jesus of everything in the cross, only to discover that it was Jesus who, through the cross, had stripped him of every power that he had to hurt us. And that's why Paul describes Jesus Christ as having disarmed the principalities and powers of the kingdom of darkness, making a mockery, a public spectacle of them in his decisive triumph over them all. And so the question to be asked here is, when we have duly considered the triumph of Jesus Christ over sin, death, and the devil at Calvary, what has he missed? What sin got past him there? What demon escaped his attention and escaped his grasp? What victory remains that death might claim for itself now that the son of God is risen on behalf of his church from the grave? There is nothing, you see, nothing. It is, to quote Jesus, finished. According to the Gospel of John, those are the final words of Jesus Christ on the cross when he breathed his last breath there. It is finished. The decisive battle has already taken place at Calvary. Goliath is fallen and beheaded. And it is our great champion, Christians, who has won. So again, The main point that I'm making today is that Jesus Christ, by his death on the cross, has achieved the total victory over our enemies. I hope you hear that in Colossians 2, 13 through 15. If this is true, as Paul teaches here, then what remains for us to do, as Christians, on this side of the cross? If Jesus has done everything, then what remains for us to do? Anything? I'll mention these three things that I think pay due respect to the total victory of Jesus Christ at the cross. First, it is for us now to celebrate this great victory and worship the victor. to celebrate this great victory and to worship the victor. What should Christian worship be like? Is the question. When we come together on the Lord's day to worship our God, what should it be like? Well, it should be joyful, shouldn't it? It should be joyful, even triumphal. Christians, our worship of God on the Lord's day should be joyful like the joy of Moses and Miriam and the Israelites when they rejoiced before the Lord on the far side of the Red Sea. We may not be able to see the promised land from here, but it is to the promised land that we now go. For we can look back over our shoulder and see that the Lord has dashed the enemy to pieces at Calvary. drowning Pharaoh and his army in that red sea of Christ's blood. I'm reminded here that as the gospel minister who leads the saints in worship, in New Testament, New Covenant worship at Haines Creek Church, I need to come each Lord's Day having taken a good look over my shoulder. not discouraged by sin or fearful of death or under the impression that the devil is somehow winning out there. All such doubts should be resolved in prayer beforehand so that when I enter the pulpit of this church on the Lord's Day to lead you all in worship, it is the victory of Christ of which I am truly convinced and prepared and eager to proclaim. And you all should meet me ready to believe this too. Believing it already by your own preparations in the morning of the Lord's day and ready to rejoice with me where God has brought us now on this side of the cross. I don't think that necessarily means jumping. shouting like Pentecostals, but it does mean joyfully celebrating us Presbyterians who have arrived at their church to celebrate a great victory and to worship a mighty victory. So maybe, just a suggestion, a little more volume with the singing without me having to beg. Come on. For the glory of Jesus Christ. Yes, that I think is something we can and should do. Two more hymns to go in this service. That's my charge. Secondly, it is also for us now to proclaim this great victory to the whole world. To proclaim it. The Bible is very optimistic about world evangelism. It really describes it less like fight, the outcome of which is in doubt, and more like the mad dash of the plunderers, where battle has already been taking place and the enemy been defeated. Revelation 23 teaches us that the Son of God has now so bound Satan that he can no longer deceive the nation. And Jesus tells his disciples in John 4.35 that if we will but look up, we will see that the fields of the earth are white for harvest. The time has come for the Lord of the harvest to gather his scattered people to himself, having won their salvation at the cross, and as the labors go forth to proclaim the victory of Calvary, the kingdom of heaven will come. Isn't that how the Bible talks about it? And that's the spirit of the thing. As though his commission is none other than the great commission of our Lord Jesus Christ, we don't go out of here angry. We don't go out of here looking for an argument as we go forth into the world, nor are we afraid that we will fail in this great errand. on which the Lord now sends us. On the contrary, we're like men coming from the battlefield where the great victory over sin and death and the devil has already been won by our champion excitedly announcing the fall of Goliath at Calvary and the release of debts and the celebration of the Jubilee. The name of this great victor that we proclaim is Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God, And it is our privilege to say on behalf of God that whoever calls upon His name will be saved. This is how the good news is to be proclaimed by us as the Christian people wherever we are sent in this world, and that too is something that we can and should do. And finally today, it is also for us now to live in Christ's total victory over his and our enemies. The Christian life is itself a fight in some sense. The Bible definitely speaks of it that way. Ours is the good fight of faith, Paul would say. And we as Christians, he teaches us in Ephesians 6, are to arm ourselves with the armor of God as we step out on the battlefield to do battle with the evil one every single day. And yet so much of that fight is really believing that the battle has already been won by Jesus Christ at Calvary, isn't it? Believing. that all of our sins are forgiven, that it's true. Believing that death has henceforth lost its sin and can no longer claim the victory over us who are in Christ. Believing that the devil, who right now goes about seeking whom he may devour, is nonetheless truly cast down from heaven, defeated foe, and he knows that his time is short. So you see how the Colossian heretics, by entering the church and undermining confidence in Christ's total victory over all his enemies, instead of helping these Christians to be more spiritually perfect, were really disarming them for the spiritual battle of their lives. So be wary of false teachers like this and their dangerous Christ-denying doctrine. Even if they say that they believe in Jesus, If they don't believe in the total victory of the cross, be wary of them. So if you're struggling today, Christian, to believe in the total victory of Jesus Christ at the cross, remember this, that appearances can be deceiving. When you look in the mirror, you can see that you are a sinner. And if the effects of the curse are setting in, you can also see that you're dying. Slowly, perhaps. But it's unmistakable what's happening to you when you look in the mirror, right? What you cannot see in the mirror is that God has forgiven all your sins for Christ's sake. And yet, he has, hasn't he? Nor can you see that your spiritual resurrection in Christ anticipates your bodily resurrection on the last day. And yet it does. So, in other words, to live now in Christ's total victory, we must, as Paul would urge, walk by faith and not by sight. Read the news, the bad news in the newspaper, but believe the gospel. the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son. When you find yourself imagining all the dreadful things that might happen, look back over your shoulder and see that at Calvary, the Lord's right hand has dashed the enemy to pieces. Let me say for clarity's sake, by living the victory, I don't mean that we should assume the airs of an overblown triumphalism. which I have seen among some Christians before. It's obnoxious. The Bible points out in many ways that we live now in this tension, the already and the not yet. Already, Jesus Christ has achieved the real victory at Calvary, but the full effect of that victory upon us and our world is not realized until Jesus returns at its end. So specifically, our sins are forgiven now, yet they still happen and grieve the Holy Spirit in us and need to be confessed and repented. Death has lost its sting now, truly, yet still retains much of its sadness and calls for sympathy. with those who have buried those that they love. And Satan is, I tell you, defeated now, and has been for 2,000 years, and yet he's not done trying to cause problems, trying to cause us to stumble, and so we have to remain watchful of this enemy and his schemes. Already? Not yet, that's where we are. But what the Bible does declare, And what we believe is that at Calvary, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, truly won the decisive victory over all his and our enemies, disarming them all and leading them all bound and beaten in a glorious triumphal parade. That has happened. As Paul says here, Christians, you were dead in trespasses, it is true, but now the Son of God, your Savior, has made you alive in Himself, having forgiven you all of your sins, and that also is true. The Apostle Paul speaks like that to us as Christians because he wants us to think like that as Christians while we live. For whatever others may think about the state of the world and the church, the proper mindset for the saints, for God's people, where they stand today in Christ on the far shores of the Red Sea, on this side of the finished work of the cross, is a joyful mindset, a triumphant mindset of men who have seen at Calvary that the Lord our God is truly a man of war. Let us pray.