I want you to take your Bibles with me this morning and go to the book of Colossians again. Colossians 1. We are going to read the first fourteen verses again and focus in this morning on just a few of those verses. Let’s go ahead and read those scriptures:

[!Bible] Colossians 1:1-14 - KJV

1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother,
2. To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
4. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints,
5. For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
6. Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:
7. As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellowservant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ;
8. Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.
9. For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11. Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
12. Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

The two verses I want to focus on this morning are verses 13-14. Let’s read those again:

[!Bible] Colossians 1:13-14 - KJV 13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

Now, I’m going to come back to these verses, and I’m going to go on what seems like a kind of long rabbit trail that won’t seem like it has anything to do with the passage today - but I promise if you hang with me - we’ll come back to this and it will make sense.

I’m sure that you all have been paying some attention to what is happening over in Israel. It’s pretty hard to ignore even though it is on the other side of the world. I want to speak about that for just a minute.

It is a complicated situation. There is about a hundred year history lesson you need to understand to get to the bottom of it and I suggest you spend some time studying it out. One objective source I’ve found is a man named Dr. Benny Morris. He is is an Israeli historian who is pro-Israel but he has also called out and exposed some of Israel’s wrongdoing and been jailed for it. So he’s about as close as you are going to find to an objective source.

The long and short of it is this: the Palestinians are in a terrible situation and Israel has every right to defend it’s existence. Imagine if 30% of the population of the United States was religiously and violently determined to eliminate the United States and was sending rockets and doing terrorist attacks on the rest of us. We’d be right to get tough with those people - well that is the situation Israel has been in for over fifty years now and there is no resolution.

You have this organization, Hamas, a radical Islamic fundamentalist group inside of Israel who wants to see Israel wiped off the map, and now they have attacked Israel during a holiday and committed all kinds of awful atrocities and filmed them for the world to see - killing thousands of people. It’s going to get ugly - and if history is any factor, it may result in Israel taking even more control of it’s land which may end up with them controlling the Temple Mount again - which puts us in book of Revelation territory.

From the outside we look at a group like Hamas and we think “how do people get like that?” How can someone hate other people so much that they’ll send rockets into civilian groups, invade a music festival, kidnap grandmas and behead babies?

Well, the truth is the children in those areas are taught from a very early age to hate Israel. There version of Sesame Street literally has songs about killing Jews. I once heard Enes Canter, who used to be a center in the NBA and who grew up in Turkey (which is much less radical than Palestine) talk about his childhood. In his elementary school, his kindergarten, they had american and Israeli flags by the door and as they walked into class they would teach little kindergarten kids to stomp on the flags and say something about hating america and Israel.

I remember working with a middle eastern man in high school. He was the nicest guy. We would talk for hours every night as we worked together. He seemed like the farthest thing from a violent kind of guy. Until one day I mentioned Israel and it was like a light switch and he got so angry and hateful I was actually scared.

So you have these people who grow up hating Israel. Hamas is about as radical as it gets and Gaza is more or less controlled by Hamas. You have generations of young people growing up in these areas who see it as there life goal, there religious duty to hurt Israel and even preform acts of terrorism.

But that doesn’t mean those people are irredeemable. Not even close. I’m reading a book right now called Son of Hamas. It was written by a man named Mosab Hassan Yousef.

Now, if ever there was a man destined to hate Israel and die fighting against it was Mosab Hassan Yousef. Mosab is the oldest son of Sheik Hassan Yousef, one of the seven original founders of Hamas. He spent most of his childhood with his father in Israeli prisons being tortured and held. As a boy he was shot at by Israeli soldiers many, many times. He grew up as the most devout muslim you can imagine and he idolized his father. Everything about his life carried him into being a radical member of Hamas, his father’s organization.

But today, Mosab Hassan Yousef does not hate Israel. He actually worked for years as an Israeli intelligence asset and helped Israel save many innocent lives. He has converted to Christianity and moved to the United States where he is a member of an evangelical church and where he regularly is a guest on news networks. You may have seen him on TV this week.

That is fascinating to me. How do you go from being a radical from your birth, to totally switching sides like that? Now, let’s read verses 13-14 again:

[!Bible] Colossians 1:13-14 - KJV 13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

Here is what I want to teach you this morning - that this is exactly what Jesus does to all of us who follow Him. When we are saved, our transformation is no less radical in God’s eyes than the transformation of Mosab Hassan Yousef.

Salvation isn’t just saying a prayer and checking a box. When you trust Christ as your Savior Jesus radically changes you.

• You can go from a Saul of Tarsus, rabidly chasing down Christians to persecute you - to a Paul the apostle - rabidly chasing down persecutors to preach to them about Christ.
• You go from part of the darkness to the light of the world.
• You go from part of the rot to the salt of the earth.
• You go from God’s enemies to God’s children.

And it is all because of what Christ has done for you. Now, let’s break down these two verses and talk about the four things Christ does for us as believers. These aren’t the only four things - not even close - but they are the things Paul highlighted here.

I want to use the transformation that Mosab Hassan Yousef went through as an illustration as we talk about this.

The first thing Jesus did for us we see in these verses is:

1. Jesus rescued us from the power of darkness.

Verse 13 says who hath delivered us from the power of darkness. The word “delivered” there means “rescued.” Just like soldiers went behind enemy lines and delivered the prisoners of war - when we trust Christ, we are delivered, we are rescued from the power of darkness.

Think about the powerful forces of darkness in the world. Think about the brainwashing that someone like Yousef or Canter lived through as children.

I think about my own Father in Law. Sitting in a jail cell in Dalton, GA. He had never known anything but the power of darkness. He’d spent a lifetime in hard drugs and heavy metal, running a gang and selling dope. That’s all he knew. But then He met Jesus, and Jesus delivered him from the power of darkness.

Think about someone like the Indians who killed Jim Elliot and Nate Saint and those men. They were cannibals. They were killers. It was all they knew. Do you know that some of those men trusted Christ, and now they have been delivered from the power of darkness.

We think of the obvious examples in the Bible. People like the maniac of Gadara - overtaken by demons, cutting himself, running around naked. Then he met Jesus and he was sitting and clothed and in his right mind - He had been delivered from the power of darkness.

Listen, all those are extreme examples, and the extreme examples make it easier to see - but the Bible teaches that everyone who is outside of Christ is under the control of the power of darkness. You may be sitting in this room today in darkness. Having never trusted Christ.

I was a teenager in a good church and in a Christian school and I can absolutely tell you - even though I was surrounded by the light, I was under the control of the power of darkness - maybe that is you this morning.

If you come to Christ, you’ll be rescued from the power of darkness. It won’t control you anymore. You will no longer be under the bondage of sin and under the bondage of satan. You’ll be delivered.

Another way of saying this same thing is that outside of Christ, you are blind. That’s the power of darkness. Blindness.

[!Bible] 2 Corinthians 4:4 - KJV 4. In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

But when you trust Christ - the glorious gospel shines to you and you can see.

Outside of Christ you are dead in your trespasses and sins - but in Christ you are quickened, you are made alive in Him.

Church, if you are saved you have been delivered. You have been rescued.

But there is a second thing we see in this verse. Not only has Jesus rescued us from the power of darkness…

2. Jesus has changed our citizenship.

Look at verse 13 again:

[!Bible] Colossians 1:13 - KJV 13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

That word “translated” is interesting. I’m told that kings in the ancient world would pick up whole people groups - like the jews in Palestine - and translate them to another country and make them citizens of that country.

The idea here is both picking them up and moving them, and giving them a different citizenship.

Mosab Hussein Yousef and Enes Canter have both been translated from their islamic middle eastern countries and are both now U.S. citizens. Their status has completely changed - and our status completely changes in Christ.

Listen to this from Ephesians 5:8

[!Bible] Ephesians 5:8 - KJV 8. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

I Peter 2:9 tells us…

[!Bible] 1 Peter 2:9 - KJV 9. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

When you trust Christ as your Savior, not only are you rescued but you are changed. Your status changes from darkness to light, from wicked to righteous, from the Devil’s team to the Father’s son.

We are part of a new kingdom now. We have a new citizenship. We have a new King. We have a new allegiance.

We are not refugees - set free from one power and left to roam about without a home and without a people - no we have been translated. We have been transferred. We have a people and a kingdom and a King!

And it’s all because of Christ. It’s all because of what He did on Calvary. So we have been rescued from Darkness by Christ and we have been given citizenship in Christ’s kingdom.

But how? That’s what verse 14 tells us. It says:

[!Bible] Colossians 1:14 - KJV 14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

The third thing we need to see that Jesus did for us is:

3. Jesus bought our freedom.

Redemption is an interesting word. To redeem something means to buy it at a cost.

We’ve all seen the signs and bumper stickers that say “freedom isn’t free.” They are of course talking about the soldiers who give their lives and their health to protect our freedom, but our freedom in Christ wasn’t free.

We belonged to Satan and we had to be redeemed. We had to be bought. Like a slave in the slave market, we couldn’t change masters without our new master buying out our contract - and Christ didn’t buy us out with money, He didn’t buy us with silver and gold, He bought us with His blood.

We have redemption through His blood. On Calvary, Jesus bought our freedom. It wasn’t free - it costs Him his life. It costs Him the wrath of God.

Now, the Bible tells us that Jesus redeemed us from several things with His blood. He bought us out of not just one contract, but several contracts.

We no longer are under the power of Satan, we’ve already covered that. But we have also been redeemed from the curse of the law.

[!Bible] Galatians 3:13 - KJV 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

People think they are good people - but by what standard? You don’t get to make the standard of “good” up - God sets that standard. That standard is the law and if you break the law - you are under the curse.

Church, none of us could even come close to keeping the law. Not even close. I mean, the Ten Commandments are just a summary of the law and we can’t even keep the ten commandments. The first one says we are to have no other God’s before God. I guarantee you broke that one already this morning. We are all under the curse of the law - but Christ redeemed us from that.

But we haven’t just been bought out of our contract with the law and with Satan, we have been bought out of our contract with sin. We have been redeemed from the power of sin.

Listen to Titus 2:14:

[!Bible] Titus 2:14 - KJV 14. Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Romans 6 talks about this. Outside of Christ we were under the power of sin. But through Christ we have a new a boss. We’ve been bought out of our contract with iniquity by the blood of Christ - and we are under a new contract - we are God’s people and we are to be zealous of good works.

So Jesus has rescued us from darkness, He has changed our citizenship, He has bought our freedom.

But there is one more thing we see that Christ did for us in these two short verses. Look at verse 14 again:

[!Bible] Colossians 1:14 - KJV 14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

The last thing I want you to see here is…

4. Jesus secured our forgiveness.

Listen, you need to understand this aspect of our salvation: A righteous judge cannot just forgive sin.

Imagine with me that someone killed a dear member of your family (gruesome I know) and that person stood before the judge and the judge said “Are you sorry?” and he said “I guess” and the judge said “Ok, I forgive you. You are free.”

That would be an outrage. We would want not just for the man to be punished but for the judge to be punished.

I mean, we see this in politics today. When the president’s son commits crimes and get’s off scott free - that is an offense to justice. Justice is supposed to be blind. Justice demands that sin be punished.

And the punishment for our sin is death and the wrath of God in hell. God can’t just wink at us and defer that punishment - to do so would be an offense to justice.

The Bible talks about this. Proverbs 17:15 says:

[!Bible] Proverbs 17:15 - KJV 15. He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.

God cannot just justify the wicked - it goes against His character. Sin must be punished.

And here is the truth of the gospel - our sin was punished. It was punished in Christ. His blood bought us out of the curse of the law and bought us our forgiveness.

As Christ hung on the cross - God punished Him for you. God punished Him for me.

That is why, in Christ we have forgiveness of sins. Listen to this from Romans 3:25-26

[!Bible] Romans 3:25-26 - KJV 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

So church Jesus has rescued us from the power of darkness, He has given us a new citizenship, He has bought us out of our contract to sin, He has bought our forgiveness with God.

It’s all because of Christ and what Christ has done.

Conclusion

Now, as we wrap this up, I want you to imagine something with me. Imagine you were a prisoner and a slave. Working hard all day. No freedom. Used and abused and mistreated.

But then a conqueror came in and defeated your master and set you free. Your chains were broken. You contract eliminated. You were offered full citizenship in a new kingdom of righteousness.

Would you keep on being a slave? Would you reject the generous gift of freedom given to you? Would you go back to darkness, back to slavery?

Friends, Jesus has delivered us - but some of us have never taken advantage of His deliverance and still live in darkness. Some of you need to be saved. You need to trust Christ.

Why not do that today? Why spend another day in darkness and slavery when you have a rescuer?

But church, do you know what is just as foolish as that - some of us have been rescued and translated and redeemed - and we insist on going back to our old master. We insist on living for the devil, living in sin, or putting ourselves under the law. How foolish.

You’ve been rescued - live like it. You’ve been redeemed - live like it.

One more thing: There is a world out there full of people who don’t know that they are in darkness, they don’t know that they are slaves, they don’t know that freedom and forgiveness has already been purchased for them. Someone needs to tell them - will you? Will you do your part?

Let’s stand for prayer as I ask pianist to come forward.

I want you to start playing number 344. My hope is in the Lord.

As he plays through a verse - have you trusted Christ? Have you been translated? Have you been redeemed? Why not trust Christ today and leave the world of darkness. There is nothing for you there.

If God has laid something on your heart - obey Him this morning.

Let’s sing this song together.