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I Am Redeemed And Forgiven (Colossians 1:14)
Introduction (Colossians 1:14)
I greet all of you in the blessed name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Our text for today's message is taken from Colossians 1:14, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins”.
Once I read a story about a lake, a beautiful lake in a particular city, and there lived a small boy who loved the waters and sailing. So deep was his fascination that he, with the help of his father, spent months building a beautiful boat which he began to sail through the waters.
One day a gust of wind came suddenly and carried the beautiful boat far away into the lake and out of sight. The boy was very sad, and day after day he would walk along the shores looking for his treasure, but always in vain—until one day while he was walking through the town, he saw his boat in a store window.
He approached the shopkeeper and announced his ownership of the boat, only to be told that it was not his because the shopkeeper had paid a local fisherman good money for the boat. If the boy wanted a boat, he would have to pay a price.
The boy was committed to get back the boat. So he set himself to work doing anything and everything he possibly could. Finally, he had the money to purchase back the boat. At last, embracing his precious boat, he cried out with great joy, ‘You are mine twice now. Because I made you and because I bought you’.
I find this story very interesting because somehow it reminds me of how God has created the world and all the human beings living on the face of this earth. But man has sinned against God, and he is eternally separated from his Creator.
According to the glory of His grace, God has chosen the believers to be in Christ even before the foundation of the world. And those whom He has elected, He redeemed. As believers, God says to you and me, ‘You are mine twice now. Because I made you and because I bought you’. The title of our message is ‘I Am Redeemed And Forgiven’.
I. The Price Of Redemption (Colossians 1:14a)
Our first point is the price of redemption. Let us begin with the first part of verse 14, “In whom we have redemption through his blood”. “In whom” is a reference to Jesus Christ.
What is the meaning of redemption? The meaning of redemption comes from several different terms used in the New Testament in relation to salvation.
Sometimes it was used to refer to the legal vindication of a church. Theologically, it means to be justified and declared righteous before God. Or it can mean the cancellation of a debt, or it can mean the legal process of adopting a child. And the Apostle Paul used this to represent the believer's adoption into God's family.
Or it can mean reconciling two disputing parties in court. And this was used in the New Testament to refer to the believers’ reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ.
Or it can also mean to buy or purchase something or someone—like to buy from the marketplace with the intention that the one purchased would never return back again.
This is a particularly blessed thought for the Christians because it has to do with the permanent nature of our redemption.
Redemption can also mean to be delivered or released from captivity. This word was used to refer to paying a ransom in order for a person to be released from bondage, especially from slavery.
During the New Testament times, the Roman Empire had as many as six million slaves. The buying and selling of slaves was a major business. If a person wanted to free a loved one or a friend who was a slave, he will buy the slave for himself and then set the person free.
That is precisely the idea of Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross. He paid the redemptive price to buy for himself fallen mankind and to set them free from their sins.
All these references will help us to better understand the meaning of redemption. Since the fall of man, every human being born into this world is enslaved to sin. No person is spiritually free. No human being is free of sin or free of the consequences of sin. And the ultimate penalty of sin is death.
Ezekiel 18:4 says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die". Not just the physical death, but the spiritual and eternal death.
Jesus himself said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin" (John 8:34). Sin has become man's master. And it demands a price for the release.
Death is the price that has to be paid for man's redemption. You and I cannot redeem ourselves. We have no power to deliver ourselves from the penalty of sin. We need a Saviour to save this.
In the secular world, a person might buy a slave to work in his household. When he is disappointed with the slave's performance or abilities, he can sell the slave to someone else. In ancient times, this must have happened repeatedly. So a slave's position was never really secure.
But that was never the case with our redemption. Jesus purchased us, bought us, and he will never let us go. As we often say, once safe, always safe. Or if I may put it in this way: the redeemed cannot be unredeemed.
Why is it that once saved, always saved? How is it possible? It is because you and I were redeemed through his blood.
Having been purchased at the infinite cost of God's only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no one who can possibly top the price. No one can ever do that. No one can snatch us out of his hand.
Jesus himself said, "No man is able to pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:28).
The price of redemption was through the blood of the unblemished Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. It cost the blood of the Son of God to buy man back from the slave market of sin.
As Hebrews 9:22 says, "Without shedding of blood is no remission".
But not just any blood. It has to be the blood of a perfect man who has committed no sin. No man is perfect, and no man can ever do that.
So Jesus Christ, the third person in the Triune God, had to come into this world, live as a perfect man, kept all the laws of God on our behalfs which you and I cannot keep.
Through his own death and the shedding of his precious blood, he became the substitute for our death. He made the payment of which otherwise we would be condemned to hell forever and ever in the eternal lake of fire.
The blood of the sacrificial animals was continually offered on the altars in the tabernacle and then the temple. But that blood was never able and never intended to cleanse the people from their sins.
Hebrews 10:4 says this, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins".
If that blood was not possible to take away sin, then why did they still do it?
Well, every time the people brought an unblemished lamb into the temple to be killed, sacrifice and blood sprinkled on the altar, it was pointing to the ultimate unblemished Lamb of God who would come.
That was the reason why when John the Baptist saw the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
When Jesus was crucified on the cross, shedding his precious blood, just before he drew his last breath, he said, "It is finished" (John 19:30). The work of salvation was accomplished.
Hebrews 10:10 says, "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all", never to be repeated. Once is enough. This is the price of redemption.
II. The Recipient Of Redemption
Our second point is the recipient of redemption.
The redeemed are the believers. They are the ones redeemed by Christ's blood. God did not redeem us because of any good in us. The Bible says, "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10).
God did not redeem us because he foresaw that we would put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and on that basis he saved us. The Bible says, "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Romans 3:11-12).
The Bible will never contradict itself. Let God be true and every man a liar.
We are totally and utterly depraved. We cannot save ourselves. Our salvation is totally and utterly of God.
Charles Spurgeon once said, "If the garment of salvation needs just one stitch from me, I would be eternally lost."
Charles Spurgeon was known to be the Prince of Preachers. He was a mighty speaker. God used him as an instrument to reach out to many. Yet he said, "If I need to save myself just by one stitch, I will be lost forever."
If you are still not convinced, in Ephesians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul described who we were when God so graciously redeemed us.
‘We were dead in trespasses and sin. Dead men cannot make choices as far as spiritual things are concerned. We were walking according to this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. We were by nature the children of God's wrath’ (Ephesians 2:1-3).
We were without Christ, without hope, and without God in the world. Those were the kinds of people whom God chose to redeem.
God forbids that we ever think of ourselves as good and capable, righteous and holy, and we can save ourselves.
Obviously, it is because we are totally depraved that we need redemption, right? If we think we are good and capable, then we do not need a redeemer. Just like the slave in the marketplace was absolutely incapable of delivering himself, the saviour must come. The saviour alone must do the work of delivering us from the bondage of sin.
Unless a person realises his need for redemption, he will not look to the redeemer. Unless a person recognises that he is totally enslaved to sin, he will not seek for deliverance from it.
But when the sinner knows that he has sinned and there's a price to pay for sin, the wages of sin is death — physical, spiritual, and eternal death. And even if he were to die a million times, he cannot redeem himself. He would look to the only one who can save him, who died on the cross and shed his precious blood, cried out to him for salvation, and he will be free from the curse of sin.
As a child of God in Jesus Christ, he is redeemed and through his redemption, he will receive the forgiveness of sins.
III. The Result Of Redemption (Colossians 1:14b)
This brings us to our third point, the result of redemption. Look at the second part of verse 14, “even the forgiveness of sins”.
Primarily, the result of redemption for the believer is the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness is the central salvation truth taught in both the Old and New Testaments.
Most significantly, at the Lord's supper, when Jesus explained to the disciples, as he shed the cup a moment ago, we also drank of the cup. Jesus said, "This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28).
The original Greek word for “remission” is the same word for forgiveness. Redemption brings forgiveness.
Today, if you commit an offence or a crime and you go to the different schools of psychology or those who believe in the behavioural theory, they will tell you that you cannot be blamed and you should not be blamed. The fault lies in your genes, in your parents, in your friends, in your associations, in your environment, something in the past or something else external.
But the Bible tells us very clearly that every human being is guilty of his own sins.
Any honest man who has some basic understanding of his own heart — "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9) — will know that he is guilty.
When you are guilty of your sins, then what you need is forgiveness.
In the Bible, in the land of Israel, the greatest holy day was the day of atonement. On that day, the high priest will select two unblemished sacrificial goats. One goat was killed, the blood sprinkled on the altar as a sacrifice, signifying the remission or forgiveness of sins.
The high priest would then place his hand on the other goat, symbolically laying the sins of the people on the animal. The goat was then taken away into the wilderness, so far away that it could not find its way back. It symbolises the sins of the people went with the goat and never to return to them again.
That was a beautiful picture. But as meaningful as it was, it did not actually remove the sins of the people. It was but a picture pointing to what only Jesus Christ alone would do on the cross of Calvary. Through his death and the shedding of his precious blood, Jesus took our sins upon himself. And as it were, he carried it away so that they would never return again.
That was the extent of the forgiveness of our sins in Christ Jesus.
Sadly, today there are many Christians who are depressed and constantly tormented by the guilt of their past shortcomings, sins, and wrongdoings — thinking that God still holds them responsible and refuses to let go. God still holds those sins against them.
They have forgotten that in Christ Jesus our sins have been forgiven. As the psalmist said, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12).
Dear friend, men may not forgive you. You may not forgive yourself. But the one who turns to Jesus Christ in repentance and in faith receives his forgiveness. And the one whom he forgives, he will remove his sins.
It is not as if God has lost all sense of memory and he cannot remember. It means he chooses not to take into account. He chooses not to condemn us for our sins.
In John chapter 8, verse 11, the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery and said to Jesus that the law requires such a one to be stoned to death. So what do you do?
Jesus stooped down, and with his fingers he wrote on the ground, as though he did not hear them. And when they persisted in questioning him, he said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7).
When they heard it, they were convicted and went away — from the elders to the last.
The late Reverend Timito used to say that the reason why from the oldest to the youngest is because the oldest realises that he has committed and accumulated a whole lot of sins throughout his entire life. So, beginning with the oldest, they walk away to the youngest.
Then Jesus turned to the woman and asked, "Where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?" She said, "No man, Lord." And Jesus said unto her, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more" (John 8:10-11).
The one whom Jesus forgives, he will not condemn.
Romans 8:1 tells us, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus".
In Jesus Christ, all our sins — past, present, and future — are forgiven. That does not mean we will not sin. We are not perfect. As long as we live in this mortal body, we will still be molested by sin. And because we continue to sin, we still need the continued forgiveness of cleansing. But we do not need the continued forgiveness of redemption.
We are redeemed once and for all. We are justified. But every day of our lives, we still need to be sanctified.
That is why 1 John 1:9 tells us, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness".
Again, that does not mean that our sins do not have a harmful effect on us. It has a profound effect on us — so much so that it will affect our peace, joy, love, emotions, usefulness, and ability to have an intimate relationship with God.
That is why the believer is called to ask for forgiveness daily so that he may enjoy fellowship with God and be useful in the services of the Lord.
The Christian who receives God's forgiveness of sin will not persist in habitual sins.
In a southern state of America, a man was condemned for having murdered another man. The brother of the condemned murderer was a genuine and sincere man. He had helped the United States of America in so many ways, saved many lives, and he pleaded with the authorities to spare his condemned brother.
Though the case was one of clear murder, they agreed to pardon the condemned murderer. Then, happily, the man went with the pardon in his hand.
He did not tell his brother immediately, but he simply asked him, "If you are forgiven, suppose you are pardoned now and you were to go out free, what would you do?"
With a gleam of malice and hatred in his eyes, the murderer said, "I would find the witnesses and I will kill them, and I will kill the judge, and I will kill the lawyer as well."
With that, the brother said nothing about the pardon, and leaving the visiting room, he tore it to pieces and destroyed it.
All of us would agree that he did the right thing.
A man who is forgiven, who is spared from the eternal lake of fire and still rebelliously persists in sin, is not only ungrateful, it is impossible. God will forgive you of the terrible sins you have committed. God will forgive you not based on any merits of your own. But if you rebelliously persist and cling onto your sins, God knows he will not pardon you.
Repentance does not mean a man quits sinning. It simply means he is willing to quit if the power is given to him to do it. And a truly born-again believer has the indwelling Holy Spirit, and through the empowerment of the Spirit, he is able to overcome the lust of the flesh.
Galatians 5:16 says, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh". Dear friend, are you willing to quit sinning? You may not have been able to stop it in the past, but now the power is given to you by which you will be able to stop it. Are you willing to do it? If you are and you stop and turn around and look to the cross where Jesus had died for you, that is repentance.
The Christian who receives God's forgiveness of sin will walk in the truth of his word. God not only forgives us, but he also gives to us the necessary ability to know him, to know him intimately, to live our days on this earth in a way that will reflect his will and in a way that will please him.
He gives to us his word, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit helps us to understand it, and to obey it. These are the two important things that must be present in every believer's life: the word of God and the Spirit of God.
"If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Romans 8:9). The work of transforming our lives is the work of the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity. But the Holy Spirit will not work independently without the word of God. A person who obeys the word of God and submits himself to the wonder-working of the Spirit, he will not live in sin, but rather he will live in the light of God's truth.
We must never think that reading the Bible alone changes a man. The Holy Spirit must personally show us the realities of God as we ponder the scriptures. This divine work is called illumination, opening up our spiritual eyes which otherwise we will not be able to see and understand. And no one who is illumined by the Holy Spirit will ever remain the same.
Allow me to quote two instances in the Bible. In Matthew 16:13–17, Jesus asked his disciples, "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" They replied that some thought he was John the Baptist, others thought he was one of the prophets, perhaps Elijah or Jeremiah. Then Jesus asked them, "Personally, but whom say ye that I am?" Peter answered with a powerful statement: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:13-16)
And Jesus said to Peter, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 16:17). In other words, Jesus was saying, "Peter, you have experienced something which is not common to all men. You have not learned what you have learned by natural means or by some intellectual understanding. My Father himself showed you this truth. He opened your eyes and you were illuminated."
Do you remember the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24? There were two disciples travelling with the resurrected Jesus Christ on the road to Emmaus. But they did not recognise him. The disciples could not understand the significance of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. While Jesus was walking alongside them, he taught them, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expounding unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
And after he left them, they said to one another, "Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32). That burning in the heart was the work of opening up their spiritual eyes, illumining their minds that they would be able to see and understand.
Whenever we read the Bible, we must not read it like an ordinary book. This is not an ordinary book. This is the word of God. We must not read the Bible based on our own intellectual understanding, but we must pray and rely on the Holy Spirit to illumine our minds and hearts so that we may understand spiritual things and not just be hearers only but be doers as well, putting into application whatever we have learned.
Dear friend, the doctrine of redemption is a blessed doctrine. Once we are redeemed, once we are saved, we are saved forever. But having learned this blessed doctrine, does it have any impact in your life? Does it cause you to love God even more? Does it cause you to be more worshipful or prayerful? Does it cause you to use all your resources, spiritual gifts, and talents to glorify him? Does it cause you to serve the one who died for you and shed his precious blood to redeem you and forgive all your sins?
Now, this is the question every individual believer would have to answer for himself or herself. What is the purpose of understanding this great doctrine if yet it does not affect us at all? May the Lord have mercy.
Some years ago, I knew of someone who had some trouble with the law in Singapore. This person could be sentenced for many years in prison. The lawyer said to him, "I would try to plead for leniency and perhaps ask the judge to require you to perform 100 hours of community work instead of a prison sentence."
This person said to the lawyer, "Not just 100 hours of community work. I will most gladly do it for life." What about us? Will we be able to say that Jesus died for us, shed his precious blood to redeem us, and we receive the forgiveness of our sins? We are saved forever.
We should say, "I am most willing to serve you, not just for a few days or weeks or years, but for the rest of my life. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).
If we truly understand the blessedness of redemption and forgiveness, we would be able to say that — not just by paying lip service, but truly live it out in our lives. May the Lord continue to teach us.
Closing Prayer
Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, indeed, as we consider this verse in Colossians 1:14, "In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins", we are reminded of the price of redemption. It is a high cost. It is an impossible cost that we cannot pay for, which our Lord Jesus came and paid for on the cross of Calvary. And through his blood, we are redeemed. Forever we are saved. We are the recipients of his redemption by Thy grace and mercy. Thou hast chosen us, elected us even before the foundation of the world, that we may come to faith in Jesus Christ.
And so today, as believers, we understand that we are recipients of Thy redemption, and we know that the result of redemption is the forgiveness of sins. All our sins — past, present, and future — are forgiven.
But we do not live our lives any way we want because we know that our lives have been redeemed by Christ's blood, and we have to live our lives for his glory. We are willing. How can we not be willing? We are willing not just for a few days, weeks, months, or years, but for the rest of our lives. We want to live for Thy glory. We want to live to worship and serve our Lord Jesus. We want to share him with those who are outside Thy kingdom. We want to be used as Thy instruments wherever Thou would send us.
So here we are. Use us as Thy instruments to the glory of Thy precious name. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.