“Take It Or Leave It”
(Colossians 2:13-14)
1. Introduction.
A. (Illust.) The class of Bible students was approaching the
end of a term and starting to dread the final exam in this
course on evangelism. When exam day arrived, the
instructions from the professor were very clear, and
precise: read the examination all the way through before
starting to answer questions. In fact, these instructions
were even written on the top page of the exam papers.
What became clear to many of the students, as
they read through the test, was that they had not studied
enough. The more they read, the worse it became. In fact,
audible groans could be heard in the otherwise –quiet
lecture hall. When the last page came, students were ready
to just give up, turn in a blank answer booklet, and leave.
But, on that last page, after the final question,
there was this note: “You have a choice. You can either
complete the exam as given or sign your name at the
bottom of this page and, in so doing, receive an ‘A’ on the
test.”
The class sat stunned. Was the professor serious?
Did he really mean what it said? An ‘A’ for just signing
the exam papers? One-by-one, the students turned in the
test papers and filed out of the lecture hall. There was that
urge, later, to go back and check with the teacher one more
time. Is this really true? Was he serious?
The professor often shared the reactions he’d get
to this exam and its instructions. Of course, some students
didn’t follow the instructions and, started taking the test
before reading all the pages. They probably felt there was
no time to waste, and, often, struggled through the whole
test before reading the note on that last page. Their anxiety
caused them unnecessary worry and effort. Others had
become angry after reading the first pages, seen how
difficult the test was, and turned in a blank booklet, never
realizing what they could have had. They consequently lost
out totally.
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One student topped them all. He had read the
entire test, including the note at the end, but took the exam
anyway. He told the professor he did not want any gifts; he
wanted to earn his grade. He did – a C+. That was good,
considering how hard the test was, but he could have had
an A, without any effort on his part.
B. Why tell this story? Because it illustrates different peoples’
reaction to God’s answer for sin.
1. Some people are like the first group, who took the
whole test because they didn’t follow directions.
They spend their lives trying to earn what, they later
discover, was offered to them freely all the time.
They live in doubt, wondering if God hears their
pleas for forgiveness, or if they’ve pushed Him too
far. They hope God has forgiven them, they like to
think He has. They do all they know to do to be
forgiven. But, you can’t be presumptuous – so they
live with doubt all their lives.
2. Then, there’s the second group. They look at God’s
standards for moral and ethical perfection and give
up. Why even try? I can never be good enough to
please God, I’ve done too much to be forgiven, so
why expect anything? Some even go so far as to
decide there is no God. Instead of living under
constant pressure, and guilt, they just completely
abandon God’s standards. What a shock it will be
to appear before that same God and understand, for
the first time, what was available – if they’d only
asked.
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3. Maybe the largest group is like the ones who took
the test anyway.
a. They are unwilling to simply receive the gift
of forgiveness.
b. They look to their own goodness as a means
for pardon. But, when it comes to
forgiveness, there is no place for relying in
our own ability. Unlike the professor’s test,
for God anything less than 100% is failing.
C. Through Christ, God resolved the problem of sin, and took
down the “wall” it placed between Him and us. Our choice
is to “take it or leave it.” But, forgiveness is offered to us,
not because of our merit, but because of His love
(John 3:16).
II. God’s Economy.
A. The entrance of sin into the world meant that human beings
lost permanent physical life as well as fellowship with the
sinless Creator (Isaiah 59:2: “But your iniquities have
separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden
His face from you, . . . “).
1. Add to this another aspect of sin and its relationship
to death: (Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is
death, . . . “). Sin earned the sinner death. “Wages” are
what we receive because we feel we deserve
them, it’s what we “earn”, and what is due us.
Spiritually, what we deserve it to be separated from
God forever because we sin, we disobey Him.
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2. Sin demanded immediate action on God’s part to
punish the sinner. But, in His mercy, and love, God
chose to withhold judgment and give people another
chance to come to Him and be in fellowship with
Him.
3. The key factor here is time. We are given time to
restore our fellowship with our Creator. That time
is the length of our earthly lives. When our life
ends on earth, there is no more opportunity to
restore relationship, and fellowship, with God
(Hebrews 9:27: “ . . .as it is appointed for men to
die once, but after this the judgment.”).
B. Under the first covenant, God established a temporary
system through which fellowship could be restored and
maintained, and sin could be “covered”, but not forgiven.
But, sin would have to be forgiven before the problem of
sin could be resolved once and for all. This is where
Christ, God’s only Son, enters the picture.
C. To understand what the coming of Christ meant to the
forgiveness of sin, we must, once again, consider the nature
of God.
1. God is righteous – sinless and holy – therefore,
anyone who would have fellowship with Him must
be sinless and holy. God didn’t just arbitrarily
establish such a standard, as we might set up the
rules of a game. If that were so, then He could just
change His standard, and everyone would be
acceptable to Him. (This is really what some
people want to believe). God’s righteousness is His
nature, unchanging and unchangeable.
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2. God’s righteous nature demands that certain things
be true of those who desire fellowship with Him
and desire to someday dwell in His presence for
eternity. But, our sins make us unacceptable for
such fellowship – such eternal life. No one can
claim personal righteousness, or sinlessness
(Romans 3:23: “for all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God.”).
a. We all “fall short” – do not meet God’s
standard for righteousness and acceptability.
b. And, like any lawbreaker, there are
consequences for our guilt – we must pay
for what we have done, or not done, that
makes us unacceptable to God.
c. So, the solution to the problem of sin is to
remove the consequences and restore us to a
condition in which the sin is no longer
counted against us. What is done must be
undone. The sinful must be made sinless.
How can this happen?
D. If a person, under our legal system, is convicted of a
serious crime, a felony, they automatically lose certain
rights. They cannot vote, they are barred from holding any
public office, they cannot carry firearms. The only way for
these rights to be restored is for them to be granted a
pardon, either by a state governor, or by the president in the
case of a federal crime.
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1. Pardons are not conditional upon guilt. In other
words, when someone is given a pardon, that
doesn’t necessarily indicate that they are innocent
of the crime of which they were accused, and
convicted. All it means is that the penalties for the
offense are removed, along with a legal and civil
consequences.
2. A pardon can mean that a guilty person goes free.
And, that’s how the sinful can be made sinless, and
acceptable to God. That’s what Christ did for us.
E. When we sin, we lose our right to enter God’s kingdom, we
lose our citizenship, spiritually. God pardons the guilty, the
sinner through the substitution of His Son.
1. The nature of God requires that those in His
kingdom, in fellowship with Him, be sinless, or
have no sin that has not been paid for.
2. Since God’s nature will not allow Him to overlook
sin, a penalty had to be paid. Our sin created a debt
that had to be paid. We need both pardon and
payment, none of which we are capable of doing
ourselves and, therefore, being acceptable to God.
3. Type of sin, or amount of sin, is not the issue. In
fact, it’s completely irrelevant.
(Illust.) Let’s say that two people love their jobs.
The one was let go for arriving late for work too
many times. The other was discharged for stealing
money from the cash register. We might rank the
second offense as being more serious than the first,
but both cost people their jobs. Fired is fired. Sin
is sin.
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4. If we understand that everyone is in the same
situation when it comes to separation from God, we
can understand that everyone can receive pardon
and payment for sin, no matter who they are or what
they’ve done. Paul says: (Read Romans 5:18-19)
Paul puts everyone into one of two categories:
condemned or justified.
5. The debt of sin is non-negotiable and unpayable.
But, if one man (Adam) had the potential to damage
the entire human race, One Man (the Son of God)
had the potential to make everything right. Christ
could cancel our indebtedness, and pay the penalty
required. (For He [God] made Him [Christ] who
knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become
the righteousness of God in Him [Christ]”).
6. Re-read Colossians 2:13-14.
E. Here’s God’s economy: 1 + 1 = 0. The sin that came from
Adam was cancelled, and paid for, by the sacrifice of
Christ. Here’s our choice: take it or leave it.
III. Conclusion.
A. While on the cross, Christ experienced separation from His
heavenly Father, when He “[became] sin for us.”
(II Corinthians 5:21). The separation was so great, the
experience so horrifying, that Jesus even addressed God
differently. In His time on earth, He’d always referred to
Jehovah as “Father.” Here He cries out “My God. . .”
(e.g. Mark 15:34). Gone was His intimacy with His father;
gone was the assurance of the care and love of His father.
1. Jesus voluntarily put Himself in a position where
He no longer had fellowship with His heavenly
Father. Just as Adam was cast out of the Garden of
Eden, so the Son was cast from His place with the
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Father. It was the only way God could provide for
our forgiveness. He wanted us that much!
2. After becoming sin for our sakes, after suffering the
punishment we deserved, Christ was accepted back
into fellowship with His heavenly Father (READ
Hebrews 10:12-14)
3. Christ was accepted back into fellowship based
upon His own righteousness. He needed no
sacrifice for His sin. He had no debt that needed
paying, because He was sinless. He is God’s
solution for the problem of sin.
B. Through Christ we have forgiveness. Take it or leave it.
We can be forgiven; we can have fellowship with God.
The death of God’s Son made that possible.