Focal passage: Colossians 2:4-15
Have you ever played the memory game? The game has two cards of each type laid out face down. After flipping one card over, the challenge is to find the matching card. Players will end up flipping cards over and over again to find the match. The hard part is remembering where you’ve seen a match before. The game tests your ability to remember while sharpening your brain’s skills.
In our text, Paul exhorts the Colossian believers to remember. False teachers had come to them with clever arguments that seemed to make sense. This led some astray and caused them to forget the gospel they had heard. Paul reminded them again of the grace of God that sent Jesus to die on their behalf. He reminded them of the work of the gospel and what Jesus accomplished.
We face similar challenges today. We are told that Christianity is just a myth and that we don’t need Jesus to live a good life. Sometimes, these messages make sense to us. We are tempted to believe that maybe forgiveness is something we don’t need. We want to believe that our sins are merely coping mechanisms or trauma responses. The truth is, the reasons behind our actions do not justify them. No matter what circumstances brought about our sinful actions, we will still stand condemned before God because of them. This is why we need the forgiveness that the gospel offers to us through Christ Jesus.
The gospel is powerful and transformative. Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to triumph over all forces of evil – overwhelmingly so as they were all put to shame! Jesus accomplished all this to forgive us from our sins and bring us back to God. This is the gospel! We get to benefit from the powerful work of Jesus by receiving his forgiveness as a gift. Remember?