Restoration: What Is The Gospel? – Part 5

“You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us. He has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. Having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”

—Colossians 2:13–15, WEB

Well, I hope that everybody had a great Fourth of July.

I know a lot of us went on trips.

A lot of us used this past week as vacation week.

Went out to the lake or the mountains.

Went somewhere that wasn’t in a drought where you could shoot off fireworks without having to worry about setting your entire neighborhood on fire, right?

Guinness has this problem where he’s terrified of fireworks—which makes sense because he’s a dog, so he doesn’t understand the concept of fireworks, so every time he hears the firework explosion noises somewhere nearby, I guess he thinks we’re getting nuked or something like that.

He’s like, “Kim Jong Un finally hit the red button, this is the end”—because Guinness understands geopolitics even though he doesn’t understand fireworks, naturally.

But so last time there were fireworks—this was on New Year’s Eve, about six months ago—I was in the middle of a Zoom meeting with this family who was going through a personal tragedy, and I was counseling them through the death of a family member.

And I heard the fireworks noises coming from outside the house, but I didn’t really think anything of it.

I was in the guest room/game room where we put all the kids whenever we have friends over.

And I can hear this ruckus outside in the main room of our house, but I was on that Zoom meeting and I didn’t want to walk away to go check it out, so I figured I would just go see when the meeting was over.

And so about 30 minutes later when I wrapped things up with that family, I turned off the zoom camera, and I went into the kitchen/living room.

And Guinness was standing there, and the entire floor was just covered in pee.

I was looking at what seemed like five gallons of pee.

Like, Guinness is an 84 pound dog and it looked like he had peed out his entire body weight on our floor, because he was so rattled by the fireworks.

And I was like, “Happy New Year…”

All of that is to say: I hope that none of your dogs went berserk during the July 4th Fireworks this past week.

God Saves Sinners

But we are continuing on in our “What is the Gospel?” series this morning.

This is now our fifth week in our “What is the Gospel?” series, and over these five weeks, again and again we’ve come back to this central truth that the heart of the Gospel is that “God saves sinners.”

At its absolute core, the Gospel message is that God saves sinners.

Over these past five weeks, we’ve talked about the way that in the beginning a good God created a good world filled with good things for His good purpose.

That’s where everything came from.

Our world didn’t begin broken.

Our world didn’t begin sinful.

Our world hasn’t always been messed up.

No. In the beginning, God made it good—and he made us good.

And all of human existence was about experiencing and enjoying the goodness of God in the goodness of this good world.

But something terrible happened.

Because the day came when humanity rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden.

We took the fruit that he told us was off limits to us.

And that act of rebellion broke the world.

That act of rebellion distorted God’s good design and purpose for this world.

It brought sin into the world.

It twisted the goodness of this world and created the broken and violent and unjust world that we see around us today that is filled with suffering and evil and difficulty and loss and grief.

When humanity rebelled against God in the Garden, it broke the world and it plunged us into condemnation.

It brought God’s righteous wrath onto us.

Because human sin is cosmic rebellion.

Human sin is cosmic mutiny.

Human sin is an act of war against the good God who created this good world.

And the result is that, on our own, in ourselves, apart from the gospel, we are condemned.

God created us to live with Him forever, but because of our sin we are condemned to hell.

This is called the Fall.

How Can Everything Be Put Right Again?

But over these past five weeks in our “What is the Gospel?” series, what we’ve learned is that God did not leave us in our condemnation.

God did not leave us under His wrath.

God did not abandon us in our rebellion.

To wander our way into the gates of hell.

No. The gospel is the story of how this good God gave everything to save us.

The gospel is the story of how this good God gave himself to rescue and redeem us.

This good God came down from heaven and went to the cross in our place to take away our condemnation so that we could be forgiven fully and freely and forever.

So the gospel is God’s answer to the question “How can everything be put right again?”

Last week we started answering the question, “How can everything be put right again?”

And so, one week ago we answered the first half of that question.

Because we looked at the way that through the cross we are redeemed.

Through the cross we are justified.

Remember that?

Because of the cross, God no longer holds us as guilty.

Because of the cross, God no longer treats us like sinners.

On the cross our sin was put on Jesus, and His righteousness was put on us.

Jesus was punished for our sin, and now we are rewarded for his obedience.

God treats us like we are perfect the way that Jesus was perfect.

It’s “just as if we’d never sinned.”

We are justified through the cross.

And at the same time, we are reconciled through the cross.

Because our sin has been wiped away, now the wall that stood between us and God is gone.

It’s been knocked over.

Before the cross, we couldn’t be God’s friends.

We couldn’t be God’s children.

We couldn’t be God’s people.

Because we were enemy soldiers.

We were rebels against the good King.

But now our sin has been taken away and our penalty has been paid in Jesus Christ, and so there is nothing that stands between us and God anymore.

We are reconciled to Him, and He gives us His open arms fellowship.

He treats us like his closest friends, his beloved children, his treasured people.

We are reconciled to God through the cross.

There is no more condemnation for us, because Jesus took our place on the cross.

That is the first half of the answer to that question, “How can everything be put right again?”

But it’s only half the answer.

Because we may no longer be under condemnation, but the world is still broken.

And so we still have a problem.

We may be forgiven, but the world is still fallen.

The world is still shattered, the world is still distorted, the world is still twisted.

And so forgiving and redeeming and adopting us is just one piece of the puzzle.

Today we want to talk about the rest of the puzzle.

Because in very much the same way, the gospel is the story of how God undoes the brokenness of the world through the cross.

The gospel is the story of the way that God heals the brokenness of the world through the gross.

The gospel is the story of the way that God restores and fixes our broken world through the cross.

And so, here’s the way that we want to put it—just to make it easy to remember and explain—this morning:

Through the cross, Jesus redeems us and restores the world.

You might not know exactly what that sentence means right now, but by the end of this sermon, you will.

And so, real quick, say this with me, because I want to really get this rattling around in our heads as we get started. Are you ready?

Through the cross, Jesus redeems us and restores the world.

Let’s say that one more time:

Through the cross, Jesus redeems us and restores the world.

Jesus Disarmed the Powers and Authorities

But to understand what we mean when we say that, we have to look at an often ignored passage of scripture.

I’ve heard hundreds of sermons meant to explain the gospel in simple terms, but I’ve never once heard a sermon on this passage.

This is from Paul’s letter to the Colossians.

Listen to what Paul says here very carefully.

He says:

“You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us. He has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. Having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”

—Colossians 2:13–15, WEB

Listen to that.

Now, Paul starts this verse off talking about redemption.

That’s what we covered last week.

He starts by talking about how Jesus redeemed us through the cross.

But then he shifts gears.

Did you notice that?

The first half of this verse is about how Jesus redeemed us.

But the second half of this is about how Jesus restores the world.

But to understand why that is, we have to understand a couple of background issues.

Specifically we have to understand this term Paul uses.

He says “the powers and authorities.”

He says “Jesus disarmed the powers and authorities.”

Jesus “triumphed over the powers and authorities.”

He “publicly humiliated the powers and authorities.”

How?

By the cross.

But to understand what that means, you have to understand that “powers and authorities” is an ancient Near Eastern term that they used to describe the spiritual forces of darkness.

When they talked about the powers and authorities, they were talking about the spiritual forces of chaos.

When they talked about the powers and authorities, they were talking about the spiritual forces of brokenness that have run rampant in our world since the Fall.

Paul says that through the cross, Jesus triumphed over these spiritual forces of darkness.

He says through the cross, Jesus disarmed and defeated the spiritual forces of chaos.

Through the cross, Jesus dethroned and curb stomped the spiritual forces of brokenness and put them on the executioner’s block.

The Cross Looks Like Defeat

And so there’s this irony about the cross: Paul says that from the outside the cross looks like a defeat, right?

If you get crucified, that usually means you lose.

Doesn’t it?

Looking at the cross from the outside, it looks like Jesus has been defeated.

It looks like Jesus has been beaten by the devil.

It looks like the forces of darkness fought Jesus and won, because he ended up on a cross dying the worst death imaginable.

But in reality, the cross is completely the opposite.

No. On the cross, Jesus is defeating Satan.

On the cross Jesus is overcoming the forces of darkness.

On the cross Jesus triumphs by giving himself.

Jesus claims victory by sacrificing himself.

That’s why in the book of Revelation, there’s this really remarkable image where John says that he heard the sound of this great warrior, defeating all of the armies of darkness, and so he turned to look, but instead of a great warrior or lion he saw this tiny, insignificant, lamb that was covered in blood from having been slain.

The great warrior is the lamb, and he defeats the darkness by sacrificing himself.

Paul says that Jesus overcame and triumphed over and disarmed and humiliated and defeated and crushed the darkness of the world and the brokenness of the world and the wickedness of the world—not through some great act of war, but by coming down to earth and going to the cross in our place.

The Victory Has Already Been Won

And the result is that now the victory is won, we just don’t realize it yet.

Battles may keep raging on, but the war is as good as over and so day is coming when the Lord will restore our fallen world.

When he will make everything right again.

He will do away with the darkness.

He will un-break the world.

Even if we still struggle in the day to day life we live here in the meantime, the fate of the world has been sealed through the cross.

Satan cannot win now.

Evil cannot win now.

The forces of darkness may have a lot of territory today, but they’re not going to have a lot of territory tomorrow, because Jesus purchased tomorrow on the cross.

The restoration of the world is inevitable now because of the cross.

And that is the point of the book of Revelation.

I promise I’m going to preach through Revelation eventually.

We’re gonna get to it.

But the book of Revelation is about the way that all of the scary and difficult and horrifying and painful things that our fallen world and our enemy the devil throw at us in this world are ultimately futile and cannot succeed in the end because Jesus has already won the war on the cross.

An Eternal Age of Righteousness Is Coming

And because that is true, a day is coming when this temporary age of brokenness and sin is going to dissolve and an eternal age of perfect righteousness, perfect goodness, perfect justice, perfect peace, perfect harmony, perfect joy is coming through the renewing and refining and restoring work of Jesus.

A day is coming when everything will be made right.

When everything that is broken will be put back together.

Everything that’s warped will be put back into shape.

Everything that’s distorted will be made beautiful again.

Everything that’s twisted up will be un-twisted.

All of the devastating effects of the fall will be undone, and everything in the world will be exactly the way that God intended it to be in the beginning.

I’m going to say that again: In the coming restoration, everything will be exactly the way God intended it to be in the beginning.

All of creation will once again be exactly the way God created it to be, and that will be a glorious day.

Which leads us to ask a really obvious question: What will that look like?

What does a world that works exactly the way God created it to look like?

We’ve never experienced like that, so it’s a foreign concept to us.

But God’s word actually paints a really vivid picture of what this coming restoration is gonna look like for us.

And I wanna spend a little bit of time trekking through that picture God’s word paints for us together.

So let’s dive right in.

Are you ready?

There Will Be No More Suffering, Sickness, or Pain

First things first, God’s word tells us that in the coming restoration, there will be no more suffering or sickness or pain.

Again: In the coming restoration, there will be no more suffering or sickness or pain.

Listen to what the Lord says through the prophet Isaiah.

This is beautiful.

He says:

“The wilderness and the dry land will be glad.
The desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.
It will blossom abundantly,
and rejoice even with joy and singing.
Lebanon’s glory will be given to it,
the excellence of Carmel and Sharon.
They will see Yahweh’s glory,
the excellence of our God.

“Strengthen the weak hands,
and make the feeble knees firm.
Tell those who have a fearful heart,
‘Be strong!
Don’t be afraid!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance,
God’s retribution.
He will come and save you.’

“Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.
Then the lame man will leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute will sing;
for waters will break out in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert.”

—Isaiah 35:1–6, WEB

Listen to that.

He says that the restored and renewed world that Christ is bringing through the cross is like a stream in the desert.

He says the eyes of the blind will be opened.

He says that if you’re blind here, you won’t be blind anymore, because the Lord is restoring and renewing you.

If you’re deaf here, you won’t be deaf anymore, because the Lord is restoring and renewing you.

If you are crippled or handicapped or disabled here, you won’t be anymore, because he is restoring and renewing you.

If you’re mute here, you won’t be anymore, because He’s restoring and renewing you.

And that same thing applies to every other thing you could be suffering under today:

If you’re chronically sick in this life, you won’t be anymore because he’s going to restore and renew you.

If you’re like me and you are very frequently chronically depressed in this life, you’re not going to be depressed anymore, because he’s going to renew and restore your brain chemistry so it actually works right.

If you’ve been in pain your whole life because of some health issue no doctor has ever been able to solve, you’re not gonna be anymore, because he’s going to restore and renew you.

There’ll be no more suffering or sickness or pain in the coming restoration, because there is no place for those things and God’s renewed world.

He is going to set you free from all of it.

That’s the first thing part of the picture God’s word paints for us.

There Will Be No Violence, Discord, or Conflict

But at the same time, second things second: God’s word tell us that in the coming restoration, there will be no violence or discord or conflict.

Know what I’m talking about?

When the Lord has finished his restoring and renewing work, there will be no more violence or discord or conflict.

I love the way that the Lord puts this, once again, through the prophet Isaiah.

He says:

“The wolf will live with the lamb,
and the leopard will lie down with the young goat;
the calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together;
and a little child will lead them.

“The cow and the bear will graze.
Their young ones will lie down together.
The lion will eat straw like the ox.

“The nursing child will play near a cobra’s hole,
and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.

“They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh,
as the waters cover the sea.”

—Isaiah 11:6–9, WEB

Do you hear that?

Now, that’s poetry.

That is metaphorical language just like the last passage we read, but it’s painting this picture of a world that is radically free from violence.

A world that is radically free from conflict.

It’s radically free from discord.

In God’s restored and renewed world, there is no such thing as enemies.

There’s no such thing as predators.

No one’s fighting.

No one’s against each other.

So he uses these almost comical images.

He says wolves are going to live with lambs.

You’ll be walking down the road and you’ll see a wolf and a lamb, but instead of the wolf chasing after the lamb to eat it, the wolf and the lamb are hanging out.

They’re buddies.

He says that you’re gonna see leopards lying down with goats.

Instead of this leopard chasing after this goat so he can rip it apart and eat its dead carcass, the Leopard and the goat are just taking a nap.

They’re just chillin.

Cows and bears are just going to go eat side by side, as friends.

A lion is going to see an ox, but instead of saying, “I’m gonna go make a meal out of that,” he’s just gonna go share some of that ox’s straw with it.

And Isaiah says that infants will play near the Cobra’s den.

Young children will play in the Viper’s nest, but none of them will harm them.

You’ll see a baby and a gigantic venomous snake just playing together with nothing to worry about.

Isaiah is creating this almost humorous image that’s meant to illustrate the fact that in the coming restoration, there will be perfect peace.

We will be perfectly free from violence.

We will be perfectly free from conflict.

No one will try to conquer each other.

No one will try to dominate each other.

No one will try to enslave each other.

No one will try to harm each other.

We will live a life of perfect joy in a world of perfect peace, because the Lord has overcome the forces of darkness through the cross.

That’s the second part of the picture God’s word paints for us.

Heaven and Earth Will Come Together

But even more important than any of this, third things third: In the coming restoration, heaven and earth will come together, and God will dwell with us forever.

Know what I’m talking about?

When the Lord is finished with his restoring and renewing work, heaven and earth will come together, and God will dwell with us forever.

I always end up talking about this when I do funerals, because I usually preach on Revelation Chapter 21 at funerals.

It’s one of the most famous passages in all of Scripture, but that’s because it’s one of the most beautiful passages in all of scripture.

Listen to what John says here.

He says:

“I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

“I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, ‘Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.’

“He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”

—Revelation 21:1–5, WEB

Listen to that.

Take a second and just marinate on what Revelation 21 just said.

He says “God’s dwelling place will be among the people.”

He says “He will dwell with them, they will be His people, and He will be with them, and he will be their God.”

When the Lord is finished with his restoring and renewing work, he’s not bringing us up to heaven, he’s bringing heaven down to us.

He’s bringing himself down to us.

We’re gonna live with him.

We’re gonna spend every day with him.

We’re gonna talk to him.

We’re gonna be perpetually in His presence.

He is going to be completely accessible to us.

Always right there with us.

We won’t have to go seek him out, he’ll be right there.

We won’t have to wonder if he’s listening, he’ll be there in front of us.

We won’t have to wonder if we’re hearing him right, if we’re understanding what he’s saying to us, we won’t have to strain to listen for his voice, because he will be clearly and visibly and viscerally present with us, just as intensely as the person sitting next to you is.

We will always be with our loving Father.

We will always be with our good and righteous King.

We will always be with our beloved Brother.

We will always be filled with the joy of God’s presence.

And there is absolutely nothing more overwhelmingly glorious than that.

In the coming restoration, Heaven and Earth will come together and God will dwell with us forever.

More Glorious Than We Can Imagine

And we’ve just barely scratched the surface of the beauty and the glory of this coming restoration God is working out through of the cross, but even if I spent the next six hours going chapter after chapter and verse after verse, chasing down every single rabbit trail to paint the biggest and the broadest and the widest and the deepest picture I possibly could of God’s restoring and renewing work through the cross, it still wouldn’t be enough to truly make us understand.

Because the reality is that the coming restoration will be more glorious than we can ever possibly imagine.

The truth is that the coming Restoration is so glorious that we are not going to be able to comprehend it until we get there.

The glory that will be revealed to us in the restoration is beyond our comprehension.

It’s beyond our ability to truly describe or define or understand.

God’s restoring and renewing work on our behalf is going to be so vast and so glorious and so joyful and so beautiful that the sufferings we’ve experienced in this life won’t be able to compare.

That’s why Paul says in Romans 8 that:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us.”

—Romans 8:18, WEB

Because, 1 Corinthians 2:

“But as it is written,

‘Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear,
which didn’t enter into the heart of man,
these God has prepared for those who love him.’”

—1 Corinthians 2:9, WEB

The truth is that no matter how hard I try, I can’t truly paint an adequate picture of the coming restoration for us, because it’s going to be more glorious than we can ever imagine.

Nothing we have ever seen with our eyes comes even close to comparing to the beauty he’s preparing for us.

Nothing we’ve ever heard with our ears comes even close to the joy that he’s preparing for us.

Nothing we can imagine with our minds can even come close to the goodness he’s preparing for us.

When he’s finished, we will be radically overwhelmed with joy in his restoring and renewing work.

Let the Promise of Restoration Nurse Your Wounds

And because that is true, we should look at everything we experience in this life so much differently.

Because if God is restoring and renewing this world, that means that as terrible as it is, the suffering you and I go through in this world is a tiny blip in the story of our lives on the way to an eternity of perfect joy.

So as difficult as it sounds, what we need to do is let this promise of God’s coming restoration nurse our wounds.

We need to let the promise of this coming restoration nurse us back to health even as this fallen and broken world continues to give us black eyes and bruises, because we know that this is not everything there is.

This is not the end.

Because a better world is coming, and so we can endure anything on the journey to get there.

Let the promise of the coming restoration nurse the wounds this fallen world has dealt you, and then watch the way the Lord uses that hope to transform your life, and then this church, and then our whole surrounding community.

Let’s join together in prayer.