What Does Salvation Look Like? - Colossians 1:9-14

I can remember the first time I heard that someone was turned down in a job interview because they were over-qualified for the position they were applying for.  Over-qualified.  Up until that point, I never thought of that as a problem.  Over-qualified?  Isn’t that like being too good, or too smart, or too skilled for the job?  I didn’t know there was such a thing.

Apparently, there is some pinpoint of balance between being too good and being not good enough that potential employees must aim for, and hit, in order to secure a job these days.  Let me ask, if you were the manager of the local McDonalds and the former head chef from the Nittany Lion Inn asked you for a job flipping burgers, knowing McDonald's could only pay him $8 bucks an hour, would you hire him?  Why not?  I might ask some probing, personal questions, but there would be no doubt as to whether he could actually do the job!

I never thought over-qualification for anything should be considered a problem.  I was always told the problem to overcome in getting a decent job was my lack of qualification.  For example, you can’t be a brain surgeon if all you have is a GED.  You cannot be a brain surgeon.  You’re not qualified.  Brain surgeons have to be able to read medical journals and such, and understand them!  

You’re not qualified to be a brain surgeon if you’re legally blind.  Pyromaniacs don’t make good firemen.  Cleptomaniacs don’t make good shopping mall guards.  Short, fat people don’t play professional basketball.  Little skinny guys aren’t linebackers for the Pittsburgh Steelers.  There is no danger of any of us being asked to compete in the Olympics, at all.  We aren’t qualified.  Unless watching paint dry is now an Olympic sport.

What does this have to do with the book of Colossians, or with Christianity?  Everything!  Let’s read our text for today once again, from Colossians 1.

  9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,  10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.  11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy,  12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,  14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Turn with me to another passage of Scripture, James 2:8-11.  I want you to see something there that is related to what we’re talking about.

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.  9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.  10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.  11 For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

What does this mean and how does it relate to the passage in Colossians?  Let me put it to you this way: The royal law according to James, is that we love our neighbor as ourselves.  But we are responsible to love ALL our neighbors, not just the ones we like.  If we show partiality and love some but not others, that partiality is sin.  In fact, at whatever point we violate God’s law, we are at that point disqualified for heaven.  If a person says, “I’ve never committed adultery” but he has murdered someone, then he’s disqualified.  If he says, “I’ve never murdered anyone” but he has committed adultery, - disqualified.  

“I’ve never worshipped idols!”  But you have lied.  Disqualified.
”I never lie!”  But you have coveted your neighbor’s flat screen TV.  Disqualified.
”I don’t do drugs!”  Yes, but you are drunk on a fairly regular basis.  Disqualified.
“I follow the golden rule!”  Good.  But you cheat on your income tax return.  Disqualified.
“Well, what does God expect?  Perfection?”  Yes.  Therefore we all are disqualified from admittance to Heaven.

Every single person that has ever lived except Jesus Christ, is unqualified to be in heaven.  Everyone else has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Nobody does, and nobody can meet the legal requirement for entrance into eternal life: absolute obedience at every point to the entire law of God, from birth until death.  If you could do that, then you’d be qualified for living forever in God’s Kingdom.  Otherwise, forget it.  Don’t even fill out the application.  You are way, way under-qualified.

Not only that, but the only thing we’re truly qualified for is Hell.  Some people are so evil that they seem to be over-qualified, if that were possible.  But because of sin, we qualify for eternal death rather than eternal life.

The apostle Paul makes this wonderful statement to the Colossian believers: God Himself has qualified you for entrance into Heaven.  That is the only way anyone gets there.  We cannot meet the requirements, we disqualified ourselves not long after we left the womb, and we’ve been reinforcing that disqualification ever since every time we sin.  But it is God who makes us qualified.  That is the definition of grace.

The Greek word Paul uses here is translated in a number of different ways, and he only uses it twice in the New Testament.  Look with me at 2 Corinthians 3.

1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you?  2 You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.  3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.  4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.  5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,  6 who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Paul and his co-workers in the Gospel found themselves to be completely under-qualified for the work God had given them to do.  That, beloved, is the condition of every Christian worker, whether it is a seminary professor, or a pastor/teacher in a church, or the leader of a back yard Bible class for 2nd graders.  Who is sufficient in himself to do ANYTHING God requires?  No one.  And the apostles seem to have been particularly ill-equipped for their tasks.  But as Paul says here, “Our sufficiency is from God.”  It is God who makes the incompetent competent.

When God created Adam, Adam was alone.  There was nothing and no one equal to Adam with whom he could have friendship.  You may argue and say God was his companion.  God was with Adam.  But God was not LIKE Adam, even in Adam’s sinless state.  Even prior to the Fall, the gap between who God is and who Adam was, -- that gap was infinite.  The Creator is not like the creature.  So, according to the old KJV, the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” (Genesis 2:18).  It’s not “helpmeet”.  It’s “help meet”.  The word “meet” means suitable, comparable, adequate.  God made woman as an adequate, sufficient, suitable, comparable mate for Adam.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians that God made him sufficient, competent for his work as an apostle.  In Colossians, he teaches us that the Christian is not qualified in himself for heaven, but God makes the Christian qualified.

NKJV - sufficient
KJV - able
NASB - adequate
NIV - competent

The word literally means “to make sufficient, render fit”.  This is exactly what we mean by the phrase “sovereign grace”.  God, in His wisdom as king over His creation, in spite of our woefully inadequate state, causes certain people to be qualified to satisfy His own standard of absolute perfection in order that we might be admitted into Heaven and partake in the inheritance He has for us there.

It is by a sovereign act of God that anyone is a Christian.  We did not qualify ourselves for a heavenly inheritance.  We did not first choose Him, we did not first love Him, we did not apply for membership into His family, and we did not list all of our stellar credentials to woo God into accepting us.

Titus 3:3-7
  3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.  4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,  5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,  6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,  7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8
while we were enemies we were reconciled  Romans 5:10
he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,  Eph 1:5
he predestined us for adoption  Eph 1:6
he caused us to be born again  1Peter 1:3
we were ransomed  1Peter 1:18
we have been called out of darkness. 1Peter 2:9
we have received mercy.  1Peter 2:10

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,  14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  Colossians 2:13-14

Now.  Why has God done all of this for us, most of which was done 2000 years before we were born?  What was it that we brought to the table in order to give God some reason to save us?  What did we do to earn His favor and persuade Him to grant us forgiveness of sins?  And didn’t Paul say that the Lord Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, while we were still enemies, while we were still unreconciled to God, while we were walking in darkness, while we were dead in our sin?  What is it again, that qualifies us for Heaven?

Listen to me very carefully, beloved.  If you are indeed a Christian, it is only because God in His grace qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  Look again at the text:

12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.

Salvation is of the LORD.  (Jonah 2:9)  It is His work which He accomplishes, according to His own will, by His own power, because of His great grace and mercy.  You and I contribute absolutely, positively nothing.  We are infinitely unqualified to be acceptable to God, but He makes us acceptable, fitted, meet, qualified not only to be heirs of eternal life, but we are His very own children!  How does that happen?  ONLY by the sovereign grace of our almighty, merciful, loving heavenly Father.

You say, “Oh, but I believed the Gospel.  At least I had enough sense to repent and believe!”  Really?  Not according to the Bible.  For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.  (1 Corinthians 1:18a)  The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, . . . he is not able to understand them.  (1 Corinthians 2:14).  We didn’t even have the capacity to recognize our need and do something about it

But to us who are being saved (by God) it (the gospel message) is the power of God (that actually saves us).  
Now I want you to take one more look at our text and notice two words in verse 12: giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  If you are a Christian, do you regularly give thanks to your heavenly Father for saving you?  Of all the things you have to be thankful for, is He Himself at the top of your thanksgiving list?  Do you often remind yourself that God saved you when you weren’t qualified to receive salvation?  That God actually made us acceptable to Himself through the life and death of His own Son so that He COULD save us?  

The Gospel of the grace of God crushes the pride of man by showing him that there is nothing in him that is commendable, laudable, meritorious, or befitting of someone who is going to Heaven.  Nothing.  Rather, it is exactly as we read it along the highways when we travel virtually any interstate highway for any length of time: Jesus Saves.  God saves us.  The Father qualifies us for salvation.  Our response to that is perpetual, humble, eternal gratitude.  Give thanks for the grace of God in salvation to you.