Video Transcript: Video: Delivered from Darkness to Light

What if you could escape your past? What if you could be rescued from the damage that has been done to you by others in the past? What if you could be healed from deep wounds that have really shattered and harmed you and that have tormented your spirit and maybe continue to darken your life? Sometimes that part of our past, what others have done to us and the way that it has permanently twisted or wounded or spoilt things is something we just wish desperately we can leave behind? And what if you knew for sure that you are forgiven and freed from your own past sins, if you just leave behind all the things you've done, that were unworthy? And you knew that none of your past sins could be held against you or be allowed to keep controlling you? You'd not be punished for them, nor would they keep on dominating you and being deadly habits for you. This big what if, would I think empty, nearly all counseling offices in the world, if everybody could leave behind the terrible things that have been done to them and suffer no ongoing ill effects from them. And if everyone could leave behind the things they themselves have done and are tormented with guilt about and can't seem to break those habits if that were to happen, people would be strong and healthy and whole. 

And the good news of the gospel is that this is what God does, that He delivers us from a domain of darkness and transfers us to the kingdom of his beloved son. And that's something that he accomplished long ago in history, and it's something that he also accomplishes in the lives of individuals as he applies what he did. And sometimes that takes a little different shape than just an instant. I was in darkness now I'm in light and all has instantly magically almost transformed. In one sense it's true that when you become a believer in Jesus Christ, all of this becomes yours. And yet the taking it in and the truly absorbing it and enjoying it and be liberated by it can sometimes be a process.

A person in a church where I previously served really experienced this. She came to know the Lord but she had a lot of very difficult things in her past. Her dad was a very cruel and harsh man. He happened also be prominent person in the church, but he was cruel and mean, she had suffered incest at the hands of another relative and these things had just wounded and hurt her so deeply. And she had herself done some very bad things in her promiscuous life, in her use of drugs and a whole bunch of other things. Now she wasn't living in a gutter. She was a nurse and living a very respectable life. But inwardly she was just falling apart and when she came to know the Lord, that had a powerful impact and so I was excited and I was glad to see you know that she had received Christ and now she was understanding what Christ has done for her. 

Now, she can leave that past behind, and then she would fall into another round of depression and of being distressed and disturbed and she'd confess some more stuff that she had done and some other stuff that had happened to her. And then I think myself, well now that now that's taken care of, and now she's ready to move forward. And then a while later, and there'll be some more. And I would say, well, the blood of Jesus covers that. I'll just say that again and again and again. And she would pour these things out, and she became kind of a frustrating person to me, over a couple of years. There were just when you thought okay, this is fixed, then it got messy again. And, finally it looked like everything was there and she had emerged from it and she had. And we were ready to leave to the Chicago area where I was going to serve as a broadcast minister. And that week, we believe she found out she had cancer that was incurable. And so there I was you her pastor, during that bad time, we're like bailing out on her. Well, she's still alive today. You know, and since that time, she started a group for people being delivered from alcoholism and another group for survivors of sexual abuse and the Lord she still has a mass in her chest. It just doesn't do anything or go anywhere. And the Lord has spared her life and his rescue. 

And I give her example, for two reasons. One is to show that someone with very great and heavy baggage in the past could be delivered from it. And another is to say that sometimes the actual experience of that once for all deliverance that Jesus accomplished is kind of a process that works itself out as more and more of the deeds of darkness are brought into the light as a person is shown those things and enabled to deal with them by the Holy Spirit. So if somebody here says well, that, you know, I've heard that gospel, I believed it but all wasn't instantly well. I guess my message to you would be don't get too down on yourself or too discouraged yet, because what Jesus did in that great event is something that is taken in by us and appreciated by us and understood and applied by us in an ongoing and healing way. 

Now, this passage that we've read for this morning that we're going to be focusing on is the heart of the gospel. And I'm not just kind of taking a stab at that or thinking God, you know, that's a nice thing to say about any passage. I'm saying that because it's almost a direct echo of what Jesus told the Apostle Paul to do on the Damascus road when he first called him. Jesus said to Saul, I am sending into them to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Now, look at that statement. Our prayer that Paul offers up is giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. That's a place among those who are sanctified by me. He has delivered you from the domain of darkness and transferred you to the kingdom of his beloved son. So there you have from darkness to light from the power of Satan to God. And then he says that they may receive forgiveness of sins. Redemption, the forgiveness of sins is what the text says. And that's exactly what Paul was told when he was told to bring the gospel. So, the gospel is one of deliverance from the powers of darkness to light. It's a message of forgiveness. It's a message of being qualified to have a place among the saints. And so these were Paul's marching orders as a missionary, as you hear this message today realize that this is the heart and core of the gospel that we first of all need to believe and apply to our lives and rejoice in. And then also, this is the gospel that we're called to bring to others to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. 

It starts out by expressing gratitude. Here, Paul isn't thanking God. He's praying that the readers will be thanking God. He's already thanked God for them earlier. And he says, Well, I know that you're the real deal because of your faith in Christ Jesus, the love that you have for all the saints, the hope laid up for you in Heaven. I thank God for all of that. And he says, I have great expectations for you that you're going to be filled with a knowledge of God's will and that you're going to be strengthened with all power. And so in his prayer, he's praying that they'll be fully in tune with God's heart and fully empowered by God's might. And those are huge expectations to have. And those are the exciting expectations that we focused on in last week's message. 

But now Paul continues that prayer because these great expectations for the future are going to fall flat and go nowhere unless we have a life that's grounded in the past. That's grounded in what Christ has accomplished in the past, to free us from our own past. And the way to really get in tune with God's heart and to grow strong in his might is to be fully appreciative of His grace, to live a life of thanksgiving. The way to have future growth is to be rooted in just ongoing thankfulness for all that God has already done, and a continual awareness of where you already stand in Christ Jesus. You need to know who you are already, where you already stand, and how valuable that is, and then keep on thanking God. For that is the key to spiritual health is ongoing gratitude. By the way that was also the original sin in many ways. Paul says in Romans one, when he lists a whole schemer of terrible stuff, that thing that got it all started was they neither glorified God nor gave him thanks, and it was just downhill from there. 

The flip side of it is when you know what God has done and who he is, and you glorify Him and give Him thanks, it's all uphill, and you keep moving forward and progressing in your walk with God. I want to emphasize much more than that first phrase giving thanks to the Father. Colossians is a very short book seven times, there are different expressions about giving thanks to God and giving thanks to the Father. And so this attitude of gratitude is the key to joyful Christian living, to triumphant Christian living. Giving thanks to the Father and Paul is praying that in original Greek giving thanks has the kind of verb ending, has the kind of ending that tells you that it's associated with you all or you is. It's not Paul giving thanks. It's that he's praying that they will keep giving thanks to the Father for all that the Father has done. 

The next phrase giving thanks to Father who has qualified you. What a tremendous statement that is. God has qualified you. Now, it's very important to know that you are qualified and to know where your qualification comes from. Now, there's a couple of ways to think of this. I'm Sam storms and his book of meditations on Colossians talks about being unqualified, as well as being disqualified and there's somewhat of a difference. When you're unqualified, it means well, you're just not too good at something yet, or you're not trained yet. But if you've got the proper training and so on, maybe you'll eventually become qualified. Now, being disqualified means you have done something to get kicked out. You know, you may be one of the great runners in the world, but if you broke the rules, you're disqualified. It's not so much that you're unqualified, you are disqualified. And so to be disqualified in God's eyes is to have violated his laws to have rebelled against Him and to be disqualified for an inheritance and be disqualified for an eternity of glory with him. So those are the the two possibilities that are kind of opposites of being qualified is to be unqualified and to be disqualified. And, and most of us have had both problems, one is to be unqualified. 

Paul says to the Corinthians, when he wrote to them. Now, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise, not many of you were influential. Not many of you were of noble birth. And so when people were looking for you to be qualified in terms of being really smart, well, a lot of you just didn't quite have the IQ for it or the education for it. If God was looking around in terms of your influence and wealth and power, well, you for the most part don't have that tremendous wealth because boy if I could get that guy I could really line my pockets. Of noble birth, well, most of us don't have somebody all that important in our pedigree. And so if God were choosing based on how qualified we are, in comparison to others, most of us would have said, well, I guess I'm kind of unqualified. But we'd also have to admit that we're disqualified. That we are among those all who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are unworthy to be received into His kingdom. 

But having faced all of that, that we come into it unqualified and disqualified. Nonetheless, in Jesus Christ, the Bible says, God the Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He is the one who was qualified you and as Romans eight puts it, those whom God predestined, he also called, those who called he also justified, those who justified he also glorified. What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but give them up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? That's the inheritance of the saints in light. He's going to graciously give us all things because he's already given hisSon. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect. It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Those words are ones that really have stamped on your mind. 

It is God who justifies. God who declares you to be in a right relationship with Him. So if God says you're in, who gets to say, you're out. They've got to better just shut up. Because when God has spoken, nobody gets to contradict him. When God has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints and like nobody gets to disqualify you. A little later in the same letter in Colossians, Paul says to his readers, let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels and visions and all the doodads and hoohaas that they want to add to the Lord Jesus Christ. He says you're qualified in Christ. And don't let somebody give you a long list of the supposed qualifications you need to make it in, when God has already qualified you. Our brothers and sisters, you don't need to just listen to this as though I'm explaining theology. This is simply reality. This is the truth of God that when you come to Jesus Christ by faith, your father qualifies you and nobody and nothing can disqualify you. And the qualification comes from Him not because you managed to manufacture it. 

And what is he qualified for? Well, to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. And of course, that's worth many sermons in and of itself. What is the inheritance that God promises to His saints? Well, we can talk about the future inheritance of glory where the saints will judge the world, where the saints will have authority over the angels, where the saints will have a body like Jesus Christ with stupendous powers that he shares with us. We could speak of the wonderful fellowship that is going to come in the reunion, when loved ones from the past and present are brought together again in glory. We could speak of course of the wonder of seeing our Lord face to face and all of those are part of that future inheritance that's promised us. But we also receive a present inheritance. The Bible says you were already seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. Your life is already hidden with Christ in God and it's already there other than Christ, who is your light appears, who is your life appears you also will appear with Him in glory. 

So there's this future inheritance as well as what's already inherited and one passage that brings together that inheritance with fellowship with God being the supreme inheritance, fellowship with Christ is revelation three verses 20 and 21. Jesus says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come home to him and eat with him and he with me. That's a promise right now. And it's a promise for the present, that Jesus befriends you. That he wants to walk with you. That as we talked about last week, you come to know Him and His will and you know His will through the Scripture. But you also know Him because He is with you in an intimate and a conversational manner, and you live together and you eat together and you listen to his voice. 

And then there's the future promise as well as present. The one who conquers I will grant him to sit with Me on My throne. Think of that tremendous promise. To sit with Christ on his throne. As I also conquered and sat down with My Father on His throne. Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the throne. These are just a few of the things that it means to share in the inheritance of the saints in life. Your ultimate inheritance is simply to have the Lord Himself in an ever increasing way and in a complete and full way when you reach heaven and in a partial and yet wonderful way right now. And that's why even as we focus on these verses, remember those verses that came before it, to pray that you'll know God better and better and experience more and more of His power and His authority in your life at work through you right now including authority over and against the powers of darkness.

In light. That's a little phrase that deserves some attention of its own because it is so prominent throughout the scriptures, I can't begin to list all of the Bible verses that talk about light and God being light and God creating light and living in the light. But I want to emphasize a couple of the things that living in light and having an inheritance in light means. One, it means that you live in truth, that you no longer live based on lies. And so much of what we're surrounded with and bombarded with is lies. So much of what you're told about romance to take one example is lies, that comes out you through the media, or in a society now where two thirds of people live together before they get married, if they bother getting married at all. That's taken to be normal. That is taken to be healthy. It will wreck most of those marriages. It just will because it lies. Now that's just one example. There are many other examples of ways in which we are lied to. And to live in light means you're not fooled by that stuff anymore. You know how to proceed when it comes to matters of marriage. You also know how to build your life on God's truth in a lot of other ways. 

In light also means transparency. First, John one verse one says that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. And if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with him and the blood of Jesus is on purifies us from all unrighteousness. Now walking in the light is walking with God, but it also is just living transparently. Because there's an element to walking in the light, even when you're not a perfect person. Because, that first John goes on to say, you know, we walk in the light, we have fellowship with Him and His blood cleanses us. And he says, if we claim or without sin, we're full of it. You know, we lie and deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Walking in the light is honesty. It’s transparency. It's admitting your own sins and and it's also got to in the sense you don't have to hide all these deep, dark, dirty secrets. 

Very often one of Satan's favorite strategies is to tell you there is something about yourself that if anybody else knew it, nobody in this whole wide world would want anything to do with you anymore. And they would despise you, and think of you as nothing but garbage. If only they knew that thing about you. When you walk in the light, you know that God already knows that about you and he has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has qualified you and you just might find that if in some cases you needed to be transparent about that with a fellow believer, they would be more accepting than you thought. Satan tells you these lies that nobody and nothing cares about your loved one certainly wouldn't. If you let this get out of the darkness, well, he thrives on darkness. 

Another aspect of light is goodness instead of evil. And we see that further down where God who said let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. To know the goodness of God and the glory of God. That's what it is to have an inheritance in light. Jesus says, I’ve come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. So you don't remain in lies. You don't remain in dirty little secrets. You don't remain in evil.

And of course a fourth aspect of light is gladness. We associate light with joy and darkness with gloom and despair. And that's again, one of Satan’s specialties, to drag somebody down. He loves extremes. He will try to get you to think that everything is okay with you no matter how low you've been sinking. But the moment you realize that you are badly disqualified, he will then slam you from the other direction. So you're blamed right that you are disqualified and you could never be qualified again. You are a total loser. You are a lost case forever. And the opposite of that strategy of darkness and despair is that God brings in light and God brings in joy and forgiveness and hope.

And so in light of all that we've said so far, we just got to ask that question again. The God who is qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light you have to answer this question again and again. Sometimes you have to answer it every time you get up in the morning. Who are you? I am qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. And God is my Father and I thank him that I am his son or daughter and I am qualified. Just a couple of passages you’re a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation of people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That's who you are. You are a chosen race. You're special people. At one time you were darkness but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. You are the light of the world. You are qualified because you have Christ's light in you. 

And one of the most important parts of prayer is not the things you asked for although that's very important, but simply giving thanks and appreciating and reminding and claiming what God has already given you and who God already is. So, don't get too big of a hurry in your prayers. I have a prayer of John Eldridge that runs on for a couple of single space pages and all that prayer does is he gets up in the morning and he thanks God the Father for the God the Father’s attributes and the great things God the Father does what the Son has done in becoming human and what the Cross does in wiping out the past, what the resurrection does in transforming your life now, what the ascension to glory into God's throne does in terms of helping you to reign with him now and claiming your reign and your authority over all the powers of evil that may come against you or anything in your domain today. These are keys to prayer where our prayers of praise and of just taking again those benefits of Christ to ourselves is so vital. And then we ask we also pray with power in our requests. 

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness. The word domain translated domain here is a word that's usually translated authority, excucia. It is authority that the reign or the domination or the control or the rule or maybe rightful jurisdiction, it has all those. It's not just domain in terms of a territorial. That's part of it, too in a sense we were in a territory under Satan's domination, and we're taken out of his realm. But even more than that we're taken out of his authority. He has no claim on us anymore. He has no jurisdiction over us, he has no right to rule us. He has delivered us from that domain of darkness and darkness as I said, it's just the opposite of what I said about light. Instead of truths it’s lies and very much of life is taking thoughts captive to Christ, and fighting lies with truth. When Satan says you're worthless. Christ says you're qualified. When Satan says nobody could accept you, Christ says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And so darkness always has these lies and the way to fight it is with God's truth. Darkness is a domain of secrecy. You better never ever tell anybody this or something terrible is gonna happen to you and keeping of secrets and cover ups and pretense and hypocrisy, all of that. Darkness, evil and despair. 

Now, how did he deliver us? Well consider the way darkness operates. At the time of Jesus’ arrest, one of the things Jesus said to the people who came to him with clubs and weapons to arrest him was, hey, I was out there in broad daylight every day in the temple, speaking and teaching. How come you're sneaking around here at midnight? That's a real good question to ask. You know, that when nobody wants to be seen, and when they're when they're sneaking off to do their deeds in the middle of night, it's a pretty bad sign. He says, when I was with you, day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me, but this is your hour, and the power of darkness. Jesus said that night just before he went out, and when he was speaking to His disciples, He said, the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me. But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father commands me. So he says, I know he's coming. I know he's coming but he's got nothing in me. And he can bring it on because I'm going to do what I've got to do. 

And so we know that when we hear of being delivered from the domain of darkness, what it took. The Father sent His Son to face the darkest power in that very, very darkest hour. Now some of you may have seen the older movies Superman two. And in Superman two, there are three bad people who have been criminals on the planet Krypton from which Superman came. And Superman was a good guy. These three were really nasty, and through a variety of events, they end up on Earth as well. And near the end of the film, they are up there in Superman's Fortress of Solitude. And they hear that if he's exposed to certain rays, then he'll lose all his power and he'll be out of the way and he'll have to bow down to them and they will reign supreme. And so the Superman has to go into this chamber and the rays are turned on. And then he comes out of the chamber to this General Zod and General Zod says now bow before me and swear eternal loyalty to Zod. So Superman gets down on his knee and he takes Zod's hand and then he crushes it and gives him a throw. Because unfortunately for Zod, the rays that were supposed to take away Superman's power the chamber were Superman was was the only place that was safe, and the others had all lost their power. Now that's just a little picture of what happened at the cross. 

The Bible speaks of Satan being the one who holds the power of death. And of the one who uses the power of sin against us. And the two worst weapons that Satan has sin and death were used against Jesus at the cross. There was never a more terrible sin committed than the betrayal and the false conviction and the torture and crucifixion of the Son of God, and never more terrible death that was died. And yet in that event, it was not Jesus who lost his power. He said nobody takes my life from me. I lay it down on my own accord and I have power to take it up again. And he had the power to take it up again. And his Father gave him that power. And so he took Satan's weapons of sin and death and he used them to disarm the rulers and authorities. We'll focus on that more a little later in Colossians but I just give a preview now. He disarmed the rulers and authorities just when it was the hour of darkness and the Prince of Darkness was coming. And darkness reigned was when darkness was being totally disarmed. Hebrews two since the children have flesh and blood he too shared in their humanity so that by his death, he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil and free those all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. That's what it means to be delivered from the domain of darkness. To have the almighty Son of God enter into our humanity, entering the death on our behalf and disarm the cruel powers that had held us captive. 

And in light of all that, if he's delivered you from the domain of darkness, the last thing you want to do is go back into the domain of darkness and into the rule of those powers. This can happen on a personal level when God has freed you and has qualified you and accepted you and given you an inheritance in the saints in light and then Satan whispers his lies to you and you start believing him again. And he says now you're dirty, you're not you're worthless. You're nothing. You don't go back. He has delivered us and don't go back. It can also happen at a bigger level where false teachers come along and try to tell you what you learned about Jesus so far is just not enough. In fact, Jesus isn't enough. You need to keep certain other spirit powers happy. That was happening at the time Colossians was written. It has happened in a lot of missionary settings since that day in all parts of the world where people come to Christ. And then comes the blowback, the pushback from the powers where they'll say, okay, you can believe in Jesus to get to heaven maybe. But if you want to get healed, you better keep going to the witch doctor. If you want to have success in life, you better still keep this and that spirit who controls local economies, you better keep that spirit happy, or you're going to go broke. 

And so there there have been again and again and again and in various ways throughout the world attempts by the powers to say okay, if you've got to have Jesus, you can have a chunk of him but we've still got a big chunk of you, whether it's your health, your finance or whatever else it is, and you better keep us happy in that area of life. And one of the reasons Paul writes this is because that's been a threat in Colossae. And he says, Don't go back. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. Don't let those suckers get you again. He says the apostle John says we know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Those last words that the apostle John writes in first John, keep yourselves from idols. Because there is always going to be the attempt of the powers of darkness to get you back. And if we can't get you back in your entirety, to at least grab chunks of your life and pull them back under the influence of the elemental spirits. 

Well, God has delivered us from the domain of darkness by the death of his son and by His resurrection, and he's moved us to a new realm under the reign of a new ruler. Kingdom is again, not just a matter of a realm or a territory that God runs. It's also simply God's authority, God's jurisdiction, God's power and right to reign. And God has transferred us out of the domination of Satan under the authority of Jesus Christ. And one of the chief ways to really flourish and triumph in your Christian life is to know the authority that Christ has and the authority that he gives you to exercise his authority against all enemies that come against you. 

And not only his authority, but also it’s the kingdom of his beloved Son. How much God loves his Son! At His baptism, He said, This is My beloved Son, with whom I'm well pleased. At Jesus transfiguration when he shone like the sun, God said, This is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. God loves his Son and, and God loves Jesus so much that you cannot imagine the value of the gift God gave in giving our Lord Jesus. But then you also cannot imagine the amount and the kind of love that God has for you. In Jesus great prayer, the last sentence of his prayer to his Father, before he went to the cross was this, I have made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them. 

So the very love that the Father has for his beloved Son is now directed at the people for whom his Son died. God loves us with the same love with which He loves His beloved Son. That alone is worth a few hours of quiet meditation that God doesn't dislike you or God doesn't shed a little bit of love because he's kind of you know, gotta love to spare. But that he loves you with the same stupendous love that he directs at his own eternal Son and he's transfers under the reign and under the authority of that beloved Son. Now, all of this again, is important to know in our battle, and in our growth in maturity, and our success in fighting the powers of darkness. We were in a meeting earlier this week and my mind sometimes drift especially somebody says something. You know, the meeting was covering a variety of things. But then Lorentz mentioned that Christian leaders Institute has servers which we use and which have to send out the classes and all the other stuff that's available to our students. He said that CLI servers come under more than 100 hacker attacks a day. Okay, more than 100 attempts are made every day to invade that computer server and to take over that domain. 

Now, how does Jerry and the other technical types deal with that? They stay up night and day and they look at their screen and they watch for the next attack and they say I name these such and such attack, I shall not refute thee and drive thee away. Actually they don't, you know, he actually sleeps once in a while because there are just too many attacks and they're too subtle and too sneaky to try to always be watching for what the next thing is going to be. What you got to do is have a healthy server and have it with the best up to date firewalls and stuff that's been programed to fight off all of this kind of garbage. The key is not to know every last crazy method that will attack you and be able to handle it personally from moment to moment. And as Jerry talked about those 100 plus attacks today, I thought, Boy, that sounds a lot like Satan. He goes roaming around here and they're seeing where he can find a vulnerability seeing what domains you can take over and devour. 

And if you think the key to defeating Satan is to always know and notice every demon who's going to come after you and have figured out every strategy they're going to use. And so your approach to spiritual warfare is to read that 2475 page volume on varieties of demons and their methods. You know, that's a little bit like reading the 3000 page computer volumes. Maybe somebody can do it, but not too many of us. The fact is, it is important to be aware that we're in warfare and to be ready to fight. But the key is not to be able to identify every demon by name or every demonic strategy and temptation by name. Sometimes, it'll be obvious to you when something's coming at you, sometimes not. But the key is to know that you are transferred into the kingdom of God's Son, the kingdom of light, the kingdom of love. And Jesus says that if you abide in him, he has the fullness to fight off all of this other stuff. And so the key is not to stay up night and day with Jerry Lorenz watching the server, because he doesn't do that either. And the key to spiritual life is not to stay up night and day picking out yourself and seeing whether you're able to fight off those nasties and figure out what they're up to. The key is to abide in Christ and to live under his authority. And yes, beware of those other things, but put on the armor of light and put on the armor of God. And when you've got on the armor of God, that's your best firewall. That's your that's your best protection against the attacks of the domain of darkness. 

The last few words in whom we have redemption has tremendous word redemption, in that context and throughout the Bible really refers to rescue and rescue from being a slave. Rescue from being a captive who's been kidnapped and held hostage. Rescue  from prison. In many ways, this passage is awakening echoes of Exodus. We've been reading in exodus in our Bible reading plan, and how God delivered the people from that domain of darkness in Egypt and that terrible rule of Pharaoh and their enslavement and their suffering, and he brought them out. And here in the New Testament, we learned the ultimate Exodus, where we were redeemed and rescued from slavery. How was it done again, as we've already said, is done by the death of Jesus. Ephesians one says In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. So that redemption is at the price of Jesus blood, and it's accomplished. And when you have redemption, then you don't go back to Egypt. We talked about that a little while ago. You don't say boy, the onions and the garlic and the watermelons were pretty yummy back in Egypt. We got to get back there as soon as you can. You've got to remember the dead babies and the rule of terror and the whippings and all the terrible stuff that the powers of darkness have done to you. Not the little goodies that they pass to you now and then. And so it is when you've been redeemed. Don't go back into bondage. Don't go back into slavery again. 

And it's important realize that Satan does not have the power to pull you back or to grab you back. You will be letting him if it happens, Satan's chief power now is the power to lie and to get you to think he has more power than he actually has over you because he has no right to dominate and control in the life of a believer. If you were in a job, and it was just a miserable job and your boss was a supreme jerk who always underpaid you and mistreated you and just made you miserable day after day and you found a new position and it paid extremely well. The boss was nice, great working conditions and you really enjoyed it. And then one day on the street, you bumped in your old boss and he starts reaching you to a riot act and giving you orders and telling you what to do, you say I don't work for you anymore. You know, and you didn't fire me I quit and I got a better deal. You know, you get lost because I don't work for you. That's basically when you've been redeemed from a nasty slave owner and now you've got a great employer who takes wonderful care of you don't listen to the old boss anymore. And don't think he has any right to claim you because you're out of his rule and his domain. 

And the final phrase and the heart the gospel is the forgiveness of sins. God pardons you. He takes your sins and he dumps them into the depths of the sea is one picture in the Bible. He takes your sins and He separates them as far as the east is from the west. He takes your sins and he hits delete and he remembers them no more. There are many different ways that the Bible portrays this forgiveness of sins. But it does three amazing and wonderful things at least. One is that God's justice is satisfied by Jesus blood. And so in forgiveness, it means that God will not harm you and he will not hold your sins against you. You're good with God. That's what forgiveness of sins means. You’re good with God. It also means that Satan has no more place. As I've already said his accusations against you are nullified. The accuser of our brothers who accuses them day in day and night has been cast down, according to Scripture. So he has no claim against you. He has no right to harm you. He has no right to control you. You just tell the old boss you have no right to mess with me anymore. 

And the final thing about forgiveness of sins: not just what it does for God and what it does in opposition to satan but what it does for you. The book of Hebrews, which we've also been reading speaks of having a conscience that is purified before God and that is a tremendous blessing. When Satan tries to make you feel dirty and unworthy you have a conscience that's now been made clean. And whenever you're tempted to wonder whether you've been made clean you go again and again to the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins. What a tremendous thing that is. Every one of these things I've talked about is worthy, not just of a sermon now and then but to have lifelong meditation and thanks. And if you go through your life, and you are constantly giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints and light. If you're doing that all the time, it’s going to lift your heart, it's going to give him honor. He's delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, and forgiveness of sins. Brothers and sisters, I pray that every one of you have experienced the beginnings at the very least of this tremendous gospel truth. If you haven't, if you've not yet been delivered from a domain of darkness, then by all means, talk to me or to one of the elders or to someone else and find more of how you can come into that deliverance and freedom. And some of you may struggle with things in your own life where you know Jesus is your Savior. But the attacks have been pretty intense. The accusations of your own conscience have been hard. Don't fight those things alone. And don't think you have to keep it some big secret that nobody else knows about. Again, I'm happy to talk about and listen to those things with you and to pray with you and to see what the Lord still wants to do in your life to bring you to complete freedom to complete joy in Him. 

Let's pray together. We praise you father, God of glory, Father of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, for all that you have done. We praise you that you have qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light that you delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of the Sun of Your Love, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins. Lord, impress these realities on our hearts. That they may ever be a cause of thanksgiving and strength and rejoicing and praise and victory over the evil one, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.