You Were Never Meant to Save Yourself

Somewhere along the way, you may have pictured God at the top of a hill with a clipboard. Climb high enough, do enough good, avoid enough bad, clean yourself up enough, and maybe He'll finally let you in. If that's the God you've been running from, I have good news for you. He isn't at the top of the hill. He came all the way down to the bottom.

This Sunday we're opening Colossians 2:11–14, one of the most hopeful paragraphs Paul ever wrote. Read it slowly and notice who is doing the work. God made you alive. God forgave you. God erased the debt. God nailed it to the cross. Every verb belongs to Him. You are not the one doing the saving.

Paul is blunt about our condition. He doesn't say we were sick, or weak, or a little behind. He says we were dead (v. 13). That sounds like bad news until you see what it means. A dead person can't climb the hill or earn his way back. He has to be raised by Someone with the power to do it. Salvation was never a reward for the righteous. It's a rescue for the ruined.

Then Paul pictured a certificate of debt, a handwritten record of everything we owe, every failure, with our own name at the bottom. God erased it (v. 14). He didn't reduce it or set up a payment plan. He wiped it clean and nailed it to the cross of His Son. When Jesus said, "It is finished," He meant your debt. It was paid in full.

If you're worn out from measuring up and wondering whether you've done enough, this message is for you. You don't need to have it all figured out first, and you don't need to clean yourself up before you come. Come as you are. God will do the rest.

Come and hear it with us this Sunday.

Join us at Cornerstone at 9:30 this Sunday at 5051 Wilmington Pike in Centerville. Or, watch us online at cornerstone-coc.com.

Made Alive: The God Who Does What You Cannot Do — Colossians 2:11–14. Bring a friend who needs to hear that the debt is already erased.

1. Christ is enough. Where do you see that same "Jesus plus _____" pressure today, and where are you personally tempted to add something to Christ instead of resting in Him alone? (Col 2:3, 9-10)
2.  Sick, weak, or dead? Why does that distinction matter so much? How does admitting "I can't raise myself" actually free a person rather than crush them?
3.  Working for or working from. How would you help someone see the difference between working for salvation and working from it? Which of those two have you tended to live in?
4.  The certificate erased. If the ledger is truly blank, what should change about how we carry guilt over past sin? Is there a debt you're still trying to pay that Jesus has already erased?
5.  An appeal, not a work. Why is it important to see the conditions of salvation as one seamless act of surrender rather than