This morning I am going to ask you to do something different. I want you to help act out the scripture from Colossians 2 that I just read. This will be the Word enacted to help us grapple with the Word as it has been read.

In the seat back in front of you is a piece of paper that looks like a knife. You will also find a pencil. On this paper, I would like you to write down a letter that symbolizes what makes you feel guilty -- your worst sin. Or maybe you would like to write down several letters that symbolize different sins. Maybe you need the whole alphabet. Just write down something that symbolizes whatever it is in your life and makes you feel guilty.

Keep your paper to yourself. This is between you and God. If you happen to see someone else’s paper, just remember that letters mean lots of things. Despite Nathaniel Hawthorn’s Scarlet Letter, A doesn’t always stand for adultery. It might also signify regret for arrogance, apathy, or anger. B can stand for burglary or it can stand for bugging your big sister.

Think about this prayerfully and write it down in some way on your paper. This is our prayer of confession.

Writing Time

Are the things in our lives that are symbolized on these cards serious?

They are very serious.

In fact, they are deadly serious. Paul says that they were the cause of our death. And, although it may sound gross, I would like you to symbolize this terrible fact by putting the knife with your symbolized sins up to your throat. Move it across in a cutting gesture. Don’t do it for real – I don’t want any paper cuts – but make a motion to enact what your sins did to you.

Cutting Time

Paul writes, “And when you were dead in your transgressions. Those transgressions are the very specific things that you have done against the law of God – things like murder or gossip. But equally deadly is what Paul calls the ‘uncircumcision of your flesh.’ This is shown in the heart attitudes like hatred or malice which lead to specific acts. Paul says that both are equally deadly.

Paul writes, “You were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of you flesh. Sin and death go together. Romans 6:23 declares, “the wages of sin is death.” The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel thundered: “The soul that sins shall die.”

What does it man to be dead? It means that a person is powerless – incapable of doing anything constructive – incapable of hearing of seeing or touching or doing —incapable of love. It means to be doomed to corruption – to decay. That’s the reason we have mortuaries.

That’s the bad news. But now the good news. This passage has lots of really good news. We need to act it out. First, I want you to take the paper knife from someone else. Don’t look at it. Just take it out of their hand and put it back in the seat back in front of them.

Removal of knives

You have just enacted verse 15 where Paul tells us that through the cross, Jesus has disarmed the rulers and authorities and has made a public display of them.

Paul pictures something that was well known in the Roman world. When a general returned after winning a victory, the Roman senate would sometimes vote a triumph. The general would ride in a chariot in front of his troops. Behind the victorious soldiers would come the defeated enemy – the kings, the officers, the soldiers trailing behind in chains. This was the public display of the disarmed foes.

Paul has said that we were once under attack by various spiritual powers including Satan himself. These spiritual powers loved to use the knife of our sin and our guilt on us. They delighted to plunge those death-dealing blades into our souls. They hate us because they hate the God who loves us.

But they no longer hold the knife. They can no longer bring any accusation against us. They can no longer seek our deaths because Jesus, through the cross, has given us life. Our enemies are walking in chains in public humiliation while we are riding in the chariot with Christ.

How is this possible? It is because Jesus has canceled out the decrees against us. “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, Jesus made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt which consisted of decrees against us, and which was hostile to us.

The certificate of debt is your IOU to the glory of God. It’s all the things that you wrote on you card with your own hand. There are also all the things you didn’t write but should have written. The Greek word here is cheriographon, which is the same word Paul, uses in Philemon to describe his personal debt. These IOUs were written on papyrus or skin in ink. But because ancient ink had no acid, it did not penetrate the surface. A sponge could wipe away the writing as if it has never existed. That’s what Paul describes here. The word “canceled” means to wipe off, erase and obliterate.

You are now set free from your debt. It is wiped out. It was wiped out, Paul says, when it was nailed to the cross.

When Jesus went to the cross, the sign above His head read “The King of the Jews.” But Paul declares that there was another sign above Jesus’ head that declared the real reason Jesus died. That unseen sign included all of the things we have written on our cards this morning.

Paul declares in Romans 4 that Jesus went to the cross because of our sins. Jesus went to the cross for you and me. Our certificate of debt was posted above His head. And on the cross, Jesus wiped away the contents of that sign.

This verse means that you and I have a clean slate. As far as God is concerned, He relates to us as if we had never sinned. Because of Christ and the cross, God has no memory when it comes to our sins.

The problem is that many of us continue to beat ourselves up for things that God has forgiven. Jesus has disarmed the rulers and authorities. But we tend to pick up the knife and hold it to our own throats. We are less gracious to ourselves than God is.

Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t learn lessons from what we have done. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be aware of the warning signs of temptation –the things that ensnare us. But I am saying that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for what as already been nailed to the cross. Jesus disarmed the principalities and powers at the cross. He also wants to take the knife out of our hands.

The word that Paul uses in verse 14 – “He took it away and nailed it to the cross” – is a very strong one. It literally means that God wrenched the charge list out of our clenched fist. He took it completely away from us. It’s not ours anymore. It belongs to Him and He nailed it to the cross. When the nails were driven through Christ’s hands and feet, all our sins were crucified with Him. Our sins and failures were cut clean through by the nails, which caused our Savior such pain. What God has done forces us to accept our forgiveness.

So I now invite you now to accept and celebrate what God has done. I invite you to take that paper you have written with your own hand – the one God wants to pry out of your clenched fist – and bring it up front and nail it to the cross. Just step up, take a hammer and nail, and place your card any of the on the crosses up here on the table.

And if you are not a Christian, then I invite you to bring your card forward and nail it to the cross as an act of faith. Perhaps claim for the very first time the total forgiveness that God offers you in the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus dies for you. God wants you to be His daughter or son.

Nailing

Many people don’t experience very much when they become Christians. It is usually a quiet time, perhaps accompanied by a slight sense of peace. With some, there is a sense of joy but it’s not usually dramatic. I have had the joy of leading a number of people to Christ, and almost always very, very quiet. And yet, a tremendous thing has happened. It is the difference between death and life.

What actually happens in the inner life of a person when he or she believes in Jesus Christ is as dramatic, as complete a contrast with the old life as between a cold, stiff corpse and a warm, living, breathing human being. We are no longer dead when we believe. A life and been given to us. When we are born again through Jesus Christ, we are made one Spirit with him. We are no longer dead. We are no longer unresponsive to God. We are no longer doomed to corruption. We are made alive in Jesus Christ.

Because of the cross, we are no longer criminals who have broken the law of God and face His judgment. We are children who were lost but who have come home to be wrapped in the arms of God.