On Saturday, October 7, the world was confronted with the reality of evil as Hamas attacked Israel in ruthless and horrific ways. The reality of evil in this world is a problem for us human beings because, at some level, we know it shouldn’t be. We want to live in a world where evil doesn’t exist, but we don’t know how to get there.
Outbreaks of evil like this one cause us to examine how we think about evil, and this was evident in an online conversation I saw shortly after the attacks. People were talking about what they believe about evil, and one person said, ‘I believe that people are basically good when they’re born, and then they learn how to hate when they get older.’ Another person chimed in and said, ‘Do you have children? They will turn on you in a heartbeat.’ Then someone else said, ‘You know, I think what we should do is get rid of everyone over the age of seven years old, and then just educate them on how to live properly, and that would solve the world’s problems.’ Someone else said, ‘You just invented the Canadian residential school system. And that didn’t work.’
So there’s evil out in the world, but there’s also something inherently wrong with human beings, and we cannot fix it. So what can we do about evil? To help us as we consider this question, let’s look at Colossians 3:1-17. If you have a Bible or Bible app nearby, I invite you to turn there now.
Our Efforts Against Evil Begin with What and How We Worship
As we dig into the book of Colossians, we find that Paul is writing this letter to the church in Colossae, addressing something called ‘the Colossians heresy.’ He doesn’t clearly say what it is, but he gives us some hints. One of those hints is that it is focusing your life on something other than Jesus. We can tell that from what he writes in Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition, and the elemental spiritual forces of this world, rather than on Christ.”
Another aspect to this heresy is that it disconnects people, as we see from what he writes later on. “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you.’ [Here we see that aspect of worshiping something other than Jesus.] Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen. They are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.” (Colossians 2:18-19)
Paul is referring to a metaphor used the describe the Christian Church, the Body of Christ, where Jesus Christ is the head. So this Colossian heresy is disconnecting people from Jesus (the head) and from God’s people (the body). This heresy shares characteristics with every other heresy or false religion because they all have one of these two things in common. Every heresy is either worshiping the wrong object or worshiping the one true God in the wrong way.
You can worship the one true God and not be saved if you’re worshiping in the wrong way. By that, I mean if we approach God on the basis of our works, on the basis of what we do, that will not save us because our works, actions, and thoughts are always tainted by sin to some degree. We cannot save ourselves. Having either of these traits in your personal beliefs will disqualify you from a relationship with God and being part of His people.
If our life is not aligned with the one true God in authentic worship of him, we will be directed by the evil that is within and without, and we will end up furthering the cause of evil in this world. That’s a fact. That’s why Paul is so strenuously contending for the Christian faith in his letter to the Colossians. He writes this, “He [Jesus] is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” (Colossians 1:28-29)
This is a big deal. Paul is telling us that our efforts against evil begin with how and what we worship.
Jesus is God’s Answer to Evil
We can say that Jesus is God’s answer to evil because of what he does for us and for all humanity. First, Jesus has met and filled all of our fear, sorrow, hunger, pain, grief, and weakness. We know this because Paul tells us, “For in Christ, all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” (Colossians 2:9)
In Jesus Christ, all of God was present. When we have Jesus, we have all of God. In the next verse, Paul writes, “And in Christ, you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. (Colossians 2:10) Jesus has met you in all the places where you fell short and completed you in a way that nothing else ever can. Jesus is our all in all.
Second, Jesus has cleansed and reconciled us. Paul writes, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. [This is God’s solution to the evil inside us, the evil inside every human being, if they would only come to Christ.] But now, He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death, to present you wholly, without blemish, and free from accusation.” (Colossians 1:21-22)
Because of Jesus’ love, his death, and his resurrection, in God’s eyes, when he looks at you, it’s as if you’ve never sinned. Jesus has paid for all your sins, so you may be forgiven and free from condemnation, guilt, or shame. Jesus has filled us, forgiven, and reconciled us.
Third, Jesus has raised us to new life with him in the waters of Holy Baptism. Paul tells us, “Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:11-12)
In circumcision, there’s a part of the human flesh that’s cut off. In this verse, Paul is using circumsion as a word picture to say that when you were baptized, that old sinful nature was completely cut off from you by Jesus. And just as Jesus was baptized, buried, and raised, so we’ve been buried with Him and raised to new life with Him through baptism. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead has raised you to new life with Jesus.
Taking Our Stand Against Evil
So, how do we take our stand against evil? Taking a stand against evil is a two-fold process. First, there is an inward stand that we take against evil, by putting to death—or actively avoiding or getting rid of—those things in our lives that draw us away from God and feed our old sinful nature. We do this, not because it earns our salvation, but because we’re already saved, it’s an act of love and response to the love that God has shown to us.
Our inward battle against evil also involves setting our hearts and our minds on things above and taking on the attributes and characteristics of Jesus. Paul puts it so beautifully in Colossians 3:12, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” Those characteristics at the end of that verse are all characteristics that Jesus has for us. He had compassion on us and came to be our Savior. He had kindness towards us and only wants what’s best for us. In humility, he willingly went to the cross and suffered and died for us. In gentleness, he waits until we’re ready to receive the great and wonderful gifts that he has for us. And then there is his characteristic of patience. Patience is significant because sometimes when we’re confronted with evil, that is what we need the most: Patience for God to carry out his work against evil, but also patience for ourselves as God does his work in us.
This verse not only talks about the characteristics of Jesus that we are to take on, it also speaks to us of what God has done for us. It tells you that you are one of God’s chosen people in this world. He chose you in your Baptism. That’s when he said to you, ‘I have called you by name, and you are mine.’ And now we get to live as God’s chosen people in the world. This verse also tells us that we are holy, holy in the sense of being set apart, and holy in the sense of being purified from our sin, and it also tells us that we are dearly loved. Only if we could just live each moment of each day with an ongoing awareness of how much God loves us, our lives would be transformed. You are God’s beloved; he loves you.
Now, because of what Jesus has done in the past, we not only have this inward hope regarding the evil that we struggle with on the inside, but we also have an outward hope in the battle against evil. We take our stand against evil in the world by standing against Jesus and being a Jesus person in this world, by being one of God’s people in this world, by letting him live within us and then reflecting His love out into the world around us. You see, in the present, though it may not seem this way, God is working through his people in this world to hold back the forces of evil, to restrain them and keep them from completely taking over. And one day in the future, Jesus will return to this world in a visible way. When he comes, he will banish all evil, he will defeat death once and for all, he will restore and renew all things, including us, and we will live in the world we have always dreamed of, where no evil exists. We will finally be an ideal human being, with no evil within us, and we will get to live with the God of all greatness forever.
A Life Redeemed from Evil
Chad Robicheaux was a police officer and then became a member of a Special Forces Marine Task Force in Afghanistan. And it was there in Afghanistan that he came face to face with evil. He arrived there for the first time filled with excitement over being able to do what he was trained to do. But, as he says in his ‘I Am Second’ video, “And then you go out and see it. You see the evil. You see what a man could do to another man. What hatred could do to a culture. What these hateful people could do to children and women for their own selfishness. It’s something that you can’t make sense of, you can’t process it, and it wears on you. And somewhere between when you get there to do something noble and when you leave, you become that person yourself. I allowed hate and bitterness to come into my heart, and I couldn’t be that way in Afghanistan and then come home to my wife and be someone different.”
Chad was diagnosed with PTSD and eventually was discharged from the forces. When that happened, he lost his purpose in life. His wife encouraged him to get some physical exercise. He had wrestled previously when he was younger, so he got into it in a much more involved way and actually became the number one ranked flyweight in MMA in the United States. But with that success in MMA came all sorts of temptations, including other women. And the distance he experienced from his wife when he first got back from Afghanistan just grew larger. Eventually, Chad and his wife separated, and Chad became suicidal. His wife’s response to their separation was to go to church every day and pray for Chad. She was so angry she didn’t know how to pray. So she would ask God, “Lord, help me to see Chad the way you see him. Help me to love Him the way that you love him.”
Eventually, Chad realized that it wasn’t everyone else that was the problem. He was the problem. So he asked his wife to get a mentor for him from her church. And that man mentored him into an authentic personal relationship with God, which is something he never had before. Eventually, his PTSD was healed. Instead of being something that controlled him, and it became a set of memories that he had control over. With time, his marriage was healed. Now, Chad and his wife have a foundation where they serve to help other veterans who are going through things like PTSD, struggling with suicide, and marriages that have broken down.
Our Best Effort Against Evil is to Live as a Jesus Person
So, what can we do about evil? The best thing we can do is live as the new person that Jesus raised you and I to be: reconciled to God, free in Christ, someone who loves others as Jesus loves you, someone who’s filled with the peace of Christ, has the same compassion towards others that Jesus does, and is gentle, like Jesus is. And then finally, be confident that Jesus will make all things good in the end. Amen.
(This message was shared at Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley BC on October 15, 2023. For more info about WGLC, please go to wglc.org.)
Farewell to Shadowlands 