"Are You Qualified?"
Text: Colossians 1:1-14
7-13-25
In the name of Him who makes us part of His glorious Kingdom, dear friends in Christ. "I'm sorry, but after reviewing your resume’ I’m afraid you’re not qualified for this job." How many of us, especially young college graduates, have heard this statement while applying for a job? After going painstakingly trying to present a positive image, you get shot down in just a few minutes by a personnel manager who seems cold and heartless. Often, the employer leaves it a mystery and so, you’re left to wonder where you were deficient. "Was it my clothes or my hair? Didn't I smile enough? Did I say something stupid? Should I have said more or maybe less in the interview?" On and on the second guessing goes. Even a person who is emotionally strong will walk away from this kind of rejection asking themselves, "Why didn't I measure up to their qualifications?"
After the initial shock wears off, this job seeker has two choices. First, they can respond with total despair. Often a person like this will wallow in their own self-pity and never rise above that rejection. On the other hand, an emotionally strong person will use this as a learning experience. They evaluate the areas where they were not qualified and then they seek ways to make themselves fit for the job now or if they reapply in the future.
Of these two people, we probably judge that #2 is wiser, right? After all, #1 is stuck and in his defeatist attitude and won't go anywhere in life. Quite often we don't admire that kind of person. But person #2? He’s the kind of we like to associate with. They don't let rejection destroy them. Instead, they improve themselves, pick themselves up, and start all over. With strong determination, they will make their lives better without a helping hand from anyone else.
That's how things are in this life. But the opposite it true when we look at them in the spiritual and the eternal realm. In the Epistle Lesson for today, St. Paul speaks about some required “qualifications." But they aren't for a job position. Rather, they’re for a person's acceptance into God's Kingdom. And God's qualification requirements are really quite simple. In the Book of Leviticus, God tells the Israelites over and over again, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am Holy." Over the centuries, those requirements haven't changed. They apply to us today. The sad fact is that no human can ever meet those standards. In Romans 3 Paul gives his assessment of the situation. In verse 10 he quotes the Psalms and declares: "None is righteous, no, not one." And in verse 23 he echoes this fact in his own familiar words: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." In other words, every human being who has ever existed is declared unqualified for the Kingdom of God because we all are born sinful. Even a seemingly innocent baby like Kodi doesn’t meet the requirements. Unlike that employer I mentioned earlier, God doesn't leave any mystery as to why we’ve been rejected. God is perfectly holy and we are sinful, so we’re not fit to be accepted into His Kingdom of light. What we are qualified for is the Kingdom of Darkness that Paul mentions in the text.
Thankfully, God didn't just reject us and leave us to be eternally damned. Instead, He sent His Son into this world to meet all the requirements that we couldn't. Jesus Christ is the only human who was perfect and could meet God's qualifications. He truly was holy even as God is holy. That's because He was God in the flesh. But His perfect and holy life alone would not have qualified us for God's Kingdom. The solution for our damning situation was that Jesus would suffer and die to pay the price for all of our sinfulness. By doing so, Paul says that Christ rescued us from the domain of darkness, which means eternity in hell. He rescued us by His sacrifice on the cross and transferred to us the qualifications for inheriting God’s Kingdom.
Well, that should be the end of this discussion but unfortunately for some folks that's not good enough. And so, over the ages, mankind has devised all kinds of religious schemes which teach that the atonement bought for us by Jesus is not sufficient. Remember the reaction of the two job applicants from the beginning of this sermon? Well, some people try to apply those responses to the eternal and spiritual realm.
Even though the response of the second job applicant may be admirable in our secular world, it won't help a sinful human being standing before a holy God. We think the first applicant was a miserable little worm who would never go anywhere. He sat in his own despair, completely hopeless. You know what though? That's exactly what God wants us sinners to recognize. Psalm 51 says: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." God reaches out to the soul that’s in despair.
Unfortunately, far too many people choose the route of the second applicant that we talked about. Some Christians have devised doctrines which teach that mankind can pick himself up and get on the right path to God’s Kingdom. They don't deny that Jesus died for their sins, it's just that they don't want to be left out of the action. They claim that the atonement of Jesus accomplished a lot to get things right between us and the Father. But now we have to meet the rest of the qualification requirements on our own. In other words, Jesus did most of the work for our salvation, but we have to make our own contributions to finish the job.
Friends, nothing could be further from the truth. St. Paul was facing a similar problem in Colossae. There was a group of Jewish believers who were known as Judaizers. And what they said was that to qualify for God’s Kingdom you had to take your belief in Jesus and add Jewish ceremonial laws to it. Then, and only then, could you be accepted by God. What they didn’t understand was that by adding human works they were saying that the death and resurrection of Jesus was insufficient. It wasn't a full atonement for our sins, only a partial one. Well, Paul couldn’t stand for this adulteration of the Gospel of Jesus. And in his letter to them he blows all this human works righteousness right out of the water. He declared what the work of Jesus has truly accomplished. Please notice that the word "qualified" is past tense. That is, it’s something that has already happened. Paul didn't say you are being or will be qualified. No, he says God “has qualified you.” It's a done deal. Nothing needs to be added. Salvation comes through no one else's work except that of Jesus Christ.
But is it only those other churches who are all messed up? Well, while our doctrine as Lutherans remains pure and in alignment with the Holy Bible, we do have a tendency of erring in the other direction. Since we believe that good works cannot add to our salvation, some of us overlook the positive and helpful things that God calls us to do for our neighbor. So, we don’t focus on doing them at all. Furthermore, our Christian freedom is not a license to go and do whatever we please. God didn’t send His Son to die and therefore qualify us for His Kingdom only for us to turn around and act as though we were still living in the Kingdom of darkness. Since we are forgiven, we now strive to live holy lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Paul reminds us here in Colossians that we are to live lives worthy of the Gospel. We are to be constantly filled with spiritual wisdom and understanding which leads us to seek to do God's will. Yes, all the attempts for justifying ourselves by our works are gone. But good works themselves are not gone. They are the "fruit" of God's children who have been qualified by the blood of Jesus to be accepted into His Kingdom. The fruit of good works didn't qualify us for that Kingdom, but good works flow naturally from a thankful heart to our loving God
It is such a blessing to know that our Father in heaven no longer looks at us and says, "You don't qualify." Rather, in our Baptisms we have been robed in the righteousness of God’s Son. We were given the gift of faith to believe in Jesus as our Savior. That’s what Kodi received this morning. In those holy waters, God declared her to be qualified to receive the inheritance which He has in store for all His children who have been Baptized and believe. So, rejoice Christian friends, and trust that you have been qualified by God and made a part of His eternal Kingdom of Light. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!