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The Road to Redemption

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The Road to Redemption

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The Road to Redemption

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This sermon compares the story of Cornelius to the road that each of us travels to redemption by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Transcript

[Darris McNeely] There was once a centurion who served Rome well. He served for 25 years which was the normal length of time that a centurion was drafted into service as a Roman legionnaire. The centurion was a capable, competent, dedicated soldier of Rome. Centurion, in a Roman legion, was a unique position. A centurion was an individual who was actually over a hundred men, from which we get to term century. He had a hundred men under his charge. The equivalent of a centurion today in our army would be about probably a master sergeant or in years past, a staff sergeant responsible for that number of individuals.

A centurion in the Roman legion did not reach his position because of who he was, how much money his family had or their political standing in Rome. He reached his job as a centurion after usually about 16 years of service, and he had proven his competence through many, many years of work and dedication and proficiency. He had earned the respect not only of his superiors, but also of the men under him to be able to lead them and to take care of them. He was responsible for the daily care of every man in his century, and so he was not one that was appointed lightly, and basically, he got his job by competence which is the best way to get a job in any profession that a person might have.

A centurion was expected to carry 90 pounds of weight on his back 20 miles every day that the army moved, 90 pounds, 20 miles. Think about that. That's a lot of weight, and that's a lot to carry. And what he carried on his back, he had to buy for himself, it wasn't issued by the legion. He bought his weapons, his armor, his clothing and all the other instruments and tools that he worked with.

He was not only expected to lead his men into battle… and when he did, his spear was the first to touch enemy flesh. He led from the front, but after the battle was won, he was also expected to be able to lead his group to build whatever needed to be built, a bridge, a building, part of a camp because a centurion not only had to be a warrior and a leader, he had to be an engineer. That was the type of person that… the qualities that were necessary for that.

If he lived through 25 years of service, he could expect a discharge. And if there was enough money in the treasury, a centurion might get a plot of land given to him by the state and some money. If there wasn't any money at the time, he might have to serve a few more years, but 25 years was his length of service. And if he was still alive, he might be able to retire with something. If he wasn't alive, he would have been buried with ceremonies and services and in a place and a plot that he paid for himself. That was what was expected. And so the life of a centurion was a unique one in the position.

The centurion that I'm thinking about was a capable, dedicated man, and at some point in his service, perhaps in Dalmatia, perhaps in parts of southern Europe, maybe somewhere in Syria, warring for Rome as a soldier, a hard army, a hard time, a hard empire, this man led his troops into battle and into an engagement, and they did some bad things. They waged war. They killed, but that was not unusual because that's what a legion did, and that's what a centurion was very proficient at.

But on one day in one spot in one place, this centurion that I'm thinking about looked into the eyes of his victim. Maybe it was a woman. Maybe it was an older woman. Maybe it was an old man who couldn't run quite as fast as everyone else from the village in which they invaded. And as he raised his sword and was about to plunge it into his victim, he looked into that person's eyes, and he saw something that he had never seen in any previous victim, and that brought him up short. He plunged his sword on, and the person died, but he never forgot the look that he saw in that person's eye. He went on. He continued to serve as a centurion, and eventually, he was posted into the land of Israel on the coastal city of Caesarea.

And it's there that we read about this centurion in Acts 10. His name is Cornelius. Let's read about this centurion, the little that we are given here about him. Verse 1 of Acts 10, "There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment, a devout man and one who feared God with all of his household, who gave his alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always." Now, the story here goes on as Luke records it that he was praying, and he had a vision. And in this vision, an angel came to him and said, “Cornelius!" And as he responded, he was told to send his men to Joppa, just down the road along the coast and to find Simon named Peter and to have him brought by… he was given exactly directions exactly where he was, and he was told to have his men go down and get him and bring him back. And so verse 8 tells us that he sent forth them into Joppa.

Now, the story goes on here and beginning in verse 9 to tell how Peter was waiting in Joppa, and he too had a vision. And these men appeared at his door, they said, "We've been sent to bring you to the home of Cornelius." Peter goes with them after he's had his own vision and realizing that he's got to follow these men and go there and meet with this Gentile, Cornelius, centurion. And when he comes into him near Joppa, in verse 22, we find a little bit more about Cornelius in the terms of his character, "They said that, 'Cornelius the centurion, a just man, one who fears God and has a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house, and to hear words from you.'"

This is what we are told about this man Cornelius, a just man, devout man, feared God, gave of his money to the poor, and yet he was a Gentile soldier of Rome. He was not a Jew. He was not converted as we would look at it, and in this story, we are seeing the door bursting wide open in the New Testament to the Gentiles without any hesitation, no further equivocation. Gentiles have a path to salvation just as the Jews and Israel already had as Acts 2 showed, and it's unmistakable at this point. And this man is kind of the point person, the poster child for the Gentile converts at this time.

Cornelius was a man who, as what it is called in this time and in the book of Acts, a God-fearer. He's Gentile who associated himself with the Jews in the synagogues. He had not been circumcised, and he was not fully accepted in the Jewish community, but there was a group of people… and this Cornelius was a man who among like so many of the other God-fearers of the day, had become disillusioned with who they were, what they believed, the religions of their day, the immorality of the pagan cults. The failed promises that they held out had grown quite thin by the time of the story in the first-century and Cornelius and all. And people were looking for a better hope. They were looking for something else. In the Church, the gospel came on the scene at a very opportune moment in world history.

But Cornelius represents a group of people that were searching for something better, and in their quest, they latched onto the God of Abraham and wherever they came across it and however. And in Cornelius's case, what I have done is to trace a bit of an imaginative story of what could have been. And I've taken a little bit of license in doing so to try to help us imagine how he got to this moment in Acts 10 where he is the one that is the first Gentile with his family to come in — in this way and in this fashion to finally seal this situation.

Cornelius at some point in his life, for whatever reason, being a military man, it's just as possible to imagine… and again, I'm taking a bit of artistic license, a literary license to sketch the story out to get us to what the Scripture does tell us, so I beg your indulgence in that. But something got him to this point. And being a military man, I happen to think that Cornelius probably did something very bad, and from that point forward, he sought redemption. He sought to wash that blood from his hands that he couldn't get off himself. The blood of years and years of war and battle, and perhaps in one day, on one location, and with one person, it was one too many. And he looked in the eyes, and he saw what he was.

And that's why when Peter walked in the door of his home, he threw himself at Peter's feet in verse 25 and attempted to worship Peter, and Peter said, "Don't do it, get up. I'm just a man like you. Get up. I've been called to come here." But Cornelius was looking for something, and in his quest and his journey to find redemption and something, someone, some belief, something to wash that blood from his hands and to make him clean, he had found the God of Abraham through a synagogue, through a contact with someone, and it was pure. It was an ethic. It was a religion. It was a teaching based on the teachings of the Old Testament scriptures that he came to understand that made sense, and it gave him hope, and yet he was looking for something more. As those scriptures themselves pointed to, he was looking for redemption. And he finally found it as Peter walked in the door, and the whole story unfolds here in chapter 10, where it's very evident as they are then… the Holy Spirit comes upon them, they're baptized. And Peter says, "They're just like us."

And from that point forward, it was a whole new ballgame. But the only way that Cornelius, like you and I, could have found redemption was through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and it's that thought that I'd like to spend a few minutes discussing with us today. The road to redemption, the subject of redemption.

As we begin to think about the Passover service, the Days of Unleavened Bread and all of the various themes that are there, we've been going through the six steps to Passover in our Bible study series here. We've had other messages and thoughts that have been put before us. We've developed our own, hopefully in your own personal study to prepare your mind for that Passover period. Redemption is one of those concepts that we should stop and think about because as we take those symbols of the bread and the wine, as we wash the feet at the Passover service, as we go through the Days of Unleavened Bread, redemption is one of the key thoughts that we are to focus on and to think about as we look at our life, what has been done for us and where we are.

And I'd like to talk about three aspects of this this afternoon. The first is that Jesus Christ has redeemed us. That's the only way that Cornelius and you and I can have expunged from our life whatever it is that we have and had in the past that may have hung on, that needed to be buried and forgotten and forgiven. Christ has done that. Secondly, I want to talk about the fact that we also must forgive ourselves and in a sense, allow ourselves to be redeemed. Thirdly, that we also must extend that redemption to others and be able to do that.

Let's look on the first point, that Christ has redeemed us. In the 1 John… well, let's look at the Colossians 1:13-14, we'll read as Paul writes here and speaks of the work of Jesus Christ and His position, God's plan of salvation in Colossians 1:13. He says, "He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." We have redemption through His blood. That's how we're redeemed. That's the only hope of redemption.

If Cornelius needed some blood washed from his hands, if anyone else has ever needed that spot wiped clean off of our hands, out of our life, off of our conscience, the only way it can be done and that lifted is through the blood of Christ. And therefore, then we receive a redemption. And the idea of redemption really is very basic. When something is redeemed, it's bought back at a price. A price is paid to redeem something, to take it back into one's possession. We were and have been redeemed from, as Paul puts it here in a very succinct way, the kingdom of the power of darkness. Because we've been delivered, verse 13, from that power and “conveyed into the kingdom of the Son of His love…” and through that process, we have redemption.

We've been bought back and at a price, and the price was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It's the only price that could have been paid of God who came and lived in the flesh, a perfect life as a Passover lamb and then died as a perfect sacrifice to allow for all of the law to be fulfilled in that part of it as far as the penalty of sin so that it could be lifted off of all of mankind. And that's how it happened, and that's what brings about that redemption. We're bought back at a price through the very blood of Jesus Christ of which we take that symbol of the Passover service with the wine when we do that and understand that very, very clearly, but it is a redemption.

In 1 John 1:7, Paul writes… oh, I'm sorry, John writes here, "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." Christ's blood redeems us as it says in Colossians, but it cleanses us. It is the only way by which guilt, sin, penalties can be removed, those that are created by sin. And it is a washing. Steve Myers in his Bible study here the other night was talking about the foot washing and the aspect of washing and talked about that through from all the Scripture but especially as we are washed by the blood of Christ and by the water of the word, and we are cleansed and purified as we take that symbol. And even the foot washing service is a part of that. We look at that teaching as humility, but also the role of God's word and that blood being something that cleanses us from all sin. It's a unique view that we have the clear understanding of from Scripture, and it is what is essential and necessary for us to have in order to understand the redemption and what is all there.

And when that takes place, from God's point of view, it's gone. It is cleansed. It's clean. That's what we're told here. The spot's gone. The stain is out. Better than anything that we can humanly contract and use to clean anything with. Better than bleach, better than Tide, this actually cleans us, and it's gone. That's the beauty of redemption. That's the beauty of what Cornelius found, you found, and I found.

In Psalm 103, there's a beautiful statement that should encourage us. Psalm 103, beginning in verse 1, "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;” And then verse 12, "as far as the east is from the west, so far as He removed our transgressions from us."

It's one of the most beautiful statements we can read when it comes to redemption. As verse 4 says, we have had our life redeemed from destruction and in that process, our sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west which is telling us, God doesn't remember them anymore. He doesn't. And sometimes when we might dredge up even ours or somebody else's sins, I think sometimes God may be wondering, "What are you talking about? I don't remember that."

Unfortunately, we're human, and we remember sin. Don't we? We remember each other's mistakes. You remember yours. I remember mine. We're not like God. We haven't been able to put things as far from us as the east is from the west and totally forget. That's the challenge for us as human beings. The only way I've ever been able to forget something as a minister through the years is when there was true repentance and a change and fruit that just continued to build up, and in time in a relationship with a person, you do forget. I think it becomes a gift of God's Spirit, and there is a measure of just having it erased from your own mind. But God says it's as far from His mind as the east is from the west.

And that leads us to the second point that I want to talk about this afternoon, that we must forgive ourselves. If God has forgiven us and He has put our iniquities from us as far as east is from the west and they are no more, then we have to forgive ourselves as well, if you will, accept the redemption we have been given and understand it fully and allow ourselves to be redeemed by God. And how we look at it ourselves, we're just focusing on ourselves right now, and forgive ourselves. That's the second point for us to think about this afternoon.

And back in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul writes this very familiar passage that shows us he taught the Corinthian church, the Gentile church about the Days of Unleavened Bread and that they were to keep the Days of Unleavened Bread. 1 Corinthians 5. He tells them in verse 8, "Let us keep the feast. Let us keep the feast." So they understood it, they knew about it. In verse 7, at the end of verse 7, he says, “…For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us." And in that, he shows exactly that connection that Christ was the Passover.

The Passover was a meal in Exodus 12, that included a lamb and bitter herbs. The Passover service that we do and as Christ left it for us, is an alteration of that with the symbols of the bread and the wine and the foot washing. But also, Scripture tells us that Christ is our Passover, and this is where we're told that He is the Passover. He embodies it. It is His complete sacrifice, and He was sacrificed for us.

But look earlier here in verse 7. “Therefore…” he says “…purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump." Now, we do that physically to remind us of something as we prepare for the Days of Unleavened Bread. We do purge our homes, and we observe that seven-day period by eating unleavened bread, but he says, "Purge out the leaven, that you may be a new lump." But really, the full thrust of Paul's teaching here is the spiritual unleavening, deleavening that takes place through Christ and His sacrifice. What we do is only a type to teach us something in response to God's command to us.

But Paul here digs deeper to get to the real heart of the matter, and then he says in that one phrase, "Purge it out, that you may be a new lump." And then he says, "Since you truly are unleavened." You truly are unleavened. You truly are unleavened. Even if you forgot to put out that chocolate cake that you had in the bottom of your freezer and you find it halfway through the Feast of Tabernacles… Feast of… well, maybe it's the Feast of Tabernacles and you realize, "Hey, it was there all the time." He says, "You're truly unleavened."

What he's saying is, by Christ's sacrifice, by accepting that when in faith at baptism in the blood of Christ, we're cleansed. We have been redeemed. We've been bought back. And we should live and think of ourselves accordingly. Now, that doesn't mean we will never sin again. We just read back then we could… could've read further there in 1 John  1 that if we don't admit that we've sinned, that we're mistaken, we will sin. But if we confess our sins, He's just to forgive us.

But this here in verse 7 of 1 Corinthians 5, tells us that we are unleavened in God's sight. And the acceptance of the sacrifice of Christ in faith, the baptism that we go through to symbolize that acceptance, the death and burial of our old man and being raised to a new life with Christ as Paul says in Romans 6, puts us in a very unique, different and very good relationship spiritually with God as we struggle with this life in our flesh and as we heard in the sermon that the old man that keeps rising up to try to strangle the life and the heart out of this. But Paul says we are unleavened, and that means we've been redeemed. And we have to think of ourselves in that way. Even as we strive against sin and work to overcome sin in our life with God's help and be reminded every year as we take the Passover that we need that help. We go through the Days of Unleavened Bread to focus upon that lesson and the many lessons, the multiple lessons that unleavened bread teach us, that we are unleavened before God. And what that means is a very positive, confident hope that we should live our life with. That's the point that I want to leave us with as we prepare ourselves for the Passover.

If you turn over to Romans 6… oh, I'm sorry, chapter 5 of Romans in verse 1, we'll begin to read. Romans 5:1, Paul writes, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. At baptism with our sins forgiven, as we have read these scriptures here, and there are many more that we could walk through, but time won't let us this afternoon, it brings us to a point where we have peace with God because of that reconciliation. And we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We stand in that grace. And that is important for us to understand, what that means to you and I. It means that we have a relationship with God in which we stand as Christians in grace; His favor, His love, His concern for us to succeed as a Christian because as Paul said we are unleavened.

We also saw in Psalm 103, when we repent, the sins are put as far as the east is far from the west. And that redemption brings us into a relationship with God. That is a part of this whole matter of a relationship of grace, but we stand in that. And I always tell people, would explain it especially to someone who I'm counseling for baptism that, "This is where you will be. This is how you end to have that relationship with God. You stand in this grace." It was explained to me years and years ago by one of my early teachers, but as the best way that I can put it, it's like a canopy. That grace is like a canopy that stands over us, God's grace, and it shields us from the rain, the storm. It shields us from the harsh rays of the sun. We stand in that grace in God's protection.

Now, we live our life, but, you know, sometimes we decide, "Well, I want to know what is like outside." And we step out from under that canopy of grace. We start getting pelted with the hail. The rays, the ultraviolet rays, the harsh rays of the sun start coming down on us, and it burns us. We're out from under that grace. That's another way to understand sin in this world in this life, how it can pound us. The canopy hasn't moved. I have one of these sun ray-type canopies over my back deck. Boy, it's nice in July. It is really superb. And you can sit out there in rain. You can sit out there in the heat and enjoy the outdoors, but you get out from under it, and you are reminded it's rainy. But it hasn't been retracted back against the house. It's still there, and if I scurry back under it by repentance and acknowledgment, "Hey, Father, I'm sorry." I still stand in His grace. That's the relationship that we have with God.

And you couple this with what we're told over in chapter 8 and verse 1, it's a very beautiful way as Paul rambles his way through Romans here on these big themes of sin and baptism, and the Spirit and faith, and Abraham and all these matters that he's dealing with in these passages of Romans. And it's really not very difficult at all to understand what he's saying, but let's just zero in on this one verse, in verse 1 of chapter 8, "There is therefore" he says, “now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

He goes on the rest of chapter to fully more explain that, but just look at verse 1. There's no condemnation. We don't have a relationship based on condemnation with God. We stand in that grace by faith. We've been redeemed. We are unleavened, and we should live like that with confidence and with hope that we have access to the Father through Christ. We have the Spirit, and we are walking according to the Spirit. That can energize us. That's exciting. That's positive. That's what it means to be redeemed, and that's how we should look at ourselves. And whatever sin you've had, if you've repented of it and if you've accepted Christ's sacrifice in faith, it's forgiven, so forgive yourself. Forgive yourself because God has. And don't live forever with guilt. Move on.

I like to think that that's how Cornelius came that day. Finally, after that time spent with Peter and that whole experience that we read about and can read about in chapter 10, Cornelius was home. He had redemption. All those years that he fought for Rome and all the bad things that he did were now gone, and he understood that. He was redeemed. And that's how we are. So give yourself permission to be redeemed. It sure creates a smoother path in life. It really does when we can do that. And while we're at it, let's extend redemption to each other. Let's extend redemption to each other. Let's allow that others can be redeemed too.

Yes, spiritually, brothers, sisters-in-Christ, fellow Christians, fellow members of the Church, we can accept that at that level in most cases. Sometimes we get really cranked up against one another unfortunately. But for the most part, we understand that at that high spiritual level, but how about it on the individual level? How about as we hang around for decades and we know each other, and we see each other, we see each other grow up, we see each other falter, leave for awhile, maybe come back, or we know this or that dark period of one's life at some point in their past, because we know it, and they get an opportunity. They give a sermon of that. Maybe they give a sermon. Maybe they get ordained. Maybe they get to make coffee.

And sometimes, we might begin to think, "Wait a minute. I know something," or "I know you." And we can know each other too well, and that can be a problem especially in a small church, small group of people. We know each other too well, and we have a hard time extending redemption to one another, not realizing that time, the years and experience of life… jobs, careers, education, marriage, children, ups and downs, those things produce growth and very often, maturity, and we change.

And in those people that perhaps we one time held in low esteem or didn't have a good opinion of, we need to have that and extend that to others because we would want that extended to us. We need to be able to redeem one another and allow for that. And if in some way or some fashion even in our mind, we've held someone else back, just even in our thinking, we can allow and realize, "Hey, that person's changed. They're different. They've grown. They've repented. They truly are, there are fruits of repentance therein," or "This person's no longer a gangly youth, running around the aisles of the church. They're mature. They're an adult. They're contributing to the life of the congregation." Let's allow each other to be redeemed. And if we can do that, we can bind and knit ourselves together.

In Colossians 3, anyone or any place or any person that we've, perhaps, not known, not thought highly of, for whatever and never even known, but only by reputation, let's allow each other to be redeemed. And if we can do that, good things can happen. In verse 12, this is the new man that we're to put on, "As the elect of God, therefore holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, bearing with one another, forgiving one another…” These are the verses I like to think about during the Passover and Unleavened Bread period, and I ask myself, "How my measuring up to this?"

“…If anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so also you must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly and all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."

We'll see verses from verse 12 through verse 17 are pretty good measuring yardstick for all of us to think about among ourselves and apply to us at this time of year because these are the qualities of that new person, that new man, that we are to be putting on. As we put off the old, the new is embodied by this.

Back in verse 12, it says, "To put on humility." I heard recently of a story about humility. I'd like to relate it to you, and it's also a story about redemption. It's a story about how a person, one man, found grace after having been disgraced. And it's a beautiful story of redemption. It comes from a real life example in England.

Back in the early '60s in the government in England, there was a man who was the secretary of war, the equivalent of secretary of defense. The man's name was John Profumo. Holding this rank of a secretary in a cabinet of the prime minister of England was a pretty important matter. Just as a secretary and in the Cabinet of the president the United States, John Profumo was over all of their defense. He was an up and coming person. He served under the cabinet of Harold Macmillan who was a conservative at the time.

One weekend, Mr. Profumo decided to spend time at one of these country houses in England, a Downton Abbeytype house. It was called Cliveden. And it was a notorious house. Years and years earlier, it had those inhabitants, and the family and the parties and the weekend outings that were there were notorious for immorality. And on this particular occasion, that was part of the event. But it also took a different turn because on a weekend pool party at Cliveden, Mr. Profumo met a 19-year-old girl by the name of Christine Keeler.

Now depending upon who you talk to and what day, Miss Keeler was either a prostitute or a dancer. It varied whatever she needed to be. She was 19-years-old, and she was in a swimsuit at the pool on a sunny day in England, and Mr. Profumo was enchanted. He engaged in an affair with Miss Keeler. He was married. This is not unusual, anybody at that high level of government, but what was a twist on the story is that Miss Keeler was rather promiscuous, and she was also holding an affair with another individual named Boris from… guess where? He was the Soviet naval attaché at the embassy in London. Soviet naval attaché, that's just a code name for spy.

But Mr. Profumo didn't know that, and he carried on a brief but unfortunate affair. Well, as things happened, it leaked out. And the Labour Party, the opposition party got wind of it, and they took it to the floor of the House of Commons one day. And they exposed Mr. Profumo, and Mr. Profumo indignantly denied the charges. And he said I will bring libel charges against anyone who pushes this matter.

His boss, Harold Macmillan, was setting off glumly, not knowing whether to believe it, hoping against hope that it wasn't true. But Mr. Profumo stood up, and he vehemently denied. He gave his 1963 version of, "I didn't have sex with that woman." Well, more and more information came out, her story and then her attachment to this Soviet spy came out, and eventually, it was undeniable.

Mr. Profumo's wife basically said to him, "John, you need to resign." And he did, and it brought the government down. It ended Harold Macmillan's term as leader of the Conservative Party. He disappeared from politics, and certainly, John Profumo did as well. He was disgraced, not just as an adulterer, which as you know in politics, those things can be overlooked, but it was adultery with a woman who was also consorting with a spy which could betray the state. But he also lied about it on the House floor and attempted to cover it up. And when it was exposed, he was exposed.

Now, what do you think he did? John Profumo was out of government. He was disgraced. His career was over. I don't know if he had a press conference with his wife at the side dutifully as they do today or whatever, but you know what he did? He disappeared from public life. He never again sought any political office or high office. He didn't try to defend himself. He didn't write a book. He didn't go on whatever version of Oprah was the radio, T.V. show of the day, didn't do any of that. They didn't have the internet, so they couldn't write a blog, couldn't defend himself. He never tried to come back. He didn't whine. He didn't feel that he was unfairly treated and that he should be given a second chance. He just left.

But he went into the East end of London, the poorest of neighborhoods, and he began to work at a place called Toynbee House. This is where poor people came. This is where abused women came. This is where the criminally insane wound up at times, and he immersed himself in social work. Now, not the high type of social work where he sat behind a desk talking to people, he did the dirty work of social work. He cleaned toilets. He scrubbed floors. He visited prisons where the criminally insane were interned. And he did this for 40 years. For 40 years. Eventually became the president of Toynbee House. And he never sought, as I said, high public office.

But that's not the end of the story. One day in 1995, it was, I think, at the 75th birthday party for Margaret Thatcher. All the dignitaries of England were there. The Queen of England was there. John Profumo walked in invited, and he walked through the tables. And he had a seat reserved for him next to Queen Elizabeth II. And that's where he sat. It was their way of saying he had been redeemed. He was interviewed later on by one of his friends in the radio business, and his friend asked him, "What have you learned?" He said, "I've learned humility. I've learned humility."

He died, I think, age 91, a few years ago. His story was told in Wall Street Journal within the past year. It was a fascinating story of a man who went from disgrace back to grace. You don't walk into a banquet where the queen is and sit next to the Queen of England unless you have been redeemed in some way. It's a human story of redemption. It's a good story of redemption. It's a lesson for any politician, quite frankly, and unfortunately today, these things are handled differently because we usually see those politicians back in office or back running for something. And they don't recognize that they have not only disgraced themselves, they've disgraced their family. They've disgraced their country and their friends and that it's best to seek redemption some other way.

But he recognized that the biggest thing that he had to learn was humility, and I think he learned it. And it's a very good lesson for us about redemption. As we prepare ourselves spiritually for Passover, we will go through many thoughts, many prayers to come to that evening. Turn over to 2 Corinthians 13, if you will. Let's think about the redemption that we have through Christ. And what that means is we allow ourselves to be redeemed, and as we think about where we may need to extend redemption toward others, let's understand how truly spiritual redemption comes through Christ's sacrifice and what that makes us. And if we have the characteristics of that new man including humility and all the other matters that we read about there in Colossians, then when we come to this verse where in verse 5 Paul says, "Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” Test yourselves against what we just read in Colossians 3.

Test ourselves in our thinking against just a human story like the Profumo scandal in early 1960s in England. And the long term lesson that can come from that or anything else that we may, but certainly, test ourselves against what we know from scriptures here regarding the sacrifice of Christ and what that means for us. Test yourselves.

“Do you not know yourselves…” Come to know yourself, “…that Jesus Christ is in you?” and that's the ultimate end of our examination is to be assured that He is in us by the power of the Holy Spirit and that we are His. “Unless indeed, you are disqualified.” In other words, without that, we are not qualified. But if we have that, if Christ is in us, then we are qualified through Him, not through us.

And then Paul says in verse 6, "But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified." We're not disqualified because we've been redeemed. We've been redeemed by the blood of Christ. And we've been taken from the power of darkness into the kingdom of light and into a different relationship with God wherein we stand. And that's a good thing. And that is a hopeful matter. So consider yourselves redeemed by Christ's blood.

And think about that in the days coming, between now and the night when we sit down to take the Passover service and then observe the Days of Unleavened Bread. And to be grateful, that all of us have come to a point on that road to redemption, just like Cornelius did, and we can know that we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.