Watch as Len Finn unpacks Colossians 1:11-23, and explores the question – “How Do I Resist Evil?”
Evil
Scripture isn’t that interested in feeding our desire to understand the doctrine of evil. Scripture wants your eyes on Jesus.
Evil is not a threat to God. God brings light, God is light, and darkness is what is not of God. Darkness, biblically speaking, is defined as being void, formless. Scripture defines darkness not by what it is, but by what it is not. It is something that has not been graced by God’s light – by His goodness. Darkness is where God has not yet poured out His creative power.
It’s Not Good vs Evil
Darkness is not some powerful adversary against the light, evil isn’t some power striving against God. It’s not good vs evil; it is good, and where good hasn’t yet appeared. Darkness is defined by lack. Something formless and void – not yet lit up by God’s grace.
The battle between good and evil isn’t really a battle, at least not in the sense of two matched opponents – two deities, going at it. The evil you see happening in the Middle East, the evil you see on the nightly news, the darkness of the addictions you are struggling against are not of God – they are voids of darkness still awaiting God’s light. And all of this darkness is no threat to God and His power. All of the works of the devil are not rivals to God.
You Were Part of the Darkness
We tend to think of evil as something outside us. The most threatening evil in your life was you. We were not just victims; we were victimizers. We were not just the hurting; we were hurtful people. The most terrifying evil in your life was you. You were once untouched by God’s grace; part of the darkness. You belonged to it – it owned you.
You can’t fill a void with more void. Darkness is quite content to keep on being darkness. But God dragged us out of the darkness. For God, darkness is not a big thing, but for us, our former darkness is the greatest darkness we will ever know. And God dragging us out of it is the most important thing that has ever happened to us. More important than your birth. More important than your conception. Because this is the moment where you came into real being. You are a new thing.
To be dragged out of darkness is not just to be dragged out of darkness; it is to be dragged to Jesus and into His kingdom permanently.
You Now Belong to the Light
When the light of Jesus shone in the darkness that was you, that was the first time you had real life. You were then no longer nothing. No longer a void. You were something. In Jesus you have been created a son and daughter of God. In Jesus, you are everything your Father hoped you would be. You don’t belong to the darkness anymore, you belong to the light and no darkness can overcome it.
God doesn’t promise life without suffering, but he does promise he will guide our path and he will always walk with us. Whatever evil you are facing today, know that God is with you, and He will not let you stray, and the cross and resurrection tell you that somehow things will be all the more wonderful for having gone through that valley.
We have a God who doesn’t just illuminate the darkness, He shines his light upon it, he redeems it.
The biggest threat of the darkness for you is something trying to convince you that you are not of the light; to convince you that you are not God’s beloved. But the truth is that nothing can separate you now from the love of God. You belong to the light. The darkness has no power over you. It can’t touch you. You have the full armor of God.
The more you rest in the truth of God’s light in you, the more resisting darkness will simply be resting in the light.
“Being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” Colossians 1:11-12
