Good Friday's Reconciliation, Alienation, Without Experiential Contrast
This Good Friday sermon, preached by Rev Jared Keath on Colossians 1:21–23, contains much that is commendable. It is text-driven, clearly structured, evangelistic, and centred on the necessity of Christ’s death. The preacher asks the right controlling question: why did Jesus have to die? He then answers from the passage itself: because sinners are alienated from God, hostile in mind, guilty of evil deeds, and in need of reconciliation through the bodily death of Christ. The sermon is therefore not a sentimental Good Friday reflection, nor a merely moralistic appeal. It is substantially doctrinal, gospel-focused, and pastorally accessible.
The sermon’s basic structure is simple and effective: the predicament, the solution, and the response. This is a strong homiletical decision. Colossians 1:21–23 naturally lends itself to that movement. The preacher first identifies the human predicament: “you were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.” He then turns to the divine solution: “he has now reconciled” sinners “in his body of flesh by his death.” Finally, he addresses the necessary response: continuing in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel.
One of the sermon’s chief strengths is that it does not treat humanity’s problem with God as merely neutral distance. The preacher specifically challenges the common assumption that, if there is a God, we are probably on fairly good terms with him. He says that, from God’s perspective, our relationship with him is not neutral, distant, or indifferent, but one of alienation and hostility. This is a direct and helpful correction of modern religious complacency.
The sermon also contains some genuinely direct statements about human enmity against God. The preacher says that the Bible goes so far as to call us “enemies of God,” citing Romans 5:10, and he identifies this as our natural state apart from divine intervention. That is an important and courageous thing to say in an evangelistic Good Friday sermon. Many contemporary sermons avoid such language altogether, but this sermon does not. It gives the congregation the category of enmity, and it connects that enmity to alienation, hostile-mindedness, and evil deeds.
The sermon is also strong in its insistence that reconciliation comes from God, not from us. The preacher says that the solution is not something God expects us to come up with; rather, God provides the solution, and the solution is his own Son. This is doctrinally sound and pastorally important. It prevents the sermon from collapsing into moralism. The hearer is not told to repair himself, improve himself, or make himself acceptable to God. He is pointed to Christ, who reconciles sinners through his death.
The sermon’s account of Christ’s death is also substantially faithful. The preacher says that we were alienated from God because of sin, and therefore something had to be done about our sin. He explains that Christ’s death takes away sin so that alienation gives way to reconciliation. He further says that Jesus was punished for our sin, not his own, and that on the cross Jesus received the alienation we deserved so that we might be accepted by God.
The response section is also commendable. The preacher explicitly denies that reconciliation is obtained by cleaning up one’s life, improving one’s behaviour, or doing enough good things. Instead, he identifies faith as the means by which one receives what Jesus has done. Faith is described as trusting that what Jesus did on the cross is sufficient, personal, and all that is needed to be right with God. This gives the sermon a clear evangelical centre.
Nevertheless, the sermon’s weakness lies in its limited experiential contrast. It says many true things about alienation, enmity, sin, reconciliation, and faith, but it does not sufficiently make the hearer feel the dreadful contrast between having Christ and not having Christ. “The New Birth in Exile” series is particularly with identifying the experiential urgency of being born again in Good Friday sermons. Applying this concern to this sermon, especially one dealing with alienation from God, the congregation should be brought to see not only that Christ reconciles, but what sinners remain under if they are not reconciled.
The sermon tells us that alienation is real, but it does not fully explain why alienation is so dreadful. It says that we are enemies of God, but does not give sustained weight to what it means to have the holy God as one’s enemy. It does not sufficiently develop the divine side of alienation: God’s righteous wrath against sinners, his holy opposition to evil, and the present and eternal danger of remaining unreconciled. The preacher does mention judgment day, and says every person will stand before God the Judge and give an account, which is a strong and welcome moment. Yet even there, the sermon quickly moves to the assurance of the reconciled believer rather than dwelling on the fearful contrast for the one outside Christ and possible false refuges.
This is not a denial of judgment or wrath, but an underdevelopment of them. The sermon’s tone is perhaps a little too winsome at precisely the point where Good Friday preaching should press the conscience. The preacher is warm, clear, accessible, and evangelistically inviting. Those are real strengths. But the cross shines most brightly when the horror from which Christ saves us is also made plain. Without wrath, judgment, spiritual death, and helplessness being brought into sharper relief, reconciliation can sound chiefly like the restoration of a broken relationship rather than rescue from divine condemnation.
A related weakness is the sermon’s limited treatment of original sin and human inability. The preacher says that every human being comes into the world with a mindset hostile to God, and that evil deeds flow out of who we are. That is a move in the right direction. Yet this falls short of the scriptural view that we are spiritually dead, morally unable, enslaved to sin, and incapable of reconciling ourselves to God. It rightly says that the solution does not come from us, but it does not explain why it cannot come from us.
This matters because Colossians 1:21 does not merely describe bad behaviour. It describes a whole fallen condition: alienation, hostility of mind, and evil deeds. In Reformed terms, the sinner is not merely distant from God and in need of relational repair. He is fallen in Adam, corrupt in nature, guilty before God, hostile in mind, dead in sin, unable to help himself, and exposed to divine judgment. The sermon gives us several of these categories, but not the full theological weight of their connection.
The sermon also misses an opportunity to connect sin with the image of God. It rightly says that we were made for God, but it does not develop the deeper anthropological point that we were made in God’s image. That would have strengthened the sermon considerably. Our hostile minds are dreadful because the mind was made to know God. Our evil deeds are grievous because our bodies, wills, affections, and actions were created to reflect God’s holiness. Sin is not merely relational estrangement or moral debt; it is the corruption of image-bearers who have turned their God-given faculties against the One whose glory they were created to display.
The preacher’s explanation of “hostile in mind” could also have been stronger. He explains it as a mindset opposed to God’s way of defining reality. That is true, but it is somewhat softer than Paul’s language. A hostile mind is not merely a mind with an alternative worldview. It is a mind morally opposed to God himself: resisting his authority, resenting his rule, suppressing his truth, and expressing inward enmity through outward evil deeds. The sermon says this in part, but it tends to translate hostility into the language of worldview difference rather than pressing the full moral rebellion contained in the text.
The conclusion of the sermon is warm and gospel-rich. The preacher says that the death of Jesus is not merely something to acknowledge or admire, but something we desperately need. Without it, we remain alienated from God; through faith in Jesus, that alienation is over, and we are reconciled as friends of God forever. This is a fine evangelistic ending. It is clear, comforting, and Christ-centred.
Yet even here the missing contrast remains evident. The conclusion tells us beautifully what it means to have Christ: reconciliation, friendship with God, and eternal acceptance. But it says less about what it means not to have Christ: remaining under wrath, spiritually dead, unreconciled, guilty before the Judge, and facing eternal wrath. The positive side is strong; the negative side is present but too muted.
Therefore, the final judgment should be balanced. This Good Friday sermon has many strong doctrinal elements. It is not evasive about sin, alienation, hostility, or the need for Christ’s death. It makes several direct and faithful statements that should be praised. The preacher clearly presents Christ’s death as necessary and sufficient, and he calls hearers away from self-reliance to faith in Jesus Christ. It also avoids shallow illustrations and anecdotes that usually detract from the Word.
However, experientially, the sermon would have been stronger with a more serious contrast between the condition of the reconciled and the unreconciled. It needed a fuller experiential sense of what it means to be God’s enemy, not only relationally estranged but under the righteous displeasure of the holy God. It also needed more weight on original sin, spiritual death, moral inability, wrath, judgment, and the eternal consequences of remaining outside Christ. Rather than go through the issues surrounding the lack of experiential application, the Easter Sunday sermon preached by Rev Keath at Frankston Presbyterian Church in this series has an extended look at these issues and possible ways to overcome them.
In short, the sermon is doctrinally good, pastorally warm, evangelistically clear, but experientially soft because of insufficient contrast. It rightly proclaims that Christ reconciles enemies to God through his death. Its weakness is that it does not make the congregation feel deeply enough why remaining God’s enemy is so dreadful, both now and forever, nor does it sufficiently press the urgency of the new birth for sinners who are not merely estranged but spiritually dead.
A full copy of the sermon is available at The Reformed Pastor's YouTube channel
More articles in The New Birth in Exile series.
