Life Together for Christ's Sake

Colossians 1:1-17

(v.12a) As God’s chosen ones

Recipients of His free grace

Chosen before the foundation of the world

1 Peter 2:9-10- But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Holy

Set apart from the world to Himself

Beloved

He has lavished His great love on us in Christ

All three together

Ephesians 1:3-6- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved

Without this, we only have self-help

This is not a list of self-help life improvements

The gospel is not a self-help book

Its the Good News that what you were unable to do God has done through Christ for you

In the same way, apart from Christ you can do nothing in this list

But in Christ, He empowers us to do all that He commands

And we do what He commands, not from duty, but from love

(vv.12b-15) Put on then

We don’t only put off the old

Too many Christians spend a biblically unbalanced amount of time and energy stressing the “no no’s” of the Christian life

We also put on that which accords with the new man

Be who you truly are in Jesus!

A radical change

Compassion

Tender mercy

Kindness

Genuine goodness

Humility

Arrogance-destroying sober-mindedness

Meekness

Humble gentleness which is considerate

Patience

Bearing with one another

Forgiveness

Graciously pardon

Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-7- If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Peace

Of Christ

Thankfulness

(vv.15-17) One body for one purpose

We have been redeemed into one body

We are members of one another

We are called to be peace-filled in this body

People of the Word

Dwell in you richly

Be a Bible-saturated people

Teaching and admonishing one another

Be a Bible-filled community

Be a Bible-teaching community

Be a Bible-correcting community

People of singing praise

Ephesians 5:18b-20- be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

We ought to sing because we love Him

We must sing because we are thankful for His loving mercy

So may we sing more loudly, more genuinely, and more often than ever before

People with one purpose

Do everything in the name of Christ

1 Corinthians 10:31- So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

How are you doing?

Do you think of yourself as chosen, holy, and beloved by God?

Do you walk in humility and thankfulness for His great grace?

How have you grown lately in your love for Jesus?

Do you desire to know yourself more truly in light of the Bible?

Are you striving to be the person who Christ has saved you to be?

Do you pray for God to work the fruits of the Spirirt in your life?

Will you strive, by God’s grace, to be more like this list and less like everyone else?

Have you given yourself to the kind of corporate life that the Bible commends for you to have?

Commitment to learning together with the gathered church?

Commitment to investing yourself in the lives of one another?

Commitment to signing with joy and passion when we meet together?

Commitment to living life together for the glory of Christ?

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You who are believers in Christ Jesus as your Lord, Savior, and Great Treasure are in Christ. You are a new self, a new man, a new creation. You are not the old man of the world any longer. But how did we get here? And why does it matter? Well, the reason it matters to know is that Paul seems to think that it is important to know. It is important because to truly know the answer does two things: it changes our hearts, and it teaches us how our hearts are changed.

(v.12a) As God’s chosen ones

The gospel is not the good news of your good choices and other peoples’ poor ones. It is not the good news that you are smarter or more enlightened than other people. It is the staggering Good News of God’s free grace and mercy. It is the Good News, not that we loved Him, but that He first loved us. It is the Good News that we have received omnipotent mercy, not based on our works, but on His wise purposes. We are Christians because He chose us before the foundation of the world. Peter puts it this way in 1 Peter 2:9-10- But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Now, Paul tells us some other things about who we are in Christ. He says that we are holy. He has set you apart from the world to Himself. He plucked you up our of the mire of the world and washed you by the blood of His Son and brought you to Himself. He said “you are mine,” and “I have set you apart to myself.” He also says that we are beloved. This is because He has lavished His great love on us in Christ. One of the many problems of so much modern worship music and preaching is not that it makes too much of God’s love, but that it does not make enough of it. It does not make as much of God’s love to simply sing or speak only of His love as it does to sing or speak of His love in light of sin and condemnation and hell. Which is greater, to say merely that God is loving, or to say with the Apostle Paul: For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Romans 5:10)?

Now, when we put all three of these truths together, as Paul does, we begin to see a fuller picture of who we really are. A picture of ourselves like the one Paul draws in Ephesians 1:3-6- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. The Gospel is very great and glorious, and without this view of it, we only have self-help “Christianity”. The list we are about to walk through is not a list of self-help life improvements. The gospel is not a self-help book. Its the Good News that what you were unable to do God has done through Christ for you. In the same way, apart from Christ you can do nothing in this list, but in Christ, He empowers us to do all that He commands, not from duty, but from love.

(vv.12b-15) Put on then

We don’t only put off the old.We also put on that which accords with the new man. Be who you truly are in Jesus! Too many Christians spend a biblically unbalanced amount of time and energy stressing the “no no’s” of the Christian life. This was one of the problems with the Fundamentalism of the 20th Century. In response to the theological liberalism that was sweeping into the Church, conservative Christians often responded in a rigid legalism that often emphasized the duty of biblical commands while neglecting the delights of biblical commands. The do’s and the don’ts of the Bible are not meant to primarily be dutiful drudgery. They are meant to be the joyful live-giving way of God.

This way is truly a radical change. We arrive at the list and it is full of character attributes that are so far from the norm of our old selves. We must put on, as we put on clothes, compassionate hearts: hearts of tender mercy, kindness: genuine goodness, humility- arrogance-destroying sober-mindedness, meekness: humble gentleness which is considerate, patience: bearing with one another, forgiveness: graciously pardoning, peace: the peace of Christ, thankfulness: genuine thanksgiving for God’s grace, and finally love. Love is the thread that runs through all of the others like we read in 1 Corinthians 13:1-7- If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

May God help us to put each of these on. May He help us to see where we must grow and guide us in our pursuit of this new-life character list.

(vv.15-17) One body for one purpose

Finally, we arrive at what may be the most encouraging and most convicting part of the entire passage. Christianity is not a call to an individualistic faith and life. It, of course, is deeply personal in the individual heart, but it never stays there. We have been redeemed into one body and we are members of one another. You can search the entire New Testament, and you will not find one lone-ranger Christian. When He saved you, it didn’t become just you and Jesus. It is now you adopted into the family of God and made an inseparable member of the Church. And this means that you have been joined together with God’s people. And this is primarily lived out in the context of the local church. Now, Paul is speaking to us together to commend to us who we are to be together. We are to be people of the Word. He tells us to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. His desire for us is that we will be a Bible-saturated people. And as we become a Bible-saturated church, that we will faithfully be teaching and adminoshing one another. We want to be a Bible-filled community where all of our conversations and interactions are seasoned with the truth of Scripture. We want to be a Bible-teaching community where we encourage one another in the Word of God and teach one another in the Bible. We want to be a Bible-correcting community where we are not afraid to humbly and graciously keep one another accountable as we walk alongside one another.

This passage also challenges us to be people of singing praise. We are to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs together. This is exactly what Paul exhorts us to do in Ephesians 5:18b-20- be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to sing because we love Him, not because we have to. We must sing because we are thankful for His loving mercy. How can we not sing praises to our awesome God? So may we sing more loudly, more genuinely, and more often than ever before

Finally, we must be people with one purpose. This church exists for the glory of Christ becasue He has redeemed us and has unified us by His blood. We ought to ask ourselves one central question in our lives individually and together as a church- am I doing this for the glory of the name of Christ Jesus? 1 Corinthians 10:31 says- So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. May this be our desire as we walk in faith together.

How are you doing?

How are you doing in comparison to this passage? Do you think of yourself as chosen, holy, and beloved by God? Do you walk in humility and thankfulness for His great grace? How have you grown lately in your love for Jesus? Do you desire to know yourself more truly in light of the Bible? If not, my pray is that today God will give you a new sight of yourself in the face of Christ.

Are you striving to be the person who Christ has saved you to be? Do you pray for God to work the fruits of the Spirirt in your life? Will you strive, by God’s grace, to be more like this list and less like everyone else? I pray that God will help us to live in accordance with the people He has redeemed us to be.

Have you given yourself to the kind of corporate life that the Bible commends for you to have? Commitment to learning together with the gathered church? Commitment to investing yourself in the lives of one another? Commitment to signing with joy and passion when we meet together? Commitment to living life together for the glory of Christ? May this be the desire of our heart from this day onward for the honor of our Savior.