The King who gives Life

Intro

Good morning friends and hello to our friends joining us online. My name is Clint and I get to continue on in our series “Jesus, Bring us to Life”. We have been studying through the book of Colossians and seeing how Jesus is King over all, and this King gives us new life.

Last week Brian talked about some of the traps we can fall into that keep us from this new life. This week, we are going to be talking about how this new life transforms who we are, we are going to be talking about our Identity.

But before we do that. Let’s talk about Cartoons. You guys watch cartoons? I still do, and it’s not just with my kids. I love one called Gravity Falls, I think its one of the best written shows in history. I love it when Bluey is on the TV. When I was a kid I was dead set on becoming either a ninja turtle or Darkwing Duck when I grew up. I wanted to be the terror that flaps in the night. When you’re in trouble call DW.

In particular though, there was one show that probably molded and shaped me more than the others. We had this set of VHS tapes. For my middle schoolers, I had Andrea put a slide together so you could see this ancient piece of technology.

We had this set of this show called “The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible”

It followed three young people who went through a portal in time and got to witness bible stories. They would interact with people, see events, and walk away with a better understanding of who they were created to be through.

I loved it. I felt like, through these stories, I learned not only about the things God did in the past, but what he was doing in the present, and what he promised to do in the future.

This show helped me as a kid see that my story, my identity, was tied up with the person of Jesus. This is a huge way that Jesus brings us to life. Learning who we are in Jesus is one of the biggest ways that we experience transformation. It’s how we get free of things that bog us down, its how we experience more joy and hope in our lives. It helps us serve other. It’s how we become who we were created to be.

That’s what we are gong to look at today. We are going to see how who we are, our identities, are rooted in what Jesus did in the past, what he is currently doing in the present, and what he will do in the future.

Open up your bibles, Colossians 3 and while you are doing that I will open us in prayer

Pray

Father, we thank you for today. As we take this time to study your word, wold you meet us where we are at and bring us to life.

King of the Past

The New International Version (Chapter 3)

3 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Supreme Jesus of the Past

Jesus died (3:1)

Let’s start in the past, since, you know, on a timeline that comes first. The verse says we have been raised with Jesus. We can be raised because Jesus DIED.

That is a historical fact. I googled “was jesus a real person” and Wikipedia told me (yeah, I know I’m not supposed to use Wikipedia as a source, but I’m doing it.) Online friends, you can search this for yourself and fact check it if you want.

It says: Contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and biblical scholars and classical historians view the theories of his nonexistence as effectively refuted. Robert M. Price, an atheist who denies the existence of Jesus, agrees that his perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars.

Historically, there was a person named Jesus who died on a cross. As followers of that person, we believe that everything he said was true. We believe that he was God the Son, sent by God the Father, and empowered by God the Spirit. We believe that he left his heavenly realm, walked the earth, that he made friends, that he ate fish, that he got tired and sweaty just like all of us. We believe that he showed us what life was supposed to look like, that he showed us what we could be if we lived a life in relationship with God. He showed us perfection.

And the powers of the time killed him for it.

But, we believe that his death happened, not because he was powerless to stop it, but rather he was the King, fully in control, and he chose to die so that we could experience new life.

He did what we couldn’t, he lived a perfect life. He never fell short, that’s one way to define sin, falling short of what we should do. He was sinless, and he chose to die, to clean away our sins and bring us to life.

Illustrate

I think of it like this, and this isn’t a perfect analogy, but it will work. When I was a kid, I had a ton of trouble keeping my room clean. Anybody else?

So picture yourself, you’re going through your day, and in the back of you mind you know your room is a nightmare. You’ve got dirty clothes everywhere, you’ve got the plates with the half eaten food still on them. You know that at one point you had a fork on that plate, but now you don’t know where the fork is. There is a series of pizza boxes that your pretty confident some mice are now living in.... you get the picture.

Well you know you should clean it, and your Dad has reminded you to clean it, and you just haven’t done it. And so you get home and you think, well, maybe today is the day I’ll clean it up, but you’ve said that before and it’s never worked out. So you open your day and step inside, and your room is all clean. Your laundry is folded and put away, your bed is made, it smells good. There are new posters on the walls of your favorite things, this space has been made clean, and it’s totally set up to be yours.

Pause. What are you feeling right now? Gratitude, relief? Maybe a little bit of apprehension, like this is too good to be true. Someone cleaned this all up for me and they are going to be mad they had to do so much work?

You are standing in your room and you here a noise, you turn around and Jesus is standing there. And he looks at you and he says “I cleaned your room for you, so that you and I can hang out. You don’t need to worry about your room. Now come with me, I’ve got tickets for Taylor Swift and I don’t want to be late.”

Okay, maybe it’s not a perfect analogy, but I really like Taylor Swift.... and Jesus really loves us. He died, so that we could draw close to him, and he could bring us to life. Our new life is rooted in what he did in the past. He didn’t just die, he was also raised.

Was Raised (3:1)

This seals the deal. Lots of people die, only one person was resurrected the way Jesus was. The resurrection proves that everything he said about himself was true. He claimed to be the Messiah, to be God on Earth, to be the savior of the world. And then he backed that claim up by breaking the power of sin and death which was demonstrated through the resurrection. Jesus is King over all, even death itself.

Jesus picked the time and place, of his victory, he chose to die to bring us to life. When speaking of his life he said in....

John 10:18 “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”

He said what he was going to do, and then he did it, and when he did that, it opened the door to new life for your and me. Because we are united with King Jesus, what he did, he did for us, so that we can experience this new life by being united, by being together with him.

Supreme Jesus of your past

You died

Look back at verse one, and then again in verse three. You have died with Christ, and you have been raised.

We died, in a very real way. Becoming a follower of Jesus starts with us realize that God loves us, and that he wants to be with us, and we have to die. We have to die to this idea that we are King. We have to acknowledge the one true king and what he did for us. And when we do that, we die and we become new people.

You were raised

We are raised with him. We have been united with Christ, and that changes us.

You ever had an experience that in a split second changes who you are?

I remember enlisting in the Army National Guard. I remember they took me and a couple of other people into this back room at the processing center. They had us raise our right hand, and swear an oath of service.

I remember when I did that, I felt connected to everyone who had ever done the same thing. I felt connected to my Grandfather who fought in the pacific during WW2, to my Dad who served in Vietnam. When I left that room I wasn’t the same high school kid who entered. I was part of something bigger than me. I represented something more, from Crispus Attucks in Boston, to the 1st Minnesota at Gettsyberg, to the Horse Soldiers in Afghanistan we were connected.

How much more with Jesus. We make this decision to acknowledge him as king, and it changes everything. We are a new person we are United with the God of the Scriptures. We have been raised, joined, united with the God that spoke the world into existence, to the god who breathed air into the lungs of Adam in the garden, who spoke to Moses through fire, who delivered Isreal through water out of slavery. We are united with the Christ who emerged out of the earth victorious after three days! This is who we are! This is the person who chose us, and you were chosen.

Jesus chose you (John)

In John 15:16 it says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit......”

Jesus has chosen you to be united with him, not based on how good you are, but based solely on how good he is.

Chance to surreneder (QR Code)

So, right now, we are going to pause and take time to acknowledge his, right where we are at. And for you, this maybe the first time, or it maybe the thousandth time, that you say “Yes Lord, would you be the King of my life. Would you take everything I’ve ever done in the past, and give me know life.”

Let me say a short prayer over us, and I’d invite you to pray along with me quietly in your head.

Lord, we welcome your Holy Spirit right now. Jesus, we thank you. We thank you for your love. We thank you for dying so that I could die, and living so that I can live. Jesus, your are my King, my life is given to you, to love and serve. Help me to die, so that I can live. Amen.

On the chair backs there is a little QR Code. If you scan that, it will bring you to our connect form. If feel like you have taken a step forward with your relationship with Jesus today, maybe you gave him your life for the first time, or you are looking for help in growing in your faith, at some point during the service scan that and fill it out. Folks online, the online team will make that available to you. There are people here that want to help you lean in.

Because, not only is our Faith rooted in what Jesus did for us in the past, it is for the here and now as well. Jesus is King of the present.

King of the Present

Supreme Jesus of the Present

Jesus the King

Look again at that verse it says Colossians 3:1-2 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

Set our hearts and minds on things above, this is something that happens in the here and the now. Part of this new life is the things that we care about, the things that we think and long for, they are higher things, they are different things than maybe we are used to thinking about before.

I’m not going to get too far into this one, because Steph, you guys know Steph, tall, blondeish, really good at basketball, loves the show “Curse of Oak Island”, you know Steph. She is going to be talking about transformation, about putting to death the old stuff and putting on the new stuff next week, so I’ll just share one quick story that happened to me this week to frame this up.

In Jesus, we see the Fruits of the Spirit lived out, Love, joy peace, patience, kindness goodness, Faithfullness, gentleness, and self control. These are the things we have to set our hearts and minds on, and when we do that, it changes how we live.

I live across from a rental property. They have one of those Narnia lamp posts in their yard. Last Winter, the light started blinking. Strobing. It was very annoying. I would be sitting at the dinner table, strobing. I’d be in my bedroom, strobing. It was really getting to me.

So you know what I did. After about a month of strobing, I snuck over under the cover of darkness and unscrewed the light. Not the greatest, but I felt like I won the war.

Sunday, I get a text from my wife: The light is back on and it’s still blinking. I got very upset. How dare they. This is personal attack. They are trying to drive me crazy with their blinking lights. I started running through all the things I was going to say to them. You ever do that, have those make believe conversations in your head where you tell people off?

Most of the time, that’s not Jesus. That’s not healthy, thats sin. Thats an earthly thing. We are called to be different. Love, to serve, to die to ourself, for others. Self Sacrificial love is a heavenly thing.

So, you know what I did. I was at a prayer service at Eastside (Come check one it, first and third Sundays of the month) and I had a some pie left over. So I walked over to the neighbors house, knocked and the door, shoved this pie in their face and told them to fix their light.

No, they didn’t answer the door, so I left the pie and a note offering to help fix their light. And I meant it. I know nothing about wiring, but I was dead set on skipping prepping this sermon to learn about blinky lights if I had to.

As I had been driving home I had realized my mind was on earthly things, not on heavenly things, and when I changed my focus, my attitude and behavior changed.

We set our minds on things above. Not just in grand was (like contemplating Jesus on his throne), but also in practical ways that bring us to life. Where have you been stuck on things below? On the perceived slights. On the unfairness of life. On the worry about money, statues, or power. Where are you looking down, when you should be looking up. Because that’s where Christ is, he is the ruling King.

Jesus the Conqueror/Liberator

It says he is seated at the right hand of God. This is throne room imagery. It shows that Jesus is the King, but lets not get confused about what this means. He isn’t seated in the way that I sit down when I get done with work. This isn’t Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, playing on his phone and showing God the Father funny memes.

Jesus isn’t passive in the present, he is still the Conquering King, he is still in the Business of Liberating the captives, of ushering in his Kingdom in people and throughout the world. This verse is linked to things Jesus said about himself when they asked him if he was the Messiah in....

Mark14:62 ““I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.””

This is a reference to Psalm 110:1 “The Lord says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.””

Jesus is the King of the present. He has all the power, and he is coming on the clouds, brining his enemies under his feet. He defeated death, he broke the power of sin, and now, the present, he is Liberating. Part of living this new life, is that, little by little, day by day, we are set free.

Where in your life do you feel like you are stuck? Maybe it’s the anger, something little will happen and you got way more spun up than you should. Maybe it’s the worry, you’ve got so many things going on and when you try to sleep, those thoughts just attack you. Maybe it’s some sort of negative behavior, you get stressed and fall back into this old habit that you know brings death, not life, but you just can’t seem to round that corner.

When we set our hearts and minds on the things above, we receive gifts from Jesus. Gifts of love, joy peace, patients....gifts of power. His holy spirit power breaks the power these negative things have over us.

Can you take time this week, to set your heart and mind on the things above, to go to a quite place, to focus on Jesus and invite his spirit to come and liberate you. Invite him to come be King of the Present, and bring you to life.

Jesus, keeper and giver of life

Because he will, because your life, it’s not just yours to look after. Look at that last part of that verse. Colossians 3:3 “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

Your life is hidden with Christ, it is wrapped up and interwound. What that heck does that mean?

There is practice in some other religious traditions that makes an interesting parallel here. In other systems of belief, a person’s life becomes bound up with an object, and then that object is hidden away somewhere. Think Voldemort and his Horcruxes, or Sauron and the ring.

Your life, is hidden away with Christ. He sustains us, he keeps us alive. He looks after us and takes care of us and brings us to life.

It’s like when your in school, and you get the hardboiled egg. It’s usually for health class, you get the hardboiled egg and you try to keep it alive. People would dress their egg up, give it names (mine was Eggbert), make it a little bed, and then forget about it on the lunch table and the janitor would eat it.

Your life is the egg. But instead of carrying it around school, hoping that one of your friends doesn’t break it, you’ve given your egg to Jesus to hold.

With him holding the reigns, we never have to doubt what will happen to us. I’m not saying life won’t be hard, I’m not saying life went beat us down, that our egg wont’ get a little cracked here and there, but we won’t be crushed.

Where in your life are you holding onto your own life, where are you trying to stop your egg from getting cracked? Where is Jesus saying, hey, you can hand that to me, you can trust me with it. Is it in a relationship? Is it with your finances, your future? What is the thing that you have a death grip on, and Jesus wants to take it and give it new life.

And what’s more, Jesus isn’t just holding our lives, it says he is our lives. He is the very thing that sustains us. Our lives aren’t our lives anymore, they have become his. It’s like we handed him our hardboiled egg, and as soon as he touches it,

it turns into that big golden egg from Willy Wonka. Our life is his life!!! I moved in with a roommate when time, and my roommate had one of those big stand up water coolers, don’t ask me why, but when we were living together, it was my water cooler. Jesus life, his righteousness, his character, all of it, is our lives. It draws us in, it transforms us, his life, brings us to life. His perfect life, brings us to life

With Jesus, we are secure. We are not alone, he is always with us, working for your good. This is rooted in the past, working in the present, and points us towards the future.

King of the Future

Supreme Jesus of the Future

Revealed Glory

Let’s look at that Last verse, Colossians 3:4 “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

Someday, Jesus will appear again, he’s coming back, and he will make everything right. He will fully bring the glory of heaven here to earth.

He is coming back and to bring everything to life, to make everything right. This is the Future that we are pointed at. We need to take time and remind ourselves of this, because it’s easy to take our eyes off of where we are going. It’s easy to take our eyes off of the things above, when there is still so much below.

We see so much division, some much death, and sadness. But, that’s not the future where we are pointed.

Revelation 21 “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

Jesus of restoration

King Jesus, who defeated death in the past, who is transforming our lives in the present, will bring everything under his rule and reign, and rule supreme in the future.

We maybe living in the here and now, but our life is in this future. We are living in the present, but we are experiencing that future, now, because that is where our life is, where everything is made perfect whole and new.

That is where are life is. That is where we are going. And when we know that, we know hope.

Jesus with his people (Hope)

We have the Hope that everything will be made new. What’s more, God’s glory will be our glory. The work we do this side of heaven, it’s not in vain. Everything in the past and present is pointing towards this future.

Supreme Jesus of your Future

Friends, if you have made Jesus the King of your Past and Present, then this is where you are going. Can you keep your eyes on this Hope. Because, the Hope that Jesus gives, this Hope of a perfect future, it will bring us to life.

It will let us keep loving and serving even when we are rejected, when we feel like it doesn’t matter. It will allow us to step into hard situations, situations at home, at work, in our neighborhoods, and be a representative of Christ. We made him King of our lives, he is with us, and we know where we are going. We have no need to fear, because our future is one of redemption, hope and healing.

And you know what, this hope, it will be complete in the future, it will be visible, but it IS happening now. It is just invisible, bound up with Christ. But it is happening, and it will continue to happen. Do you believe that?

Where have you lost sight of a brighter future? In just a few minutes, we are going to enter into ministry time. If you feel like you have lost sight of this hope, let someone pray for you so that Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Conclusion

So friends, as we get ready to finish our time together today, lets make this really personal. Years ago, Jesus died on a cross, was raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven, so that you could live, so that your old life would die, and Jesus could give you this new life that he has promised. Ask yourself, where do you need to experience this new life today?

Past

Maybe for you, you need the King of the Past to come, and help you put some stuff to death. You are holding on to something from your past, and it’s stopping you from experiencing new life in the present. That thing, isn’t the King of your past, Jesus is. Will you let him be?

Present

And maybe you made the decision today to accept that new life for the first time. If that’s you welcome to the family. Following Jesus is a team sport. Our Present, our real lives are difficult. One of the ways we experience this new life is by praying for each other. In just a few minutes we are going to have a group of people come up here and pray for folks. If you made a decision to follow Jesus today, please come up and tell someone, or fill out that connect form. We really want to help you grow.

I’m going to be out leaning up against the pastors wall, come find me.

Some of us need that new life in our daily grind. Maybe you are here today and your relationship with Jesus isn’t where you want it to be. If you can think of a time when your relationship with Jesus was better than it is right now, this next part is for you, not for the person next to you, not for you.

Jesus says, I have so much more for you, and that more is for today. Not for someday, for today. Jesus wants to bring you into deeper relationship with him right now, not after the kids are grown and you have more time, not when you are older and understand the bible better, not when things slow down and work, but right now in the present.

Will you trust that if you make space for him, that he will show up and give you new life.

Future

I don’t know about you, but this was a long week for me, and sometimes when I’m going through life, I forget about where I am going, towards that future Hope, a world fully alive, where everything has been made right by our King Jesus.

If you’ve lost sight of that hope, if all you can see is the bad stuff, the stuff of this world, if you aren’t even sure if what you do matters, or why you keep doing it, today is a day to be filled with that Hope for the perfect future.

Today, Jesus has new life for each of us, new life for our pasts, our presents, and our futures, because he is the king over all. Why don’t you all stand up with me.....

Ministry Time

Past

Stuck in things that you did, or that happened to you (Those are dead)

Remember all the times Jesus was faithful before

Forgiveness

Present

Doubt that Jesus is big enough to handle things, so you work real hard.

Stuck and need the King to come and set you free.

new identity, been told for so long that you are one way, and that's just not true. Break that stronghold (11am)

Made that commitment.....

New Life

Freedom from strongholds (11am)

Future

Lost sight of hope

Future feels cloudy

Feels like you are working in vain.

Hope

Other

celebrate!