How to Live in Babylon Without Becoming a Babylonian
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Nearly 2500 years ago, the city of Jerusalem was conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. The temple was destroyed. The future leaders of the people were taken away to Babylon. After years of idolatry and disregarding God’s instructions, God brought about judgment upon His people, just as He promised He would. In the midst of this deportation of Jews from Jerusalem to Babylon is a boy, possibly 12-16 named Daniel. You’ve heard of this man, haven’t you? We’ve heard of Daniel the old man with gray hair - praise the Lord for old men with gray hair because they are loaded with wisdom and funny stories as well! We know the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den that came whenever Daniel was likely 70 years old when he was thrown into the den of lions. He was a senior citizen, but he was faithful to the Lord! That’s near the end of Daniel’s story, though. Daniel was taken into Babylonian captivity as a teenager and given the opportunity to rise through the system quickly and serve the most powerful king in the whole world. There was just one problem, though. This king was a pagan - meaning, he didn’t worship the true God. Throughout Daniel’s time in Babylon, there were multiple opportunities for him to get ahead by compromising his faith and falling in line with the rest of the Babylonians. But what does Daniel continue to do? Live in Babylon without Becoming a Babylonian. To stand before kings and kingdoms and governmental leaders and speak the truth of Scripture that there is 1 God who has all power and He alone is worthy to be praised. This is Daniel’s message in a godless world.
Fast forward now to the book of Acts. Jesus has ascended. The Holy Spirit is moving in powerful ways and lives are being changed left and right in the first few chapters of Acts! 3,000 are saved in chapter 2 and 5,000 are saved in at the end of chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4! Then what comes in the story of the early church? Persecution. The religious leaders bring in Peter, John, and eventually all of the apostles, to be put on trial. They are told they must stop talking about Jesus… what does Peter say in response? We must obey God rather than people.
Over the years we’ve heard the expression, never talk about Religion or Politics around the dinner table. Because of social media and everything else in our world, it seems like we have a billion political commentators these days and we certainly don’t want to add to that number. This is church. I’m a pastor. I’m called by God to share His Word. You know what’s interesting in recent days? Politics has turned theological. The government’s lane is foreign policy, tax codes, road repairs, defending our nation’s sovereignty. But what about when the government starts talking about theology? What about when the government redefines marriage? Uses the name of God to win votes? Says that there are more than 2 genders and that it is fluid? Says that life isn’t sacred and that it can be terminated for any reason? What are we as Christians allowed or expected by God to do? Can I tell you what God’s Word commands of me as your shepherd?
9 holding to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it.
God will hold me accountable on the last day for how I encouraged you as saints at South Gate with sound Bible teaching… and for how I refuted those who teach things not in line with Scripture. Shepherds sometimes pet their sheep, but sometimes they have to use that staff to keep the wolves away. This is one of those texts in Colossians 3. Sidebar, this series was planned over a year ago when Lindsey and I were at another church. This message fell on this Sunday over a year ago. I believe that this was supposed to be done in this season for a reason and this message will be equal parts comforting as it will be convicting as we ask ourselves this question: What informs what? Does the political determine the theological, or does the theological determine the political? For Christians, there is only one answer that glorifies Jesus. Colossians 3:1-11 - how can we live in a godless world and glorify our God along the way? Is this even a possibility? Paul emphatically will tell us this morning that the answer is YES!
1 So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the 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 hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.
6 Because of these, God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient,
7 and you once walked in these things when you were living in them.
8 But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.
9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices
10 and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.
11 In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.
Do you feel comforted? Christ is raised, seated, and one day He will return! Do you feel convicted? Put to death your earthly nature - impurity, anger, filthy language… This passage steps on our toes, and sometimes it is a good thing for my toes to be stepped on because we often grow the most whenever we are outside of our comfort zone and are forced to grow closer to Jesus. Let’s ask Jesus to guide our time this morning and open our hearts to His Word
Stay Devoted to Your Savior (1-4)
Stay Devoted to Your Savior (1-4)
This morning we were blessed to begin our service with a baptism. I pray that in the days and years to come, that we see many more children, youth, and adults come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and follow through with believers baptism! I pray that you have already come to this point in your spiritual walk as you have been saved by God’s grace and followed through with baptism. Think through this together as Paul does in verse 1 - if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above. What does it mean to be raised with Christ? Sometimes we raise funds for something - I know that up until a few years ago, there was a building fund at South Gate for our student center and that place is a tremendous blessing to our church! In order to pay it off, funds were raised. Is this the raising that is being talked about here? No. This isn’t raising something physically like dollars or materials… this is a spiritual raising that has taken place in the lives of believers. This is the story of our salvation - how we were once dead in our sins and we have been raised with Christ. We were dead, and now we are raised and alive! This is another divine passive, highlighting God’s work of raising us from death to life
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
This is what our God has done in our lives! If you are a believer, you are alive in Christ… but you aren’t just saved in order to be alive, you are saved in order to serve and Paul shares that during the rest of our lives on earth, we are to seek the things above. This means things both big and small, we look through this life with a heavenly lens. This doesn’t mean that our lives on the earth don’t matter, this doesn’t mean that we go out and disassociate and isolate from those around us and get ready for Jesus to return as some have done! This means that we live in this world as ambassadors and citizens of heaven. This impacts every aspect of our lives. CS Lewis once shared it like this, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters.” When we say to seek the things above and to set our minds on the things above, we’re not talking about mystical visions and emotional experiences where people claim to see things… we’re talking about getting into the Word of God, spending intentional time in prayer, and truly asking the Lord to change our heart to reflect His.
See, Focusing on heaven produces fruit on earth! What fruit does focusing on Jesus bring about? What are the fruits of Bible reading? Prayer? Worship? The fruit should be good works as we give God glory and for the ultimate good of those God has placed around us. The more you read your Bible, the more you are hopefully able to apply what the Bible says in your daily living. The more you pray, the softer your heart should be towards those around you because it’s hard to be angry at someone that is on your prayer list. The more you worship, the more you realize that your life’s purpose is all about Jesus, not about self, and you think and live with gratitude and thanksgiving that is contagious inside and outside the walls of the church! Here are some statistics about regular Bible reading:
Loneliness drops by 30%
Anger drops by 32%
Bitterness drops by 40%
Peace increases by 32%
Sharing your Faith increases by 200%
Discipling Others increases by 230%
The living Word changes our lives
As we look to Jesus in heaven, we live for Jesus on earth and the reason that we’re able to do this is because we are a new creation and we have a new life and a new purpose. Consider what Paul says in Galatians 2:20
20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
When you meet Jesus, Jesus changes you! Your life is no longer about yourself, it is about giving God glory. We live for Him and we wait for Him as verse 4 reminds us that Christ is going to appear one day and we will be with Him in glory. We live in a divided and divisive world that is marked by brokenness and even looking inside of ourselves we see this brokenness. Things are not as they should be and there is a part of us that wants to see all of this made right. How do we fix these problems? There are lots of ideas, and some of them are really good ideas! But without Christ, they will fail to fix the ultimate problem. It would be like fixing painting a room in a house without a roof - that room needed painted, sure, but without the roof the room is going to be destroyed. We all need Jesus, and as those who have Jesus, we wait for Him with certainty and expectancy. We don’t wait with anxiety or worry about the future, we stay devoted to Christ because we know how the story ends. We know that we will be with Him forever in a world freed from the brokenness that we currently experience. As Adrian Rogers once shared, “We must live as though Jesus died yesterday, rose today, and is coming back tomorrow.” There should be a healthy urgency as we live our lives on this planet in a way that glorifies Jesus and is for the good of our neighbors, especially those who do not yet know Jesus Christ.
So, how do we do this? We have to be careful of 3 areas that Paul warns Christians to not get tangled up in, first we must
See the Danger of Sexual Sin (5-7)
See the Danger of Sexual Sin (5-7)
We look around our world, and we see a world that has lost its mind in many respects. A world at war across the globe. We see a civilization that cannot define what a man is and what a woman is. A society that has redefined what marriage is and what sexuality is. Where did all of this start? We see in the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis that God created everything good… but Satan convinces Adam and Eve that God is holding out on them. That they needed to eat the forbidden fruit. What happens? We see that Eve is deceived, but that Adam acts as a weak and passive husband and allows his wife to be deceived in the first place. We see the first marriage - created before sin - stumble because of the lies of the serpent. As the church, we’ve done a bad job over the years of talking about God’s design for the family and pastors will have to answer for that one of these days whenever they stand before God and give an account for what they taught and how they led their flocks. I want to categorically and unapologetically say this because it is Biblical: Marriage is Good! Sex is designed by God and is good!
But what does our enemy do? He tries to create counterfeits. How does the enemy do this? By twisting God’s design. What is God’s good design for marriage? It’s explicitly in the Bible - one man, one woman, for life! This is God’s good design… how does our enemy twist this design? Marriage can be whatever you want it to be - this is the anthem of our world. Marriage is a contract and you can write it however you want to! Biblically, marriage is a covenant between husband, wife, and God. Any union outside of this deviates from God’s good design. See, God designed marriage, this means that God gets to define marriage - and He does this in His Word. Not only does God define what marriage is, but He also defines what belongs in the marriage union and what does not.
Notice what Hebrews 13:4 says about this reality
4 Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
Sex is a good thing… and it is created by God to be a good thing… in marriage between husband and wife. Anything outside of this is called sexual immorality. This is why the Bible says to “flee” sexual immorality… not flirt with it. To put it to death… not play around with it. In our world that’s about the craziest thing imaginable. The Christian sexual ethic stands out in our world because our world defines marriage as whatever we want it to be. Gender is fluid. Sex isn’t a big deal. Follow your heart is the gospel of our strange new world… but there are ramifications of this crazy worldview. Follow your heart has ended more marriages, mutilated more bodies, killed more kids, destroyed more souls, and ended more lives than the devil could have ever imagined… it is hell’s most powerful and effective evangelism strategy.
The number one reason for marriages ending? Infidelity… Follow your heart.
The number one reason for sex changes? Feeling a different gender than the one God gave them and having that feeling affirmed by someone else… Follow your heart.
The number one reason for suicidal feelings in our world, especially with young people? Feeling worthless and purposeless. Follow your heart.
The reason behind 96% of abortions in our country? Elective - can’t afford baby, inconvenience to work/school
Church, we live in a world that celebrates sexual immorality. We’re not talking condones, we’re talking full on celebration. What is our response in such a world? Doctrine Demands Duty. God’s Word tells us to put off these things - literally, to kill these desires of the flesh. We have been raised with Christ. We are a new creation. Now we are supposed to live in light of that reality and this requires us to not live in a way that glorifies our flesh, but that glorifies our God. Look at these things in verse 5 - put to death Immorality, Impurity, Lust, Evil Desire, and Greed/Idolatry.
Our world embraces these things. In fact, our world celebrates these things. Friends, we must be bold men and women of the Word who are willing to stand unwaveringly and unapologetically on God’s Word and say what God’s Word says about these matters. God didn’t stutter when His Word says this - therefore we can… no, we must, be bold men and women of conviction and have spines that are anchored to Scripture, not society, on these issues. We must stand up and speak up and share that sexual immorality leads us astray from God’s good plan. We are to put to death sexual immorality and the word here is the word porneia where we get the word pornography from. Why would God’s Word say to put to death pornography? Many in our world say that it isn’t a big deal… it doesn’t bother anyone… it’s not illegal. Here are some stats regarding the damaging effects of pornography:
One study found that 57% of people regularly view pornography
47% of families say that pornography is a problem in their home
Pornographic usage increased the probability of infidelity by more than 300%
It leads to issues of self image and has a proven record of leading to addictive behaviors, including harming existing and future relationships
Impurity, Lust, Evil Desires, we see these things throughout our world… and if we’re honest, we have this inner struggle in our flesh. We struggle with a “me-first” worldview. A Romans 1 worldview
26 For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
27 The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.
28 And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right.
This is our world! If you’re a Stranger Things fan, our world today is much like the Upside Down. Beauty is replaced with barbarism. Life is replaced with death. Godly worship is replaced with idolatry. We see this with the redefinition of marriage. We see this with the sexual revolution as gender is fluid and whatever you want to be. We see this with the prevalence, promotion, and exaltation of abortion. 3 years ago, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, shared this: Abortion has become the central sacrament of the political left in the United States.
Grace and Truth here, church, because as a shepherd I am called by God to protect this flock from wolves that would love to do us harm and I am called to obey God supremely and God’s Word has much to say about this celebration of death. It’s satanic. It’s sinful. It’s sad. The new statement has been that Abortion is Safe - can we be honest with one another this morning? Something that ends in death is not safe. Certain people especially love to use the phrase “The least of these” - that’s a Biblical phrase, and the least of these starts with those whose voices can’t even be heard because they’re in the womb. They need believers with a spine to boldly say that
Life matters.
Your life matters.
The 62 million babies who have been aborted in our nation, all of them matter to God. All of them were fearfully and wonderfully made in His image.
If you are one of the 25% of women who have gotten an abortion in our nation, of which the percentage in churches is actually higher, and you live with daily regret because of the choice that you made… you matter. You may not have heard this before at your previous church, but I want you to know this at South Gate, we love you because Jesus loves you. There is freedom found in Jesus and His blood shed on Calvary is sufficient for anything you’ve done.
The Bible tells us that sexual immorality is to be put to death. God takes life seriously!
36 but the one who misses me harms himself; all who hate me love death.”
17 arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,
13 Do not murder.
This sacrament of death isn’t worth it. Your pastor is living proof of this. I’ve been told by multiple people that because I’m a man, I don’t get to have an opinion on this political subject. I’m thankful that this isn’t a political subject… it’s a Biblical one. Nearly 29 years ago, a young girl discovered she was pregnant. How would this impact her high school career? College? Future? What would her friends think of her? The mom and dad weren’t an official couple. They were young. They didn’t know what they were doing, and what they were going to get into… In 1996, there were a reported 1,221,585 abortions in the United States. The highest likelihood of an abortion came from young, unmarried, white women. For every 3 live births, there was 1 abortion in our country in 1996. From this chaos, from this sexually immoral situation, came your pastor. I’m reminded regularly, that I should not be here… but because my teenage mom and dad chose life, I’m here. Instead of abortion, they chose adoption and I was adopted into a family that loves Jesus! Life is a gift and it is precious and there are those in our state who want to allow taxpayer funded, unrestricted access through all 9 months of pregnancy to dismember a baby, and South Gate, I’ve seen many churches put up those VOTE NO on amendment 3 signs because that’s not a political issue… it’s a Biblical issue. Life matters, period.
What does God’s Word say? God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient. Life is a sacred gift, and those who treat it as anything less have a reckoning coming one day. What does this also mean? As those who are saved, we are called to daily put to death these things because a holy God does not stand idly by when men act unrighteously, transgress His law, show disdain to Him as creator, and reject His love and mercy.
Can I give you good news? All of us used to live in the flesh. All of us stood guilty. All of us deserved God’s wrath. There is freedom found in Jesus that won’t be found in sexual expression. There is life found in Jesus that won’t be found in following your fallen heart.
Before Christ, we were separated from God. We stood in God’s court as the defendant and all of the evidence spoke to our guilt. We had no shred of hope. But when the time was right, God sent His Son… Jesus not only gives you His innocence and takes your guilt in the courtroom, He provides you with new clothes to wear today as a Son or Daughter of the King. We have to remember that our Resurrection Requires Death - it required the death of Jesus, and it requires our old self dying and us being raised to walk after Jesus, and this means that there are things that might have defined our past that we no longer embrace. Sexual sin is certainly one of them.
See the Darkness of Social Sin (8-10)
See the Darkness of Social Sin (8-10)
Some stop with the issue of sexual sin, but this isn’t where Scripture stops. Not only are we saved in order to walk in a worthy manner before God in our relationships, marriages, families, and decisions regarding life… we are also saved in order to walk in a worthy manner before God with the things that we say. One of the quickest ways that we can check our heart is to evaluate what we say, how we say what we say, and why we say what we say. James 1:19
19 My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger,
What is our problem with this verse? We are often slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to get angry. We see this list in verse 8 of anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language, and we see areas that we might still struggle with as believers. We have to be honest here as our mouths get us in trouble at times, don’t they? Our mouth is kind of like a pipe that moves water from place to place. There are times where our speech is seasoned with salt, full of grace and truth, and it’s moving pristine water where it needs to go… but there are other times that our mouth is like a sewage pipe that is spouting out cruel, distasteful, angry, and filthy words of death. It’s hard for us to fully understand how powerful our words are, but Proverbs helps give us a glimpse into this reality
21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
There is a temptation for us as believers to get everything right on the sexual immorality side of this passage. We vote the right way on all of the matters of life. We affirm God’s definition of marriage. We get the first list good… but this second list bites us as we bicker, gossip, slander others, and say things that are simply not God honoring. What is Paul getting at? All these vices must go. Sexual immorality and slanderous gossip. Lust and lying. We have to realize that Jesus doesn’t just change our clothes… He changes our choices. He changes our entire lifestyle. How can we do this? As a bunch of sinners with fallen natures and potentially hot tempers, what is our hope in order to see the darkness of social sin? Let’s look at what these terms mean
Anger (State of displeasure towards one another) - we have to release anger to God
Wrath (Outburst of passion) - we can’t explode on one another
Malice (general wickedness/mean attitude) - words can harm others and we must use our words carefully
Slander (abusive language meant to harm someone) - we can’t spew fire towards someone out of the same mouth that we use to worship Jesus
Obscene Speech (Only found here in NT, obscene talk, culturally insensitive words) - there are words that Christians shouldn’t say or support being said, regardless of the context.
Why do we put these things off? For one, they are sinful as we use our mouth in a way that it was not intended to be used by God… For two, we bring in division to the body of Christ whenever we are angry towards one another or when we gossip about one another or whenever we explode on one another. We might live in Babylon, a world that hates God, but we must not start talking like Babylonians. We can rise above and realize that there are some things that though others might say them about us, we don’t have to say them back. We don’t have to fight fire with fire.
34 Brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
As Jesus says earlier in Matthew, where your heart is there your treasure is. Our words matter.
We will never be perfect in this life… but as those who are saved by grace through faith in Christ, we see in verse 10 that we are being renewed into the image of our Creator. This means that as we walk in Babylon, this modern world that is opposed to the things of God, we stand out. We look different. We act different. We say that we are sorry when we make a mistake. We won’t be perfect, but we have this promise:
6 I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
This is sanctification. Because we are a new creation, because we are in Christ, because of Jesus, we are slowly being changed to look more and more like Him each day of our lives - this requires us to seek His Word in a secular world each day. We won’t have it all figured out today. Aren’t you thankful that in your Christian walk, you weren’t kicked to the curb after your first week because you still did things that were just plain ole silly? This work of renewal, or as John 3 talks about it, regeneration, is God’s work in us. He saves us, and He sustains us… and in this life, we grow to become more like Him. Some of us are renewed at different speeds and in different seasons than others. This church in Colossae was full of people of various backgrounds and beliefs. They still might not think exactly the same about things, but because of Jesus, they are no longer who they used to be!
Words matter. As we continue in a very divisive moment in our country, the way that we talk about people matters. The way that we talk about image bearers of God matters. All, from the womb to the tomb are made in the image of God, including babies in the womb, people who vote differently than you, and immigrants from other countries. Words matter.
See the Divisiveness of Sinful Pride (11)
See the Divisiveness of Sinful Pride (11)
In a divisive world, people would love to continue to build up barriers to keep us divided. Think about some of the things that divide us:
Coke or Pepsi?
Apple or Samsung?
Kickapoo or Nixa?
New or Used?
Young or Old?
Men or Women?
Paul throughout Colossians shares the power of our identity being in Christ. How In Christ changes everything! How in this church there were both Jews and Greeks in the same congregation. Do you realize how crazy that is? You think that there is division in our world between people of different nations… Jews and Greeks increase that even more than we can imagine. The Greeks prided themselves in their philosophy and culture while the Jews prided themselves in their religion. In the Jewish Temple, there were division points where Greeks couldn’t go past certain points. FF Bruce shares that “No iron curtain of the present day presents a more forbidding barrier than did the middle wall of partition which separated Jew from Gentile.” Not only this, but circumcision and uncircumcision, this was the sign of the Old Covenant. This was the way that the Jews identified who was in and who was out. Barbarian and Scythian, people who were characterized by being rude, rough, and radical… even these people were welcomed alongside the more civilized Jews and Greeks. Finally, the slaves and free people.
In the Roman world, everyone was either a slave to someone or they were a free person. Much of their identity was founded in this reality. Think about the things that we place our identity in: our job, our family, our title, our status, our nationality, the list goes on! Paul isn’t saying that these things are bad - he isn’t saying to be ashamed of being a Jew, or being a free person! What is he saying? He is saying that there is one thing that unites every single blood bought, born again believer… it isn’t our socio-economic status. It isn’t our our stance on foreign policy. It isn’t what sin we think is worst. What unites the church? Jesus Christ. Think about how this tears down pride. It’s not about where you came from. You have zero say in where you are born, the status of your parents, the language that your home country speaks, genuinely those are things out of your control! Those things define the identity of so many people… but they don’t have to because there is a better identity to have and that is the identify of belonging to Jesus. Of being IN CHRIST.
So, are you in Christ today? The same Jesus who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and sufficient and supreme over all things, is He your Lord and Savior? If so, then friend, you have everything you could need. Not only do you have everything you need individually, but South Gate Baptist Church has everything that we need in Christ Alone. We have to pause and remember that even though there are differences in the body, Christ is in this body. Even though we have different passions, preferences, and sometimes different priorities, Christ is All. He unites us under His Gospel and He unifies us as we live in Babylon. At South Gate Baptist Church, we are Capital C Christians, lower case E everything else. Jesus Christ is our King of Kings and Lord of Lords and we submit to His Lordship by putting these fleshly and worldly natures and ideologies and worldviews to death in our lives.
In Babylon, Daniel prayed when he was told not to. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood when everyone else bowed down. Here’s the question that has always fascinated me… what happened to their friends? More than 4 were taken from Jerusalem to Babylon. What did they do in those moments? They bent the knee. They stopped praying. They became Babylonians. When your options are stand and die or sit and live, it makes sense why people sit instead of stand. But, Church, if God says stand your decision is already made. How can we live in Babylon without Becoming Babylonians?
Have a High View of God’s Word
Paul calls on the Christians in Colossae to set their minds on the things above. We must seek Scripture and submit to what it says in this life instead of compromising along the way.
Dress Appropriately
Paul tells these Christians to put off certain things that we are tempted to put on. It’s just a little sin, no one will know! This person said this, so I’m allowed to say this back! The question is not: Is this my right legally? The question is: Is this right Biblically? We have to submit to the Holy Spirit, crucify our flesh daily (Luke 9:23), and follow Christ as He commands.
Buckle Up
So often we live our lives in such a way to avoid consequences, inconveniences, or tension. When we live this way, we will be tempted to cut corners and sit on sidelines. Hear this: There are no sidelines in Babylon - Jesus says that you’re either for me or you’re against me. And if you’re for Jesus, there will be trouble, He promised it! But do you know what Jesus also promises? Freedom. Hope. Grace. Life. Eternity with Him in glory.
We live in a godless world. A broken world. A world of confusion and chaos. A world of division and darkness. Yet, even here, there is hope because there is Jesus. In your life, there is hope because there is Jesus. In our crazy country, there is hope because there is Jesus. What have you done with this Jesus? Is Jesus all in your life? Are you seeking Him today or are you still dressed in your old clothes?
Here’s what I’m going to ask you to do as our worship team goes ahead and comes up… I’m going to ask us to pray and I’m going to ask you to respond. What does that mean? We’re going to pray for our lives individually, if you are here and you don’t know Jesus and you are still living according to your earthly nature, I need you to see what Colossians 3 says - God’s wrath is coming and that is nothing to ignore or put off! Maybe you need to pray and get your life right with Jesus today.
Maybe you’re here though and you’re born again… but you’re struggling right now with anger. You’re struggling right now with injustice or gossip. Friend, I say this in love, you need to pray and lay that down at the foot of the cross and ask Jesus for help in that area!
We’re also going to pray corporately… we live in an upside down world and we need wisdom in this strange season to be salt and light for the glory of God and the good of those who are far from Him. These are important times and we need the Church to Stand Up! So, as we get ready to sing about the blood of Jesus and the freedom that is found in His Cross, let’s pray together and let’s come down and respond and humble ourselves and ask for God’s help as we seek to be salt and light in a dark world of death.
Here I stand, I can do no other… Lord, help me
