Above-Week 1

Colossians 2:20–3:8 NIV

Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. 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. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

This is a great text on spiritual discipline.

Paul splits it into two categories - why our default of worldly discipline is bad (and actually harmful), and what real spiritual discipline looks like.

We need to discipline ourselves to be spiritual

It’s not enough for me to save, I know Jesus is the Lord and I want to follow him. He actually...has to be the Lord in my life, and I actually have to follow him. And that process takes ‘discipline’.

Discipline is a loaded word.

We have many concepts of discipline.

Punishment

Self denial

Rigorous strict routine

in Colossians 2 and 3, Paul has a great approach to understanding spiritual disciplines. But there’s a BIG problem we need to address first.

We will trade the relationship for the ritual

Paul highlights these 3 examples - ‘Do not handle! do not taste! do not touch!’

Religious people at the time were FIXATED on the right behaviors. Borderline manipulation of the spiritual world (and not always borderline).

EXAMPLE - a marriage. You bring your spouse flowers, they are happy (They were having a hard day, you did this thing, demonstrated you thought about them). But all you think is - flowers = happy. So now - your goal is to ‘bring flowers at all times’. You want them to be happy - but you’re fixated on the how. They are mad because you aren’t pulling your weight - just pull out flowers. They feel like you’re too busy and haven’t had quality time - boom, flowers. They are livid because you’ve spent all their savings on flowers - looks like you need more flowers.

The problem isn’t ‘you didn’t do enough flowers’. The problem is - what is your goal now? Is it to make your spouse happy - or is it to buy flowers?

Did you trade the real motivating factor - ‘I need to have a deep, meaningful relationship with my spouse’ - for something less than that?

The invisible parts of the relationship were the real parts - the flowers and the actions were an expression of that inside reality.

How many times have we thought, ‘I have to do these things this way before God will have a relationship with me’. or ‘Having a relationship with Christ means I need to only do this specific thing in this specific pattern’. Maybe they started from the best place. Maybe they genuinely started from a word given from the very lips of Jesus himself.

But at some point - we’re all try to trade the giver for the gift. And we stop saying, ‘I need to do this because Jesus told me so’, and start simply saying, ‘I need to do this.’ We stop needing Jesus and we start needing patterns.

Paul says - there’s actually a second problem.

This approach damages us and our relationship with God

In that marriage example, the person traded ‘I want a good relationship with my wife’ for ‘I want to buy flowers’. What will happen to that relationship?

Paul says, when we define ourselves by the do’s and do nots, by the patterns we need before we get Jesus - we damage our relationship with Christ.

Paul says, this self-imposed worship doesn’t even restrain our sensual desires.

A purely or primarily worldly focus actually works AGAINST developing that deeper connection with Christ. it INDULGES our sinful nature rather than defeating it.

That sounds counter-intuitive. But think about it like this - our hearts are the primary problems. Our default desires, our nature, our way of understanding and doing things. How can we combat that by following our desires, our nature, our way of understanding and doing things.

Paul says, it’s those natural desires, natural ways of doing things, worldly things, that are what’s on the chopping block here. Those are the things we need to discipline.

Next week, we’ll talk about what spiritual discipline ACTUALLY looks like. But one last thing for this week.

Real spiritual discipline isn’t routine - it’s resurrection

Colossians 3:2–4 NIV

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

This is a wild thing to have to wrap your head around. But paul is saying - look around you. At your comforts, your preferences. All the ways you do things.

Those things are not your life. Jesus is your life. And the life that Jesus has for you doesn’t depend on anything around you.

STORY - Paul and Silas in prison singing hymns to God.

Spiritual discipline is about teaching ourselves - this is not life. Jesus is life. It’s about working AGAINST our desires - whether those desires drive us to drinking, alcohol, and immorality, or they drive us to legalism, self-imposed worship, and a giant checklist of must-do’s for God.

The amazing part of this (and it’s something available to absolutely everyone) - this depends on the power of God alone. We can’t earn resurrection. We can’t deserve it. We can’t even do it ourselves. But God can - and He does it freely.

Please come back next week, because Paul DOES have a lot to say about this process of working AGAINST our desires. But we’ll end off on that point.