Walking in Christ- Col. 2:6-7

How do I live the Christian life? What does it mean to be a Christian?

These are questions I have been asked, and not infrequently. Typically, although not exclusively, they come from Christians, both brand new Christians and Christians who have been saved by God’s glorious grace for decades.

What Paul presents to the Colossians, and to us today, are two perspectives to keep in mind as we journey through this life.

Perspectives can make an enormous difference. For example, if your depth perspective is off, you may run into something accidentally.

Or take a child’s perspective. In their minds, it makes complete and perfect sense to eat candy before dinner. And they will tell their parents, for absolutely sure they will eat their dinners afterwards. But their perspectives are extremely short-sighted.

More so than these comical (and potentially painful) examples, perspective within this Christian life is vital.

Too many Christians live joyless lives because they are attempting to live the Christian life on their own. At the same time, too many who think they are Christians rest in a “decision” they made for Christ, dangerously thinking that they are children of God when, in face, they are not.

We have before us two perspectives of our salvation, and these two perspectives work in tandem with each, the second perspective stems from the first.

We could phrase our study this morning with this phrase,

Living the Christian life requires the Christ-dependent balancing and enacting of two perspectives.

I. Salvation from a Holistic Perspective- 2:6a-7a

I thought about changing the point to “Grammar for the Gospel,” because the way Paul phrases the first half of verse 6 is jam-packed with truth. It is amazing how God wove the emphases of the Gospel in language that includes participles, adjectives, conjunctions, and verbs.

I will avoid getting too nerdy, though, and seek to present what Paul is teaching us by the Spirit in a different way. The first perspective we must keep and maintain as we live the Christian life is to view salvation from a holistic perspective.

Holistic- (adj.) characterized by the belief that the parts of something are interconnected and can be explained only by reference to the whole.

We tend to think of salvation in a moment, some define it as the moment you trusted Christ as Savior or the time where you prayed the sinner’s prayer.

But that, unfortunately, is disconnected from the living of the Christian life. We think salvation is point A and then sanctification is point B and then glorification is point C. Although there is some, and I will clarify what I mean by some in the second perspective, there is a danger in viewing the Christian life in this manner.

The foundation, the rock, the cornerstone, the only way we can live a Christian life is to be a Christian, to be saved by grace. It is all of God, declared very clearly by Paul with words and grammar.

A. We receive salvation from God

Though the word is active, meaning we are conducting the act of receiving, receiving is, by nature, passive.

That is, if I were to give this Bible to my wife, I would be conducting the action of giving it to her and she would conduct the action of receiving.

Paul says as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, reminding himself and us that we receive salvation from God.

This is a necessary perspective to maintain throughout all of our lives—we are saved by grace, we do not earn it, do not deserve it, and cannot keep it.

Paul is using received in the way that is showing how the various parts are explained with the whole. We receive only because God gives.

What comfort it is that you and I are not responsible for our salvation, for all we could hope for would be hell, eternal damnation. But we are not left to our own, God has saved us!

There is another way that Paul presents this, through an organic example. We are rooted in Christ.

B. We are rooted in Christ

Paul says, “having been firmly rooted…in Him.” It is a plant-based word, like a tree that has dug deeply into the earth.

There are many different types of roots. They serve a variety of purposes, gaining nutrients from the soil, providing stability to the plant, and allowing the plant to mature.

Paul’s point is that believers, by the work of God, are rooted in Christ. The tense Paul chose to use here, by the Spirit, is perfect. It conveys an action that was completed in the past with ongoing results. The action, of course, is salvation by grace, and the ongoing result is being nurtured and stabilized by Christ.

That is why I considered calling this Grammar for the Gospel. The tense of the words God gives us conveys His incredible grace and work in our lives!

This perspective is a holistic perspective, it connects all the various points Paul presents here in reference to the whole (all the work of God).

There is a beautiful connection here that I want to make just briefly with Psalm 1:1-3, specifically 1:3.

Psalm 1:3 NASB95

3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.

There is a peaceful picture here, a serenity that comes with salvation. This holistic perspective is the bedrock of Christian living. Notice the same connection of being firmly planted in Christ and the result (which will be our second perspective), which is bearing fruit.

So, while we look at the next perspective, please and always keep in mind this holistic perspective.

II. Salvation from a Present Perspective- 2:6b-7b

The second perspective by which we must live the Christian life is the present perspective. We are saved by grace, that is true, and we await the final glorification where God will give us new bodies and we will finally and forever be freed from these fallen bodies.

But God, in His gracious wisdom, allows us to grow. He allows us to live a Christian life. He uses the term walk (as he did in Colossians 1:10). It connotes behavior, conduct, and consistent behavior.

A. We cooperate with God in our sanctification- 2:6a

Now, when we say cooperate let me clarify what I mean and what I do not mean.

Our cooperation with God differs from our cooperation with one another.

We do not mean that our efforts are dependent upon our own actions, nor that they produce Christ-honoring results without regard to God. In other words, we are not saying if we do a then we can expect b on our own.

What we do mean is that, based on our holistic perspective of salvation, we cooperate with God and He, through the means He has chosen, grows us, or helps us to live the Christian life.

We are called to walk, to live, to behave, as Christians. This perspective involves right now.

There are some of you who are mature, you have reached the end of careers and child raising. You are to cooperate with God in your sanctification in a way that is appropriate for you in the present.

There are others of you with younger children, and you lead busy lives changing diapers and running to and fro. You are to cooperate with God in your sanctification in a way that is appropriate for you in the present.

Paul strengthens this point, which we will develop in more detail momentarily, with this idea of construction.

B. We are under construction by God in our sanctification

Paul uses two phrase, “being built up in Him” and and “established in your faith” to describe this construction project of God. Grammatically, those are words called participles. We won’t get into the details with it, but what Paul is doing is showing the manner of how we are firmly rooted in Christ. It involves those two phrases, building up and establishing.

These terms invoke a current construction project. Like Ben working on the house on Riddle Town, it is under construction. There is work that still needs to be done. And we are the same, although God has saved us, we have a long way before we become like our Savior Jesus Christ. This process is often described as sanctification.

“They who are united to Christ, effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, are also farther sanctified, really and personally, through the same virtue, by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them…” (2LCF 13.1)

There is a remarkable connection, a holistic display and a present perspective in the Confession here. But our focus is on the present, and so we see that, summarizing the Scriptures, the London Baptist Confession shows us that we are under construction.

There are things we think that we should not, and God, through His Word and Spirit, is removing those thoughts and replacing them with thoughts that please and glorify God.

There are things we say that we should not, and God, through His Word and Spirit, is removing those words and replacing them with words that please and glorify God and edify others.

There are things we do that we should not, and God, through His Word and Spirit, is removing those actions and replacing them with actions that please and glorify God and edify others.

Living the Christian life requires the Christ-dependent balancing and enacting of two perspectives. The holistic perspective is the basis for both our salvation and our sanctification. We live in the present, with the perspective that we cooperate with God’s “under construction” work, in our hearts and lives.

To reverse the order, or to lose the perspective of either, is detrimental to our faith and growth in Christ. Or, to put it another way, we will be incapable of living the Christian life if we lose either one of these perspectives.