LIVING THE RISEN LIFE

INTRODUCTION

Living the Risen Life, what a great topic to get back into our study in the book Colossians after 2 weeks break from focusing on Easter.

Last Sunday, we celebrated the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So, this morning we are going to look at, “What does it mean to live the risen life?”

If you have been coming a Sunday morning for last 12 weeks, we have been in sermon series entitled, “Jesus is Everything You Need”.

For the first 2 chapters, Paul has set the foundation of who Christ is, the Son of God, and that you are complete in Christ, and you do not need anything else or substitute for Christian living.

Paul has refuted these false teachers, who claim if want to be in the “spiritual elite”, you must follow the Judaism custom, mysticism, and gnostic philosophy.

Paul has a unique pattern in how he writes in his Epistle letters. He starts with doctrine, the foundation and then he takes what he has written, and puts into practical application.

Paul doesn’t just rebuke and write doctrine and then leaves it up to you and I to figure out how does this apply to me. Paul is very practical person.

This is very similar to the outline of the Book of Romans, where the first eleven chapters contain rich truths and the final chapters focus on how to live them out.

The same is true of the Book of Ephesians. What we believe determines in large part how we behave.

In the final two chapters of Colossians, Paul moves into the practical application of the doctrines he has written. After all, it does little good if Christians declare and defend the truth, but fail to demonstrate it in their own lives. There are some Christians who will defend the truth at the drop of a hat, but their personal lives deny the doctrines they profess to love.[1] Titus 1:16 says,

They claim to know God, but they deny him by their works.

Warren Wiersbe reminds us that the pagan religions of Paul’s day taught little or nothing about personal morality: “A worshipper could bow before an idol, put his offering on the altar, and go back to the same old life of sin. What a person believed had no direct relationship with how he behaved.”[2]

Christianity is very much different. Duty is always connected to doctrine.

Paul has been arguing that we are set free from the powers around us, now he tells us that we have been set free for living a life above moral reproach.

God’s plan is to first make us new; then He challenges us to live as new people. In short, we don’t have to be like we have always been. We can break free from the past, if we know where to look.

TRANSITION SENTENCE

5 reasons what it means to be living the risen life.

1) FOR WE DIED WITH CHRIST – V. 3A

This looks back to the cross where we died positionally in Christ. As a result, we have no obligation to live like we used to live.

Paul said Galatians 2:20,

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.

Because we have died with Christ, I am living the risen life. We should have no desire for worldly pleasures as a dead person would have.

We don’t just receive a cosmetic makeover or simply add a Christian veneer that only laminates our life.

Our old nature is not renewed or even reformed; instead, it is put to death.

Romans chapters 6-8, Paul explains this wonderful truth, For we died with Christ.

Christ not only died for us – He was our substitution to die for our sin.

We died with Him – that is our identification with Christ through baptism.

Christ not only died for our sin – He bear the penalty of sin for us.

Christ died unto sin, breaking the power of sin.

Because we are “in Christ” through the work of the Holy Spirit, we died with Christ.

This means that we can have victory over the old sin nature that wants to control us. Romans 6:2 says,

How can we who died to sin still live in sin?

2nd reason what it means to be living the risen life.

2) FOR WE LIVE IN CHRIST – V. 4A

When Christ, who is your life,

In a very real sense for the believer, Christ is what life is all about.

Without Christ we would be dead in our trespasses and sins.

Eternal life is not some heavenly substance that God imparts to us as sinners to trust Christ as our Savior.

Eternal life is Jesus Christ Himself. In 1 John 5:12 says,

The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

In John 14:6, Jesus said about himself:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life…”

By realizing that Christ is our life, we can have a new attitude about anything that happens to us. If He is truly Lord of our life, we have nothing to fear.

3rd reason what it means to be living the risen life.

3) FOR WE ARE RAISED IN CHRIST–V. 1

So, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

This opening phrase parallels Colossians 2:20,

If you died with Christ

If you have been raised with Christ

As we learned a few weeks ago, since we died with Christ, we don’t follow the rules of a hollow and deceptive philosophy.

Paul establishes the truth that since we have been raised with Christ, we have a new status and therefore a new way of life for living.

We now have a power source for living.

Believers have died with Christ, been buried with Him, have been raised with Him. Paul said in Ephesians 2:6,

He also raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,

God has seated us with Christ in heaven.

We are not raised from the dead and left in the graveyard, we are united with Christ and we have been exalted with Christ and we are sharing His throne in heaven.

Paul goes on in v. 2

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

That’s why Paul writes, “set your mind on things above.”

D.L. Moody said, “He’s so heavenly minded that he is no earthly good.”

While I guess that’s possible, it’s more likely that people today are so worldly minded that they are no heavenly or earthly good.

If we truly set our minds on things above, we will experience power and freedom here on earth.

The word “set” means to seek something out with a desire to possess it.

The word is in the present tense, which implies that we are to continue to seek the things above. It is not just a one-time decision, but is to be a daily activity.

4th reason what it means to be living the risen life.

4) FOR WE ARE HIDDEN IN CHRIST–V. 3

Your life is hidden with Christ in God.

We longer belong to this world but to Christ and we are seated with in the heavenlies.

The source of life only comes through Christ whom we have been crucified with Him.

Hidden in Christ means – security and satisfaction.

Dr. A.T. Robertson said this, “So here we are in Christ who is in God, and no burglar, not even Satan himself can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” [3]

The Christian life is a “hidden life” as far as the world is concerned, because the world does not know Christ.

1 John 4:4 says, Greater is He than the one who is in the world.

V.6 says, “We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.”

Our sphere of life is not this earth but heaven.

And things that attract us and excite us belong to heaven not to earth.

Does this mean we should ignore our earthly responsibilities? NO, not at all. It means that our motives and our strength come from heaven, not earth.

5th reason what it means to be living the risen life.

5) FOR WE ARE GLORIFIED IN CHRIST – V. 4

Christ is now seated at the Father’s right hand in heaven.

But one day! He will come in clouds to take His people (believers in Jesus Christ) home with Him in heaven.

Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18,

We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

When Christ does come back, we will enter into eternal glory with Christ.

When Christ reveals His glory – we will also be reveals in glory with Him.

Paul said in Romans 8:30 – We have already been glorified!

The glory has not been revealed but Christ has already given us the glory. John 17:22 Jesus said,

I have given them the glory you have given Me, so that they may be one as We are one.

When Jesus returns in clouds to us home to heaven, we (believers in Jesus Christ) will receive the full revelation of His glory.

CONCLUSION [FOLLOW THROUGH]

Paul, once again, goes back to this whole death to ourselves, and our life in Christ. Paul’s talking to Christians, and yet he brings up the whole Jesus alone being our salvation and life AGAIN. Why?

Because God knows how quickly we forget!

· We forget that we can’t be good enough to earn salvation.

· We forget that God is a just God and must punish sin.

· We forget that God became a man and died as our Substitute, rose again, and that’s the only reason we are made right with God.

· We forget that IN JESUS, God’s justice is upheld and His wrath is satisfied, and that IN JESUS God’s incredible love for a rebellious world is revealed.

· We forget that Jesus, according for verse 4, is our very life.

At some point God will bring about His new heavens and the new earth. There is a point at which God will reign over all things, and He will no longer allow rebellion. Everything we have ever done will be brought into account. On that day, Jesus will say,

I paid for all your failures and sin, or He will say I never knew you.

The biggest confirmation as to whether or not we have truly turned from sins, and placed our faith in Jesus our Substitute for our sin paymeny, is whether or not our hearts and minds are set on Jesus Christ.

If you had not turned to Jesus and trust Him as your Lord and Savior, I invite you come forward in a few minutes during the invitation and we will show from the Bible what it means trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

It would be the most important day of your life. Or, if you have been raised with Christ, pursue Him! Don’t let the distractions of the world stop you from the greatest purpose for which we can live. If you have been brought to life, don’t live like you are dead, LIVE THE RISEN LIFE.

Galatians 2:20,

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.

Because we have died with Christ, I am living the risen life.

[1] Wiersbe, Warren W.. Be Complete (Colossians): Become the Whole Person God Intends You to Be (The BE Series Commentary) (p. 113). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition.

[2] Wiersbe, Warren W.. Be Complete (Colossians): Become the Whole Person God Intends You to Be (The BE Series Commentary) (p. 113). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition.

[3] Wiersbe, Warren W.. Be Complete (Colossians): Become the Whole Person God Intends You to Be (The BE Series Commentary) (p. 114). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition.