Represent
Notes
Transcript
REPRESENT!
An employee represents their company/ employer/ corporation
An athlete represents their school, city, state or nation
Often our passions in life cause us to represent a lifestyle, ideal, philosophy, etc.
As Christians - we represent Christ
Right now, the lost of our world are probably not going to do much wandering into church! They are avoiding crowds, listening to media that is constantly slamming religious people, and in general just focused elsewhere.
SO, now it is more important than ever that we REPRESENT when we are out in our society. Where many will never come searching for the things of God, we need to bring Christ to them!
One of our vision statements this year was to CONNECT with the LOST, have COMPASSION for the lost, and fulfill the Great COMMISSION to the lost -
It is more important than ever to REPRESENT CHRIST to the LOST - when we show up whether they are expecting it or not - let us REPRESENT!
Read
1 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.
2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.
3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.
6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming.
7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world.
8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language.
9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.
10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.
11 In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.
15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.
16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.
17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Verse 17 says it well - WHATEVER YOU DO OR SAY - DO IT AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF CHRIST!
That can be hard - our humanity often comes out and our old nature not reflecting who we truly are in Christ, but we are challenged as Christians to always REPRESENT!
One of my biggest frustrations is when you are in a business or company and there is an issue - which issues do occur - and you say something about it and the person responds - I just work here…
Every employee is a representation of a company, and though they may not be policy makers, they are the frontlines and what the public sees, therefore management should be willing to accept their feedback, and they should take some form of ownership and not just pass off a problem as not theirs. Companies lose business everyday because their employees are a representation of the company and if they have failed to train them properly - it effects return business.
The same for Christianity. Understood that many will hate us for who we are in Christ, and that many will think of us as the stench of death because our lives will remind them of their demise and destiny for rejecting Christ, but nonotheless - we must REPRESENT Christ regardless of how people may or may not respond.
1. Identify with Christ
1. Identify with Christ
The first way we REPRESENT is to IDENTIFY with Christ.
The moment we gave our hearts to Jesus our nature was changed from sinful to redeemed and our citizenship from this world to Heaven and the Kingdom of God.
As citizens we need to identify with that new nature.
Our old nature was sinful - we fell short of God’s glory
23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
But our new nature is being transformed into His image.
5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.
6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming.
7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world.
8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language.
9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.
10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.
That means as people who have repented, we now our being changed into the likeness of Christ - HIS IMAGE.
Put off that old sinful nature! That does not represent Christ, it represents the old man and the sinful nature.
IF our lives are filled with cussing, sexuality, partying, gossip, anger and lies, unforgiveness and the such, than we are not REPRESENTING CHRIST or HIS IMAGE but still identifying with this world!!!
Read the passage again.
v. 10 says
Put on the new nature!!! you are being renewed to know your CREATOR and BECOME LIKE HIM.
15 It doesn’t matter whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation.
17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
Identify with CHrist, by being transformed into His image
2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Remember - if we have repented of our sin, Christ wants us to be transformed to be like Him, Identifying with Christ and not the world is the first step to representing.
I am pretty confident when a sports player changes teams he plays for, he is expected to change the uniform!
CHANGE THE UNIFORM!
2. Imitate Christ
2. Imitate Christ
Now that we are identifying with Christ and not the old man — we have to pursue IMITATING CHRIST.
It is not enough to stop doing the old things, we have to START doing the new things!!!
It is pretty hard to start doing the NEW THINGS, if we have not STOPPED doing the OLD THINGS...
it is not one or the other, but BOTH
IMITATE CHRIST ---
It is different than just identifying with the new nature by putting off the old, in this step we allow our character and behavior to adopt doing the things the way CHRIST WOULD
The cliche - WHAT WOULD JESUS DO --- totally applies here!
1 And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.
12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.
15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.
16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.
17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
FORGIVENESS
PATIENCE
KINDNESS
PEACE WITH ONE ANOTHER
WORSHIPFUL
THANKFUL
LOVING
TEACHING ONE ANOTHER
HOLY
THese are all things Paul calls out in imitating Christ!
Once we have rejected the old nature and put on the new - we need to walk in the Spirit and allow the character of Christ to develop in our lives.
These various things are less sinful choices and behaviors and deal with the character of WHO WE ARE BECOMING ---
You cannot be kind if your not willing to forgive, peace comes from forgiveness, a worshipful heart comes from one that is appreciative
These things happen when we spend time with Christ - when we are in His presence and in His Word and allowing His spirit to flow through us!
These things happen when we spend time with Christ - when we are in His presence and in His Word and allowing His spirit to flow through us!
It is these things that will speak to the world around us that Christ is living in us! We will represent His Character through our Character!
IT is easy to not want to even try because we will not always be perfect. The enemy will actually try and discourage us when we fall short of the character of Christ - but that is when we must remind ourselves there is no condemnation in Christ --- (Therefore don’t be condemning of others --- judgmental behavior toward the lost is not representing the character of Christ) --- so do not condemn yourselves - rather continue to seek to be more like Him and to know Him more.
12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.
Keep pressing on to know and imitate Christ --- for we are always representing HIm to others.
3. Initiate Again and Again
3. Initiate Again and Again
Ok, this is a fancy way of saying REPEAT
When we represent, we need to realize it is for a short period of time and then we can go back to our old ways.
We continue to Identify and Imitate - and the more we do it, the more we grow or expand how we do it!!!
We need to initiate within ourselves the will and desire to continue to press in toward knowing Christ and being like Him.
That is the inclination that Paul gives in Phil 3:12 when he says to press on!!!
17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example.
18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ.
19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.
20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.
21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.
Here again, we are instructed to continue on choosing to follow and serve Christ and to not allow the desires of this life (our physical appetites for whatever that may be: greed, sex, intoxication, food, money, power, etc.)
We need to remind ourselves we are citizens of heaven he says in v 20 - and that there is a future day coming (and getting closer)
So, keep initiating and reminding ourselves that we REPRESENT!
Conclusion
Conclusion
Employers of successful companies are constantly training and reinitiating the culture of their company into their employees - it is almost cult like sometimes, but they know if they do not initiate again and again, then the employees may lose sight of the company values.
This is why we must continually initiating that we identify with Christ, not the old nature of sin in this world. If we see that creeping in we have to remember that does not represent Christ,
We also initiate imitating or being like Christ not just in our outer image but our inner character! If we have stopped looking like Jesus we may need to get back to some basics, of prayer, the Word, church community and worship to ensure our lives are reflecting Christ.
We must remember that this world is in need of Jesus ---
We cannot expect the LOST TO REPRESENT CHRIST - that is our responsibility
If we are representing than we should be most concerned with our sinful nature being transformed into His image and our character reflecting His toward ALL PEOPLE ...