Gospel Community

Who God is?

God rules over all (verse 1)

He is a God of wrath who judges sin (verse 6)

He is our creator (verse 10)

What has God done?

He raised us up with Christ (verse 1)

He put us to death with Christ (verse 3) see also 2:20

He has guaranteed us a spot with Jesus when He returns (verse 4)

Who are we?

We are raised from the dead, we are alive again (1-4)

We are free from the penalty and power of sin, looking forward to the day when we will be free from the presence of sin. (verse 7, 9)

We have agency and authority. We are not powerless, so we can resist and overcome the darkness that opposes us. (Put to death, put them away - Here we are being spoken to not as victims of sin but as people who need to exercise their rights.)

What God has done for us in Christ is so great (verse 11) that we are not to base our identity on ethnicity (Greek or Jew), religion (circumcised or uncircumcised), nationality (barbarian, scythian) or economic status (slave or free). Our identity is now found in Christ.

We have put off the old self, and put on the new self.

How should we live?

Seek the things that are above, set our minds on things above, not things of the earth (verses 1 & 2)

Put to death what is earthly in us - … (verse 5)

The gospel makes community possible. Not just any sort of community, but a community that is good and beautiful and true.

Imagine what it would be like to live in a community free of any sort of sexual immorality, greed or covetousness. In this community there is no anger, wrath, malice or slander. Nothing obscene or untrue is spoken in this community.

Now consider, how great would it be to raise your kids in a community like that? How safe would you feel with neighbours like this? How refreshing would it be to know you could take people at their word and not be disappointed?

Now here is a paradox - Everyone wants to live in a community like this, but no one does. Politicians promise neighbourhoods like this and yet never deliver. How can this be? Any politician who could provide even the potential of a society like this would win repeatedly, so why don’t they?

Well, what stands between us and this community of integrity, honesty and security? The problem is not political, academic or economic. If it was, we would have solved it by now. The reason we have not learned how to sustain a community like this is devastatingly simple.

In our current condition we are incapable of sustaining a community free of immorality, greed and dishonesty. It is simply not possible because we have all been corrupted by sin. No culture, in any age, anywhere on earth has been able to live like this because sin has deeply affected all of us.