Untitled Sermon (2)

Intro

Well good morning. I hope everyone had a good New Year’s. By a show of hands, who makes New Year’s Resolutions? Okay, I’m sure some of you watching online do as well. I’ve never really been a big New Year’s Resolutions person, but if you think about it they really go make sense. The New Year is the perfect time to reflect on the past year and identify what was good and what wasn’t. And then as you move into the New Year you make the necessary changes in order to get the results you want.

So if you want to lose weight, you make a plan for eating healthier and exercising more. If you want to have more money to spend on family vacations or hobbies, you make a budget and work on sticking to it. If you want to use technology less or read more, you make rules about putting your phone away maybe for dinner or in the evenings and you set aside time to turn off the t.v. and open a book.

And of course we could make these changes at any point in the year, but this time in particular has always drawn us as a time of reflection and a time for making changes. And that’s where I want to go this morning. Whether or not you like New Year’s Resolutions I want to call us to a time of reflection and refocusing when it comes to our walk with Jesus. After all, we make resolutions for healthy living, money management, or for how we spend our time, but how often do we make resolutions specifically about our Christian discipleship? How often do you stop and reflect on your relationship with Jesus? What’s good? What needs improvement? How can I grow as a follower of Jesus?

To help us reflect and refocus we are going to be looking at Colossians 3 this morning. And in Colossians 3 we will see Paul calling followers of Jesus to be characterized by four things: A New Mindset, A New Lifestyle, A New Community, and A New Purpose. As we dig into each of these things we’ll see that if you are a believer, these things should be true of you. But that doesn’t mean they are true. Maybe they were at one time, but aren’t anymore. Maybe they’ve never been true of you.

And this is where I want us to do some reflection and examination of our lives. And as we do we’ll all find ourselves in one of three broad categories. The first is that these things are true of you. If that’s you then allow this text to encourage you this morning to continue in faithfulness to God.

The second is that some of these things are true but not all or they were true at one point in time but aren’t currently. If you fall into this category maybe it’s because your life is characterized by Christlike character but not Christian community. Or maybe at one time you were commitment to things of God and the mission of his church, but then you had kids and life got busy and so you aren’t anymore. If you fall into this category then let this text call you back to seeking Christ and the things above.

The third category is that these things are not true of you and have never been true of you. Maybe you wouldn’t call yourself a Christian or maybe you grew up going to church and would call yourself a Christian but all of this is new to you. If that’s you this morning then come to Jesus. In just a minute we are going to read about how all things were created by Jesus and for Jesus. Nothing in your life matters as much as following him. If you have questions about that we would love to talk to you.

So let’s read Colossians 3:1-17 and jump in.

[Read Colossians 3:1-17]

1) A New Mindset

In order to understand what Paul is saying in Colossians 3 we first have to go back and get some context. That second word of chapter 3 verse 1 “then” tells us that what Paul is about to say is building upon what he has already said. So going back to the beginning of the book of Colossians, Paul starts out like many of his letters, thanking God for the church at Colossae and praying for them.

Then Paul launches into one of the loftiest descriptions of Jesus in all of the Bible. He says that Jesus is “the visible image of the invisible God…by him all things were created…all things were created through him and for him…in him all things hold together…in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things.” Just an incredible description of Jesus.

And then Paul wraps up chapter 1 by saying “Him we proclaim.” In other words, this Jesus, the creator of the universe who came down to earth in order to reconcile all things back to God, this is our message. Nothing else. And in chapter 2 verse 6, Paul says, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” So Paul is writing this letter to people who are already Christians and telling them that being a Christian doesn’t mean making a one-time commitment, it means continual “walking” with Jesus.

But here’s where the problems start to come in. For the rest of chapter 2, Paul talks about errors that some of the Colossian Christians are making. The first is that some Christians are believing worldly philosophies and trusting human wisdom, instead of Christ. And Paul says, “Hey, do you remember what I said about Jesus in chapter 1? Jesus is far greater and more worthy than any earthly ideology or worldview, so trust him instead.”

The second error some Christians are making is they are trusting in religion for their righteousness instead of Jesus. Some aren’t eating certain foods becuase they think it will make them unclean, some are keeping certain holy days thinking it will please God, and some are saying that only people who have certain religious experiences are true followers of God. And we can imagine Paul saying, “Hello, remember chapter 1? Jesus reconciled you to God, he bought your peace with God by his blood on the cross, not by this manmade religion.”

And that brings us to Colossians 3. Paul says, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.” If you are a follower of Jesus, don’t trust in the ways of the world, don’t trust in religion for your standing before God, seek the things that are above. So let’s go back just for a minute. Because we probably aren’t tempted to make the same errors as the Colossians. We probably don’t trust in 1st century philosophical systems or worry about clean or unclean foods and new moon festivals. But we still make the same type of errors, don’t we?

Instead of 1st century philosophies what are some philosophies of today that we are prone to trust in instead of Christ?

2) A New Lifestyle

3) A New Community

4) A New Purpose (?)