Colossians 3:1-4:1

Introduction

If you have been around Church for a while, you know the struggle of rule keeping legalism.

Legalism or Religion is the belief that if I perform God will be in my debt.

It is based on fear and self ultimately

It says there are rules to follow or else...

If you are listening to this and you are new to christian things you are saying thats exactly why I have nothing to so with you strange people

I can’t blame you ....but that is not the true message of our Faith

Paul and Jesus have a very different message than fear based, self centered, perform or else christianity

Any one out there know the exhaustion of trying to keep God in your debt or else?

Paul hates that twisted lie of our Faith

Up to this point in this incredible letter he has been assuring these baby believers of their true standing before GOd.

New good sounding self promoting pastors for hire have crept in

They are selling the lie that these Colossians are almost there…there just need the secret sauce they have

Then they will be all God wants them to be

Paul is destroying this mess of a sales-pitch…one we still hear today

They aren't the almost they are the already New Creation in Jesus the Lord...

In Chapter 2:20 Paul made clear followers of Jesus already have died to this old man made self esteem trash teaching.

You can’t keep the rules…you died to that

Now he is going in on what it means to live as those Raised with Christ

Live this thing out he is saying here

Live it out as the New Creation people, community, and household you ALREADY ARE

So we are going to see 3 parts of our Lived Out New Life

Our New Heart In Christ

Our New Life in Christ

Our New Order In Christ

1: Our New Heart In Christ (3:1-11)

3 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

What good would it be to the baby church in Colossae if all Paul and TImothy wrote was a list of Don’t Do what these guys are doing?

You died to these things you are hearing you have to do....

Remember this is the Gospel we are continually being Taught....as in Pauls entire of theme of writing in Chapter 2:6-7

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

So Paul is practicing what he calls them too and is about to teach them how to live this out

He begins with the call to completely change your perspective

Your entire worldview changes…and it begins with a New Heart, New Motivations, A New Definition of what it means to Flourish in a life where things are not what they are supposed to be

So Paul says in this opening barrage

3 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Again Paul TEACHES the Gospel…this entire call to live out our faith is anchored in The Gospel Story of Jesus’ Gospel Life

The message of the Gospel is so often sold short of the beauty of risen Christ…and even more the ascended Christ

Yes he did die for your sins…but he got up!!! Then HE Went Up!!!

Preach the whole thing

When Jesus Got Up…You Got Up if you are His!!!

When He went up…you went Up with Him id you are His!!!!

That changes the causal core of who we are…if we are IN HIM

A New heart…in a new place…already a resident of a New place

So we live out where we are from..our new address In Christ for the things that make our New Home so much better than our Old Home here

This quote from a British Missionary to Uganda changed the game for me in this passage:

“He cannot mean the furniture or the physical treasures of heaven, as if Paul wants us to yearn for physical things. Instead Paul’s phrase must include the things that make the Heavenly realms so wonderful, joyful, and magnetic. At the very least this means the wonder of Spending Time With Christ, the one we love and adore…The things above are everything that flows from being in the place where Christ is”

Want to expose your heart and know if you still want his stuff and not Him?

Ask yourself....If heaven had no mansions or stuff or cool things and amazing reuinions and was instead you and your Savior forever would you still want it?

Its ok if this is hard..its a good thing if that makes you wrestle…pray he makes you long for these things above...

That is Him conforming you more and more into his image

That is a beautiful thing

What is more is that he doesn’t call the Colossians to an escapist life

They are given new hearts a new address....but they are called to live this out in the small forgotten town of Colossae under Roman oppression

Why? Because there are still people who need this hope liviing apart from their creator

As we expand the kingdom and live its values out here ....the unmatched peace and beauty of heaven’s rule makes a broken world new...

Just as we were dead in our sins…others can see taste touch and come alive

Only if we are the hands and feet of this message of life

Love the good gifts he has given in this life…but we cannot make them ultimate…enjoy them the way he made them....

And wile we work out what this means we wait…because one day what we only see in glimpses will become our all

Verse 4 gives us instruction in how our hearts wait for this amazing day...

We don’t wait passively like for traffic to finally move

We wait active and busy in excitement like a grooms face on his wedding day

Since all of this is the story of reality he shows them the things of the heart we are free from....

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

He is saying one of the most freeing thing some of you may ever hear

He is saying “Be who you already are”…He is not saying Do this or Else....

The Missionary I referenced earlier says here:

“ Paul Mentions the Coming judgement in verse 6 not as a threat to Christian believers, as if that will motivate the Colossians to reform their ways. It is simply that these sins point to what is wrong with the world and why God MUST DO something about it…in fact it is food news He will do something about it”

We don’t have time to dive into all these things listed here but they communicate one central heart issue…most seen in how we approach sex as fallen people

The idea is that our heart is prone to selfishness, using others to fill our own unchecked passions, consuming others with no regard to who they are as image bearers.

Todays sexual ethic is the same as Rome’s…fullfilll your selfishness at the expense of others....

Paul is calling them and us to be ruthless in our search for our hearts idols and allegiances...

We already have new hearts…now walk in who we already are...

What is even more incredible is that God has given us others to live this New Life out with…Verse 11

11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

The church is a light to a watching world because it is a New Creation people

It is a light specifically because under the worlds motivations…these people never would be together

Let alone make up a community marked by the flourishing we all long for

Our heart is heavens heart

Our community is heavens community

Mark Meynell hit this in the head: “The church was never designed to be a club for like minded or same cultured people. The whole point of the church is it brings people together who are DIFFERENT into one New Community”

With New Hearts, in this new counter cultural community…we live out counter cultural life

2: Our New Life in Christ (3:12-17)

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Don’t miss this motivation Pail hits home again in verse 13…We do this because God…IT is not Do this or else...

WIth that motivation we live new life

N.T Wright says “The same motivation that prompts the Christian to abandon the old ways of life encourages her or him to embrace the new ways”

What i want you to see here is that on the surface this looks like a stand alone list of “churchy ways to act” right?

Notice though where he begins in verse 12

They are: God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,

Lets learn the word here

When we study the text we need to see where it is in context of the letter and the context of the people…the situation why the letter is written

Look with me back at Chapter 1: 2....tuen there....

they are called God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,

This is an incredible theme of Paul in this letter

The specific lie of the false pastors was that these believers were the almost people of God.

These terms Paul uses are the exclusive names for Israel in the Old Testament

Paul has not laid out a random list of nice things good rule followers do

He is anchoring these baby believers in the unimaginable reality that in a forgotten valley farm town…a band of nobodies are becuase of God’s love the fullfillment of all Israel was supposed to be

There is no plan for Israel and a plan for the church

Paul is telling them the people of God are it, always have been it, will be only it....and the Colossians are them

Right now we are it

Paul’s encounter with the Risen Christ changed the whole game for HIm

Dick Lucas says: “Long ago God had chosen Israel to be ‘a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth’, and ‘set his love upon’ them for no other reason than that ‘the Lord loves you’. In so singling them out, God called Israel to be ‘a holy nation’.7 Now Paul can take the characteristic titles of Israel, the ‘chosen’, ‘holy’, and ‘beloved’ people and boldly give them to the local community of Christians in Colossae”

Do you see this list is no random be better nicer people list?

In this we see some incredible things for us only us on this side of the Cross can know

We were made in God’s image and sin separated us from the very posture and nature it meant to be who we were made to be…In Christ and in New Creation in salvation we know again what is means to be Who we were made for

Listen to Dick Lucas again: “Holiness is to be recognized not by religious achievements or by a spirituality that is superior to the normal human condition, but by the development of a genuine human-ness, by a freedom that is unafraid to be, in Christ, the person God made us.”

What is more we become alive again to the reason why He made us…we are who we were made to be as humans because we are in Christ

And because he was faithful to do what we should have done in the mission of God…we are recommissioned in Him

We are not just restored to the life we were made for in Eden we are tasked once again with the commission of Eden.

To expand the Kingdom to make all of Earth and all peoples the place where God rules reigns and dwells with his people.

That is why Jesus left us with the recommissioning of those made new through his high priestly work.

Go there fore.

Do what you were made to do in relationship as you were made to be because you cannot be shaken if you are in Christ.

This is the way to life…rejection of who we were made to be and why he made us is a life of constant ache we cannot satisfy

These things promote peace…flourishing. The flourishing we knew and lost in eden

This is what every human has been searching for since the fall

I know this because flourishing is what Rome promised…it is what communism promises…it is what republicans and Democrats promise...

None but Christ can deliver it

To Paul and the Colossians Rome ruled with an iron fist with the promise of flourishing

Bow to Ceasar and he will protect you, he will care for you, he will make you prosper.

This was called Pax Romana....Rome offered the world…if you paid the price of your worship…so did every idol or government since

Vote republican vote Democrat or don’t vote and live in a hut in Montana off the grid…all are pursuing the promise of peace none can deliver

How different is the flourishing found when you rest in your maker re commissioned to what you were made for

IT is done anchoring each other in the word fo Christ…I love this....

Verse 16: 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

If you don’t know by know Dick Lucas is my hero.

If I could meet him i would cry without ceasing.

He said he was embarrassed when students in would ask him to sing his commentary on Colossians…he said he would sign it with his name and the numbers 3:16

For this very verse because to him…and to me this is the essence of our life together

How do we spur each other on on the dark days when it looks like the bad guys are winning

How do we keep our heads on when everything is easy and affluence and comfort steal our affections?

We do it with the word of the one who has made us new

Here is the cool part

To Paul here it is the local congregation…the members of the church held accountable to know the word to the point they could teach it

The visiting star pastors held out that only a select few had access to the knowledge and skill

But Paul is saying it is avaiable to every beleiver and more than that every member of the church is responsible to be jsut as biblically and doctinally equipped to teach one another

The bible has no category for consumer christianity…the idea of the culture we see in the church would make Paul weep or puke or both

Know your saviors word, the worldview it creates, how to answer life’s deepest questions with the word…and teach others

It is not for the professionals only. It is not the youth pastor only…cutlivate a theoligical mind and a christian wordview in your home!!!

Because it is much a biblical command here as the command to not murder…we are accountable for this. let that sink in

If you need to know where to start i can show you and work with you get after this thing

What is cool to me is the phrase to do this in part is with singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs…these are the words of Christ Paul says

The only time these words are used together is in 2 separate psalms themselves…this means the Psalms are the words of Christ…that should change the way we approach and study the Psalms and I will get to teach more on this in my introduction this Sunday here at Monaghan so tune in or show up at 9 here Sunday morning

We have seen here that we are made new in our hearts, made new in our mission, made new in how we live, and this changes our very ordering of life

This is our last point today

3. Our New Order in Christ (3:18-4:1)

English Standard Version Chapter 3

18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. 22 Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

4 Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

Abraham Kuyper was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands in 1901....he has a well known quote that is so powerful

Kuyper said: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine”

Kuyper, and Paul 2000 years before had no concept for a public church life and a different private life

These verses may be the source of gallons of spilled ink and cries of how outdated and mysogonistic christians are but if anyone would do the work of seeing what Paul is and isn’t saying they can see the beauty of new creation at home

Where else would the everyday implications of all Paul has laid out be seen?

Who else is most needing our teaching then those we live and work with everyday

Part of being a good bible reader is to know not only the context of the verse in the whole books context, but the physical historical context of the time it was written

This is huge here

Every culture as we saw is providing what is sees as the path to the good life, the life of flourishing

Roman culture these Colossians lived in had strict codes for household conduct

It is not as if Paul on his own to restrict freedom came up with this framework

He is taking what Greek and Roman philosophy sold as the good life at home and recasting it in light of Gospel New Creation

Today we are the same.

There is not a christian way to view marriage and then nothing from the culture....there is the worlds way and the Gospels way to flourishing

We are not able in this short time to dive into all of what Paul is laying out…but i want to focus real quick on the positives of all he is showing the Gospel New Ordering of Home life means....and how counter cultural it truly was

The very fact that women, children, and slaves are addressed as equaly needing gospel teaching in everyday life was unheard of

It is not that Paul is putting women in their place…he is shattering Roman culture with giving them a place

Women, children, and slaves were property not even to be addressed in Rome

Paul has made teaching them the implications of the Gospel as equally important as men

Remember Galatians 3:28?

28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise

Women are part of the biblical narrative fulfillment of the people of God…unheard of

Listen to why Paul teaches them this first, not out of downgrading them, but precisely because in the Gospel they are newly upgraded

Dick Lucas says: "It is precisely because, in Christ, the Christian wife has been set free from the age-old downgrading of her kind in pagan societies, now to enjoy equality with her husband as ‘joint heirs of the grace of life’ that she must take special care in her behaviour not to cause unnecessary and harmful reactions among her non-Christian neighbours.”

UNHEARD OF!!!

He is saying you are new ladies…you are just as important and you need to learn this newness as much as men....in Christ we are all equal and submissive because in the trinity Christ is eternally God equal to the Father and Spirit yet submissive to the Father to accomplish their purposes of redemption

Do you see how radical this was....Paul is saying that women, slaves, children ALL have critical parts to play in the advancing of the gospel, teaching, and restoration of culture to the flourishing it was made to be

Greater to me then a degree i have from a seminary is my wifes degree…to have my wife cared for and biblically equipped as much as me is one of the greatest joys of my life

This is for all of us....this is the way of Life we are called to In Christ…you cannot be in Christ and not like him

Next counter cultural bomb is the address he gives husbands....

Greco- Roman household code told the man how to maximise his gain, peace, and flourishing at the expense of wives, children, and slaves

Paul flips this on its head in the Gospel...

Verse 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

LOVE YOUR WIVES?!!!

What ?!

That did not happen in Rome

The Gospel Commands Love

Lucas again: “The rule of Christ demands that a man serve his wife as the evidence that he is serving Christ. So once again we have, worked out in daily life, what it means to make Christ Lord.”

Husband your wife’s dreams didn’t die at the altar so you could be all you want to be

Give up a weekend in the tree stand and let her rest...

Verse 20 Paul continues to shatter all categories of Greco-Roman home ethics

Not only were children property it was acceptable for Roman men to sexually abuse children

Close to the redemptive theme of submission we see in the Trinity we see this obedience as well

Without obedience the flourishing under Christ’s Lordship would never be on display...

Without Christs submission and obedience we would all have no hope of anything other than hell in this life and for ever in eternity

What is more scandalous not only did Paul address children…he is calling husbands to exist to be poured out for the flourishing of his children

Mom’s are irreplaceable…but there is special damage done when a father is wicked and destrucive

Image the contrast to Rome when Paul says this....he is telling fathers to pour into and encourage his children

Strength can be used to crush or it can be used to vivify life that would not otherwise had the safety and security to blossom

Again do you see the New Order as a reflection of the divine love of the Trinity...

Unmatched strength used by God not to crush us but to crush His son to bring us back to Him....

Tim Keller says : God’s fatherly love means absolute safety. He will never neglect or abuse”

That is our model as dads and grand dads, and uncles, and men

This is unreal stuff brothers and sisters

This exists nowhere else

It continues as the New Ordering extends to the work of Christians

We don’t have time to go into the issues of first century slavery and the pure demonic horror of the African slave trade

I have heard so often this is about bosses you work for not slaves

That is a lazy interpretation

Slavery existed then and it was as horrific as all slavery is

Christ has come to set us free and this is a theme of Paul’s.

Inequalities exist in sinful society…even in denominations.....

If wives, husbands, and children need to learn how to navigate the new found order of the Gospel…how much more needed are these words for the issue of slave and master

Surely neither had any idea how to navigate that dynamic in new life of the lived out Gospel

Free to live toward different ends, with a different perspective

This was not a naive escapist teaching

It is the Gospel teaching that it is with us in the most horrific of human conditions, slavery as one of the most evil

We get to live out the life of the Gospel even to our enemies.

Lucas summarizes here :The glory of the gospel is that it has something to give in the worst situations we experience. Just there and then it is possible to live victoriously. Paul’s message brought happiness and fulfilment into the here and now. The purpose of Paul’s ministry was to set people free in Christ now, and it is doubtful whether he had any visionary dreams of a time coming when slavery would be abolished.”

When western cultures began to irradiate this horror it was christians like William Wilberforce in England…captivated by the Gospel and these teachings of Paul that were the fire that drove them

Conclusion

I conclude with this thought before we meet again in September

This is a letter to the church members not the leaders only.

These commands are for all who call themselves followers of Jesus the Messiah

Live this thing out

It is the call of our Savior

And it is the only way to flourishing and peace are found in this life

Lets Pray