Things Above

Colossians 3:1–9 NIV

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices

Set your minds on things above - where Christ is

We need to listen carefully here. What Paul is saying is, ‘set your minds on things above - where christ is’.

What we HEAR is, set your minds on the parts of life that are christian. going to church, reading your bible, being a part of small group, etc etc.

These things are great, and we SHOULD be. But that’s not exactly what paul is saying in this moment here.

see, Jesus - he went to sit at the right hand of God. For sure, the spirit’s in our hearts, and christ has made his home with us - but here, we’re talking about eternity.

Paul is saying, take a look around you. Look at the walls, the seats, the trees, the grass, etc. What you’re doing in this moment. Your life, what you’re doing today. Plans for the future.

Then paul says - don’t focus on those things. Focus on Christ and eternity.

And he reminds us - he says, When Christ, who is your life, appears, you’ll appear with him in glory.

Whatever you have here, there - you have the resurrected Christ, soon to be the reigning-on-earth-Christ, who will come on the clouds with loud trumpets and be king over everything forever - and we’ll be a part of that parade in, sheathed in glory

Paul says, here and now is temporary - focus on God’s eternal ‘there’.

When we get THERE, and see the face of God.

When we get THERE, and come back with Christ in glory

When we get THERE, and all our pain is washed away.

For Paul,

There’s two big steps to moving our focus from HERE to THERE

STEP 1

Take off the stuff you have

Context - this is after salvation

Paul gives us a list of things to put to death - sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed.

These are obvious.

BUT he doesn’t , ‘put to death the bad parts of your earthly nature’. He says - put to death your earthly nature.

He says, ALSO we should be getting rid of stuff like anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, and lying.

This is a lot harder of a list to get rid of.

To Paul, this was so radical, that we didn’t even have left basic distinctions like gentile or jew, or slave or free

See the thing is - we pick and choose what parts of our old nature we think need to go. God asks for sacrifice, we settle on sweeping up a bit.

But Paul says, your old nature that leads towards destruction, towards judgment - get rid of it.

Our ‘earthly nature’ is what leads us into the wrath of God. The sheer fact of who we are as human beings. Even the GOOD parts of our nature - they eventually corrupt, and lead us astray.

Luke 9:23 NIV

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

Deny ourselves. That’s a strong phrase. Every part of our nature gets put on the chopping block. Even the parts we may like, or we think are good.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the message here isn’t ‘I donate to the poor, so obviously God wants me to stop that.’ That isn’t denying yourself, that’s indulging yourself.

Because either way, it’s you at the wheel. When you say, i want to give to the poor, you’re steering the boat .When you say, i need to do the opposite of what I want to do - you’re still steering the boat.

Denying yourself is getting right out of the way and giving God a blank slate

And who knows, maybe God will look at something in your life and give you a pat on the back and say ‘hey, keep doing that’. And that’s great

But the point is - it’s his call. Take your focus off the here, and the around us, and focus it on eternity - and then start denying yourself. Stop making about what you think or want, and start asking God every single day - ‘What should I do today?’

Part two of shifting from here to there is this:

STEP 2

Put on the stuff God has

Colossians 3:12–14 NIV

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

God’s got a nature that He wants to see us wearing.

And there’s some pretty radical things we gloss over when we read this.

Something I want you to notice here. There’s only one qualifer, one ‘if’ in this entire part. And it’s this ‘forgive if you have something that needs to be forgiven’.

Everything else doesn’t have any sort of limitation. Clothe yourself with compassion/kindness/humility/gentleness/patience/love. Bear with others. Forgive as much as God has forgiven us (which is…everything)

Sidebar:

If it doesn’t look like God coming out of us, it may not be God going into us

STORY - old navy, no way to tell what’s a women’s shirt or a man’s shirt.

If it doesn’t lead us to more compassion, to more kindness, to more humility and gentleness - we should be questioning ourselves.

And that’s a huge aspect of denying ourselves. Because we have so many valid reasons to withold forgiveness. To forsake gentleness. To skip kindness.

Any time someone says ‘I have a word from the Lord’, and it’s lacking compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, etc etc. I get skeptical. If the clothes you’re getting asked to put on don’t look like this - they’re not the right clothes.

Maybe we can’t think of a way that kindness and compassion would get the job done. Great - God can. Let him do it.

Anyways.

On this topic of putting on the life of Christ,

Paul has a bit of a hierarchy here:

Love on top and inbetween everything

Remeber, he says, Colossians 3:14 “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Under that, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, forgiveness.

Love is what connects everything. In fact, Paul says love is what binds them together in perfect unity.

But love is what pushes us from one virtue to the next. In love, compassion drives us to kindness - we empathize, and so we act.

Kindness gets us stepping out, getting into the mess of someone else’s life and problems, paired with love, brings us to humility.

Humility drives us to forgiveness - we think of ourselves less, and love others more.

And love as a connecting piece doesn’t stop there. This isn’t an exhaustive list. Paul’s illustrating a truth about the kingdom -

Love is what moves us forward towards Christlikeness

Yknow what this means? If you want to grow in the character of Christ, love more. Love in crazy amounts.

When paul talked about the fruit of the spirit, he ends off the list by saying ‘against such things there is no law’.

So Paul has this two part process - put down us, take up Christ. And the greatest way to take up Christ is through love. Through compassion. Kindness. Gentleness. Humility. If you want to look more like Christ, look more like that.

God’s love will bring you in - and walk with you every step

Love is the cornerstone of the sacrifice of the cross

Romans 5:8 NIV

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

PRAY WITH ME.

NO COFFEE TODAY - church is fairly disassembled for VBS. See you next week!