Colossians 3

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and I am so delighted to continue our study of this ancient letter to the church at Colossae.

And what a rich letter this is.

I've so enjoyed the study so far.

I read from one commentator this week that this small letter to the Colossians has had an impact on Christian theology and practice out of proportion to its small size and brevity.

The Apostle Paul, through the inspiration of the Spirit, gives us a feast to enjoy and to savor.

Pastor Jim has compared this letter to a dense chocolate cake, and I might extend that metaphor and add some chocolate ganache and perhaps some toasted almonds or pecans for fiber, and then a scoop of the finest vanilla ice cream.

What we're saying here is that this letter was a treasure trove of encouragement, of practical pastoral guidance for this church at Colossae, and it is for us today a treasure trove here in Nashville, Tennessee, or wherever you might be studying with us today.

With every word, the Apostle Paul is carefully lifting the eyes of this church to Christ the King, reminding them of who he is first and who we are, his people, in light of what he's done for us.

As we study chapter three this week, the idea of locating the core of our identity in Christ, a phrase used continuously throughout this and other letters from Paul.

This phrase is key to grasping the practical call to Christian living that Paul will lay out for us here in this chapter.

Locating our identity ultimately in Christ was then and is today subversive and counter to the many identities that the world puts on offer for us to take up as our ultimate identity.

Brian Rosner, in his helpful book, Known by God, and I would commend it to you, lists a few of the traditional identity markers that we often employ to inform how we view the world and engage with one another.

And I'll put this up on the screen.

I borrow a few from him here, just to remind us of the multifaceted ways that we try to define ourselves.

We define ourselves by our culture, our physical and mental capacity, our family of origin, our age.

We define ourselves by our relationships, occupation, possessions, religion, personality, and character, and many others, of course.

And all these identity markers can be part of how we understand ourselves and others.

But any one of these markers can be exaggerated and twisted, and they can entice us to make it our ultimate identity, the prism or the paradigm through which we see everything else.

Put another way, though, the God of the Bible, through Christ, has opened up for us a new way of living that is wrapped up in him, that is characterized and defined by the contours of a kingdom that he is building, a creation that he is renewing even today.

And for those of us who love Christ, because we've been seized by his great love for us, we are bound to him.

Such good news.

That's one reason we can sing like we did earlier, he will hold me fast.

We can sing that because we know that.

Who we are now is wrapped up in who he is.

All the gift of grace.

The New Testament reminds us over and over that our joy, what leads to a flourishing life, starts at least by recognizing our new identity in Christ.

That is who we are.

That is primary, and we live in light of the truth that we belong to Him.

All the other identity markers, they don't get collapsed and flattened.

Don't hear what I'm not saying, but properly ordered to serve Him alone so that we can join them, can enjoy them for what they are, and that is gifts.

The old is gone and the new has come, Paul says in another letter.

As John Foreman, the lead singer from the band Switchfoot, sings, there's a new way to be human.

And actually, it's an ancient way.

The way he designed us to live in perfect peace with God and with one another.

And all of that can be found in Christ.

Don't you want that?

So we will read starting at chapter 3, verse 1.

Before we do that, let's pray together.

Living God, help us so to hear your holy word, that we may truly understand, and that understanding we may believe, and believing we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience, seeking your honor and glory in all that we do.

Through Christ our Lord, we all said from our homes.

Amen.

So again, what an honor it is to study this letter with you today.

Let's begin reading at verse 1 of chapter 3, like I mentioned, and I'll be reading from the English Standard Version this morning.

So, verse 1.

If then you have been raised with Christ, and that can be rendered as since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, and there's his divinity on display.

Set your minds, interesting, on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

And here we see both a present grace.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.

You've been raised.

So we have a present grace and we also have a future hope.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, meaning when he comes to set things right, you also will appear with him in glory.

Present grace and a future hope.

So beautiful.

So if then you have been raised with Christ, or since you have been raised with Christ, Paul is asserting a fact.

It's a proposition.

Since you are those who have been called from darkness and into his glorious kingdom, another way that he said this earlier in the letter, since you are in Christ, here's how this should work out in your day-to-day living.

Here is how you should now live.

This is what theologians would call indicatives.

Paul is indicating who they are now in Christ.

Their positional status has changed.

And I read this little tidbit about Prince Charles.

Prince Charles was born at Buckingham Palace on November 14th, 1948.

The first child of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

When Charles was three, his mother's ascension as Queen Elizabeth II immediately made him the heir apparent to the seven countries over which she reigned at the time.

In that moment, his position changed, and his whole life would be lived in anticipation of being crowned King Charles III.

His status was changed in an instant.

Paul is making a transition here from the first half of his letter, which we've already studied, what we call chapter one and two, where he primarily took up the task of instructing the readers of fundamental theological and doctrinal truth about who our Lord Christ is and correcting some errors which had crept into the church.

Like a good pastor and a teacher, after he builds them up with solid teaching, again, what we call indicatives, he begins to unpack the implications of that theology.

What does that mean for me in real life today, here boots on the ground?

He begins applying it.

This is what theologians would, theologians would call the imperatives.

And what he begins with here at 3 verse 1 is worship.

Seek the things that are above where Christ is.

Seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Seek in the Greek zeteo is a rich word meaning to look for or to desire.

So in this very first paragraph of chapter three, we see Paul engaging the heart and the mind and the will.

Heart and mind always go together when we give our attention, our affection, our devotion, our worship to anything, they go together.

And here Paul is directing us to seek after, to desire, to give heart and mind all to the one who is all in all.

Worship involves the whole person.

So right from the top, right from verse 1 of chapter 3, did you also notice the stark language of death and life?

Since you have been raised with Christ, implying you were once dead.

I was once dead, but now I am alive because of his gracious initiative.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

We've talked about this.

We have the promise that he will hold us fast until the end, raised with him to end this life, we sang.

How can we sing that?

Well, we we get we get it right from here.

When he returns to finally and completely establish his kingdom of justice and righteousness, all of us who are hidden, our lives hidden with Christ, will be there.

This mysterious union with Christ that we enjoy as those who are marked by him, we are inseparably linked to his destiny.

Our destiny and his are linked together.

Such good news.

But do we believe it?

Do I believe that my destiny is linked to who he is?

That I am bound to him.

Has it burrowed deep into both heart and mind so much that I'm no longer swept along in anxiety as if our destinies were linked to which political party we were a part of, or which family we were born into, or how much money, pleasure, or power is available to us.

Those things have their place, but they must take their proper place.

So much in that opening paragraph, but we must uh keep reading.

So let's start at uh verse five.

So put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire.

Not desire, remember he already said seek the things that are above.

That means desire, evil desire.

And covetousness, which is idolatry.

On account of these, the wrath of God is coming.

In these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self with which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Here there is not Greek and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, and that would be foreigners.

Scythian, so that would even be the barbarians of the barbarians, slave and free, but Christ is all in all.

No longer are you defined by these identities.

So let's connect this section with verse one to grasp Paul's argument.

Since you have been raised with Christ, verse one, and here in verse five, therefore put to death what is earthly in you.

You cannot at one and the same time seek after and set your mind on the things of Christ and seek after these practices that were a part of who you were before, that marked us before we were bought with a precious price by our Redeemer.

So let's briefly look at these two lists of fives, interesting, that we are to put off, Paul says.

The first list here, sexual immorality, impurity.

So we're getting a little bit broader here, passion, and this indicates a lustful passion, a lack of self-control, unbridled passion, if you will, evil desire.

Again, not just desire, but evil desire, covetousness, wanting something that belongs to someone else.

And this first list, Paul summarizes as idolatry, finding our fulfillment and satisfaction by submitting ourselves, submitting ourselves to these little g- gods that bring death, not life, when they are out of their proper place.

List number two, a list of five.

Anger.

Put them off.

Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk.

The second list he wraps up with a sweeping exhortation do not lie to one another.

So think about this.

Set alongside sexual immorality, lustful passion, and idolatry, Paul points out that a lying tongue, obscene talk, slander, and the like can dehumanize, disintegrate, and destroy individuals and communities.

Those are set next to one another.

What we say or what we don't say can lead to a way of death just as unbridled passion can.

In a moment in history where almost anyone can extend the reach of their tongue, what comes out of their mouth in an instant, without restraint, using the tools of technology, this list should give us pause, should give me pause, perhaps even conviction.

And with those two lists, he levels the playing field.

All of us have been found guilty, but for the grace of Christ, who has reached his hand into a cold, dead heart like mine and awakened it to new life.

And here we are asked to participate, to partake in this new way of living by putting off what the Puritans used to call mortification of sin, the old way of death and putting on this new way of living in light of who we are as Christ's own.

This is a strong command.

Put to death is what he's saying, the practices of your old life, who you were before.

Jesus put it even more viscerally, if you remember from the Gospels, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.

And these shocking metaphors, uh, we're implored here to actively cut away the cancer that seeks to destroy us.

He's talking to the church here.

It is the Spirit of Christ, though, Christ who is your life, as he said, that is the grace, that is the provision, that is the empowerment for you and I to do just that, to walk in this newness of life, to put off the old man.

We aren't left on our own, but we are given the task to actively engage, to seek after, to desire after this new life by putting off the old.

I love this quote from N.

T.

Wright, from his wonderful commentary on this book in Philemon.

Every Christian has the responsibility before God to investigate the lifelines of whatever sins are defeating him personally, and to cut them off without pity.

Better that than have them eventually destroy him.

When a tide of passion or a surge of anger is felt, it must be dealt with as the alien intruder it really is, and turned out of the house as having no right to be there at all, let alone be giving orders.

So let's continue reading at uh verse twelve.

Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, with compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must you also must forgive.

And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your heart.

There's kingdom language there.

Is the peace of Christ Christ ruling your heart?

Is it ruling my heart?

To which indeed you were called this peace in one body.

And be thankful.

Listen for how many times uh he uses the word thankful or thankfulness in this uh this section.

Verse 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.

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.

So rich.

The Christian life, we have to be clear, is not simply a battle to put off, to remove the vestiges of our old self.

It includes that for sure, it's what he started with, but it is so much more.

It is a recovery, it's a renewal of what has been distorted and broken because of sin.

And I think that's what Paul's getting at here.

Put on.

Earlier he said put off.

Now he's saying put on.

Then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved.

Those are descriptions, by the way, of you and of me, of this church at Colossae, of those who are in Christ.

He chose us.

His holiness is given to us through faith, and he loves us.

The Greek word agapeo, a familial love.

There's a sense of adoption here.

I'm a part of a new family.

I've been given a new name.

This is a further fleshing out of what our identity in Christ looks like.

So let's go again back to verse one of chapter three to make this connection.

I think this is helpful.

Since you have been raised with Christ, since you have been chosen, since you have received forgiveness, since you are beloved children, therefore put on, now we have another list of five, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and connected to patience, bearing with one another, which requires patience.

And as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive, which hearkens to the prayer the Lord taught us.

Remember, these practices we are called to put on is a recovery of what has been lost because of our own rebellion in sin.

Our own sin, sin wreaks havoc on us individually, but sin rarely stops with an individual.

It seeks to devour and destroy relationships and communities.

And all of us are seeing this.

Here, Paul is giving us a very practical pastoral prescription.

With the same intensity and vigor you give to putting off the old self, give that same vigor to putting on the new.

Let me say it again, with the same intensity and vigor you give to putting off the old self.

Give that same attention, that same devotion, that same passion, that same vigor to putting on the new.

For his glory, for our good, and for our flourishing.

I love what D.A.

Carson says, kind of says it cheekily, I think.

I suspect that one of the reasons why there are so many exhortations in the New Testament for Christians to love other Christians is because this is not an easy thing to do.

Paul ends this section with a controlling theme of this new life in Christ.

Above all, put on love.

Agape, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your heart.

Oh, that's such a strong word.

Rule in your heart.

This isn't a syrupy call to get together in a circle and sing kumbaya, a sacran, plastic, flimsy love.

I hope you're not reading it like that.

Set alongside the rest of this list.

Like D.A.

Carson said, these are hard things to do.

Set alongside the rest of this list.

This call to love is.

Love is the hard work of submitting to one another, bearing with one another, forgiving one another, setting aside what I want, or even what I want to say, for the good of my neighbor, for the good of my church, for the good of my children, for the good of my spouse.

And where does Paul couch this instruction?

How does he end it?

With thankfulness, with singing, with submitting everything we do, word or deed, to our Lord Jesus.

He couches it all in worship, all of life worship.

Worship is a giving of you, the whole person, your attention, your devotion, your heart, and your mind in gratitude.

I have this uh ring here, uh, this top one that uh got an Israel when uh we visited Israel last time, and it actually is Colossians 3.16.

It's in in Hebrew, it actually says uh, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

I love that passage.

I love it because I love the word richly.

Don't dwell, you know, don't let the word of Christ dwell in you, you know, kinda, or just a little bit.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

The very source that empowers us to live this new life, marked with singing, with thankfulness, with compassionate hearts, with kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, aren't these all things that we're all uh parched for, we're longing for, we're hoping for in this world that is so bereft of these things.

As Paul finishes this section, he fleshes this Christian life out even further into practical instruction for our primary relationships, our marriages, our families, and our work life.

Paul has been such an extraordinary pastor to this church and to us uh applying these gospel truths to us individually, but also as a community, and as we'll read also to our families and those whom we serve with occasionally.

So let's read together at verse 18, if you would.

So this continues on.

Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.

Husbands, love agape, same word.

Love your wives, sacrificial love, and do not be harsh with them, do not be bitter with them, is really what it means.

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged.

Bond servants, obey in everything those who are your who are your earthly masters, not by way of I service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.

Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men.

Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ.

For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

And we'll continue to verse one of chapter four.

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

While we could camp out for weeks in many of the sections uh throughout this letter, including this one, our time is limited.

And I think though it's it's helpful and instructive to read any text in the Bible, but this letter in particular, instructive to read with the grain of the text, the thought flow of Paul.

Again, I'm gonna go back to verse one.

Since you have been raised with Christ, since you who are now bound up with him, here is how this new life should be shaped in your closest relationships with sacrificial love.

In fact, verse 17, right before this, that we read earlier, and whatever you do in word or deed, whatever you do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That verse comes before.

This is actually the controlling verse.

Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.

Whatever you do in word or deed, do it as unto the Lord.

And just a few points here.

Submission does not mean inferiority.

Very important to point that out.

If you're a Western American, you might think that this instruction sounds like the caricature that we see in shows like Leave It to Beaver, the movie The Truman Show, or many others.

Those are caricatures.

Husbands are given a taller order to love their wives, agape, to love their children with a sacrificial love.

Not a flimsy love, not a plastic.

We're not just playing games here, a sacrificial love.

In the letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul expands this idea even further, and he says, husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church.

Christ's love led him to lay down his life for the church.

That's the call to the husband.

Let's be clear, there is no room in the Christian life for husbands to domineer or to dominate.

Paul makes this crystal clear in his list of what to put off.

Don't forget what we've just read.

What's controlling all of these things?

God loves his people, and he does not give us a way of living that is bad for us.

It's only for our good.

We live in a fallen world and a healthy infrastructure for marriages and families and other institutions.

These are gifts that lead to more flourishing.

Also notice what Paul is not saying.

This is, I think, important, at least for me.

Husbands, make sure your wife is submitting in the way you think submission should look like.

Paul is not saying that.

Although a healthy family infrastructure does look like something, and Paul has provided us many markers of what a godly home would look like in his list of what to put on.

What are those things?

Marked with kindness, marked with humility, marked with patience, marked with forgiveness.

We must let the broader texts work unto the Lord, inform how we interpret the more specific.

The fact that Paul gives public instruction, this is important, to the husband and the wife together, to the father and the children together, to masters and bondservants together, would have been a radical raising of the bar of dignity for women, children, and bondservants in the culture of their day.

Bondservants, or some translations that you are reading, might say slaves, are mentioned in this passage.

And what are we to make of that?

First of all, we shouldn't dismiss the way that passages like this have been misused and distorted throughout history.

To make absurd claims that the God of the Bible endorses one person owning another person, it unequivocally does not endorse this.

Paul is addressing the church at Colossae as it was, in a particular context, a particular time, a particular culture.

Throughout the New Testament, the institution of family and marriage, which Paul's mentioned, is positively affirmed over and over, including from the very mouth of Jesus Himself.

But nowhere in the New Testament is slavery positively endorsed or affirmed.

Nowhere.

Although we shouldn't dismiss the ethical questions that arrive from a passage like this, this bond service mentioned here was different from the scourge of the dehumanizing slavery that stains parts of the history of the U.S., of England, and many other places around the world.

Again, Paul publicly instructs both masters and their workers.

This would have been a subversive encounter to the culture of the day, a raising of the bar of dignity for all those who work.

To further make the point, Paul is clear that they both, master and bondservant, both serve the same master, the Lord Christ.

The broader statements need to interpret the more specific statements.

Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Are you a teacher?

Do everything in the name of Jesus.

Are you a customer service rep?

Do everything in the name of Jesus.

Are you a pastor?

Are you a welder?

Are you a public servant?

Do everything in the name of Jesus.

Why?

Because you have been raised with Christ and are marked not primarily by your vocation or by your family or your status.

You are marked as one of his loved.

Now live in light of that.

As we wrap up our study this morning, I'd like to give us some handles to grasp as we consider this rich feast of a text.

Three questions come to mind when we consider how we are to walk in the way of Christ.

So three questions.

One, who am I?

Two, who are we?

And three, who is he?

One, who am I?

Put another way, where does my ultimate source of meaning, satisfaction, and fulfillment come from?

We've talked about this.

It's from this fundamental question that all human persons get their marching orders for what is true, what is false, what's ugly, what's beautiful, what's good.

And the answer to this question for those who have placed their faith in Christ is such good news.

Who am I?

I am one who is in Christ.

I have been chosen.

I have been forgiven.

I am loved with a familial love.

I'm part of his family.

He loves me as a child.

Said another way, who am I?

I was dead, and now I'm alive in Christ.

That's who I am.

With that question answered, it should lead us to seek the things that are above.

To put off, literally to put to death, that mortification of sin that the Puritans call it those things that do not fit with my identity in Christ.

I am to put on or to recover those things that mark me as belonging to Him.

Trevan Wax says this so well in his new book, Rethink Yourself.

The common sense wisdom of today says that you are responsible for creating and designing yourself.

You determine how you want to define and display yourself.

You set the standard, you figure out what's right or wrong for you, and then you pursue your strongest desires, as long as you don't hurt anyone else.

The Bible starts off by saying you are already created, designed, and defined.

And yes, being created means there is a creator.

Being designed means there is a designer.

Being defined means there is a definer.

So good.

The second question flows logically from the first, I think.

Who are we?

This text was not just about individuals, it was about the entire community of God's people.

God's plan of salvation certainly includes your individual justification, mine, our right standing with God, and our growth in holiness, but it's so much more than that.

From the beginning of the story until he returns again, God is calling a people, a community, a kingdom to call his own.

Dick Lucas, a pastor in London, England, actually is in his 90s and still serves on staff at this church in London, England, says this its proper manifestation on earth, meaning this new life in Christ, is a life rightly lived in the five-fold relationships described in this entire section.

Its power is seen in a holy life, a united congregation, a happy Christian home, a situation at work that reveals something of the Spirit of Christ, and ineffective witness to the outsider.

It is in this and only in this way that we can reflect Christ's glory on earth today.

As poet John Dunn wrote, no man is an island.

I think he took it from somebody else, but no man is an island, and the Bible makes this abundantly clear.

As individuals, we are given an identity in Christ, but this is inseparably linked to the community and the institutions that you and I belong to, most notably the church and our families.

Living in light of the gospel of grace looks like something in our homes, in our churches, in our workplaces, and not just in the public spaces.

Who we are behind the front door of our home, who we are in casual conversation that begins veering towards untruth or slander, who we are to the people who serve us, who we serve.

It's in those contexts where the identity we are living from is most truly revealed.

And it's most often those contexts where humility or repentance or patience where forgiveness is most needed.

The last question: who is he?

And it really is the last question, but also the middle question, and of course the first question as well.

Paul has taken care throughout this entire letter to continually remind us of his beauty, his majesty, his supremacy, his power.

That is Christ.

He is worthy of our worship, both heart and mind, all focused, our attention, devotion given to him.

He is seated at the right hand of God.

He is reigning right now.

He is all in all.

So we keep our eyes and our ears close to the Word of God, which reveals and reminds us of who He is and what He's done for us.

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you rich richly, it says.

This is another way of saying seek the things that are above, look for, desire the things that are above.

May the Lord, even this week, start a renewal in us, in me, to desire to draw more from the well of God's written word, to sing together the truths of who he is and who we are in him, and to do all this with thankfulness in our hearts.

It is the person of Christ and His Spirit that is the substance and the source of our growth and maturity.

As those marked with the name of Christ, living out our identity as his beloved.

So with thankfulness in our hearts we seek after.

We put off.

We put on.

And may we do it all in joyful service of our King.

And I'll end our study here with this wonderful uh sage pastor J.I.

Packer says this.

What matters supremely is not in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it, the fact that he knows me.

I'm never out of his mind.

All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me.

I know him because he first knew me and continues to know me.

He knows me as a friend, one who loves me, and there is not a moment when his eye is off me or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.

Oh Lord, remind me, remind us that we belong to you.

Spirit, gives us give us hearts, uh renewed passion to put off what belongs to death and to put on the life-giving gifts that you graciously provide for our good and for your glory.

For the good of my family, for the good of my church, for the good of my neighbor.

Bind my wandering heart to you, as the song says.

In the name of our gracious Redeemer, who has brought me from death to life.

We all said Amen.