Resurrected and Hidden

Amen.

Thank you so much, worship team.

And appreciate Missy reminding us, I love that.

We're having a family reunion, and it's not just us that is here, but the Lord is here with us.

He is present with us.

And man, when we lift up his praises like that, oh man, it just puts the focus of his presence right before us.

And I love that, man.

I'm so so thankful you're here.

And in a lot of ways, uh this is kind of like an Easter sequel Sunday, if you will, um, uh several months ago.

I was reading a passage in Colossians uh in the Bible, which we'll get to in a little bit, and it just kind of popped off the page uh seeing that we are called followers of Jesus who've put their faith in Jesus.

We're called in this passage we'll look at later, we're called resurrected and hidden.

And we're gonna look at that today.

Resurrected and hidden.

That's very unique.

I don't know if you've ever been told that if you've played your faith in Christ, that your life is actually hidden.

And um, I was thinking about that, and uh I'm always a little bit worried about sharing what's on my mind and where my brain goes sometimes.

But as I was preparing to teach this and reading through the scriptures uh and Colossians and the context of it, it's this idea that something you really, really is bad.

It's so bad, it's so gross, it's so terrible that it is somehow completely covered up where you cannot even see its terribleness or its darkness or its grossness.

Now I'm thinking to myself, what are some good real life examples of that that impact us, that maybe all of us can relate to?

Part of me went to, I remember those times when my kids were still living at home and we're kind of cleaning the house, and uh I look and see one of my kids' rooms and I just pull the door shut.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, I'm just gonna walk away.

I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that.

I don't want to go in there, I don't want to begin that project.

It's just a little bit destroyed right now.

Part of me went there, but I tell you another real life example, and uh and and and I'm trying not to I prayed today, Lord help me to not make this example weird today.

Uh, but it is true.

I think we can all relate to this.

A good example of something that we might think is gross, that is commonly hidden, is feet.

Okay?

Am I right?

Now, I've thought this through a little bit, and where my logic goes is that uh if you are wearing sandals, you either A believe these look okay enough to be exposed to other human vision.

Or, and this is me, my feet deserve to be free.

No matter how they look, no matter what condition they're in.

Uh, I was raised in uh southeastern Kentucky and I love being barefoot.

Uh so that's usually one of the categories.

Uh, but I do hear people say, I don't think feet are gross necessarily.

They can be, but you know what?

Sometimes the older I get, I do ask my question, should I just cover those up?

You know?

Uh one of my favorite Christian comedians, Tim Hawkins, says, the older we get, we reach the stage where our toenails begin to look like sonships.

And I think that's a very accurate, I got I got one toenail that's starting that process.

I'm like, don't you do it?

Stop.

Um but yeah, when you here's the thing about it though.

When you see someone wearing close-toe shoes of whatever kind, they could be really nice shoes, they can be casual shoes, they could be cool shoes, they can be whatever shoes, it's covered all of that.

You have no idea what's going on in there.

There could be warts, bunions, fungus, you can have the cross thing or the victory sign in there.

Um, we don't know because it's covered.

And so now you're gonna be thinking about that as you go through your rest of your day or your week, like, what's that person hiding in there?

Um, but here's what I want to say: spiritual application.

No matter how gross your sin, faith in Jesus will resurrect you and hide you in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Go do your research on the people we call heroes of the faith.

Some of them, man, they had gross pasts and sin, and sometimes slipped back into that in their path, in their journey, in their stories.

Um, we are no better than they are.

We desperately need this powerful, wonderful, beautiful name of Jesus to reign in our lives, uh, to keep reminding us that if we've placed our faith in Him, that we are no longer dead in sin.

We are raised, we are resurrected, and as we're about to see in the book of Colossians, hidden.

Here's what it says starting in Colossians 3, verse 1.

Colossians 3:1

Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above.

Like as we read this, think about this.

Jesus came back to life.

We celebrated that a week ago, and because of your faith in him, if you've placed your faith in him, you are raised to life.

You are resurrected.

So since then you've been raised with Christ, once dead, now alive, set your hearts on things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things above.

Paul's driving at home in this letter to the believers in Colossae: 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.

And so, a little summary truth here.

Resurrected people have their minds set on heavenly things rather than earthly things.

And even that feels oversimplified.

And my fear about us parking here for a moment today is we can just kind of say that and move on.

And I think I really hope that you and I both will think about how do we practically live this out?

In what ways am I currently still tethered too much to earthly things and my mind not actually at all thinking eternally.

You know, I I think about eternal things all too often when I go down the road at a visitation or a service uh at Chambers and Grupp's funeral home or somewhere like that, then I'm really thinking about what matters most, what is what is most meaningful, what is most impactful, what matters most in this life is more eternal.

But I can get only a few hours from being there, and my mind is so focused on temporary things, things that aren't going to matter in heaven, that things that aren't actually going to matter probably when I get old enough to start worrying about things that are temporary and start realizing that this life of mine is drawing to a close.

What do I want to spend the rest of my life actually focused on?

Why wait till you're there to think that way?

What would happen if we begin to think more heavenly rather than earthly when we're a teenager, when we're in our early 20s, when we're in middle age, when we're right now, whatever stage you're in, to think in a more eternal way.

You know who I thought of, and this might sound a little weird, is I thought of Lazarus.

And I cannot wait to talk to him in heaven.

And what I want to ask him is, I want to know what your life was like after Jesus rose you from the dead and then you died again.

I want to know that phase of life.

I want to know what you were thinking.

I want to know did food taste better to you?

Did you savor it more?

You know, did you did you treasure your sisters Mary and Martha more?

Did you still squabble and then say, wait a minute, you know, I'm raised to new life.

I should love them more.

Did you cherish those moments?

What was different about your life because you experienced resurrection and got to live it on earth before once again going into heaven?

But in a way, we're Lazarus.

It's so hard to see it.

And I want to confess that, like when you're going through stuff, um, I love what Missy was saying, but God, all the stuff that can be happening in your life right now, that's difficult, that's stressful.

All of us have something we've got to finish, a task we got to complete, things we got to get done, things that we don't always necessarily want to deal with, but we have to deal with.

And those things tend to be what occupy our space in our minds and in our hearts.

But God raised you to life.

If you've placed your faith in Jesus, you are already experiencing eternal life.

You're gonna live forever with Him in heaven.

How then shall you live today because of that?

Life looks different, priorities are different.

Even the things that you're doing that may not seem eternal can have an eternal purpose in it.

A good example of that, and it's taken me a while to get to this illustration, but my favorite time of the year as a sports fan is March.

Man, March Madness, nothing compares to it in my mind.

I love watching as many games as I can, hoping to see some Cinderella teams and some upsets.

And one of the biggest ones this year was from a team called High Point University.

I had never in my life heard of Chase Johnston till March Madness.

And what's interesting about this guy, uh, they, by the way, they upset Wisconsin.

Wisconsin was a five-seed, High Point was a 12-seed.

It was the only game they won in the tournament, but it was one of the most spectacular moments in March Madness.

And this guy is a very good three-point shooter.

So good that this whole season he had never made a two-pointer.

He, I think he took a few.

I think I read he took four or five.

He was the three-point specialist.

And when you watch him shoot, he just kind of like heaves it up there, and most of the time it goes in.

Uh, but in this game, it was a very close game at the end, and they had one of those moments where someone threw a really long pass to a high point player streaking down the court, going to be wide open if he can catch it.

And it was this guy.

He caught it and just made a very normal layup right in the hole, and that's what won them the game.

Well, we learned about his story.

He immediately, every time he got interviewed, would tell about his faith.

In fact, he chose the jersey number 99 as a tip of the hat to a story that Jesus told that we often refer to, where the the shepherd leaves the 99 found sheep and will chase after the one lost sheep.

And he uses his own jersey number to give glory to Christ.

Even this one shining moment that he had playing a sport that he loves was hidden in Christ.

It had an eternal purpose.

Now, as we keep reading in the book of Colossians, God inspires Paul to write out some examples of the grossness that is hidden in Christ.

Starting in verse 5, it says, put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.

So this is our part.

Jesus has forgiven us of our sins, and he has raised us to new life.

And by his power, strength, and guidance in our lives, we can do all things.

And one of the things we can do is put to death the earthly nature.

And he gives examples: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.

And those a lot of those terms are so general.

A lot of different things that we do that are not of God, that are of our earthly nature, can fall under those categories.

In fact, my mind went immediately.

I've mentioned before I love watching true crime.

And uh if Sherry will watch it with me every now and then, uh, we will sometimes look at each other and say, isn't it crazy how there's really only about three or four motives for crimes?

It's and it's right there in the Bible.

It's usually greed and lust and money and power and control, just a handful of things will cause people to do some terrible things and make terrible choices.

And I I like that what God inspired Paul to write there is which is idolatry.

We don't want to necessarily take the things that we're tempted to do and sometimes do and say that's idolatry.

No, no, no, I still worship God.

He is my one true God.

I don't have another idol that I've erected in my life and sat on the throne of my heart before him.

But the truth is, is when we choose our earthly nature and we veer off the path into greed and lust and impurity and doing what we desire to do rather than what God desires to do, we are essentially putting something else on the throne of our hearts rather than God.

It's idolatry.

And it says in verse 6, because of these, the wrath of God is coming.

Again, it's not one of those good bumper sticker memory verses.

You know, we don't have that.

We won't find that in Hobby Lobby on a nice graphic thing to put on our wall.

But I love this verse because I think it's so easy to not take sin seriously.

It's so easy.

Uh, we like to, in our culture, wink at the things like, yeah, I did that.

You know, I know God wasn't happy with that, you know, but I did it, you know, whatever.

And we have to be so careful, be reminded like Jesus died and took the wrath of his just Father upon his body for the sins that we might want to sort of wink at and laugh at.

For because of those things, the wrath of God is coming.

Like, so God's going to judge these things.

So I want to rid them out of my life.

We want to rid them out of our life.

He goes on to say, 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.

He gives another list: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

I love this list because this is another thing that we tend to wink at in our culture.

It's like how you feel in your heart, and sometimes the people you care about most, you can harbor the greatest anger and malice towards.

And the talk, the things that we will say to other people or about other people.

We're like, well, we all do it and we just kind of wink at it and ask God to forgive us, but he's like, Man, you got to take that away.

Get rid of that.

Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge, in the image of its creator.

When you look at the Greek language in these this section here, it's using the same language as someone who is taking off filthy garments and putting on new, pure, clean garments.

When it says, rid yourself and put off the exact same words, it would say to someone who's got you got unclean clothing, get that off.

Take that off, get rid of it, burn it, get rid of it.

And you know, especially the Jewish readers of this would understand this because part of their Judaism religion was to remain uh ceremonially clean.

If they were to come in contact with blood or uh or a dead animal or things like that, man, it was you had to stay outside the camp, you couldn't interact with family, you couldn't go to synagogue, and those clothes get off, you get rid of those, either clean them or burn them, and then you have to put on fresh clothes and you have to let the priest see you.

I mean, it was a whole thing.

So this language really made sense for those Jewish readers to say, yeah, like because of Jesus Christ, my heart, my mind, and my actions need a clothes change.

I need to put off, cast off, get rid of those things in my life.

Man, like the worst thing that could happen is for us to praise God for the cross and the empty tomb and then go on living the same way.

What a terrible sequel to Easter.

Let him help you experience a raised and hidden life clothed in Christ.

This next verse afterwards seems so random and out of place, but it fits.

In verse 11, it says, Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free.

But Christ is all and is in all.

Now, God knows our tendency to separate ourselves.

I've talked to some teenagers, and every now and then we'll say, hey, what's it like?

I'll ask them, like, what's it like in school?

Do people still have clicks or and the names for those clicks?

And I would figure at some point, even without the power of God, those would go away.

But no, they're still there, different names, same clicks.

We just tend to separate ourselves out of there.

We use such a tendency to do that.

And I love how Paul says, not here, here in the church, here in the body of Christ, here in the family of God.

Nuh-uh.

None of that is true.

And it's an interesting list.

I think in all of scripture, there's the only this is the only list quite like this.

I I was uh researching the word for barbarian there, and yeah, it could mean kind of rough, wild group of people, like it kind of reads to us when I see that.

But it also could be a term used to describe people who speak a language you do not understand.

Just that general.

They are part of the family of God, too.

Scythian's a unique one.

It's literally kind of like a like a uh uh a proper noun of a group of people.

They were believed to be the wildest of the barbarians of the people, and yet here they are coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

What a diversity existed in the Colossian church, in the first century church.

And yet the Gentile or Jew, Jewish or non-Jewish, circumcised or uncircumcised, even some of the non-Jewish people who perhaps even before Jesus Christ and the gospel was spreading had become circumcised to join the Judaism religion.

He says, that doesn't matter.

Slave or free, that doesn't matter.

If you're the master or the non-master, doesn't matter.

In Christ, you are unified.

Christ is all and is in all.

I would say it like this.

This is my favorite way to say it.

We are all in the same line of beggars trying to get a crumb of Jesus, the bread of life.

That's all of us in this very room, including those watching, listening online, counting you in with all of us.

There is not a single person in this room that is more valued by God than the other.

All created in the image of God.

The cross of Christ that we sang about, that was for every single person in this room, watching, listening online, still breathing God's good air on planet Earth, every single person.

That blood was for all of us.

Unified.

So even in the midst of this, putting off your old self, he what he added to the list was stop separating, stop ranking, stop doing anything that would make you think that you are better than someone else, or the reverse, they are better than me, I am less than, and so therefore, maybe I don't have a part of this.

The enemy will do that to all of us.

Now that God inspired Paul in this letter to make a list of things to cast off, to put off, he then in verse 12 makes a list of things to put on.

The clothing of Christ to envelop our lives with.

Verse 12 it says, 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.

I always think that love is the belt.

It kind of holds all that clothing in place.

Or the suspenders, or whatever.

What do all these things that we put on that we clothe ourselves with have in common?

When you look at this list, they all directly deal with.

How we see others, treat others, and interact with others.

These are such horizontal virtues when you look at it.

Compassion.

How you see someone, you have empathy, do you desire to help?

Kindness.

It's an action word.

Humility.

Not thinking of me as better than them.

We're unified.

Gentleness, patience, bearing with each other, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven us.

Love.

All that is super horizontal stuff.

And I think what can kind of happen in the world of Christianity if we're not careful is we're going to say, yes, Jesus is alive.

He died on the cross for my sins.

My sins are forgiven.

And he rose again.

Therefore, I get to live forever with him.

And then I can kind of isolate myself and just have good character and just believe in him and read the Bible and pray.

And yeah.

But man, that is not how it works.

We are now part of the body of Christ.

And we're not in isolation.

And in the body of Christ, this is how we live, living out these virtues.

And not only here, but we break huddle, we leave today's family reunion and we go out there and we do the same out there.

Because every single person who may not even dream of walking into a worship service, they are so far away from even thinking about the goodness of God in their life.

They were created in the image of God.

Jesus died for them, and we were all once there too.

And therefore, let's go out and show compassion and kindness and humility and grace and love and see how God will change and transform lives all around us.

I think one of the key words in this passage is humility.

And so I want to throw a little Greek at you.

That Greek word for humility there is a it's a it's a dollar fifty cent word, man.

It is tapino prosune.

Tapino frosune.

I love good, meaty, like porterhouse steak Greek words, man.

Basically, it's two ancient Greek words put together.

One of those Greek words would be low or lowly.

The other Greek word could be translated mind or even midriff.

A lot of the words that we use today when they were first put together were very base in their meaning.

And so humility would be instead of being like this, being like this.

Instead of puffed up, puffed out, high midriff, lowly midriff.

And I believe that's how this word came to be.

Like people who are humble, they're not haughty, they're not puffed up, they're not flexing.

They see themselves through God's eyes, lowly of mind, not thinking too highly of yourself, not thinking you are above anyone or anything or any task.

This is what it means to be humble.

Friends, I think this is a crucial part of us putting off the old self and being hidden in Christ, being clothed in Christ.

It's a life of humility.

Spiritual success looks like Jesus indiscriminately washing feet.

Don't you like how he brought the illustration full circle, guys?

Back to feet again.

Jesus washed those twelve men's feet on the week before he died on the cross for them.

He washed the feet of a man named Peter who is going to vehemently deny publicly that he even knew Jesus.

He washed the feet of John.

John loved Jesus.

They were tight.

John kind of stuck with him.

In fact, Jesus from the cross passed on responsibility for caring for his mother Mary to John.

He washed the feet of a man named Judas Iscariot, who literally was the one that orchestrated his betrayal and arrest and death.

He washed the feet of a man named Thomas, who, though seeing Jesus standing before him, could not believe that Jesus was alive, doubted, and struggled.

Spiritual success looks like this.

It's humble service, it's forgiveness and grace.

Still washing the feet of the one who betrays and denies and doubts.

That's what it means.

And I don't think we lean into that enough, do you?

I really don't.

I think the Bible reading streak is great.

But how about living like this?

Putting that word in action, living a resurrected life, living a life hidden in Christ, so that instead of seeing the grossness of our earthly nature, people see the love, kindness, and humility of Jesus.

Listen, we need help doing that, don't we?

Ten out of 10 of us here watching, listening, like we cannot do it.

But guess what?

We said this last week, we'll say it again.

By faith in Jesus, the same spirit that raised him from the dead dwells within every believer.

Because of him, you absolutely can do it.

I will quote Philippians 4 13 out of context all the time.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Usually I quote that verse when I'm in traffic or I'm training for a marathon or all those things.

No, what he's saying in the context of that is being content through all circumstances.

Go read the context.

I can do that by the strength of God.

We can live a life of humility, servanthood.

I can forgive what seems to be unforgivable.

I can bear with other people by the strength of God within me.

We're going to pray and sing another worship song in a moment, but before we do that, I would like to walk through what I call some next step questions.

We use the language of next steps all the time.

We have the next steps area over here in the corner.

We have a next steps web page on our website and on our app.

We just want every one of us as a family to take whatever next step Jesus is asking you to take today.

And I want to ask you, what would that be?

What is the right next step that God is laying on your heart today?

The first question I would ask is what gnarly clothing do you still need to cast off with the help of Jesus?

What is the earthly nature part that's got a hold of you right now?

It's still there.

Maybe it's money.

Listen, another form of greed is thinking about money all the time, even if you're not trying to take it from other people.

Does it have you instead of you having it?

Lust, control, power, greed, selfishness.

What do you need to cast off?

Man, you're you've been raised to new life.

Get rid of that.

Second question Who have you withheld compassion, humility, and forgiveness from?

Now, when I read that, it sounds a little bit accusatory.

Like somebody, you know who it is, and that might be true.

But I would say don't park just there.

Think generally, think overall.

Like, when's the last time you actually thought about getting to know the person who passes the cup of coffee to you at the place you always get your coffee?

Do you know their name?

Do you know what they're going through?

The restaurants you frequent.

Do you know the server?

Have you asked them how they're doing?

Don't have to be weird about it.

Just love them.

Think about other people.

Who have you withheld compassion, humility, and forgiveness from?

Third question: Will you ask God to help you see yourself as raised from death to life?

In my opinion, this is the missing point that gets us stuck in our old clothing rather than clothing ourselves with these virtues of Christ.

I think the enemy sneaks in and pulls away this whole idea that you would be resurrected in Christ, that you are currently already living eternal life in Christ.

Get you to kind of doubt that.

And if he can get you just sticking with the earthly things and just dealing with life as it comes and not thinking in a heavenly way, then he can render your life a little less powerful, a little more stressful.

But man, what if today you start praying, God, help me to see that I'm resurrected?

Help me to see that I'm like Lazarus.

I've stepped out of my grave.

No disease, no pain can take away the new life you've given me.

With his help, we can live like that.

So let's ask him to help us now as we pray.

Will you bow with me?

Oh Father, you're such a good, good God.

And Lord, I know that I believe and I know that you look out and you see us gathered here today, not only in this building, but all across the planet, people wherever they are gathering to worship you, and you see your creation, you see how you love them so much that you died for them.

You see how so much you desire to walk with them, to walk with us, and to no longer live powerless lives, but powerful lives.

God, I pray that you help us.

Help us to see ourselves as raised to new life in you.

Father, there might be someone here today, someone watching, listening.

And the truth is they've not put their faith in you yet.

So this whole concept just doesn't apply, it just doesn't fit.

But why not today?

Why not today be the day that they finally say to you, Jesus, I believe that you died and rose again and you did it for me.

And I ask you to forgive me of my sins, Lord, and I pray that you would save me and that you would make me your child now and forever.

God, whoever might be praying a prayer like that, help them to know that today is the first day of the rest of their eternal lives with you.

And Father, give us the power to cast off our earthly nature.

Give us eyes to see the things that are still gross that we need to cast off.

Give us eyes to see the opportunity for compassion and kindness, forgiveness to people around us.

Lord, please help us to do that.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.