Life in Christ: Free / Colossians 3:1-14 / Lance Blythe

I want to introduce you to a guy by the name of Jack McDonald.

A picture of him will come up on the screen.

Jack was a lawyer in Seattle and worked for 30 years within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

He was born in 1915 and died 13 years ago in 2013.

And Jack lived a modest life.

Living most of his life in a one-bedroom apartment.

He would regularly catch the public bus to work and around town.

And he was always on the lookout for supermarket specials.

If he lived in Australia, he'd be at the front of the line for the Aldi specials when they come out each week.

He'd be always on the hunt for any special at the supermarkets in his area.

And he wore his clothing through until it was no longer useful for wearing.

There's some stories about Jack that near the end of his life he was wearing sweaters with holes in the elbows.

Still good, he'd say to people, and would wear his clothes until they could no longer be worn.

He was a humble, quiet, and gentle man to those who knew him.

Near the end of his life, his stepdaughter was writing his biography for him.

And she asked him, Jack, how would you like to be remembered?

And his answer, a philanthropist.

That's how he wanted to be remembered, as a philanthropist.

To many people, Jack was a humble, quiet man who lived simply and in many ways lived within himself.

He missed out on the joys and the riches of life and wealth and success and fame.

Instead, seemingly happy living a simple, humble life of just getting by with what he had.

Upon Jack's death, his will donated 187 million US dollars to charity.

Jack had many years earlier in his life inherited a large sum of wealth from his parents' business, and he'd made it his life's work to not spend this wealth but steward it.

He had seen his role as a steward for the good and the freedom and the health of many.

And so while many who were equally as wealthy around him lived their lavish lifestyles, Jack chose a very different way to live.

His outward appearance seemed to indicate that he was living for less, that he was missing out, that he wasn't like the other high-powered lawyers that he graduated with.

But in fact, Jack was living for something beyond what anyone around him could imagine.

Jack didn't live simply because he was poor, he lived simply because he knew something about himself that had changed everything for the course of his life.

Those who didn't know completely missed the purpose and the goals and the actions for what Jack was living for.

And the story of Jack MacDonald is in many ways an analogy for what Paul is going to say to us this morning is the picture for life in Christ.

In Colossians 3, Paul is going to describe a way of life, a life of fullness, a life of freedom that is easily missed by many.

Freedom that isn't earned, freedom that is given, and freedom that is lived out, not because we are fighting and striving to achieve it, but freedom that is found in living in who we already are.

So we're going to jump into Colossians chapter 3 from verse 1, uh today's verses 1 to 14, and uh read together.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

Your Bible, you can open that up.

Uh if not, you can see the words, they'll be on the screen.

We can read together.

Colossians chapter 3, verse 1.

Colossians 3:1

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 his practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge, in the image of its creator.

Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all.

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.

Four verses earlier, before our reading today, Paul in Colossians 2, 20 says, Since you have died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world.

And now in chapter 3, verse 1, he mirrors this idea using the same language, the same ideas, and he says, Since you have been raised to life, set your heart on the things above.

Paul is wanting us to notice something in mirroring the same language here.

He's been speaking a lot, and we have preaching a lot in the previous weeks about how through the death of Jesus we are to die to the sin and brokenness, the darkness and dysfunction of this world.

That Jesus' death is not just an event in history, but when we align our lives to it, there is an act of dying to all of the brokenness, being freed from the sin and dysfunction and darkness in our world today.

That has been what Paul has been speaking about for the last number of weeks together.

And now he uses the same idea, the same mirror, the same parallel language, and he says, since you've been raised with Christ for life.

We've been freed from the things of brokenness in our world, and we have been freed for life in Christ.

Life in its fullness, life as we were created to live it, life that would be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, and a love-filled life.

Not just a separation from the sin and brokenness in this world, but life for purpose and meaning and living life that means something is what the follower of Jesus has been freed for.

Not just waiting for an eternal future, but life to be lived now.

And Paul describes the movement, the picture, what this looks like to live life now that Jesus has raised us for.

And he describes a picture of moving from vices to virtues.

Moving from vices to virtues is the picture of what it means to live life in Christ.

Moving from the vices of sin and darkness and brokenness in our world to the virtues of freedom and life and the image of Christ Himself in our lives.

Here in what we read, he says, moving from the vices of idolatry, where we turn good things or normal things or everyday things into God's above all else.

Moving from the vices of sexual immorality and lust, taking a good thing like sex and making it God above all other things in our life and in our world.

Moving from the vice of the idol of greed and selfishness that is toxic to our hearts.

And then he says, move from the vices of the things that bring harm to one another.

The vices of malice, slander, anger, and rage, these are vices that don't only do damage to us, but harm and hurt those around us.

They entrap us, they snare us, they chain us to a less than life than what we were created for.

A less than freedom than what can be found in Christ through his death and through his resurrection for life.

Some of us here know what it's like to be trapped in vices like these.

We know what it's like to feel trapped in a life that's less than what we think we should or could have, what we feel called to live in, vices that seem to have their hold on our lives.

And sometimes we can read a text like this from Paul.

And we can fall into the trap of thinking that Paul is outlining a moral code for life, a way to live.

That you should not do these things and you should instead do these things.

You should not turn to vices, instead, you should live with virtues.

We could read what Paul is writing and think that it's about doing better, living a greater life, achieving what you need to achieve, and straightening out the pieces of your life.

But to read this into this text is to miss the power of what Paul is saying.

Far from do better, try harder, be more noble, live a better life, be a better person.

Paul is imploring us to simply be who we already are.

Be who you already are in Christ.

Moving from vices to virtues is not about a moral makeover.

It's about becoming and being and living into our identity that we already are in Christ.

Let me just paraphrase very quickly some of what we've read and what Paul's speaking about here.

He says, Since you have died with Christ and since you have been raised with Christ, put on your new self.

The old has gone, so put on your new self, which is being renewed into the image of God.

As in you are, so go ahead and be.

Without a change of heart, we're vulnerable to being caught in the same vices.

Enslaved and trapped into all manner of things in our lives.

Even those things that we don't wish to be involved in without a change of the heart, we are vulnerable to being caught in them.

Throughout my life, I played a lot of footy, from juniors through to senior footy all the way to late 20s, and uh started to pick up a few too many injuries to be bothered, still doing it on a Saturday afternoon, and so gave it away eventually.

Uh but part of what I loved about playing footy was the sport, it was the exercise, it was the time uh with other people, it was the competition.

I loved winning, it was a lot of fun, hated losing, that made your weekend terrible.

Uh, but but love the time with teammates, the friendships that you formed, and that the part of being with other people was what I loved about uh team sport, in particular playing footy.

And what happens in particular at senior footy at the end of the year, there's a bunch of get-togethers.

You've done a whole journey, you start training in November, you go all the way through to about this time of year, the end of August, start of September, and so at the end of the year, you tend to have some gatherings where you celebrate the year that's been and spend time together.

It might be on a Sunday after the last game, a Monday after the last game, and the team gathers together and just spends time celebrating, laughing, having fun together for a day.

And remember one particular year the pl the plan was for a Monday gathering.

We were going to start with lunch together, a barbecue, and then it would go through the afternoon, into the evening, order pizzas or whatever, and go into the night.

And I had uni off that day.

Well, at least I remember I probably took uni off that day and thought this is great, we'll go and spend the day together there and celebrate the year that's been.

And so went to the club, got there at lunchtime.

It was come and go as you please, whatever you can do, you can do.

And uh uh spent the afternoon there with my mates.

Good lunch, connecting, having fun, chatting together.

And then at about three o'clock in the afternoon, we were just chatting away.

It was a beautiful sunny day like today.

And then the guy started pulling down the shutters around the club rooms, and within 30 seconds, we went from this bright um light room to a dark room with the shutters down and the door closed.

And then this adult performer walked out.

And I was in the far corner of the room, and I thought, oh no, this is not what I came for.

So I looked around and everybody was getting themselves set up, and I thought, nah, I'm not here for this.

I am not doing it.

So I stood up, I said to the guys, I'm going, I'm not here for this.

This is not what I want to be a part of.

I'm leaving.

They said, What do you mean, Lance?

What are you doing?

Sit down, come on, join us.

I said, No, no, I don't I don't want to be a part of this, I'm going.

And I remember as I turned and walked out the room, they said, Come on, mate, you gotta live a little.

Come on, and someone said, You're weak, you're weak, come on, mate, sit down with us.

And I kept walking across the room.

I got to the door, and a guy had shut the door and he was standing there and I said, I'm going.

He said, No, you're not.

We're a team, we're doing it together.

I said, I'm not, I'm not doing this.

He said, Come on, Lance, live a little.

You gotta loosen up, you gotta have some fun, like stay with us.

And I said, mate, I'm not staying, I'm going.

Laura says to me, When my heart is set on something, I can be a little bit stubborn.

Do I just get an amen?

Thank you for that.

And I think my teammate realized I was gonna be fairly stubborn on this point.

So he opened the door, I wandered out into the brilliant sunshine and started walking in my car.

And I was annoyed.

I was really annoyed.

I was frustrated.

I had the day off uni or took the day off uni, I can't remember which one.

And I had nothing to do now.

So I was just gonna go home and that was a waste of a day.

I was annoyed because of the apparent ideas of what masculinity is and what it means to be a man and what it means to be tough, and how apparently I didn't meet them.

I was annoyed at the way women are seen and treated in society.

I was annoyed that my 20 bucks that I thought was for lunch was probably paying for this.

I was just annoyed and frustrated.

And to be honest, I felt a bit lonely.

No one else walked out the door with me, no one else followed me.

And so I just wandered to my car planning to head home and uh make something else of the day.

And you know, this week I debated whether I tell you this story.

I've been really unsure about whether this was the right story for today.

Because I I fear that you might think well of me in sharing this story to this point.

And I I have no interest in that at all.

No interest in anyone thinking any better of me and sharing this story.

I was unsure about sharing this story because I wasn't sure how to be perceived, how it would be taken.

I don't like telling it.

It's not something that I feel comfortable sharing, something I was a part of.

But the reason why it's made the cut and it's in is not because of anything that I've said so far, it's because of what happened next.

So I got to my car and I unlocked it.

Another car pulled up and parked next to me, and another one of the guys had just got got arrived from work.

He got out of the car and he said, Lance, what are you doing?

You're leaving early.

I said, Oh, I told him what was happening.

I said, I'm not really for that, so I'm I'm gonna head home and I just I don't want to be a part of it.

And he said, Oh my goodness.

I think he had some other language in there, it's not Sunday appropriate, but oh my goodness, I'm so glad that I bumped into you here.

Oh, I would not want to be a part of that either.

Oh, I'm so glad that I crossed paths with you here because if I hadn't, I would have gone in there, I would have been a part of it, I wouldn't have known what to do.

And oh, I'm so glad that I bumped into you here.

This is so good.

Well done.

Like that, that must have been tricky.

I'm just so glad that we get to talk.

And he said the same thing a few times.

I said, All right, all right, that's that's great.

And we started chatting.

We chatted and we chatted and we chatted and we chatted, and probably 45 minutes or so passed as we were chatting.

We didn't really realize we looked back across the oval and the club rooms were all open again.

The shutters were up, the door was open, everyone was sitting out the front, and we thought, oh well, we may as well wander back round to the club rooms.

And as I walked back around the oval, I didn't really feel quite so lonely anymore.

I had someone who uh seemed to see the world in a similar way to me.

As we got back around to the club rooms, a few guys kind of looked at me sideways and ignored me, gave a bit of a huff and walked the other way, and someone said, Oh, you're back, are you?

So then we were chatting, and after about 10 minutes, someone grabbed me and said, Lance, can I talk to you?

Pulled me to the side.

He said, Lance, I just want you to know what you did then was amazing.

I wish I could be like you.

What?

You from the guy that it was coming from, I couldn't believe what he was saying to me.

I just want you to know that I hate what just happened.

I I I wish that I'd got up and left with you, but I couldn't, I couldn't leave the room.

I just want you to know that what you did was so courageous, it was so important, that was so good.

I wish that I uh followed you out the door.

I wish that I was like that.

Okay, we chatted for a bit and went back to minutes later.

Another guy grabbed me and said, Lance, I just want you to know I saw what you did, and that was so good.

Thank you so much for taking that stand and doing that thing and doing what you did.

A number of months later, another guy referenced the same thing and a bunch of other stuff in my life, and he said, Lance, I can see the way you're living your life, I can see what you're doing, and I like it.

And I wish I could undo the things in my life and do some of the similar things.

I wish I could be uh something like what you are and what you're doing with your life.

As I reflected on this story and this event, this thing that I didn't really feel too good about in my life, I wondered, what did freedom look like on that day?

Where was freedom found as I wandered out of a dark lit room into the brightness of the afternoon sunshine?

What did true freedom look like in that moment?

Because despite the laughter, the insults, the niggles, the naming of Weakness and the need to loosen up and live a little bit, and the perception initially of some loneliness.

What did freedom really look like?

Because as I listened carefully to the words and the things that were being said to me by others in the club, friends and teammates, it seemed to me that they were saying, lads, you have something that we don't have.

We are longing for freedom.

We are longing to live into the things that we were told would make us happy.

That the values that would of what it looked like to be a man, the values of what it is to have fun, the values of to live a little and to laugh and to live into masculinity, but what we've found is something of a vice.

It's entrapped us, it's ensnared us.

It comes with shame and disappointment.

On that day, I don't think freedom looked like staying in the room.

Funnily enough, freedom was found in walking out of the door into the sunlight that was beyond it.

And let me say it to you again: I don't tell you this story in any way that you might think well of me.

I don't think well of me because of this story.

And to think that would be to entirely miss the point of sharing the story.

What we need to notice is not the human being body that's a part of the story, but the work of Jesus that is taking place.

The death to an old life and the putting on of a new.

The death to vices and grips and things that would have ensnared and entrapped and entangled, and the coming of freedom of life, the virtues of Jesus taking hold.

I know in that moment I just didn't want to go back to the vices that would ensnare and hold and live for less.

I longed for a better future, a new self, a self of virtues and the ways of Jesus that would reign across all of my life.

I was longing for freedom.

And we live in a cultural moment, I think, in our point of history, where people are longing and looking for freedom, searching for freedom in so many different ways.

And all too often the pursuit of freedom is leading us into places and to buying false hopes that promise freedom and actually are vices that ensnare and trap and hold us back.

We live in a cultural moment where we're lied to and deceived, where we're sold false promises of freedom and hope.

And what we're left with is feeling deceived and cheated, ashamed, and disappointed.

And in our moment of history, I think so many people have become disillusioned with the emptiness of the false promises, the lies that we've been sold when in searching for true freedom.

And so when we see freedom, when we experience it, taste it, get a sense of it, even if we can't fully name what it is that we're seeing, we're drawn towards it.

Despite the claims that the followers of Jesus are living for less, that they're missing out, that they need to live it up a little and have a little bit more fun, that they're impoverished, the tide of our culture in our day is turning in such a way that people are searching out freedom just like the freedom that Jesus offers.

Not a code of moral ethics to live up to, but a freedom to live into.

Lives where vices are replaced by virtues.

The sort of life that Paul is describing here in Colossians 3, the sort of life where freedom is given by Christ, where his identity is given to any who call on his name, where death separates us from the brokenness of this world, and a resurrected life frees us for and into the freedom of life that Christ has for us.

The early church became so influential, not because of their missional strategies, their social media campaigns, or their attractive ministry events that they held.

It was because they changed culture.

It's because they influenced the world around them.

They became a force of change because they took the words of Jesus seriously.

They took the identity of Jesus seriously.

They took to the call to let go of the vices that had consumed them and guided them and been the rule of life for them.

And they took on the virtues, the new selves, the new identities in Christ that they were born into through his death and resurrection.

Can you imagine what it was like to be a member of the church in Colossae?

Can you imagine what it was like to be ruled in your life by status and power, by ethnicity and heritage, by the gender rules that you were born into?

Can you imagine a life where you were separated and judged and identified based on a whole bunch of factors that you couldn't control?

You were born where you were born, born who you are, and that meant a certain place for most people in their life in the ancient Roman worlds.

A culture where tropes and stereotypes reign, where oppression and power rule over the vulnerable and disadvantaged within society.

Imagine what it was like to be a slave in the early church, a slave in the church of Colossae.

That your whole life was less than, you're not enough, you're not a part of what it is, that you're not an equal to your master, you're not an equal to many other people, you're a slave, and that's all that you are.

Imagine what it was like to walk in through the doors of the church in Colossae, to the front door and to the living room of the house church that you were a part of.

To sit down and to have a letter read from a guy called Paul who'd never come to your church before but was writing a letter to your church to encourage you.

Imagine what it was like to be a slave to sit down and hear this read because of Jesus here in this room, here, in this gathering, here in this place, there is no Gentile or Jew.

There is no circumcised or uncircumcised, there's no barbarian, scythian, there is no slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all.

Can you imagine the power from the seat of a slave hearing these words read out over your life?

The power of the titles and rules of society falling off your shoulders as you walk through the door into that place and the slave and slave master become equal?

Can you imagine what it was like in the church in Colossae where slave masters and slaves sat at the same table, ate from the same bowl, shared the same stories, laughed at the same jokes, where the stereotypes and tropes of societal life fell away, where scytheans and barbarians, these derogatory terms towards ethnic minorities in the town, fall away and are lost, where people are seen who they really are, where for the first time in their life they share a meal, they share conversation, they share communication with people who are completely not like them.

Can you imagine the power of what it looked like to be in that room as the trends of society fell away?

For some who looked on, they would have said it was utterly unacceptable.

It wasn't freedom, it was pathetic, it was embarrassing, it was a lesser life, it was completely and utterly a stupid way of trying to live your life.

You need to stay within the cultural norms of how we live.

Why would you degrade yourselves to mix with people like that?

But for those who engaged in it, it became utterly liberating.

Freedom was found around the tables, the living rooms, the prayer circles, and the conversations of the early church.

Rather than losing their lives, they found them in and through the death and resurrection of Christ.

Rather than inhabiting a lesser humanity, they became fully human.

Rather than being destroyed, weakened, or defiled by those who were different to them, they became stronger because of those who were different to them.

The experience of life in the early church wasn't an experience of loss or less or missing out.

It was the experience of freedom.

They became truly human and this took over the world around them.

They exchanged the vices of their culture for the virtues of Christ in and through them.

They let go of the identities that they had and took on the new self, the new identity of Christ and being renewed into the image of the Creator God Himself.

Oh, how we need to live lives like that today.

Oh, how we need to experience that kind of freedom in our lives today.

Oh, how we need to experience that kind of leaving of darkness, walking into light, living behind of vices and stepping into the virtues of Christ, exchanging the cultural chains that hold us back for the freedom that is found in Jesus.

Do you live in that kind of community?

Do you live in that kind of place?

Do you have that kind of taste of freedom in your life?

A gathering of people who encourage you, who strengthen you, who build you up.

Not an accountability group per se that tells you to do better, to try harder, that you need to fix yourself, but a group of people that encourage you to be who you already are, to set your mind on the things above, to align your life with the ways of Christ, to shape who you are with who he already is and the gift of life that he has already given you.

Are you a part of a discipleship community like this?

I reckon we all need to be a part of one.

I reckon it would give us life, it would give us hope, it would give us energy, it would align our lives to be the sort of people Jesus calls us to be.

Are you a part of a small group?

A small group of people who gather and encourage one another and build one another up, a group of people who encourage one another into the image of who Jesus is in our lives.

If you're not, maybe today you need to be a part of one.

Maybe you need to scan that QR code, chat to us, anything, or let us know.

We would love to plug you into a small group here in the life of this church.

We have more than 40 adult small groups that meet on a weekly basis, fortnightly basis, who gather together and encourage one another, not to do better, but to be who they already are in Jesus.

If you're not a part of one of these groups, I think you need to be a part of one of these groups.

And hey, you might be thinking I'm not, and I reckon I could probably lead one.

I think I could facilitate something in my lounge room, create space that encourages people to be who God has made them to be, to walk and live in freedom.

We would love to set you up, to facilitate a space like this, to encourage people, to create mini colossa churches again, where people experience freedom and hope and life in Christ that we are raised to life for.

Perhaps for some of us today, freedom might be found simply in giving up on trying to earn God's love and accepting who you already are in Christ.

Maybe today, this is the word that you need to take with you to give up on trying to earn God's love, to give up on trying to be good enough and instead to live into who you already are in Christ.

His death and his resurrection, your life aligned to that is a new identity, a new self, a new way of living.

Living into the virtues and the love of Christ.

Maybe freedom might be found for another here today in practicing these virtues.

Forgiving as Christ has already forgiven you, practicing compassion, patience, kindness to somebody in your world.

Giving up on trying to earn God's love and instead living in to the character and nature, the virtues of love that He has already given to us.

Would you stand with me?

We're gonna have a chance to respond in worship today.

We started our time together reflecting on that fascinating story of Jack McDonald.

The humble, simple, living philanthropist who changed the lives of thousands because he was living into an identity that he knew what it was.

Those on the outside missed the freedom and the hope that he was living for.

He wasn't penny saving because he had little, he was penny saving because he had much, and there was so much more that he wanted to give.

And to all those who have died and been raised to life in Christ, this is the picture of life for us.

The way to live into the virtues of Christ, not to earn anything, but instead to live freely as who we already are.

A new self being renewed into the image of God, vices for virtues, sin for hope, death for life.

Far from lacking or missing out or needing to loosen up and live a little, we have everything.

We have been given it all from the King of all creation, an inheritance that is an inside our transformation, a new identity in him.

Our lives are to be lived as a result of who we already are, living in the freedom and the fullness that this identity brings.

Freedom is not found by trying to become someone you're not.

Freedom is found by living into who Christ has already made you to be.

And so, friends, you are invited to be free, to live in the fullness of freedom that is found in and through Jesus, to be who you already are.

The old is gone, the new has come in full.

Amen.

You are free, free to be fully human, free to be your fully created self, free to be all that Jesus has made you to be.

Come on, let's sing together.

We're gonna lift up a song of hallelujah and praise to the king of freedom among us today.

He's good, he's worthy of our praise, he has gifted us to be a life.

Let's sing together.