Part 5: In Christ We are NEW / Colossians 3:1-17

Discover the life-changing truth of who Jesus is and what it means to belong to Him. Through Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we’ll see how our identity, purpose, relationships, and mission are transformed as we learn to live fully in Him.

This week we see IN CHRIST we are NEW

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We are continuing a series in the New Testament book of Colossians. And so today we come to Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 through 17. So I'd like to begin by reading this passage of Scripture. The sermon title is In Christ We Are New. And so you might want to listen for that as we read through these verses. Hear now the inspired Word of God in Colossians 3, verse 1. If then you have been raised up, raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth, for you have died, and your life is 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, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, on account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. In these two, in these you two 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, which is being renewed and then in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is neither there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, with compassionate heart, with 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 also, so 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 hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. 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 heart 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. It's the Word of God, which is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. Well, um, as John Paul mentioned, Molly and I will be returning to our home in Orlando. Uh we fly back tomorrow. And uh one of the things we're excited about is we have back in our city where we live, we have we have uh four grandchildren. Now Molly and I have eight grandchildren in total, but we have four that are there in Orlando, so we'll see them pretty soon. And yesterday Molly and I made a trip to uh into town to buy some gifts for them. So one of the one of the characteristics of grandchildren is that when they have not seen their grandparents for a long time, they are they expect some kind of a gift. They get very excited about the gift, they want to get something new. And so one of the things you see from grandchildren is a kind of eagerness about getting something new. It could be candy, it could be a t-shirt, it could be something, but they just get so excited about getting something new. And I share that story because we're talking about how you and I, as believers in Jesus Christ, that in Christ we are made new. So when we go through this passage of Scripture today, these 17 verses in Colossians 3, it is filled, this passage is filled with wonderful new things. So my encouragement to each of us today, as we hear the uh the challenge and the opportunity and the great truths of this passage, is that we would approach it with the same eagerness as grandchildren would when they see their grandparents. So I invite you to do that today. Now, I do have an outline for the sermon, so I want to give you, let you know uh where we're going. So we're gonna talk about three new things that we see that we have in this passage. These are the gifts to be eager about. One is that we have a new relationship, second, we have a new wardrobe, and third, we have a new community. Uh, and as you whenever you look at a passage of the Bible like this one in Colossians chapter 3, it's a little bit like watching a Netflix series. Sometimes Molly and I will be watching a series and then we won't, and then we will take a while before we come back to us. And it's so helpful to see like the recap of what happened before. You have to know what has gone before. And it's good to realize that here in Colossians chapter 3, you'll notice that the that the writer says, if then you have been raised with Christ. And so he's referring back to some of what he said in Colossians chapter 2. And you might recall from last week is that Paul was guarding, he was warning against false teachers that were teaching that what you needed, what you needed is that you were not complete in Christ, but you also needed a kind of external religious legalism in your life. Or you needed mysticism, you need these high spiritual truths that we want to teach you, or you need the self-denial of asceticism, to deny yourself physical and material things because they're evil. And what Paul had said in Colossians 2 is that all of those things are of no value against sensual or fleshly indulgence. And what he's saying is those are external things, but for your life to be changed, it is an inside job. It is a transformation of the heart. And so who is this sermon for today? As you think about this passage, I think all of us will see some new things in this passage, but I especially want to bring encouragement to those, and I don't know all of you, I don't know your hearts, I don't know your struggles, but I am, I've been a pastor long enough that nothing surprises me. That there are people who get stuck in their marriage, there are people that get stuck in a pattern or a habitual pattern of anger or even sexual addiction or even greed or other things, that these are things that are deeply rooted in us. And sometimes we can just be stuck in a holding pattern and wonder: is it ever possible and is it ever desirable for us to change? And I want you to hear from this passage that because of what Christ has done, because you have been raised with Christ, you can change. So, three things a new relationship, a new wardrobe, and a new community. So let's talk about this new relationship. We learn about it in verses 1 through 4. And a lot of people, when they teach Colossians 3, 1 through 4, they would say we have a new identity. And I could have said that today. I could have said that you and I, as believers in Christ, have a new identity because that's true. It says in Colossians 1 that we were transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We do have a new citizenship, we do have a new identity, but Colossians 3, 1 to 4 actually teaches more than just that. And I'll illustrate it this way. Last January, I was in Athens, Greece, and I had some very important business to do with the embassy, with the U.S. Embassy in Athens. Actually, I'd had my passport stolen. In fact, I had two passports stolen, because I had my Estonian one and I had my American one, and they were stolen from my backpack. So I couldn't do anything unless I went to the embassy. So I went to the embassy. They were very nice to me. You know, I've got uh my identity, I've got a, you know, they can they can find out that where my citizenship is. That wasn't too difficult. But while I was there, I thought about the fact that the ambassador to Greece, the U.S. ambassador to Greece, is actually a famous person in her own right. Now you can research that later, but I won't go into too much detail. But I thought, hey, I want to meet her. I'm here at the embassy, and I talked to this lady. I said, hey, I would like to meet the ambassador. Could we work that out? I wanted to get a photo with the ambassador to Greece. And so uh the lady looked back at me as if I was a little bit crazy, and she said, No, her schedule is full. We're not going to be able to work that out for you today. Oh well, I tried. What that means is, though, I have an identity, but I don't have a relationship with the ambassador. What is different for you today is that you have a new identity in Christ, but you also have a new relationship. And that relationship, the term for that is union with Christ. So look at Colossians 3, 1 to 4 once again, and I want you to listen to some phrases here that talk about your union with Christ. I want to talk about the power of that and what that means to you. It says, if then you have been raised with Christ, what does that mean? You have Christ has been raised, but also you have been raised. That is your new relationship with Christ. You have union with Christ's resurrection. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. And then verse 3 it says, For you have died. You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. So just as Christ has died, you have died. What that means is that the dominion of sin, the power, the control of sin has been, has been, uh, you are, you have died to that. So what it's saying here, and then verse 4 says, when Christ, who is your life, appears, that is the second coming of Christ, then you also will appear with him in glory. So you and I are united with Christ in his death because he died to sin. We're united in Christ because of his life, because he was raised. You and I have been raised. We have a new life. And then when he comes, we will be revealed when Christ is revealed. So you and I, let's nail this down right now. You and I have union with Christ. Now, why is that so important and why is that so powerful for us? What does it mean practically that you and I have union with Christ? I've always been intrigued by ancient Rome. If I could like go back to another time in history, I would love to go back to ancient Rome. I'd like to see what that was like. Well, thanks to AI, artificial intelligence, recently I was able to see a sort of a video of life in ancient Rome. And if you looked at it, you would see that people had running water that they could drink or they could wash things with. They had running water, they had fountains, they had all these different things, they had bathhouses, they had all this water. Well, where did that water come from? Well, you we all know that if you drive around Europe, one of the things that you will see is you'll see these aqueducts. And it's a marvel of engineering that they would have these aqueducts that would transport water from water sources up in the mountains, and these aqueducts would transport all this water so that it would it would end up in cities like Rome and they would have plenty of water. It's just an amazing thing. I would have loved to have seen that in operation. Well, the fact that you and I have union with Christ means that we have been connected to Christ as a church and as individuals. In other words, you have an aqueduct so that the grace of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, the river of the Holy Spirit, the work of God in your life, flows from Christ Himself because you are united with Christ. So when we say union with Christ, we're not just talking about a theological concept. We're talking about a flow of life into the church and into our lives. Might have wondered about this bottle I brought up here. I've been buying a lot of these this week, and there is a reason for it. Not just because I'm thirsty, I mean these all kinds of reasons that we buy water. But uh when we before we came to France, uh I had a cough and I had my vocal cords uh irritated by some kind of a virus that I had for a while. So I was coughing, my throat was dry, and I went to the doctor and I needed to have it treated. So he told me to do so. One of the things he told me to do was that I needed to drink water that had alkaline in it. I don't know what alkaline is, maybe you do, but I needed to find water that had alkaline in it. And sure enough, this this brand of water has alkaline in it, and what it would do is over time it would give relief to my vocal cords, and over time it would give me time to heal. It would not be an instant thing, but I was told that I had to drink, I drink every morning and every night water with alkaline in it. So, what does that do? That is the inside job, that is the work of this water coming into a part of me that needed to be healed, and I was able to drink that water. So, what I'm saying today is that you and I have not just a new identity, but a new relationship with Christ, union with Christ, and just like those Roman aqueducts, and just like this water with alkaline, we have this healing work of the Holy Spirit that flows into us. So I hope you remember that. That is a very, very powerful truth in Scripture. We refer to it as the ordinary means of grace, that the grace of God travels through into our hearts through the Bible, through prayer, through worship, through all that goes on, and it brings that healing that we need. I want to go on to the second point that we have here, and that is that we have a new wardrobe. And uh the word wardrobe is a is a common word that people would use when they talk about this passage because it's very practical. It says that for you and I to change, we have to put off certain things from our past, and we need to put on certain things. So remember, your union with Christ, in other words, that water that's flowing into your life through the Holy Spirit is empowering you to make these changes. These are not just will-based changes. It is not about willpower, it is about putting off and putting on because of the power that Christ gives to us. So, this idea of a wardrobe, it means that we are taking off certain things. And that's what he's saying here in Colossians 3, beginning at verse 5. Notice what it says. It says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Now you might read some people might read verse 5 and say, Well, that's really an outdated verse. I mean, culture has really changed about sexual ethics, and uh there's no way. Everything has all changed about me there around me. There is so much temptation, and how can you say to me that why can't I just make my own decisions about sexual ethics? And I think all of us in this room would know the power of that drive in our hearts, and how do we change? And the issue of sexuality is a little bit like electricity. It can power all the lights and the air conditioner and everything, but it can also burn if misused. So, whenever God gives a command, remember that God does that because he wants to protect you from that burning. He wants to protect you from the destruction you can bring about. But he also wants to provide you with something really, really good. So it says here about sexual, and by the way, we say that times have changed. What this verse tells us that no, they haven't. It has always been this way. The power of this issue, the power of misunderstanding sexual ethics and using people and abusing people, that was just as powerful, just as true back in the first century as it is today. There is nothing new under the sun. But then he goes on and says, you'll notice in verse 8 it says, now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice. And he starts talking about these sort of relational sins, not just sexual sins, but relational sins, and slander and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new. One of the things that this passage is saying is saying that one of the ways that you and I need to deal with sin is that we need to put it to death. To put it to death. We are not to coddle it, we are not to admire it, we are not to postpone it. But Scripture says that these habitual sins, we need to put them to death. What does that really mean? Well, in some ways, uh, as I read, one writer suggested this, is that we treat these sins, whether they be sins of sexual ethics or sins of relationships, we treat them like a zoo. And we go, we're gonna we're just gonna kind of contain all these animals in a zoo, and we're gonna be able to visit these animals from time to time, these animals of human sexuality and and disobedience to God in that area. Or if I slander or lie or gossip or all of those things, they're just in a zoo, I'm gonna visit them every once in a while, I'm gonna use them every once in a while. The Bible says these things are not animals in a zoo, but rather we need to put them to death. If you remember the movie Jurassic Park, they thought they could contain dinosaurs. They thought that that would all work out, but then those dinosaurs reared up and attacked the humans. And so sin is a little bit like that. We need to realize the power of sin and we need to put it to death. John Owen wrote a book on this topic, and he said something very practical about relating to sin. And I want to share this very tenderly with those of us who struggle with recurring sins in different areas of our lives, whether they be sexual, whether they be relational. I've got very, very close sins, or I have close sins, I have close friends who struggle with these things, whether it be sexual addiction, whether it be recurring anger or other patterns in their lives or greed. John Owen, in his book on this topic, he said, and this is the way they used to look look at it back in his time, is that when we fall into a pattern of sin, and we have this sort of recurring sin that is dragging us down, the idea is not just wallow in shame about it, but actually to take a step back and understand what's going on. So he would say that we need to do three things when we have these sins in our lives. One is to take a look at the circumstances of sin. Because the Bible says that the devil is a schemer, he's got a strategy. And so some people might think well, okay, I fall into Let's say my porn addiction, or I fall into anger, I get triggered by these circumstances. Why don't I be aware of those circumstances and practically speaking, avoid those circumstances? The second thing that John Owen would say is that we need to use the weapons of God's grace, prayer, the word of God, worship, and fellowship, and use those to attack our sins. And then finally he says, instead of those sins, let's put on these good graces that are we'll talk about later in this passage. And I think, you know, that is that is really, really practical. And so I wanted to share that with you because many times you and I can feel stuck in these things. You might uh you might wonder, in some of these areas, we're dealing, we're dealing with addiction or we're dealing with these patterns from our past, how does counseling fit into that? And there have been times in my life when I've chosen to get counseling, when I've been aware of that. And so I would go to a counselor and I would realize that in my family of origin, in my background, I had a father who was very detached, and so as a result of that, I didn't learn to connect emotionally in certain ways. And I had a mother that was kind of a kind of a high pressure, nagging mother, and so the dynamic between my parents was that my dad was passive, and my mother was very domineering and pushy. And so my dad would kind of shut that down, and I would always live with this fear that my parents would get a divorce, that my parents would leave me, and I would have this fear of abandonment. Well, those were factors that affected my life, but I want to say something about the value of counseling, but something to be careful about. Counseling is valuable in that we can get insight into our past and our patterns and the way we operate that way. But I had to realize that I'm not a victim of my past, that the Bible still calls me to address these issues of sin. So when I as I was growing up and I had these things where I didn't know how to connect, I had to admit that I needed to grow in my relationship with Christ. So you'll notice that it goes on and says here in Colossians 3, in verse, uh let's see, in verse um, it says, have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. So it does say that we need to put on something. We need to put on this new self that we have, and there's something that we need to do, it is being renewed in the image of its creator. If I may, I'd like to share one more illustration. There are occasionally times in my life where, and I'm so thankful for my wife Molly, where she will point out something in my life that I'm not aware of. But whenever she points those things out, I will say to me, You are judging me, you're attacking me. I'm right, I can't be wrong. And so the other day, uh, I'll give you just a little bit of it, you know, kind of inside stuff in our marriage. The other day, it was yesterday, I let out a sneeze, and we're in an Airbnb in this little apartment. And what I did with my sneeze was I not only sneeze, but there was like this loud noise that came at the end of my sneeze. And Molly was so alarmed by that. She said, Mike, you need to be careful to like not sneeze so loud. I mean, all these people around here can hear you sneezing. Now, everything in me wanted to say to her, hey, just leave me alone. Let me sni let me sneeze in peace. Why are you judging me? Why are you attacking me? And I had to kind of, what do you, what do you do when your wife says something like that to you? And then I'm walking, we're walking along through Vonts, and my wife will say, Mike, you're walking five steps ahead of me. Why don't you let me catch up with you? Why don't we go at the same pace? And I'm walking way ahead of her. Now, what do I say when my wife says says, hey, you're walking too fast? What do I do in that situation? Or I'll tell you one more. Sometimes we'll go out to dinner with another couple and we'll walk away from dinner, and Mike Molly will say to me, Mike, you you kind of talk too much. Like, you need to let other people talk in that situation. Now, all three of those examples, what do you think of me? Like, are you judging me for those things? Like, what you know, what do you think of that? What's going on there? In every single case, there is an opportunity for me to move from self-centeredness to love. Because what my wife is trying to say to me is that, Mike, you're thinking of yourself, but you're not thinking of me. And my reaction to that is to be defensive, you've attacked me, you're judging me, you know, why are you doing this? But wow, what what what powerful growth comes up in my life. And so this morning, before coming to church, I had to sneeze. And I did my sneeze, and it was a great, it was great. It was so loud, it was just amazing. And all she did was look at me. And I said, okay, I kind of still need to work on that. And so what you see over the course of a lifetime is that when it says in this passage that we are being renewed according to the image of our Creator, God has a really good plan for me. God has a really good plan for you. He wants you to put off these old things that are not loving, and they're selfish, and they're hurtful, and he wants you to put on these new things that begin to look more and more like Jesus. Now, it's not instant, uh, it takes a lifetime of the work of the Holy Spirit. Well, I need to maintain my union with Christ. I need to be willing to admit when I sin and when I'm wrong, and invite the Lord to continue to change me. I need to put certain things to death and I need to put on other things. And all I can tell you is you might say, Well, Mike, I just wish it was instant. I wish we could microwave this process, but we can't. It is a process over time, but I tell you, it is worth it. He makes us new. It is worth it to put on the new self. Okay? So we have this like new relationship, we have these new garments that we put on, and it actually lists them out there. It says we're to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you, and then put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. So I thank God for my wife because she's helping me put on love. It is a wonderful thing to be able to grow. But for a lot of us, including me, it's hard to admit that I need to grow and where I'm wrong. Now you're going to appreciate this, but I'm actually checking the time. Because I'm like, hey, you guys, you want to go to lunch after and you want to do some stuff, and you don't want to be here all day. So, got one more point, and then we'll be done. So the third point here that I think is really cool from this passage, we not only have a new relationship, we not only have these new garments that are making us more like Jesus, but God has blessed us with a new community. Did you notice in this passage that you and I cannot do this process alone? We need the church, we need community, we need friends, we need people we can be honest with. And so it says, for example, in verse 11, it says something about the new community, and I love it. It's a little bit like the international church, it's a little bit like St. Paul, where you got these people from all these different countries, all these different socioeconomic backgrounds, all these different languages, and all these different stories coming together. And Paul says here there is not Greek or Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all in all and in all. So that's the community that God is creating. It talks about these qualities of the community, like there's forgiveness and there's love that binds everything together in unity. But I want to point out one more thing about the power of this community, this new community that God has given us. And it's found in verse 16. It says, 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. Now, I wonder if you felt that today, that as we gather here and as we were singing these songs and we were praying these prayers and we were hearing the word of God, do you realize that when you are here, when you're in this community, that the water is flowing through the aqueducts, we have union with Christ, and when we gather for worship, all of this grace comes our way, all of this power from the Holy Spirit comes our way in the midst of being part of a worshiping community. So it's got all this stuff here. It says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. That's what we're doing. We're looking at the word because it's the word that God uses to help us drink and to feed us. And then it says, uh, we're to teach and admonish one another in all wisdom. Isn't that great? That God uses people in the community to teach and to encourage, and you all have a part in that. And then we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts to God. And so it's like we are, when we gather together, in a way we are like the city of Rome. The aqueducts, the water is flowing, we have come together, and the channels that God uses, what we call the means of grace, are the fellowship, the singing, the word of God, and our prayers. And that is that is the power that we get to be able to make these changes in our lives.