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Colossians 3:1-17
[SLIDE – Transforming Grace - How can a person really change?]
How can a person really change? What power
is there in the world to bring lasting transformation to a life?
At St James, we’ve been looking for a
number of weeks at the topic of grace. And we’ve been looking at it
through the lens of Jesus’ famous parable - the story of the prodigal
son. In the story a man has two sons and the rebellious younger son
demands his father’s inheritance early. He takes the money, leaves home
and squanders it all in morally and religiously depraved ways. He finally
comes to his senses and returns to his father’s house to ask forgiveness.
What will the father do? How will the father set about teaching his son a
lesson? What will be this father’s method of rehabilitation.
Well, in the parable, the father runs
to meet his wayward son, he hugs and kisses him and immediately
re-instates him.
Here is what the father says:
[SLIDE – Luke quote]
`Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his
finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it.
Let's have a feast and celebrate.
This flagrant sinner gets the finest
robe in the house, the clothing of a prince, he’s given a ring – so often
associated in the Bible with a kingly right to rule. His feet which must
have been aching from treading the road back to his father are covered in
comfort and a choice banquet is held in his honour.
What had this rebel done to deserve
such kindness? Answer – nothing. But that’s what grace looks like. Wasn’t
he still a rebel and a sinner? Absolutely! But as a sinner, he had come
home to his father’s love and was restored in full.
This, you might think, is a funny kind
of rehabilitation. This son’s sins have been repaid with grace. How will
he ever learn to be good? If his evil is rewarded, why would he ever
bother doing any good? Hasn’t the father actually undermined any chance
that his son’s character could be reformed?
Well this morning we’re considering
the transforming grace of God. It is precisely because the Christian is
restored, forgiven and loved (in spite of their sin) that they can be
truly transformed from the inside out.
One of the best places to see this is
in Colossians chapter 3 – the reading we heard earlier. (p1184). Here the
Apostle Paul begins from the premise that the Christian is ALREADY
accepted by God without having to earn a thing. Once we appreciate this
fact THEN we are released to be truly righteous.
Let’s look at verses 1-4:
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.
Paul begins his argument with
something you might think is very odd. He assumes from the outset – v1 –
you, the Christian, have been raised with Christ. Does that seem strange?
When were you raised with Christ? Do you remember ascending through the
heavens with the risen Lord Jesus to sit down together at the right hand
of God? That seems like something I’d remember, if it had happened to me.
But the Bible insists that if I am a Christian it has happened. Not only
that – v3 tells me ‘I have died’. Again, you’d think I’d remember
something like that. What’s going on? Well v3 continues – your life is
now hidden with Christ. Now that I’m a Christian my life is bound up with
Jesus, kept safe in Jesus, hidden with Him. And my life is so hidden with
Jesus that the Bible can say v4 Christ IS your life. Christ IS you. You
ARE Christ. What does that mean? It means that when I trust in Jesus,
then His life, His identity, His history, His moral performance –
everything about Jesus is mine. When we trust in Him, we are united to
Christ.
On Saturday of last week I was on a
bus going through Highbury. On the bus there was me and then there were
about a dozen guys all wearing red, all of them off their faces and
singing “we won the league, we won the league.” Now I may only be an
Australian – but I know, those guys on the bus were not Arsenal players.
I’ve seen pictures. And even if I hadn’t it was pretty obvious that these
guys couldn’t even walk in a straight line, let alone play a game of
football. I would go so far as to say that these men had not contributed
one iota to the success of Arsenal. But they identify totally with their
team. They are joined to Arsenal. When Arsenal win – they win. And they
sing about it.
It’s similar here – we are united to
Jesus and when He wins, we win. When He lived the perfect life and then
paid for every sin on the cross and then defeated death in the
resurrection and then took up the place of honour at the right hand of
God – that is our victory! He has lived the perfect life FOR US, He has
died the death we deserve FOR US, He has risen from the grave FOR US, He
sits now at the right hand of the Father FOR US. We are united to Jesus,
and it’s like a marriage. In a marriage you promise your other half “All
that I have I give to you.” And when we come to Jesus, we are united to
Him and He says “All that I have – my righteous life, my victory over
death, my honoured status at the right hand of God – I give it to you.
Union with Christ is a wonderful
truth. And so Paul says v1 – “Set you heart on it” and v2 “set your mind”
on it. Call it to mind, let it sink into your heart – you are loved and
accepted by God already. This is the first thing Paul tells us about
transforming our lives. Remember who you are.
[SLIDE – Remember who you are]
Remember (with your mind and with your
heart) that you are joined to Jesus. In God’s sight you are as pure,
holy, righteous, loved and honoured as Jesus Christ.
He says the same thing in v12. Look at
v12 with me:
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe
yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
The Christian is chosen by God – just
like Jesus is chosen by God, the Christian is holy – as holy as Jesus,
the Christian is dearly loved – as dearly loved as Jesus. Paul says
‘Remember who you are – you already are these things.’ And THEN he says
‘live it out’.
Do you see the order of v12? It’s not
“clothe yourselves with good deeds, THEN you’ll be God’s chosen people.”
No! It’s “Remember that you are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly
loved, and THEN act like it. Wear the uniform – put on the life-style to
suit. If you’re united to Christ, it’s only appropriate that you live
like Him – in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and in
love. What an attractive way to live (verses 12-14)? Don’t you want to
put on this kind of character? The Bible says that this is just the
natural apparel of the dearly loved child of God.
So in the prodigal son – the father
gives his son the finest robe, immediately. He doesn’t say to his
youngest – ‘Earn my respect.’ Instead he says “I give you my favour – you
are my dearly loved son.” And once the younger son appreciates the grace
of his father I’ll bet he’ll soon start to act like a dearly loved child
too. That’s the way transforming grace works. It begins first of all with
remembering who we are in Christ.
Well the next thing to notice in this
passage is verse 5 where Paul reminds us that it’s not just the new nice
clothes we have to concern ourselves with. From verse 5 we see that a
major part of our transformation will be to renounce the old clothes.
[SLIDE – Renounce who we were]
As we come to Christ we will have
brought with us a set of very ugly old clothes. Verses 5-9 paint a
horrible picture of our natural clothing. Verse 5, we’re full of sexual
immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. In
verse 8 we are full of anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language.
In verse 9 we see the old life is utterly bound up in lying. It is
horrible stuff. And we can’t just come to Christ and pretend that these
old clothes don’t matter – they do matter. We have to renounce who we
were.
And the Bible uses language that
couldn’t be more clear about how we are to view the old sinful nature.
“Put it to death” says v5. Put what to death? Whatever belongs to this
earthly sinful nature. Whatever is in us that is even associated with
such sins – put them to death. Your Christian transformation depends on
killing off this old nature.
Fine, we say, the point is taken. The
question is how?? What does ‘putting to death our earthly nature’ mean??
What does it look like in practice? How do I go about killing off this
sinful nature?
Most people will tell you: The way to
kill off your old sinful self is to make some rules, fix some boundaries,
and use every ounce of willpower you have in sticking to your guns. That
is the unquestioned wisdom of the world on how to become a better person.
Self-disciplined, will-powered, rule-keeping obedience. Let me assure you
– that is NOT at ALL what Paul has in mind. How can I be so sure? Because
he has just spent a whole chapter of Colossians – chapter 2 – demolishing
that way of thinking.
I wish I had time to go back over chapter 2 with you, but that’s
something you can do yourselves in your own time. Paul’s basic argument
especially from verse 20 onwards is that the world is full of rule-making
morality. He says that the basic principles of this world – the thing
that makes this ungodly world tick – is rules. Rules about how you can
make yourself a better person or how you can feel better about yourself.
And Paul lists a few of them “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”
But the big problem is – none of those
rules can actually get in and transform my character. In the prodigal
son, the older brother had a lot of will-power and was very certain of
the rules. But his heart was a mess. And then one day it all came out.
The younger brother came home and the older was angry and he refused to
join the celebrations. He was indignant, he was jealous, he was rude. In
the space of a couple of sentences the older brother managed to display
most of the sins Paul speaks of in Colossians 3: evil desire, greed,
anger, rage, malice and slander.
You see the sins of our old earthly
nature are not external – they’re internal, they spring from the heart.
There is not a single rule in existence that can tell my heart what to
do.
The point is made very well by Al
Pacino in the movie Devil’s Advocate. Here we see Satan himself talking
about rule-making religion.
[VIDEO – Devil’s Advocate – Al Pacino’s “Look, don’t touch; touch,
don’t taste; taste, don’t swallow” speech]
Al Pacino has one thing very right and
one thing very wrong. What he has right is that our heart-felt desires,
our ‘instincts’, are in opposition to the rules. That’s true! Our hearts
and the rules work on totally different levels and they just don’t go
together. The thing he has very wrong is that God is not to blame for
this! Sinful human religion makes up these kind of legalistic rules. God
never intended for us to fight our instincts with rules. His remedy for
the sinful human heart is so much more radical.
God’s solution is to fight passion
with passion. God’s solution is about “rejoicing to repent.”
[SLIDE – Rejoice to repent]
Look with me again at verses 1-4 and
let’s see how we really kill off the old nature:
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.
If you set your heart and mind on
Jesus Christ – you are killing your earthly nature. This old nature will
cling to you until you’re dead, but if you are feeding your desire for
Christ, you are starving those earthly desires. If your eyes are fixed on
Jesus, then your old nature is neglected and it will start to wither.
That is the way to bring lasting transformation.
The way to combat our old sinful
natures is to worship. We rejoice to repent. If we make v4 true in our
lives then that is the power for true transformation. If Christ IS you
life, everything else will fall into place.
My mother once bought me a T-shirt
from one of those tourist traps on Oxford St. It had a big picture of a
cricket bat and it said simply: “Cricket is life. The rest is mere
detail.” She bought it for me because I was obsessed with cricket. At the
time I was playing it 6 days a week. I was reading books on it. I was
keeping up with all the news. I was going to matches. It was my life. I
was never happier than when I was on a cricket field with the sun
shining, chasing a small red ball. When I went to an exciting match (!)
you would notice that my whole posture would change, I’d yell and clap,
my whole mood would lift. Cricket was life. I wonder what T-shirt would
suit you? What IS your life? What one thing do you love such that if
someone took it away – you wouldn’t want to live? That’s your life. What
is it?
We all have something. And we live for
that thing – that is the controlling passion of our life and everything
else in life takes its cue from that passion. My friends are great
examples of this. Five, six, seven years ago my friends were partying
with great vigour. Their T-shirt read “Partying is Life, the rest is mere
detail.” And when they met up they’d compete with one another in terms of
the raves they’d been to or the drugs they’ve taken. Today, they are
changed people. No more partying, they’ve given up the drugs, they’re
drinking less – how? Will-power? No. You see now we meet up with our
friends and they don’t talk about partying now they all compete to see
who has worked the longest week. Every single time we catch up with our
friends, almost the first thing they tell us is how hard they’ve been
working. One person says ‘I’ve worked 60 hours this week’ ‘That’s
nothing, I’ve worked 70 hours.’ ‘I haven’t been home since February’ ‘I
wear a nappy to save on bathroom breaks.’ Round and round it goes.
How have they changed? Well now they
have a new passion – it used to be ‘Partying is Life’ now its ‘Career
success is life.’ They are as passionate as they’ve ever been. But now
their passion is for career and status. They’ve changed but not through
will-power – they’ve found a new passion and they’re pursuing it.
How do we as Christians become like
Christ – the Bible says make Christ your ultimate passion. Whatever else
you’ve been worshipping in life – career, family, boyfriend, girlfriend,
music, sport – Christ must be our chief obsession. And to the degree that
we worship Him – we will drive out those ugly sinful desires. Everything
else in life will get relegated in our priorities if we make Jesus number
one.
We must rejoice to repent.
Now perhaps that sounds a little vague
to you – how do you go about making Christ your life? Well I think verses
15-17 are key in both defining and sustaining this life of worship. There
is much to meditate on here and I commend it to you – I’m just going to
highlight two things – from verse 16.
Paul writes:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and
admonish one another with all wisdom
The Bible is indispensible as you seek
to make Christ your life. The Bible is the meeting place between Jesus
and His followers, It is the word of Christ so if you want Christ to be
your life – read His word. But don’t just read it – again Paul goes
beneath the surface and tells us to let it dwell in us. The Scriptures
are to find their home in us, we are to take them in and meditate on
them. Bible reading is to be a spiritual experience, it’s not just about
moving the bookmark forwards and it’s not just reading comprehension. It
ought to be a prayerful, meditational, spiritual activity. What’s more we
ought to be doing at least some of it in the context of Christian
community. Did you notice in v16, we are to speak the Bible to one
another – teaching and admonishing one another.
So let me ask you – are you reading
the Bible? If you are, great, let me push further – are you reading it
prayerfully and expectantly and spiritually, letting it dwell in you?
Again, if you are, great. But let me push deeper. Are you reading the
Bible in fellowship with other Christians? (teaching and admonishing one
another?) If not – let me know – we’d love to hook you up with a home
group Bible study.
And then the other thing in verse 16 –
how do we make Christ our life – are you worshipping Christ in community
with others?
Paul counsels us to:
sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your
hearts to God.
If the Arsenal fan sings about their
champions – how much more should we sing about our champion? It is a
wonderful sustaining power in the Christian life to regularly and
publicly worship Christ with gratitude in your hearts. The songs we sing
in church are not just the gap-fillers in between the important stuff –
they are essential to our Christian well-being. This worship and
adoration will sustain us.
It’s like any relationship: when you
tell a person “I love you” you are not just reporting on the state of your
heart. You’re not just saying “I thought you’d be interested to know my
feelings towards you are still loving.” No. When you tell a person you
love them – that’s part of the love. Your love is not complete until
you’ve told them you love them. Saying “I love you” is part of your love
for them, it nurtures and sustains your love for them. It’s the same with
Christ. Saying “I love you” to Christ is not an optional extra. A part of
your love for Him is to express that and Paul tells us here to do this in
a heart-felt, spiritual, exultant, regular and public display of
affection. I know you’re all English and I know I’m an Australian male –
it’s a toss-up who is the more emotionally repressed. But we have to find
a way to do this. We all get excited about something. Think back to the
T-shirt. What’s on your T-shirt? I’ll bet you get excited about that! If
I could get so excited about a cricket match that I’m doing Mexican
waves, I’m chanting, I’m singing – how much more should I sing with
gratitude in my heart to Christ. Maybe you’ve got to find your style,
maybe you’ve got to find the right context, but don’t skip on this. If
you want to make Christ you life, then this kind of rejoicing is vital.
Without it your love for Christ will wither. As we rejoice in Him, this
has the power to flush out the old desires out of our hearts.
Let me close. The power to transform
our lives – to become like Jesus – is not will-power. It is not about
making rules, it’s not about gritting our teeth and trying to be moral.
It is all about grace. If you trust Jesus, you are already accepted,
forgiven and loved. You are in Christ – forever united to Him. The duty
and joy of our lives is to open our eyes wider and wider to see His
glory. The more we rejoice in who He is, the more we resemble Him. We
kill off the old life to the degree that we refocus our hearts and minds
on Jesus. Christ is your life.
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