EmmanuelColossians 3:1-17Rules for Holy Living5 September 2010 Sermon 2
[Slide 1] Have you had the experience when you are talking to someone about your faith when they argue that Christianity is just about obeying a set of rules, about God saying that we must do this or not do that, and anything pleasurable comes under the category of God saying we cannot do it?If so then the passage that we had read from Colossiansis just the sort of passage that can be seen as supporting this argument. Here are a series of rules and commands that say how we may or may not live and behave. However this view misses thewider thinking that runs through both thispassage and the whole of the letter to the Colossians. So what I want to look at this morning is what is Paul saying about our life styles..
This passage is not about a list of rules for us to obey, it is about change. It is about changing from living the old life without Christ, to living the new life with Christ. A change from living life as we want to, to living life as God wants us to. From a life with us at the centre to one with God at the centre. This change is a process that makes us more like Christ. We do not become like Christ by trying to obey a series of rules but instead we become like Christ by taking on the character and nature of Christ. Paul is writing this letter to believers and thereforethis is not about us behaving in a way to earn our salvation, rather it is those who know God understanding how He wants us to behave.
[Slide 2] Paul takes the nature and character of Christ as the starting point for his discussion of how we should live. Particularly the supremacy of Christ as revealedboth in creation and in history. We read in chapter 1:15-16“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created. Christ was there in creation and has been part of history ever since.
Then here at the start of chapter 3 Paul writes “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above”.The rules for holy livingthat he goes on to talk about are a result of this reality.The rules are not hoops that we have to jump through to have a relationship with Christ, but rather the opposite, they are an expression of the reality of our relationship with Christ.
[Slide 3] Christ’s death and resurrection enabled a way for people to be reconciled with God. However we do not have the full experience of this because we live in the time between the ascension and the Second Coming. We are in that place of having been saved by God but not yet completely transformed into the new creation that we will be heaven. We are saved but we are still sinners.We are though in the process of becoming that new creation.
How we choose to behave and how we choose to live our lives,reflects our understanding of who Christ is and our response to Him. The key phrase for this is verse 2 “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”. The challenge we have, is to see things from God’s perspective and not from the world’s perspective.
[Slide 4]This change is something that God, through the Holy Spirit starts in us, but it also needs us to be part of the process. As God starts to prompt us and highlight ways he wants us to change then we need to respond to God and actually make that change in our lives. To move from living the old life, to living the new life requires work from God and work from us.
Paul makes this idea clear in verses 1 and 2where he writes,“Sinceyou have been raised with Christ ....set your hearts....set your minds....”.There issomething that God has done and in responseto that there is something for us to do.The part that God has done for usisthe forgiveness of our sinsand the gift of eternal life. This is what God gives to us through his love and grace.But there follows from this, a part that we are active in, which is how werespond to the generosity of God’s love and grace.In v2 we have“Set you minds”, in v5 “Put to death”, in v8 “Get rid of” and in v14 “Clothe yourselves”. These are all active, doing words. We are not expected to sit back and do nothing, in fact quite the opposite.If we are to be transformed, then this will involve the use of our minds and wills.
This process of change involves two separate actions. One of these is getting rid of the old ways and the other is taking on the new ways. This is not a case of either one or the other, but both and. It is out with the old and in with the new. Also it is not a case of completing one and then starting the other. It is a process where both are happening together. The old ways of living will get less and the new ways of living will get more.
Having said that we are to be transformed, what is it in particular that we need to get rid of and what do we need to take on. It is here that the so called rules come in to act as our guide.
[Slide 5] First we will look at the things we need to get rid of. The things that Paul tells us to put off include: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language and lies.
One of the problems with reading lists like these, is that we can easily dismiss them and say I do not behave like that so it does not apply to me. Partly I think this is the language used. I do not normally talk about impurity, malice and slander. The Message translation includes the phrase “doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy”, which I find does make me sit up and take note a bit more. It is clear from Jesus teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, that from Gods perspective, it is as bad to think about doing these things as it is to actually do them. In Matthew 5 verses 27& 28 Jesus says“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart”.
So from this point of view, we may not be involved in malice and slander, but do we get involved in gossip. Churches have a reputation for being places of gossip and back biting. Are we sharing things for prayer, or just passing gossip in a different guise? I have sat in groups where what is being said is really nothing more than gossip and the information needed for prayer is a fraction of what is being said.
Do we always tell the truth, or are there times when the little white lies start to creep in, the half truths? Or are we economical with the truth, so that the problem is not so much with what we have said but rather with what we have not said.
If things do not go our way or people do what we want them to do, do we start to get angry with them. How many of us have not been angered at some point by a spouse, a child, a parent, a work colleague, or even another church member? We may not have expressed that anger in words or deeds, but we have thought it.
Lust and sexual immorality are common in our society. This country has one of the highest rates of divorce in Europe, and many divorces are the result of one partner having an affair, and as Christians we are not immune from this.
We could go on through the rest of the list, but as we look at this list, the challenge to each of us this morning is, is God showing you something in your life that you need to get rid of, something that is holding you back and stopping you being transformed into the person God wants you to be? Is there some way of thinking, an attitude to someone or something that needs to change? Is there something you are doing in your life that you know that God does not want you to continue to do?If God has brought something into your mind that he wants you to change then it is important that you do something about it. You need to respond to what God is saying to you. If this is the case, then people from the Prayer Ministry team will be happy to pray with you after the service.
If nothing has specifically struck you this morning, then can I suggest that during this week, you take time out to ask God what it is that He wants you to change in your life. I am sure that for each of us, there will be something that God wants us get rid of.
That in a sense wasthe negative part of the passage, and now we move on to the positive part. Putting on this new life will enable us to become the people that God wants us to become and be part of that change in making us more like Christ
[Slide 6] The things Paul tells us to put on in the new life include: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and forgiveness.As I have said before, these are not rules, but are ways of behaving and attitudes of mind.
The common factor inall the things we are to take on and the things we are to get rid of is that they all affect ourrelationships. They all involve us, and either someone else or God. What we say and do and think impacts other people and affects our relationship with each otherand with God.If we lie to someone or are angry with them, then this will harm are relationship, but if we show kindness to someone, or compassion then this will improve our relationship.
[Slide 7] Those of you that have been with us for a while might notice some connection here to theLife Shapes triangle. This looked at our relationship with God, our relationships with people within the church and our relationship with people in the community. The attitudes we are told to take on, are all attitudes that will build up and strengthen these relationships. They will keep the sides of the triangle firm. Those attitudes that we are told to get rid of are all attitudes that will harm ordamage these relationships and will break the triangle.
[Slide 8] Why does Paul tell us to put on these particular characteristics? The answer is because they are all part of Christ’s character.As we take on these attitudes, they become part of our transformation into being more like Christ and we will increasingly reflect his nature and character.When we show the attitudes and thinking of the new life, we will encourage other people and build up our relationships.However if we allow the thinking and actions of the old life to come through, then not only will we spoil the relationship that we have with God but also the relationships we have with other people.
Do I want to be known as a person with the characteristics listed in the left column or a person who shows the characteristics in the right column. Which sort of person do you want to be known as, and which type of church do we want Emmanuel to be known as? When people think of us, which attitudes will come first into their minds? As I said earlier, the change from the old life to the new life is a process that will only be complete in heaven. However the challenge to become more like Christ, is the challenge to see the characteristics on the left be less important in our lives and the characteristics on the right to be more important.
[Slide9] As this cartoon shows, making this change can be difficult and involve time and effort from us. Some people have a testimony of a sudden change in their life, but for some of us it is a long and slow process. Looking back over 30 years of being a Christian I can see some changes in my life, but I am also aware that there are more changes to make.
If as a church we have a vision to be the heart of this community. Then the characteristics of the church will have to be those of the new life. If we want the community to experience Gods love, it will be because as Christians we are showing those characteristics; we will be showing God’s love in action.
[Slide 10] Although it is not fashionable to talk about it today, what we are talking about is what the 19th century writer would call holiness and sanctification, what I have called becoming more like Christ.
Bishop Ryle in his book called Holiness writes: “A holy man will .... have a decided bent of mind towards God, a hearty desire to do His will, a greater fear of displeasing Him than of displeasing the world, and a love to all His ways”. I love the phrase “a hearty desire to do his will” as this to me sums up all the positive aspects of living a holy life.
[Slide 11] If we want anexample on how to live this new changed life, then the person to look is Jesus. He is our example of how to live and how to have a relationship with God the Father and other people. Those things that Paul tells us to set our minds on, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and forgiveness are all characteristics that we see shown by Jesus throughout his earthly ministry.For example if we think of how Jesus dealt with the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery or his healing of people, we see examples of His compassion, humility and forgiveness.Our call as Christians is to live lives that are an imitation of Jesus.
The non-believer that we started with does not have Christ as their focus and therefore these instructions for holy living do seem like a set of arbitrary rules. The instructions for holy living are not there to judge us nor are they a set hoops for us to jump through.What they are, is part of the way that the loving Christ wants to maintain the closeness of His relationship to us. The choice to do or not do these things is a consequence of our faith and relationship with Jesus.Holy living is not something that just happens. We do not suddenly live holy lives when we become Christians. It is a process of change that is a work of both Christ in our lives and ourselves.
[Slide 12] This takes us back to where we started in that all this flows from the instruction to set are heart and minds on the things that are above. From that, follows the start of our journey of being changed and becoming more like Christ. What Paul has set out, are ways that we can change our lives to become more like Christ and ways that we can hinder that transformation. My prayer for all of us, is that we will take on more of the new life and so be changed closer into Christ’s likeness.
Peter DalrymplePage 1 of 5