Speaker 1: Well, good morning.
Speaker 1: It's really good to be here with you this morning.
Speaker 1: Thank you, james, for the opportunity to be with you.
Speaker 1: I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be here and I'm excited about the word that God has for us this morning.
Speaker 1: If you've been with us at any time over the summer, you'll know that we've been studying verse by verse, through the book of Colossians, looking at the path that is, the path to life that Paul describes for us there.
Speaker 1: We're gonna continue that investigation this morning, looking specifically at who we are called to be as followers of Jesus.
Speaker 1: So if you have your Bible, go ahead and open it to Colossians, chapter 3.
Speaker 1: And while you're turning there, I'll tell you that I really love studying Paul's letters, and one of the reasons I enjoy it so much is because Paul has the expert ability to weave together the deep theological truths with the daily practical truths.
Speaker 1: So, for example, on one page, paul might be describing who Jesus Christ is as God in the flesh, and then you turn over to the next page and he draws out the implications of that for our day in and day out lives.
Speaker 1: It's such a great way to communicate, it's a great way to build understanding, and we're gonna see that today as we get into chapter 3.
Speaker 1: So what I want to do as we start is I want to back up.
Speaker 1: I want to look at the foundational truth that Paul establishes early in his letter, because maybe this is your first time here or maybe you were not with us when we were in chapter 1.
Speaker 1: And I want us all to be on the same page as we seek understanding in chapter 3, verses 12 to 17.
Speaker 1: So if you're on chapter 3, turn back one page and look at chapter 1.
Speaker 1: In Colossians, chapter 1, paul opens with a greeting, which is standard, and then he offers or writes a prayer of thanksgiving and encouragement to the church at Colossae.
Speaker 1: And then, in verse 9, about halfway through verse 9 of chapter 1, paul says we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Speaker 1: So Paul establishes right from the opening prayer that there is this path, there is a way for us to walk away, for us to respond as believers.
Speaker 1: But he doesn't stop there, now turn or look to verse 12.
Speaker 1: Paul says giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
Speaker 1: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption for forgiveness of sin.
Speaker 1: So not only is there a path, that path has been delivered to us by God through Jesus Christ, and so this sets the stage for Paul's foundational truth, or his big idea.
Speaker 1: And if we're following the logic of the letter, paul has now just introduced the person Jesus Christ to his audience.
Speaker 1: And so, in verse 15, he goes on to describe who Jesus Christ is in some detail, and that section culminates in verse 19.
Speaker 1: So let's look there now.
Speaker 1: Colossians 1, verse 19.
Speaker 1: For in him, that's in Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross, and you who are once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.
Speaker 1: He is now reconciled in his body of flesh, by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith.
Speaker 1: This, then, is Paul's foundational truth.
Speaker 1: It's from this idea that the rest of the letter flows, or from this idea from which all other ideas are built.
Speaker 1: If I was going to summarize this in one sentence, I would say it like this Because of who Jesus is and what he has done, believers are made different before God and before man.
Speaker 1: Let me say that again, because of who Jesus is and what he's done, believers are made different before God and man.
Speaker 1: So and we've seen this right as we've gone through and studied in Colossians, we've seen this idea come up.
Speaker 1: James has referred to this as our position in Christ Jesus, and so, as we get into chapter three, we have to hold on tightly to this truth.
Speaker 1: So now let's turn it.
Speaker 1: Let's look at chapter three, verse 12 and following, and I'll read for us our primary passage this morning.
Speaker 1: Put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.
Speaker 1: As the Lord has forgiven you, 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 hearts to God.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: So we identified Paul's foundational truth because of who Jesus is and what he's done.
Speaker 1: Believers are made different before God and man, because if we fail to hold tightly to that truth, we run a significant risk of misinterpreting or misapplying this passage.
Speaker 1: If we walk away from this text with the mindset that we need to do better in these areas or we need to work harder to make these things reflective of our lives, then we've missed Paul's primary point, because Paul's primary point is it's because of who Jesus is and because of what Jesus has done that we are then able to respond by putting on these things.
Speaker 1: So as we go through, I'll continually revisit and remind us of that foundational truth, so that we rightly understand what Paul is teaching us.
Speaker 1: So now let's look at verse 12 and we'll begin to unpack this piece by piece.
Speaker 1: Paul starts verse 12 by saying put on then.
Speaker 1: The then here should indicate to us as readers, as his audience, that this thought, what Paul is about to say here, follows some previous thought.
Speaker 1: So if we're going to be in the best position to understand what Paul is teaching us, we need to know what that previous thought is, and we find it in chapter three, verses nine and 10.
Speaker 1: Look there now 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 in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Speaker 1: This concept here of the new self becomes critical for us as we learn what Paul is instructing us to in 12 and following.
Speaker 1: Let's identify Paul's logic here.
Speaker 1: He's saying because you have put off the old self and have put on the new self, put on then these things.
Speaker 1: The new self is the lynchpin that binds these two ideas together.
Speaker 1: So we have to ask ourselves what is this new self?
Speaker 1: What is Paul communicating to us with this concept?
Speaker 1: And to seek understanding.
Speaker 1: The first place that we can look is to the contrast that Paul makes between the old self and the new self, because as believers, we know that when we come to salvation, there are things about who we used to be.
Speaker 1: There's things about our past that we have to leave behind.
Speaker 1: There are attitudes and actions and behavior patterns that are no longer fit for follower of Christ.
Speaker 1: We have to put those things off.
Speaker 1: And so that tells us that the new self stands in stark contrast to the old self.
Speaker 1: The two have to be very different.
Speaker 1: But then that leads us to a second inference that Paul has to be talking about more here than just the best versions of ourselves.
Speaker 1: Paul's saying you've put off the old you, the bad you, but he can't just be saying okay, therefore put on the good you.
Speaker 1: In other words, paul here is not writing a first century self help book.
Speaker 1: Paul's not telling his audience or us to wake up in the morning and be the very best versions of themselves, because no matter how good we are or how good we think we are, or how much we work to be good, we can never put ourselves in right standing with God and we can never put ourselves on that path that God has laid out for us.
Speaker 1: There has to be more here to this concept, and we've seen what Paul has been talking about as we've worked through Colossians.
Speaker 1: When he says put on the new self, this can also be translated as the new man, and that is the person, jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Right, when we come to salvation by grace, through faith, jesus comes into us and dwells in us by the power of his Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: We saw this in Colossians one, verse 27, where Paul is describing the mystery of the gospel and he says that the mystery is Christ in you.
Speaker 1: Turn over to Galatians, chapter three.
Speaker 1: In Galatians chapter three, paul is describing this same concept and he's using very similar language to do it, but in Galatians chapter three he provides a little bit more clarity to his thought.
Speaker 1: Galatians three, verse 27, says this for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 1: So as you come to salvation in Christ, you put on Christ.
Speaker 1: Christ comes into you and that is the driving characteristic of your life.
Speaker 1: And that's the concept that Paul is communicating to us in Colossians, chapter three.
Speaker 1: And so now we have all the pieces that we need to understand what he's teaching us.
Speaker 1: He's already developed that it's because of who Jesus is and it's because of what Jesus has done that Jesus comes and dwells in us as believers.
Speaker 1: Therefore, we are able or empowered to put on these things.
Speaker 1: That's the necessary progression that Paul has developed through the letters, and we have to hold tightly and closely to that progression in order to understand, rightly, what he's teaching us.
Speaker 1: Okay, and so now we'll see that Paul describes for us, commands us, delivers to us five responses of believers based on our position in Jesus Again in verse 12 of Colossians 3, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.
Speaker 1: So, because of our position in Jesus, we are able to put on the characteristics of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Isn't that what he's talking about here?
Speaker 1: Isn't that what these things are?
Speaker 1: These are the characteristics of Jesus Christ that we see demonstrated by Jesus throughout the Gospels and elsewhere in Galatians also, paul refers to these as the fruits of the spirit.
Speaker 1: That is, the outward evidence of the life that is in us.
Speaker 1: I wanna pause here for a second because I think there's an important question that we need to ask as followers of Jesus, that is, how do we actively engage here, how do we actively seek to put on these things and yet avoid legalism, that is, avoid these from becoming a check in the box, a list of dos and don'ts that we work at according to our own wills and our own abilities in order to earn God's favor.
Speaker 1: That is a sneaky trap that we want to avoid, and I wanna give us two ways that we can avoid an active pursuit of these things from becoming a pursuit of legalism.
Speaker 1: And so, to identify the first one, I wanna look to Jesus as our perfect teacher.
Speaker 1: Turn back to John, chapter 15.
Speaker 1: In John chapter 15, jesus is teaching his disciples, preparing them as he, jesus, is about to depart from the earth.
Speaker 1: And then, in John 15, verse five, jesus says this I am the vine, you are the branches.
Speaker 1: Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.
Speaker 1: For apart from me, you can do nothing.
Speaker 1: Apart from me, you can do nothing.
Speaker 1: So, how do we avoid legalism?
Speaker 1: Only by the power of Jesus, right, only Jesus is saying that you can only bear fruits.
Speaker 1: You can only reflect the characteristics of me, of Jesus, if you stay connected to the source of life, connected to the vine.
Speaker 1: And so, if we want to avoid legalism, if we wanna avoid working at these characteristics under our own wills and powers and desires.
Speaker 1: We have to stay connected to the source.
Speaker 1: But the great news for us, as Paul has already established in Colossians, that it's because of who Jesus is and because of what Jesus has done that Jesus comes and dwells in us as believers and therefore gives us access to the very power that we need to demonstrate his characteristics to the world around us.
Speaker 1: So we have to stay connected to the source, connected to the life within us.
Speaker 1: The second way that we can avoid legalism or avoid a pursuit of legalism is by surrendering our own wills.
Speaker 1: Now, when we become believers and Christ comes and dwells within us, god at that time does not override our wills.
Speaker 1: God doesn't start making all of our decisions for us.
Speaker 1: We can still choose obedience, choose to walk the path that he has set out for us, or we can choose disobedience.
Speaker 1: We can choose to live our lives according to our own wills and our own desires.
Speaker 1: But through surrendering of our wills, we are led to the demonstration of these characteristics, and I wanna show you this connection.
Speaker 1: Now flip over forward to James's epistle, james, chapter four.
Speaker 1: James teaches us about submission and its result.
Speaker 1: And James four, verse seven.
Speaker 1: He writes this "'Submit yourselves, therefore to God.
Speaker 1: "'resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Speaker 1: "'draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Speaker 1: "'submit yourselves to God.
Speaker 1: "'draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Speaker 1: "'as we submit our sinfulness, our selfishness, "'our brokenness to God, we are drawn toward God.
Speaker 1: "'he draws near to us and in that nearness, "'he can work in and through us to reflect "'his life to the world around us'.
Speaker 1: And if we think about it, this is the only way that this is possible, because as we surrender our pride, we become more humble.
Speaker 1: As we surrender our greed, we become more generous.
Speaker 1: As we surrender our anger, we become more kind and more meek Christians.
Speaker 1: We have to stop trying to carry these two things together.
Speaker 1: We have to stop trying to force down our pride and play humility.
Speaker 1: We have to stop trying to hide that greed and fake generosity Now.
Speaker 1: It's only by surrendering those things to God, laying them down at the foot of the cross, that we'll ever be able to move past ourselves and reflect truly the purpose and the life that God has for us.
Speaker 1: So Paul, in his first point, is teaching us that because of our status in Jesus, we are led or able to put on the characteristics of Jesus, and we can avoid those things becoming legalism by staying connected to the source of life, to Jesus, and by surrendering our broken, sinful wills to him.
Speaker 1: So the second point that Paul makes we find in verse 14.
Speaker 1: He says and, above all, these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Speaker 1: I want to stop again here and consider for a minute what love is, because we live in a world and we live in a culture that has a lot of ideas about love, many of which are incorrect.
Speaker 1: And if we're not careful, if we're not careful, we can allow those misconceptions and those misunderstandings to creep in.
Speaker 1: And we can take a verse like and above all, these put on love.
Speaker 1: We can make that mean whatever we want it to mean or whatever we think it should mean, but we want to be a people, we want to be a church that allows the Word of God to define for us what love is.
Speaker 1: And so, again, I want to look back to Jesus as our perfect example this time.
Speaker 1: Turn to John, chapter 13.
Speaker 1: In John, chapter 13, we're going to find a story that's going to be familiar to many of you here.
Speaker 1: Jesus is joined by his disciples in a small upper room as they prepare to celebrate the Passover meal.
Speaker 1: This is final Passover before he be crucified.
Speaker 1: The next day, and before they eat the meal, jesus, the God of the universe, gets down on his hands and his knees and he washes his disciples feet.
Speaker 1: And then, in verse 34 of chapter 13, he says this a new commandment I give to you that you love one another.
Speaker 1: Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Speaker 1: What I want to draw our attention to is that first phrase a new commandment.
Speaker 1: What makes this new Jesus is telling his disciples to love one another.
Speaker 1: What is new about this commandment?
Speaker 1: Because as far back as the Old Testament, god's people are commanded to love God and to love others, and throughout Jesus' ministry he demonstrates love for one another and he teaches about love for one another, and his disciples were a part of both that demonstration and that teaching.
Speaker 1: And so now Jesus comes and he says this is a new commandment that I'm giving you that you love one another.
Speaker 1: What is he communicating?
Speaker 1: Well, he tells us in his very next line.
Speaker 1: He says just as I have loved you, how had Jesus just loved his disciples?
Speaker 1: By humbling himself, by demonstrating a self-sacrificing love that made love known to his disciples for God's glory, and flip over in John 15,.
Speaker 1: We're still in that same upper room scene and Jesus says this this is my commandment, this is verse 12, john 15, 12 and 13.
Speaker 1: This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.
Speaker 1: Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Speaker 1: So Jesus is saying just as I have demonstrated a self-sacrificing, humbling love to you, so go and love one another.
Speaker 1: But oh, by the way, says Jesus, there's no better example of this love than someone who would lay down his life for his friends, for shadowing, of course, jesus' death on the cross, the perfect and ultimate example of a self-sacrificing love, where he poured out his blood for all mankind.
Speaker 1: And so when we turn to Colossians, chapter three, and Paul tells us to, above all these, put on love.
Speaker 1: This is the picture of love that we should be thinking about.
Speaker 1: But as soon as we think about this picture of love, we recognize that we can't do it right.
Speaker 1: We can't love others with a self-sacrificing love, we can't humble ourselves to the point where love is known for another person to the glory of God, because we are selfish and sinful and broken, but because of who Jesus is and because of what Jesus has done, because he indwells in us as followers that we have his power, his ability to sacrifice ourselves for the love of others and the glory of God.
Speaker 1: So Paul is telling us that it's because of our status in Jesus that we can put on love for one another.
Speaker 1: We see Paul's third point in verse 15.
Speaker 1: Colossians 3, verse 15 he says and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which, indeed, you were called in one body.
Speaker 1: So because of our position in Jesus, we have peace with God and that leads us to peace with one another.
Speaker 1: To best see how all of these fit together, it's good and will be helpful for us to gain a proper perspective on who God is.
Speaker 1: We need to remember that God is the righteous judge of the universe and God will punish sin and we as sinners stand in condemnation before an almighty God.
Speaker 1: But because of who Jesus is and because of what Jesus has done by pouring out his blood as payment for our sin, he has made us righteous before God we no longer stand in condemnation, but we can have peace with God.
Speaker 1: Our position, because of who Jesus is is objective peace with God.
Speaker 1: And then Paul tells us that that peace should rule our hearts, or that peace should rule our lives, that every part of us should be directed and guided and dominated by the peace that Jesus has earned on our behalf.
Speaker 1: But again, that's not how we live as Christians.
Speaker 1: Speaking self included here, now, I think a better picture of many of us is a person who is dragging, dragging that old self along every step of the way, and we forsake the peace that Jesus has earned for us on our behalf.
Speaker 1: We walk according to our sinfulness and our brokenness and we forsake that peace and get further and further away from God.
Speaker 1: What does this look like?
Speaker 1: Well, this looks like worrying about our futures or worrying about our past or worrying about our presence.
Speaker 1: This looks like doing what I think is good and what I think is right and what I think is best.
Speaker 1: And as we continue to drag that old self along with us, it leads the path leads to frustration and at least to anger and bitterness and confusion and doubt, when all we need to do is recognize the peace that Jesus has earned on our behalf and rest in that peace.
Speaker 1: And as Paul knows, and we know too that if we're not at peace internally before us and God, then we're not going to have peace with one another, not gonna have long-term, life-giving peace with one another.
Speaker 1: But if we do, if we do rest in our objective status, if we do let the peace of Christ rule our hearts, then that naturally leads us to peace with one another.
Speaker 1: So it's based on our position in Jesus that we have peace with God and that leads us to peace with one another.
Speaker 1: And so, fourth, still in verse 15, in a very short sentence, at the very end, paul says and be thankful.
Speaker 1: So important is this point that in these last three verses Paul describes Thanksgiving, or tells us to be thankful, three different times in each one of the verses.
Speaker 1: Because of our position in Jesus, we can live a life of Thanksgiving and when we think about it, thanksgiving is our true and proper worship to God Proper because of who God is in and of himself, and proper because of what Jesus has done on our behalf.
Speaker 1: And when we respond to God properly, when we worship God in thankfulness, we gain a proper perspective on all things.
Speaker 1: Our hearts are correctly oriented and we're recognizing who God is, and that puts ourselves in proper perspective, we recognize who we are before God and what he's done for us.
Speaker 1: And when we do that, when our hearts are oriented that direction, we gain a proper perspective on our circumstances and on our struggles and on our sufferings.
Speaker 1: Everything makes more and right sense when our hearts are rightly turned toward God in worship and Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: Let us be a people, let us be a church that doesn't restrict worship to one hour on Sunday or a time with your life group during the week, or even the time you spend each and every day reading the word no.
Speaker 1: Worship should be characteristic of us, day in and day out, moment by moment, because that is our proper response to who God is and what he's done for us through Jesus Christ, because of our position in Jesus, we can live a life of worship.
Speaker 1: Finally, in verse 16, paul here gets really practical.
Speaker 1: He says this let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in our wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Speaker 1: So, because of our position in Jesus, the Word of Christ can dwell in us richly.
Speaker 1: This answers for us the how?
Speaker 1: Question how do we know God's grace?
Speaker 1: How do we surrender our own wills.
Speaker 1: How do we live a life of thankfulness?
Speaker 1: By allowing the Word of Christ to dwell in us richly.
Speaker 1: I love this phrase.
Speaker 1: It's so good that it would dwell in us richly, that we would be a people oh, that we would be a church who hungered and thirsted for the Word of God.
Speaker 1: How great would it be if this body preached the Word of God and taught the Word of God and sang the Word of God, knew the Word of God and proclaimed the Word of God.
Speaker 1: You want to talk about changed lives or a changed community or a changed world.
Speaker 1: It starts with allowing the Word of God to dwell in us richly, because of who Jesus is and because of what Jesus has done.
Speaker 1: The Word of Christ can dwell in you as the band comes.
Speaker 1: I imagine that if you're here, you're probably falling to one of two categories.
Speaker 1: First, you might be here and you say, taylor, this sounds really great and you've talked a lot about our position in Jesus, but I don't know what my position is, or I'm not confident in my position in Jesus.
Speaker 1: And, taylor, you've talked a lot about surrendering our wills, but I can't say that my will is surrendered.
Speaker 1: I try to do the right things.
Speaker 1: I try to be a good person, but I still seem to do what I think is right and what I think is good and what I think is best.
Speaker 1: Well, if that's you, I've got some great news Because of who Jesus is and because of what Jesus has done he has poured out his blood as payment for your sin so that you can be made righteous before an almighty God, and so in a minute, the band will sing and I'll be down front.
Speaker 1: James will be down front.
Speaker 1: If that's you and you want to talk about your position in Christ, come and see us.
Speaker 1: Second, you might be here and you say Taylor, I know what my position is.
Speaker 1: I'm confident in the sacrifice that Jesus has made on my behalf.
Speaker 1: But you know, I seem to be working hard to do the right things, to do the good things, and I fall short a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, if that's you, first, you're in good company, right, like we're all there in some degree or another.
Speaker 1: But my encouragement today for you is, when we sing, to worship God, remember who Jesus is, remember what Jesus has done, the grace and love that God has given you for his glory, and worship today refreshed and renewed, and then I'll ask you to pray.
Speaker 1: I want you to pray that God would show you the areas of your life where you are dragging that old self every step of the way.
Speaker 1: Ask that God would reveal those areas to you and give you the strength, by the power of Jesus that's in you, to surrender those laying them down at the foot of the cross.
Speaker 1: I'll be down front.
Speaker 1: James will be down front as we sing and the Spirit leads respond.