Becoming Who We Already Are in Christ

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Good morning.

Jesse couldn’t be here this morning, and so he asked me to bring the Word. So I’m not as tall as Jesse, or as young as Jesse, or as good-looking, or as full of a beard. But hopefully I can continue on in Colossians here and help you see what God’s message is for the church here.

Let’s pray together.

Heavenly Father, we are so grateful that You sent Your Son Jesus into the world, and that through Him and by His work we are resurrected and we are in You. Lord, help us to realize that. Help us to understand that. Help us to live that. Help us to be changed by that. Help us to allow You to change us.

Lord, we’re grateful for this message to the Colossian church, and we pray You would open it up to us and help us to receive it.

Holy Spirit, be here in our midst. Touch our hearts. Lead us into Your truth, we pray. Amen.

So Jesse had told us about how it’s really important that as Christians we don’t go out into the world and try to restore the world and redeem the world in our own power; that we have to first allow God to do His work in us, and then we can be used by Him to help transform the world.

But really, it’s His work and His working in the world that transforms the world. We don’t have what it takes, but He does.

It’s interesting—the book of Colossians is written to the Colossian church, the church at Colossae. And actually there were three cities. I grew up in a place they called the Triple Cities out in New York, but it was three cities, really, that were very close together.

Colossae was actually just about a mile away from Laodicea. Anybody familiar with that church? Laodicea, maybe from Revelation 3. And then there was another city called Hierapolis that was right there. Hierapolis actually was a city where one of the famous Stoic philosophers, Epictetus, grew up.

This is in what we call western Turkey today. And the churches there were supposed to share the letters that they received with one another.

The apostle Paul actually had not ever visited there. He heard of the church there, and he was very pleased with the church there. He said they had faith, they had hope, they had love. They were genuine believers. They were followers of Christ.

He was writing to encourage them and to give them a view of Christ that expanded beyond their understanding at that time. But he also brought to them some wisdom about how to become holy, how to follow Christ better.

The thing is, we finished up last week talking about religion and religious practices and how those could be deceptive. Those could actually stand in the way of our walk with the Lord.

Religion itself cannot make us righteous. It may make us feel better.

Similarly, the philosophers and their philosophies—the Stoics had a philosophy that basically said you just sort of grit your teeth and go forward and do what you ought to do. There was much about what they taught that really paralleled Christian teaching. But those philosophies were not something that could save or change hearts either.

The Colossian church was in this place where they were in danger, I think, of being led astray by persuasive-sounding philosophies—but really philosophies of men. Whether it was religious philosophies or whether it was the teaching of the Stoics, it didn’t really matter. They were in danger of losing their way there.

So in chapter two, which we did last week, we talked about how we were buried with Christ in baptism and then resurrected with Him, and how that is a new life. Our old life is put to death and we have new life in Christ.

And so that’s where we’re picking up right here.

So it says:

“And 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 will also appear with Him in glory.”

He says here, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ.” He’s not talking about if you have been raised with Christ. If you’ve received Christ, you have been raised with Him.

And there’s a reality here that is true. It’s not something to debate. It’s really just a question of believing it. It’s really a question of: do you have faith in what God says? He declares that you have been raised.

In Colossians 2 he describes salvation in symbolic terms: “having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

That means that your failures, your filth, your fallenness—your past when you were spiritually dead—all of those things have been left in the grave.

He says, “In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands.” In other words, he’s not talking about something external here. There were the Judaizers who wanted anybody that came to Christ to become circumcised and to start following the Jewish law.

He’s saying this is not that. This is a circumcision not performed by human hands. “Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised with Christ.”

So in other words, that aspect of your being was cut away and you’ve left it behind. It’s not a part of you any longer.

This is something that, as Christians, is hard for us to grasp and hard for us to embrace, because we still, in our flesh, have these tendencies. We still have habits that we’ve acquired over our lifetime.

And so that’s our challenge: how do we actually realize this new life in a way that is effective and that is real?

Your new resurrected life is a different life altogether. This is the thing that you really have to take in.

In Romans 6, Paul goes into this in more depth. He says:

“We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

So one of the things that we sometimes misunderstand is what is freedom in Christ. What does that mean?

Certainly there would be a way to distort the end of chapter two, where he’s talking about, “Don’t let anybody criticize you about what days you celebrate or what you eat,” or that sort of thing. And we could say, “Yeah, I’m free in Christ. You can’t criticize me. I can do as I wish or as my conscience dictates, because I’m free in Christ.”

Well, that’s not really the freedom that we have in Christ.

The freedom that we have in Christ is that we’re free from sin. Before we are saved, we are in a state of powerlessness over sin. Sin has mastery over us. And as much as we might think, “Oh, I should do this,” or, “I shouldn’t do that,” we don’t have the ability to control it.

And that was Paul’s point—that whether it’s religious practices, whether it’s a philosophy of life, those things are not going to change our hearts. They are externals that we could put on.

And this is kind of ironic, because we talk about this and he’s going to talk about disrobing and clothing yourself. So there is something that, in a sense, is external, but it’s a different external.

This resurrected life, though—it’s different altogether. It comes from the working of God by means of the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.

Think about that. The power that actually brought the physical body of Jesus up out of the grave and brought Him to life is the same power that is now at work in you. That is a mighty power indeed.

We have that same life in us—the same life that He had.

So think about Jesus, the resurrected Jesus. His existence was very different. He was an amazing person before He was crucified. He did miracles, and He had great wisdom and insight, and He lived a pure life.

But once He was resurrected, He started doing other things that were even beyond that—where He would come into a room where the doors were locked. And I don’t think He’s telling us to start beaming into places. But I do think that there is this new life that we have. It’s a powerful thing, and it’s real.

And so that’s something that gives us an ability beyond what we’ve understood in the past.

And the key thing about it is that we are set free. We’re set free from sin.

This means that we now have a different nature. Just as Jesus’ resurrected body was different—of a different nature and character than it was before His death on the cross—you have been raised with Him as part of Him.

Your existence is now in Him, and it is of an entirely different character than before, when, in chapter two, he says your whole self was ruled by the flesh.

You are no longer ruled by your flesh. You have the ability—you have agency—the ability to make choices and decisions.

So he says, “Set your hearts on things above.”

Here, where he’s talking about setting your hearts, the Greek word is agape. You may hear that word—agape—love, the love of God, the selfless love. Well, agape here has a little different shade to it.

It’s not so much the love of God as it is this being given over to something.

So when he says, “Set your hearts,” he’s talking about aiming for, focusing on, pursuing, centering your life—going after something with desire and passion.

So think of it this way. Today is a day where there are a lot of people whose life is sports. This is a big day because it’s Super Bowl Sunday, right? And so there’s a passion and enthusiasm there.

We are supposed to have a passion and enthusiasm that is in Christ—that we center our lives around Him.

So the point of this is that this is an overwhelming desire, a passion that we have in our hearts. And that’s what we are to stir up and make Him the center of our existence.

So what energizes your passions and desires? Ask yourself: what are the things that excite you? The things that really get your blood going? What is it that you long for? What is it upon which your hopes are set?

This is really what we’re talking about here.

We talked a couple of months ago about the Shema: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” I would propose that really is what this is about.

He doesn’t say, “Put God number one on your list,” or anything like that. He says all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. You’re supposed to pursue God with everything that’s in you.

And here’s a question, though. When we’re doing this, what does that mean for the rest of life?

Does it mean that we should quit working? Does it mean that we shouldn’t worry about taking care of our family or raising our children?

Of course not. In fact, Scripture gives us a lot of guidance about that. “If you won’t work, you shouldn’t eat.” There’s a lot that Scripture has to say about the responsibilities that we have in this world.

But the point is, we’re supposed to hold those responsibilities lightly.

It’s not sinful for us to be excited about it being Super Bowl Sunday. But if our life is centered on that—if we prioritize that or anything else above God—then we are engaging in idolatry.

So we’re to set our hearts on things above.

And then he goes on to say, “where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”

And so we are not only to set our passions on these things, we’re also to set our minds on these things.

So this means we think about them, and we engage our brains in this as well. It’s not just being passionate about it.

Think of it this way: in the example of somebody that’s really into football, there are some people who are just excited about all the hoopla but don’t understand the game at all. They don’t know offense from defense.

No—we’re supposed to be aware of the inner workings of God and what He’s doing, who He is. And so we are to set our minds on Him.

And Christ is seated at the right hand of God. So He is in heaven, and He’s seated.

This is indicative of His authority. In Matthew 28:18 it says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” And then He goes on into “Go, therefore…”

But the point is, that’s a position of authority—at the right hand of God. And He’s seated. It is finished. The work is done.

And so we are supposed to embrace that as well.

And the point here is that we are supposed to try to take on the mindset of God. We are trying to understand His ways and understand what He’s doing.

Also interestingly, Scripture says in Romans 8, “Jesus Christ, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”

Now how many of you have ever prayed something and you felt like God didn’t answer your prayer?

Well, I’ll tell you—I’m here to tell you—Jesus, His prayers are answered. God hears His prayers and answers them. And so if He’s praying for us, you can be sure that we are in a good place.

So we’re to set our minds on things above, not on earthly things.

This is about our thought life. This is really important, because when you talk about religion, you can have this veneer of good behavior. You show up to church. You stand up when you’re supposed to stand up. You sit down when you’re supposed to sit down. Maybe you kneel. Maybe you sing out.

But the point is, all of that counts for nothing if inside your heart is not with God and your mind is not with God.

We are in danger of having a thought life that is unbridled and in rebellion. And so we really need to submit our thought life to God and recognize that the world is not our home. This is not eternal. All of this will pass away.

Even though we have passion for many things in this world—and I don’t think that’s wrong, as long as it’s not misplaced passion or passion that is inordinate—we need to recognize we hold all that lightly. It could be taken away from us in a moment.

We want to see life and the world from God’s perspective and His viewpoint. The question is: what is He doing? What is His plan? How do I participate in this plan?

These are questions we should be asking all the time. Where is God at work? What’s He up to? How can I be a part of that?

And we should be asking Him that prayerfully.

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

Now this is interesting, because this is a little bit confusing. What does that mean—your life is hidden with Christ in God?

I think it means a couple of things.

Number one, this is a place where our ego really gets stripped away. First of all, it’s like what you do doesn’t matter. That’s of no account. You don’t have to concern yourself with a reputation here or impressing anyone—not even God.

Believe it or not, it’s not that God doesn’t care about your behavior. It’s that He’s already taken care of that. And so that’s behind you. It’s a settled matter.

And really, you’re hidden with Him. So in other words, you’re out of you. And being out of you, maybe you don’t get a lot of pats on the back. You don’t get a lot of accolades. People don’t recognize all that you do for Him or His kingdom.

That’s okay. You will be revealed with Him in glory when He returns.

But also, you’re secure in Him. You can’t be harmed. You are in Him. And so the righteousness that He has is now given to you, and you are a part of Him.

“When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

Because of this, you’ll be seen when He appears, and He will elevate you.

Think about how Jesus talks about not going to the banquet and taking a place of honor. Let the master of the banquet call you up to a place of honor.

So we don’t need to promote ourselves and try to show people what a good Christian we are. That’s religiosity. That’s us participating in religion.

What we need to do is submit ourselves to God, be in Him, and allow ourselves even to be hidden in Him.

So then he goes on here. Now this is where we really shift gears.

So this first part is really all doctrine. This is why the rest of this works—why the rest of this is relevant—because this is telling us that this is a settled matter. This is where you are. It’s really just a question of whether or not you believe it.

Think about this. All through the Bible we see this, where God gives somebody a vision or maybe a prophecy of the future, and then everything goes wrong.

You think of Joseph. He’s given this vision of what is going to happen and how he is going to even have all of his brothers and his parents come bow down to him. And no sooner is that off his lips than all of a sudden he’s plunged into a mess.

And that mess wasn’t just over the weekend. It went on and on and on, and it looked really desperate and hopeless. In fact, it looked like he might be put to death.

And that’s one example.

But how about David? David was anointed by Samuel and told that he was going to be king. And then King Saul chased him all over the place and tried to kill him. Repeatedly he came after him.

These are just a couple of examples of how you can have an existence that is of God but doesn’t feel like it’s of God—where it feels like this is a disaster, this is a mess, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

And that is often the nature of what following God is like—where we are in a place of uncertainty.

And what He’s asking you is simply this: do you trust Me? Do you believe? Are you still with Me? And will you be faithful?

Even Job—he was put to the test. And Job says, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

And that needs to be our heart.

It’s easy in this place today for us to say, “Man, this church is miserable. We’ve lost so many people. We don’t have a permanent pastor right now. What is God doing here?”

Well, believe me, God is here. He is with us. He has a plan for us. He has good for us.

The question is, are we going to be faithful? Are we going to press into Him and believe Him for that future? Or are we going to punch out and say, “I’m out of here. This isn’t what I signed up for”?

There are people that have literally said that. And they’re believers, and God bless them. And I don’t think we should hold that against them.

But the point is, God is using this in our lives to test us and to refine us.

So embrace it and accept it as such. Press into Him and allow Him to use it for good in our lives.

So he goes on into the practical part now.

“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.”

Now, this list is pretty ugly. You could say it’s sort of a reflection of the world we live in today.

Okay. You know, it’s kind of the American dream. “I’m going to do what I want. I’m pursuing happiness. I have freedom. I’m going to do what I want. I want stuff. I want sexual pleasures.”

Our world throws that stuff at us all the time, and none of that is ever satiated. It’s an idol. It doesn’t bring anything. And in fact, because it’s an idol, God hates it, and He’s bringing wrath.

And so, as Christians, we should hate what God hates.

And this is challenging because the world that we live in today is just saturated with these things. Whether it’s—people watch the Super Bowl to see the commercials. What are the commercials? Well, they’re basically professional examples of how to stir up covetousness. They get us wanting things that we don’t have.

And so that’s just one example.

But most of these are actually rooted in our sexuality. And I’m here to tell you, this is a place where many, many Christians have been bound up in sin. Sadly, within the church, the use of pornography and the failure of marriages—these things are hardly any different than the world, almost indistinguishably different.

And so this is something that we need to put to death. We need to hate it as God hates it. And because sin no longer has mastery over us, we can. We can put it to death. We can leave it in the grave.

It doesn’t matter if you have a habit. God can change that. But you have to decide. There’s an element of will and a decision here, in addition to us dealing with emotions and desires and things of that nature.

Interestingly, it almost seems illogical. He says, “You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.”

The point there is that was then; this is now. You’re a different person.

And so even though it may seem like circular reasoning, his point is: you’ve been changed. Now act like it.

And so you can make a choice and decide to act differently.

And he goes on to say:

“But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.”

So these are sins of a different nature. Those other ones seem so obviously evil, wicked, and perverse. These, on the other hand, are more subtle.

Subtle to the point that righteous anger is something the Bible talks about as something that you can have.

So where’s the line between righteous anger and this kind of anger? You need to be discerning here. You need the Holy Spirit to speak to you.

But anger, when it is stirred up, can turn into rage or wrath—a sort of solidified anger. And when that goes even further, it can turn into malice, where it’s just cruelty, mean-spiritedness, a desire for hurt toward someone else.

So you see, all of these are relational, in that they are ways in which we’ve got something going on inside of us, and then it manifests toward the people around us and the world around us.

And engaging in these things will destroy relationships.

Slander is something that, as Christians, sometimes comes across as, “Oh, I want to share a prayer need with you,” and then we tear someone down. We sort of lay bare their sins, often even in a distorted way, or in a way that maybe has some malice attached to it or some wrath attached to it.

And then filthy language, which is abusive language—language that is also designed to tear somebody down.

And the Bible talks about how the tongue is so difficult to tame and so destructive and so powerful.

And so we need to be considerate of both our thoughts and our words, and we need to submit those to Christ as well.

So again, these are things that He has overcome, and we should leave them in the grave.

He goes on to say:

“Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

Lying is of Satan. It’s something that certainly Satan brought into the world, where he said, “Did God really say?” And then he twisted things.

And if we have this new life in us, we’re being conformed into the image of God, not Satan. And so any sort of deceit is completely out of bounds and inappropriate to us.

I think there’s something else that might be going on here, though. And that is, he says, “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

So there he’s talking again about this position that we have in Christ—that we’re this new being.

And then he goes on and says:

“There is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

And I think there’s something there.

Yes, we’re not supposed to lie. But I think there’s something else there which is more subtle, and I think it’s equally appropriate. And I think our failure to deal with this is one of the things that trips us up.

As Christians, there’s a temptation with any of these sins for us to say, “Not me. Oh no. I don’t have that problem.”

And so we put on a mask. We become religious. We say, “Look at me. I’m good. I’m pure.”

And we are being deceitful in doing that.

Instead of being real and saying, “Yes, I’m this new creature, but I still have a few of those grave clothes stuck on my leg there, and I’m trying to get them off. Help me. Pray for me. Be with me. Encourage me.”

That’s where we need to be.

We need to live in reality and believe what God has said about us. And rather than misrepresenting the truth and trying to tell people, “I’ve got this handled,” what we need to do is be honest with one another.

There is no hierarchy here. I’m no better than the next person, than the next person, than the next person.

There are no super-saints in this room or in the world.

We all are hidden with Christ in God.

We all need to have the humility of acknowledging the reality of our situation and asking our brothers and sisters to be with us and help us, rather than hiding from it and pretending it’s not there.

If you’re self-deceived, there’s no hope for you.

There really isn’t.

If you won’t acknowledge your need for help—anyone who has done any counseling knows this—the person who says, “I don’t need help. I’m good,” that person is beyond help until they actually recognize, “I need help. I can’t handle this. Please help me.”

And that’s, I think, what he’s talking about here more than anything.

Yes, we shouldn’t lie to one another. But especially, we shouldn’t be deceiving each other and putting on these facades or masks of purity and goodness and holiness that are, in fact, just that—just a sham.

Now we shift gears.

So there are things that we’re supposed to take off—these practices of our past, these habits that we have from our old life.

These are not things that are part of our new nature. They’re things that are still stuck to us, and we need to scrape them off. We need to remove them.

He talks about getting rid of these things—put to death, he says.

So there’s this need for us to leave those things in the grave and to move forward.

And this is where we move forward:

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”

So God chose us before the foundation of the earth. He has a plan for us. He didn’t do that just because He said, “I’ll pick these ones.” He has a plan. He has intentions there.

And so we need to be seeking, “God, what do You want to do in my life? What do You want to use me for? What is it that You have for me to do?”

And we need to put on these virtues as part of that effort.

Compassion—some translations say tender mercies. This is the idea of something from the heart. It’s this deep kind of mercy that we are supposed to have.

Kindness.

Humility.

Humility is one that is challenging for us. And certainly religion stands in the way of that, because humility is really a proper assessment of where you are—a being in touch with reality about yourself.

It doesn’t mean you just hang your head and say, “Oh, I’m no good,” or something like that.

It’s that you recognize the truth about yourself—where you are and what your situation is—and you’re in touch with that.

And you don’t try to puff that up and look like someone you’re not.

You don’t allow pride to come in and interfere with drawing close to God.

You’re supposed to have gentleness and patience.

And then:

“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

So God has forgiven us of all manner of unrighteousness.

Think about everything that you’ve done, and really just how your nature is—your fleshly nature—and God has taken all of that away and said, “You’re My child. You are part of Me.”

If God has done that, how can we withhold from anyone else? How can we refuse to give that grace to someone else?

“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

So the greatest of these is love.

And love is something that we need to be generous with. We need to give it away freely.

We need to see that as something that we always have to give.

It doesn’t matter who it is. It doesn’t matter how messed up they are. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are—whether it’s in crisis or whether it’s in victory.

We need to bring love.

So we’ve taken off these sins and habits of our past. These are new habits we need to put on. These are new ways that we are to live.

And then this now takes us into a list of things, really, that are sort of almost the secret sauce of this new life.

Because what we need to do now is also go to this place of stirring up our hearts and our passions and allowing God, through His Spirit, to direct us.

And so he says:

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.”

If you think about it, we have God’s Spirit dwelling in us. And one of the powerful things that He does is that He gives us a sense of direction and then gives us peace about it.

And it’s interesting—the term here, “rule in your hearts,” that’s something we would say means be the umpire.

George is an umpire, and he calls balls and strikes. And that’s what we need to do. We need to let this peace call balls and strikes in our lives.

So if we’re faced with a decision or a circumstance and we don’t have peace, we need to say, “Time out,” and really use that to call our attention—use it as a trigger.

“God, what are You telling me? What’s going on here?”

So that’s part of what we need to do—allow God’s peace.

And as a body, we should have that peace when we’re deciding about new things—whether it’s a plan for ministry for the future, whether it’s a new pastor, whether it’s what we do with a building or whatever we would do.

If it’s of God, He’ll give us peace about it. We’ll be together in that.

And if it’s not, we won’t know that peace. And that’s a clear indication that we’re not quite on track and we need to listen more carefully.

So we let that peace rule in our hearts, since as members of one body we were called to peace.

And we are to be thankful.

And this is one of the challenging ones, because there are a lot of times where we just see what’s wrong—where am I disappointed? What was it that I was hoping for that I didn’t get?

And Scripture tells us we should be thankful in all things—even the things that may seem to be disappointing, even when things are not going the way we wish they were.

We are also supposed to:

“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”

The word here that’s key is dwell. Take up residence.

This isn’t a visit. We’re not to just every now and then sprinkle a little bit of Scripture and time in God’s Word into our life.

We are supposed to allow His Word to dwell in us richly.

So really getting into the depth of it and allowing it to really speak to us.

And teaching and admonishing one another—this is about community. This is about us drawing together and iron sharpening iron, where we allow the back and forth of community to refine us and to purify our hearts.

With all wisdom in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude.

This is about worship.

One of the things that will draw us closer to God and build us up in our walk with Him is worship.

And the way that it’s phrased here really gives a sense of both spontaneity and depth, because it’s actually talking about using this to bring us wisdom.

So we need to think about that when we sing songs. What are those words saying?

We sang about, “I need You, Lord. I need You every hour. I need You.”

That’s a truth. And that’s central to the message here of Colossians.

And finally:

“Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

And so this is the final thing that really ties this all together—these practices.

And this is mission.

This is us being ambassadors for Christ. This is us representing Him to the world.

And so as we do that and give thanks to God, we are actually speaking to the people around us in the world—the people that don’t know Him.

And it’s important for us to recognize that that’s a powerful testimony in and of itself—just how we behave and how we represent Christ.

And obviously, we can misrepresent Him too. And that leads to trouble.

But as we do these things, that really allows us to live this changed life, where now we’ve taken off these things that we’re free of, and we just need to recognize that and, by our will and our action, take them off and remove them.

And then we put on something new.

And so there is sort of an externality to this.

It doesn’t have to be something—like when you’ve got new clothes or maybe a new pair of shoes. And you’ve noticed how, at first when you put them on, it might not feel quite right. It doesn’t seem to be yours.

But when you wear it for a while, you start to feel comfortable in it. It starts to be a part of you.

And so we need to recognize that this removal process is necessary. So is this putting-on process.

And then these actions of how we function in community stir up faith in us and propel us forward in holiness.

These are the things that we need to do.

So just to summarize—

So us becoming holy, us becoming true followers of Jesus and actually living changed lives—first of all, it’s based on doctrinal truth.

It’s something that’s settled. It’s really just a question: are we believing it? And believing it, do we act that way?

This new life is relationally enabled and oriented.

The point here is it’s enabled because we are in Christ.

If we weren’t in Him, if we were just doing this out of grit and determination and our sense of right and wrong, we’d be a Stoic, and we would be lost in our sin.

But it’s relational in Christ.

And it’s relational because all of these things are manifested in the body of Christ, in our relationship to one another.

Our behavior flows from our mind, our will, and our emotions.

We take all three of these things and allow them to guide us and direct us.

Yes, we think about it. We want theological truth. We want to be in God’s Word and know things.

But it’s more than that.

It’s also a decision. It’s a will—a choice.

We make choices.

And that emotion—we fan the flames of our emotion and stir up a desire to know God.

David talks about, “One thing I desire of the Lord: to be in His presence.”

That’s the emotion—the desire.

Our behavior is demonstrative of our faith.

Our behavior isn’t what saves us. This is not about works righteousness or anything like that.

This is about us simply manifesting the faith that God has given us.

The thing is, we’re no longer slaves to sin. We’re free.

We have put that to death. Christ has put it to death.

And we need to leave it in the grave.

That’s a choice that we can make.

And finally, there’s an intentionality about removing old habits and walking away from them, and about building new habits—habits of holiness.

Let’s pray together.

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for showing us how to follow You.

Give us, Lord, eyes to see, ears to hear.

Help us, Lord, to press into You.

Help us to genuinely be hidden in You and to allow You to live in us and through us.

We thank You for Your Word.

We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.