Prison Epistles

The Prison Epistles
Sermon Number Thirty-Seven
Living in Christ (part 1)
Colossians 3:1-11
January 29th, 2006
Jim Bordwine, ThD

Introduction

Whenever error is encountered, whether it be on a small scale or a grand scale, whether it be error of belief or conduct or teaching, there are two steps that must be taken for correction. To be most effective, there is a pattern that must be followed and this pattern holds true in all situations, from something as routine as the discipline of a child to something far more ominous in scope such as the refutation of heretical doctrine.

The two-step process is simple: first, you must expose the error or identify what is wrong, and second, you must provide accurate instruction. Again, in considering something as normal as the discipline of a child, the parent who only identifies the wrong committed by a child, but does not supply accurate instruction has done only part of the job that needs to be done. Likewise, on that more formal level of theological discipline, the theologian who only opposes doctrinal error but does not continue and provide correct information has done only part of the job that must be done.

I begin with these thoughts in order to say to you that the apostle Paul is a premier example of confronting error in the productive and necessary manner I've just described. In his case, of course, he was confronting doctrinal error. The pattern he demonstrates in his many epistles is consistent and instructive to us for a variety of situations, not the least of which would be those times when we encounter false teaching. If we are wise, we will take note of how Paul operates and incorporate his example into our lives.

Let me explain precisely what I mean. In almost every one of his letters to New Testament churches, Paul does two things without fail: he identifies error in the thinking of some Christians or error in the conduct of some Christians or error in the teaching being provided by others; and then, again without fail, the apostle explains how those Christians should be thinking or should be acting or what should be taught and believed.

If you were to sit down and read through all of Paul's letters one after the other, you would quickly pick up on his style. In his epistle to the Colossians, as we certainly know by now, Paul has been writing about one of the most crucial questions imaginable, which has to do with the sufficiency of the work done by our Savior. He has declared more than once and in a variety of ways that the atonement provided by Jesus Christ is complete, meaning that nothing more needs to be done by the sinner who has faith in the Savior.

Paul has emphasized that one aspect of the Biblical doctrine of redemption that is so hard for us to accept and so often attacked by enemies of the gospel, which is the fact that salvation is all of grace and depends not at all on the contribution of the sinner, either initially or during the sinner's lifetime of walking before the Lord. Someone in that church, however, was teaching another view and Paul identifies the error, condemns it, and leaves no doubt regarding the conclusion that, as far as he was concerned, what was being taught was insidious doctrinal error, the kind that robs Christ of His glory and plunges the sinner into a world of doubt and spiritual misery. You'll recall that the last thing Paul did was describe the false teaching and flatly declare that it was of no benefit whatsoever to the Colossians.

Now, following that pattern I described earlier, Paul moves on to the second part of his treatment of doctrinal error, which is an explanation of what should be believed and what should be practiced. The question, you'll remember, is about the sufficiency of Christ's work and whether that work by itself was enough to give the sinner the assurance of eternal security before God. Paul has taught that the work of Christ is wholly sufficient. The second question that naturally arises now, however, has to do with the day-to-day living of the Christian.

Paul refuted the false teachers' claims that the Colossians must live according to rules and regulations, some that were active during the period prior to the coming of Christ and some that they made up themselves. But that leaves unaddressed the Christian response to those false teachers who said "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!" (cf. 2:21). Was Paul saying that Christians have no standard by which to live? Was he saying that faith in Christ was the essential issue and that how a person lives after that doesn't matter?

No, Paul is ready now to engage in the second part of confronting error, which is instruction in truth. Our text for the next couple of sermons is 3:1-11 in which Paul explains how we are to live in Christ. This morning, I will concentrate on the first four verses:

3:1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

In terms of an overall theme for this section, I would say that what Paul is addressing is the topic of life in Christ. We know already what he does not approve of, which is the kind of teaching these believers had been hearing from Paul's opponents. What, then, does the apostle think when it comes to living the Christian life? How is it done? What does life in Christ look like? Paul answers these questions in this section. In this sermon, as I noted, I will concentrate on those first four all-important verses.

01. Life in Christ begins with your perspective (vv. 1-4)

Where do you look when you think about your identity and purpose in this life? What is your reference point? Most of us are going to think first of our family or our vocation or maybe our church. I might say: "Well, I'm the son of James Bordwine, and I work in the ministry, and I'm a Reformed Presbyterian." All true statements, but as a Christian, they don't get to the heart of who I am or what my chief purpose is in this life. Nevertheless, we tend to identify ourselves, and consequently derive our purpose, from such aspects of our existence.

Ultimately, it is not your vocation or your church or even your family that defines who you are or why you are here. Those things are expressions of who you are and what you are, but they are not the essence of your identity and purpose. Ultimately, that which gives you identity and which, consequently, establishes your purpose in this life, is your relationship with Christ. Everything else, every other relationship, every responsibility, and every calling begins with the truth that you are in Christ and He, by His Spirit, is in you. That means that your identity and the foundation upon which your life rests and the reservoir from which your conduct flows is that union with the Savior. Your identity begins with the fact that you are one of God's children in Christ Jesus; and as one of God's children, your chief end in life, as our catechism teaches, is to glorify God--and that is the context in which you live day by day.

On a recent Sunday evening, I talked about the book The Purpose Drive Life. Do you know why that book is such a phenomenal success, selling a million copies a month at one point? It's because it promises to answer what so many are asking: "Why am I here?" and "How do I find meaning in life?" No matter how sophisticated we become--or think we become--as a race we still wrestle with the concept of purpose. We may ignore that question that pops up in our hearts from time to time, we may suppress it, but because we came from the hand of God, our souls remain in a state of restlessness until we are restored to a right relationship with Him.

As I said, people suppress that truth and try to smother it with various substances or activities, but it remains. People throughout the world and throughout history long to know why they are here and what they are supposed to do with their lives. It's an innate desire that is in us because we are created beings and, as a race, are alienated from our Maker. Our souls long to be at peace with Him. For the Christian, we know the answer. The answer is Christ. In Him we find the answers we need. In Him we find satisfaction--satisfaction for what God has been holding against us and satisfaction for our souls that find rest only in His loving presence.

This is Paul's message, but the false teachers in the Colossian church tried to ground the identity and purpose of those believers in their own efforts to live a "good" life. Such a position is forever subject to instability because it rests on the foundation of human effort, not divine initiative and provision. Paul has flatly and forcefully rejected such thinking and now he is telling the Colossians where they were to look to know lasting stability and satisfaction. They had to look to that which was unchangeable, that which was complete, that which was not subject to corruption--only in this way could they relax and live out their years in peace before God. They had to look, of course, to Christ.

Paul's thinking is easy to follow. If our salvation is grounded in Christ and if we are to look to Him and His finished work for assurance that we belong to God now and forever, and if we are not to think for a moment that our efforts to live rightly before God are going to make a difference in terms of our standing before Him, then why would we conclude that when it comes to living out our Christian lives and when it comes to giving to God days of life that truly honor Him, we should stop looking at Christ and turn our eyes back to self? This is what so many Christians do, at least in part, when it comes to how they deal with sin and the duty they know they have to live according to righteousness. But that plan is bound to fail us. Just as we cannot depend on self for salvation, so we cannot look to self for sanctification in holiness.

And that is what Paul is speaking of now, sanctification--that process we are involved in for our whole lives once we have been regenerated and delivered from the death of sin to the life of the Spirit. If it is Christ who saves us, we should see that it is Christ who must sanctify us. What I mean is that we are saved because of the work of Christ and that work continues in and through us as we live on this earth. It is awareness of the relationship between Christ and our daily lives that is the key to living a God-honoring life, one in which sin does not master us, one in which evidence of Christ's presence in us is obvious, one that is helpful to others and to the cause of Christ.

In light of all that has come before this point in the letter, Paul says "if you have been raised up with Christ, keeping seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." (v. 1) Paul refers to what the Christian experiences; it is that state of existence that results from believing the gospel and being regenerated. He calls it "being raised up with Christ." He is speaking of a life that is new, a life that has just begun, a life that isn't what it was before. Resurrection is always symbolic of a new beginning, newness of life, and deliverance from what was true before. And, in Scripture, it symbolizes victory. Paul is reminding the Colossians that if, indeed, they have believed the gospel and have been regenerated, then there is only one perspective for them to hold regarding how they are now going to live.

For the Christian, there is only one place to look, one viewpoint to hold and that is, as I said before, that my life is Christ--Christ living in me and through me, Christ supplying my strength and my purpose, Christ manifesting in me the reality of my union with Him. In short, the Christian is to have a heavenly perspective, meaning that we are to find our identity and our purpose in the Savior who is now residing in heaven above having conquered that which held us captive and that which previously revealed itself in our thoughts and words and actions.

The Bible teaches that the Christian is a new creature--he isn't still marred in sin and living with the sentence of condemnation on his head. The Christian is dead to the old and alive in the new. Sin is not his master and death no longer has claim on him. All of this was explained by Paul before when he wrote of the sufficiency of Christ's work. Now he is saying that Christ is sufficient also for our sanctification or for what we might call the "outworking" of our justification.

The days that we live are not to be lived as manifestations of what we are able to do but as glorious displays of what Christ is able to do through us. And dear Christian people, this truth gives you freedom from fretting and freedom from the burden of winning God's favor day after day. Is that the kind of existence you are experiencing? Are the days and weeks and years that make up your life glorious displays of what Christ is able to do through you? Now, this doesn't mean that your life is going to be some kind of baptized version of a trip to Disney World. Your life, as I'm sure you already know, will be a mixture of joy and sorry, pleasant circumstances and unpleasant circumstances, times of confidence and times of worry. But for the Christian, there should be a marked difference in the way we respond to all those times. In each case, we should be manifesting the truth of our relationship with Christ.

Many of you are aware that we have been praying for the wife of a friend of mine for the past couple of years. Her name is Betty and she was diagnosed with cancer a while back and began a grueling battle to live. My friend, whose name is Larry, has been faithful to send out updates via email on Betty's condition. It's been difficult just to read of how Betty was struggling with that cancer and how they both would have hope that the next test would reveal that the cancer was in remission--but that news never came.

Early on Friday morning, I received word from my friend that Betty's conflict had ended and she had departed this world. Every communication I received from Larry over the past two years contained a lot of Scripture; every note had a tone of confidence and hope no matter how bad things were. This last note was no exception. In it, I read the words of a loving husband who had just lost his dear wife; but more than that, I read the words of a Christian who was facing this terrible event in Christ. This was always Larry's posture throughout this ordeal and it didn't change on the day his wife passed away. There was thankfulness and joy in his words even as, I'm sure, his heart was grieving.

That is just one example of what it means to live in Christ. That is just one example of Christ living in and through His own. That is just one example of how He sustains His own when they are distraught or in much anguish of soul. But that, also, is reality. That is how creatures made in the image of God should conduct themselves. They are not without hope and they are not without strength. And the way my friend behaved over the past two years is a shining testimony to his relationship with Christ. I think both Larry and Betty honored God and their Savior in the way they responded to what was appointed for them.

And I have to add that God gave testimony, I think, to His pleasure with this couple. For several days before she died, Betty was in a coma. Just before she passed from this earth, she woke up, called each family member to her bedside, placed her hands on their heads, and pronounced a blessing from Christ upon them. Then she departed. Her husband said it seemed as if Christ Himself was speaking to them.

The Christian life, our existence in Christ, is supposed to be a joyful proof that He is in us and that we have been delivered from sin. It is not supposed to be an oppressive existence in which we try to overcome sin by our own power and try to stand strong during the hour of temptation all by ourselves and attempt to shoulder the burdens that inevitably come in this life as if we have no Helper.

You are to look to Christ, as Paul says. That is where our sanctification begins--it begins with our eyes fixed on the One who delivered us from the power of sin and, therefore, from the fear that sin produces in the heart of one estranged from God. It has to begin there. Every battle against sin, every episode of wrestling with temptation, and every trial through which we pass has to start with a reminder that we are in Christ and He is in us.

We are to live as if we are searching for "the things above," as the apostle puts it. He means our lives should be characterized by Christlikeness at all times. It is not just me alone in this world as a Christian. It is Christ and me in that wonderful union established as a result of Him taking my sin to Himself and making payment for it. When the world sees me, they are looking at Christ in me and that should make me think twice about how I speak and how I treat other people and how I respond to adversity. That should make me desire to live as I said in the last sermon, in thankful obedience, all the while desiring with my whole being to show the world what Christ looks like.

If each day I remind myself that Christ is alive in me, and if each day I remind myself that my eyes, as it were, should be on Christ who is seated at the right hand of God, as Paul says, how effective do you think I will be when it comes to dealing with sin and temptation? This isn't complicated theology; it is simple doctrine. Christ doesn't lie, so I shouldn't lie; Christ's doesn't engage in impurity, so I shouldn't engage in impurity; Christ's doesn't seek to promote Himself but gives Himself for others, so I shouldn't be chiefly interested in my own comfort but should be concerned for the comfort of others; when He was upon this earth and facing hardship, Christ looked to heaven for strength, so when I face testing that is where I must look, too. Do you see how it works? We do not live unto ourselves as Christians; we cannot live unto ourselves because the nature of our salvation is such that Christ is living in us.

This sets up a model for living that is far different than if we simply think of ourselves alone battling sin and temptation, or if we think of ourselves alone trying to be a good husband and father, or good wife and mother, or good son or daughter, or a good and faithful man or woman living before God in a world filled with spiritual snares. If we surrender the notion that we save ourselves and instead cling to Christ, we must also surrender the notion that we can thereafter live holy lives by ourselves and must instead keep clinging to Him.

"Keep seeking the things above," Paul exhorts. Keep looking to Christ now that you are born again. Keep trusting in Him for your daily walk even as you have trusted in Him for your justification before God. Specifically, he adds: "Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth." (v. 2) The word translated "set" helps us understand what Paul means. It is a term (phroneo) that means "to have an opinion of one's self, to be of the same mind, to be harmonious." Do you see what Paul is telling his readers? By using this word, he is saying that we are to be in agreement with heaven regarding all things. Our opinions are to be heavenly, so to speak, which means they are to be based on what God has revealed about this world and about us.

Paul implies that you can be in agreement with heaven or "the things that are on earth," obviously meaning the outlook of this fallen world. Your perspective can be generated from one source or the other. For the Christian, for the one who is in Christ and for the one through whom Christ is living by His Spirit, there is only one acceptable source for what he thinks, for what he says, and for what he does--and it isn't this world! We're back to a point made earlier, namely, that my life is not mine alone, it is Christ's living in me.

I'll say again that this is not a difficult idea to grasp. The believer is to focus his mind on heavenly concepts and heavenly values. And the mind trained in this manner will yield a life of victory over temptation and a life honoring to God. We all know from our own experience that the one thing that helps us to combat sin is bringing to mind the teaching of Scripture and we all know that when we do succumb to temptation, it is because we do not follow the teaching of Scripture. Paul is putting in metaphorical language that truth as he writes about being raised up with Christ and about seeking what is above and about setting our minds on the things above. The direction in which you look in life, the thing that you allow to define you, makes all the difference when it comes to being satisfied and secure before the Lord.

Application

I'll conclude this sermon by directing your attention to vv. 3 and 4. Look at how beautifully Paul conveys the truth of our union with Christ: "For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory." As I said before, your identity, your life, as Paul calls it here, is not about the job you have or the relationships in which you participate. Ultimately, your life, as a Christian, is Christ.

You are supernaturally and mysteriously bound together with Him. He is in heaven, so your identity is in heaven. One of these days, however, Christ will return and when He does, what we are, what we truly are, will be made manifest for all creation. The challenge you have is to live now in light of that coming day; your challenge is to deal with sin in this world and the misery of this world and the temptations of this world and the manifold responsibilities you have in this world in light of that coming day when Christ and you with Him will be revealed in glory.

You are to look to the things above tomorrow when you face the challenges of raising your children or going to work or dealing with bitter comments from someone close to you or facing what was completely unexpected. That is where your identity is to be found and, therefore, that is where your strength to persevere will be found. If you rest your contentment on the circumstances and the people around you, you will be sorely disappointed and continually troubled. But if you live with the knowledge that your life is hidden with Christ in God, then you will have what you need to face life.

There's really nothing that can undo you in this world if your life is hidden with Christ. There is no power to destroy you, no temptation to overcome you, no circumstance to drive you to despair. But you have to do what Paul says: "keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God."

Let's pray ...

Conclusion

Let this sacrament remind you of that truth Paul stated, namely, that your life is hidden with Christ. That, among other things, is what is being declared when you eat bread that represents the Savior's life given for you and drink wine representing the Savior's blood shed for you. You are His, bought with a great price, and He will never release you.

The Scripture says:

While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. (Matt. 26:26-28)