Christ is Life Podcast

You have your Bibles with you on a invite you to pull them out and open up to the book of Colossians Colossians chapter three, we'll be in verse 15. In just a moment, we've been in this message series on Paul's letter to the church at Colossae. For several months now just going verse by verse, we're in the practical section where Paul is taking what it is that he outlined in chapters one and two, about the doctrinal truth, the truth about who Christ is the new life that we received in him. And now he's making application as to how that plays out in our everyday lives, what that really looks like. And if you've been here, you know that the image that he's been giving us is that of clothes. It's like taking off old clothes that no longer match who you are on the inside the new creation that you've become, and then Paul's giving us these new clothes that we are putting on as a result of who it is that we've been made into. And he's gotten really specific about these clothes throughout this section that we're really still in and finishing up today. And so I thought I was at the beginning, and I'm all the way at the end. So you just got to be patient with me as I go on. This is the whole sermon in Nutshell. So don't read it. Close your eyes. Here we go. Alright, got very specific with clothes. These are the old clothes that he mentioned in this section that we've kind of been in these clothes of sexual immorality and impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, and lying, he was saying, listen, these are things that maybe used to characterize who you were, these are attitudes and behaviors and things that you would go to in order to try to get your needs met your needs of love, and security and contentment, and value and, and worth, and you would try to go towards impure things to be able to meet that need of love. Or you would lash out at other people or slander other people to try to get your value from tearing them down, and all of these kinds of things, but he's saying, You've been taken care of now your needs have been met, you don't have to go to those kinds of things anymore, to try to get your needs met. So So take those off, they don't really fit with who you are, he said instead, because you're God's chosen people, because you're now holy, because you're now dearly loved, because you've been completely changed on the inside. Then clothe yourselves on the outside with things like compassion and kindness and humility, and, and gentleness and patience. And he went on to talk about forgiveness, and, and love. And these are the kinds of clothes that match up now with who you are, as God's chosen people, those who are holy and dearly love those who have been radically changed on the inside. And so what we've been saying, and we're saying this, again, because the section that we're in is very closely tied to what we've been talking about is that when we come to these lists of do's and don'ts in the New Covenant, we need to see them as descriptions of who we are, or who we are not in Christ, when he's given us list of things to no longer do than he's describing that these are the things that are consistent with who it is that we've, we no longer are right, or when he's given us things to do than these are the descriptions of the new creation that we have become, we need to make sure that we're not coming across these lists. And we're going oh, these are the things that I need to stop doing in order to become a better person. These are the things that I need to start doing in order to get where it is that I need to be. God is saying no, no, no, I've changed you, I've already made you into a good person into a new creation in Christ. And now I'm just describing the things that are consistent with who you've already been made into there is a huge difference. One is religion. The other one is grace, and a reception of Jesus's finished work and on the cross that gets applied to you, and then begins to get expressed through you. And so now that he's talked about these new clothes and began to introduce this, we're still kind of finishing up this section, as we get into verses 15 through 17. We've broken it up and we've gone a little bit slower, to be able to really dive into it, and give the Holy Spirit some room in our own lives, to see where we are in relation to these old clothes. Maybe through some of the old clothes that we had. Were going man, I'm still wearing those I need to have some conversations about the Holy Spirit about what that's all about. Or, you know, I don't know if I could say, these are real descriptions of the clothes that I'm wearing right now. And why is that the case? Did I even know that they were true about me and how do I participate with the Holy Spirit and the way that he works those things out of Have me to put them on display for others. And so as we get into verses 15 through 17, we're still kind of talking about this practical application these, these clothes that the apostle Paul is wanting to put on us. So here's the way he starts off in verse 15. He says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, the very first thing that I want you to notice here is about this peace. Notice whose peace it is, it's the peace of Christ, Christ is known as the Prince of Peace. That's his title. See that in Isaiah, you may remember when he was talking to disciples, in John chapter 14, just before he was going to the cross, He says, My peace, I leave you, my peace I give you Jesus is peace. And so the first thing that we need to notice is that you can't manufacture peace in your life, because peace is found in a person, that maybe you've tried that maybe you've tried manufacturing peace in your life, we do it all the time, we manufacture peace, retry to, based on trying to control the situations and the circumstances around us, man, if I could just finally get my kids to act, right. And I'll have some peace around here. Right? If I could get my spouse to shape up and be who it is that they're supposed to be, then I'll finally have some peace, and we're trying to control them or trying to manipulate them to get them to act out in certain ways. Because we think when that finally happens, I'm gonna have peace. And we do that with our jobs. And they do that in school. And we do that with every area of our lives. But you can't manufacture peace in your life through situations and circumstances, because peace is found in a person. And so that's the first thing that we need to recognize from what Paul is saying here. The second thing that we want to see is that he's saying to let this peace of Christ rule in your hearts. So he's talking about it in such a way where he's saying, it sounds like you have it, you have this piece. But why don't you just go ahead and let it rule in your hearts since you have this piece, and that's true. I mean, we've given this image before, and I want you to just see it again, in this particular light. But the Apostle Paul, again, tells us that we're a spirit, and that we're a soul, and that we are a body, right, and we are a lowercase spirit. And when we say yes to Jesus, we're in dwelt with the capital S spirit, and we're now in union with Jesus will who is Jesus, the Prince of Peace, right. And so if we're in union with the Prince of Peace, at the very core of our being as a new creation in Christ, then guess what we have all the time in our lives? piece, we have it. It's right there at the very core of our being the new you as the new creation in Christ that you have right here, you have his piece. So what's Paul saying? So since you have it, now, let it rule in your hearts. Well, what's he talking about? When he uses the language heart? Well, a lot of times the heart is a reference to kind of the same thing that we call our soul, our control center, our mind and our emotions, and our will the way that we make choices around things. And so basically, what he's saying is to let it rule in your hearts means you have it. So why don't you allow it to be your experience? Here, you see, it's possible to have peace, but to not actually experience peace. So he's saying, since you have it, let it rule in your hearts and make it your experience instead of trying to manufacture peace on your own, in this fleshly way through your outward behaviors, allow the peace that you have to be clothed with it, right when we're still talking about clothes here, clothes yourself with or wear the clothes of peace, you have peace put on the clothes of peace. And so this is what Paul is starting to say you have it. So let it rule in your hearts. And this certainly, again applies to any area of your life with the things that we were talking about where you're worried or you're anxious, or you're trying to manufacture peace in your life in a number of fleshly ways. But Paul here is talking about it in a very specific way with the church at Colossae, which could apply to us today as well. So when we come back to our verse,
we see again, he says Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts in And we see this connecting word right here, right the word since, alright, since as members of one body, you were called to peace. So what we see then is the type of peace that he's talking about allowing to rule in our hearts is the type of peace that we experience in community with other people. Right? There can be a way that we live in community where there's division and dissension and dis unity, or we can live in peace. We can live in harmony, we can live in unity with other people. And he's grounding this, because we're already members, we've been made members of one body. And he says, because we were called to peace, what does that mean to be called to peace? Well, the Apostle Paul's mentioned before how we've been called out of the dominion of darkness already, and we've been brought into the Kingdom of the Sun that he loves. So that's one way to kind of begin to look at it. Another place that the apostle Paul talked about this extensively is in Ephesians, chapter two, let me just read to you what he says there about the Jews and the Gentiles coming together. He's talking about Jesus here. And he says, For he himself, is our peace. Here's our word again, who has made the two groups the Jews and the Gentiles, one, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. So there used to be a barrier, there used to be a dividing wall of hostility between these two groups. But Jesus has broken that barrier by setting aside in his flesh, the law with its commands and regulations, his purpose, the reason that he was doing this was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, verse making what peace, there's our word again, and in one body, to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death, their hostility, he came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near through him, we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people, and also members of his household. So the Apostle Paul and saying a lot of these things right here is talking about how we've, Jesus has all ready done the work of bringing us together in establishing peace between us and bringing us together as part of his family. He's broken down all of the barriers you may remember earlier in, in Colossians, he talked about how we're all one in Christ, there's no longer Jew or Gentile, or Scythian, or slave or free, and all of these different things that usually separate us and divide us. He's done the work of making peace and bringing peace to us. And so we are to allow that peace that he's already established between us to rule in our hearts, so that we live in that harmony and that unity and that peace together. He's talking about this in relation in community with the church, which is what we are, this is not just a thing between me and God are you and God, it's a family that he's brought us into. And as we allow His peace, to rule and reign in our lives and become our experience, the outworking of that is that we're living in unity, we're living in harmony with one another. So Paul says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts since as the members of one body, you were called to peace, you were called out of the dominion of darkness and into this peace, unity together, and then he just got tax this thing on at the end, and be thankful. Kind of seems a little out of place with everything it is that he said. But it's, it's certainly not. We know that when we have an attitude of thankfulness, that the more we're thanking Jesus for who he is what he's done in our lives, we're thanking him for the other people that are in our lives that we're united to, the more that we're going to allow that peace to rule in our hearts, the easier it's going to be to extend grace to other people, to love other people to extend forgiveness for putting the petty issues aside that sometimes disrupt and divide the piece that we actually have in Christ. I think this in a lot of ways when we're talking about his thing or being thankful goes all the way back to the very beginning of Colossians. Three, a beginning of Colossians threes, he says to set your hearts in your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Well, what are we doing when we're being thankful? We're thanking Jesus, we're setting our hearts and minds on him. We're thankful for the things What we have in him rather than the earthly things that we're going, I'm not so thankful for, I'm just mad, I'm upset, I'm, I'm having a lack of peace because of all of these things that I'm focusing on. But when I'm thankful for who Christ is, and what I have, regardless of my situation and circumstances, I'm focusing on the things above, and then I'm allowing more and more of the peace of Christ that I already have to now rule in my heart. Do you see how this works? So this is what Paul was saying, in the very first verse, you have Christ peace, clothe yourself with his peace, experience, the peace that you have. The second thing that he says, as he goes on is to let the message of Christ dwell among you richly. Now, what is this that he's talking about? What's the message of Christ? Is there a particular message about Christ that he's talking about? Is he just talking about Christ in general? What are we talking about? If we're going to let the message of Christ dwell among us? Then somebody better tell me what the message of Christ is supposed to dwell among us? Well, to me, we have to keep it in context. He's writing this in a letter. We're in chapter three, we've been saying over and over again, that Paul's been writing about Christ and the supremacy and the sufficiency of Christ all throughout chapters one and two. So evidently, that's the message that he wanted them to make sure that they knew in the message that would dwell among them. Well, what were some of the things that he said about Jesus, just let me remind you of a few. This is from chapter one. And he says, The Sun is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers are rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him. And for Him, He is before all things. And in Him, all things hold together. The message of Christ that Paul wanted the church at Colossae to know is that he holds all things together, he is supreme, he is sufficient, the false teachers were teaching a Jesus plus gospel equals everything, you needed more than just Jesus to have everything that you need in the Christian life. And he's saying, You need to declare the message of Christ, the supremacy and the sufficiency of who he is over and above these false teachers, trying to clarify that this blank on the other side of Jesus is what it's all about. He went on after describing who Christ was to say this, Once you were alienated from God, and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ, the message of Christ by his Christ, physical body through death, to present you holy in his sight, without blemish, and free from accusation, it seems like Paul didn't just want them to know about Christ and who he was. But the message of Christ also includes what Christ has done to them. He's made them holy, he's made them without blemish, he's made them free from accusation. This is the message that he wants declared among the church, he went on to say, in Colossians, two, for in Christ, all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ, you have been brought to fullness, you are complete the message of Christ, He wanted them to make sure that they knew is that they were complete, there is nothing else to add to Jesus, they're complete in Him, He is sufficient, you have everything that you will ever need in him. And then finally, just to highlight, even in this chapter, at the very beginning of the chapter that we're in, he was saying, set your hearts and minds on things above. And he tells us why. Because you've been raised with Christ, because that's already a spiritual reality. That's already something he's done to you declare to each other, that you're already there. Yeah, he's not up there, and you're not down here. Make sure that's a message that gives dwelling among you, you died, your life is now hidden with Christ in God, make sure that the message of Christ that is declared is that the old you is dead, not that the old you is alive right now, and that you're both bad, and you're good at the same time. And you got to really kind of try to squish this one down here. Now let the message of Christ dwell among you that he's killed you off your old sin, nature is dead, and you're now alive in Christ. This is the truth. This is these are the messages that he's been saying. And so what is he come back to here,
let that message. Let the messages that you're hearing all throughout this entire letter so far be the one that dwells among you. Now, there's some debate among the translations in the way the original Greek is written. Whether Paul is saying to let the message of Christ dwell among them. Or in Vim. Some translations if you're reading along in a different translations may say, let the message of Christ dwell in You ritually and so what did Paul mean? Did he mean for the message of Christ to dwell in them? Or did He mean for the message of Christ to dwell among them? I think it's yes. I mean, maybe there's confusion about what he really meant in the way that it was originally written in there, because he wanted to make sure they knew both. It was the message that they needed to preach first and foremost, in them to themselves, right, because this is the gospel, where to renew our minds to the truth and the message of Christ, but also let it dwell among you, may you allow Jesus to use you to declare this message to your family who's sitting next to you this morning to those in Sunday School to those in your Bible studies and make sure that it's the one that you're pointing people to, he's saying, To do this, as you teach, and admonish one another. Teaching the message of Christ is positively proclaiming the full gospel message, it admonishing is kind of the negative side of warning people not to stray from the message of Christ, not to stray from the Jesus plus nothing equals everything gospel that it is in fall for a Jesus plus gospel that engages in religion. So let this message of Christ dwell in you dwell among you, as you teach, instruct one another, warn each other to not stray from this. But then he also says, with all wisdom, right, so wisdom comes from God. It's his wisdom that's coming in that it's through what this is what's interesting here, psalms, hymns, and songs from the spirits singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. Now, certainly Paul didn't mean that that's the only way that the message dwells in you. And among you, right? There's lots of other scriptures that talk about the teaching of God's word and in different forms and avenues. But apparently, one of them that was common in the early church was to declare this message of Christ in and among the people through singing, through the singing of songs, and hymns and songs from the Spirit. Now, what's interesting in this and we didn't really dive into it much because we didn't have time there's so much to go through. I read Colossians, one to your earlier questions 115 through 20, about how Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together and all that stuff where he's exalting Christ. Most commentators Did you know actually believe that that was a him. Verses 15 through 20 of chapter one, most commentators believe that that was actually a him that the early church would see when they gathered together for corporate worship. So they were declaring the message of Christ through song, I could still tell you, all the capitals of South America because of a song that I had to sing when I was in Spanish class, in high school, when we seeing things and seeing truth about things, they tend to stick a lot of times, and so not just through preaching and teaching, but let this message, teach us through the songs that we're singing, to warn us not to stray from them, even through the songs that we are singing. And so, in other words, let the message of Christ be what you're clothed with. If we're keeping with the theme of clothing, Let the peace of Christ rule, clothe yourself with peace, because you have it, you've got the message of Christ, you have Christ in you. So let the outworking of that be the expression of that life of Christ, clothe yourselves with the message of Christ through teaching and admonishing and singing and all of the above. The final thing that Paul says here in verse 17, he says in 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. When Paul used this word here in the original Greek and said, Whatever he meant, whatever. Like it means in all things, right? I mean, it's really interesting to me that we've been going through this whole list for three weeks now. I mean, all the specific little things that he said, don't line up with who you are. And these are the clothes that you put on, because they line up and it's like, finally Paul just gets in it. He goes, You know what, just in whatever it is that you do, clothe yourselves with Christ. I'm done with the list. Right? Because it applies to everything. Right? So when he says to do it, in the name of the Lord Jesus, what does that mean? Well, I hear a lot of people say, I'm going to go do it for Jesus. I'm doing this for Jesus. I'm living for Jesus. And that's what we're talking about here. Well, that's not really what we're talking about here. This once again, Final time we'll use this comes back to what we talked about the week that we talked about this, there's an eternal realm of things. There's a temporal realm of things, we live in this temporal realm, right? Our lowercase s spirit plus the capital S spirit, we're in union with Him, our soul in our body. But because we've already been raised with Christ, he said that at the beginning of chapter three, to set our hearts and minds on things above, so God, and you are in union with each other. And as we set our mind and hearts on things above, to do things in the name of the Lord, is to bring him into it, because we're already spiritually seated here. And he's at the very core of our being, that means that he is able to take all of our emotions and the things that we're thinking and our choices and our actions, and from this eternal realm, express his life through us in whatever it is that we are doing in life. So it gets manifest for the world to see. And so it's not us living for Jesus doing things in his name, doing them in the name of Jesus, it's us living from Jesus from who we are in him. It's saying, Okay, God, everything in this temporal realm, that I'm a part of every sphere of life in this temporal realm. If this is true, there's never a part that I'm not in union with you. You're in it wherever it is, that I go in to live from you in each and every one of those areas, is to live or do it in the name of Christ, it breaks down the secular and the sacred divide. And it brings all spheres, work, home, school, relationships, social, everything, we live from him in those different areas in his life gets expressed through us to guide us how to do whatever it is we're doing in that area. Whatever it is, we're to think about those things, the choices we're making in those particular areas of our lives, the actions that are associated with every sphere of life that we are in. And so this is the picture that we get when he's saying, whatever it is that you do, word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord, clothe yourselves with Christ. So these are the three things that he's saying in this section. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, let the message of Christ dwell among you, whatever you do, do it in the name of the Lord giving thanks. What is he speaking to you about today? Is he is he speaking to you today specifically about the peace of Christ? Do you find yourself in positions where you're always trying to manufacture peace in your life, you're trying to control the situations and circumstances of your life and the other people to get them to behave in the way you need them to act and behave? So you'll have peace? Maybe he's saying today you have peace in Christ. How about you experience the peace you have in him and quit trying to control everything around you? Or maybe he's speaking to you about the peace of Christ in the way that he talked about it with the Colossian church, maybe you've been causing some division, some disunity, some dissension, maybe you're talking about another believer in Christ, somebody that's a brother or sister, someone in our church, someone on our staff, and you're bad mouthing them in front of other people, then you're slandering them, and you're causing disunity, and dissension. And he's saying, you have Christ's peace, you don't need to go there to get things to change to the way that you want them to be, or to put them down to make yourself better. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and allow him to use you to forgive them and to move forward in Unity. Together, maybe that's what he's speaking to you about today. Maybe he's speaking this, let the message of Christ dwell among you or in you, maybe that's not the message, you preach to yourself, the message, you preach to yourself, I got to do better, I got to do better, I got to do better, I got to do better I got to do but I'm not where I need to be. And maybe what he's trying to say is, maybe you should preach the gospel and saying, Jesus, thank you for making me into new creation. Thank you for who I am in Christ thinking I'm holding on pure and all of these things. Now, allow me to walk who I am. And you as I keep my eyes fixed on you. So maybe that's what he's speaking to you about this message of Christ clothing yourself with the message or how it is that among you, how does he want to use you in Sunday school or
with your family or the way that you seem right, to teach others and to warn other people in our church that we're in Unity together with to keep their eyes fixed on Christ in the fullness of all that we have in him? Or is he speaking to you about this? Maybe you really have tended to live your life in different segments and sections? No, this is my church life is my spiritual life. And then here's my sports life and my work life and my home life and all of these other things and you're going Oh, it's just life. You live from Jesus and all of them. Maybe he's saying what it look like to allow Him to guide you in each and every one of those areas to empower you to express his life through you, whichever area he's speaking to you about. Would you give him some room today? And trust him with where he's leading you in that? And may we be a support and encouragement to each other as we walk these things out together in the power of the Spirit. Let's pray.