Living in Christ

Transcript

Rob McFarlane 0:58

Today's sermon is entitled Living in Christ. Let's look at Colossians chapter 2, verse 6. First reading from the New International Version says, So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, so continue to live your lives in Him. In the Easy English version, it puts Colossians 2, verse 6, like this. You have accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, so remember that you belong to Him as you live your lives. Today we'll see that being a follower of Jesus Christ is not about being the best version of yourself, but rather living a transformed life in Christ. Let's read Colossians chapter 3, verse 5 to 10, and then verse 12 to 17. Colossians 3, verse 5 to 10 from the New International Version. 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, but now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 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. Then Colossians chapter 3, verse 12 to verse 17. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive. If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace and be thankful. 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. And 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. We see three things in these verses. Number one, off with the old and on with the new. We are told to put on our new identity and lifestyle in Christ. This involves putting off our old way of life and putting on our new life in Christ. Let's look at Colossians chapter 3, verse 5, verse 8, and verse 9. Verse 5 says, Put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature. Verse 8, but now you must also rid yourself as all such things as these. And then verse 9, since you have taken off your old self with its practices. We should take off the old way of life, and we should put on the new way of life in Christ. Let's look at verse 10, verse 12, and verse 14. And have put on your new self, which is being renewed in knowledge, in the image of its Creator. Verse 12. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with. And then verse 14, over all these virtues put on. We see that there's certain things that we should put off, and there's certain things that we should put on. Paul is using an analogy of taking off old clothing, which identifies us with our old way of life, and putting on new clothing that shows who we are in Christ, our new identity and our new lifestyle. Romans chapter 13, verse 14 says this rather clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. We should be putting Him on, and we should represent Him to the world around us. The second thing we've seen in what we have to put off and what we have to put on is a checklist of the vices we should put off and the virtues we should put on. Now we see in verse 14 the word virtues is used. The word vices is not used in this passage of scripture, but certainly the list of things that we should put off can be described as vices. Let's look at what we should put off. We see in verse 5 through to verse 9. Put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, which is idolatry. Then it continues in verse 8. We should get rid of these things. And it says they are anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips, and do not lie to each other. There are twelve things listed. Perhaps we should ask the Holy Spirit to convict us of what we are involved in that we should put aside. Many of these words are easily defined, like sexual immorality or lust, or greed. But I'd like to focus on three words which we need to consider. The first is idolatry. That's anything that you place on the same level as God, next to God or above God in your life. Is there anything that you need to put aside that's taking away your focus on Jesus? The other word is malice. Malice can be defined as a desire to harm someone. Do you perhaps wish ill over somebody? And the third word is the word slander. And slander is to damage someone's reputation by making a false statement about them. Are you speaking negative words about somebody else where we shouldn't do that? Gossip and slander are very unhelpful. As I said, there are many things that are easily defined, like filthy language from our lips or lying to others. Are any of these things, any of these vices, present in our lives? Well, here Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, encourages us to put these things aside, to take them off, and to put on our new nature in Christ. Let's look at the list of virtues, and we see these in verse 12 through to verse 15. I'll list them for you. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with each other, forgiving one another, love, peace, and thankfulness. Wow, what a what a contrast to the list of vices. These virtues compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, bearing with others, love, peace, and thankfulness are things that we should cultivate in our lives. These are the virtues that we should put on. These should be hallmarks of a follower of Jesus Christ. The third thing we see in this passage of scripture is how we are transformed. Being a follower of Jesus is not about being the best version of yourself, but rather living a transformed life in Christ. How are we transformed? How are these virtues cultivated in our lives? Well, we see five things in this passage of scripture. And as we look at these, consider that you cannot do these on your own. The first are seen in Colossians chapter 3, verse 1 and 2. Now, this wasn't part of our reading, but it precedes the reading. He says, Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. And then in verse 2, set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. The first thing we should do in order to cultivate a transformed life is to keep our hearts and our minds fixed on Christ, to live with eternal values. The second thing we see is in verse 16, Colossians 3, verse 16, reads this way 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. We see three things there. God's word should dwell in us richly. We should feed ourselves on God's word. Secondly, we should encourage one another, admonish one another. We need to be in community with other believers. And thirdly, that we should sing and worship God, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in our hearts to God. And then finally in verse 17, and 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. We're transformed when we endeavor to live our lives in His name, as His representatives, serving Him and His purposes. So, in conclusion today, we've seen that we should put off the old nature and put on the new nature in Christ. We transformed through relationship with Christ by fixing our hearts and minds on him, by spending time in his word, by spending time in fellowship with other believers, by spending time in worship, and by living our lives in every possible way in his name and for his glory. Let's pray. And as we do, ask the Holy Spirit to show you what he wants you to do as a result of what you've heard in today's sermon. Father God, thank you that you sent your Son Jesus Christ as our substitute and our example, that he paid the price so that we can be set free from the power of sin. But he also lived a life of example that we can follow, and help us to put off the old nature and to put on the new nature in Christ. Help us to live lives of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Help us to bear with each other and forgive one another. Help us to put on the virtue of love and to walk in peace and be thankful. We ask, Lord, that you would convict us by your Holy Spirit of any vice that we need to put aside. Help us by your Holy Spirit to live a life that pleases you. We ask these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen.