Sermons – Grace Evangelical Free Church // Wyoming, MN

Exodus 6:1-27 –
1 But the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”

2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. 6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’” 9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

10 So the Lord said to Moses, 11 “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.” 12 But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” 13 But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh king of Egypt: to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

14 These are the heads of their fathers’ houses: the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi; these are the clans of Reuben. 15 The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman; these are the clans of Simeon. 16 These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the years of the life of Levi being 137 years. 17 The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, by their clans. 18 The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, the years of the life of Kohath being 133 years. 19 The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the clans of the Levites according to their generations. 20 Amram took as his wife Jochebed his father’s sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses, the years of the life of Amram being 137 years. 21 The sons of Izhar: Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri. 22 The sons of Uzziel: Mishael, Elzaphan, and Sithri. 23 Aaron took as his wife Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab and the sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. 24 The sons of Korah: Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph; these are the clans of the Korahites. 25 Eleazar, Aaron’s son, took as his wife one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas. These are the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites by their clans.

26 These are the Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said: “Bring out the people of Israel from the land of Egypt by their hosts.” 27 It was they who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing out the people of Israel from Egypt, this Moses and this Aaron.

Back in early 2023, I decided to preach through the book of Exodus when I have the opportunity to fill the pulpit. This is the seventh sermon on the book. It’s a joy to dig into, study, and preach from this book. The previous six are on our website if you want to read or listen. This morning we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in the narrative of God’s salvific work.

After Jacob and his family sojourn in Egypt during the great famine that Joseph had prophesied would come, the Hebrews found themselves enslaved to the Egyptians. They had groaned under the hand of Egyptian oppression at the end of chapter two. By then, Moses had fled Egypt and was in Midian. But the LORD met him at the burning bush in chapter three and called him to return to his people to bring them out of Egypt. Things were looking up when Moses arrived. The people were eager to believe God was bringing them salvation. But in chapter five, Pharaoh scorned Moses and Aaron’s message from God, and he increased the people’s burden by requiring them not only to make bricks, but also to gather their own straw to make them. In chapter six, the situation for the Hebrews in Egypt was even darker than when their suffering began.

What does God want us to do when our circumstances overwhelm us? What does God’s Word tell us to do? More importantly, what does God do when our circumstances overwhelm us? What will God do? 

Our text this morning has three main sections. The first section is God’s encouragement to Moses in the first five verses. Verses 6-13 are God’s message, and verses 14-27 serve as the authentication of God’s messenger.

In chapter 6, the people of Israel are despondent, having lost faith in God and His servant Moses. Moses came from the wilderness of Midian and claimed to bear a message from God, but his return has only worsened their plight. The daily grind of slave labor has been made even more intolerable. Moses is downcast and dejected. How is it that God sent him to Egypt to deliver Israel, but now they hate him and their situation has gotten worse? In this moment, what seems like their darkest hour, God declares He will act to deliver His people. God will reveal Himself to Israel by fulfilling what He promised their fathers. The people of Israel will know their covenant God through His covenant-keeping. God is faithful, even when Israel cannot see past their circumstances. God keeps his word when Israel forgets. 

The text begins with an encouraging word to the doubting Moses. In verse 1, “the LORD said to Moses, ‘Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” Thus far in Exodus, Moses has brought God’s demand to Pharaoh, but here we see that God is prepared to act upon that demand. God “will do” something to Pharaoh. This sounds ominous, and if you know the rest of the story, it’s even more so. 

But what will God do to Pharaoh? In 3:19-20, God had declared to Moses, at the burning bush, “I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go.” In verse 1, it isn’t clear whose “strong hand” God is referring to. But in the context of the book, it is clear that God is referring to his own “strong hand.” For some reason, the ESV translates the same Hebrew word “mighty” in 3:19, but “strong” in 6:1. We see the same expression used in 13:9, “For with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt.” 

Throughout the book, the thematic power of “the hand” recurs. The signs God gave Moses in chapter 4 were demonstrated through his hand—he casts his staff down from his hand, and it turns into a serpent. Moses uses his hand to pick it up again, and it turns back into a staff. Moses puts his hand into his cloak, and it becomes leprous. He takes it back out, and his hand is no longer leprous. God even commands Moses to take his staff in his hand, because with it, he will do the signs. In 4:20, the staff in Moses’ hand is called “the staff of God.” We are supposed to see the hand of God on display in the hands of Moses. Later, with each plague, someone’s “hand” is always involved—whether it be Moses, Aaron, or God. 

At the end of the previous chapter, we see that the foremen of the people of Israel fear “Pharaoh and his servants” because they believe Moses has “put a sword in their hand to kill” them. The people of Israel feared the wrong hand. They feared men, rather than God. They couldn’t see past the physical hand in front of their eyes. In a similar vein, Moses warns the Israelites in Deuteronomy 8:17, “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’” Scholar Greg Beale says this well, “Regardless of how rampantly evil seems to run and to cause God’s people to suffer, they can know that His hand superintends everything for their good and His glory.”

The New English Translation reads this way, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh, for compelled by my strong hand he will release them, and by my strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” This more accurately describes what is happening. God is now about to use His “mighty hand” promised in 3:19 to compel Pharaoh to do the very thing he has so far refused. Pharaoh will, in fact, resist the hand of the LORD again and again, as God’s hand of judgment brings ten plagues upon Pharaoh’s land.

Matt Nelson’s words from his sermon on Philippians 1:27-30 a few weeks ago come to mind here. He wrote, “Our opponents have no power whatsoever to affect anything. They can only serve as involuntary mediators of sovereign grace. They can’t touch what really matters, they can’t stop Christ from being glorified even in their opposition…” We rightly get frustrated when we witness our own civil rulers resist God by enacting and enforcing wickedness through the force of human law. But we too easily lose sight of the fact that God’s strong hand is behind all civil rulers. It is not that God is committing injustice as civil rulers abuse their office, but that God’s purposes of blessing and curse are at work through every action of every civil ruler. Every civil ruler will be held accountable for how they rule.  We must remember that God is at work and his purposes are never thwarted.

This first word to Moses was meant to encourage him. God has declared that it is He who is at work, and He will do as he had said. He had said He would compel Pharaoh “by a mighty hand,” and He has not forgotten that promise.  

God recognized that Moses and Israel could not see past their circumstances. God recognized their greatest need was to look to Him, not their trouble, not their need. And so God reminds Moses who He is. Notice the fourfold repetition of “I am the LORD” in verses 2, 6, 7, and 8. This is the covenant name of God, Yahweh. God then reminds Moses of five things that He has already done and declares seven things He will do. God is declaring that His people will recognize Him through the fulfillment of His promises. 

In verse 3, God reminds Moses that he had appeared to the patriarchs: “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.” Two names of God are mentioned here. In Hebrew, “God Almighty” is El-Shaddai, and LORD (in all capital letters) is Yahweh. He seems to be saying the patriarchs did not know Him as Yahweh. Commentators disagree on how to understand, or even interpret, this verse. Some argue this is “a very clear statement that the name YHWH had not been used by the patriarchs as a title for God.” Others argue “that the term “Yahweh” was known before, but God is about to give it a new level of meaning through the Exodus.” And then others believe a better translation turns this into a rhetorical question, “and by my name Yahweh, did I not make myself known to them?” I’m not able to, or interested in, settling the disagreement, but it is important to know scholars interpret this difficult verse in many ways. 

Regardless of which position is correct, this moment is significant in covenant history, and God’s covenant name, Yahweh, will become better known as it is wedded to His great covenantal act of redemption. One commentator notes, “This is the first time in Exodus that God says, ‘I am Yahweh’… He had said these words…only twice before, in Gen 15:7 to Abraham and in Gen 28:13 to Jacob, each time in connection with the promise of the land to their descendants. Again here the promise of the land follows.”

All of the verbs in these verses show God is the initiator and doer. God “appeared” to the patriarchs. God “established” his covenant. God promised “to give” them the land. God “heard” their groaning.  And finally, God “remembered” His covenant. God is reminding Moses that He has been there and acting all along, even in Israel’s faithlessness. 

What had been promised long ago to their forefathers is about to be fulfilled. And through this covenant-keeping, Israel will know Yahweh, who brought them out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. (v. 7) He is the LORD.

In these five reminders of what God has done in the past, we are meant to see that God made promises that He will fulfill.

After Moses’ brief history lesson on God’s covenant promises, God gives another list: seven things He will do to fulfill them. This brings us to the second section, verses 6-13, which is God’s message to Israel and Pharaoh. 

were to trust the seven declarations of what He is about to do. This is why history matters. We must remind ourselves of God’s faithfulness and remember that He is still faithful. Like the five actions of God in the previous section, we again find God as the initiator and doer. And so Yahweh commands Moses, “Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will: 

As the five-fold history lesson began, “I am the LORD.” The seven-fold list of promises ends with the same refrain, “I am the LORD.”  God is staking his name and reputation upon His promises. Yahweh is the covenant-keeper, even when His people forget.

The first two promises meant their slavery would be over. No more Egyptian burdens, no more Egyptian slave masters. This is what the people had hoped for when Moses arrived in Egypt, but those hopes were dashed in chapter five.

At the center of those promises is God’s declaration that he would take them “to be my people.” God had called Israel His “firstborn Son” in chapter four, but He would have to redeem them out of slavery to Pharaoh to do so. This redemption would be accomplished “with great acts of judgment”—another ominous bit of foreshadowing.

To be God’s people meant being freed from the burdens of their slave masters—Pharaoh and his servants. Each day they bore their burdens of oppression. 

To be God’s people meant being delivered out of bondage. The burdens of their slavery symbolized the condition of all men. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they had fallen into the bondage of sin and covenanted with the Serpent. They could not deliver themselves from this bondage. They needed a deliverer—someone not subject to their bondage to act as deliverer. They needed someone with divine power. Moses is that man: born an Israelite, adopted as an Egyptian, and a sojourner in Midian; he is God’s given means of deliverance, invested with a divine message, authority, and power. 

To be God’s people meant being redeemed. This redemption is accomplished through the power of God’s “outstretched arm” meeting his people in their weakness and captivity. Later, the Mosaic Law develops this concept and requires “an intermediary to serve as a redeemer.” Israel was to see that only someone outside their situation could save them. God was, and is, that redeemer. Psalm 130 speaks of the need for ongoing redemption, “O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” 

Israel’s redemption was to be accompanied by “great acts of judgment.” God would execute judgment upon Israel’s slave master, Pharaoh. This passage anticipates the ten plagues about to be brought to bear on Pharaoh and all Egypt. God is mighty to save, and He would glorify His name as he executed judgment upon the evildoer.

To be God’s people meant that God would be their God. They would have no other gods before Him. They would make no images to worship. They would not serve idols. They would not serve themselves. They would receive the “steadfast love” of the LORD. (Ex. 20:3:6) God would dwell with them, in their midst. He would meet their high priest in the most holy place of their place of worship. He would bless them, not just by His presence, but pour out his covenant blessings in every aspect of their existence—whether “in the city”, or “in the field.” Their offspring would be blessed, the “fruit of [their] ground,” their cattle, their flocks, their harvest, their “kneading bowl.” God’s blessings would be bountiful and overflowing. (Deut. 28: 1-6) 

To be God’s people meant entering the land God had prepared for them and promised to their fathers. They would receive an inheritance and have a home of their own possession. Israel had never had a land. The patriarchs had sojourned in Canaan, moving from place to place, digging wells, setting up altars, but always looking to the next place. They had settled comfortably for a time in Egypt, while Joseph lived, but that was brief, and that quickly turned into their captivity and slavery. Now, they could look forward to a place of rest. 

Israel knew this history, but they no longer believed it. They no longer trusted in the God of their fathers. Moses brought God’s message to Israel. He “spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.” (v. 9) When Moses had spoken to Israel in 4:29, they had believed him and worshipped God. But not this time. They’d lost patience and lost faith. The covenant-keeping God had been faithful and remained so. But God’s people were not. They had no patience, no faith, no hope. They could not look beyond their circumstances to the God who was greater than them. We have all been there, haven’t we? Israel’s situation was not settled, because God had made promises, and He is the covenant-keeping God. He was going to act. 

God also had a message for Pharaoh: “Let the people of Israel go.” Moses is incredulous. He’s already given this message to Pharaoh, and he’s still smarting from that encounter. Moses complains, “The people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?”

But, as before, God doesn’t accept excuses. He commanded Moses to go to Pharaoh, and Moses had to do it. “But the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh king of Egypt: to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.” (v. 13) So Moses will have to obey, and in chapter 7 we will see Moses go to Pharaoh.

The final section is the genealogy of Moses and Aaron given in the last half of the chapter. Genealogies like this one tend to surprise modern readers. In fact, we often skip over them, or skim them as we read our Bibles, don’t we? But they aren’t just ‘the boring part.’ Like the rest of the Bible, genealogies teach us about God. In this case, they teach us how God ordains family trees to accomplish his redemptive purposes in the world. 

To understand why this genealogy is placed here, we must remember two facts about Moses. Moses came to Egypt as an 80-year-old man, having lived the last forty years of his life in Midian, “claiming to be the man called by God to lead his people.” Second, the man he was claiming to be had lived in luxury, as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, for forty years. How could they know he was truly an Israelite? This selective genealogy demonstrates Aaron and Moses’ authenticity as Israelites of the tribe of Levi. We see this emphasis in verse 26, “These are the Aaron and Moses to whom the LORD said: Bring out the people of Israel from the land of Egypt by their hosts.” Genealogical legitimacy is a significant theme throughout the Bible—especially in Levitical genealogies—because of the requirements for serving in the priesthood.

A few comments on the genealogy are in order. This is not a comprehensive genealogy. Only the three oldest sons of Jacob are mentioned: Reuben, Simeon, and Levi. Reuben and Simeon’s sons are mentioned, and none past that first generation. Verse 15 is another of the blemishes in the genealogical record of the seed of Abraham—where Shaul is said to be “the son of a Canaanite woman.”  The genealogy of Jesus has similar blemishes. None of us has spotless family trees. Many of us are born into far more difficult circumstances.  We should be encouraged. God is a redeemer—He restores, heals, and sets right. As the saying goes, ‘God draws straight lines with crooked sticks’. 

Levi, Jacob’s third son, is the focus of attention, with several generations of sons named. More specifically, verse 26 states that this genealogy is given to authenticate the Israelite—and more specifically, Levitical—heritage of Moses and Aaron. The three sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, will become increasingly important in Exodus as each tribal house is given specific priestly duties. Moses and Aaron were born for ‘such a time as this.’ God ordained their entire family history so they would be positioned to enact God’s redemptive purposes for God’s covenant people. His choosing them had nothing to do with them personally. Moses is an excuse-maker who didn’t want to be there. But God’s plans are bigger than any man’s weaknesses. 

You may also notice that Moses’ father, Amram, married his aunt. According to this genealogy, Moses is both Levi’s grandson and great-grandson. This kind of marital union will later be forbidden in Leviticus 18:12. But the law had not been established at this time, so it is not yet prohibited.

The genealogy ends with Phinehas, son of Aaron. He, too, will play a pivotal role in the years to come. But again, the lineage of Moses and Aaron, right in the middle of this genealogy, is particularly important. God had ordained both to perform God’s mighty acts in front of Pharaoh, Egypt, and all Israel to deliver the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt and deliver them to the LORD. This genealogy acts as a stamp of approval and authentication to their ministry. They are God’s appointed servants to speak to Pharaoh.

One final observation on the genealogy. The genealogy is introduced at the beginning of Moses’s ministry as Israel’s deliverer. Both Matthew and Luke give the genealogy of Jesus, the greater Moses, in the early chapters of their gospels as Jesus is about to begin his ministry of deliverance.

Praise God for genealogies! Read them. Make observations. Don’t skip them!

The Bible is given to us for our instruction, and so we must always ask, “What does this mean for Christians today?” The Exodus was thousands of years ago, yet it still holds lessons for us. 

Moses and all of Israel were in crisis. Moses and all Israel were at enmity with one another, and they were even more oppressed than before Moses had intervened on their behalf. But in this darkest of hours, God remained faithful.

God staked His name on His covenant-keeping. He had made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He would fulfill them. He bound up the knowledge of Himself with their redemption. Verse 7 is the heart of this passage: “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

God is always the initiator, the doer. This covenant-keeping fulfillment is the great movement in history. God’s promise to Israel, to “be their God,” is a common refrain throughout the Bible—especially the Old Testament. It is usually coupled with the phrase you “shall be my people.” This is the Bible’s great promise—that though men have worshipped other gods and estranged themselves from the true God, there is a way back! 

The seven promises God made to Israel regarding their salvation from slavery were meant to show forth the need of all men for a savior while demonstrating God’s faithfulness to accomplish salvation for His chosen people. In this seven-fold act of salvation for Israel, we see ourselves and our Savior.

The burdens the Israelites bore were a physical display of the way in which they, and all men, are oppressed by the burden of our own sin—in which we can find no rest, no relief. Is that you today? Does the burden of your own sin still rest upon you? Does it not feel intolerable?

All men, like Israel, are in bondage. Israel was in bondage to a tyrannical king, but all men are enslaved to their own tyrannical nature, from which there is no escape. Human nature is such that we can do naught else but serve our own lusts and desires, even to our own destruction. We need someone not subject to that enslavement to deliver us. Do you remain upon the path of destruction?

We need a redeemer—someone mighty to save! We need someone strong and faithful to take us out of that bondage and give us a new nature. We need to be born again! As Israel’s redemption was to be accompanied by “great acts of judgment,” so too was ours. At the cross, Jesus “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” (Col. 2:15) “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:54b-55)

Christians are God’s people because the Lord Jesus Christ has saved us, as he saved Israel. By his blood, Jesus “ransomed people for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and…made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” (Rev. 5:9-10) 

We have also been given a new nature and new spirit. God’s own Spirit dwells within us. We have been united with our redeemer, Jesus Christ. We are not our own.

Like Israel, who was to enter into a land of their own, we have been promised an eternal inheritance in the new heavens and earth, dwelling in the presence of the LORD. This inheritance is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven” for us. (1 Peter 1:4)

In the Apostle John’s heavenly vision in Revelation 21:3, he writes, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”

God has made himself known to us in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus has done a far greater work of redemption than God promised the Israelites. Jesus has delivered us from the greatest of enslavements: our own sin. He has redeemed us with arms outstretched at the cross—the greatest act of judgment—justice for the enormity of human sin. We are God’s people—possessing His Spirit within us. He has given us more than a piece of land; He has ushered his heavenly kingdom onto earth as the down payment of the new heavens and new earth that He will one day establish here forever as our possession.

Just as Israel was to trust God because of what He had promised and done, we can trust God for what He has done through Jesus Christ. Christ “died for the ungodly.” (Rom. 5:6) He “rose from the dead.” (Acts 10:41) He ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9), and he is “seated at the right hand of God.” (Col. 3:1) We know all these things to be true. We have a great many more promises that God has made to us in Christ. Trust those promises and know they will be kept. “The LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.” (Deut. 7:9)

When you feel as though you are walking in the valley of the shadow of death, remember God is with you. His rod and his staff comfort you. (Ps. 23:4) Let’s remember the words of Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

The Israelites suffered immensely under Pharaoh’s hand. But God was at work, and his deliverance was sure. They were to trust God and be patient as He redeemed them. We have already been redeemed. Let us “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) and patiently trust God’s promises, for He is our covenant-keeping God who will be our God and we, His people. Look past your circumstances at God, who is faithful, who is working all things for your good and His glory.

2 Peter 1:3-7 –
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to[a] his own glory and excellence,[b] 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue,[c] and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love..

Have you ever noticed how busy Home Depot and Menards are?  Recently I made several trips to Menards and found the parking lot full of cars.  Why is that?  People, including myself, are constantly fixing or restoring their houses.  Sometimes it is out of necessity, but sometimes it is done out of sheer delight in taking something broken and in disrepair and making it brand new.  Who doesn’t cheer when an old house is remodeled, or an old classic car is transformed from a rust buckle to a thing of beauty.

This is even more true spiritually.  When God saves you, you are forgiven, you have the gift of eternal life, but He also begins changing you, and renewing you, and equipping you to live a life filled with Christlike character for the praise of His glory.

Salvation is far more than just a ticket to heaven.   If you think salvation is merely a ticket to heaven that frees you to live however you want here in this lifetime, you don’t fully understand the Gospel. If God chose to give you saving faith, you must understand that His saving grace also produces godliness.  God’s grace restores you and renews you.  And, praise God, He has given Christians all that they need to grow in Christ-likeness.   

We begin today with Verse 3, but verse 3 is a continuation of the sentence started in verse 2.  Verse 2:  “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord…”.  God wants you to grow.

Peter had good reason to express this prayer or desire for his hearers.  God has given you all you need to grow.  Verse 3 has a particle that is not translated in the ESV, but it’s understood from the context;  “as”, or “because”.  And so, this is how it should read:   May grace and peace be multiplied (main verb) to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord…” (BECAUSE) “…His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,  Whose Divine power is being spoken of here?  This verse is pointing to Jesus.  Verse 1 gives crystal clear teaching on the deity of Jesus when it refers to “our God and Savior Jesus Christ”.  There is one article there, which means Peter is referring to one person when he references God and Jesus.  Jesus is God.  But then in verse 2 there are two articles, “in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord”, which means he is referring to two persons—God the Father and God the Son.

So now, when we come to verse 3, which is a continuation of the same sentence started in verse 2, we read “His divine power”.  Whose divine power?  In this case, Jesus our Lord is the nearest antecedent.  Also, II Peter 1:16 refers to the power of the Lord Jesus Christ being revealed.  And the power of Jesus our Lord is most likely a reference to His power to reclaim lost sinners unleashed through His death and resurrection (and not His intrinsic power by virtue of His deity).   Romans 1:4 says this about Jesus:  “(He) was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead…”  

So, this power of Jesus—the redeeming power that is His through the resurrection from the dead—gives you all things that pertain to or are needed for life and godliness.  The word for life here speaks of the spiritual life that we have been given in Christ.  We were spiritually dead—but Jesus gave us spiritual life.  This is why good fruit grows in the life of a Christian.  Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches.  And when the branches are attached to the vine, or have life in the vine, they will produce fruit.  This divine power has given to you everything you need to have a fruitful spiritual life.  

This divine power also gives you everything you need for Godliness.  What is godliness?  It’s a life of Godward devotion; born of faith, it’s a way of everyday life and conduct that honors God as our Creator and Redeemer.  Jerry Bridges says its “Godward devotion”, and it’s a “devotion in action”—a devotion to God—like Enoch who walked with God and pleased God.

Jerry Bridges also says:  “NO higher compliment can be paid to a Christian than to call him a godly person. He might be a conscientious parent, a zealous church worker, a dynamic spokesman for Christ, or a talented Christian leader; but none of these things matters if, at the same time, he is not a godly person.”

And so, if you are godly, your heart beats after God and the way you live reflects that.  The power that raised Jesus from the dead, the power that breathed life into your spiritually dead bones, is the power that gives you everything you need for godliness

This is important to remember so that you know you can grow and change.  By grace through faith, you are counted as righteous before God.  But you are also in the process of becoming in experience who you are positionally in Christ.   You are growing in righteousness.  That means you are not there yet in your walk with God.  The Spirit exposes sin in your lives.  He humbles you.  He causes you to have a broken and contrite heart over your own sin.  You are thankful that the shed blood of Jesus has washed away your guilt.  But here you are reminded, and we need this reminder, that His divine power has also given you everything you need for godliness.  That means you can grow and change.

But this verse also teaches us that we must look to Jesus for the help to change.  Jesus has the answer and the help for your fear, anxiety, worry, depression, pride, self-centeredness, bitterness, impatience, lust, sexual immorality, drunkenness, and any sin or substance that might enslave you.  No one, absolutely NO ONE, is more qualified and able and willing to help you with the problems of life than Jesus.  

Verse 3 continues… “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who has called you to His own glory and excellence.”    

Douglas Moo says this knowledge of Him is:  “an intimate and informed relationship that is the product of conversion to the gospel”.  So, you have been given all you need for life and godliness through a relationship with Jesus that is built upon His Truth revealed in the Gospel.  

Sometimes what people think about God doesn’t come from the Bible.  Sometimes people have put their trust in a “gospel” they have concocted in their own minds, or they have been wrongly taught.  

A true relationship with God will only come through hearing and believing the Gospel as it is taught in the Bible.  And the good news is that God has taken the initiative to reveal Himself and His Gospel to us through the Living Word, Jesus, and the written Word, the Bible.

In fact, verse 3 says: Jesus called you to His own glory and excellence.  We have an intimate and informed relationship with Jesus because He has called us to His own glory and excellence.  This means that He chose you and then drew you to Himself.  And He did this so you can see and enjoy Him in all His beauty—His own glory and excellence.  Jesus is the beautiful manifestation of the person of God.  Jesus’ life is filled with moral excellence or virtue—it’s the uncommon character that is worthy of praise

Second Peter exposes the ugliness of False Teachers and False teaching.  Chapter 2 is filled with judgment and condemnation that comes upon those who believe and practice falsehood and lies.  Its sobering.  But here in verse 3 we are reminded that Jesus has called us—He has enabled us—He has given to us eyes to see and hearts to believe and enjoy Him in all His glory and excellence.  That’s a blessing.  That’s God’s rich and lavish grace!

And Peter had prayed “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord”.  I want you to see and savor more and more the beauty and worth of Jesus.

And it’s this glory and excellence—it’s the beautiful and breathtaking character of Jesus our Lord that has given you His precious and very great promises.  Verse 4 literally reads: “…by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises…” 

Flowing out of His glory and excellence are His precious and very great promises.  What are some of those precious and very great promises?

These precious and very great promises are given to you because

Jesus our Lord wants you to be like Him in character.  Verse 4 continues  “…so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature…” .  Becoming partakers of the divine nature doesn’t mean you become God; you will not become omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent.  These character traits are incommunicable.  They belong to God alone.  You will never become a deity.  You will always, now and in eternity, be a creature who worships your Creator and Redeemer.  That will never change.

What does change is that you can expect to see growing in your life Christ-like character.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control will become more a part of how you live.  You will put to death sin, and live pure and righteous lives.  If you are alive in Jesus, you will become sweeter and sweeter in this life.  This is the result of His power that has given you all you need for life and godliness through a knowledge of Him who has called you to His own glory and excellence—FOR THE PURPOSE OF BECOMING MORE AND MORE CHRIST-LIKE IN CHARACTER.  Please understand that God’s grace in you is meant to produce godliness in you.

The end of verse 4 also tells us that Jesus our Lord has rescued you from corruption: “…having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”  Without Jesus’ work in your life, your life, your very being, is caught in a way of life that will bring about corruption—or moral decay.  Without Jesus as your Savior and Lord, sin enslaves you.  Sin is your master. You are held captive to sin.  And sin leads to moral decay in your being.  And the end of that road is judgment and eternal damnation.

But Jesus rescued you from sin.  In Jesus you are set free from the power of sin.  In Jesus you are renewed and restored.  You are made new.  You are made to be what God created you to be in the first place:  lovers of God and lovers of people.

And because of all that, God expects you to make every effort to Grow.  Verse 5 says “For this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue…”  The phrase “make every effort” is really loaded.  Literally, this verse says “be earnestly committed to fulfill your obligation /to put forth your very best effort /to provide something in addition to what already exists”.  You won’t grow spiritually if you don’t make every effort to grow spiritually.  

Now, we must remember that sanctification is the work of God in which believers co-operate (Berkhof).  Your sanctification is only possible because of God’s work in your life—and He has given you everything you need for your sanctification.  And in faith, trusting His power at work in your, you make every effort to grow.  

Have you ever wondered why some people in the church don’t seem to grow?  It’s not because God doesn’t want them to grow.  It’s not because God hasn’t given them everything they need to grow.  It’s because they have not made every effort to grow spiritually.  And it might not be because they aren’t very hard workers in other areas of their life.  They might work extremely hard to be successful and fulfilled in their work—but they might be very lazy when it comes to growing spiritually.  

Verses 5-7 say “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”

This type of list is common in the NT.  There are other lists similar to this list.  There is certainly overlap, but they aren’t the same.  No one list is complete.  But taken together they help us see a panoramic view of God’s beauty that He wants to grow in you.  

There were a couple of times on my travels to Romania that I stood at one spot and just marveled at the beauty of the land—and one single snapshot would just not suffice to capture all of the beauty.  And so, I would take a panoramic picture, which would give you a view of MORE of the land’s beauty.  That is how it is with these lists.  One list is like a single snapshot.  All the lists together are like a panoramic view of God’s character that He wants to grow in you.  Other lists include things like I Corinthians 13, which teaches us the character of Christ-like love.  Romans 5:3-5 describes character that is produced in our lives through suffering.  Galatians 5:22-23 lists fruit we can expect to grow in our lives if we walk in step with the Spirit.  

But for now, here in verses 5-7, Peter gives us his list of qualities that are strung together:  supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with steadfastness, and so on.  It’s not intended to be strictly sequential—because the lists in the NT as a whole are not all the same.  But often, as here, these qualities do begin with faith, and end with love.  

And by necessity, it must begin with…

Faith:  (which is) a gift from God that leads you to trust in the Gospel of Jesus Christ for salvation.  This word here can also be used to speak of our faithfulness and reliability.  And certainly, a fruit of trusting in the Gospel will be our faithfulness and reliability.  But here it seems best, because its first on the list, and because Peter already drew our attention to the gift of saving faith in verse 1, I think that saving faith is the primary focus.  

You don’t ever want to assume someone’s salvation.  You can never ever make a dead sinner produce beautiful spiritual fruit in their lives for the glory of God.  We must make the Gospel be of first importance—this is true for parents as we disciple our children, and its true for disciple-making in a broader scope.  The qualities we will talk about today can only grow in the life of a person who has been born again.  Sometimes we get discouraged because our children or the people within the church that we are disciplining never seem to grow and mature spiritually.  Well, sometimes sin is just stubborn.  And we need to be patience and longsuffering.  But sometimes it might be because they aren’t born again—it may be because they are not living by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.   Sometimes its only through experiences, honestly evaluated, that a person comes to understand that though they said all the right words, they really were trusting all along in their own works and not in Christ.

Spiritual Maturity starts with faith—which is a gift from God that leads you to trust in the Gospel of Jesus Christ for salvation.

But Peter is quick to say, make every effort to supplement your faith with…

Virtue:  uncommon moral excellence like that found in Jesus Christ.  Read through the Gospels and pay attention to what you learn about the character of Jesus.  This is the virtue that you should live by.  Jesus was passionate about seeing His Father glorified.  Jesus was filled with compassion when He looked at the crowd and saw a people that were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Jesus spoke the Truth in love.  Jesus was gentle.  Jesus was courageous.  Jesus was sacrificial.  He endured being mistreated so He could do His Father’s will.  All—uncommon moral excellence that was praiseworthy.

Grow in virtue, and add to that…

Knowledge:  the ability to know and conform to God’s revealed will for your life.  Because God has revealed Himself, and how He wants you to live, in the BIBLE, you must be a person that knows the Bible.  Psalm 1 is what should be growing in you:  Blessed is the man…who delights in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.  Do you know what it is like to speak, and no one listen?  It is not good.  That’s why parents teach their children to be attentive to them.  That’s why husbands learn to carve out time to understand what is happening in the life of their wife.  How much more must we be a people who listens to God—He speaks through the Bible, and so, for the Christian, there is no shortcut, we must read the Bible.  We must understand the Bible.  We must be students of the Bible.  We must be hungry for the Bible. But we must also then obey the Bible.  We must not be just hearers of the Word only, but doers of the Word.

Grow in knowledge, and add to that…

Self-control:  having power over one’s emotions, impulses, and desires; controlling the body and its desires rather than being controlled by them; its keeping in step with the Spirit.  I like what Tim Pasma told his young grandsons at breakfast as they were getting prepared for church here in Merton:  Boys—listen to me—remember, you don’t have to say the first thing that pops into your head.  Think before you speak.  Think and pray and seek counsel before you make decisions.  Being impulsive can lead to a lot of hurt and regret.  I remember one time, as a boy, Dad would let us take turns driving our old 1951 Ford pickup truck around the farm.  It was lots of fun—but I lost my privilege to drive one evening because I impulsively (and carelessly) turned into a narrow path.  

Grow in self-control, and add to that…

Steadfastness:  the capacity to hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty; its an ability to continue in the faith, resisting the pressures to quit; not giving up, not because of a stoic quality but because of what springs from faith and hope in God.

Grow in steadfastness, and add to that…

Godliness:  a devotion to God that shows up in how you live your life.  It’s a love for God, and when we love God, we obey God.  Its not just an external façade.  It’s a genuine desire of our heart to build our lives around what God wants and deserves because we love Him—and we love Him because He first loved us.

Grow in godliness, and add to that…

Brotherly affection:  warmth and affection for those with whom you have much in common (i.e. fellow believer in Christ).  One commentator noted that we are never commanded to have brotherly affection—not because its not important, but because it happens naturally with those with whom you have some affinity.  If you like someone, you will more naturally have a brotherly affection for them. 

Agape love, however, we are commanded to have.  

Love:  warmth, affection, and (also) sacrificial giving for the good of others, everyone, even our enemies, as God in Christ loved us and met our greatest need.

When we grow in love (agape), we live our lives, not just wanting to get from other people (respect, love, recognition, worth, etc.)—but we live our lives thinking of what’s best for others, we give to others for their good, we even sacrificially give to help them see and know and enjoy God’s love more and more.

Application:

Philippians 2:1-11 –
 1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Good morning, it’s my privilege and honor to be able to open up God’s Word to you today.  We’ll be looking at the first eleven verses of Philippians chapter two.  I’d like to ask you if you have any specific passages of scripture that have had a significant impact on your life?  For me this is one of those passages. 

The summer after my sophomore year of college I had the opportunity to serve as a counselor at a camp in North Carolina called the Wilds, and the book that we studied as a camp staff was the book of Philippians.  The title or theme for the staff was “Unity through Humility”.  So I’m borrowing that title for today’s sermon.  When Matt and I were going through elder training with Dave and we got to the sermon part. Dave asked us to pick what passage we wanted to preach from and I knew right away I wanted to preach from Philippians.  The problem was Matt picked first and he said Philippians so I had to pivot and do the next logical passage from Philippians which was turning to the book of Judges and preaching on the life of Gideon.  It truly is my honor to be able to open up what I believe to be the passage that most sums up how we are to live and walk as believers.  

Last week in Philippians 1:27:30 Matt fleshed out our heavenly citizenship and earthly citizenship.  This is a quote from his sermon last week. “Earthly citizenship is in a dependent relationship with heavenly citizenship.  Though ultimately citizens of the greater kingdom that is Christ’s, a life of fidelity to the gospel means being exemplary citizens of Caesar’s kingdom as well.  The Philippians are truly earthly citizens. Their Christian citizenship informs and orients them to their earthly citizenship. Christian neighbors and citizens are to be the best neighbors and citizens.” 

In our passage this week my desire is that we build off of what Matt fed us last week because of our heavenly citizenship this is how we will act.  We as Christians and fellow church members are called to live in unity and serve one another.  This only comes through hearts that are humble.  Paul calls us to have the mind of Christ.  Someone who lived in glory but left to come to earth and take on the form of a servant and being in human form He humbled Himself to death, even death on a cross.  We are called to live like this, to be “carpet-minded” to live in the reality that it is a privilege to be called to serve like Christ served, and to live in light of that.   

To start I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.  If you had all the power in the world what would you do with it?  Second, I’d like you to think about what  it means to you to be humble?  If someone told you to be humble, what does that look like to you?  I have the opportunity to coach each of my boys in flag football and we had our first games yesterday.  There were lots of touchdowns scored and jubilant little boys telling me that they were unstoppable and that I needed to just keep giving them the ball.  Maybe some humility yet to be learned.

This is the dictionary definition of humility:

As defined by Merriam-Webster, humility is the state of being humble. Rather than self-deprecation or thinking less of yourself, true humility means thinking of yourself less. It shifts focus away from the ego and toward recognizing the value, needs, and contributions of others.

With all that being said let’s dig into our text.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

This section of four verses is one long sentence in Greek.  The sentence has an “if” (2:1)/”then” (2:2ab) structure, which is followed by a series of attitudes and actions showing  how the Philippian believers are to live out the main idea of the section.  Which is in order for Paul to experience fullness of joy, the Christians of Philippi must be unified (2:2ab). 

Paul is not doubting whether these things that he’s listed are realities in Christ, what he is driving at is, are these things evident in the lives of the Philippian believers?  This is why he uses the conditional wording of “if” these are there “then” you should be doing this!  If you’re not, the church is going to have disunity and not be able to be, one, a blessing to its members, but two, if its members are in a place of disunity they won’t be able to have  an effective ministry to the community they live in as a body of believers.  

In the first verse the Greek word paraklesis, that is translated as encouragement here, can also be translated as exhortation. Maybe in my mind exhortation is a stronger word for calling fellow believers towards this, because you’re in Christ be pursuing the things of Christ!  

In verse two, he is reminding them you have the same love, it’s the love that Christ has for you, it’s the love that I, Paul, have for you and it’s the same love that you should have for each other.  The love of Christ that binds and constrains all fellow believers together. He then emphasizes or exhorts them to have the same mind.  This is not to say that he’s calling them to be robots that have this intellectual uniformity; no rather he is calling upon them to use their unique God-given gifts in an agreeable and cooperative way with the end goal of bringing glory and praise to God almighty.  

In verse three, Paul exhorts the believers at Philippi to not allow their own selfish ambition or vain conceit to rule their actions but he says “in humility count others as more significant than yourselves”.  The selfish ambition here is the same word eritheia  that is used in chapter 1:17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment”.  Here it is used to describe the poor intentions of Paul’s enemies but in relation to the Philippian believers it is used for party squabbles or petty conceits. In our words we might translate it as “quarrelsomeness” however that doesn’t necessarily convey the hint of self-seeking which the word contains.  In Philippians 4:2 Paul speaks to a specific case of disagreement in the church.  Philippians 4:2-3 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. We don’t know what the disagreement was about with these ladies, maybe one preferred Costco and one preferred Sam’s Club for the kitchen supplies.  Maybe one of the ladies felt that the other was getting more recognition than her for the labor that she was doing.  We don’t know what the disagreement was over but Paul is exhorting them to agree in the Lord and asking others in the church to come alongside and assist with reconciliation.  

The only way hearts can be softened to the point of burying the hatchet, as Paul is calling these believers to do, is a work of the Lord on their hearts.  Part of these fellow believers assisting with reconciliation is they themselves having humble hearts, recognizing something in a fellow believer and taking it to the Lord in prayer before addressing it with the quarrelsome parties.

In my own life, God dealt with me on this at a pretty young age about having jealousy in my heart and the need for humility.  My brother and I loved sports, I wouldn’t even say one was our favorite over the other.  Probably whatever we were playing at the time was our favorite.  I was a fairly good athlete but my brother Jonathan was special.  He could do things at a very early age that my coordination level didn’t allow me to do.  One such instance that so clearly sticks out in my mind was when we were playing grade school football and Jon was playing QB.  He takes the snap, fakes the handoff and rolls to his left, spins out of a would-be tackler and throws a 30 yard rope across his body to a backside post route for a touchdown.  I was so proud of my brother at that moment but then I had a coach look at me and say your brother’s amazing, why aren’t you doing that?  In my heart I knew he was right, I could throw like that but I sure couldn’t have made that spin move.  There was jealousy in my heart of the gifts God had bestowed on Jonathan. I knew it too, at bed time that night I was rather stoic.  My mom knew something was wrong, she was able to drag it out of me.  Praise God for one, a Godly mom, but in that moment also acting as an older sister in Christ who pointed me to the fact that I was fearfully and wonderfully made and I should not be jealous of my brother for God giving him different gifts than myself.  When we were in high school Jonathan was lighting up the scoreboard in basketball and our coach asked me if it bothered me that he was better than me, I looked at him and responded no I’m so proud to be his brother.  Thankfully God had done a work in my heart and my response was being genuinely proud of my brother.

Can jealousy creep into our hearts easily Grace if we’re not guarding them?  Can we become jealous of other’s gifts?  Maybe as an elder I’m jealous of the gifts the Lord has given to the other elders?  Grace, we must protect our hearts and do what the end of verse three says, “and in humility count others as more significant than ourselves”, and then in verse four, “look not only to our own interests but also to the interests of others”.  We cannot in and of ourselves do this, we must be praying and asking the Lord to grant us hearts that are humble.  Grace, may we be granted hearts like that of King Saul’s son Jonathan.  By all accounts in man’s eyes the kingdom should’ve been inherited by Jonathan, being Saul’s oldest son.  God chose differently and He decided to give the kingdom to a young man named David.  As jealousy overwhelmed his father Saul’s heart, Jonathan loved David as his brother and did everything he could to protect who he saw as the Lord’s chosen king of Israel.  What a testimony Grace.  

As I read and reflect on these first four verses of Philippians 2 I cannot help but feel a tension arise up.  Because of my own sinful wretchedness, how can I do any of these things that Paul is exhorting us towards?  If I think about this in relation to just my marriage, let alone any other relationships, I fall so far short.  You know, timing it up that just as the baby poops I conveniently have something else I need to do so I pass them off to my wife to change the diaper.  Or maybe I conveniently volunteer to help a kid with something so I don’t have to walk the trash all the way to the end of the driveway the night before trash day.  Paul has exhorted us thus far, that we be of one mind, united by love, and humility, and looking out for the interests of others.  How can I do this?  How can I be humble?

Martin Loyd-Jones said it this way: A friend was asking me the other day, “How can I be humble?”  He felt there was pride in him, and he wanted to know how to get rid of it.  He seemed to think that I had some patent remedy and could tell him, “Do this, that, and the other and you will be humble.”  I said, “I have no method or technique. I can’t tell you to get down on your knees and believe in prayer because I know you will soon be proud of that.  There’s only one way to be humble, and that is to look into the face of Jesus Christ;  you cannot be anything else when you see him.”  That is the only way.  Humility is not something you can create within yourself; rather, you look at him, you realize who He is and what He has done, and you are humbled.”

This is exactly what Paul moves to next, he says look at Jesus and realize who He is and what He has done, and you will be humbled. In verse five he says, “have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus”.  What is that mind?  When I spent that summer at camp, the final message of the week of staff training was preached by the camp director and he referred to this as being carpet-minded.  He opened the message by telling us that we would not be able to be effective as counselors unless our hearts were humble and willing to serve our campers by allowing them to wipe their feet on us like a piece of carpet.  Just as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ washed his disciples feet. 

Paul has given us in verse five the call to have the mind of Christ, in verses six through eight the example of Christ making Himself low, the celebration of His humiliation, in verses nine through eleven we will see the response from God and the celebration of His exaltation of Christ.

In verse six, Paul declares that Christ though He was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.  Christ is in glory with the Father, in Colossians 1:16-20 Paul speaking about Christ states that by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church.  He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.  For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.

This Christ the last Adam, unlike the first Adam who in Genesis 3:5 listens to the serpent and desires to be like God, the last Adam does not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but what does He do? 

Verse seven, He empties Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  Second Corinthians 8:9 says For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.  

Christ not only gives up His privileges to come to earth and be born as a man, but He comes to earth and is born in a barn.  We sometimes in our western world glaze over this fact and romanticize the barn by picturing this perfectly clean place with fresh cut hay and the animals all gathered around mooing and baaing soft lullabies to Jesus.  Grace, I don’t know how many barns you have been in but they are about the most distant place from which I would desire to see my children be born into but yet this is the place where the Son of God is born.  The family that He is born into is a poor family. We know this from His parents bringing two pigeons or turtledoves to offer as sacrifice after Jesus is born.  The law allowed this for families that were too poor to offer a lamb in sacrifice.   Make no mistake Jesus is not born into a family of affluence, He is raised the son of a poor carpenter but because of His love for sinful mankind He humbly  comes to live as such.  It is remarkable enough that Christ, the Son of God would humble Himself and take on human form but what is described next in verse eight should drive us to our knees in humble adoration.

Being found in human form He humbled Himself by becoming obedient unto death, even death on the cross.  Death on a cross was reserved for the worst of the worst criminals, the lowest way to die.  In his commentary on Philippians, Ralph Martin says this, “Death on a cross must be understood from two points of view.  It would have special meaning for the Christian readers who were resident in a Roman city where revulsion against this form of capital punishment would be strong. This cruel and most hideous form of punishment is the way it is described by Cicero, who expresses his feelings about crucifixion as follows: Far be the very name of a cross, not only from the body, but even from the thought, the eyes, the ears of Roman citizens.  It will also be remembered that the writer here Paul was a Jew to whom death by Roman crucifixion came under the rubric of Deuteronomy 21:23 and meant that the victim was outside the pale of Israel, and that he was under a ban of excommunication from God’s covenant.  It was this thought which proved the stumbling block of the cross to the Jew; but to Paul the Christian, it became the very nerve center of his doctrine of the cross and reconciliation.”  Jesus was obedient not just to death but to even the lowness of dying on a cross.  How can I be proud when my Savior set this example for me?

Verses nine through eleven then is the celebration of the exaltation of Christ, the head of us Grace.  Listen to this, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Because of His obedience Christ is exalted, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He who stooped so low is now lifted up to the glorious rank of equality with God!  The enjoyment of that dignity that was ever His by right but He had never clung to as His personal possession.  His elevation is due to the submission and sacrifice of His earthly life and specifically relates to His Lordship as King of the universe.  

I touched briefly on being carpet-minded earlier in the sermon.  When this passage was preached during that staff training my heart was smote by that.  One of the things we had to do as counselors was write a cabin cheer and do that with our campers during the week.  To this point I could not think of a more dumb thing to do.  I couldn’t see how this was going to point kids’ hearts to the gospel and I had said as much to the program director.  When this passage was preached though it was the first thing I thought of.  I bowed my head and prayed to the Lord and said if loving my campers well means doing these cheers I’ll do it.  

Men, Husbands, Dad’s what are areas you’re holding onto and refusing to serve and love in?  When you come home from work and your kids come barreling out the door to come play with you how do you respond?  Are their interests higher than yours?  Does your interest in resting on the couch win over the interest of your children’s desire to play with you?  Maybe your wife doesn’t seem to reciprocate your actions to her so you stop serving and loving her.  She doesn’t love me back. Why should I do that for her?  Do we forget that the command to love our wives isn’t contingent on her actions?

Ladies, Wives, Moms, have your children so frustrated you that you forget to love them as Christ loves you in the midst of your failures?  Do you joyfully and humbly submit to your husbands even when he’s being a schmuck and doesn’t deserve it but you do it because the Bible commands it?  Are you tending to the interests of your family above your interests?

Kids, do you obey your parents in the Lord for this is right?  Even when what they’re asking of you seems so unfair but you do it because it’s what the Lord asks of you?

For us all, God is not a grasper but a Giver, He gave His only begotten Son that we may have eternal life.  How are we living as a church?  Is your first thought when coming to church the interests of others?  How may I give of myself today to the body?  How may I be a piece of carpet to my brothers and sisters in Christ?  Grace may we have eyes that are fully fixed on Jesus on who He is and what He has done for us and may that stir up hearts that are truly humble and desirous to serve one another.  

Philippians 1:27-30 –
27 Only let your manner of life be worthy[h] of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. 29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, 30 engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

In Acts chapter 16, Luke recounts the birth of the Philippian church when the Lord opened the hearts of a few Jewish women gathered for sabbath prayer by the river outside Philippi. Subsequently, he and his companion Silas were arrested for advocating anti-Roman customs. The crowds cried out against them, “the magistrates tore their garments off them”, they were “beaten with rods”, “[thrown] into prison”, and “fastened with stocks” (vs. 19-24). In prison, perhaps Paul reflected how this was not the romantic outcome he had imagined after seeing the vision of the Macedonian man calling for help (v. 9). 

And yet – undoubtedly fatigued, feeling the smart of evolving bruises, aching in their joints, and stained with dried blood – remarkably, that night Paul and Silas sat praying and singing hymns together. Just then, an earthquake erupted that miraculously opened all the prison doors and loosed the bonds of all the prisoners. Because of this uncanny event, and the conspicuous faith of Paul and Silas, the jailer was overcome by the fear of God. Eagerly, he brought his whole family to hear Paul’s message. Upon hearing the gospel, they believed, and were baptized. 

The following day the magistrates came cowering in fear to release Paul and Silas. Why the change of heart? Because they realized “they [had] beaten… publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens”  (v. 37). 

The letter before us comes something like 10 years after this initial encounter between Paul and what became the church at Philippi. Paul refers here to the affectionate partnership they’ve shared in his gospel ministry since that day. He reminds them in 4:16 how they have been exceptionally faithful, giving to his needs “time and again”. He writes this letter on the heels of receiving yet another personal gift while he is again imprisoned for proclaiming Christ. Paul tells them he holds them in his heart, yearning for them with all “the affection of Christ Jesus” because they have been partakers, partners, standing with him in his “imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel” (1:7-8). 

You can find the prior three Philippians sermons where I addressed the first 26 verses of his letter on our website by clicking on Sermons and then on Philippians. In 1 through 11 the imprisoned Paul reflected on their shared past. In verse 12 through the first half of verse 18 he considered his present circumstances. And in the latter half of verse 18 through verse 26, he contemplated his future, making it clear that his greatest hope wasn’t in any outcome, but that Christ should be honored in his body. 

In his greetings and personal update Paul modeled a response to suffering that highlights the worth of Christ and the unrivaled desirability of whatever gets us more of Him. This was not arbitrary. Philippians is more than a thank you note and a theology lesson. All of that was written to present an example to the Philippian church, who were also suffering for the sake of Christ. Which is why he tells them in verse 30, “[you are] engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had, and now hear that I still have”. He was teeing up to deliver the exhortation found in verse 27. 

Although Paul exhorts them to “behave as citizens worthy of the gospel of Christ” (v. 27), he doesn’t give the how-to yet. Here he merely tells us what it looks like. The mindset and actions characterizing gospel-worthy life are unpacked in 2:1-18. Next week Mark will take a turn in Philippians, preaching the first half of that section, including the Christ Hymn of 2:5-11. That passage was my first sermon from the letter back in December 2023. Here in 1:27-30, the big idea is that suffering associated with being a follower of Christ is a sign of genuineness. The main takeaway is to see Christian suffering as a gracious opportunity to magnify Christ.  

I keep referring to verse 27 as Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians. What is that anyway? It’s a Bible word. You need to know it because you’re called to do it to each other in Hebrews 3:13. Some are particularly good at it – it’s a spiritual gift listed in Romans 12:8. So what’s an exhortation? Luke tells us in his Gospel (3:18) that Jesus, “with many… exhortations… preached good news to the people”, and later in Acts (2:40) that Peter “bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’”, and finally that Barnabas “exhorted [the church] to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose” (Acts 11:23). Exhortation is a strong urging or calling, a passionate appeal, to faith and to faithfulness. 

Let’s refresh our memory on how we got to Paul’s exhortation in verse 27. Having contemplated his future in verses 19-24, Paul concluded in verses 25-26 that being alive to build up the faith of the Philippians was more valuable to Christ’s interests than a death that would fulfill his ardent desire to see Christ face to face. He doesn’t mean he loves them more than he loves Christ. For, “To live – Christ; to die -gain” (v. 21). The immediate presence of Christ is Paul’s greatest desire. But he loves the Philippians more than he loves himself. He loves them for the sake of Christ. That’s the tender-hearted seedbed from which his exhortation springs. 

As he now turns his sites on the Philippians, what will be his pressing concern for these beloved gospel partners? In essence he says, “In choosing your joy over my own, I only ask this: “That whether I come to see you or am absent, let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ”. For some reason the ESV translation crew thought they needed to blunt the edge of Paul’s language here. Other English Bibles (e.g., Christian Standard Bible, New Living Translation, TNIV) have a more literal translation of the Greek. You can see it in the footnote of the ESV: Only behave as citizens worthy of the gospel of Christ. 

Only behave

A Few things to consider. First of all, Paul is concerned with how the Philippians would conduct themselves in their present circumstances. He wants them to be driven by the same desire he has – “Christ honored in my body, whether by life or by death” (v. 20). So he calls them to behave in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Act like Christ is really worth it – like you believe the gospel. But behavior doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Where does behavior come from? It comes from who we think we are. Everything we do, we do as something. Who we are determines what we are about – what we care about, why we do it, our sense of authority or claim or the rightness of doing it, and our certainty of achieving its aim. 

As citizens

Although who we are determines how we should act, who we think we are determines how we actually act. Dave recently said, “You’ll never be able to do what God calls you to do, if you don’t first believe you are who He says you are” (David VanAcker, Put on Christ – Part One, August 16, 2026). Here’s the Matt Nelson paraphrase: We act like we think we are. We respond emotionally, we harbor expectations, and we conduct ourselves in our circumstances as someone or something. Sometimes who we think we are is in line with reality and sometimes it’s not. When it’s not, it’s at best counterproductive and at worst destructive to our relationships and our witness. Paul aims to help the Philippians see truly so that they will respond to suffering with a confidence that magnifies the inestimable worth of Christ. We act like we think we are. 

So from what identity does the Philippians’ behavior flow? Paul addresses them as citizens. Like Paul, they are Roman citizens. They have rights and privileges not common to the subjugated peoples spread throughout the empire. Legally, they might as well be living in Rome. Commentators agree, there’s a pervasive civic pride in being a Roman citizen. We have good reason to believe this factors heavily into Paul’s address to them. He refers to citizenship both here and again in 3:20. In Acts 16, Luke tells us Philippi is the leading city of Macedonia (Acts 16:12). For many of them, being Roman citizens was foundational to their identity long before they were in Christ. The Philippians are citizens of an earthly kingdom with considerable power and prestige. 

But the Philippian Christians also know that they’re citizens of the heavenly Kingdom, citizens of an alien sovereign, sojourning in a foreign land – ambassadors representing the kingdom coming to crush all other kingdoms, including Rome. Caesar and Christ are at odds. So does Paul refer to their earthly citizenship or their heavenly citizenship? Yes. Likely, Paul plays on words to reveal a gap in their understanding of who they are in Christ. Commentators express these two citizenships as a matter of “double allegiance” (Ralph E. Martin) or “dual citizenship” (G. Walter Hansen). It might seem that these are two equal. That they’re mutually exclusive, competing allegiances. 

But they’re not. Earthly citizenship is in a dependent relationship with heavenly citizenship. There’s no identity crisis here. Though ultimately citizens of the greater kingdom that is Christ’s, a life of fidelity to the gospel means being exemplary citizens of Caesar’s kingdom as well.  The Philippians are truly earthly citizens. Their Christian citizenship informs and orients them to their earthly citizenship. Christian neighbors and citizens are to be the best neighbors and citizens. 

So Peter can urge the church, 

“As sojourners and exiles… Keep your conduct among [unbelievers] honorable… Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good… Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:11-17). 

One final observation on who the Philippian Christians are comes by jumping ahead to v. 28. There we see that they are opposed by those who would frighten them. Why? They provoke the jealousy of their neighbors both as Philippians and as Christians. First, they are offensive because they are good earthly citizens – in Christ they are to be the best Philippians in town. But, second, as citizens of the heavenly Kingdom, they are “too good for” Philippi, which is also offensive. Further, they are hated, as all faithful Christians are, because their presence is a reminder to their neighbors of their guilt before God. 

That’s who the Philippians were. Who are we? Who do we think we are? We too are citizens of both an earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom. Like the Philippians, we too face opponents. The same opponents that assaulted Lot, threw Jeremiah down the muddy cistern, tossed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the burning, fiery furnace, crucified our Lord, plugged their ears at Stephen’s rebuke and stoned him, and exiled John to Patmos. 

And like the Philippians our opponents are agents of the Imperial Cult. Every Christian who refuses to acknowledge Caesar as Lord exposes the Imperial Cult as a self-deceptive fairy tale. Their conscience is provoked by the mere presence of faithful Christians. In the words of the apostle John, they are, “like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous” (1 John 3:12). Ever since Genesis chapter 4, the worldly have poured themselves into shutting up every reminder of the righteous standard of God, because it threatens the successful suppression of truth in their own conscience (Romans 1:18-23). They will guilt, bully, brand, ostracize, marginalize, abuse, and destroy those who refuse to be cowed, because they threaten the imperial lie; the false gospel of Me. 

In the face of this universal opposition, Paul calls the Philippians to gospel-worthy citizenship. So, what does it actually look like? Three marks describe his call: Standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not being frightened in anything. 

Standing firm in one Spirit 

The first mark of gospel-worthy citizenship is standing firm. “Stand firm” is a call to unwavering faith in God’s character and covenant promise. It means not departing from“the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Paul’s letters contain 7 of the 13 instances in Scripture. Two of these are found in Philippians. (The other is in 4:1.) 

Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. Standing firm is the behavior that flows from faith. It refers to the perseverance of our faith, and to the purity of our hope in the gospel. Bad theology threatens both. One commentator (Martin) suggests that a “misguided eschatology [taught that the heavenly life had already begun, tempting the Philippians to believe] their life exempt from hardship and suffering with a consequent disdain of Paul’s sufferings as an apostle. The other side of this claim was that the Christian vocation and commitment to lowliness and altruistic regard was forgotten; hence ugly symptoms of selfish egotism and pride”. 

We see similar unbiblical and confusing theology today in the so-called ‘Prosperity Gospel’, which teaches that if bad things happen to you, it’s because you failed to have enough faith. If you’re suffering, it’s your fault. You must have missed a step, gotten off track, or done something to deserve it. The Prosperity Gospel proclaims that, as God’s royal children, all we should experience on this side of the cross is health, wealth, and prosperity. 

But being a Christian means waking up every day and going uphill. Gospel-worthy citizenship means swimming upstream when it would be so easy to float down the “lazy river” with the surrounding culture. If we are to stand firm it must be done together. We are to “stand firm in one spirit”. Paul’s Greek is ambiguous whether he refers to a feeling of shared experience or the Holy Spirit himself. Colin recently preached from Colossians 3:11. There we saw that every earthly difference between us is secondary to our unity in the Spirit through the gospel. 

If we are to stand firm, it will be because our common faith in Christ is more central to us than our skin color, our politics, our hobbies or interests, our sense of humor, whether we homeschool or public school, have young kids, are empty-nesters, or had no kids at all. True, we are all those things. As Colin said, we aim for “unity not uniformity”. But they’re not all we are, and certainly not the center of who we are together. Who are we? 

With one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel

Paul’s second mark of gospel-worthy citizenship qualifies the first. Standing firm requires a united purpose. What are Christ’s people to be about? Jesus said in Matthew 6:22, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light”. Many older translations of that verse say “if your eye is single” or “simple”. Single, or simple, means that there is only one part to something. The most brilliant diamonds are those that are most simple, unadulterated by particles of other stuff that dulls its brilliance. Likewise the purest steel is much stronger than the porous, adulterated imitation we often get today. 

In the 8th and 9th century, a royal family ruled over the area of modern day France. The greatest of these was Charlemagne, or “Charles the Great”. His predecessor was Charles the Hammer. But the grandsons following him were identified by less-than-desirable descriptors. After Charles the Great came Charles the Bald, then Charles the Fat, Louis the Stutterer was in there somewhere. Finally came Charles the Simple. 

Would you like to be known as Simple? “Hey look, it’s Matt the Simple”. But simple is an ancient synonym for another English word we never use – guileless. A guileful person is manipulative, turning truth sideways, using cunning, tricks, and deceit. You never know why they say what they say, even if the content is true. That’s because a guileful person has an ulterior motive. A simple person is what they are. Simple describes something that consists of a single part. There is no mixture or impurity. The periodic table of elements from chemistry class lists all known simple matter —pure substances consisting of only one type of atom that can’t be broken down into simpler substances. 

Being simple means having a singleness of purpose that infuses all we do. What does that have to do with being one spirit and one mind? James tells us what the opposite of being “one mind” looks like:

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God… Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (James 4:1-4, 8)

Christians are to devote themselves together to a single purpose. “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus”, Paul told Timothy, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.” (2 Timothy 2:3–6)

What makes the church weak in the face of opposition? Divided- or double-minds. Something is competing for the primacy of Christ’s purpose in our lives. Consequently, when her members have one foot in and one foot out, the church is vulnerable to opposition. “Would that you were hot or cold”, Jesus told Laodiceans, “because you are lukewarm… I will spit you out of my mouth… I counsel you to buy from me… salve to anoint your eye, so that you may see” (Revelation 3:15-18). That you might have a single eye. 

Often the problem is not wrong desire but inordinate desire. That is, like James (4:3) said, we want something good but to use it “wrongly” – to spend it on ourselves . When we pursue earthly desires as an end in themselves, we’ve confused our earthly citizenship and our heavenly citizenship. We forget that our earthly citizenship is lived for the sake of Christ. In our FOMO (“Fear Of Missing Out”), we forget these things aren’t ultimate. But in Christ we’re freed from the tyranny of self-service. Paul told the Galatians (5:13),  “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

So, for what one thing are we to be “striving side by side”?  Paul says it’s “the faith of the gospel” – to believe and obey the gospel. Next week when Mark preaches from 2:1-11, we’ll see Paul present Jesus as our forerunner and chief example in this fight. We’re to imitate His hope, “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and run with endurance the race marked out for us. [We’re to be] looking to Jesus, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:1-2). 

What is the faith of the gospel for which we’re called to strive together? What joy was set before Jesus and us? Paul already told the Philippians,

It is that the grace of God and peace with God are yours through Jesus Christ. (1:3)

It is that we don’t walk alone toward Christ but as partners. (1:3-5)

It is that the good work begun in us will certainly be completed. (1:6)

It is that the Day of Christ is coming. (1:6, 10)

It is that persecution and imprisonment are made to serve Christ’s glory. (1:12-18)

It is that life, even a life of suffering, means more of Christ, that death gains his immediate presence. (1:21-23)

Not frightened in anything by your opponents – (v. 28) 

Paul’s third and final mark of gospel-worthy citizenship is being “not frightened in anything”. United under the Banner of Christ, fighting as one, shoulder to shoulder for the faith of the gospel, we see things as they truly are. What is actually at stake? Nothing. Our opponents have no power whatsoever to affect anything. They can only serve as involuntary mediators of sovereign grace. They can’t touch what really matters, they can’t stop Christ from being glorified even in their opposition, and they can’t stop his kingdom from coming. 

Likewise, the power of their kingdom over us is transient and already crumbling. They are dust, and the irrelevance of their opinions will soon be apparent. Their feet are stumbling on shifting sand while ours are grounded on the bedrock. 

He calls this unexpectedly tenacious response “a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God”. Gospel-worthy behavior makes a statement. This is a clear sign… and that from God. The sign itself is obvious – God is opposed to them and for his church. That doesn’t mean they’ll interpret it correctly. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ”. Elsewhere he says, “None of [them] understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”(1 Corinthians 2:8). God may enable them to see the glory of Christ reflected on your face. Or they will receive greater condemnation for rejecting the grace He’s shown them through your witness. Either way, Christ will get glory and “will have the prize for which he died” (O Church Arise). All foes of the Victorious King will “receive their due” (Lamb of God). 

As Dave recently preached, our duty is to find joy rooted not in particular circumstances or outcomes, but in faithfulness (David VanAcker, Put on Christ – Part Two, August 23, 2026). Let God be occupied with circumstances. Let the church be occupied with faithfulness in the face of ostracism by friends, family or neighbors, bullying by governing authorities, and marginalization by political powers. “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2 Corinthians 2:15–16). Same fragrance, but by sovereign grace, a different response. “The message of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Like Paul (in v. 20), the Philippians are called to find joy not in the absence of suffering and death, but in Christ honored in their conduct in life and in death. 

For

 After the qualifications of verse 27 and the commentary of verse 28, verse 29 picks back up Paul’s exhortation to live out of the truth that though genuinely suffering for Christ’s name, their feet are firmly grounded in a greater reality. “For” indicates that Paul is going to deliver the reason they should be eager to live this way. What’s the reason? 

It has been granted to you… [to] suffer for his sake

Grantedto you?  Wait a minute Paul, are you saying my suffering is God’s “fault”?! Here Paul harkens back to his perspective that he is in prison because God “put” him there to defend the gospel (v. 16). The root of the Greek verb here is charis, or “grace”. It has been graced to you to suffer. “I hold you in my heart”, he had said in verse 7, “because you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in defense and confirmation of the gospel”. Suffering for our faith in Christ is God’s grace. 

In Acts, Luke says that the Apostles had been imprisoned, beaten, and further threatened for proclaiming Jesus. After their release they went home and“rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name” (Acts 5:41). They had the chance to honor Christ in their body. We have the privilege of being associated with his Name in suffering for his sake. As Peter says, “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:14). 

For the sake of Christ 

Suffering for being a Christian is, to borrow Dave’s phrase, “a feature, not a flaw”. Scripture is clear that suffering for Jesus is God’s design for His people in this age: 

Acts 14:22 – through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God

1 Thess 3:3 – [let] no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we were destined for this. 

2 Timothy 3:12 – Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 

How is that grace? Because, if I live to see Christ honored in my body, I rejoice when he gets glory through me by my suffering. Because the faith of the gospel sets my eye on the joy to come on the Day of Christ. 

Engaged in the same conflict… I still have 

There’s nothing unique about your suffering. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common” to all Christians (1 Corinthians 10:13). Circumstances don’t need to change to have joy. The Philippians needed Paul’s exhortation. It’s preserved in Scripture because we need it too. It’s a grace to remind ourselves of it when there’s a new trial, a worsening existing trial, or a poignant reminder of a previous trial. We can apply this past, present, or future. May ours be a shared hope so internalized that it shapes our behavior, including our response to trials. 

So much of the suffering, vexation, and grief we experience in life are the result of not wanting what God wants. Of treating earthly citizenship like our heavenly citizenship. Of seeing differences instead of the one Spirit. Fight with me to find joy in the joy of our Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ. Strive side by side with me, united in our shared Savior, to believe the gospel. The Day of Christ comes. 

Stand firm. Fight together. Fear not.   

Colossians 3:12-17 –
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him

Christians are in Christ and so we must put on Christ, and especially those aspects of Christlikeness that foster unity and peace within the church.  I’ve tried to explain that Paul’s perspective on putting on Christ is like the four legs of a chair in the sense that we need all four legs to be truly stable.  In that way, putting on Christ means remembering who we are in Jesus (chosen, holy, and beloved—first leg), putting on the attitudes of Jesus (compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience—second leg), putting on the actions of Jesus when there is conflict among us (bearing with, forgiving, and loving one another—third leg), and, finally, this morning, we’ll consider the fourth leg (knowing how to do so as Christ commands and models).  

When we put all of that together, we’ve seen that we will never be able to feel or do what Paul calls us to feel and do (put on Christ in our attitudes and actions), if we don’t first believe we are who Paul says we are (put on Christ in our identity).  While that’s always the case, it’s particularly true in times of conflict within the church.  

That’s where we’ve been.  

All of that sounds well and good, doesn’t it Grace?  For the most part, it all makes sense, right?  And for the most part, most of you want all of that, don’t you?  

But there’s an elephant-in-the-room question, isn’t there?  How?  How do we do that?  How does it happen?  I’m sure all of you have tried to do all of that in some measure, but I’m also sure that none of us are all the way there.  So, what would God have us do?  

In a very real way, I think that’s what vs.15-17 are all about—answering the question: How do we put on Christ in identity, attitude, and action when things are hard?  In this last sermon on this passage, we’ll find the answer (which is the big idea of this sermon): We let the peace, Word, and name of Christ rule, dwell in, and compel us.  The main takeaway is to do just as Paul says and purposefully yield to the Spirit’s work in these ways.  

Before we get to the three practical ways Paul commends to the church for putting on Christ, let’s first remember that only those who are already in Christ can put on Christ in a Colossians 3:12-17 kind of way.  And we can only be in Christ by grace, through faith, in the sacrificial death and death-conquering resurrection of Jesus.  

From beginning to end, the Christian life is dependent on the gospel of God in Jesus Christ.  He is the promiser, the initiator, the accomplisher, the applier, the sustainer, the finisher, and the aim of it all.  Every aspect of our life in Jesus is from Jesus, for Jesus, by Jesus, and to Jesus.  

In that way, as we work our way through these practical aspects of putting on Christ, let us never forget that God provides all that He requires, that the grace that justifies also sanctifies, and that the means of obeying God are every bit as tied to the grace of God as the obedience itself.  

With that, the first of the three practical ways Paul gives his readers to put on Christ is found in v.15. 

15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. 

I read a book recently called “The Anxious Generation.”  It was filled with alarming statistics.  Among the most egregious, are the facts that in the past decade there’s been a 106% increase in self-reported anxiety in college students, a 121% increase in suicides among 10-14 year olds, and a 134% increase in diagnosed depression among 18-22 year olds.  Even though, by nearly every measurable metric, we have the highest standard of living in the history of the post-Garden world, we are an exceedingly anxious people.  

Given that, any offer of peace sounds great.  But v.15 isn’t about just any offer of peace.  It’s about the fullest, best, longest lasting, and most restful peace.  It’s about the only true peace.  It’s about the peace of Christ and the fact that it’s ours to receive.    

So what is the peace of Christ?  Embedded in this simple verse are two aspects of it.    

The first aspect of the peace of Christ is contained in the words, “in your hearts.”  It is personal, individual.  Jesus himself spoke of it, promising it to His followers, just a few days before His crucifixion, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you…” (John 14:27).  What kind of peace did Jesus leave and give?  He immediately clarified by commanding, “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

In other words, this first aspect of the peace of Christ is a lack of fear or troubled spirit.  It is an inner sense that everything is truly OK because of who Jesus is and what His work on the cross accomplished for us.  It is a deep-in-the-bones, Holy Spirit-birthed (John 14:26) kind of peace that cuts through every anxiety and grief for those whose trust is in Jesus.  It is a kind of rest that comes only to those who know they have been made right with God by Jesus and that Jesus is continually working all things for their good.  

It’s a kind of peace that remains even when you’re having trouble having kids, or your kids are having trouble, or you’re having trouble sending your kids off.  The peace of Christ is such that it remains even when you get that diagnosis or prognosis.  It remains in your heart even when you lose friends or a job or even your life for the sake of Christ.  It’s the kind that holds fast even when there is conflict among Christians.  

It’s a kind of peace that has been left and given by Jesus.  We must merely “let” it take effect “in our hearts” by believing Jesus.  O what a peace.

The second aspect of the peace of Christ is no less spectacular.  It is contained in the words, “in one body.” It is a corporate kind of peace.  And it is named and unpacked in passages like Ephesians 2:13-14, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility…”  

This peace is the kind that reconciles people from every age, race, economic background, sex, intellect, and religious upbringing.  It is the kind in which “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free.”  It is the kind that cuts through every difference and difficulty and every concern and conflict.  It turns foes into friends and enemies into allies.  It too was purchased by the blood and body of Christ.  It is a kind of reconciliation that comes only to those who know they have been made right with one another by Jesus.  

These two aspects of the peace of Christ fuel one another.  When local churches are filled with people who have the peace of Christ in their hearts, it drives peace and harmony as a body.  And as local churches are increasingly characterized by the corporate peace of Christ, it drives each individual toward a fuller inner peace.  

In this way, Grace, each of us must let the peace of Christ “rule in our hearts”.  We must trust in Jesus and rest in Him more.  For the sake of the body, we must not be OK with being anxious and fearful.  And in this way, collectively, we must let the peace of Christ “rule…in [our] body”.  We must look past every earthly difference to the main and only essential thing we have in common: the supernatural oneness that was purchased by the blood of Jesus.  For the sake of each member, don’t be OK with disunity and divisions among us. 

I’ve seen this in several of you recently.  Through significant relational and health trials, even in the death of loved ones, I’ve witnessed the peace of Christ in you.  You grieved, but as one with a hope greater than the hardship.  And that truly filled me with a greater sense of the peace of Christ.  What Paul promises in principle, I’ve experienced with you in practice.  Thanks be to God!

Verse 15 ends with a refrain that echoes in each of the “how-to” clauses.  “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts… and be thankful.”  In v.16, “with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”  And in v.17, “giving thanks to God the Father through [Jesus].”  

Grace, there’s no way of knowing the peace of Christ (or, as we’re about to see, allowing the word of Christ to dwell in us or doing everything in the name of Jesus) and not being filled with thanksgiving.  

The second means of putting on Christ in nature, attitude, and action mentioned by Paul is found in the next verse, v.16.  We are to let the peace of Christ rule in us and the Word of Christ dwell in us.

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…

By the word of Christ, Paul is speaking of “the word of the truth, the gospel” (1:5).  It is “the grace of God in truth” (1:6).  It is “the knowledge of [God’s] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (1:9).  It is “the knowledge of God” (1:10).  It is “the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints” (1:25-26).  It is “all wisdom” (1:28).  It is “full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery” (2:2).  And, Paul wrote, it is “All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2:3).  

The “word of Christ” is all that Jesus means His followers to understand.  It is all the teaching of Christ and all the inspired apostolic teaching about Christ.  

Paul’s charge is to let that “dwell in you.” 

Before we get to that, however, let’s reflect on three aspects of the nature of the word of Christ to help us make sense of why we would want it to dwell in us.  The word of Christ is good, beautiful, and true.

The word of Christ is all and always good.  Everything He’s ever said and all that’s been rightly said of Him is worthy of ultimate approval.  It is all beneficial to all—His warnings and rebukes as much as His affirmations and promises.  Not one aspect of the word of Christ is harmful for anyone who will receive it as Christ intends.  It is, in the absolute and purest sense, good.

The goodness of the word of Christ is described in passages like 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…”.

The word of Christ is good, and it is also beautiful.  It is desirable above all.  Psalm 119:129 captures this well, “Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them.”  Psalm 19 celebrates this as well, “The law of the Lord…the testimony of the Lord… 8 the precepts of the Lord…the commandment of the Lord…9  the rules of the Lord … [all different ways of describing the word of Christ, and all are] 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.”

Rightly seen, the word of Christ is beautiful beyond measure.  More than any other words—more than those of your spouse or child or best friend or favorite author or even an angel from the Lord—the word of Christ is wonderful to hear and heed.

The word of Christ is good, it is beautiful, and it is true.  There is nothing false in the word of Christ, He is never wrong, and His word is the ultimate standard of truth.  

As imperfect people, we might misread or misinterpret the word of Christ, but rightly read, as Jesus Himself said (in John 17:17), the word of Christ is not only true, it is Truth!  Indeed, (Proverbs 30:5) “Every word of God proves true…”.  

It will never lead us astray in anything it says.  It is the ultimate authority for understanding all that exists, including God, ourselves, our relationships, our salvation, and every other matter it speaks to.  

And for all those reasons, we rightly affirm in our doctrinal statement that the word of Christ ought to be “believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.”

With those aspects of the word of Christ in mind, the most natural thing of all would be for us allow it to dwell in us; to remain alive in us; to take up permanent residence in us; to find a home in us; to shape us in every way; to be at the center of every aspect of our lives, both individually and as a church.  

Paul adds a word that we don’t want to miss.  We are to let the word of Christ “dwell in us richly”.  But what does that mean? 

Just as there are two aspects of the peace of Christ (personal and corporate), there are also two senses of the meaning of “richly” (quantity and quality).

First, we must take in lots of the word of Christ.  It ought to be our main diet; certainly, more than any worldly word, but also more even than teaching about the word of Christ.  To let it dwell in us richly, really does have a quantitative component to it.  We cannot obey this command and spend five minutes a day rushing through it or half listening to it while we run errands.  Five minutes is better than no minutes and half listening is better than no listening, but for its richness to give its full reward, we must move towards meditating on it day and night (Psalm 1:2).  Read the Bible.  Meditate on and memorize what you read.  Let it “be [continually] on your heart. 7 …teach [it] diligently to your children, and …talk of [it] when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).

The second way in which Paul means his readers to overcome conflict among them, by putting on Christ, by allowing the word of Christ to dwell in them richly, is by properly treasuring the word of Christ.  It’s not just that they must let a lot of Christ’s word dwell in them, but they must recognize it for the invaluable gift that it is. 

As we saw in Psalm 19, the richness of the word of Christ is such that it is “More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold.”  

This qualitative aspect of “riches” means knowing that to have the words of Christ is to have a treasure beyond measure.  To let the word of Christ dwell in us richly is to treat it as the unparalleled gift that it is.  It is for all who have it, riches beyond all other riches.

The word of Christ is all that Jesus means His followers to understand.  It is good beautiful and true.  We must let it dwell in us by taking it in continually and treasuring it thoroughly.  But what does that mean, especially in the context of navigating conflict within our church?  Helpfully, Paul explicitly names two specific ways to do so.  

…teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs…

Just as is the case with the peace of Christ, how can we not be filled with thankfulness if the Word of Christ really does dwell in us richly?  

How do we put on Christ in nature, attitude, and action?  We do so by letting the peace of Christ rule us, the word of Christ abide in us, and the name of Christ compel us.  That is, we do so by doing “whatever [we] do, in word or deed, [doing] everything in the name of the Lord Jesus…”

In the first two clauses (in v.15 and 16), the imperative (“let”) is explicit.  Paul’s grammar shifts, but I think it’s right to say that it’s implied in this third and final clause.  Let the peace of Christ rule, let the word of Christ dwell, and let the name of Jesus compel.  

The simple heart of v.17 is that by placing our hope in Jesus we are acknowledging Jesus not only as Savior of the world, but also as preeminent over everything (1:15-20).  That is, to be a Christian is to know for certain that all things belong to Jesus, that He is Lord of all, that we are His, and that all of that is very good.

It is also to acknowledge that everything we do, we do as His representatives; or, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:20, as His “ambassadors.”  To be a Christian, therefore, is to do everything in Jesus’ name.  We can’t not do what we do in His name.  The only question is whether we are doing it in a way that is consistent with and honors His name or that is inconsistent with and dishonors His name.  In 1 Corinthians (10:31), Paul echoes this sentiment by commanding his readers to do whatever we do to the glory of His name.       

Do you see the inescapabilty, necessity, and goodness of this, Grace Church?  Do you see the power this is for putting on Christ?  And do you see how it is filled with reconciling and unifying grace for the church?  

Conversely, is it easy to see how the source of all conflict is disobeying this charge?  Is it easy to see that the difficulty and division that comes to the church, comes because one or more of us are doing things in some name other than that of Jesus?  Conflict comes when we do things in our own name or in the name of our preferred Christian teacher or in the name of Paul or Apollos or Cephas (1 Corinthians 1:13) or any name other than Jesus.

Grace, do you want to belong to a church that is unified and whole and healthy?  Do you want your broken relationships among Christians to be reconciled and restored?  If so, let every single word you choose and speak (or choose not to speak) be chosen to best display the name above all names.  If so, let every single act you perform (or decide not to perform) be performed to best display the name of the Lord Jesus.  

And, once again, do all of this while “giving thanks to God the Father through [Jesus].  How can we bear the name of Christ (Christian) and not be filled with thanks to God who loved the world in such as way as to give us Christ?

We’ve spent the past month and a half working through Colossians 3:5-17 and its charge to put off all that is opposed to Christ and put on all of Christ.  We’ve seen that this is largely directed to end conflict and division and to maintain and restore peace among us for the glory of Christ.  

Let us kill sin, therefore, Grace Church and put on Christ.  Let us remember who we are in Jesus (chosen, holy, beloved), let us put on the attitude of Jesus (compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience), let us put on the actions of Jesus when there is conflict among us (bearing with, forgiving, and loving one another), and let us do all of this according to Jesus’ example and command (letting the peace, Word, and name of Christ rule, dwell in, and compel us).

What a gift from the Father this passage is.  What help and hope we have in Christ.  What power we’re given in the Spirit.  Thanks be to God!  

Colossians 3:12-17 –
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him

What do you do when another Christian sins against you or otherwise makes your life harder?  In a lot of ways, that’s the practical heart of the question for the Colossians.  They were in a tough spot as a young church that was being inundated with false teachers and conflicts that surrounded them.  They wanted to honor Christ, but it was hard to know what that meant as they sifted through all the competing claims.  Undoubtedly, tensions ran high at times as they sought to live together in a manner pleasing to the Lord.  But, once again, what does it mean to live together in a local church in a manner pleasing to the Lord in times of confusion and difficulty?

In an expression of significant kindness and mercy, God inspired the apostle Paul to write this letter to the Colossian Christians to answer that question.  And our passage for this morning is right at the heart of his answer.  

In it, we find great help for today as well.  For anyone who has been hurt by another follower of Christ, this passage is as much of a gift for us as it was for its original readers. For the answer is the same today as it was 2000 years ago: The main response for Christians in times of conflict is to put on Christ.  And this passage goes a long way in explaining what that means in practical terms.   

Before I pray, I’d like to offer a few brief reminders from the past few weeks.

First, the gospel is the foundation of everything Paul says in this passage.  Christians are Christians because God opened our eyes to the facts that we sinned against Him and were, therefore, dead in our trespasses.  Further, Christians are Christians because the good news of Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection came to us and we received it in faith.  Further still, in placing our faith in Jesus, we are reconciled to God and given new natures that we must learn to live in light of day by day.  

Second, one way the Bible talks about what it means to live in this life as a Christian is in terms of the things we need to be continually putting off and putting on.  Christians, by nature, must diligently and increasingly put off our old ways of thinking about God, ourselves, and the world around us.  We must put off our old misguided ideas, our old sense of being the center of the story, and our old sinful appetites and actions.  We must put off sin.  And at the same time, we must put on the true things of God.  We must put on Christ.   

And third, we see in this passage that putting on Christ is like the four legs of a chair.  We need to understand and make use of all four legs in times of conflict or we will be tippy at best.  If we are to put on Christ, then we need to put on His nature (first leg), we need to put on His attitudes (second leg), we must put on His actions (third leg), and we must know how to put those things on (fourth leg).  We considered the first two legs last week.  After quickly recapping them, we’ll consider the third one this morning (and the fourth next Sunday).   

The big idea of this sermon is that Christians are in Christ and so we must put on Christ, and especially those aspects of Christlikeness that foster unity and peace within the church.  The main takeaway is to do exactly as Paul commands, seeking God’s help to clothe ourselves in all that He says as a means of glorifying God and strengthening His church.    

To be a Christian is to put on Christ in His nature, attitudes, and actions, and to do those things as He modeled and commanded, in the power He so richly provides, and for the glory of His name.  

el and do, if we don’t first believe we are who Paul says we are…if we don’t put on Christ in our identity.  That’s the first leg.   

Next, concerning the attitude of Christ we are to put on, we saw that because we are chosen, holy, and loved, we must put on “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”  

If you think about each of those for a moment, you’ll quickly recognize two things: (1) They are all corporate in nature (we can only do them in relation to others) and (2) They are all related to preventing and recovering from conflict.  In other words, we need to put on Christ in every aspect of our lives, but in this passage, Paul is particularly talking about the need to put in Christ in ways that help local churches navigate conflict in God-honoring ways.   

Those two legs are where we’ve already been.  Now, let’s look to the third leg: Putting on Christ in action.

If you’ll look with me at vs.13-14, you’ll see three specific actions Paul calls us to do…

13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

If we remember who we are in Jesus (chosen, holy, loved) and put on the attitudes of Jesus (compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience), we will also put on the actions of Jesus when there is conflict among us (bearing with, forgiving, and loving one another).  

Last week I asked you to try to think of a time someone hurt you by sinning against you.  I’d like to ask you to do that again.  I know that no one wants to think about stuff like that, but I also know that we won’t be able to get out of this passage all that Paul means us to if we don’t have real-life in mind.  We can’t leave this passage in the theoretical / conceptual / theological realm and receive/respond to it as God intends.  There are certainly theoretical / conceptual / theological elements of it, but it is most profoundly practical; which means we all need to have a specific situation in mind so that we can reinterpret it through the lens this passage provides.  

So, the last time (maybe presently) someone sinned against you, how did you respond?  Or, more to the point, how should you have responded as a follower of Jesus?  What would you have done if you were to have put on Christ?

Pastorally, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many of you through this kind of thing.  When other Christians sin against us, I’ve noticed two main tendencies. 

Some immediately fight back by responding in kind.  If someone sinned against you by speaking in anger, you replied in anger for their audacity to speak to you in anger.  If someone sinned against you by breaking a promise, you respond by giving them a piece of your (unsanctified) mind.  If someone sinned against you by being critical, you reacted by pointing out how much worse their faults are.  Whatever the particular form, when sinned against, one prominent tendency is to fight sin with similar sin.  

Most of the rest of the people I’ve met with respond by shrinking back to protect themselves.  You retreated.  You distanced yourself from the person/situation.  Whatever the sin, you did your best to get as far away from it as possible and avoid as much conflict as possible.  

There are times, to be sure, when it is right stand up to mistreatment or to remove ourselves from a situation, but Paul tells us that putting on Christ means starting with a different initial impulse altogether.

The key feature (and mistake) of both of the responses I just mentioned is that the emphasis is on the other person, the one sinning against us.  But all three of Paul’s prescribed responses focus on ourselves, the one being sinned against.  Like almost every other aspect of the Christian life, this one flips ordinary, reasoning on its head.  

It’s a call to shift our first impulse from saying something like, “How could you do such a thing to me?” or “Let me explain to you what you did wrong and how to make it right” or “Do you have any idea how much that hurts?” 

…to…

Thinking something like, “Before everything else, their sin against me is a sign that their heart is not right with the Lord” and “Thank you God for the reminder that I am to count others as more valuable than myself” and “What an opportunity to make my first response a demonstrate the love of Christ to them”.

So, what practical forms might that take?  Once again, Paul names three in our passage and the first is found at the very beginning of v.13.  When someone sins against you, put on Christ by bearing with them.  

Bearing with one another means sticking together even when it’s hard to do so; even when it’d be easier to just cut off ties; even when the other person doesn’t yet see or care about or repent of their sin.  It is a commitment to one another that is greater than our commitment to our own comfort and sense of justice.  And all of that because that’s how Christ bears with us and because that’s what God designed the church for.    

Bearing with one another like this is a realization that God means us to help one another in our sin, not be His primary earthly instrument of executing justice upon one another.  Doing so is a determination to remain together because of our sin, not in spite of it.  And doing so is a demonstration that we meant what we said when we covenanted together in membership, promising to willingly lay our lives down to help one another grow in Christlikeness.  

This kind of bearing with one another is part of God’s design for our sanctification.  We need others to bear with us if we are to grow in Christ and so we need to bear with others so they might.  

This kind of bearing with one another also provides the clearest picture of the gospel.  Jesus bears with us without exception, not because we deserve it, but because He chose to in love.  

I’ve had the privileged of speaking with quite a few new pastors in the past few years.  Tragically, one of the most consistent experiences they’ve had is that of significant difficulty for seeking to faithfully shepherd their people.  Many have stories of great pain caused by great sins against them.  

One time, as a handful of us were gathered, I was directly asked if I’d ever experienced anything like they were going through.  Sadly, I’ve experienced things much worse than any they’d yet encountered (as bad as theirs were).  I explained that there are certain depths of pain that you can’t experience in new or shorter relationships (as all of theirs were).  There is a particular level of hurt that only the sins of those you’ve walked with for many years can cause.  

After sharing a bit about that, I was asked the natural follow-up question of how I was able to endure.  The simplest answer is that in God’s kindness and strength, I was able to obey this command.  I simply bore with the people who hurt me. I tried to assume the best.  I worked to trust God’s promise that He had good plans for it.  I reminded myself that I don’t see things perfectly.  And I did my best to remember that my main duty is to find joy in faithfulness, not circumstances or outcomes; and that God alone is perfectly good and faithful.

To be a Christian is to acknowledge the brokenness of the world (including ourselves) and to voluntarily commit to living alongside other broken people, in their brokenness, in a local church, as a means of God’s sanctifying grace (for ourselves and one another).  In that way, bearing with those who sin against us is a feature, not a flaw, of ministry in all local churches.  Bearing with those who hurt us is a critical part of our calling and our commission.  

That leads to Paul’s next point.  More than merely bearing with one another, though, as difficult and countercultural as that can be, Paul tells us that putting on Christ in times of conflict means taking another step still.  We find that next step in the middle of v.13.

13 and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other… 

Indeed, Paul commands his readers to forgive one another as well as bear with one another.  And by that, he meant that we must commit ourselves to refusing to hold the sins of others against them.  

But wait a minute, Pastor Dave.  You don’t seem to understand.  I get that I’m supposed to bear with people who sin against me.  I don’t love the idea, and it seems really difficult, but it at least seems somewhat reasonable and possible.  But how can I forgive someone when they don’t seem to appreciate what they did or how much pain they caused?

My husband racked up crippling credit card debt because he was gambling online.  He’s said he’s sorry, but we’re probably going to lose our house.    

My son was arrested for doing drugs.  He seems remorseful, but he said he’d stop dozens of times before.  

I shared a prayer request in confidence with someone in my DG and they told someone else.  She apologized, but she can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

I hired a guy from our church to add an addition onto our house, but he took my money and never finished the job.  He said he will, but I don’t know how I could possibly trust him at this point.  

Our daughter is going through a divorce and one of the women in our church just keeps talking about how sinful and wrong that is.  I know the divorce isn’t God’s design, but she seems to have no compassion or grace at all for us in this really hard situation.

We’re to the point that it seems like all my wife does is complain about me.  She’s acknowledged her tendency to having a critical spirit, but that doesn’t stop her criticism.  

Grace, we can probably imagine bearing with people who do things like that, but how can we forgive them when the wounds are so raw, the hurt so deep, and the repentance seems so shallow?  

Earlier, I said that we can’t leave this passage in the theoretical / conceptual / theological and receive it as God intends.  This is what I meant.  There’s a big difference between grasping the concept of bearing with and forgiving someone who has sinned against us and actually doing so when they do things like this (and more).   

When you are sinned against by others, putting on Christ really means believing you are chosen, holy, and loved by God.  It really means being compassionate (instead of condemning), kind (instead of mean), humble (instead of proud), meek (instead of aggressive), and patient (instead of demanding).  And it really means bearing with them (instead of counterattacking or distancing yourself) and forgiving them (instead of storing it up in bitterness and hurt).  

But how?  How are we able to do so?  Or maybe even more fundamentally, why would we want to do so?  

Paul tells us that we do so by looking to Christ’s example and because of the example of Christ.  

Paul wrote, “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Or, as Paul says it in Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Grace, when sinned against, putting on Christ in action means that we are to forgive as (in the same way that) we’ve been forgiven.  Our standard is not how we’ve been treated by the sinner, but by the Sinless One.  Our application of this says a lot more than our words do about our understanding of the gospel.  

How did the Lord forgive you, Christian?  Did He require you to fully see all your sins against Him before He forgave you?  Did He require you to fully repented of any of them?  Did He require you to ask for forgiveness for every sin against Him before forgiving you of all of them?  Did He require you to initiate your reconciliation with Him?  Did He wait until you deserved it?  Is He grumpy toward you while He waits on you to get your stuff fully in order?  Is He passive aggressive toward you in your sin?  Does He yell?  Does He gossip about or slander you?  Does He harbor one ounce of bitterness toward you?  Does He withhold kindness from you?  Does He withhold some measure of forgiveness for anyone who comes to Him in sincere faith?

Or, is He compassionate, kind, gentle, patient, winsome, glad, and gracious toward you?  Or, did He set His love upon you and determine to offer Himself up to God as a sacrifice on your behalf while you were still a sinner?

In short, Paul’s message is to look to Christ, turn your heart away from its demands for earthly justice or comfort.  Consider Jesus’ willingness to endure the injustice of men and the wrath of God to secure forgiveness for you, not because you deserved it, but because He chose to be gracious and kind even when you didn’t.  Consider those things and do likewise to those in the church who sin against you; forgive them as you’ve been forgiven in Christ.  

O, what a glorious thing that is to see.  What a light-producing, life-giving, church-strengthening, God-honoring, thing it is to see a follower of Christ follow Christ is this most costly, only-because-of-the-gospel and only-in-the power-of-the-Spirit way.  May we be ever-more characterized by clothing ourselves in Christ like that.  That was Paul’s charge to the Colossian church, even as it’s his charge to Grace Church.  

Well, if that were not enough, Paul ratchets it up one more time.  Put on Christ by bearing with those who sin against you, forgiving them, and above all, loving them.  Look at v.14.

14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 

This is an echo of what Paul wrote to the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The question, then, is what exactly does that mean and how exactly does that work. The answer, I believe, is truly remarkable.  There are probably two keys to grasp.

First, let’s define love.  This kind of love is a sacrificial commitment to getting for someone what’s best for them.  It’s a willingness to lay your life down to give to someone what they need most.  Sometimes that lines up with what they think they need most and sometimes it doesn’t.  Sometimes it makes them feel good and sometimes it doesn’t.  But it is always tied to that which is best.

Are you with me on this, Grace?  Most of you have heard this idea before.  Where many would say that love is gladly giving someone whatever makes them feel good, Christian love is different.  It recognizes the fallen nature of mankind and the untrustworthiness of our desires.  It allows God’s unchanging Word to define what’s best rather than anything else.  

Practically, then, when another Christian sins against you, above all, encompassing everything else you do, look to the Bible to determine what’s best for that person and get it for them, no matter the cost.  

Most of the time, loving other Christians like this costs us a bit of comfort, a bit of our pride, a bit of effort, and a bit of our sense of justice and control.  Grace, it cost Jesus the wrath of God.  It cost Jesus the forsaking of His Father.  It cost Jesus His life.  But the reward is a rescued people, forgiven, freed, spotless, and holy.  What a gift it is to be able to participate in the love of God for the saints.  The cross of Christ reminds us that loving those who sin against us is more than worth it every time.

The second key to loving like this is recognizing that everything Paul listed in our passage is what’s best for Christians who sin against us.  Don’t miss the profound nature of that statement, Grace.  When someone sins against you, you must put on Christ.  Putting on Christ means putting on the love of Christ.  And putting on the love of Christ means putting on His nature, attitude, and actions.  

In that way, the most practically loving thing we can do in response to someone’s sin against us is to remember who we are.  Before anything else, loving those who offend us means fighting to believe that God chose us, set us apart, and loves us.  If we live out of any other identity, we are withholding what’s best, we are withholding love.  

From there, we love by seeking the help of the Spirit of God to adopt an attitude of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, for God tells us that’s what’s best for them.  Where we lack any of those things, we cannot love well.  

And so we stop, we pray, and we ask God to check our hearts and help us put off everything earthly that remains in us and put on all that is Christ.  Take a break if you need to.  Have a quiet time.  Listen to a song that fills your head and heart with the truth of God and the beauty of the gospel.  Draw to mind specific promises of God to strengthen and bless you.  And then go back to the person and offer them the gracious, merciful, transforming love of Christ.

Loving those who sin against us means giving to them the things God requires of us, which are always best.  

Do you want to be in a healthy church, Grace; one that honors God, brings life to one another, and is a faithful witness to the world of the truth and transforming power of the gospel?  Then love those who sin against you like this in identity, attitude, and action.   That’s what’s best.  

All of that is what it means to put on Christ and all of that is what Paul means by love “binds everything together in perfect harmony.”  Love takes all of those things and arranges them according to what’s best for the person.  It is what unites all of those things into a practical plan.  It is what most honors God, images the gospel, and brings peace to God’s people.  

May we do so in increasing measure as individuals, and even more so as a church.  

So, who do you need to bear with, forgive, and love today?  Who do you need to encourage to do this today?  Who do you need to apologize to for not putting on Christ like this today?  And, most importantly, in what relationship do you most need to remember the gospel of Jesus Christ today; His initiative-taking love, His unmerited forgiveness, His unending patience, and His accomplishment of perfect justice? 

Christians are in Christ and so we must put on Christ, and especially those aspects of Christlikeness that foster unity and peace within the church.  In other words, putting on Christ means remembering who we are in Jesus (chosen, holy, beloved), putting on the attitudes of Jesus (compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience), and putting on the actions of Jesus when there is conflict among us (bearing with, forgiving, and loving one another).  Let us be a church that is continually seeking God’s help to clothe ourselves in all that He says as a means of glorifying God and strengthening His church.  

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the call and the power for all of this.  Thanks be to God!  

Colossians 3:12-17 –

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

If you are a Christian, at some point God graciously opened your eyes to the facts that you were “alienated [from Him] and hostile in mind [toward Him], doing evil deeds [against Him],” that “on account of these the wrath of God is coming,” and, ultimately, that you were “dead in your trespasses.”

But if you are a Christian, at some point the “word of truth, the gospel, [also came] to you.”  “You heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.”  You understood that Jesus offered Himself as a ransom “by the blood of His cross” and “in His body of flesh by His death.”  

If you are a Christian, at some point you responded to this gospel, this good news, this offer of the grace of God in Jesus, by placing your faith in Jesus.  

And at that point, you were “raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God.”  God “made [you] alive …having forgiven [you] all [your] trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against [you] with its legal demands.”  You were “reconciled” to God.  You received “redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  And you were rescued from your alienation, hostility, and evil trespasses and brought into a life of “peace” with God as His sons and daughters, having been “delivered…from the domain of darkness and transferred…to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”  

And then, if you are a Christian, you began to be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual understanding.”  You began to be “strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.”  And you began to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him.”  

“Here,” as Paul wrote in v.11 and Pastor Colin explained so helpfully last Sunday, “here” in this place of salvation in Christ, “here” in this place of newness of life and nature in Christ, “here” in this place of divine grace and strength, “here” in this place of understanding that “Christ [alone] is all and in all,” “here” you must recognize that there are two critical aspects of seeking to live as God intends you to live.

First, as we saw two weeks ago in vs.5-10, you must put off all your old ways of thinking and living.  You must put off the perspective and appetites and actions that defined and motivated and shaped you before you knew of your sin and death and the grace of God in Jesus.  You must “put to death [all that is] earthly in you.”  You must give yourself to putting away all sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying, and every other thought, word, and deed that do not conform to your new nature in Jesus.  You must put them to death, because Jesus was put to death for them.

In other words, if you are a Christian, you have determined, with God’s help, to turn away from your old life and stop living in rebellion to God and contrary to your design.  And you have accepted the fact that doing so means actively and continually searching for and fighting against every aspect of ungodliness that remains in you.  

The second critical aspect of seeking to live as God intends is found in our passage for this morning.  Godliness is never less than getting rid of the bad, but it is always more.  We must never let up on killing the sin that remains in us, but we must also never let up on seeking the righteousness that yet eludes us.  We must be vigilant in our efforts to eradicate the darkness in ourselves, but even more so in our efforts to live in the light.  We must put off what is earthly in us and put on Christ.  

In other words, the Christian life is a life of faith and action—faith in what Jesus did and promises and action in response to His example and commands.  More specifically, the Christian life is a life defined by faith in God’s promise that Christians “have [already] put off the old self with its practices and have [already] put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator” (that we have been given new natures in Jesus).  And, therefore, the Christian life is also defined by the constant action of putting off sin and putting on Christ.    

The big idea of this sermon is that Christians are in Christ and so we must put on Christ; and especially those aspects of Christlikeness that foster unity and peace within the church.  The main takeaway is to do exactly as Paul commands, seeking God’s help to believe we are who He says we are and then clothing ourselves with all the things he lists as a means of glorifying God and strengthening His church.  

Having considered the first half of a godly life (putting off earthly things), let’s now consider what Paul wrote about the second half (putting on Christ).  

In this passage, Paul helps us see that putting on Christ is like the four legs of a chair.  We need to understand and make use of all four legs or we will be tippy at best.  If we are to put on Christ, then we need to put on His nature (first leg), we need to put on His attitudes (second leg), we must put on His actions (third leg), and we must know how to put those things on (fourth leg).  We’ll consider each leg in turn (the first two this week and the second two next week).

With that, let’s consider the first leg of the four legs of putting on Christ: Putting on your identity in Christ.  

As I hope to have made exceedingly clear already (for Paul has made it exceedingly clear already), putting on Christ is about who you are before it is about what you do. 

I remember a friend, who had just graduated from nursing school and started a new job in a hospital, telling me that he felt mostly incompetent to do the things he was supposed to be doing.  More to the point, I also remember him telling me that he was told to just act like he knew what he was doing until he did.  The hospital motto, apparently, was something like, “Nursing is about what you do before it’s about who you are.”  Practically, he was told to give the appearance of competence before he was actually competent.  

This is not that.  In fact, it’s the opposite.  Paul is not commanding Christians to “fake it until you make it.”  He’s not telling them to act contrary to their nature.  He’s telling them what it looks like to live in light of the reality that their entire natures have already, definitively been changed in Christ.  

This is more like someone who just received a surprise inheritance of $10,000,000 being told what it’s like in the new tax bracket.  Or like someone just brought up to the varsity basketball team being told the new expectations.  Or like someone who was just promoted at work being given their new job description.  

Again, then, putting on Christ is about who you are before it is about what you do.  

So, who are we in Christ?  What is our new nature that we’re supposed to live consistently with?

Throughout the portion of the letter that we’ve already covered, we’ve seen that Christians are saints, faithful brothers, qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints, citizens of the kingdom of Jesus, redeemed, forgiven, reconciled, buried and raised with Jesus, alive in Christ, forgiven, and debt-free.  

In our passage for this morning, Paul adds three more descriptions of our new nature in Jesus.  

12 … God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved…

Christians are God’s chosen ones.  Christians are holy.  And Christians are beloved.

If you are a Christian, you have been chosen by God.  

This tends to be a controversial doctrine.  As best as I can tell, there are two main reasons for that.  People tend to recoil at the idea of God choosing people because (1) it sounds like some kind of merit-based/favorite system and (2) because it sounds like we have no say in things.  

Regarding the merit-based objection, it was always an anxious thing to wait around to get chosen for recess teams as a kid.  Playground rules meant people were picked based on some captain-specific combination of talent and depth of friendship.  In that way, if you weren’t particularly talented or you weren’t a close friend of one of the captains, then you had to face the embarrassment of being picked near the end or, worse still, not at all.  If God’s choosing is like that, it’s not hard to understand why people are concerned by that.  

And regarding the no-say objection, we’re particularly susceptible to being frustrated by the thought of not being in ultimate control of things since our culture is so deeply individualistic.  Virtually everything around us tells us that we are in ultimate control of everything from our food and clothing preferences to our purpose and gender.  It’s not hard to imagine how/why we don’t like the idea that the most significant thing of all (our eternal destiny) isn’t ultimately ours to choose.  

To be clear, there is a measure of mystery concerning the exact nature of God’s choosing and its relationship to our wills.  But to be equally clear, the Bible is unwavering in its teachings that (1) Christians are Christians because we’ve been chosen by God (Acts 13:48; Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 2:9; Romans 8:33; John 15:16; Deuteronomy 7:6; 2 Timothy 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 1:4; 2 Thessalonians 2:13), and (2) because we’ve chosen God (John 1:12, 3:16; Acts 16:31; Romans 10:9), and that (3) God’s choosing is a good and loving thing (John 10:28; Ephesians 1:5; Romans 5:8, 8:28; 1 Thessalonians 1:4).  

Many years ago, a man in our previous church asked me if I believed in predestination.  I remember sharing with him that since the Bible repeatedly teaches the doctrine, the question cannot be whether or not we are chosen by God, but what it means that we are.  

Grace, the bottom line is that our sin is so deadly and destructive that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:7).  In other words, our sin means that if God did not first choose us, we would/could never choose Him and we’d be forever stuck in our sin and death.  

And, at the same time, our sin is such that if God’s choosing were based on our worthiness, God would never choose anyone and, once again, we’d be forever stuck in our sin and death.

It is an indisputable biblical fact and an act of amazing grace that Christians are God’s chosen ones.  Be amazed by this, Grace.  Delight in this.  Be humbled by this.  Rest in this.  If your hope is in Jesus, this is who you already are.  

If you are a Christian, you are chosen and you are holy.  You have been set apart as God’s people.  You are distinct from the world, which is why Paul commands, (since you are already holy,) “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human traditions, according to the elemental spirits of the world…[unholy things]”.  And it is why he asks, “If with Christ, you died to the elemental spirits of the world [that is, since you are holy], why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations [that is, act as if you were not holy]?”  

To be a Christian is to have already been made holy.  

What’s more, as Paul wrote in 1:22, you are holy so that you will be holy.  We see the same idea in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify [holyify] you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”

You are holy and you will certainly be holy, Grace Church. Together, today, we are set apart so that one day we will be presented to Jesus “in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing…holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27).

Grace, you will never be able to do what Paul calls you to do, if you don’t first believe you are who Paul says you are.  You are holy and you will certainly be made holy.  

Finally, if you are a Christian, you are loved by God.  His favor and affection and pleasure and commitment to giving you that which is best for you are all irrevocably set upon you by the Lord God Almighty.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 5:8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Ephesians 2:4-5 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…

1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God…

1 John 4:16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us…

Romans 8:38-39 I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In my experience, there is a pretty dramatic bell-curve here.  When you hear that God loves you, almost everyone in this room falls on one of the two sides of the bell.  You either think, “Of course He does.  Why wouldn’t He love someone like me?” or you think “No way.  There’s no possible way He could love someone like me.”  

Even though most of us fall into one of those two camps, neither rightly grasps what Paul means in declaring that we are God’s “beloved.”  

Indeed, even though every Christian is entirely and unwaveringly loved by God, very few people that I’ve met are at the top of the bell and no one stays there for long; truly receiving God’s love in faith, joyfully acknowledging that it is certainly ours, but humbly admitting that it is so, only on account of Christ.  To know this is to be filled with awe and wonder and gratitude and amazement and happiness and peace

You are loved by God, Grace Church.    

Again, notice that these things are true of all Christians.  They are true of us as individuals, but even more so as a people.  And because we are those things—chosen, holy, and loved—we must live consistently with them; and especially as we come together as a church.   

The more we understand and assume our new identities in Christ, the more we will want to think and feel and act like it.  And the more we want to think and feel and act like it, the more we’ll see Paul’s charge as the awesome treasure it is.  

Before coming to the second leg of the chair (Paul’s list of the attitudes we must put on in Christ), I want to point out three important aspects of his list.  

First, as I just said, it is an awesome treasure for those who love Jesus.  But we must recognize that we wouldn’t see it as such if God didn’t reveal it to us.  

Imagine allowing a toddler to choose one thing to keep from a basket full of toys.  In it are some plastic balls, a wooden puzzle, a xylophone, a microphone that lights up and plays music, and an uncut diamond worth $50k.  I doubt that many kids would choose the diamond even though it’s worth 10,000x more than every other toy in the basket.  They wouldn’t choose it because they have no use for it and no idea what it’s worth. 

That’s how we are when it comes to the list of things Paul charges us to put on.  It is supremely valuable, but apart from God’s help, we’ll pass right over it for relatively worthless earthly things.  

Second, every part of it is inherently corporate.  Every item on the list can only be done in connection with someone else.  You must be compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient toward someone.  Those things don’t exist in isolation.  

In that way, in this passage, Paul helps us to see that the Christian life is corporate by nature.  There are many who falsely believe they can put on Christ without putting on His people.  Likewise, there are many who falsely think that putting on Christ is constant, but putting on His people is intermittent.  It is tragically common for people to think of themselves as spiritually mature apart from covenanting within a local church.  But in this passage, we can clearly see the essential and inseparable connection between being a Christian and committing yourself to Christians.

As strange as it might sound as you look around this room and see all the strange people in it, by God’s good design, you cannot thrive as a Christian apart from a firm commitment to being deeply involved in the lives and shared mission of these people.  

We’re too prone to thinking first in terms of what we (as individuals) got out of DG this week instead of our God-given need to be shepherded, to help our shepherds shepherd us in joy, and to obey the one another commands.  Or of our family’s extra-curricular schedule instead of our God-given need to join our voices with the choir of the saints each week in the corporate worship service.  Or of our personal needs, desires and ambitions instead of our God-given need to love our neighbor’s needs, desires, and ambitions as our own.  

Grace, in spite of the significant confusion in the Church today, the Christian life is by nature a corporate life.  Christian maturity is inherently corporate.  Continually putting on Christ means continually putting on the church.  

The third and final thing I want to point out is that Paul’s list of things to put on assumes difficulty among Christians.  Underneath every item on his list is a God-given means of avoiding or repairing conflict among the people within the local church in Colossae (and Grace Church today).  

The question we need to ask ourselves, then, is this: What does it mean to put on Christ when someone you’re bound together with wrongs you?  How do you respond when someone you’ve committed to following Jesus with sins against you, if you’ve put on Christ?

To really appreciate this, you really need to have a significant offense that someone has committed against you in mind.  Kids, think of a time when your brother or sister took the toy you were playing with and wouldn’t give it back.  Think of a time when a friend promised to help you with something significant and they bailed at the last minute.  Husbands, think of a time when your wife was explicitly disrespectful to you.  Wives, think of a time when your husband spoke particularly harshly with you.  Christian, think of a time in which you confessed a sin to someone and they ended up gossiping about you in light of it.

Those are the kinds of things Paul has in mind.  He knows what Christians are like in our hearts and our relationships.  And because of that, he knows we will have conflict.  But he also knows that putting on Christ means having all we need to handle conflict in a manner that is pleasing to God, good for the church, and a light to the world.  

God’s good design is that when someone sins against us, we would go directly and lovingly to them (Matt 18), that they would humbly and immediately repent and ask for our forgiveness (Luke 17; Matthew 18:21-22), that we would lovingly and humbly forgive them, and that the relationship would be quickly and warmly restored.  

But that’s not really what this is about.  It’s about when it doesn’t work like this.  Sometimes we are wrong in our assessment.  Sometimes when we’re right, people don’t repent.  Sometimes those who sin against us repent, but only for a small percentage of what we think they ought to repent of.  What do we do then?

Paul’s list is an awesome treasure for the members of every local church to know how to put on Christ in such a way as to prevent and restore conflict in a manner pleasing to God.  

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience… 

Once again, Grace, draw to mind a conflict you’re currently in or imagine being in, remember who you are (God’s chosen, holy, loved) and consider how you will put on, in faith, the things Paul commands as a means of honoring God, serving the church, and being a light to the world.  

Our tendency when people hurt us is to react in kind or to quietly suffer in hurt and bitterness.  But Paul says that to put on Christ is to put on a compassionate heart toward that person.  In its most basic sense, this means that instead of mainly being grieved by them (for the hurt they caused us), we are grieved for them (for the fact that their hearts have wandered from God).  To put on Christ is to realize that every sin against us is always the act of someone who is on a path of rebellion and danger.  How much conflict would be prevented and restored, if we felt more compassion than anger for those who are in such a bad place.

To put on Christ is to put on compassion toward Christians who hurt you.  

If you were to make a list of everyone you’ve sinned against and their responses to it, I wonder how many times you’d have to write down “kindness.”  I don’t imagine you’ve experienced that often (if ever).  But that’s just what Paul commends as us to do as a church.  When another member of our church sins against you, put on Christ and respond not in kind, but with kindness.  Treat them with dignity and respect.  That’s not the same as minimizing their sin or pretending it’s good, but it’s also not the same as we would do apart from the Spirit in us.   

To put on Christ is to put on kindness toward the members of Grace who hurt you because you are chosen, holy, and loved by God.

When you’re sinned against, be humble.  You might not have read the situation just right.  You might have misunderstood something.  You might have been off on their motives.  You might have contributed to the problem in ways you hadn’t realized.  God alone knows the situation perfectly.  God alone knows what a perfect response entails.  God alone can respond in perfect holiness.  You are not God.  Put on Christ, remember who you are, and be humble in your response to those who sin against you.     

In similar fashion, putting on Christ in conflict means being meek (or gentle).  One definition is “Not being overly impressed by a sense of one’s self-importance.”  Arrogance, pride, and a false sense of importance process sins against us as if our comfort and justice were the main point of everything.  To be meek is to recognize that even if you’re right in your assessment of the other person’s sin, you are still not the center of the story.  As we saw earlier, a person’s sin is always against God before it is a sin against us.  

To put on Christ is to be meek in the face of hardship caused by the sinful actions of another.  

Patience

Finally, to put on Christ as Paul commands is to be patient as well.  Think about your own sinful desires and practices, Grace.  How many of your own sins were you blind to for a long time before you first saw them?  Once you saw your sin, how often have you stubbornly refused to fight against it for some time?  And once you did begin fighting against your sin, how long have you tried to put it to death with little if any relief?  Even more to the point, how patient has God been with you in your sin?  You are chosen by God, you are holy, and you are loved by God even in your sin against Him, so put on Christ and be patient with others in theirs against you.  

Grace, if you are a Christian, you are chosen, holy, and loved.  Therefore, at all times, but especially when you are wronged by God’s people, by the people in this room, put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience toward them.  

The big idea of this sermon is that Christians are in Christ and so we must put on Christ; and especially those aspects of Christlikeness that foster unity and peace within the church.  The main takeaway is to do exactly as Paul commands, seeking God’s help to believe we are who He says we are and then clothing ourselves with all the things he lists as a means of glorifying God and strengthening His church.  

Colossians 3:11 –
11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Good morning, Grace Church! I am pleased to serve you this morning through God’s word. May it do the work that God intends and may it bring about a greater joy in Jesus. We are continuing our journey with the Colossian believers through Paul’s letter to them. He addresses a heart issue with our verse this morning. I say it’s a heart issue because otherwise we are left with a list of bad things not to do, which we heard last week and a list after verse 11 of good things we need to do which will simply frustrate us when we fail do them. Not surprisingly, God is always after the heart first before the things we see on the outside. 

Proverbs 4:23 – “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

1 Samuel 16:7 -“For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

Matthew 15:18-19 – “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart… For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

Luke 6:45 -“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good… for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

Jonathan Edwards: “The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest Himself in the heart of the saint, working as a principle of divine life.”

Martin Luther: “It is the heart that makes a theologian.”

From the heart springs idols – those created things in which we seek our hope, joy, significance, and security – but only Jesus Christ can sustain our souls. Oh, that the Spirit would do heart work today in us to kill idols.

My aim this morning: To remind us to keep our identity in Jesus Christ because He has made us a new creation. That we would be a unified church because the same Christ is our foundation, hope, and treasure. That we experience lasting joy because Christ is all and in all.

Let me ask you to consider a question: What defines you? If I were to ask you on a normal day, who are you or tell me about yourself? How would you answer? You may answer:

I am a husband. I am a mom. I am retired. I am an athlete. I am from a small town. I am conservative. I am happy. I am lonely. I am healthy. I am weird. 

These are all labels, identities, categories that naturally become the guidance to our hope, joy, significance and security. The problem is not the categories themselves, but that they reign in our hearts and minds. They become idols.

Paul is telling the Colossians believers: there is something deeper about you that what the world can see, what the world elevates. Your deepest identity is not what you do, what you have or don’t have. It’s not what people think about you. Your identity is found in Jesus Christ, the Supreme King and Savior. 

With that, let’s walk through Paul’s words in verse 11.

Paul starts with a word, “Here.” Where is here, Paul?

Paul is moving from the individual talked about in verse 10 to the gathering of Jesus followers in verse 11. Here is both the new self, each follower of Jesus, but also the new community that God has created through Christ. Notice, Paul doesn’t say “over there.” It’s here: the place where people have put off the old self. Here, where people have put on the new self. Here in each of you and as a result, here in this local church. There is a miracle of unitedness that doesn’t happen in the world, it happens in the unity of the gathering of a bunch of new creations in this new community that God purchased with His Son’s blood. 

Before Paul gets into what relationships look like later in this letter for blood-bought saints, he addresses the new identity that we have here, inside our heart and within this gathering. In verse 10, Paul says, “…you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”

In the phrase, ‘after the image of its creator’, Paul is drawing a connection from Genesis 1:27 where it is said that God created Adam in His own image. The first Adam is regarded as the old man or old self who should be put off and discarded, because now we are being renewed, we are created after the imageof the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Elsewhere, Paul wrote that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus. We are a new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. 

In the Gospel of John, we hear the words we must be born again, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 

So in this letter to the Colossians, Paul is not describing self-improvement. He is describing a new creation. There is a death to one man and a birth of a new man.

In Galatians 2, Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

The old self dies and therefore, I no longer live, but Jesus lives in me. I don’t live a life by trying harder to be like Jesus, I live only because Jesus lives in me. Colossians 1:27 – “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 3:4 – “Christ who is your life…” Every believer has Christ living in them. The Holy Spirit stirs our hearts to treasure Jesus because Jesus is life. We have springs of living water in us because Jesus is life in us. Paul said we are dead in our trespasses and sins, but we were made alive together with Christ. Old self: dead. New self: Christ. 

So, Paul takes that truth into verse 11 to dismantle labels that don’t/shouldn’t reign in our new self and then connecting it the whole gathering of Jesus people. The same Christ who lives in me, lives in you! We have one LORD. We have one FAITH. Galatians 3, “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” 

There would be much to work through in those verses, but I’ll simply say: we belong to Christ and therefore we belong to each other – what a miracle of grace! So Paul takes the categories of people and dismantles their authority in the following list because of Jesus who is our new identity.  

Paul lists off labels: Greek and Jew. (ethnicity)

Circumcised and uncircumcised. (religious)

Barbarian and Scythian. (culture)

Slave and free. (social)

None of these were small differences. They were deeply rooted all around the church back then…though we use different labels today, they all essentially fall into these categories of ethnicity, religion, culture, or society. Back then, a Jewish person might have viewed the Greek as spiritually inferior. The Greek would have looked at the barbarian as uncultured and crude. A free person would have looked down upon the slave. Society builds walls and we love them. We decorate them with our ideologies, self-proclamations, self-worth. But when Christ comes, something greater happens. It’s not that differences no longer exist, they just no longer define worth and status in God’s kingdom. In the Church we aim for unity. We say ‘unity’ not ‘uniformity’ because the gospel doesn’t erase personality, background, ethnicity, culture, or history – it just changes what is at the center, what sits on the throne of authority. We may have many relationships and fall within many categories, but one relationship defines all the others: we must proclaim to ourselves “I belong to Jesus and all other labels submit to Him.” Paul presents every earthly distinction people use to determine value, privilege, and significance and shows their weakness in the light of Jesus. How? Jesus brought the only solution to our division from God and divisions between one another. Jesus brought peace by the blood of His cross (Col. 1:20).

Jesus does not just bring peace…He is our peace. Peace is a harmony, quietness, rest which is possible because through Jesus we enter God’s rest, we are restored to Him and others through Jesus.

Before this salvation, sin separated us from God (Isaiah 59:2; Romans 3:23; Ephesians 4:18). But when Jesus died, He paid the full penalty for our sins. He was “pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him” (Isaiah 53:5; Colossians 1:20). Only through a relationship with the risen Christ can peace with God be achieved and maintained. To the Thessalonians, Paul called Jesus “the Lord of peace” who gives “peace at all times and in every way” (2 Thessalonians 3:16). Jesus Himself told His disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27).

Jesus fulfills the OT prophets who said that the Christ would come to be our “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) who would “proclaim peace to the nations” (Zechariah 9:10). At the time of Christ’s birth, the angels proclaimed, ““Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). In Him, we have “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding” to guard our hearts and minds (Philippians 4:7). Jesus came to bring peace on earth and called His followers to seek peace in the earth: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sonsof God.” (Matt. 5:9). By knowing Jesus and making the effort for peace in His name, by His truth, we reflect Jesus to those around us, showing Jesus makes the only difference in a world that lives by fighting and dividing.

As Paul presents these labels and saying there is none of that here, he is stating that the work of Jesus on the cross is the common ground of salvation for both Jew and Gentile. Therefore, there is no longer any dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. Jesus broke that wall down.

Paul likely wrote these words while the physical wall separating Jew and Gentile in the Temple still stood in Jerusalem. Every Gentile knew there was a barrier they could not cross. Yet Paul declares that in Christ the greater, truer barrier had already fallen. A decade after he penned these words, history caught up with what Christ had already accomplished when the Romans destroyed the Temple. Prior to the sacrifice of Christ, Jews alone could be washed and purified to enter God’s holy Temple. Today, those of all races can enter into the presence of God by means of the blood of Jesus and the washing of regeneration of the Spirit. The sacrifice of Christ removes religious and cultural barriers. All those who place their faith in Jesus are considered one with equal access to the throne of God. This is what Paul means in Colossians as he states, there is no longer Jew or Greek, circumcised or not, slave or free…we are all one in Christ! Jesus brought peace between us and God and amongst us because Jesus is Himself peace. In Christ, former enemies become one family, built together into God’s dwelling place. That is why Paul can say in Colossians 3:11, “Christ is all, and in all.” Our old identities no longer define us. Our unity is not found in ethnicity, status, or background, but in our shared life in Christ.

Again, friends, Paul is not denying reality, but he is redefining identity. The problem was not the categories, but treasuring them over Jesus. Today we use different labels: Blue collar or white collar. Athlete or theatre student. Republican or Democrat. Single or married. Some that don’t combat another, but all still create value: parent, grandparent, widow, homeschooler, college graduate. None of these disappear, they simply need to stop ruling our view of one another in Christ. This is how we live out the reality of verse 17: We do all things in the name of our Lord Jesus, giving thanks to the Father through Him. 

Jews remains Jews, Greeks remain Greeks, men remain men, women remain women. Social distinctions still exist – there are rich and poor. What no longer exists is the advantage attached to them in God’s Kingdom. Our standing before the LORD is determined entirely by our union with Jesus by faith. The ground is level at Calvary. If Christ has removed every lesser identity, then what remains? Paul answers with four words that summarize the Christian life: Christ is all.

Paul has not said, “Jesus is really important.” He is not an addition to life, He is life. He is the foundation, the fuel for the new self, and the pursuit of our days.

Already Paul has given us this earlier in the letter: “we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him… Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

Christ is all because He is our greatest need. Christianity is not about getting something from God like a better marriage, better friends, circumstances, or future. Those can be some benefits, but they aren’t all guaranteed nor are they the goal itself. Christianity is primarily about getting Jesus – who saves us from our sins and the wrath of God that we deserve. It is about going from death to life, being in a kingdom of darkness and death to getting placed in the Kingdom of the Beloved Son in light and life. We get a relationship with the One who created us, knit us together, redeemed us. Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3). God brings us to Himself by the power of the Holy Spirit through His Son Jesus. The treasure of Christianity is Christ Himself. He is the way, the truth, the life.  

Jesus is our greatest need, but also what our hearts long for – He is our joy. Joy is the settled delight and gladness of heart that comes from abiding in Christ, experiencing His love, and walking in His grace, regardless of your circumstances.

Everybody wants joy. God created us to pursue it. The question is not “do you want it?” – the question is “where are you looking for it?” We chase joy in things that cannot deliver the joy that Jesus gives: approval, comfort, success, money, control, relationships, entertainment. These can be good gifts, but they make for terrible gods. 

I’m thankful for Lewis with the idea of pursuing joy and his work, Surprised by Joy. Lewis describes joy as a deep, unsatisfied longing that is more precious than having the thing longed for. Unlike happiness or pleasure, Joy carries an ache, almost like a beautiful grief, because it points beyond itself to something greater. Those who experience it always desire it again and would not trade it for every earthly pleasure. Yet, unlike pleasure, Joy cannot be produced or controlled. It comes as a gift, awakening a longing that nothing in this world can fully satisfy. He connects joy to a German phrase translated, “a holy longing.” Lewis writes later, “Joy itself, considered simply as an event in my own mind, turned out to be of no value at all.” (Surprised by Joy: The Shape of my Early Life, p. 269). What he was calling joy was in fact not the end in itself, but a kind of sign pointing toward the end. He concludes by saying, “I had hoped that the heart of reality might be of such a kind that we can best symbolize it as a place…Instead, I found it to be a Person” (p. 282). 

The things is, good gifts cannot carry the weight of our soul…but Jesus can. They point us to the source of life and that joy – in the person of Jesus Christ.

Psalm 16:11 “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Not a little joy, not temporal joy – fullness of joy, friends. There is a deep satisfaction as we treasure Jesus above all else, when we rightly rest in Him for our hope, joy, significance and security. This treasure cannot be taken away; Christ is ours and we are Christ’s. Christ isn’t only above His church as Lord. He is also present within His people.

Not only is Jesus above all, but He lives in all people. I’ve touched on this already, but the same Jesus that is life in me, is life in you brothers and sisters. We see the greatness of Christ as He is supreme, but there is a comfort of Christ that is just as important. Christ is in His people. Whether you have been following Jesus for 50 years or whether you came to faith yesterday, whether you are feeling strong in Christ or whether you are praying for Christ to hold fast because you can’t any longer – Christ dwells with the same supernatural power. 

Christ is with you in ordinary moments. I think our hearts long for extraordinary moments where we sense the Lord’s presence and feel His power mightily at work. We can pray for those moments, but often the Christian life is ordinary. So, friends, Christ dwells in you while you wash dishes, while you drive to work, changing a diaper, grocery shopping on a busy Saturday, serving without anyone taking notice. Christ is with you, in you, giving you life. 

So even in “ordinary” days, Christ is in it and with you. 

Even more, Christ is with you in the burdens you carry. Some of us have come here this morning carrying weights. I’m not talking about sin, I’m talking about sufferings, burdens that no one but the Lord knows about. You’ve come here because you need refuge. Christ is the refuge. Psalm 62:8 has become a favorite verse of mine in the past couple years: “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”

Christ is with you as you watch your marriage fall apart. Christ is with you while you watch a child walk away from Jesus. Christ is with you in the diagnosis you’re waiting to hear. Christ is with you while you feel overwhelmed by loneliness. Christ is with you in grief unexplained. 

The comfort here is not “You will not feel hurt or pain.” The promise is you are not alone in it. Christ dwells in you. Additionally, we are called to bear one another burdens, weep with those who weep. May this gathering of Grace Church be a place where we walk with one another with Christ-filled hearts and peace. 

The last part of Christ being in all is a small reflection on the Sunday gathering. The gathering this morning matters. Not only does it matter for your life now, but this is practice for eternity. In Revelation 7, we see what we are practicing for, “…behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” 

Every tribe, every language, every nation, standing before the one Savior King. This is the hope of glory – to see and savor Jesus Christ face-to-face in perfection, eyes undimmed, no presence and power of sin, but glory!

I think this also makes the Church difficult at times. Here’s what I mean. We have a sense of what heaven may be like, we think about life without all the brokenness. Sometimes we experience the reality that we still live in a sin-sick world. It impacts this gathering. It impacts us God’s people. This is also why we must continue to press on toward the prize that is ours in Christ Jesus. We know what church should be, we experience moments of heaven on a Sunday or in our living room with a few other believers. Then our sin, flesh, the Enemy gets in and wrecks it. We don’t deny it, but our response is to proclaim and remind ourselves of the gospel. We remind ourselves that Christ will build His Church. We kill the old self with humility before Jesus and one another knowing that this shadow will disappear. These are the things that angels long to look at Peter said, where rulers and authorities in the heavenly places are seeing the manifold wisdom of God – they are learning about His great redemption through individuals being redeemed and the gathering of all of those together in community sustained by grace. Someday the reality will be glory, death will be dead, and the gathering will be prefect before King Jesus forever. 

So, this practice for things to come – the gathering of God’s redeemed people in joy – is for our good and the glory of our Redeemer. Across the world, different cultures and languages gathering separately, while someday heaven will contain all of them. Unity will be perfect and even in glory our differences will remain to bring glory to God. Christ will gather the nations around His throne as a transformed, glorified, joy-filled family. 

Until then…

The church becomes a place where we repent often. We forgive quickly. We eat together, we worship together, we pray together, we rejoice and bear burdens, we disagree and reconcile. This isn’t because we are alike, but because Christ has saved us, dwells in us, and the Spirit makes us more into the image of the Beloved Son. When we know the gospel, we think of others before ourselves at the foot of the cross and the throne of grace. 

Grace Church, don’t ask good gifts to carry the weight of your soul. They were never meant to. Christ can. So, Grace Church, let me bring us back to the question we began with.

What defines you?

If Christ is all and Christ is in all, then the truest thing about every believer in this room is not your success or failure, your politics or personality, your past or your present, your suffering or your strength. The truest thing about you is that you belong to Jesus, and Jesus belongs to you.

And if that is true of me, and it is true of you, then it changes the way we walk through those doors every Sunday. We don’t gather as under some political leaning, young and old, wealthy and struggling, lifelong believers and new Christians. We gather first as people who have been rescued by the same Savior, filled by the same Spirit, and welcomed by the same Father.

That means this church will never be held together by preferences, personalities, ministries, or traditions. Those things may be gifts, but they cannot bear the weight of holding a church together. Only Christ can.

Before you leave today, ask the Spirit to reveal what label you’ve been clinging to most tightly. Maybe success. Maybe politics. Maybe family. Maybe your failures. Maybe your suffering. Whatever has become larger than Christ in your heart needs to come down from the throne, because only Christ can carry the weight of your soul.

When Christ is our treasure, we don’t have to protect our labels. We don’t have to compete for significance. We don’t have to demand our own way. Because if Christ has already declared you accepted, you no longer have to spend your life proving yourself. We are free to repent, free to forgive, free to serve, free to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, because our life is hidden with Christ. Church, let’s become the kind of people who make much of Jesus together. May people leave this place saying not, “What an impressive church,” or, “What wonderful people,” but, “What a glorious Savior.”

Because one day faith will become sight. The church gathered here will join all believers throughout all time gathered around the throne. Every tribe, every tongue, every nation will sing with one voice, and no earthly label will matter except this: we belong to the Victorious Lamb who was slain. Until that day, let us treasure Christ together, because Christ is all, and Christ is in all.

Colossians 3:5-10 –

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

It is relatively common in the OT for God to command His people to put things to death.  Animals as sacrifices (Exodus 29:38-39), disobedient children (Leviticus 21:18-21), blasphemers (Leviticus 24:15-16), adulterers (Leviticus 22:22-23), and entire nations (Joshua 6:21) are among them.  In the NT we’re told that God has granted death-penalty authority to the governing authorities (Romans 13:4).  

Killing is not something most people want to be around, which means all of that probably sounds at least somewhat disturbing (or at least strange).  But it probably also seems at least somewhat tolerable since all of that God-ordained death is a considerable distance away from most of us, most of the time.  

But what if God commanded you to kill?  What would you do then?  We’re about to find out because the first verse in our passage brings killing up close and personal for all of us.  In it, Paul demands that Christians actively and continually take part in killing, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.”  Kill sin.  

The heart of this sermon is asking and answering four questions about what it means in concept and practice to put to death what is earthly in us.  The four questions are: (1) What is Paul’s main charge (and who is it for)?  (2) What are earthly things?  (3) Why does it matter?  (4) How do we do what Paul commands?

In addressing these questions, we’ll find ourselves familiar territory.  Paul’s line of thinking is essentially this: You have a new nature in Christ, so live like it by faith; in part, by killing whatever remains of your old nature.  Or, negatively, you are dead to earthly things so put to death any appetite for them; stop living as if you’re still alive to them.  Or, as those redeemed by Jesus, by the powerful working of God, pursue knowledge of Christlikeness, and gladly conform to it by embracing your new self and killing what’s left of your old self and its practices. 

Grace, if your hope is in Jesus, you are a new creation and you have a new nature.  However, it takes time to understand all that means.  It takes time to learn what’s new about the new you.  It takes even more time to learn to love what’s new about you and live in light of it.  But as you grow in the knowledge of God and His will, with the Spirit’s help, work to renew the new you.  With the Spirit’s help, put to death all that was a part of your non-Christian (earthly) self.  That’s Paul’s charge and mine.  Let’s pray.

For Paul, there are two (and only two) ways to live.  Either we live for the world and the things of the world or we live for God and the things of God.  The first way of life is ours by nature, from birth.  Adam’s sin ensured that.  The second way of life is a gift from God, to be received by faith.  Jesus’ death and resurrection ensured that.    

In that way, to become a Christian is to begin to see (by the grace of God) the disordered and deadly nature of the world and to forsake it.  It is also to begin to see the goodness and glory of God and seek it.  

Once again, this passage and the four questions of this sermon are primarily a reminder that we have already chosen to live for God, a charge to do so with increasing fullness, and a God-given means of help to obey the charge.

With that, the first of the four questions: What is Paul’s main charge (and who is it for)? 

Once again, we find it right at the beginning of our passage.

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you…

There’s a parallel version in v.8 as well.  

8 But now you must put them [that is, earthly things] all away…

Before we examine the charge itself, let’s make sure we understand who it’s for.  Who was Paul addressing?  Who is meant to put to death what is earthly in them in this way?  

As you know, the whole letter is addressed to the church in Colossae.  In v.7 he describes his intended audience as those who “once walked” in sin and as people who “were living in them [in the sins he specifically names]”.  And in v. 10, he says of the people he charged to kill sin, that they have already “put off the old self with its practices.”  

In other words, Paul’s charge is to Christians.  There are times to worry about the sins of non-Christians, but this isn’t one of them.  In that way, as we make our way through this passage, our minds aren’t meant to go to the frustrating sins “out there,” but to those “in here;” in our own hearts and church.  

That’s a big deal for a number of reasons, but chief among them is the fact that (as I hope you remember) Paul’s imperatives flow from his indicatives.  His charges to us comes out of his declaration of what’s already true of us.  That’s why he can at the same time command his readers to “put to death what is earthly in” them and declare that they have already “put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self.”  

As has been the case for the past few weeks, understanding how both of those things can be true at the same time is critical to grasping Paul’s point and to getting all the help we’re meant to have from it.  

Remember, then, as a Christian, you have a new nature in Christ (indicatively).  You are dead to earthly things (indicatively).  Therefore, you can heed Paul’s charge to conform to your new nature and put to death all that’s left of your old (imperatively).  

Paul’s main charge, then, is for you and me (and all professing faith in Jesus) to kill the sinful appetites and practices that remain in us.  In His death, Jesus decisively atoned for our sins and freed us from their enslavement.  And by His resurrection from the dead, He guaranteed our sanctification.  But God’s good design is that our lives, from the moment we first trust in Jesus until we go to be with Him, are meant to be gradually sanctified (made holy; renewed; transformed).  

As we’ll see throughout chapter 3, there are two main aspects of our gradual sanctification: (1) Putting off the old self (killing sin) and (2) Putting on the new self (seeking the renewal of our minds, that we might be continually transformed into Christ’s likeness).

Again, this sermon is primarily about the first aspect (putting off the old self).

Paul’s language in Romans (8:13) gets us quickly to the heart of the matter, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”  

Our charge, then, Grace Church, is not merely to stiff-arm sin.  It’s not merely to suppress it.  It’s not merely to hold it back with self-control.  It’s not merely to internalize it.  It’s not merely to stop acting sinfully.

We do those things whenever we simply cut off access to a sin.  This is like canceling our internet to deal with the sin of pornography, or getting a brick phone to help with our sin of wasting time, or changing jobs to get away from a temptation toward greed, or giving up our credit card to remove the possibility of gambling online, or just keeping our mouths shut instead of gossiping, or gouging out our eyes because we struggle with lust.  

Almost certainly we should do all of those things, but absolutely certainly we shouldn’t stop there.  All those things do is push our earthly things further down in our heart, when what we really need is to put them to death and be “renewed in knowledge after the image of [our] Creator.”  

And for that, we need to (kill, mortify,) put to death (the sin, the deeds of the body,) the earthly things that remain in us.  Jesus already paid for them all.  They are no longer credited against our account.  We do not put them to death because we must earn God’s favor, but because we already have it with the new natures He’s given us in Christ.  

The main point is that the main charge is for every follower of Jesus to kill “what is earthly in” us, not simply suppress it.  That leads to the next question.  What, exactly does Paul mean by “earthly” things?  

I hope it goes without saying that if we are going to kill something, it’s absolutely critical we understand it.  Killing is an irreversible act.  Therefore, it’s clearly critical to make sure we kill the right thing.  

Hunters, you know this on some level, right?  You need to know what zone you’re hunting and its specific regulations.  Bucks only?  4 point and up?  Harvest tags available?  Rifles allowed or shotgun only?  You don’t want to get it wrong or a DNR helicopter might track you down and confiscate your dear, your firearm, and your license (as happened to our former pastor).

And more importantly still is making sure you’re shooting at the right animal.  Every year it seems like someone accidently shoots a doe, thinking they saw spikes.  Or, worse yet, uncle Jerry because they mistook him for a deer.  

In other words, if it’s important to know what you’re after in hunting, how much more important is it to know what you’re after when it comes to putting to death spiritual things?

To that end, let me warn you of two ditches often associated with sin-killing.

The ditch on the right is the ditch that works really hard at putting things to death that God’s Word never explicitly prohibits—playing cards, watching movies, dancing, and consuming alcohol, for instance.  The Bible does say there are sinful ways to engage in each of those things, but they are not inherently sinful and should not, therefore, be put to death by themselves (indeed, two of them are required for godliness in a very real sense).  We can’t honor God, live consistently with our new selves, or benefit anyone when we’re in this ditch.

The left ditch is just as futile and dangerous.  It ignores or minimizes or explains away or outright denies sinful things the Bible explicitly prohibits.  There are many examples, but the one that seems to be the most prominent today is the sin of homosexuality.  It seems almost more likely than not today to see a non-Noah rainbow flag as the most prominent design-feature of the churches we drive by.  But we cannot honor God, live consistently with our new selves, or benefit anyone when we are in this ditch either.  

God alone defines the things that He commands us to kill.

What, then, are the things Paul commands us to put to death?  Collectively, he refers to them as “earthly” (v.5) and “the old self with its practices” (v.9). Individually, he names eleven things: Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, and lying (5, 8, 9).  

Those are not, of course, all the earthly things we need to put to death, but they are a good start and a clear example of what he has in mind.  

On one hand, I don’t love the idea of rattling off a list of words and definitions, but on the other hand Paul does list them and, more importantly, it seems increasingly critical that we not only use the same words, but mean what God means by them.  

Sexual immorality.  This is a broad category that encompasses anything outside of God’s design.  Sex is designed and given by God to be exclusively within the context of a covenant union (marriage) between one man and one woman.  It’s given for procreation, protection, and pleasure within marriage.  It is to be mutual, beneficial, and edifying.  Everything else is sexual immorality.  

One pastor (Tommy Nelson, in his series on the Song of Solomon), likens this to having a fire in your living room.  There’s exactly one place in which it is good to do so.  Every other place brings destruction and death.  

Grace, because you are a new creature in Christ, put whatever sexually immoral appetites and practices to death.

Impurity.  This is probably an extension of the last one (sexual immorality) in that they (impurity and sexual immorality) are closely connected in passages like Romans 1:24. But impurity also broadens the scope, referring to anything that veers from the practice of moral uprightness.  

Where you find any impure desires, kill them, Paul demands.

Passion.  This refers to especially strong emotional/internal desires.  When our passions are appropriately set on the things of God, they are good (even necessary).  We ought to be passionate about worshiping God and bringing the gospel to the lost and fighting for the cause of the oppressed.  But in this context, clearly, it refers to unsanctified passions.  It refers to intense desire, untethered from the nature and Word of God.  

Kill it, Grace.  By grace, kill sin!

Evil desire.  Where impurity is the practice of evil, “evil desire” refers to the desires that led to the impure actions.  It is a less-intense desire than passion.  In Matthew 5:28, Jesus speaks of a man with an unacted-upon evil desire for sexual immorality.  In 2 Samuel 13, we read of Amnon who was so filled with the passionate evil desire for sexual immorality that he is described as “tormented” and making “himself ill” because of it.  Evil desire is bad.  Passionate evil desire is worse.  But we are to put them both to death equally.  Kill them wherever and whenever you find them in yourself.

Covetousness (which is idolatry).  This refers to the insatiable desire for more and more stuff.  Covetousness, unlike jealousy, is not even about something that belongs to us, but something we want to belong to us and feel like we can’t live without.  It is never good.  And the worst form of it is when the thing we covet takes a place in our lives that belongs to God alone, which is idolatry.  

Again, Paul’s main charge is to put those things to death.  To forsake them, down to the appetite level.  

As you can see in your Bibles, there’s a bit of a break in the list at this point (after v.5).  In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say that Paul has two lists in this passage.  We just looked at the first list, the first five earthly things.  The second is found in vs.8-9.  

Before we come to the second, I’d like you to consider the connection between the two lists.  The first list is related to the wrong things we want and do, while the second list focuses on the ways we often feel/react when we don’t get what we want.   

I’d like you to consider that for a minute.  I know that all of you (all of us) deal with the things Paul names in v.5 (sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness).  Ask yourself, then, what happens when the desire for any of those things is particularly strong in you, but you can’t act on them?

What happens when you are filled with unfulfilled lust?  What happens when you really, really want something of your neighbors but they won’t let you have it?  What happens when you long to be rich, but remain poor?  What happens whenever an earthly desire builds in you, but remains unsatisfied?

Chances are, as long as your desires escape your grasp, you’ll progress in some way through the dispositions Paul names in his second list.  Test this in yourself.

Anger.  “The emotion of instant displeasures on account of something evil that presents itself”.  Like passion, this is not necessarily bad.  God is an angry God (2 Kings 17:18).  There’s a good kind of anger that we don’t want to kill (Ephesians 4:26).  It should make us angry when we, or people around us, fail to honor God as God.  But anger is bad when it’s not truly aimed at evil, when it is out of proportion, and when it is primarily shaped by the inconvenience some evil causes us rather than by its distorting of God’s glory.   

When we aren’t free to act on our earthly desires, we tend to become angry.  And when we aren’t free to act on them over time, we tend to move past anger to rage.  

Rage (I think “rage” is probably a better translation than “wrath”).  Rage is to anger like passion is to desire.  Rage is a more intense anger.  And like anger, rage is not always wrong.  God is a God of rage/wrath (v.6).  When our rage is good and bad, it’s good and bad for all the same reasons that anger is good and bad.  

But put to death the bad anger and rage, Grace.  Paul urges us not to tolerate it even in seed form, lest it bear much wicked fruit in us.  

I know a man who was abused as a child.  He is right to b angry about that.  But for the last 60+ years, it has festered into hot rage to the point that it has consumed him.  It has been so hard to watch it eat him away for decades.  Without a doubt, it progressed in him to the next item on the list as well, malice.  

Malice.  As sinful rage builds in us, it often becomes increasingly aimed at a person (or people).  And when that happens, untethered from the fruit of the Spirit, it quickly turns to malice.  To have malice is to sinfully desire harm to befall someone.  Jesus brought together malice and hatred when He taught that to have hatred toward someone is to be a murderer (1 John 3:15) and it doesn’t get more malicious than that.

Put malice to death, Grace.  It is earthly.  It is not of the Lord.  Kill it.

Slander.  To slander someone is to maliciously speak negatively of them with the intent of doing them harm.  All kinds of things might keep us from giving full vent to our malice.  Often, one aspect of our lesser-venting is slander.  Rather than doing the physical harm we desire to the person who keeps us from our earthly lusts, we might simply talk about them in ways intended to wound them (even if we disguise our attempts; as a payer request, perhaps?).  That is slander.  Don’t tolerate it.  Don’t accommodate it.  Kill it, Paul demands.  

Obscene talk. Slander probably falls under the larger umbrella of “obscene talk,” but even beyond being a more general concept, obscene talk is different in that it isn’t disguised at all and in that it need not be directed against a particular person.  Another distinction is that slander might be true, even if it’s shared for ungodly purposes, but obscene talk has nothing to do with truth.  Its aim is simply to give vent to filth.  In fact, “Filthy language” is another way to say it.  We usually call it “trash talk” in our house.  In Ephesians 5:4 Paul says something similar, “Let there be no filthiness or foolish talk or crude joking, which are out of place.”

Again, when we allow our earthly lusts to flow freely in us and that’s combined with them being unfulfilled, our hearts will overflow and that often takes the form of obscene, filthy, trash talk and, finally, of lying.   

Lying.  Lying, of course, is purposefully communicating untrue information to someone.  It is explicitly prohibited by the ninth Commandment (Exodus 20:16).  When we allow what is earthly to live in us, we’ll eventually do whatever we need to do to satisfy it, including lying to others.  

Every item on that second list, as well as every item on the first one, Paul commands his readers to put off and to put to death. Grace, don’t try to foster, justify, deny or excuse them.  Don’t even try to tame them or domesticate them.  Don’t try to merely try to stuff them down or hold them at bay.  Kill them.  By the Spirit that dwells richly in you, determine to bring about their death in you.

That leads to a critical question: Why?  Why does this matter?  Why does Paul insist on such violence of action?  

He gives two reasons.  The first we’ve considered at some length already: Because we must live consistently with who we are in Christ; with who God says we are; with what God designed us for.  We were earthly, but now we are not.  It matters, then, because by continuing to live in earthly ways we are living inconsistent and disordered lives.  Even more significant, though, is the fact that when we live in earthly ways, we are calling God a liar.  All of that is serious, of course, and the first reason all of this is deadly serious.  

In v.6 we see a second reason why it matters as well: Because “On account of these the wrath of God is coming.”

There are three keys for us to grasp here.  First, of all the wraths you don’t want coming, God’s wrath is in a class of its own.  He is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29).  Nothing can stay His hand (Daniel 4:35).  In the end, rivers of blood and unending tears will flow when the full measure of the wrath of God comes upon His enemies.  You don’t want that wrath upon you.  

It is no small thing to say that the things on our list bring about the wrath of God.  Which means they are not small things.  You must take them seriously, Grace.  You must kill them or they will kill you.  

That leads to the second key: The wrath of God is not for Christians.  Jesus absorbed every ounce of the just wrath of God for all the sins of those who trust in Him.  Paul says this explicitly in 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us…”.  He says the same in Romans 5:9, “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”

There is no wrath of God for the saints of God in Christ.  

The third key, then, is in recognizing the significance of the fact that this warning (v.6) was written to Christians.  If this is written to Christians, and there is no wrath for Christians, then why does Paul mention it here?  The reason is simple, yet truly profound.  While there is no wrath for Christians, as we saw throughout John’s Gospel, there are many who believe themselves to be Christians who are not; they are unbelieving believers.  

Paul’s point is that true believers will, by the Spirit, increasingly hate these things and put them to death.  Unbelieving believers will not.  They might try, but will inevitably fail and succumb to the frustration of trying to do spiritual things apart from the indwelling Spirit.  

At one point I was meeting with 6-7 young men who were not Christians and knew it.  They wanted to understand Christianity.  I think they had a genuine desire to consider it honestly.  As we talked through the gospel and the nature of the Christian life, I encouraged them to put into practice what they read—confess and repent of sins, gather with God’s people, serve the lowly.  

As time went on, two of them came to faith in Jesus (one of them is here today), but the rest were eventually crushed by their inability to do what God required of them and refused to trust in Jesus to do it for them.  A couple of them professed faith for a while, but their walking away showed that the wrath of God was still on them.  This is a warning for those among the Church, who are not yet truly in the Church.  

That’s the heart of Paul’s warning in Ephesians 5:5-6 (and Galatians 5:19-21), “you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”  

As I said earlier, all of us deal with all of the things on Paul’s list on some level.  God’s design is that our sanctification will not be complete until we die or Christ returns.  Paul’s warning is not for those who struggle against these things, but for those who don’t struggle in faith.  

Again, then, the third key is that this is a warning to us all to consider whether or not our lives line up with what God’s Word says is true, which is the proof that we really are in Christ.  Heeding warnings is the proof that our faith is genuine.  Failing to do so is proof that we remain under God’s wrath.  

Finally, how do we do what Paul commands?  How do we put our dead self to death?  How do we renew what’s new?  How do we put off what’s off?  How do we put to death what is earthly in us?

For the most part, this is the sermon in two weeks.  For now, though, and in conclusion, let me say one simple thing from v.10.    

Putting off the old self and putting on the new is something God is already doing in us.  We are “being renewed in knowledge after the image of [our] creator.”  As we seek to put to death the lingering earthly appetites and practices in us, and as we seek to put on the new self and the appetites and actions that accompany it, we do so by faith in the knowledge that God is already doing them in us.  

More specifically, we fight specific earthly appetites through specific promises of God—things God is doing or will do for us.  Let me close with two simple examples of what I mean.  

How do you put to death the earthly impurity Paul commands us to kill?  You do so by remembering that you are already dead to it and by believing the promise of God in Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  

Likewise, how do you put to death earthly, evil desire for pleasure through sexual sin?  You do so by remembering that you are already dead to it and by believing the promise of God of true pleasure that is found in Him alone (Psalm 16:11), “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”  

Again, we’ll unpack that even more in two weeks when we consider 3:12-15.

As we turn now, to the Lord’s Supper, another means of God’s sanctifying grace, remember, we must put to death what is earthly in us, because we are already dead to it in Christ.  And, more importantly, remember, we must live in the newness of life that is ours already in Christ.  For, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” 

Colossians 3:1-4 –

1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

If you were here for our time in Ecclesiastes, you certainly remember that the invaluable gift of the book is its description of a nearly exhaustive and futile search for satisfaction “under the sun”.  In other words, Ecclesiastes is the story of a man (“the Preacher”) who unsuccessfully tried everything there is among the “things that are on earth” in an attempt to find true and lasting joy in them.  He tried excessive amounts of money, work, sex, wisdom, entertainment, servants, houses, gardens, etc., and while they provided a quick buzz, they all ultimately proved to be empty.    

Of all that, the Preacher wrote, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14).  

Ecclesiastes is a gift in that it shows us that as long as our eyes are on the things of earth, we will not find genuine joy; always lust, never fulfillment; always winter, never Christmas.  It’s a gift in that it frees us from wasting our time in looking for meaning and purpose and significance and joy where they cannot be found.  

But if not among the things “under the sun” or “that are on earth,” where are those things found?  As true as the Preacher’s conclusions were, they’re only half the story.

If the Preacher of Ecclesiastes had the full revelation of God, Colossians 3:1-2 would have been his grand conclusion.  In that way, our passage is like answer to the lingering question of Ecclesiastes.  The two passages are a perfect complement to one another.  

Therefore, with a fuller revelation from God, “the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints” (2:16), Paul answered, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (3:1-2).

True satisfaction is not found among “things that are on earth,” (as the Preacher rightly, albeit painfully observed), but in “things that are above.”  

Paul’s main plea is for the Colossian Christians (and you and I), is to lift our eyes above the earth; to look for the source of all satisfaction where He is found and in what He has done.  And in God’s loving-kindness, He inspired Paul to explain a bit of how and why He means His people to do that.

In a word, it’s this simple idea: By grace, through faith in Jesus, you died to your sins, your soul has been raised with Christ, your life is hidden in Christ, and you will appear with Jesus in glory, therefore, let your eyes (your appetites and thoughts) follow.  

Look up, Christian!  Because of what God has done and will certainly do for you in Jesus, lift your eyes above the temporary buzz of earthly joy and the light momentary affliction of your troubles and trials.  Look up to the One who is risen and who gives resurrection.  And then live entirely in light of what you see.

Let me repeat the logic of this passage before working through the various components of it.

By grace, through faith in Jesus, you have died to your sins, your soul has been raised with Christ, your life is hidden in Christ, and you will appear with Jesus in glory, therefore, seek Christ with all you’ve got.  Know what is true of you, know what God has done for you in Christ, and then live entirely in light of that.  

There are imperatives (commands) to follow, but we’ll never honor God in our obedience to them if our obedience isn’t rooted in the indicatives (objective truths) and promises of God.  

That is exactly how everyone in Christ ought to think all the time, but it is especially true when we find ourselves in times of difficulty, as the Colossians did.  

So, what is true of us in Christ?  The first indicative (chronologically) is found at the very beginning of v.3.

3 For you have died…

But what does that mean and how is it the kind of good news that draws our eyes up to Christ?

There are two senses in which it is true.  We need to understand both, but it is the second sense that Paul primarily has in mind in v.3.  

What are the two senses in which Christians have died?  We were dead and then we die. 

The heart of the gospel involves life and death.  God is life.  He created us, making us alive together with Him as His living image-bearers.  And from the beginning, God was clear on the fact that as long as His people remained in Him, they would know only life and love and order and fellowship and joy.  

However, God was equally clear from the beginning on that fact that sin is death.  Should His people turn from Him in sin, they would surely die—spiritually (immediately) and (eventually) physically as well.  

Tragically, just three chapters into the humanity’s story, our first parents, Adam and Eve, turned from God to sin and therein brought inescapable and unimaginable death to themselves and all their offspring.  

The first sense in which it’s true that we have died, then, is in the fact that we were born physically alive but spiritually dead (separated from God and under His wrath) on account of Adam’s sins.  All people, conceived by men, are born into this same death.  

That’s what he means in 2:13 when he declares that the Colossian Christians “were dead in [their] trespasses.”

That, of course, is not good news.  But what about the second kind of death?  

We were dead (in the sense we just considered) and then (curiously) we died.  What does that mean?  How can we die again?  

As I said earlier, we are all born physically alive, but spiritually dead.  And yet, the full wages of our sin is the combination of the two.  In other words, as tragic as it is that we are born spiritually dead and enemies of God, there’s worse news still.  Once our spiritual death is united with physical death, we will know the full measure of God’s justice for our sin.  We must die again because our sin and God’s holiness and justice require it.  It can’t not happen.  We must die twice.

There are only two ways for that to happen.  Either the just course of events will continue on and we’ll die again, such that our physical death will come together with our spiritual death unto eternal death (hell) or we will be united with Jesus in His death, such that His death becomes ours.  

That’s what Paul means in 1:21-22 when he wrote, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds [first death], 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death [second death on our behalf]…”

Paul’s point (in declaring that the Colossians “have died”) is that they had chosen the second kind of second death; the kind which receives Christ’s death as their own.  

Grace, the good news of the gospel is that we need not die the second death of hell.  By grace, through faith in Jesus, Jesus died the second death on our behalf, in our place.  God put on Jesus the second death we all deserve as a substitute for all who will receive Him in faith!  He is both just and justifier (Romans 3:26)!!!

O, what awesome news that is.  Do not be OK with being casual about this…either for yourself or for those who have not yet received this news in faith.  There is no greater terror in all reality than experiencing the second death apart from Christ, even as there is no greater joy than knowing that He took it for you.  

And that objective reality must dominate everything about our hearts, minds, and lives.  We’ll come back to that soon.  

The second objective reality is actually the first named by Paul in this passage.  It is good news that Jesus took our second death upon Himself, but it is better news that we are also united with Him in His resurrection.  

1 If then you have been raised with Christ…

Quickly, and to be clear, while this sounds like Paul might have been questioning whether or not the Colossians had been raised with Christ (“If then you have been raised”), that’s not the case.  He wasn’t suggesting that their resurrection was undetermined.  The following paraphrase probably captures Paul’s actual meaning more clearly, “Since you have been raised with Christ…”.   

The question, then, wasn’t whether or not they had been raised, it was about what that meant and what they were to do about it.  

In this, we see even more clearly that God is not only holy and just, but also gracious and merciful.  It is remarkable indeed that in the same chapter in which we read of mankind’s fall into sin and death (Genesis 3), we read of God’s promise to provide salvation through one of Eve’s offspring (Genesis 3:15).  And God always keeps His promises.  

God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son… (John 3:16).

… while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6).

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ… (Ephesians 2:4-5).

… you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead (2:12).

The moment we place our faith in Jesus, we are united to Jesus’ death and to His resurrection.  They become ours.  God counts them to us.  Grace, to be a Christian is to have been saved by this amazing, raising grace of God in Jesus.  

What does it mean to share in Christ’s resurrection?  Ultimately it means, as we will soon see, that we too will rise from the dead at His return.  But Paul doesn’t say here “you will rise.”  He says “you have been raised.”  What does that mean?  To ask the same question from another angle, what does Paul mean in v.4 when He says “Christ…is your life”?

It means that He made us spiritually alive (which is why we can see the gospel for what it is and receive it in faith).  And in that, He made it so that our physical and spiritual death will never/can never meet!  That’s a whole lot of glory and a whole sermon.  Praise God, Grace.  

Having been raised with Christ and having Christ as your life also means recognizing that He is the purpose and significance of your life.  He is the greatest treasure and highest reward.  That is what led Paul to emphatically declare, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).  That too is a whole lot of glory and a whole sermon.  

You have been raised.  Christ is your life.  And that objective reality must dominate everything about our hearts, minds, and lives.  We’ll come back to that soon.  

Christian, know what God has done for you in Christ, that you might live consistently with that which is true.  By God’s grace, through faith, you are united with Jesus’ death and resurrection and, third, hidden with Christ in God.  

3 …your life is hidden with Christ in God. 

I think there are two senses in which this is true.  The most immediate and evident is captured in 1 John 3:2, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.”

The idea is simply this: All of these remarkable aspects of our union with Christ are invisible.  

The life of faith, to which we are all called, is a life built mainly on things unseen.  We cannot see Jesus.  We cannot see our second death in Jesus.  We cannot see the resurrection we share with Jesus.  All of those things are hidden from us.  But they are hidden with Christ in God.  

A life of faith is not naïve hope in the unlikely (wishful thinking).  It is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  It is rock-solid trust in the invisible, but certain work and promises of God.  

But I think Paul probably has a second idea in mind as well.  It is captured in passages like Psalm 27:5. As his enemies pursued him, meaning to do him great harm, King David reminded himself of the truth that “[God] will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.”

I think Peter had basically the same idea in mind when he described the inheritance of the saints, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3-5).  

There is no safer place for your life and mine to be hidden.  It is kept in the Lord God Almighty Bank and Trust.  No one is able to bypass His security.  That is, no one can take from us the life that was given to us through faith in Jesus.   

As the Colossians were surrounded by hardship from within and without, what a comforting reminder it would have been that their union with Christ not only leads to God’s salvation, but also His protection.  What a comforting reminder it would have been to hear that their life was under God’s protection

Christian, know what God has done.  Turn to Him in your trials, right now.  Like David in Psalm 7, declare, “O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge.”  In you do I hide myself for in you am I already hidden.  

There’s one more aspect of God’s certain work highlighted by Paul in this passage.   The first three happen to us immediately when we first trust in Jesus.  They are already done.  The final work of God mentioned by Paul is ours in the future.  It is no less certain, however.  For God (alone), future promise as certain as present realities.  Therefore, when we read of God’s promise of what’s yet to come, they are as certain as the things that have already come to pass.  

What, then, is the future promise made by God and reported by Paul for all Christians?

4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

What was invisible, will become visible.  What we received by faith, we will receive by sight.  This great promise is all over in the NT.  

Titus 2:13 …waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ… 

1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

Philippians 3:20-21 …our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body…

Ephesians 2:4-7 ButGod, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

On the day of Jesus’ return, we will be glorified with Jesus.  Our bodies will rise from the dead, fully sanctified, and be reunited with our fully sanctified souls that we might live forever, fully satisfied in the Righteous One who purchased for us a righteousness of our own.  

By grace, through faith in Jesus, you died to your sins, your soul has been raised with Christ, your life is hidden in Christ, and you will appear with Jesus, resurrected in glory.

These things are true of every Christian.  They are all entirely true of every Christian.  They are all always true of every Christian.  They can’t not be all true, for all Christians, always.  

There is no question about any of that, according to the finished work of Christ in His death and resurrection.  

What there is a question about, though, is whether or not the Colossian Christians, or the Grace Wyoming Christians will live in light of all of that, or if we’ll return to the elementary principles of the world; to the things that are on the earth.  That’s where we now turn, to the question of how we will respond—or, rather, how we should respond—to these things that are ours in Christ.  

Again, then, what are we to do in light of all that?  Christian, know what God has done and will do, and then lift your eyes.  Turn your gaze off of the things of earth and onto Christ who is by far greater.  For only then can you see Christ or the things of earth properly.  

If you truly believe the indicatives of Colossians 3:1-4, then the imperatives will not be hard.  God-honoring obedience always begins with and is fueled by loving what is true.  

But what does that mean?  In our passage, Paul describes two aspects of having our eyes lifted to Christ: (1) Seeking the things that are above and (2) Setting our minds on things that are above.    

I wonder, what do you imagine an objective, outside observer of your life would say you are seeking the most?  What is it that you are going after more than anything else?  And why that thing?

1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above…

It is an inescapable aspect of human nature that we seek what we love.  

To have died and been raised with Jesus, to be hidden in Jesus, and to trust that we will be glorified with Jesus, means understanding that He graciously set His love upon us.  Understanding that He graciously set His love upon is to set our love upon Jesus above all.  To love Jesus above all is to seek Him above all.  And to seek Him above all is to seek “the things that are above, where Christ is.”

To seek the things above, where Christ is, as Paul means it, means desiring Jesus and the things Jesus desires, in the way He means us to desire them.  

It means seeing Jesus in His glory in such a way that all of the good things of earth stop competing with Jesus for supremacy and start highlighting it.  They stop seeming like alternatives to Jesus and start revealing His uniqueness to satisfy.  They stop distracting us from Jesus and start pointing us to Him.  

To have our appetites (our desires) trained upon Jesus isn’t, as so many have mistakenly believed, to choose the lesser, but righter path.  It is to choose that which is beautiful, good, and true above all else.  It is to choose treasure over trash.  It is to choose the greatest over the least.  

Embedded in the same sentence as the command (“seek the things that are above”), are two aspects of Jesus’ nature that compel us to treasure Him above all.  Consider v.1 once again.  

1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

What are the aspects of Jesus’ nature that testify to Him being the greatest treasure and worthy of being sought above all?  

How can we do that if we spend hour after hour after hour scrolling social media or binging shows or streaming soul-numbing music or listening to the thoughts and advice of godless friends or engaged in worldly entertainment or chasing riches (the things of the earth, the things the Preacher sought in futility)?  Those things take our eyes off of the things above and numb us to them.  

Grace, let us instead seek the things of God in Christ, which are by far better.  Let us meditate on God’s Word and commend it to one another.  Let us ask God in prayer to refine our appetites.  Let us sing songs together with the saints that tell of the wonders of Christ.  Let us eat and drink the Lord’s Supper.  Let us seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God for He is alive and seated in the place of honor and victory.  

The second and final imperative is found in v.2.  It is a specific aspect of the last one.  We cannot seek the things above if we do not set our minds upon them.   

2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

I’ll say more about this as we make our way through chapter 3.  For now, hear this.

Philippians 4:8 whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Grace, this is like what we saw last week.  By grace, through faith, we have been united with Jesus in His death and resurrection, are hidden in Him, and we will be glorified with Him.  These things are objectively true of every Christian.  At the same time, however, our eyes and appetites need to be retrained to follow, to be lifted up with our lives.  Paul implored the Colossians to do just that.  

Again, if the Preacher of Ecclesiastes had the full revelation of God, Colossians 3:1-2 would have been his grand conclusion.  He saw the vanity of seeking things below.  He just didn’t quite understand what it meant to seek the things above.  

(By grace, through faith in Jesus,) you died to your sins, your soul has been raised with Christ, your life is hidden in Christ, and you will appear with Jesus in glory, therefore, let your eyes (your appetites and thoughts) follow.  Look up, Christian!  Because of what God has done and certainly will do for you in Jesus, lift your eyes above the temporary buzz of earthly joy and the light momentary affliction of your troubles and trials.  Look up to the One who is risen and who gives resurrection; who is glorious and makes glorious.  And then live entirely in light of what you see.

Lift your eyes, Grace.  It doesn’t change the reality of the mess that is on earth, but it does change our perspective on it and empower us to persevere through it in faithful joy.