Colossians 3:1-5 • Dying to Live
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Well, this is a very special Sunday for us and once again we are privileged to have a great friend of Grace Presbyterian Church, Dr. Bryan Chapell. He's familiar to many of you. If you've never met him, I want you to know he's one of the finest Bible expositors I've ever heard and I was reminded of that again this morning as I heard him proclaim the Word of God. He is the Chancellor of Covenant Seminary for many years the President. He's the author of a number of books on the spiritual life but also some that have done a great deal in the churches in terms of Christ-centered preaching, Christ-centered worship. They are modern-day classics in their field. He is here with his wife, Kathy, and I saw Kathy earlier and let me see. Kathy, if you'd stand somewhere. Oh, right here.
Kathy Chapell, let's welcome Kathy.
And now let's welcome Dr. Bryan Chapell to our pulpit once again.
Let me ask if you would look in your Bibles at Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3.
And while you're turning, it's my opportunity to express my appreciation for Ben and Sherry. You know, we, Kathy and I have been coming since the days of Dr. Dunn. So being able to recognize the blessing that the Lord has brought to this place but also just the courage and the devotion of Ben and Sherry as they think about what the Lord is calling them next to do in their lives. I've said to you before how much I admire Ben just as a faithful pastor. But to recognize too his devotion to the calling of God upon his heart in life and your support of that as a church are truly marks of the Lord's wonderful grace upon his people. And you bless many by not only what you have done but by what you do as you release a faithful pastor to minister to more in another part of the world and as he has goals of planting more churches to see your ministry expand through others. It really is the gospel calling of God's people, not just to sit and soak but to be part of the mission of God for Christ's glory across the world. So for a wonderful example and for your wonderful support of this ministry family, I'm truly thankful.
As you look at Colossians 3, it really is the subject of devotion that the apostle is putting before us.
Paul will motivate God's people to live for him in ever more loyal ways, including those that challenge them the most. Paul writes in language that is strident, at times difficult for us to hear, but important if we would be strengthened for Christ's cause. Here's what Paul writes, Colossians 3, verse 1, we'll read the first five verses.
Paul says, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your life, appears.
Then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, sexual desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."
Father, would you bless your Word as it works its way for your purposes into our hearts?
The words here are challenging, but you also promise a joy which will be our strength for doing what you ask.
So work that gospel joy in us for the glory of the Savior we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
To some of you know the name Randy Nabors, he's a pastor, I know Bill knows, he's a pastor in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Bill for a… not Bill, and Randy, maybe Bill too. Randy's been a pastor for a lot of years in this urban, center city church, but not only has he been a pastor there for more than three decades in a church that requires a lot of sacrifice and a lot of devotion, he's also been an army reserve chaplain for those three decades.
And if you think back over the last three decades of what our nation has been through, you recognize that an army reserve chaplain has also been deployed a number of times in our nation's wars. The fact that he's been both a pastor and a chaplain means that many times Randy is approached by young people who are thinking about their future, particularly whether or not they should seek a career in the military.
And Randy told me one time that when people come asking him, "Should I consider a career in the military?" that he always asks a question just to make them think of the consequences of that decision.
Randy says when somebody says, "Should I consider a career in the military?" he asks,
"Would you be willing to die for your country?"
Now, Randy says when he asked that question, most people without much hesitation answer "Yes."
So, he says, "I ask a follow-up question.
Would you be willing to kill for your country?"
And he says that causes more pause as people consider the implications of that question.
The Apostle Paul is asking similar hard questions. For ultimately what the Apostle Paul is asking of those who would be devoted to the cause of Jesus Christ is, "Would you be willing to kill for Jesus?"
But what he's asking you to kill is yourself.
He actually says, "Put to death whatever is earthly in you." And those words are so challenging. If he is calling for a loyalty so high that he's actually asking of us, "Would you be willing to kill what is earthly in you and not of God?"
He knows the challenge would be so great that we must understand clearly the cause,
what is the position that we have that would put us in a position that we have to actually respond to this purpose of God and what would give us the power to do it. The position is explained in the opening verse of chapter 3. Paul says, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is." Now, this is strange in itself. This is resurrection language, and it's put in the past tense. The Apostle is writing to living people, and he says, "Since you have been raised with Christ." That's true of any believer. Do you believe that? You have been raised with Christ. In order to be raised, that means you already have to have died. How could that possibly be? You recognize in these opening words of Colossians 3, the Apostle is referring to something he's already said. He says, "If then you have been raised."
What's he referring to? If you'll let your eyes drift back into the preceding passage, you'll recognize that in the second chapter and the twelfth verse, the Apostle is describing Christians as these. "Those," he says in verse 12, "who have been buried with Christ in baptism, in which you were also," here are the words, "raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead." We just had a wonderful sweet service that was the baptism of a child. Did you recognize that what Pastor Ben did was he just gave that child a death certificate?
That's actually what it was. Now that may not sound like what you saw happening, but if you were a first century Christian who was coming out of Judaism or paganism, you would understand what had just happened. People would be saying, "I'm now a Christian," and what that means is their past way of life, their past affiliations, their past spiritual loyalties were now behind them as though those things were dead to them, and they were now identifying with a new cause which was life in Christ Jesus, no longer dedicated only to a covenant people of Israel under Abraham, not that alone, nor to any other pagan God, now my cause, my life, my hope, my new existence is Christ.
Now if that sounds strange to you, recognize similar thoughts happen yet today. If somebody who's from a Jewish family or a Muslim family becomes a Christian, at that moment, in many cultures even still, at that moment that you say, "I so identify with the church of Jesus Christ that I will be baptized, what do their families now say to them often? Now you are what to us?
You're dead to us."
October, a year ago in Morocco, some of you read this, it made world news, there was a Muslim young man who became a Christian and coming out of his baptism service, he was stabbed multiple times by Muslim extremists.
Now he was ultimately saved and brought to the United States only to discover that the persons who had hired those who stabbed him were his own family.
You are dead to us. But the Apostle Paul is saying that's not the end of the story. In baptism you are indicating the end of one kind of life, but the beginning of something else, new life, while that's dead, the former you. There is a new you who is identified just as Christ did by new life so that God who raised him from the dead has now raised you too. You're identified with him. And because he's seated where?
At the right hand of God.
If you're united to him, so are you. I mean it's just the point that Paul is making as he says, remember, you have been raised with Christ therefore seek the things that are above, verse 1, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Now if you're not only raised with Christ but seated with him who is seated at the right hand of God, you have to think of the implications of that. Why after all is it so important for the Apostle to say, not only are you raised with Christ but you are with the one who is seated at the right hand of God. Now again, to our modern ears without a lot of Jewish background, it does not make a lot of sense of why it's so important that Christ be seated. But if you want to see the significance, turn in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews chapter 10, Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 11, we read something very peculiar about the nature of the Old Testament priests.
Now think of that. The priest of the Old Testament offering sacrifices for God's people so that their sin would be put away and they would be made right with God. But in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 11, here is how the life of an Old Testament priest is described.
Hebrews 10 and verse 11, "Every priest," does what?
"Stands."
Not seated.
Every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he did what?
He sat down at the right hand of God. Now you have to understand why that is so significant. Think of what you know about the Old Testament sacrificial system. Once a year, you may remember, there was a Passover service in which every family would offer a Passover lamb. Now sounds kind of sweet, but I want you to think physically of what's happening.
Millions of people, hundreds of thousands of families, each is sacrificing a lamb on one day. What that meant is that the blood is flowing into the streets.
The skin, the hair is being burned in fires. The oafel is filling up the ditches. This is happening as hundreds of thousands of lambs are slaughtered on a single day.
And that's just one of the sacrifices offered once a year. There was more than that. Do you remember that there were seasonal sacrifices too of firstfruits and firstborn? As in an agrarian economy, farmers and those who kept the land would sacrifice the first gifts of God to God as if to say, "This is from you, not from the goodness of what we present." And there were sacrifices not just annually, but seasonally. And not just seasonally, but monthly. As every new moon, more sacrifices for the sin of the people to make them right with God. And not just monthly, but weekly. As every Sabbath there were new sacrifices for a people of God who had sinned the previous week had sacrifices made for this week. And it wasn't just weekly, but daily. And it wasn't just daily as there were morning sacrifices and evening sacrifices. And it wasn't just morning and evening. It was for all the people as there were instructions for personal sacrifices as well. For a thousand years, plus more, there were annual and seasonal and monthly and weekly and daily and personal sacrifices. And the blood flowed and the smoke billowed and the stench filled the towns until one day.
And a lamb went to a hill called Talvary and offered himself upon a cross. And when he did so, the fire on the altar went out and the smoke stopped billowing and the veil between God and his people was rent from top to bottom. And we had access to the grace of God in Jesus Christ once for all.
And the high priest did what he sat down. The work of redemption and salvation was finished in Christ Jesus. And so now the apostle says to God's people, not only is your past dead, what you're ashamed of, what you don't want other people to know, what you want put behind you, not only is that dead, but you are raised with Christ and seated with him at the right hand of God, which means the years of striving for the approval of God. Will he be satisfied yet? Will he forgive me? Will I ever be made right with him? All of that pain and suffering and striving is done.
We are at rest by the grace of God at his right hand with Christ Jesus.
Our great identity is identified by the position that we hold. We are raised with Christ, seated with him in the place of privilege at the right hand of God. That's who we are now.
Those precious children of God as precious to him as Christ himself.
And to make the point, the apostle is willing to use language that stretches us even more. He says in verse three, "For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God."
If all that was true of you is now done and gone, you're as good as dead.
But more than that, not only are you dead, remember what verse four starts, "Your life,
your life is now hidden with Christ in God so that Christ is your life."
Now that's a wonderful thought. That while I'm dead, my identity is past, there is a new identity that takes my place and it is the life of Christ himself. So much so that the apostle can say, "Your life with your weakness, your frailty, your sin, your shame, your faith, your life is now hidden with Christ in God so that before God your identity is that," and I know it sounds strange, "but is that of Christ himself before God?"
I think of the impact of that. My daughter and I, we have three older children and we have kind of one tag along, some of your family's that way. We have eight years after the one above her. And so we still have that daughter at home.
And we try to pour attention on her in a special way to kind of say, "You're as precious to us as the ones who went before."
And one of the things that I do just as a dad to play with my daughter still at home is we have a game sometimes that we play after dinner that is known as napkin war.
Some of you play that, all right? So after dinner, all right?
Under the table, like my daughter doesn't know what's happening, I wad at my napkin, right? And then when she's distracted, I bean her. You know, I get her. And she of course grabs the napkin and it's coming right back and the war is on. You know, now I just tell you though, I'm a better shot.
I always win. I always win.
But my daughter has discovered what to do. You know what she does? She gets up out of her chair and she goes and she hides behind her mother.
Because I won't throw at her mom.
She's safe from me.
And the apostle Paul will speak in this passage just a little bit later of the wrath of God that will fall upon those who are not safe in Jesus Christ. But he says, "For those who are in Christ, they are hid in Him, even before God, that the righteous wrath of God that would justly fall upon the sinful will not come upon God's people because we are raised with Christ, seated with Him at the right hand of God. But even more in our death that is now substituted by the life of Christ, Christ is before us. His life is my life. And I'm hidden with Him, even before the wrath of God."
So precious is that notion that I am now not only raised and seated, but I am dead and hid that the apostle wants us to know that it's not just something past that is our privilege. Because being raised, that's already happened for those who believe in Christ.
Even being dead but hid has already happened. But that's not the end of the story. Our privileges are even greater.
In verse 4, the apostle says this, "When Christ, who is your life," you know, I almost want to stop the sermon right there and just say, "Let's just sit and soak on that statement a while.
Christ is your life now."
I mean, I was talking about your death. He's in your place. Whatever God would hold against you is now on Christ and it's that Christ is your life.
But if that's the case, if you are so united to Christ that your identity is His, then recognize this. Verse 4 again, "When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory."
The blessings that are ours by virtue of our being united to Christ, that position are not just past, they're future as well. Now we are here in, you know, the time of the baseball championships and you and I know what happens if a commentator is speaking about a baseball player who's a 300-hitter, but he's gone 0 for 17 in the series thus far. You know, what do the commentators say? They'll look at that good batter who's gone 0 for 17 and they'll say, "He is due." Right? I mean, it may not be this at bat, but soon enough, this guy's going to get hit. He's due.
And what the apostle has said about the Lord Jesus Christ is, "It may not be tomorrow, but what?"
He's due.
He is going to appear. And when He appears, who's going to appear with Him?
We are.
And it says, "We will appear with Him in glory." Now, I don't exactly know what that's going to look like, but this is what I understand. What the apostle John said in 1 John 3, 2, "What we shall be has not yet been made known,
but this we know.
When He appears, we shall be what?
Like Him."
Now, think about that. He will come on the clouds of glory. The last trump will sound and Christ with the angels will appear in the glory of heaven. And when He appears, we will be like Him.
C.S. This very famous sermon called "The Weight of Glory" tried to help us understand this. And he said it this way, "What this means is the dullest, most uninteresting Christian you could meet.
If you could see them now in the glory that they will have when Christ returns, if you could see them, you would be tempted to bow down and worship them."
Now, I want you to think of the reality of that. Think of the person next to you. Now, don't look at him. It would be embarrassing, you know.
If you could see them now in the glory that they will have when Christ returns, you would be tempted to bow down and worship them. But it's not their glory.
It's Christ's glory that becomes ours because we're united to Him. And this is what the apostle is saying to you and to me. I want you to know that past that you're ashamed of, even present hurt that is failings of others toward you or you toward them, weakness, sin, shame, failure is covered by the work of Jesus Christ. And not only is it put away, but in its place shall be the glory of Christ upon you. And you're knowing that these heavenly promises of God that are true for all of those who name the name of Jesus, who say, "I don't stand before God on my works, but on the basis of faith in what He has done." If that hope is yours, then it has a certain motivation behind it. And the apostle begins to speak of why he's told us all these things. To what purpose do I tell you of the great heavenly position that is yours? The apostle says to what purpose? Verse 1 again, "If you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are..." Hey, if that's the reality, the things that are... You seek the things that are above.
Now, in the Greek, this is language more of consideration.
Think about it. Begin to consider these things, but that's not where the apostle is going to stop. He goes on and he says in verse 2, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. There will be things that distract you, the baubles of this world and the baubles of your life, the things that attract you and the things that attack you, the sin that so easily deceives, the failures that are not even your own fault, but at this point they seem to be crushing upon you and your family. Those things can preoccupy your every thought." And so the apostle says, "I want you to set your mind on these heavenly things, the privileges that you have as a child of Jesus Christ. That is what I want to capture your mind." I can't express well the intensity with which the apostle is speaking at this point. As first he said, just think about it. Seek these things. And now he says, "Set your mind on this." I mean, this is the football coach who is saying to you, "Focus."
This is the professor at med school who said, "At this point you must concentrate. You cannot get distracted now." This is the apostle who is taking us by our collar and he is saying, "You must let this capture you. You must feel the significance of what it means to be this child of such great privilege where the heavenly realities are what are more true and long lasting than anything you face now."
I couldn't help but think of it just a few weeks ago when Hurricane Isaac came upon New Orleans and there was so much for some people who were before that levy that broke this time that reminded us all of Katrina those years ago. I mean, I can remember when Katrina hit and the reporters were down interviewing people that one particular interview so much caught my attention.
A man was being asked by a reporter to explain what had happened to his home when a levy broke.
And he began speaking just kind of almost as a reporter himself, flatly without expression.
Well, the waters came real fast.
And in about five minutes the whole first floor was filled.
And we went up into the attic.
And if I had not kicked out the roof then his voice caught, we would have drowned.
I mean, up until that point it hadn't really captured him.
The water rose.
The house was inundated. If I had not kicked out, we would have died. I've never seen it happen before as I watched the arm of the reporter come in the camera perspective and the reporter actually embraced the man who was talking.
It had captured them both. We would have died.
And the apostle is saying to you and to me, "You are in danger of the wrath of God forever. But God in His wondrous grace has rescued you from hellfire. And you're knowing that the beauty and the wonder of what God has done to call you His own, to make you His now and forever. This should capture you. This should be your focus. This should be so powerful to you that it now becomes impetus and motivation in your life."
And that's what he's actually going to say because he's not going to leave it as just think on this, nor even focus intently upon it. But finally the apostle says in verse 5, "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you." There are those things that characterized your past life that were the things of the earth that was the focus of your life and you thought there was happiness there. There were those things that you thought would destroy your life and yet you pursued them.
Don't do that again. He will actually say in verse 6 at the beginning, "On account of these things the wrath of God is coming." Now, he's not there speaking of the wrath that would come upon the regenerate upon God's children. We're already raised with Christ. But he is saying, "Don't you recognize that upon the world the wrath of God is coming because of sexual immorality and impurity and passion and evil desire and this covetousness which is idolatry?" If the world is going to experience wrath because of those things, why would you as believers think that you could re-enter those things and come out unscathed without any effect upon your life? If this is what you've been rescued from, why would you go back to that? And so he actually tells us the path of sin in our lives so that we will take warning. He says sexual immorality, which is pretty much the umbrella term.
And then he says what leads to it, impurity, the coarse language or entertainments that lead next to passion, to the lust itself, which leads to evil desires, now seeking after that which won lust and covetousness. Now the Greek is the actual craving after what God does not intend you to have.
But if you are craving what God does not intend you to have, that means it's become a God in your life and therefore he calls it the final thing, idolatry.
You've been freed from that.
You've been raised from death to life.
The things of which you were ashamed, the things that enslaved you are not now capturing you anymore. Don't go back there.
And having said that we should not go back there, the apostle having given the purpose of the position he's described, now wants to tell us the power. How do I keep from going back there, Paul? How? If this is my new position, if I don't want to go back there, how do I find power not to go back?
The words help us. The power first is in the fight itself.
I know this is hard, but I just want you to consider the tense of these commands the apostles given in verse one, seek the things that are above present, past or future tense, which is that present, past or future. That's present. You'd be seeking even to Christians. You seek the things that are above. Verse two, set your mind on past, present, future, present again. Now think of that. He's talking to believers, but he's saying there's something present still to do.
Only the hard one, verse five, put to death, therefore, whatever is earthly, past, present, future, present again.
Listen, it actually should be very encouraging to us.
If you think that the fight that you're presently in against some besetting sin in your life makes you strange or weird or unusual, you need to know this is par for the course.
Christians have to fight. If you don't think you have to fight, you're not prepared for the battle.
And so the apostle is saying to us, listen, Christians throughout history and throughout the world are wrestling with temptations such as you are facing. There's no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. And so there's going to be a fight. Don't let anybody tell you different. John Owen, the great Puritan writer on the mortification of sin, how to kill sin, said there's typically two times in life when Christians think they'll no longer have to fight a sin. The first, he said, is when they've made a great vow. The Lord has brought them through some crisis. They're so grateful that they make a vow never to sin in a particular way again.
The other time, he said, when Christians think they will not sin again is when they have just sinned greatly.
And now the sin is so vile even to them that it has become repugnant to their thought. And suddenly they think they're free. I even myself hate this now. It's so vile and repugnant even to me. It won't tempt me again.
And Owen is honest enough to say to believers, the vow and the vileness will grow old.
The temptation will renew.
I love it that a lot of you are nodding because you're just honest Christians and you know that's true. What you need to know is your ability to nod encourages people around you to say, I know I got to fight. I'm not strange. This isn't just me.
Strength comes from knowing you're going to have to fight to maintain the glory that God intends for you in this life.
But if the fighting was futile, why would you do it? And so the Apostle and Ollie tells us that that powers in the fight, but powers in faith, faith in what? You have been raised with Christ. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the Holy Spirit living now in you. Did you know that? He who gave life to Christ gives life to our mortal bodies. If you're united to Christ, that means the resurrection power of Jesus Christ indwells you and the Apostle John tells us what? Greater is he that's in you than he that's what? In the world.
Now you must hear me. Satan will come and say, no, no, no, listen, you can't help it. It's just the way you're made. It's just a product of your gender or it's just the way God made you. It's actually his fault.
And the gospel says, Satan lies.
That is not true.
Greater is he that's in you. I'm not saying it won't be a fight. I already said it will be a fight. But there is power that you have that the rest of the world does not. And part of your power is simply believing what the Bible says is true. The resurrection power of Jesus Christ indwells me. Satan tries to say, I have no power. I need by faith to claim the truths of the word of God and say, I have power. It is not true. I cannot help it. It is not true that tomorrow has to be like yesterday. Here is the great promise of the gospel. Tomorrow can be different.
Tomorrow is new. And I can believe by the work of Christ in me that God can change me. And that is what he promises he can and will do for those who by faith fight in the power of Christ Jesus. He can actually change our desires, change by the people around us who will counsel us and help us by the church, by the witness of God's people, by the worship that we enjoy together. He can begin to take those worldly desires and set our minds on heavenly things. It is that for which we pray. As you think about what God is doing, giving you not only the willingness to fight, not only the power to fight, but ultimately the motivation to fight. You have to say, where does that come from? I mean, if I'm not going to have to fight and I know I have the power of victory, why am I willing to fight? Why go through all the effort?
And the answer is because of the love of God for me.
Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God. This is the place of privilege for the Son of God. But who is with him?
We are.
Jesus Christ is raised and seated at the right hand of God. And by faith, you are there too. You are loved, as loved as Jesus Christ. And when you know that, you say, God who knows the worst about me, loves me that much.
I want to live for him.
I'll fight for him.
God give me power, but I believe it now. And by Christ love, I will love you back. God, I want to live for you now.
When you know your identity, there is true power. And that is what the apostle is giving us in this passage. Do you remember that movie a few years ago called Cinderella Man?
There was a fighter named James Braddock, and he'd been a fair fighter, but got washed up, didn't do very well, was trying to make a living on the docks, and then the Great Depression comes.
He's desperate to provide for his family. And so he goes back into the ring, a washed-up fighter, trying to make it. But because now he wants to help his family and loves them, and he's got incentive to fight, he begins to make it higher and higher in the ranks until finally, miracle of miracles, he gets a chance to fight for the championship. It's rescue for himself. It's rescue for his family. There's just one little problem.
It's a really big opponent named Max Bayer.
Max Bayer is a vicious fighter who has already killed two men in the ring.
And Max Bayer lies between James Braddock and the championship.
The night of the fight with Max Bayer, Braddock is being prepared by his managers in the locker room getting ready to go into the ring.
And Braddock's wife comes into the locker room. The managers try to shish her away so she won't distract him, but she, with a glance, withers them all. It's just like, "You get out of my way.
I'm going to talk to my husband."
And she looks him in the eye and says, "James Braddock, you listen to me.
You are the bulldog of Bergen and the pride of New Jersey.
You're everybody's hope and the kid's hero. And most of all, James J. Braddock, you are the champion of my heart."
Now you get out there and fight.
What did the Lord do for you this day?
He said to you, "You are raised and seated with Christ.
All that you're ashamed of is dead, and you are hidden with Christ in God. And when He appears, you will appear with Him in glory. You are as loved by God as Jesus Christ Himself is. That is who you are. Now that you know that, there may be some things to face, but in the fight, you have the power and you have the love for God to fight.
Now that you know who you are, get out there and fight in the joy of the Lord that is your strength.
Father, would you so work the gospel into our hearts that we who are your children, by faith, are made not only knowledgeable of the great love that is our privilege, but the great power that is ours now to live not only as you desire, but as we ourselves in our devotion want to live. Give us fresh wind of the truth of the gospel, that in Christ Jesus we may be strong for the battle, and by joy, claim the strength that is ours in Christ Jesus. We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.paste transcript here