Monday, February 29, 2016

Colossians 3:12 - The Awesomely Impossible New Man

"You [all] put on therefore - as chosen [ones] of God holy and being loved - bowels of mercy, kindness, lowmindedness, gentleness, long-suffering..." 

-In light of (and on top of) everything else that Paul has already said is true of us in Christ (forgiven, reconciled, made alive with Him), he adds here that we have been chosen by God, we are holy, and we are being loved.  We are set apart for God Himself by God Himself - we are exclusively His, a treasured object of His affection.  He loves us and cares about us deeply, more than we can know, constantly always and forever, without end or limit (Romans 8.37-39, Ephesians 3.17-19).  But with that, we have a high calling, having been set apart to be communities of people who represent the divine attributes and eternal purposes of God such that those outside get a glimpse of what God is really like.

-Loving others, treating them the way God has treated me, is a supernatural act to begin with, but it is not even in the realm of possibility for me in my seflish, me-first me-better brokenness to consistently relate to other broken people with mercy and humility and patience and kindness.  So there is the obvious need for me right at the outset to proceed in complete dependence on the Lord, this to enable me to treat all people in general and my fellow Christ-followers in particular in the ways that God in Christ has treated me, genuinely and consistently, even when I don’t feel like it.

-Paul repeatedly returns to this concept of who I am in Christ in this section.  What I do, how I am supposed to act and treat others, derives directly from my identity - my new one.  In Christ I am no longer who or what I used to be.  I am completely different, I am a totally new person.  The life of Christ is (or is supposed to be) being repoduced in me - because Christ Himself lives in me.  He is my life now.  The old things are gone, buried, and who I am is now hidden in Christ.  Specifically I have been chosen and called to be connected to a gathered community of fellow believers in Christ that looks and lives and treats its members differently.  We relate to one another as Jesus would.  Compassion.  Kindness.  Humility.  Patience.  Mercy.  Forgiveness.  Love.  Gentleness.  Peace.  Worship.  Gratitude.

-Bowels of mercy: your heart is moved by the misery and misfortune of others.  It is not necessarily limited to feelings, but can and in this case would include actions.

-Kindness: helping others, generous, benevolent, benefitting them.  Remember that the Son of Man did not come to be served but rather to serve...

-Humility is low-mindedness.  Paul unpacks this in Philippians 2.3-4 - it’s a mindset of others-first, others-better.  Putting them, their needs, their interests, before me and what I want or need.  This is exactly what Christ Himself did.  But for us this one is really impossible.  Parents are of course called to do this on a daily basis, which is a daunting task, but here we’re talking about consistently doing this for all believers, not just for the 2 point 5 little ones who might call me their parent.  And it is not just a putting others first, it means regarding them as better, more important.  I defer to them, I treat them with respect and honor.  I get past myself and my inflated sense of superiority and self-importance and ego, I let go of the things which I think might make me better than someone or anyone else - my intelligence, my looks, my education, my height, my wealth, my ideas, my training, my experience, my choices, my convictions, my theology.  I also need to get past the perceived deficiencies of others - their age or lack of intelligence or education or good looks or status AS I SEE IT, past whatever handicaps or shortcomings I might see in them.  I need to get off whatever pedestal I’ve put up for myself and get down on my mental knees and really see others as more important than me.  That is humility.  It is not saying that I am a bad person or a crummy Christian.  It is about elevating others even as I look at my own self appropriately and accurately, as God sees me.  Yes, I AM chosen.  I AM dearly loved.  But I am not better than anyone else.  Far from it.

-Gentleness is tender and mild in temperament and behavior.  It is strength under control, as opposed to letting one’s strength or authority be unleashed in ways that are harsh, heavyhanded, rough, severe, unpleasant, unduly exacting, damaging even.  I think many well-meaning parents, myself included, struggle in this regard with their kids.  But rather than straining out gnats and putting heavy burdens on people we should be making their burden light.  The Lord relates to us in this manner - He Himself is gentle (Matthew 11.29, 2Corinthians 10.1, Isaiah 42.3), and He held gentleness up as one of the primary virtues (Matthew 5.5).  It is being restrained and soft in our dealings with others, giving them grace and freedom to fail and disappoint.  We are commanded to respond with gentleness even towards those who oppose us (2Timothy 2.25, 1Peter 3.15).


-Patience is long-suffering, the willingness and ability to keep on suffering and enduring things which might otherwise provoke us to complain or retaliate or otherwise distance ourselves from a fellow believer.  A long fuse, as it were, slow to anger.  We don’t easily or quickly give in to frustration or provocation.  Again, this is precisely how the Lord relates to us (2Peter 3.9).

-Again, each of these and collectively all of them are way beyond our ability to reproduce on our own, even with us being on the receiving end of the perfect example set for us by Christ Himself.  And yet, He DOES live in us and He is precisely Who we have be (re)created to be like - newness of life, a whole new quality of life, a new man - divine, godly, like God in every way including and especially in my dealings with others, the very life of Christ filling me and spilling out to those around me.  An awesome impossible...yet not at all too difficult for almighty God.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Colossians 3:11 - All That (and a bag of chips)...

"...where there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but rather the all and in all - Christ." 

-Christ.  Nuff said really.  He is our All.  He is our Life.  He is our Everything.  Our faith - it is all about Christ.  HE is the fairest of ten thousand.   HE is the Alpha and Omega.  HE is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, All That And So Much More.  To know Him, to become like Him, to live and act like Him - this is our calling, our privilege, our destiny - to be increasingly conformed to His image and thus increasingly give the world a picture of Christ.  And we must dedicate ourselves to making Him our All and living into this All not only in our hearts and lives but in our relationships, particularly within the body of Christ.

-Those who follow Christ (or at least profess as much) are far too willing to be ungracious and disconnected.  What would it look like in an assembly where Christ was the All and in all?  The things that keep us apart and divide us from people, that hinder our relationships with others who have truly trusted Christ - the selfish and impure desires, the lack of grace and forgiveness, the negative words, the deceit and hiding and lack of transparency, the biases we have towards others based on their quirks or faults or their ethnicity or (lack of) education or religious background or their social/economic status - none of it should get in the way.  All that matters is Christ, and if someone is willing to make it all about Christ, then nothing else about them should matter to me, not the color of their skin, not the size of their checkbook, not their appearance or their accent or their age or their intelligence or their personality or their political persuasion or the team they root for.  We need each other.  Black and white and other, rich and poor, young and old, calvin and arminius, 1st baptist and 2nd baptism - the world desperately needs us to need each other, to truly accept and embrace and love each other.  Christ is All That (matters).  What a glorious thing that would be...

-And in fact, it would look like what Paul lays out in the very next verse...

Monday, February 22, 2016

Colossians 3:10 - A Once-and-Future Glory

"...and having put on the new [man] the [one] being renewed unto full-knowledge according to [the] image of the [One] having created him..."

-The new man.  We have indeed taken off and put aside the ratty old man, enslaved as he was to sin, and have put on a new man, a new self.  The old archaic things passed away and new things have come (2Cor 5.17), new in the sense of being fresh (as opposed to being unused - cf Mt 9.17, where fresh “new” wine goes into unused “new” wineskins), a new superior quality of being.  The new man, this fresh new life we received and are receiving (increasingly so each day as we abide in Christ), is not just a freshening, a new coat of paint on an otherwise nasty tomb.  No, we’re talking about an ongoing renovation project from the foundation on up, a complete restoration to a once-and-future glory.  And this renewal is based on truth, unchanging truth, on the truth of Who God is and who He designed us to be - those who bear His image.  We are the ones through whom He wants to show off His breathtaking goodness, the reality of Who He is, what He is really like, to those standing outside looking in, to our neighbors and the nations.


-And so yes, in place of the lie we have truth.  In place of false gods we have the one true God.  We have new hearts and lives which are founded upon and being conformed to truth.  No wishy-washy relativism here.  No two feet firmly planted in mid-air, no life-house being built on shifting sand.  No, ours is a rock.  The rock of ages, eternal truth on which you can base your entire life - what you believe, what you value, what you pursue, every layer of your life springing forth from this fountainhead of wisdom and knowledge.  The starting point is the truth that He is God, this One Who created us, and there is no other.  In the beginning, God.  God created (Gen 1.1).  That’s where we start, that simple truth so much maligned and dismissed by moderns desperate to avoid any accountability to some greater being.  But all truth comes into question, does it not?  The modern way is truth-less, there is no truth, there are no absolutes (except of course for that one, which obviously makes the entire premise a self-defeating one).  But this Creator God Who cannot lie, Who speaks truth always and Who spoke all things into existence - He is still there, and He is not silent, and He is still speaking His life-transforming world-changing truth into hearts and lives today - creating and recreating breathtaking goodness by His mighty strength thru His Word, thru His Spirit, and thru His people.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Colossians 3:9 - How to REALLY be like God

"Do not be lying unto one another, having put off the old man with his evil practices..."

-The old man.  He was a liar.  He was practised at lying, as well as a host of other things, things which proceeded out of his mouth - anger and slander and all kinds of negativity, unwholesome words which neither built up nor gave life.  This is who we were.  But we have taken off that old man like a nasty ratty old coat.  So stop with the lying.  Lying chains you to guilt and a false existence.  It robs you of your freedom to fully be you, and it steals your energy as you must struggle to maintain the lie.  Lying dishonors the God of truth Who cannot lie and it makes Him very angry, partly because when we lie we are acting more like the deceiver himself.

-The first lie, the first recorded lie anyway, was way back in the beginning, in Eden, where the deceiver entered the serpent and lied to Eve.  Yes, he was a liar from the beginning, the father of lies, the deceiver of nations.  Abraham, the man God chose to bless and be a blessing, was also a deceiver, and it permeated his family, esp. his grandson Jacob and many of Jacob’s sons.  And yet God still chose them and used them.  Imagine how much smoother it may have gone for them if they would have been more committed to truth.

-The lie is at the root of all sin in fact.  Every act that stems from replacing God and what He wants in our heart is rooted in the lie that what He has said is not true and that He is not better than anything or anyone.  Such that any and all deviation from what God wants implies a level of deception in my heart about what is true, what is best for me and what will ultimately satisfy (cf Jeremiah 17.9, Romans 7.11, Ephesians 4.22, 2Corinthians 11.3, Hebrews 3.13).

-Lying stands out above the other sins on this list because usually the other person doesn’t know when i am lying to them, at least not at first.  Thus it tends to be more malicious and calculated (altho not always, as some lies are rooted more in a fear of being caught or exposed, fear of failure or of consequences).  It’s a dainty morsel, a poisoned apple held out to us by a crafty devil, promising all kinds of gains or deliverance from negativity and embarrasment, but its end is the way of death.


-And no, God Himself cannot lie (1Samuel 15.29, Numbers 23.19, Titus 1.2) and considers any kind of lie or deception to be an abomination (Proverbs 11.1, 12.22, 19.5, 20.23, Revelation 22.15, Deuteronomy 25.13-16, Jeremiah 9.2-6, Amos 2.4).  Thus perhaps the most God-like thing we can do is - by His grace of course - to abandon all pretense and attempts to hide or otherwise pervert the truth, and commit ourselves entirely and unreservedly to truth, truth in our relationships, and most of all to the Truth of God, unchanging, unyielding, unstoppable.  The truth, God’s truth, will always prevail.

Monday, February 8, 2016

Colossians 3:8 - Conduits of darkness

"But now you yourselves also put off the all, wrath, anger, evil, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth."

-The first list Paul gave us in verse 5 contained sins of excess, examples of pursuing pleasure and finding satisfaction in things other than our breathtakingly good Creator.  The things he mentions now are all things which come out of our mouth, words which do not build up but rather tear down.  Words which do not give life but rather wound and destroy.  Words which are not loving and which do not show off the breathtaking goodness of God.  These fly in the face of the exhortation to follow in Colossians 3.13-14.  But yes, the tongue is such a tiny powerful thing (James 3.3-5).  It can deliver words of life which bless and build up and spur on, and it can tear down and destroy just as quickly, in an instant.  I hate you.  You’re worthless.  Stupid.  Ugly.  The tongue is a restless evil, an untamable fire, full of deadly poison, giving insufferable life to words of death and destruction, defiling our entire body, a ready conduit for all the me-first me-better darkness which hides in my heart, set on fire by hell itself (James 3.6-8).


-So Paul says, just take them off.  Take them off like the nasty old tattered rags that they are, once and for all and put them away for good.  Especially so in light of who we are and who we’re dealing with.  It is a level playing field, these ones towards whom we direct and vent our anger and slander and abusive speech.  We are all beggars, all former sons and daughters of disobedience, formerly objects of wrath, all of us, every single one.  We have all been rescued only by grace, a divine gift which we could never have deserved in a million gazillion years.  But having been rescued, we are now all sons and daughters of the King, members of the royal family, princes and princesses.  Beggars or royals, we are all equals, deserving nothing and yet at the same time deserving the royal treatment.  I am way too full of myself, way too overinflated with self-importance and far too disrespecting of others when I choose to hit them with my words of destruction.  God help me.  Help me see myself - AND OTHERS - with Your eyes, as we really are, as equals, deserving the utmost grace and respect because that’s how You treat us...

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Colossians 3:7 - The way we were

"...in which [things] also you yourselves walked once, when you were living in them."  

-The way we were, but are no longer!  We were sons of disobedience, we walked and conducted ourselves in disobedience, we lived there, in that place of moral squalor and filth.  We were completely unable to not sin, unable to avoid it, unable to do anything at all to curry favor with almighty God, to please Him in any respect.  We were objects of wrath, enslaved to me-first me-better, centered on self, occasionally able to extricate ourselves from this slummy prison long enough to engage in some form of altruism, but the gravitas of self is a black hole which invariably sucked us back in, no escape, no hope.  This was once our life.  Once.  But these things are now in our past, passed by and out of existence.  Irrelevant.  So - why even bring it up?


-It could be because these believers are still living there to some extent, that Paul is telling them to move beyond that way of living and thinking by reminding them in no uncertain terms that this is no longer who you are.  But more importantly we talk about the past and what has passed because it fosters gratitude and it provides perspective.  We can and should be and need to be constantly grateful for our deliverance from death, our rescue from both the power and the penalty of sin, never forgetting or taking that for granted.  And we need perspective on how far we’ve come, and on who we are.  We are no longer sons and daughters of disobedience, no longer enslaved to sin - that’s who we were - once.  But they has passed away and new things have come (2Corinthians 5.17)!  Now we have a completely new identity (Colossians 3.10), we are children of God, adopted into His forever family, and we are free to live with Him and for Him, to live a life that actually pleases Him, the way we were designed to live in the first place.  This is who we are, who we were always meant to be.  And remembering who we are not (any longer) helps us stay more focused on who we are.