Our reading today is from Colossians 3:1-17. 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, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you too once walked when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another seeing that 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.
Here, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body.
And be thankful. 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. 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. Well, when I was a young Christian and I was in my young adult years, I loved two things, especially coffee and reading. And so I'd often go to a local coffee shop and read a book.
And I wasn't that original because lots of other young adult hipster Christians were at these places, these specialty coffee stores that were popping up over time. And the coolest place at this time before the next cool place started and then the next cool place started, the coolest place in this time in my memory was Fort Specialty Coffee. Had like magazine cartoons, comics on the ceiling and was yeah. It was a really cool place, big leather couch and everything and cool coffee. And so I'd go there and I'd drink some coffee and I'd read a book and inevitably, there'd be other lots of other Christian young adults there.
And there was this one guy that I knew of that came up to me and I was reading a Christian book and he said, hello. I said, hi. He said, what are you reading? I said, oh, here it is. Have a look.
And he had a look at it and turned it over, looked at the back and he said, demonic. I was like, woah. Who talks like that to someone, first of all? Demonic is what he called the book that I was reading. And if someone's that strong on something, it makes you kinda go, is there something wrong with what I'm reading?
That's a little bit like what the Colossian false teachers were doing in the ancient Roman church of Colossae. You see, we're looking at the letter of Colossians, this ancient first century letter that Paul wrote as part of the series we've called the all sufficient Christ, why Jesus is all you need. And the reason Paul wrote this letter to these Colossian Christians is because there were these false Christians among them who weren't necessarily saying demonic, but they were saying, you're not as full as us, full of the spirit as us. You're not as mature as us. You haven't grown as much as us.
You see, they weren't actually denying Jesus, these false teachers, but they were saying you need to add on to Jesus. They're saying Jesus is fine, but you need more if you're gonna be a mature Christian. You need to practise more of the Jewish practices in the Old Testament. You need to have spiritual visions like we do, because we're so mature. You need to be severe about discipline if you're gonna overcome your bad habits.
That's what these Colossian false teachers were saying, and Paul writes this letter to say, no, Jesus is all sufficient. He is all you need. Once you add to Jesus, then you lose the gospel. Last week in Colossians 2, God's word told us not to let super spiritual Christians who have lost focus on Christ shame us because all spiritual reality is found in Jesus. We don't move on from Jesus.
We don't move on from the gospel. We only go deeper into Christ. Now this week in Colossians 3:1-17, if you've got your Bible or Bible app, you can open up there. I won't put all the verses on the screen today. In this passage, Paul reminds the Colossians, first of all, of the spiritual reality that's already theirs in Christ Jesus, and then sets forth a vision for Christian living that flows out of that reality in Christ.
And this is why the sermon today is called New Life in Christ. New Life in Christ. And a lot of it is going to be focusing on on how we are to live as Christians. What we are not to do, and what we are to do. And the danger is once we start getting into the practice of living, the do's and don'ts, we get so focused on that that we forget what actually empowers that, what actually is the basis for Christian living.
And so Paul's gonna helpfully show us in this passage. He first of all starts off by reminding us of who we are in Christ before we get into what we do and what we don't do as people who follow Jesus. Now Jesus is the only one who can empower Christian living, but he's also the only one that can make us morally beautiful, who can transform us. Now if you're here today and you're visiting us or you're online and you wouldn't call yourself a follower of Jesus yet, you might find what I said a little bit offensive. What are you saying, Ben?
Are you saying that Jesus is the only one who can make me morally beautiful, that I can't become a better person without Jesus? I know lots of people who are good people. What are you trying to say? Well, I want to contend with you that actually Jesus is the only one who can, and I wanna show you in just a moment in our passage. So hang on tight with me and listen along as we look at the passage, and I hope to show you some answers in there as we open it up together.
But we're gonna break down this big passage under four headings, and these will make sense as I explain them. First of all, we're looking at minds fixed on things above in verses 1-4, then killing off earthly things in verses 5-7, then the wardrobe of the new humanity, and the life of the new humanity. Alright. I'll explain them more as we get into them, but let's look at the first one. Paul teaches us to have minds fixed on things above.
So in verse 1, he 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. Now Paul isn't actually saying, if you have been raised, as if it's like a question mark, like, have you been raised with Christ, spiritually speaking? Have you been made a new person? He's not questioning it, he's saying, since you have been, essentially. What Paul is doing here relies on the doctrine or the teaching that we call union with Christ.
The doctrine of union with Christ says that when you put your trust in Jesus, God unites you to Jesus. You become one with Him. You become like a member of His body of which He is the head. You become like a branch connected to Him who is the vine. You become one with Jesus.
You're filled with His spirit. A little bit like a branch that is grafted onto a tree, like this image shows us here. When you put your trust in Jesus, it's like God, this gardener, takes you as a branch and grafts you into the tree called Christ. And when you are grafted in, you actually begin to share in the life of the tree, You share in the power of the tree, even the history of the tree. So Jesus' death on the cross, His history, and His rising again to newness of life.
If you're a Christian, you get grafted into Jesus, and His death to sin is your death to sin, to your old sinful nature, and His rising again to newness of life is your spiritual rising to life in the newness of the spirit. You've become a new person. So this whole doctrine of union with Christ is flavouring what Paul is saying here. So it says, if then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. Then verse 2, he says, set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
For you have died, that's union with Christ again, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Now I used to think when Paul says here, not on things that are on earth, don't set your mind on things that are on earth, I used to think Paul was saying, don't set your mind on negative things. Like, don't set your mind on greed, on violence, on lust, but set up your minds on pure things and beautiful things. But in the immediate context, in chapter 2, Paul has just dealt with the false teachers at Colossae, and their vision for spiritual maturity and growth. And he talks about their teaching as an earthly way of doing spirituality.
The false teachers are proud of what they think is more spiritual, but Paul says it actually comes from their sensuous minds in chapter 2, which is the word for flesh. It's merely human. It's their merely sinful human nature that has come up with this spiritual programme for spiritual advancement. So that's what Paul is doing here. So what he's saying is when he's saying set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, he's saying don't approach spiritual growth and your Christianity like the false teachers who are merely earthly.
They're saying that they're caught up in shadows. Remember last week? They're caught up in shadows. They're saying go back to the Jewish Old Testament laws and their dietary requirements and so on. And Paul says, no.
Set your minds on things above. Jesus is the substance. He's the one who gives the growth. They were hyped up on heaven. Remember?
They were like, we're more mature than you because we've had these spiritual experiences and visions. And Paul's saying, actually, looks spiritual, but that's actually just man made. That's actually man's way of doing spirituality. Set your mind on Christ above. The all sufficient Christ is all you need.
The false teachers are saying, you need to be severe about discipline. If you wanna start to kill off old bad habits in your life, you need to be hardcore and severe and disciplined, and ascetic is what they were called back then. And Paul says, actually, even that is earthly. Don't set your minds on things below, this earthly way of doing spirituality, set your mind on things above, which he just told us in verse 1 is where Christ is. Set your minds on Christ.
He is the foundation. He is the one who empowers us to grow and change. All of the Christian life is really a gift. I am dead to sin not because I'm amazing, and I've been putting sin to death in my life. I'm dead to sin because Jesus is amazing, and He died to my sin, and I've been putting Him like a branch into a tree.
So my identity now as a new person is I'm dead to sin and I'm alive to God in Christ Jesus. And with that reality in mind and with my eyes set on Christ, I begin to put sin to death. You cannot become a morally beautiful person without Jesus. Now, if you're here and you're not a Christian yet or you're exploring, that might sound offensive to you. But let me try and show you why this makes sense.
The earthly way of doing spirituality or personal development or self help or personal growth, the earthly way, which is a little bit like the false teachers at Colossae, is either follow these rules or you need to have this special experience or you need to be strict, it's about your commitment to follow this spirituality, whether it's the steps to enlightenment in Buddhism, whether it's just secular self help stuff like habit stack, these habits and you'll start to change. All of that, that earthly way of growing and changing is in the realm of what I would call self. At the end of the day, if I grow in that realm, if I get rid of a bad habit, I get to take the credit. I I would say at the end, well, it's because I put this into practice. It's because I did this.
I made this change. I chose this way. But in the realm of Christ, where Paul's saying you need to set your minds on things above, the one who actually gives you growth, when I begin to change because of Jesus, I at the end of it, I can't say, I'm just a pretty I'm a bit better than you. I've done this, and I've chosen this way. It doesn't actually puff up my ego.
It just makes me love Jesus more. If I can give an example, if I want to grow in generosity and giving to the poor, I'm like, I need to make a change, I can do it in the earthly way. I can go, I better do that. That's good. I'm gonna start giving more money away.
I'm gonna put this into practice. That's the earthly way. At the end of the day, I can be humble about it, but at the end of the day, it's because I made those choices. Whereas in Paul's teaching about how to grow as a Christian, you set your mind on Christ, the one who was spiritually rich but chose to take on the poverty of humanity and took my spiritual poverty on Himself at the cross and died to pay my debt to make me spiritually rich. When I focus on who Jesus is and the riches He's given me, it amazes me, and me giving away a little bit of money, it's nothing compared to what He's given me.
It's not gonna puff up my ego. It's just something that flows amazing treasures that I've received in Jesus spiritually, and it makes me want to be more generous, but at the end of the day, if I am more generous, I'm not like, it's because I'm amazing, it's because Jesus is amazing. He's given me far more than I could ever give away to anyone else. If that I hope that makes sense. This is why I'm trying to say, only Jesus can make you morally beautiful because all growth will be puffing up your own ego in some subtle way unless it's in Christ.
Now, if you're a Christian and you're wanting to set your minds on things above, you're saying, how does that happen? I wanna commend to you the discipline of beholding. Paul uses that language in 2 Corinthians. He talks about beholding the glory of God and being transformed from one degree of glory to another. He talks about how the light of the glory of God has been revealed in the gospel about Jesus.
See, beholding is this practice of meditating on the gospel, on Jesus. And there's all sorts of different ways that we can do that. We do that as a church regularly through the Lord's Supper. When we go through that soon enough, this is a symbol of the gospel. It puts on display Jesus' death on the cross for us.
When we partake in the Lord's Supper, we're beholding Him and enjoying Him. That's one way that we behold Christ and set our minds on things above. You can do it through praying gospel shaped prayers. I used to pray prayers like one I received from a guy called JD Greer, a pastor in America, beautiful prayer I used to pray for many years was, thank You, father, because I'm in Christ, there's nothing I can do to make You love me more, and nothing I've done that makes You love me less, because it's all a gift from Jesus. And it just takes you into the gospel straight away.
You can pray gospel shaped prayers. You can read the Bible and just look for Christ in those passages and meditate on Him. As we behold Christ, that is how we set our mind on things that are above. It's not just nice morals, it's setting our minds on Jesus, the one who was enthroned in heaven. Now, if you are united to Christ, like a branch grafted into a tree, you begin to share in the life of Christ, it begins to grow you and shape you and change you, and as you settle your mind on Christ who is indescribably beautiful, you begin to want to become more like Him, to change, to live for Him.
This is why after Paul says that we are in Christ, he then tells us how to live for Christ, And it's important that it's in that order. You were in Christ, now live like you are. Live that way. And one of the ways we live into the reality that we are in Christ is by the second heading, killing off earthly things. So we've just talked about minds fixed on things above, and now we're going to talk about killing off earthly things.
Paul uses this strong language in verse 5. He says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. Sexual morality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Now that might sound like a list of kind of generic sins, like impurity, passion, covetousness, which means greed. That might sound generic, but actually most scholars would say because sexual morality comes first in the list, Paul is talking about sexual sins, sexual vices in this passage.
He talks about sexual morality, sexual impurity, sexual passion probably means perversion, evil desire, and then even covetousness or greed, which we normally think about money. He's talking about that insatiable appetite for more and more lust, that insatiable appetite to consume another human being for our own pleasure rather than give ourselves to them in love. Now Christianity is not negative on sex. God created sex. Sex is a good and a beautiful gift from God.
But when we choose to use that precious gift to satisfy our own desires, to satisfy our own fantasies, we begin to objectify another human being and want to consume them for ourselves, and it takes it out of the realm of love, which is where it's meant to be experienced in marriage. This commitment, this covenant of love, where we give ourselves to one another, and we serve one another in the marriage bed. So Paul was saying, put to death sexual perversion, sexual immorality. Now let's not pretend like we don't struggle with this in our churches. Some statistics for you in 2021, some academics published an article titled, we need to talk about pornography, And they wrote this.
Today in Australia, so this is five years ago, ninety nine percent of men aged 30 report accessing pornography in the last year. Many are habitual consumers, with thirty nine percent reporting that they watch pornography daily. A further 46% report accessing pornography weekly. That means eighty five percent of men accessing porn are accessing it at least once a week. That's for men who grew up in the age of the smartphone and the age of the internet.
Now I've looked at stats in The US as well that compared churches with the secular world, and people in churches aren't doing much better than people in the secular world in this area. And I know this can be a struggle for women as well. And the the people that wrote this paper said, we need to talk about this. I don't I'm pretty sure they're not Christians. They're from RMIT, a couple of different universities in Melbourne, and they're saying that pornography has been linked to domestic violence.
They're saying it's having a it's having a damaging effect on people. We need to talk about this. And as churches, we are not a museum for the perfect, we are a hospital for sinners. We're all trying to put sin to death. We're all trying to grow.
This is a place where you can say, I am a sinner. I wrestle with this. I struggle with this. And so let me just encourage you, dear brother, dear sister, if you are wrestling with sexual sin, to find a trusted Christian friend who you can confess to and ask for prayer from and begin to work with. There are Christian counsellors nearby.
There's all sorts of resources that can help you. Anyone who wants to grow in Jesus should not have anything to fear in this church. And I want us to notice something important here. Paul says at the end of that list, he says it is idolatry. Sexual morality, so on and so forth, which is idolatry.
Sexual sin is not just a bad action. It's idolatry. What is idolatry? It is worshipping something else and trying to find something else in something else that is not God, what only God can give. So I feel scared.
I need to feel secure. So I go to this idol, whether it's money and makes me feel secure. Or I want to feel loved, and I don't feel loved, so I'm gonna go to this idol, pornography, and it makes me feel like the person on the screen wants me, even though it's not real. Whatever it might be, and I I just want you to notice is if if you're wrestling with this, you're not just some depraved animal that's hopelessly addicted. It's an idolatry problem.
So ask yourself a little more deeply. You're not just enslaved to it. Ask yourself a little more deeply, what is it that this thing is giving me on a deeper level? Why am I tempted to go there? Am I looking for security?
Am I looking for power? Am I looking for love? Okay. Let's take a breath and turn to Jesus and receive what we need, the security, the acceptance, the love that we need in Him. It's an idolatry issue.
We need to return away from the false god and turn to Jesus. Now there are so many more resources I could give you, but I'll stop there. Paul talks about killing off things below. He's talking about sexual sins. Next, he talks about getting rid of social sins, sins that disrupt our communal life.
Let's look at the next under the heading, the wardrobe of the new humanity. Now the reason I call this the wardrobe is because in these verses, Paul uses Greek words that can literally mean put on these clothes and get rid of those clothes, and he uses them metaphorically to talk about the clothes we shouldn't wear as Christians and clothes that we should wear. K? So first of all, he talks about getting rid of old clothes that belong to the old sinful self. So in verse 8, Paul says, but now you must put them all away, these old clothes of anger, wrath, that's rage, malice, slander, which means to defame someone, and obscene talk from your mouth, which is like whether it's swearing or whether it's perverse speech or whatever it might be.
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. Paul is saying you've been united to Christ, and remember He died to your sin on the cross, so that that old self has been dealt with, and He is the beginning of the new creation, this new humanity that you've been placed in who walks in love and righteousness. We're not to have anger and rage toward one another in our church or slander, defaming someone else, speaking about making a comment about someone else. It's just a negative comment that's cutting them down towards others. That destroys safety.
That destroys our communal witness to Christ. And if someone does bring you gossip about someone else, one thing you can do is shift it into the sphere of love. So rather than in the sphere of gossip where it's like, oh, that person, they did this by the way, and it's comparing myself to them and I'm better than them. You can respond by going, well, maybe there's something going on for them in their life. Are they okay?
Maybe we should go and talk to them or man, that's that's that's maybe we can pray for them together. Would you like to pray? You can just bring it into the sphere of love and just keep training ourselves to walk in love toward one another. We got to refuse to slander one another, to lie to one another, to practise cunning. We don't need to be just sincere, honest brothers and sisters in Christ.
If we allow those types of sins to take root in our community, it can destroy the the good news of Jesus that we're trying to proclaim. Because we can proclaim it with our mouths, but then we can unsay with our actions what we're saying with our mouths. So Paul tells us to get rid of these old clothes. They don't fit us anymore, but there are clothes that do fit us, and Paul talks about these next. Talk about wearing the new clothes.
I'm just gonna run through them in my bible, so if you wanna follow along from verses 10-15, that's where we'll be. So Paul says in verse 10 that you've put on the new self, that Greek word for self is the word anthropos, that this was originally written in, which means human. And in the Greek Old Testament, anthropos shows up in Genesis 1, where it says, and God made man in His own image, humanity in His own image. So Paul is saying that old humanity that was under the curse of sin because of Adam, then put to death in Christ, put on the new humanity because Jesus is like the second Adam who has obeyed God and is bringing us blessing under His name. We don't it's under this new under this new second Adam.
So it says, put on this new humanity. That's why we've got the wardrobes and the new humanity as the heading. And then he says, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Remember Jesus in chapter 1 was called the image of the invisible God. He is the perfect human image, the one who perfectly walks in love and kindness, compassion and justice, and we are to become more like Him.
And then Paul says here in this church community, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. Now these were common social divisions in the day divided people up, but Paul is saying, actually, we're united in Christ. So Greek and Jew. Greeks were probably the most anti Jewish people in that time.
You got circumcised and uncircumcised, so the Jewish people would circumcise their sons. It was a way of marking them out as belonging to God, and sometimes they'd call all the people out there that didn't follow Yahweh with them, the uncircumcised, the pagans. So Paul's saying even these groups of people being brought together, Greek, Jews and Gentiles or non Jews. Then he's saying Scythian barbarian. So the barbarians were non Greeks, and Scythians were seen as the most barbaric anti Greek people in that time and culture.
Slave and free. So, unfortunately, slavery was common in the economy of the Roman Empire, but it wasn't exactly like what we think of as African American slavery. Sometimes it was as bad as that, stealing people and enslaving them, but sometimes a slave in the Roman Empire could have a higher social status than a free person. So it's a nuanced thing of how it worked in that economy back then. But Paul is saying all these things that could have divided us no longer divide us.
We're all one in Christ Jesus. In this church, there is no Australian, South African, Indonesian, Dutch. We are all one in Christ Jesus. And as much as it pains me to say it, there's no Queensland or New South Wales. We're all one in Christ Jesus.
Now I love my Blues and New South Wales brothers and sisters. You're here. You're part of the family. There's not that those things not that those differences get obliterated in Christ. We still remain a blue supporter or a or a South African or an Australian, but they get subjugated under Christ.
Christ is the one we come under who brings all these beautiful differences together. Christ is all. He's everything for us, and he's in all. He dwells in us and among us. And then so Paul says, put on then these clothes that fit us better, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved.
That's who you are. You are God's chosen people. You are holy, special to him, set apart, and dearly loved, beloved people. And that's actually language that God uses in the Old Testament to describe Israel. We have been placed among the the people of God.
We are part of what Paul calls the Israel of God in Galatians. We are part of spiritual. God's grafted us into this vine. We're part of the people of God. And then he says, put on as this new kind of Israel, the new people of God, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another.
And if one has complained against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. So this is how we're to treat one another. This is Christianity is really just about relationships. We're to be kind to one another, compassionate. We're to bear with one another.
All of us are are works in progress, so I'm probably gonna annoy you sometimes. I'm sorry in advance for that. But you need to bear with me. I need to bear with you. We need to bear with one another.
And if we have a complaint against someone, to forgive them. You see, you'll never forgive someone as much as Jesus has forgiven you. Jesus has forgiven you an eternal weight of debt, so we can forgive each other for the smaller debts that we owe to one another. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Love is the the highest virtue in in Christian community.
It binds everything together. It creates harmony with one another. And then Paul says, and let the peace of Christ, that Greek word can mean harmony, so he's talking about social peace. Let that harmony rule in your hearts. This is what we're meant to pursue, peace and harmony with one another, to which indeed you were called in one body.
And we're gonna talk a little bit about the body of Christ when we have the Lord's Supper in just a moment and how we are the body of Christ on earth. This is what Paul says when he talks about wearing the new clothes. He isn't giving us a list of denominational options. This is just Christianity. This is just who we're meant to be as God's people at Open House Church.
We are to love one another. The Christian life is not mostly about skill or intelligence. It's about relationships. It's about harmony and love with others in our church. But what do we actually do when we get together?
How do we let the all encompassing reality of Jesus Christ permeate everything we do? How do we set our minds on things above as a community? Well, Paul answers this next under our final heading, the life of the new humanity. Paul says in verses 16-17, or verse 16 to start with, let the word of Christ, that's the gospel, that's the good news about Jesus, dwell in you richly. Let it make its home in you.
Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, so that's one of the ways that we let the gospel dwell among us. Teaching is positive instruction, admonishing is negative instruction, So or warning someone. So letting the gospel dwell richly through teaching, we might say to someone who just feels so ashamed about their sin, Jesus died for your sin. There's no condemnation for you. Or someone who says, I'm not gonna leave behind my sin.
I don't really care. Jesus died for your sin. How can you still live in it? That's the that's the negative warning sign. And another way that we do that is through singing.
Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. We sing about Jesus. We sing gospel rich songs. And some people, some scholars think that these are very specific genres of songs. Other scholars would say these Greek words are used so often in different places.
It's probably just generally referring to songs about Jesus. Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. I'm not a 100% sure. I haven't made my mind up on which option I want go with. If you go with a specific version, Paul is saying sing psalms from the book of Psalms in the Old Testament.
Sing hymns, songs about Jesus, and then spiritual songs are songs that come from the Holy Spirit, maybe a little bit more spontaneous. That might be what Paul's talking about, or he's just generically talking about songs to Jesus. Either way, I love Dr Doug Moo's comment on these verses. He says Paul is urging the community as a whole to put the message about Christ at the centre of its corporate experience. Specifically, Paul urges them to let it dwell richly among them.
The message about Christ should take up permanent residence. It should be constantly at the centre of the community's activities and worship. Richly suggests that this constant reference to the word of Christ should not be superficial or passing, but that it should be a deep and penetrating contemplation that enables the message to have the transforming power in the life of the community. This is why I said a few weeks ago, we want to be a gospel centered church. We want to preach Christ.
We want to sing about Christ. We want to remind each other about the good news constantly. This is meant to dwell richly in our experience of our life together. And then verse 17 just blasts the whole thing open. Paul says, well, whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
See, Jesus is the all encompassing reality of his people. We we don't exist for a couple hours on a Sunday. That's not that's not what our Christianity is limited to. Our whole life is Jesus. Whatever we do, whether we're mothering, or whether we're grandparenting, or whether we're working, or whether we're studying at school, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
When you come to see Jesus' supremacy and beauty and power, life becomes Christ. Everything becomes about Him. His love, His kindness, His glory, His renown. See, Jesus isn't grateful for a couple of hours from you on a Sunday. He's not patting you on the back saying, thank you for giving me two hours this week.
He wants your whole life. And He's not asking unapologetically, He's the undisputed Lord of the universe. And He gave His life for you, didn't He? Jesus took all of your mess and my mess, every shameful thing we've ever done, and He chose to represent us in the law court of heaven. He allowed Himself to be called guilty, to be accursed, to be hung on a tree and crucified, to die the most despicable death known in the Roman Empire, to pay our debt, to deal with our shame, and to give us new life.
This is why we do everything in His name. This is why we set our minds on Him. This is why we wanna put to death old ways and pursue new ways that align up with Him because Christ is all and in all. So church, live as what you really are, a new humanity alive in Christ above. That's the message of our passage.
Let me finish by praying a portion from a prayer that's commonly attributed to Saint Patrick of Ireland. And these words, this this portion that beautifully encapsulate how Jesus has become our identity, our life, our everything. Let me pray this with you. Father, let Christ be our all encompassing reality. Christ with us, Christ before us, Christ behind us, Christ in us, Christ beneath us, Christ above us, Christ on our right, Christ on our left.
Christ when we lie down. Christ when we sit down. Christ when we arise. Christ in the heart of every man and woman who thinks of us. Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of us.
Christ in every eye that sees us. Christ in every ear that hears us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.