Look Up Series

Above All: A Study in Colossians

Colossians 3:1-4

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

07-10-2022

Where We’ve Been

I’ve never actually started a sermon this way before. The verses that we will study today are the hinge verses of Colossians.

Every letter or story has a hinge, a running point.

In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe it’s when Aslan dies on the stone table in Edmond’s place and then resurrects from the dead.

In the Wizard of Oz, it’s when Toto pulls back the curtain and reveals what was really happening.

In Hamilton, it’s the letter that Aaron Burr writes to Alexander challenging him to a duel.

Dear Alexander

I am slow to anger

But I toe the line

As I reckon with the effects

Of your life on mine

I look back on where I failed

And in every place I checked

The only common thread has been your disrespect

Now you call me "amoral"

A "dangerous disgrace"

If you've got something to say, name a time and place, face-to-face

I have the honor to be your obedient servant

A dot Burr

And, in perhaps the most famous turning point in a movie, In Star Wars, it’s when Luke screams, “You killed my father!” Darth Vader responds, “No, I am your father.”

[Show clip]

In the first two chapters, Paul is seeking to establish a doctrinal foundation for these believers to guard against false teaching. In the last two chapters, Paul moves from creed to conduct, from belief to behavior.

I want to begin by simply reading the first two chapters of Colossians. Remember, that this was a letter, written by Paul from a prison cell, to believers in the Lycus Valley. Their founding pastor, Epaphras, was a fellow prisoner with Paul and had told him about the Colossian Church’s faith in Christ.

This letter was read to the church, out loud, in a service similar to this one.

Read chapter one and two.

Turn with me to Colossians chapter three. Paul spends eleven chapters in the book of Romans building the foundation before moving toward how their faith plays out in the real word. In Ephesians, the hinge is chapter four. And in Colossians, the hinge is chapter 3:1-4.

Turn there now.

Prayer

Look Up

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your  life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:1-4)

Recently, I saw a video a young women named Cameron who identifies as a bird, specifically a cardinal.

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke a Living Waters Camp in Michigan to junior high students. We spent all week focusing on our identities in Christ. They have so many voices in their culture trying to define them, I made the case that we should never let anyone define our identities except Jesus.

This what Paul is doing as he transitions from the doctrinal part of Colossians to the more more practical behavior part of the book.

Paul, like any good preacher, is reminding them where they have been in order to set up the next section of his letter.

Position

He begins with the words “since then you have been raised with Christ.” Paul is reminding them of their identity, their position, in Christ.

In chapter two, that we just read, Paul makes this case:

“…having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” (Col 2:12)

When Jesus died, we died. When Jesus was buried, we were buried. When Jesus was raised to life, we were raised to life. This is what it means to be “in Christ.”

We didn’t do anything to earn it or deserve it. “You have been raised” is passive. It’s an action done by God in the past that has effects in the present.

He says the same thing in Ephesians:

“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Eph 2:6-7)

This is Paul’s starting point - our position in Christ. This is what will shape the way we live and lead us into a Christ-Centric life.

Paul wrote to the Romans:

“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom 6:4)

In the Bible, there are indicatives and imperatives. Indicatives are facts. Imperatives are commands. These beginning words are indicatives - relating the fact of our being raised with Christ. But Paul moves to two imperatives, two commands that will result from our understanding of our identity.