Scripture: Colossians 1:1-14; Psalm 82
Title: Who Are You?
In this passage we learn three things about who we are – 1. We are People in Christ Jesus 2. We are People of Love 3. We are People of Hope
INTRO:
Grace and Peace in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
I want to talk to you today about your identity. I want to talk to you today about who you can be in this life and in the life to come.
The Apostle Paul is writing to the congregation at Colossae. In this first chapter he takes great pains in sharing with them some things surrounding their new identity in Christ Jesus. He wants them to understand that they are no longer the same people they were before they accepted Jesus as Savior and LORD. He wants them to relish in their new identity.
+What then was this new identity – this identity in Christ Jesus.
+Can we have the same or similar identity even though we are some 2,000 years removed from one another?
+Could Paul’s words to them be applicable to us this morning?
+Is that what we are to understand as we read his opening words to this congregation?
I think that it is.
I think that as we read Paul’s words, we are to understand that what the Apostle Paul says to this church is the same thing that he would say to our church this morning. I believe we are to relish in our own identity in Christ Jesus as much as those who read these words for the first time relished in their new identity in Christ Jesus.
Let’s look at what Paul has to share:
I. Our identity is to be entirely focused in Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus alone
Who we are this morning is determined by the relationship that we have with Christ Jesus. That is what the Apostle Paul told the congregation at Colossae, and I believe it is what he would also tell us this morning.
Our identity is not determined by our intelligence. It is not determined by our heritage – our ancestry. It is not determined by our present location. It is not determined by how much or how little we have in the bank, in our retirement accounts or in our real estate assets. It is not even determined by our gender or our race.
All of those are important. At least that is what the world keeps telling us repeatedly. The world focuses on those things – intelligence, heritage, race, gender, location, materialism etc…
However, according to the Apostle Paul, the most important thing in our lives revolves around our relationship in Christ Jesus.
As an important side note; the Apostle would also remind us that our identity should not even be based on our own personal righteousness or how much we know or adhere to certain religious rituals and regulations.
The Prophet Isaiah of old would have agreed. Listen to what Isaiah writes about such matters:
Isaiah 64:6
“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins weep us away.”
Tough but true words.
Neither Isaiah nor Paul would of course discount our own walk of righteousness but they would simply remind us that we are not to be wrapped up in our own self-righteousness. They would want to remind us that our identity is to be in Christ Jesus and not in ourselves or in anything else be that our own righteousness or ability to adhere to certain religious rules or rituals.
Now, we in the established Church tend to overemphasis such things as personal righteousness, religious rules and rituals. After all, we have books of worship and manuals devoted to such things. We want to make sure that people know how they are to look, how they are to act and live. We tend to focus a great deal of our time on what a person is supposed to know about the LORD, His Word and the Church.
Again, all of that is of importance. It is just not the most important thing.
What is most important centers solely on Christ Jesus.
It centers on the relationship that we have in Christ Jesus.
It focuses on our faith in Christ Jesus.
Today, it is vital that we believe in Jesus being who we state that He is every Sunday morning when we recite the Apostle’s Creed:
“In Jesus Christ, His Only Son our LORD:
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary, suffering under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day He rose from the dead;
He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father, Almighty;
From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
Those words are not just words of a ritual. They are words of faith. They are words that state our faith and allegiance in Jesus being the Son of God, the Redeemer and Lord of Our Lives.
That is where our identity starts and ends. That is the foundational bedrock of who we are this morning. Our identity is in Christ Jesus. It is in the One who died for us, who redeemed us and who enables us to be infilled with His Holy Spirit.
More than anything else we may identity with – heritage, race, gender, finances, position, education or intellect – the most important thing that we can establish our identity is in Christ Jesus, Our Savior and LORD.
For it is only in Christ that we can be redeemed.
It is only in Christ that we can be free from both the penalty of sin (death) and the power of sin (enslavement).
It is only in Christ that we can live the Abundant Life in the here and now and enjoy everlasting life on the New Heaven and New Earth.
II. Secondly, We are to Identify as Christ’s Disciples of Love
We are to identify as people of love because we are in Christ. We are people of love because that is who Our Heavenly Father is – He is Love.
“We love because God first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19
Love does some amazing things.
Pastor N. T. Wright shares this little story centered on love:
“When Susan bought the house there wasn’t much growing in the garden. A few tatty little shrubs; a mouldy rosebush or two; a tree that had been bent sideways by a storm and left to grow crooked. It was a depressing sight.”
A few days after she’d moved in, a friend came to visit, and brought some seeds for the garden. They were special, he said; not what you’d expect. Once you’d sown them and watered them, plants would grow vigorously, and would quickly cover a large area with beautiful flowers. But that wasn’t all. Hidden under the leaves would be a delicious fruit. What that appeared, and ripened, then you’d know the plants had come to stay.
Within a week or two the garden was transformed, and Susan decided to get rid of the old plants and let the new ones flourish. They quickly filled the small space with colour and perfume. She telephoned her friend. What on earth was this new plant? It wasn’t in any of the gardening books she’d ever seen. Ah, he said, it’s new. It’s transforming gardens everywhere. You’re part of a whole new world.” – (Paul the Prison Letters – by N. T. Wright)
Now, of course Pastor Wright’s story was not referring to an actual garden but the garden of life. And in this garden Susan had begun to sow the seeds of love that comes from having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Those seeds of love then began to transform everything around them.
That is how it is with love. When we begin to sow the seeds of love; Christ’s love, we begin to see a change in ourselves. Then we begin to see a change in the places that we work, that we live and even those we visit. Our identity in Christ leads us to live out a life of love, agape love that is invigorating. Our identity in Christ causes the world around us to be more and more filled with the presence and aroma of love.
This is what happened in and around the congregation at Colossae. Up to this point, their culture was one that had been saturated with words and actions like lust, anger, deception, manipulation and so on which led to the division of families, friends and communities. The Colossian culture was enslaved to materialism, greed and immorality.
But when the Church of Colossae began to live out a life of love all around them things began to change.
+Instead of lust there was an ever-growing atmosphere of agape love.
+Instead of anger there was patience and peace.
+Instead of deception and manipulation there was truth and encouragement.
+Instead of materialism there was simplicity.
+Instead of greed there was sharing.
+Instead of depression there was joy and celebration.
Overall, there was a spirit of acceptance despite all the differences around them; financial, race, gender and cultural differences.
The Colossian church got caught up in the spirit of love that the Apostle Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
As you well know it is not always easy to be a people of love. At times we want to be selfish. At times we want our own way no matter the cost. At times we want to be angry. At times we want to keep a list of those who have hurt us. At times we don’t desire to be loving and kind.
When that happens, we must resist our old nature – the old nature we had before Christ came into our lives. When that happens, we must stop ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to reorientate us, renew our minds and guide us down the right paths.
Loving God, loving ourselves and loving others is always the right response. We must continually water our seeds of love and allow them to grow. We must make sure our life gardens are being filled more and more with love.
For in doing so is how we become the Good Samaritan. It is how we welcome home the Prodigal Son instead of being the elder brother. It is how we can reach out to those who need love the most.
Remember what Jesus told His disciples:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Buy this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34-35.
Those are some heavy words.
So, we see the first two of our identity markers are rather simple:
+First – Identity as a Person who is In Christ Jesus
+Second – Identify and live as a Disciple of Love
Which leads us to our final identity marker this morning:
III. We are to Identify as People of Hope
Hope – that word is such a small word and yet it is such an important word.
What is hope?
How can we define hope?
+Is it a wishy washy hope - a maybe?
+Is it a kind of uncertain optimism?
For most people today, the word hope means something along these lines. It is “to wish for, to expect, but always being void of certainty.”
Hope is desiring an outcome but having no real assurance that anything good is going to happen. It is a wish, but in the end that is all that it is an optimistic wish.
The Biblical view of hope is different.
When we look at the context in which “hope” is used in scripture there is an overwhelming note of certainty.
Hope in Scripture means a “strong and confident expectation.”
Hope wasn’t seen as something wishy washy. It wasn’t seen as a maybe. It wasn’t seen as something that might happen.
One could have real hope because one knew in their heart at the center of hope was the LORD, the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.
Recently, I have been reading the book of Jeremiah. It’s a book about the life of one of God’s Eighth Century Prophets. Jeremiah lived during the time when the People of God were defeated by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar and taken into exile to Babylon.
Jeremiah’s writings are all centered on the idea of hope. Jeremiah lived a life of hope. He lived a life where he staked everything he did on the hope that the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY would take whatever happened in his world and make it come out better than it was before.
You could say that Jeremiah believed in the words that the Apostle Paul would later write to the people of Rome:
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” – Romans 8:28
Now, if you were to take a snapshot of Jeremiah’s life you would say that he had more than one reason not to be a person of hope:
+ Each day he preached calling for the people to repent of their rebellious ways and turn towards the LORD – they didn’t.
+He desperately planned that he would be able to spend the last days of his life in Jerusalem – however, it didn’t happen as those in control made sure that he was carried off to Egypt despite his protests.
+He dreamed that the people of God would one day return home – He died before see that eventually happen some sixty years later.
In view of that you might think that the book of Jeremiah would then be a book about the difficulties of life or the loss of hope. But it isn’t.
It is the story of how through it all Jeremiah never lost hope. He never lost hope in God. He never lost hope that somehow, someway God was still going to make things better for His People.
Even when the people closed their ears to his messages, he kept his hope alive.
Even when the people were carted off to Babylon in exile, he kept his hope alive.
Even when he was carted off to Egypt to live out his last days, he kept his hope alive.
Even when he never got to see the People of God return to the Promise Land, he kept his hope alive.
How was he able to do that?
Because Jeremiah kept his hope in God, the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.
He knew that because of the people’s resistance and rebellion that the nation would fall. And it did. But amid that fall there was a faithful remnant. A remnant that not only stayed with God but was responsible for collecting the books today that we call the Old Testament.
He knew when they carted him off to Egypt towards the end of his life, he would never see the Promise Land again. But while he was in Egypt, he was able to preach not only to the Jews that lived there but he was able to correspond with the people of Moab, Edom, Ammon, Damascus and others. He was able to both warn them against rebelling against God and their need to worship the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.
God was able to work through the mess and bring about transformation. God was able to work through the rebellion and bring about a time of revival and renewal.
So, as we close this morning, what does it mean to have hope in Christ?
+Part of it means having hope in what Jesus promised.
Jesus made some incredible statements and promises to those who would choose to follow Him. To those who would make Him their Savior and LORD:
+He Promised Salvation
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved" -John 3:16-17.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life" -John 6:47.
+He Proclaimed His Lordship and Promised His Presence
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20
+He Promised the Ability to Live a New Type of Life
“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their (the disciples) message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved hem as you have loved me.” – John 17:20-23
+He Promise He would return
“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself.” - John 14:3
That’s a lot to take in on a Sunday morning.
It’s a lot to think about on a Sunday morning.
Our identity -who we are and who we will be:
+Tied in with our relationship to Jesus Christ – our identity founded in Him – as Our Savior and LORD.
To be one with Christ means that we look at ourselves in Him. It means that we see ourselves as being different – Born Again. It means that we have life in Him. It means that the most important thing in our lives is not ourselves, not even our family but Him – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
+Disciples of Love – our identity spelled out in being a person of love.
To be Identified in Christ means that do our best to not just love God and ourselves but to love everyone around us.
That is not always easy. To think that it is easy is to either not be honest with ourselves or to be delusional.
It’s easy at times to look our family and to love them. But what about the person down the street or the person at work that treats us badly? What about the people who have harmed us in some way? What about the people that don’t agree with us or live according to our standards? What about the people that just rub us the wrong way?
Identifying ourselves in Christ means doing everything we can to love others and when we can’t then we ask the LORD to help us.
Identifying ourselves in Christ means that we are people of hope amid times that feel and look hopeless. It means hanging on and believing that better days are ahead. It means looking for the silver lining in the clouds and believing that through it all things will get better.
Being Born Again. Being A New Creation. Being Identified with Christ is both exciting and taxing. It is both exhilarating and at times unsettling.
It requires self-sacrifice. It requires continual growth and maturity.
But in the end, it is the way to everlasting life. It is the way to love, joy and peace. It is the way we are to live today, tomorrow and for the rest of our lives.
Today – How do you identify yourself?
+As a believer – as one who has given their heart and life to Jesus?
+As a person of love – sowing seeds of love all around you?
+As a person of hope – believing in Jesus’ Proclamations, Promises and Presence?
As we close let’s sing a song of allegiance to the Born Again Life
Song/Altar Open/Prayer/Blessing
