What Does Holy Living Look Like? Series

What does Holy Living look like? Perhaps this message should have been the first message in the series rather than the last. We must remember, we have been called to holiness:

1 Peter 1:15–16 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; 16 because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”

Our call is clear. It is God will for our lives:

1 Thessalonians 4:3a For this is the will of God, your sanctification;

God’s will is for our sanctification. Sanctification means to make holy. If we are holy in all we say and do, the rest of God’s will for our lives will become quite evident.

Our holiness is based solely on the finished work of Jesus. We talked about that last week. When God sees us, he sees the holiness of Jesus imparted to us by the fact that Jesus paid the penalty of our sins on the cross. We are holy only because Jesus is holy. However, as Jesus, through His Holy Spirit has taken up residence within us, and His indwelling has brought about a change of heart, mind and our very soul. Because of the inward change in our lives, there ought to be outward evidence of that change.

Our passage today deals with just that. When trying to describe a holy life, I kept coming back to these verses. I have preached this passage in the past in the context of living in peace and unity, with one another and within the church, but these things are the things that make up our lives as we display the holiness that Christ has imparted to us.

Colossians 3:1–17

The great missionary David Brainerd, who spent his brief life (he died before the age of thirty) ministering to American Indians, [in the 1740s] wrote in his journal these words: “I never got away from Jesus and him crucified. When my people were gripped by this great evangelical doctrine of Christ and him crucified, I had no need to give them instructions about morality. I found that one followed as the sure and inevitable fruit of the other.” He also said this in another place: “I find my Indians begin to put on the garments of holiness and their common life begins to be sanctified even in small matters when they are possessed by the doctrine of Christ and him crucified.” What Brainerd was saying was this: when a Christian realizes who Christ is and what Christ has done for him so graciously, as we have been seeing, it tends to have a dramatic effect on this life, not only in salvation but in holiness.[1]

This is exactly what Paul is saying in these verses:

Colossians 3:1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Paul is referring to the picture of our baptism. We were buried in our trespasses and sins and raised from that death with Christ:

Colossians 2:12–13 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,

Seeing then how we are alive in Christ, our minds needs to be transformed to seeing those things which are above and holy.

Colossians 3:2–4 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

When we begin to see things as God see them, we will want to discard what is unholy and embrace what is holy. We begin to see the importance of what is eternal verse the things of earth which are temporal. “When Christ, who is our life.” Christ is our life! Being in Christ, being a Christian ought to be who and what we are. It is the very fabric of our being. When Jesus appears, we should see a family resemblance.

1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

Considering then to whom we belong and the family of which we are part, we are to put aside all that takes away from our holiness.

Colossians 3:5–7 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.