‘Location, Location, Location’, the real estate agents all say. Buy the worst house in the best street, because you can always fix up the house. But you can’t fix up the location. Where you are is the most important.
That’s why churches were traditionally built on the top of the prominent hill. Same with the Lord’s manor. They wanted the splendid outlook, and to be seen by all around. That’s why corporate high flyers fight for their corner office in the CBD tower. That’s why living in the Eastern suburbs or North Shore is so much more expensive than living in Penrith or Warragamba or Silverdale, where it is 10 degrees hotter in summer and 10 degrees colder in winter.
Well, I would like to praise your excellent location and superb outlook, brothers and sisters who live and worship in the Anglican Parish of Mulgoa. I’m not talking about Nepean Gorge or the Dam lookout or looking east as your stand on the ridge on Silverdale Road. And I am not talking about your location in wonderful Warragamba, Wallacia or Werrombi, Magnificent Mulgoa, or Luxurious Luddenham. If you have received Jesus as both Lord and Christ, if you have faith in Christ, allow me to congratulate you on your wonderful location, your amazing position, the expansive vista, and the wonderfully high prospect you have acquired in your union with Jesus Christ. You are located far above every principality and power and authority. You look down upon them from heaven, where you are seated at the right hand of God in Christ. What James and John wanted Jesus to promise them through his mother, you have.
Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 to 4:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 3:2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.3:3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 3:4When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (NIV)
Notice verse 1 that by faith in Christ you have been raised with Christ. Christ was circumcised and immersed in death and raised in resurrection. And you by faith are included in Christ. Verse 1, Christ is now seated at the right hand of God. And verse 3, your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
The principle is, you are united with Christ by faith. His past is your past. His present is your present. His future is your future.
In the past Christ died and was buried. He endured the circumcision and baptism of death. His death nailed our sin and debt and condemnation to the cross.
In the past Christ was also raised and ascended to the right hand of God. And by faith, that has happened to you, too.
And so in the present, verse 3, your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Ephesians 2:6 says:
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus (NIV).
According to God, you through faith are seated next to the Lord Jesus Christ in the heavenly realms. Because Jesus’ past is your past, and Jesus is present is your present
Now, this information about your location should present you with certain problems. Where you aware that you have already died? You have been crucified with Christ, and circumcised with Christ’s circumcision and buried with him in immersion. Where you aware you had endured all this? Do you remember it? No? And what about your resurrection and ascension? Were you aware that you had taken this trip to the heavenly realms? Did you know that you are still there? And if you are there, what are you doing here?
But it is happened to every believer in Christ. For it is what is referred to in Colossians 1:13-14:
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (NIV)
We are now God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, according to Colossians 3 verse 12. The Lord has forgiven us, Colossians 3 verse 13. And all of this is communicated to us in the ideas that we have died, risen with Christ, and seated with him in the heavenly realms.
Clearly, our death, burial, resurrection and ascension is not a physical and literal one, but a spiritual and Christian one. These things have happened to us in the sight of God. God considers us raised with Christ and seated in the heavenly realms. This is simply another way of saying God imputes to us that we are there with Christ and in Christ. God reckons and regards us as such in Christ.
And so sure will it happen in the future, that it is said to have already occurred. Our eternal life in Christ is secure, hidden in God, unable to be touched. So now, when God sees Jesus our brother there at his right hand, he also sees those of us who belong to Jesus with and in him. For Jesus as our representative head carried us with him and in him. When Christ hung on the cross, we hung there with him. While he was laid dead in the tomb, we were laid with him. When he rose up again in his new resurrected life, there we too were spiritual raised. When Christ was airlifted to heaven, and indeed, even now as he rules the world at his Father’s right hand, there we are, too. And so we look up, to heaven, where Christ is, as our true location.
And our new location with and in Christ gives us a new identity. Identity is so important. People define themselves by all kinds of things. My nationality—I’m an Aussie, Greek, Italian, Maltese. My sexuality—I’m straight, I’m GLBTI My job—I’m a lawyer, a doctor, a minister, just a housewife My gender—I’m a man, a woman. But in the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son, none of this matters. Chapter 3 verse 11:
Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, Slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. (NIV)
Your identity in Christ is Christ. You are a Christian, and therefore your gender, your job and your nationality don’t matter. And your sexual identity is to be brought under the Lordship of Christ. You are not identified by your sexual desires, but by Christ as Lord.
‘He’s so heavenly minded he is of no earthly use!’ Ever heard that? It is sometimes said of people like us.
And we like someone who is ‘down to earth’, don’t we. Heavenly minded is bad. Down to earth is good.
But for Paul, that’s all the wrong way around. The only way to live on the earth is the heavenly way. Since you are in heaven, don’t lower yourself down to the earth. So you and I are commanded to, Colossians 3 verse 1: set your hearts on things above, and verse 2: Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
But chapter 3 verse 5, if something in us or about us is earthly, look at what we are told to do.
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature
We are to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and everything else will fall into place. Religious days and seasons and months and years are part of this worldly thinking. Feasting and Fasting is part of this worldly thinking. Seeking after angels and religious experiences is worldly and sensual. We’ve got something far above angels and demons. We are seated with Christ far above all rule and authority. What is true of us by faith, is we are above all this, seated at the right hand of God. And so we are to lift our minds upward, to the future kingdom, to the fourth dimension, to where God is. And Christ is where God is, outside our cosmos, yet filling our cosmos. The Lord Christ has taken a finite and limited body into himself, yet in his divinity he is bigger than the entire universe, and fills it, and actuates it by his Spirit.
So since you’ve died and been raised, you and I have some killing off to do. Holy violence is required to execute and put to death some sin. In the book of Samuel, there is an instance where God commanded King Saul to put to death a wicked king Agag. And Saul refused to. So Samuel the prophet, the same Samuel who as a little boy served before the tabernacle of the Lord, to whom God spoke at night, this Samuel said:
And Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the LORD in Gilgal. (1 Samuel 15:33 ESV)
Samuel showed a holy violence to execute God’s condemnation on Agag. And now, today, God wants us to show the same holy violence on our sin. In the Old Testament, God used Israel to put to death his enemies. When Jesus comes back, our Lord himself and the angels will destroy his enemies. And as we wait, we are called not to kill our enemies, but love our enemies. But we are called to kill off our own sinful nature. We have to hack our sinfulness to pieces.
And there are two particular areas of sin Paul concentrates on in this passage. He first speaks of sexual lust and acts, Colossians 3 verses 5 to 7. And second he speaks of sins of anger leading to sins of the mouth and tongue, Colossians 3 verses 8 and 10. But he doesn’t leave us with what we shouldn’t do. He also tells us what we should do. And so he gives us the new clothes we are to put on in verses 11 to 14.
First, Colossians 3 verses 5 to 7, and sexual sin and lust. Sexual sin, not sex but sexual sin, must be killed. God says sexual lust and sexually sinful acts must be slaughtered and hacked to pieces.
3:5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 3:6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.3:7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. (NIV)
Saul tolerated Agag when God said Agag must be killed. Samuel chopped Agag up. And so must we chop up all manner of sexual sin. Sexual sin is all sex outside marriage. It can happen in your head or with your body. It can be acts or attitudes. And we must put all of this to sexual sin to death, because we are God’s holy and dearly loved people. Wrath is coming because of sexual sin. Many of us walked previously in sexual sin. Sexual sin is a type of idol, so it is idolatry. And we have to chop down idols. Hack down and chop up sexual sin.
Friends, sexual sin is different from other sins. Paul says that himself. It is a sin which affects our very bodies. And our bodies are for the Lord and for our spouse. Let me urge you and encourage you to flee these sins. Run away from all sex outside of marriage. So if you are unmarried and dating, you are to treat the person you are dating as a sister. If it’s OK to do that to your sister, then it is OK. You can take your sister to the movies, carry her books, maybe even hold her hand. But not much else.
And notice, that sexual sin starts in the mind. That is why you need to be careful what your eyes see, what you let into your mind. That’s why Paul says, ‘Set your minds on things above’ not in the gutter. Run away from TV or You Tube clips that will drag your mind down to earth. Make sure your smart phone does not bring your thinking down to earth. Better to have a dumb phone, than use a smart phone in such a dumb way.
Second, we must rid ourselves of hatred and sins of the mouth. This is what verses 8 to 10 are about. Jesus says that if you are angry with your brother you have murdered him in your heart. Jesus says if you call him a fool, you are in grave danger. Heart hatred and mouth murder are all sins that Jesus gives us serious warnings about. And so to does his Apostle, Paul: Colossians chapter 3 verse 8:
But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. (NIV)
Not long ago, we heard of the Ebola Crisis. It is still going, and 12,000 people in Western Africa have died. The Ebola Virus is highly infectious and can be transmitted through clothing with traces of bodily fluids on it. So there is a great deal of personal safety gear that needs to be worn. Nurses treating the sick can disinfect and reuse boots. But all the rest of their protective clothes must be destroyed. Otherwise they could catch the disease.
And in a similar way, Paul wants us to get rid of anger and rage and malice and slander and filthy language. These things are like clothes infected with the Ebola Virus. They must be carefully taken off and burnt.
At the heart of these sins is hatred. This is about hating someone, another human being, in your heart. It is the sin as old as Cain, who was jealous, and murdered his brother. Usually people are too cowardly to kill someone, thank God. So they slag them off, they rant and rave, the curse them and show their hatred in their words. That is why Jesus diagnosed hating your brother in your heart as murder. And calling your brother a fool is mouth murder. As James chapter 3 verses 9 and 10 say:
9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. (NIV)
Lies are another sin of the mouth that Paul warns us about. Verses 9 and 10:
3:9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 3:10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. (NIV)
Our old life, our old self, has lies. Lies come from either fear or because of covetousness. Sometimes lies come from fear, like with Sarah, who told God she didn’t laugh when she did. Or lies can come from wanting money or respect, like Ananias and Sapphira.
But Church life depends on trust. Indeed, any relationship depends on trust. Without trust, church, family, work, sport, none of these things can work. What we need to do is realize that truth is sacred. We need to fear God, and realize that lies are sin. And we need to leave the consequences of telling the truth to God.
When you’ve got little kids in the back of the car and they get annoying, its easy to just tell them to stop doing things. Stop hitting your brother. Stop pulling your sister’s hair. Stop poking each other.
Then we hit upon a command that wasn’t telling them to stop, but do something. ‘Hands on Tummy’. If you’ve got your hands on tummy, you can’t be pulling her hair, or poking or hitting him. It worked. It worked on the kids in the back of the car. It also worked on the kids at youth group at my last church. I’d often tell them to put their hands on tummy if they were doing something naughty. They seemed to like it.
Here is Paul’s hands on tummy, the good thing you should be doing when your not sinning sexually or with your mouth.
3:12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 3:13Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.3:14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (NIV)
We are called to strip off the anger, hatred and sins of the mouth. And we are called to clothe ourselves with new clothing. Verse 12 uses the metaphor of clothing for the qualities which flow from our union with Christ: Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience — Wonderful words that describe qualities of the renewed soul, raised with Christ. Verse 13 gives us the two constant responses we are called to have in the church. To bear with each other and to forgive each other. You bear with some one when you put up with their annoying and difficult ways. You forgive them when you acknowledge they are not just thoughtless but sinful, and you decide to bear the cost of their sin, and not pay them back, or leave room for God’s wrath. Hopefully, they will repent and ask for forgiveness. But you can forgive them from your own perspective when you don’t pay them back or take revenge.
And verse 14 shows us what is the final piece of clothing, the dry-as-a-bone that goes over the top, is love.
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (NIV)
You died with Christ are were raised with him in the past. You are now seated with him in the heavenly realms. So you must live the heavenly life and put to death the earthly. That means putting to death sexual sins. It means getting rid of sins of hatred, and sins of the mouth. It means putting off lies and putting on love. And all this we do while we wait for Christ’s return. For Christ in us is our hope of glory. So chapter 3 verse 4, we look forward to the coming of Christ:
When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (NIV)
You cannot save yourself. Christ must come back and save you. Then you will be saved and rescued. But until then we have to put to death and get rid of sin. We have to put off lies and put on love.
Let’s pray.