CHANGED AND
CHANGING
The greatest defense of the gospel is a changed life.
Has the
gospel of Jesus Christ changed your life? Do your loved ones notice that you
have changed? Do they notice that you are changing as you follow Jesus?
I have
been reading a 17th century Puritan named John Owen lately. He
proposes that the grace of Christ is irresistible and that the change (he calls
it regeneration) is the work of the Holy Spirit. To read Owen you would think
that you are changed whether you want to change or not. I would not say I agree
with everything Owen says, but he has an interesting perspective on the Holy
Spirit.
What the
Bible teaches, and what Paul teaches in Colossians 3:1-11, is that the work of
Christ changes us when we believe on His name. However, the Bible also teaches
us that we must choose to change our behavior to match the life of Christ. So
it can be said that we are changed and also in the process of changing.
1. Changed because of Christ
Paul makes one more theological statement before moving
on to the practical half of the letter to the Colossians. Before he launches
into the “how-to” of Christianity, he wants to lay a foundation for how the
Christian is supposed to live. He does this in all of his letters – doctrine
and then practice.
What
Paul reinforces in this letter is the change in the believer’s status before
God. Christ is enough for your salvation – you need nothing and no one else –
and so you have changed because of your faith. So Paul says this:
“Since, then, you have been raised with
Christ…” (3:1a). These words introduce a new paradigm for living. But they
also echo some earlier words that highlight this change. Paul said, “Since you died with Christ…” (2:20).
These nearly identical phrases indicate a major shift in the life of believers.
We
talked two weeks ago about legalism, the adherence to rules as a means to gain
God’s favor and salvation. That’s what Paul refers to in 2:20: Since you died
with Christ on the cross, you died to man-made rules and regulations. They no
longer have a hold on you, so why do you act as though they controlled you?
That’s the old life.
With
this new statement we can see the other side of this work of Christ. Since you
died, you died to sin and rules. Now, since you have been raised with Christ,
the old order of things passes away so that you now live in the new order of
things. Gone are the “shoulds” and the “supposed to’s” of legalism; here now
are the joys of living for Jesus.
Paul
directs the gaze of the believer from earthly values to the values of heaven: “…set your hearts on things above…set your
minds on things above…” (3:1&2). What is above? This direction is
qualified by the phrase “where Christ is
seated at the right hand of God.” Paul refers to Psalm 110 here that depicts
Jesus as King and Lord.
So the
Christian needs to set his or her gaze on Jesus, to set your heart (the
emotions, the will, and our conscience) on Jesus, to set your mind (your
knowledge and thinking; the intellect) on Jesus. In other words, we need to
reorient the way we look at our world, to see it as temporal and passing away,
and to look at life through the lens of Jesus. When we see life through Jesus,
we see what’s really important. Our worldview is changed. The messed up
politics of our time should not get us down, because Jesus is sovereign over
all. Our ambition and successes or failures take on a different sense when we
remember that Jesus is Lord.
“For you died, and your life is now hidden
with Christ in God” (3:3). What does it mean that your life is hidden with
Christ in God? On the one hand it means that your friends who do not have faith
in Jesus will not understand the change that has taken and is taking place in
you. On the other hand, to have your life hidden in Christ really means that
your life is safe with Him. No matter what happens to you in this life which is
passing away, your life is safe with Jesus. Nothing that this world can do to
you can take that away.
And if
Jesus is our focus, if we take our eyes off of the earthly things and look to
Jesus as our most precious gift, we will look forward to His coming (v. 4). We
are changed because of the cross of Christ, we are being changed by the Holy
Spirit, and we will be changed completely when Christ appears again (1 John
3:2).
2. Changing your hearts and minds
Putting your faith in the crucified and risen Christ
changes you. He works to transform you and me from an enemy of God to a child
of God. We are not merely the objects of divine surgery, however, we are also
involved the process of change. Theologically,
we set our hearts on things above, and we set our minds on things above.
Practically speaking, we are to put to death those earthly things that keep our
hearts from Christ. I could define each word Paul uses – sexual immorality,
impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed which is idolatry – but the overall
theme is one: sex. Each of these terms has to do with the misuse of God’s gift
of sex. Even “greed” used in this context has little to do with money and
everything to do with the desire to possess something more than is healthy, in
this case – sex.
One
would suspect that the Colossians had a problem with an over-sexed culture.
Good thing we are more advanced in our culture today. But seriously, sex then,
as now, had such a powerful influence on life. Pagan religions were full of
sexual ritual and prostitution and immorality. It was an accepted part of
society. For a person to believe in Christ in that culture, the change would be
so drastic there is no way you could hide your new faith. So while the Christian
view of sex would have been reserved for marriage between a man and a woman, a
Christian’s public perspective made them stand out from the crowd.
In other
words, our change should cause us to be radically different. Surveys have
shown, however, that those who call themselves Christians are just as likely to
get divorced, buy lottery tickets, watch R-rated movies, become addicted to
porn, or use alcohol as much as anyone else.
A heart
change will make us peculiar in our world. So what? God wants our hearts, and
the change that directs our hearts from the world to God will come from a
natural response of a heart that loves God.
Again,
to set our minds on things above, Paul tells the Colossians to “rid yourselves”
or “put off” things like anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language. These
terms fit one category and appear to proceed from one instrument – the lips
(v.8). Angry words do not befit the changed life of one who follows Christ.
Jesus
said, “The mouth speaks what the heart is
full of” (Matt. 12:34b). That challenges me to the core. I know that when
there is malice in my heart, my words become crasser. When I feel that my way,
my agenda, or my feelings are abused, my mouth loses its guard. A changed mind
will learn to control the mouth; a guarded mouth will mark a changed heart and
mind.
3. Changing the old self for the new
This is what we are really talking about – the changing
of the old self, the life controlled by the sinful nature and the lusts of the
heart (the heart wants what the heart wants), for the new self that wants only
to follow Jesus and love God.
Paul
implored the Colossians, “Do not lie to
each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have
put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge of its Creator”
(3:10).
The
image of baptism clothes comes to mind here. In some traditions, and possibly
back in the first century, baptism candidates would take off the old clothes of
their sinful life and put on the new clothes of the Christian life. Even if the
old clothes were fine and clean, they still represented the old life and the
filth of sin. It made no sense then to put the old clothes back on since it
would signal a return to the old life. It would appear as though nothing had
changed. You have taken off the old clothes, don’t put them back on. You have
put on Christ as a garment. Now live in the newness of Christ.
Last
week we had a really good church camp. And over the weekend I toured a couple
of pretty nice trailers. There were no motor homes this time. Motor homes are a
kind of paradox when it comes to camping. They have all the conveniences of a
home on wheels. With these vehicles you no longer have to sleep on the ground
in a sleeping bag, you don’t have to cook outside, and you can even have
running water inside. Some even have A/C and satellite TV. So basically it’s a
home away from home. Getting back to nature was never more comfortable. But
what’s the point? If you want to get back to nature, plant a pine tree in your
backyard. It’s the same thing. Otherwise you are not really camping.
One
pastor suggested that we have a lot of motor home Christians. He said that
these people want to carry all the baggage from the world with them into the
new life of Christ. They want the benefits Jesus offers, but not the
discomforts and sacrifices the Christian life requires. They want the comforts
of the world but don’t want to change anything.
What
Paul described to the Colossians was transformative; by following Jesus they
would change so much so that you could not help but notice. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17).
We are changed and changing!
On the
one hand, Christ through His Spirit is effecting change in you. You are not
what you were, and you are not yet what you will be. On the other hand, the
process of becoming who we were meant to be before Adam sinned rests partly in
our efforts. We are to “put to death” those old desires; we are to guard our
lips and quell the anger that breeds spiteful speech.
Are you
different because you know Christ? Are you changed from coming before His cross?
Yes, a resounding yes, even though you do not see it now. Christ has changed
you. And you are willingly changing because of Christ.
The
first Law of Thermodynamics says that no mass or energy is ever destroyed, that
it merely changes form. When a piece of wood is burned, it is not gone. Some of
it becomes heat; some deteriorates into the ashes. But it is not destroyed - it
just changes. When a lake dries up, the water is not gone. It has evaporated
into the air, only to fall to earth again someday.
If we
can see this all around us in the physical world, is it so hard to conceive of
it in the spiritual world?
If we
can see the first Law of Thermodynamics in nature, can we see it in the sphere
of faith? We, too, can have the same confidence that the apostle Paul had when
he said, "We shall all be changed."
I am not
what I was, but I am not yet what I will be.
AMEN
