You Have Been Raised With Christ

Where is Jesus Christ? Where is He? Right now, in this moment, where is Jesus Christ? Our passage tells us. In verse one, it says that Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God. What does that mean? Well, after Jesus Christ lived a sinless life, died an atoning death, and three days later was raised from the grave bodily, he did not hang out on earth permanently. After Jesus Christ spent forty days with his disciples, he didn’t simply vanish, never to appear again. Rather, Jesus Christ went somewhere. After forty days post-resurrection on earth, Jesus Christ’s body gradually ascended from the ground right before his disciples eyes. As he bodily ascended into the sky, a cloud, representing God’s glory, took Christ from his disciples’ sight. Jesus Christ physically ascended to a real place where he is now seated at the right hand of God. Though we cannot see it with our eyes because our eyes are unable to see the unseen spiritual realm, the Lord Jesus Christ ascended and is seated at the right hand of God because his work of redeeming his people from Satan, sin, death, and Hell is complete and that all authority in heaven and on earth is His. As the Apostles Creed says, “He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.” That’s where Jesus Christ is!

Now, let me ask you another question: Where are you? Where are you? You’re seated with Christ in heaven too! Notice what Colossians 3:1 says: “If then you have been raised with Christ…” Colossians 3:3 helps fill out the picture: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Christian conversion is not getting serious about your faith or finally becoming fulfilled. True conversion isn’t improvement, it’s death. The old you died with Christ who died for you. But that’s not all. You’ve been raised with Christ and, mysteriously, though you’re sitting in your chair, your life is hidden with Christ in heaven. Yes, your life is hidden with Christ, meaning that your new lives aren’t yet openly revealed because Christ hasn’t appeared a second time again, but you are already seated there. Where are you? The answer is the big idea of our passage this morning: You have been raised with Christ. You have been raised with Christ. So, what does resurrection life right here and right now look like? Since we’ve been raised with Christ, how should we live by grace now? 1. Think about things above (3:1-4) 2. Put away what is below (3:5-11) 3. Put on love for your church (3:12-17). Citylight Church, you have been raised with Christ, therefore…

THINK ON THINGS ABOVE (vv. 1-4)

I want you to notice something incredibly important in our passage for how the Christian life and Christian growth works. I want you to notice that in Colossians 3:1-4 there are not only true statements (“you’ve been raised”) or only commands (“set your mind on things above”). There are not only indicative statements and there are not only imperative commands. Rather, there are indicatives and imperatives. Let’s look at what I mean.

Colossians 3:1 – If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above… where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. The indicative statement is: you have been raised with Christ. The imperative statement is: seek the things above. Notice it doesn’t say, “you’ve been raised with Christ, so it doesn’t matter how you live” (cheap grace). It also doesn’t say, “seek the things above,” as though a mere command has the power to change you. No, the imperative is built on the indicative. “Since you have been raised above, seek above!” Gospel-indicatives empower obedience to God’s imperatives. We’ll see the same dynamic in Colossians 3:2-3 – Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. [3] For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. The imperative – set your minds on things above – is built on the indicative – For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. The obedience of Christian “doing” flows out of the “done” of the Christian gospel. At Citylight, we sometimes call this gospel-centrality. Gospel-centrality is the idea that the gospel – the good news that Jesus Christ died and rose for our sins – isn’t just for non-Christians, but for Christians as well. Gospel-centrality is the idea that the gospel isn’t just the starting line of the Christian life, it’s the motivation for obedience throughout the Christian life. For example, if someone is setting their minds on earthly things, like the Colossians were, we don’t simply tell them “set your mind on things above.” Instead, we tell them, “through your union with the risen Christ by faith, you are already seated in the heavenly places. Your life is already hidden with Christ in God. Therefore, stop being worldly in your thinking.” Gospel-centrality is when the person and work of Christ is the driving force behind our obedience to God and our love for Him.

So, Citylight Church, since the old you died with Christ, since you have been raised with Christ by faith, since your life is hidden with Christ in God, and since when Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory, think about things above! Think often about Christ, think often about heaven, think often about spiritual matters, and think often about where you really are right now, in heaven. Since you’ve been raised with Christ, think about Christ a lot. I have two practical ideas to help you think about things above a lot.

The first is to use your phone as a servant to help you think about things above. Do you see this phone? This phone can be one of Satan’s greatest tools to get your mind on earthly things or one of your greatest tools for thinking about heavenly things. With this phone, you carry around more servants in your pocket than Alexander the Great ever had. Set it up so that the servants are working together to help you think about things above. For example, set up controls and limits that keep you from doom scrolling, looking at porn, or thinking about earthly things. Set alarms to go off a couple times a day that remind you to pause and think about things above. Download the PrayerMate app so that you have prayer cards at the ready when you need a quick break from work. Set things up so that you have articles or books about Christ on the ready to read when you’re waiting for something. Download podcasts, sermons, books, and music that serve you by helping you think about things above. Download the VerseLocker app so that you memorize Scripture when you’d normally just scroll. Since you’ve been raised with Christ, use this phone as your servant for thinking on Christ, and you’ll become more like Him. The second practical idea for thinking about heavenly things is to design a Christ-first morning. In his excellent article entitled Jesus Rose Early, David Mathis points out that what we do first thing in the morning, over time, says a lot about our priorities; when something really matters, we rise for it. In the midst of an incredibly busy season of ministry, the Son of God rose early to pray. “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35). Paul Tripp writes, “I encourage you to tune your heart every morning to the existence and stunning glory of God…Because of the distractibility and fickle nature of my heart, if I am going to live in harmony with the Lord of glory, it is important that I start every day by tuning my heart to him. I need to invest the time necessary to do this…Determine to nail the tuning of your heart into your morning schedule and then pray for the enabling grace to follow through for the long run.” Wake up early enough to read God’s word and pray God’s word. And don’t let an ideal hour stop you from a perfectly fruitful thirty minutes.

PUT AWAY WHAT IS BELOW (vv. 5-11)

A key phrase in verses five through eleven is found in verse 8: But now you must put them all away… That’s clothing language. Some of you may be too young to remember the show The Biggest Loser, but it was an incredibly inspiring weight-loss competition reality show and each season would take place over the course of 30-weeks. The biggest loser ever was a man named Michael Ventrella, who lost 264 pounds, which was half of his body weight. He looked like a completely new person. And one obvious result of his stunning transformation was that his old clothes didn’t fit any longer. As Christians, we’ve undergone an even more stunning transformation. We’ve been raised with Christ and the clothes that fit our old life now have to be put away. That’s a “gospel-centered,” grace-motivated dynamic. Specifically, since you’ve been raised with Christ, since you are a new creation in Christ, you need to put away two sets of old clothes that you used to wear, but no longer fit you: sexual immorality and anger.

Let’s consider the first set of clothes that don’t fit and need to be put away: sexual immorality. Colossians 3:5-7 – Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.What is sexual immorality, impurity, passion, and evil sexual desires? The Westminster Larger Catechism helpfully describes all that the these words encompass and forbid: The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy, and all unnatural lusts; all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections; all corrupt or filthy communications, or listening thereunto; wanton looks; impudent or light behavior; immodest apparel; prohibiting of lawful, and dispensing with unlawful marriages; allowing, tolerating, keeping of stews, and resorting to them; entangling vows of single life; undue delay of marriage; having more wives or husbands than one at the same time; unjust divorce or desertion; idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, unchaste company; lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancing, stage plays; all other provocations to, or acts of uncleanness, either in ourselves or others. What do you do with sexual immorality? You kill it. Colossians 3:5 – Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality… The only proper way for someone who has been raised with Christ to treat sexual immorality is to make every effort to kill it everyday. Is that your current posture toward everything I just listed that qualifies as sexual immorality? There are two sides to putting sexual sin to death; defense and offense. Defense looks like confessing sexual thoughts as quickly as possible so they don’t nest in your mind. Men – defense means quickly moving your eyes away from anyone or anything that may tempt you to look with lustful intent. Women – defense means wearing modest clothing that helps your brothers not look at you with lustful intent. Defense means refusing to watch shows or movies, read books or articles, and listen to podcasts and music that may lead you to an unclean imagination. Defense means putting barbed wire around your phone to make it very difficult for you to look at something sinful. Defense means confessing to the Lord any forbidden affections for another person rising up in your heart. For some of you, defense needs to look like a season of not having a smart phone or internet access in your home. Is that extreme? Yes, but so is murder, and that’s what this passage is calling for. That’s defense. Offense is growing more and more in your knowledge of and love for God. The reason I say that is because of the final few words in Colossians 3:5 – Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Coveting is desiring anything more than you desire God. Idolatry is loving anything more than God. G.K. Beale helpfully connects the dots between sexual sin, covetousness, and adultery. He writes, “…people’s ever-increasing desire for more and more sexual pleasure is nothing other than idolatry.” The more you grow in love and worship of the true God, the more unappealing will become the false-god of sexual sin. A growing love for God is the only thing ultimately strong enough to kill sexual immorality. Why should we kill sexual sin? [6] On account of these the wrath of God is coming. [7] In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. Here is that gospel-centered dynamic of Christian growth. We will sexual sin because on account of sexual sin, God’s wrath is coming. However, that’s not who we are anymore. That’s who we used to be, but we’ve been raised with Christ, so we put away what’s below.

The second set of old clothing that no longer fits and must be put away since you’ve been raised with Christ is anger. Colossians 3:8 – But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. What is anger? Before, I answer that question, I highly recommend everyone read or listen to Uprooting Anger: Biblical Help for a Common Problem by Robert Jones. Most of what I am about to share are biblical insights or even direct quotes from that book. What is anger? Anger always combines two things: “That’s wrong” and “it matters to me.” Anger always involves judgment; “I perceive moral evil.” And anger always involves a whole-person response because we care about the perceived wrong. In the Bible, there is God’s anger, righteous human anger, and unrighteous human anger. If you look up all the times the word “anger” appears in the New Testament, you’ll notice that almost all of them either refer to God’s anger or sinful human anger, but almost never righteous human anger. Why? Because your and my anger is almost never righteous. Human anger is almost never righteous. Jones says that there are three tests for proving that our anger is actually righteous. First, anger is righteous only when it reacts against actual sin. Most of our anger reacts against annoyances and nuisances that aren’t actually sin. Additionally, we often play God and see sin where there isn’t any. If your anger isn’t reacting against an actual sin against God, put it away. Second, righteous anger focuses on God and His kingdom, rights, and concerns, not on me and my kingdom, rights, and concerns. Nearly all of our anger is unrighteous because we are not angry that God’s law is being violated, we are angry because our law is being violated. Finally, Righteous Anger Is Accompanied by Other Godly Qualities and Expresses Itself in Godly Ways. Righteous anger doesn’t spiral into quiet self-pity or loud outbursts. As Jones says, “Christlike anger is not all-consuming and myopic but channeled to sober, earnest ends.” Honest question: How often does your anger toward your wife, husband, children, parents, and fellow church members pass this three-fold test? Ya, mine almost never does either. Therefore, we must put anger toward one another away because anger is part of the old stuff, but we’re now one in Christ. Colossians 3:9-11 – Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices [10] and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. [11] Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. Perhaps this is the first time you’ve seen the true sinfulness of nearly all your anger. Perhaps this is the first time you’ve realized that you must put off anger because it’s part of the clothing that doesn’t fit the new people of God who have been raised with Christ. And perhaps you’re wondering how to put anger and its associated sins away. To answer that question, let’s turn to our final point. Finally, since you’ve been raised with Christ…

PUT ON LOVE FOR YOUR CHURCH (vv. 12-17)

Note: why “your church” and church membership. The final section of our passage continues the clothing analogy and the gospel-centered dynamic of change. Since we’ve been raised with Christ, since we died and our lives are hidden with Christ in God, our old clothes don’t fit and we need to put on new ones. Since we’ve been raised with Christ, we put off sexual immorality with one another and we put off anger toward one another. But what new clothes do we put on? Love! Colossians 3:12-13 – Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, [13] bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. To put away anger, you must put on love for one another. To put away anger you must first see the true sinfulness of nearly all your anger; you’re playing God, passing judgments, serving yourself, and spiraling into quiet bitterness or loud wrath. Next you have to confess your anger to the Lord and truly believe that he forgives you through the blood he shed for you on the cross. Then you must forgive those you’re angry with from your heart. You forgive them not because they’re deserving, but because the Lord has forgiven you of infinitely more than you must forgive. Prayerfully forgive them from your heart again and again until you don’t feel angry any longer. Finally, move toward them in positive love; ask God for warm affections toward them that lead to actions for their good.

When a church puts on love for one another, then the gospel of Jesus Christ can truly dwell in us. Colossians 3:15-16 – And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. [16] Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection that reconciles us into a peaceful relationship with God and one another. A church that puts on love toward one another, unites around letting the gospel of Jesus Christ, the peace of Christ, the word of Christ dwell richly among us. The church that puts on love isn’t angry toward one another, so we can constantly teach each other the gospel. How do we teach each other? How do we teach one another the word of Christ, the gospel? Well, there are a lot of ways, but our passage highlights one in particular: singing. Corporate worship – our congregational singing when we gather together – is a critical form of teaching each other. Through the richness of the lyrics, the volume of our voices, and the engagements of our bodies, we teach each other both the truth of the gospel and the emotional joy of it. Instead of being angry with one another, put on love, so that we can join our voices and sing loudly because our faith grows as we sing the wondrous truths of the gospel into one another’s ears. And finally, putting on love culminates in doing everything in the name and for the glory of Jesus Christ. Colossians 3:17 – And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

CONCLUSION

Where are you? You have died and been raised with Christ. Your true life is hidden with Christ in God above. Therefore, think about things above, put away things that are below, and put on love so that you do all in the name of the one who is your life, Jesus Christ.