Resurrection Reality
Colossians 3:1-4 (5-17)
I don’t get to watch much television, partly because
when I do get to sit down in front the TV I’m usually asleep within about 15
minutes, that aside, something I have noticed lately is with cable and
satellite you can get more channels than you were ever able to get with an
antenna or rabbit ears, but it seems the more channels available the less there
is that is worth watching.
This past year when the TV and film writer’s strike
was going on the choices seemed to be worse than ever. Because they didn’t require scripts, there
seemed to be more and more of the so-called reality shows – maybe you watched
some of them or may have seen the ads for them – shows like Survivor, The
Bachelor, Big Brother, The Apprentice, Dancing With
the Stars and American Idol. I haven’t seen
too many of them – an occasional American Idol and maybe a channel surfing stop
at Survivor – because, frankly, I can’t stand this genre of so-called
entertainment.
I mean, how do they get off calling this “reality”
TV? These shows seem to bring out the
worst in human nature – jealousy, envy, greed, conniving and scheming, me-first
and too bad for the rest of you, vote you off the island – all the worst. But then I realized that this is
reality. In the kingdom of this world
this is reality.
Then I read these words from Paul’s letter to the
Colossians.
Since
you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities
of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.
Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life
is hidden with Christ in God. And when
Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all
his glory.
What Paul is saying is that there is another reality, a heavenly reality, a reality in which the
values and manner of living are diametrically opposed to the reality, values
and manner of living we experience in the world around us and, yes, even sometimes
in our own lives. Because of Christ’s
resurrection the veil has been torn and we’ve been given an opportunity to
become a part of that other reality - the reality of the
Throughout human history there have been events which
have marked major turning points – the printing press brought on the
enlightenment and the age of reason, the harnessing of electricity and the
combustion engine greatly expanded the industrial revolution, and more
recently, the microchip and the computer have brought us into the information
age.
Likewise, 2000 years ago there was one major event
which determined the course of human history, one major event which confirmed
that the future of humanity is in the hands of God – that event was the
resurrection of Jesus.
Let it be
perfectly clear – Christ is risen. We would not be here today if it were not
so. The book of Acts, the letters of
Paul, Peter and John all testify to the reality of Christ’s resurrection. The Bible tells of hundreds of people who saw
the risen Christ. Paul makes it
perfectly clear - … if Christ has not
been raised , then your faith is useless and you are
still guilty of your sins. In that case,
all who have died believing in Christ are lost!
...But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who
have died.
The
resurrection of Jesus is the heart of the believer’s and the church’s existence. The
resurrection was the foundation of Paul’s ministry to the churches. The resurrection of Jesus is central because
without it there is no faith, no hope, no reason for
me being up here this morning, no reason for the church. Let there be no doubt. The scriptures have been fulfilled. Christ is risen! The resurrection is a reality. That is why we are here.
If we have lived long enough I think most of us can
name some big events which are imbedded in our memory and will never forget. I can tell you exactly where I was and what I
was doing when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. I was in Mr. Kunkel’s 8th grade
typing class in
The story is told of a new pastor who was greeting
his congregation following the preaching of his first sermon. Two elderly ladies asked the new pastor when
he had been saved. Before the pastor
could respond, a young five year old girl standing next to the ladies spurted
out, “I was saved two thousand years ago!”
Brothers and sisters, the resurrection of Jesus two thousand years ago confirmed
the course of human history. The
resurrection of Jesus has influenced countless millions of lives over those two
thousand years and now we are the living, we are the ones to whom Paul is
speaking when he said, “Since you have
been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of
heaven…”
In these four verses from the third chapter of
Colossians Paul says some things about how our lives can be changed by that
event of two thousand years ago and he challenges some of our traditional
thinking. Sometimes it is simple words
which shed new light on scripture for us.
In this first verse there are two such words. Since
you HAVE BEEN raise to new life with Christ…”
Did you get them? You have
been raised to new life with Christ. It’s a done deal for all who confess that
Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead. It’s a done deal – you have been – not possibly, or
will be, or can be – you have been raised
to new life with Christ. Because Christ
is risen, if you believe, so are you. Usually when we think of our own resurrection,
we think of an event which will occur in the future when Christ comes again,
but Paul says we have already been raised.
For believers, your resurrection was guaranteed two thousand years ago
when Christ was raised from the dead.
Now we have not been raised from physical death – that is a future happening. Rather, the scripture says we have been
raised to new life with Christ. Our new life is not a future, but a
present reality.
And “since you
have been raised to new life with Christ”, Paul says, “set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the
place of honor at God’s right hand.”
I taught in a Junior High/Middle School for 28
years. If you are a parent of a child at
that age or have managed to live through those parenting years – and if you are
in those years yourself – you know that it’s not an easy time of life. Adolescents in the 11-13 age range are
dealing with so much and they are forced to make some big choices which will
affect the kind of person they become in adulthood. The societal and peer pressures are great.
But that doesn’t end with the middle school
years. All of us face big choices as
well, the biggest of which is this. We all live in a world in which there are
two kingdoms vying for our loyalties – what the Bible calls the kingdom of this
world and the
We need to realize that Paul is not talking about visions
of Pearly Gates and white-winged harp-playing angels. It’s not about sticking our heads in the
clouds and wondering what heaven is going to look like or what we’ll do
there. Paul is not encouraging us to
speculate about the world to come, rather he is challenging
us to focus on the realities of heaven in the here and now. He wants us to get a real picture of what
living out this new life we have in Christ looks like. If we read on in Colossians 3 he explains it
a little more.
First he reminds us what the old life looked like.
(Read Colossians 3:5-11)
Now, you might be saying to yourself, “I knew
it. I knew he would eventually get to
the list of don’ts – those rules that Christians are supposed to follow.” Bear with me for a moment and let’s consider
this list of “sinful, earthly things” Paul mentions – “…sexual immorality,
impurity, lust, and evil desires,” greed, anger, rage, malicious behavior,
slander, dirty language, and lying. Yeh, it’s a pretty long list.
These are the things, Paul said, we used to do when
our lives were “still part of this world.”
These are the behaviors, the reality, if you will, of a human nature
which has not been touched by the power of Christ’s resurrection – reality for
a life which has not “been raised to new life with Christ.” This is the way life is,
this is reality, in the kingdom of the world.
The list is like others the Apostle Paul mentions in
his letters – those “sins” which are common to human nature - and every list
always begins seems to begin with “sexual immorality.” One of the reasons is that the cultures to
which Paul was writing were pagan cultures in which sexual promiscuity was
rampant. But, you know, it still is rampant
today. So why does Paul – why does God –
seem to always begin with this one?
Maybe it’s because sexuality practiced outside the God-ordained boundary
of marriage, addiction to pornography, and other “evil desires” can lead to so
many other problems like sexually transmitted disease, unwanted children,
broken marriages, emotional and mental illness, and
the list could go on.
Or think for a moment about anger. If I lose my temper, if I lash out in anger
at my children, if I curse out another driver who cut me off – what are the
results of my actions? I might feel
better for a little while – but only for a little while – until I realize I
have damaged my relationship with my children, I have risked the other driver
retaliating against me and shown myself to be just as inconsiderate, or I have
destroyed the self-confidence of a co-worker.
The reality is that all of these “sinful earthly
things” is destructive – destructive to ourselves and
to others.
The Apostle John says, “…the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for
everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from
this world. And this world is fading away,
along with everything that people crave.
But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.” (1 John 2:16-17 NLT)
Paul didn’t make lists like these just because he
liked making rules. He had been around
long enough and he himself had experienced being a part of the kingdom of this
world earlier in his life when he was a persecutor of followers of Jesus, so he
knew quite well the old life and its power to destroy. Through his own encounter with the
resurrected Christ, Paul was raised to new life and he knew first hand what it was like to be first a lover of power and then a recipient
of the power of love.
So he gives us some insight then into what the
“realities of heaven” – this new life to which we have been raised with Christ
- look like.
(Read Colossians 3:12-15)
Paul had a dramatic encounter with the resurrected
Christ as he was journeying on the road to
In stark
contrast to the values and morals of the kingdom of this world are these
“heavenly realities” – tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness,
patience, forbearance, forgiveness, peace of heart and mind, and, above all
else, love.
These are the “things of heaven” about which those
who have taken on the new life in Christ are to think. These are the values, the standards by which
those who have received new life in Christ choose to live. And it is a choice. Are we going to live by the standards of the
kingdom of this world which are destructive or are we going to live by the
standards of the
The values of the kingdom of the world are all
self-focused. Sexual promiscuity and
impurity, lust, and greed – they all have as their intended outcome the meeting
of my desires, my wants, my self-satisfaction. And anger, rage, maliciousness, slander – all
of these destroy rather than build relationships. In contrast, the realities – the values – of
the
Paul uses the analogy of putting off the dirty
clothes of our former life in the worldly kingdom and putting on the new
clothes of the heavenly kingdom. While
it sounds easy, we all know there is much more to it than just a change of
clothes.
The difficulty is that we live in the kingdom of the
world day in and day out and it is not easy to be different. But while it may not be easy, it is for our
benefit and the benefit of the world in which we live that we do so. We have been offered this new life in Christ
not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of the whole world which God
created. Just think about where this
world would be today if it had not been for those who chose to live the new
life in Christ, who chose to be an influence for good in the world? At first it may seem difficult at best to live
this new life, but that is where the power of Christ’s resurrection comes into
play. You have been raised to new life
WITH Christ. Your real life is hidden
WITH Christ in God.
In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory probe, Pioneer
10, to photograph the planet Jupiter. It
had an expected life span of three years.
Remarkably, twenty-five years after its launch and more than six billion
miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 was going deeper into space and still beaming
back radio signals to scientists on Earth all from an 8-watt transmitter, which
radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light.
In Matthew
The new life within us is like that tiny 8-watt
transmitter, its like that mustard seed.
As small and as insignificant as we may view ourselves to be, by the
power of his resurrection Christ has placed within us great potential. But we must make the choice – will we choose
to live our lives in the pattern of this world, or will we “set our sights on
the realities of heaven” and pattern our lives after the Christ who is risen from the dead?
In Philippians 3, Paul reflects on the things of his
former life which he once thought were so important and he then goes on to say:
I once thought
these things were so valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of
what Christ has done. Yes, everything
else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus
my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as
garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through
obeying law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For
God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the
mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his
death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the
dead!
Your
sin, your old way of living, has been crucified and buried with Christ. Now you have been raised to new life with
Christ. This new life means a change
from those destructive, self-focused values of the worldly kingdom to the
creative and life-giving realities of the heavenly kingdom. It won’t be easy. The change starts small – like the mustard
seed. But when you make the conscious
decision to make Jesus your Lord, then the new life takes over and grows. You experience the mighty power that raised
Christ from the dead and you find, like Paul did, that the old life is
worthless because of what Christ is doing in your life.
Put on the new life, the new way of
living to which you have been raised with Christ. Let that same power which raised Christ from
the dead work in your own life. Let it
transform your relationships, your attitudes and your outlook on life.
Because we have been raised with Christ,
living the way of Christ is possible in the here and now. The same power which raised Christ from the dead is at
work in you.
“May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled
you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the
light. For he has
rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of
his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.” (Colossians
1:12b-13 NLT)
By faith you have been raised to new life with
Christ. Through his death and
resurrection your old life is buried.
You have been given a new life, transformed by the power of his
resurrection. Has this power changed
your life? Has the dirt, the sin and the
ashes of your life, the remnants of a former life which no longer exists, been
buried with Christ? Are you living the
new life you have with Christ?
...you have
been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of
heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the
things of earth. For you died to this
life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is
revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. Amen.
Benediction:
May God the Father, from his glorious and unlimited
resources
empower you
with inner strength through his Spirit;
may Christ make his home in
your hearts as you trust in him;
may you experience the love of Christ that you may be made
complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty
power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or
think. Glory to him in the church and in
Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.
© 2008,