P.A.Thatcher
4th
January 2015
Mustard
Seed Callington
Colossians
3:1-17 English Standard Version (ESV)
If
then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are
above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your
minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For
you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When
Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him
in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual
immorality, impurity,passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is
idolatry. On account of these the
wrath of God is coming. In these you
too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put
them all away: anger, wrath, malice,slander, and obscene talk from
your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off
the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which
is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and
uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all,
and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved,
compassionate hearts,kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
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. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which
indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
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. 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.
*******************
Happy new year to you all and may you be blessed in the
church beyond all that you can ever imagine. God loves to bless His
people and He delights in our faithfulness. Therefore our new years
message is all about what God expects of His people in order that He
might bless us accordingly.
I suppose that over the years you have heard many new
years messages. It is a great opportunity to encourage each other for
the year to come. We hopefully learn from the experience of the past
and strive to go forward positively. The new creation is often a
theme chosen by the preacher and I must admit that I was tempted to
follow that pattern but as I prayed and considered what was best for
us this morning my thoughts went to:
The
New Years Resolution!
Just prior to midnight on Wednesday night we went out
onto the promenade in Looe to watch the firework display that
heralded the beginning of 2015. The prom was crowded to capacity
with revellers of all ages, all it seems were expecting something
special to happen at the stroke of midnight. We had been listening to
them passing by our window now for 6 or 7 hours all with great
expectations. They got noisier as the evening wore on and the alcohol
took it's part in the celebration. A town full of people all hanging
their hopes of a bright future on the ringing of the iron bell at
12.00 midnight.
The moment came the fireworks exploded into promising
action and “oohs” and “aahs”
abounded. On completion there was the customary round of applause, a
hug and a grope, a few promises of undying love and a few emptied
stomachs on the pathway:
new year is over!
The day of promise came and went but in nothing had
changed. All of that money spent and the fun had made no difference
at all. I suppose the well meaning promises of eating less, loving
and caring more etc. have largely gone by the board now and once
again normality has kicked in.
Oh
well only 360ish days and we will have another new year to try again!
That all might sound cynical but it is none the less
true. The great sadness is that Christians are often guilty of
equally erroneous promise making. We often look for a new beginning
on the first day of the week as we gather here in church, we are
touched and challenged by the Word of God, we resolve to take it to
heart but then in a moment it evaporates into thin air, challenging
messages evaporate and we return to a mediocre Christian walk. But
that is not how it should be.
In our passage the apostle Paul challenges the church to
resolve to be better Christians. He instructs us to do 2 things which
benefit both us as individual Christians but more importantly the
whole church. We are to:
Seek the heavenly things.
Set our minds on heavenly things.
These are not options to take if we wish they are
imperatives because of what God has done for us: Gospel challenge.
Christians we are to:
Seek the heavenly things:
Paul refers to these as the things that are above by
which he means heaven. That is the place where Christ is seated in
authority with God the Father. It is always good to be reminded that
Christ is King and that he sits in absolute authority in equal
proportion to the Father. This is especially true at Christmas time
when we have been focussing upon the humanity of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is of course vital that we understand that Jesus became
fully man but we need to remember that our tiny finite minds cannot
rationalise what that means within the Triune Godhead. To us He might
have needed to empty Himself of all but love but with God that could
never be the case. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and
forever. He was, is and always will be God the Son. The apostle John
tells us that He is the creator for without Him nothing was made that
is made and so Jesus although fully man on earth was at the same time
fully God.
A mystery that only God can unravel.
In fact even angels
marvel and wonder at this; what God has revealed is not always easily
explained. That might not be too palatable in our day of science and
learning but it is at it is and we have no choice but to accept it.
It is through the saving faith that God gives us that makes it
possible for us to believe such truths.
Paul is telling us to seek the things that are above.
What is it that is above?
It is God Almighty reigning over His Kingdom!
So what are we to seek?
Remember who Paul is addressing, it is the local church
in Colosse; this letter is inspired by God's Holy Spirit and as such
is equally for the local church worldwide in every age. Therefore
that must mean the local church known as the Mustard Seed here in
Callington is also included. This is what we must do:
We are to seek today:
Fellowship with the Triune God. By this passage God's
Spirit is leading to recognise Christ Jesus seated alongside God the
Father reigning over His Kingdom. We are to seek Him!
We are to seek to live as if we are in heaven already.
Paul tells us that we have been raised with Christ, this is in the
past tense therefore it has happened! This is another amazing
mystery; we are already living as if in heaven. That is what being
saved means:
We belong to God's kingdom: NOW!
We are a completely new creation, we are no longer in
condemnation and are in complete and absolute fellowship with God.
In His eyes we are at one with Him because He has imputed Christ's
righteousness to us. Mystery upon mystery our sinful nature is gone
and and has oncer and for all been dealt with upon the cross. No
wonder angels are amazed at such truths especially as they see our
foolish antics. We must seek to live as those who have been
forgiven. To seek heavenly things is both challenging and difficult
but we must be about the business of seeking them.
All of this requires effort, therefore we must:
Set our minds things above:
It is possible for us to seek something and even to find
it but yet not to take possession of it! I was once looking out
across the Bristol Channel and just a few hundred yards out to sea
there was a small boat caught up on the rocks. The lifeboat was in
attendance and the crew were calling to the men on board. The men on
the stranded boat were in very dangerous waters and were clearly
seeking help and salvation. They sought help and when it came they
forsook all and were taken away to safety. They did not at any stage
object and delay in order to negotiate the rescue of the boat, they
were delighted to be saved.
Sadly as Christians who have been rescued we often go
back to look for the boat of our old sinful life, but it has been
destroyed in the torrent of God's wrath.
Our old ways were crucified with Christ and we
must leave them dead upon the cross.
Therefore we must set our minds to the reality of our
salvation. We now have a completely new life to live, we have died to
the old ways and are now very much alive in Christ. Paul tells us
that our life now is hidden in Christ. It has become intrinsically
bound up in Him, He is our life and so when He raises up at the end
of the age we too will raise with Him.
“Now I belong to Jesus and Jesus belongs to me, not
for the ears of time alone but for eternity.”
We will be perfectly with Him one day in glory and here
is yet another mystery. We are sinners saved by grace and are made
complete in Christ Jesus now! That means that we have a duty of care
concerning our very lives:
We must set our minds upon things above.
This is an imperative it is not a lifestyle choice, it
is simply as it is and as such ought to be our greatest desire. If it
is not then I seriously doubt your salvation and so you should
immediately ask God for help to seek where He might be found!
How do we go about setting our hearts on the
things that are above?
When God created the world He created man to work in the
world. It is part of our very nature to work at all things. Salvation
is outside of all of our efforts; that is God free gift to us.
However once we are saved we must work out our salvation, we are not
made to be sanctified automatons. As normal human beings we are
marked and damaged by sin; but as those who are chosen by God we must
work out how we can live our lives as holy people in a sinful world.
This takes great effort; setting our minds on heavenly things is the
foundation of living a Holy life! We must be holy because God is
holy, we can only know what holiness is by looking at the character
of God. And then we must become like Him.
But how?
Paul tells us by getting rid of sinful ways which was
the way we used to live. We were worldly, some were immoral, we were
impure, we all had wrong passions, evil desires, we were covetous,
idolatrous, all of these being the reason for God's wrath the bible
simply calls it sin. Paul says we are to set our minds on heavenly
things we must put away sin in all of it's disguises. Put them away
says Paul, destroy them and never return to their ways. These are
the things that offend God and are to be no part of our life any
more but then Paul moves on to:
Getting rid of ways that offend others. A number of
years ago I spilled thiophenol (very, very smelly) over myself in
the course of my work. Due to the smell nobody wanted to be near me,
I did not even want to be with myself. I could not wait to change my
clothes and to destroy them. I never once craved to put them back on
because of the offence that they caused to myself and all around me.
Paul says that our anger, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying are
our old offensive clothes, as we set our minds on the things that
are above these things are to be put away in order to be no longer
an offence to ourselves, to the church or to Christ Jesus. We are
not to store them somewhere for us to wear at the annual fancy dress
parade where all things are once again acceptable, but they are to
be totally destroyed within our minds. The church does not need them
and neither do you. Instead you are to:
Put on a complete and permanent set of new clothes.
These are the robes of righteousness given by Christ Himself when He
renewed your very person. This suit looks like this:
compassionate, kind, humble, meek, patient,
caring towards each other, forgiving, loving (this is the crowning
glory which must deliberately be put on!) It is peaceful,
harmonious, thankful.
Does it remind you of somebody? Jesus is all of those
things and so we are to be just like Him. He is the Perfect Human
Being and we are to set our minds to be just like Him. We are His
especially chosen ones, holy and beloved and so we must set our
minds upon being like Him. Any other set of clothes is not
acceptable in the church. Finally we must:
Let the word of Christ dwell richly in us and as we do
then we are to help each other to be the church. Not with big sticks
or false promises but by teaching from the word of God . We will
then put right the wrongs correctly, we will encourage each other,
the songs that we sing will inspire and our thankfulness will be to
God alone who is the only one worthy of praise.
Let us from now
on seek heaven upon earth especially as we meet together and to put
aside all ungodliness and to set our minds upon wearing the robes of
righteousness because they are given by Our Lord and Saviour
especially for us. Wear them with pride because they are yours
forever!