Colossians 3:1-17 (MSG)

One of the celebrities that I most respect is U2’s lead singer, Bono.  He is someone who has chosen to use his wealth and his celebrity status to do good in the world.  Back in 1982 he was involved in the Live Aid and Band-Aid concerts, which raised money for Ethiopians who were suffering through a famine.  Bono not only helped to raise money by performing in the concerts, he actually went to Ethiopia himself to be sure that the funds were being used honestly and effectively.

For six weeks, Bono and his wife worked in an orphanage there.  What he saw changed his life forever.  He said, “You wake up in the morning, and the mist would be lifting.  You’d walk out of your tent and you’d count bodies of dead or abandoned children.  Or worse, the father of a child would walk up to you and try to give you his living child and say, ‘You take it, because if this is your child, it won’t die.’”  And Bono didn’t stop with that one trip to volunteer in Ethiopia.  He has been working to change the policies of governments and organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund so that funding for public health, education, and essential social services will increase.  Politicians including Bill Clinton and Jesse Helms have worked with Bono in successfully reducing the debts of Third World countries.  And he has helped to compel wealthy countries to make financial contributions towards addressing the AIDS crisis in Africa.  Tony Campolo refers to Bono as an instrument of God.  I would agree with that assessment.

In this letter to the church in Colossae, the apostle Paul was addressing the issue of how Christians should act, how they should live out their faith.  Paul wrote this letter from prison in Ephesus sometime in the mid-50s.  He had never been to Colossae, a city about 100 miles from Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey.  The church had been started by a man named Epaphras, and he had reached out to Paul about threats to the church.  The threat came from some questionable religious practices that had been going on, including a belief that human destiny was controlled by the stars. 

As Paul confronted these issues, he instructed the Colossian Christians to live their new resurrection life with Christ and to act as if they were followers of Jesus.  They were to stop looking at what was going on in this world and pay attention to what was going on around Christ, who is in heaven.  They were to live a new life, their real life, which was in Christ; in fact, Christ WAS to be their life.  In some ways, they were to live now as if they were already in heaven.

Scot McKnight, a professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Illinois, writes, “For Paul, the Christian life is more than ethics or morality … it is Christ himself who defines the Christian life, and it is defined by who Christ is.  The crucified and raised Jesus … redefines what the Christian life is … [It is] being ‘formed’ by the whole life of Christ: his life, teachings, death, burial, resurrection, and glorification.” 

So what does it mean to live in Christ, to act like we have faith?

Paul used the metaphor of changing one’s clothes.  He instructed the Colossian believers to take off their old lives and put on their new lives in Christ.  They were to leave behind their sins when they professed faith in Christ, and then they were to live in a way that they imitated Jesus; McKnight says that Jesus exhorted his followers to live in a world where “reconciliation, righteousness, peace, justice and love … [reshape] our every word, deed, and thought.” 

First, Paul wrote, they had to take off their old lives as if they were filthy clothes that did not fit, but were only good to throw in the fire.  The old life – the way of death – included things like sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, profanity, dirty talk, lying, having a bad temper, being irritable, being mean, doing whatever they felt like whenever they felt like it, and grabbing whatever attracted their fancy.  They did those things before because they didn’t know any better.  But now they were to reject those kinds of immoral behavior and live in a way that demonstrated a Christ-like life. 

Second, they were to live a Christ-like life.  So what would a Christian life look like?  Paul said that it was a life defined by Christ.  It was like being dressed in a whole new wardrobe custom made for you by the Creator.  It meant embracing and living out such things as compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline, even-temperedness, contentment with being in second place, being quick to forgive, and, above all, practicing love.  They were to cultivate thankfulness in their hearts and then sing their hearts out to God.  In sum, they were to let every detail of their lives – their words and their actions – be done in the name of Jesus.

And third, they were to create a community where their social identities no longer mattered, only their shared identity in Christ.  They were to live in community “where social identities [were] no longer the ultimate or solely defining feature of one’s identity,” according to Joshua Jipp, an associate professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.  He goes on to refer to this kind of community as “one new people composed of all kinds of people.”  The things that typically separated people were no longer in play.  There were to be no distinctions between Jews and non-Jews, religious or irreligious people, insiders and outsiders, civilized or uncouth, slave or free.  From now on, believers would be defined by Christ.  David E. Gray, Senior Pastor at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland, points out, “We face divisions today along ethnic, social, racial, gender, economic, political, military, familial, and geographic lines … If Christ is in all of us, then we all are guided at some level by the same Spirit, larger than us … Our faith in Jesus Christ unites all believers.”

Another prominent figure with whom I have long been impressed is former President Jimmy Carter.  He is a man who truly practices that faith that he professes.  And he has lived out his beliefs from the Oval Office to the Sunday School classroom, from Washington, D.C., to Habitat for Humanity construction sites in this country and over-seas.  In his book, Living Faith, Carter writes that “there are basic principles that, for me, have never changed.  For a Christian, the life and teachings of Jesus offer a sound moral foundation that includes all the most basic elements that should guide us.  Since these highest standards are eternal, we have an obligation to comprehend what they are and what they mean for us.  Our faith can provide enough courage to apply these biblical lessons to our daily lives.”  Later in the book, Carter talks about how Jesus set the example for us to follow.  He states, “His ministry was tangible proof of his love for everyone, including the sick, the ostracized, and even those who were believed by their neighbors to be suffering the punishment of God for their sins.  This was a powerful witness.  Christ was a doer, one whose faith took the form of action, not merely words.”

Jimmy Carter has certainly put that kind of faith into practice.  He has used his political connections and the respect of foreign leaders to try to broker peace in the Middle East.  He has been used as a diplomat in many instances for Presidents who came after him.  He has continued to teach Sunday School in the Baptist church that he and Rosalyn attend in Plains, Georgia.  And he and his wife have continued to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, picking up their tools and doing physical labor into their old age.

When you get serious about Christ – about living a Christ-like life – you become a witness to the gospel message.  When people look at you, they don’t just see you, they also see Jesus.  They see how much being a Christian affects the way you live your life.  They see a role model and a living testimony to the truth of what we believe.  Being a follower of Jesus Christ is not for the half-hearted; it is serious business for those who are willing to commit themselves to be disciples.

I’d like to close by reading a paraphrase of Colossians 3 written by Leslie Brandt in his book, Epistles/Now:

I wonder if we really understand it, that we are the people of God, that He loves us and chooses that we be His people.  Now we are really alive!  As Christ was raised from the dead, so we have been brought from death to life and shall live forever.  We must set our hearts and fix our minds on this fantastic truth.  Faith means that we begin to live and act as if this is the truth, that this really happened, whether we feel it or not.

There are, however, still some things within us which must not be permitted to control our thinking or activities.  They are those things that come between us and God and are capable of causing harm to our fellow person.  Still rising out of the darkness to haunt and tempt us are the shadows of greed and lust and hostility and deceit, booby traps that can destroy us and anyone close to us.  We must, by God’s grace and His power at work within us, blast these insidious demons out of our lives.  And we must do so again and again, for they die hard, these agents of death.

Thus we must grow in the faith, allowing the Spirit of God to captivate and subordinate every aspect of our being under His purging love.  We must plug up these loopholes in our lives by focusing continually upon God and His love and permit Him to flood our hearts with His love.  And we must determinedly and actively exercise that inflowing and outgoing love by reaching out to others in concern and compassion.

We are to begin doing this with those who are near us.  We must start right where we are – even with our comrades in Christ – by being open, honest, truthful, nonjudgmental, manifesting patience and understanding, forgiving them as God indeed forgives us, allowing God’s love to spill over our lives into the troubled lives of others.  But God forbid that our love be limited to our own kind.  It is God’s love that reaches out to others through our love, and God’s love is destined for all [humankind], the whole human family, slave and free, rich and poor, black and white.  What we do in our interpersonal relationships we are to do as the children of God, the disciples of Jesus Christ, in the spirit of celebration and thanksgiving.  Let us give ourselves over to prayer and thanksgiving and conduct ourselves like the children and servants of God, acknow-ledging that the hours of our days and the words of our mouths are under contract to our Savior and Lord.  And may God so guide us and control us that we always speak and act in accordance with His will for our lives.

Amen.