1.21 blog

This week we continued our series: “Jesus versus Religion,” where we’ve been looking at the Book of Colossians, and seeing Jesus’ superiority over all things, including religion. The sermon this week came from Colossians 2.6-15, and explored our identity crises. The fact is, so often we don’t know who we are. We go around, wearing different masks to fit into different situations until we forget who we are underneath it all. As a result, our lives are fragmented and unstable. We don’t really feel like we belong anywhere because we don’t even know who we are. But in this passage, the Apostle Paul offers us a solution to this dillema: the stability and identity that we’re seeking are found in Jesus Christ and his gospel.

In verses 6-7, Paul outlines how in Jesus we are offered stability. We are rooted and established in him. This is a firm identity that won’t shift with the changing circumstances in our life. And at the same time, this doesn’t mean that we’re just stuck in the same place throughout our lives. We also walk and are built up in him (there is growth and progress). And this is all characterized by thanksgiving. Every moment of every day provides us the opportunity to receive everything as a gift from God through Jesus. And all of this happens in him (the phrase occurs 7 times in these 9 verses).

But in verses 8-10, Paul also gives us a warning: what he outlines here will seem completely contradictory to what we expect and the way we experience life. Because we are created to obey God, we are wired for law: something to do. And as a result, we are always looking for (and being offered) something to do. In all these cases, it’s a form of law. But the problem is that this is “not according to Christ.”

In the Bible there are two categories: law (which gives us something to do), and gospel (which tells us something that’s been done). The answer to our problems won’t come through law. Instead, it comes through what Jesus has already done. Paul outlines this in verses 11-15. He points to the Christian sacrament of baptism, which depicts our identity with Jesus in his death and resurrection. Because of what he has done, we don’t have to follow the grain of the world, with it’s religious systems. Instead, we’ve died and risen with Christ. When he died, we died.

On our own we are dead and alienated from God. But now, through what he’s done, he has made us alive and has forgiven our sin. When Jesus died, our death died too, so that we could share in his life. And we aren’t just forgiven. The entire record of our debt has been cancelled. Jesus wiped it out and took it out of commission by nailing it to the cross. Because of this, all of our sins and failures are forgiven. We have an entirely new life now. When Jesus died, our sins died.

Finally, we saw that Jesus’ death was his victory against all the forces of evil. On the cross, he fought agaisnt everything that would trap and enslave us: from demonic forces, to religious legalism, to racism, to bad choices, to whatever else. And he won. They are defeated. They cannot hold us back. They cannot defeat us. They cannot ruin us. Jesus is the Victor!

And now because of this, we are able to live the sort of live outlined in this passage: with rootedness, and growth, and gratitude. We have been given the gift of a new life because God was merciful enough to kill us through Jesus. And through that, we finally learn who we really are: sinners, for whom Jesus has died, and who forever belong to him.

1. Where do I look for to find my identity?
2. Does my life display rootedness, growth, and gratitude?
3. What are the deceptive things that tend to lead me away from Jesus?
4. Have I been baptized?