You Are "In Christ"
Second of a three part sermon series about being "in Christ," focusing on the book of Colossians. Text: Colossians 2:6-15
I was invited to preach again. I had the opportunity to preach over three Sundays in close succession and so did a series that builds out the idea of being “in Christ” through the book of Colossians. These are my pulpit notes, a kind of minimalist, stripped down text with all of the important phrasing and transitions worked out. What happens from the pulpit will bear a loose resemblance to what is here. It would take 14-16 minutes to read out loud as written, but the sermon will likely be 30 minutes in length when preached. Preaching is always a live event.
My reading of the text of Colossians from the NIV (1985):
In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we see him really working with an idea that runs throughout the whole of his writing, but one that really features here in this letter, that is the knowledge and belief that we are “in Christ” and how central it is to understanding our salvation and how we live and experience it today. Hopefully this morning we can deepen our understanding of what it means to be “in Christ” and how it is that our faith in Christ is understood by doing it.
You cannot think your way into a full Christian life. You cannot even think your way into properly understanding the faith. It is like playing the piano. At some point you have to sit down and actually practice. You can’t call yourself a pianist if you just read about it in books or watch YouTube videos on how its done. The Christian faith works the same way. You must do the faith to understand it.
We need to set the groundwork to properly understand what is happening in this passage, not only in this passage but in this book and throughout much of the writings of Paul, it is this idea of being “in Christ.”
Everything that happens with salvation happens “in Christ.”
The second person of the Trinity, the Son, was born as a man, he lived, died and was raised again from the dead and he ascended into heaven.
When you believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, the Holy Spirit joins you to Christ. Let’s draw a big circle here. Everything inside this circle is “in Christ.” Everything outside is in the world. You are either “in Christ” or you are “in the world.” There is no in between or grey area.
You are not moving from the world more towards Christ or becoming more Christlike. When you believe, you believe that you are already “in Christ.” This is a fundamental change in being. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians, in Christ you are made new. You are no longer seen as the world sees you. You are now seen as you are “in Christ.”
In the same way, at the beginning of chapter three in this same letter, Paul says, “since you have been raised ‘in Christ’.” “In Christ” this is an even that happened in the past. You are already raised from the dead. If you are “in Christ” the resurrection has already happened for you. As it said in chapter 1 of this letter, the resurrection is hidden “in Christ.”
The Christian faith is about believing who you are “in Christ” and then the doing of the Christian life is about revealing who you already are in Christ so that you and everyone else can then experience who you are “in Christ.”
This is what the book of Hebrews is talking about when it says faith is believing in what cannot be seen. Because even though you are “in Christ,” even though, by faith, in the Spirit, you have been moved from being “in the world” to being “in Christ,” we only see it in part today. Faith in Christ is about more than just believing that Jesus died for you, and you are forgiven your sins, and your eternal future is secure. Faith in Christ is about believing that you have been made new, even when your experience today might say otherwise.
The spiritual journey is about revealing who we are in Christ so that it can been seen with regular eyes and not just the eyes of faith.
Our passage today talks almost entirely about the dynamics of what is happening “in Christ” and the contrast between that state of being and being “in the world.”
Remember, everything that happens in the life of the believer here, happens “in Christ.”
We begin at the beginning. “Just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord.” This is Paul’s way of saying, now that you believe that Jesus has lived, died and been raised from the dead and so all things have been put under him, and he is Lord of things…because of this…Paul tells the Colossians: “continue to live in him.”
…rooted and built up “in him” that is “in Christ” … strengthened in the faith as you were taught. And this underscores the importance of discipleship, the process of teaching and helping people to both see and experience who they are in Christ, to draw close to him in prayer and in life, in union with God “in Christ.”
Everything is happening “in Christ.” Because you becoming joined to God “in Christ” you overflow with thanksgiving. Who wouldn’t be thankful? We were cut off from God and alienated from him, cast out of the garden, and now we are reunited with God “in Christ.”
In the next paragraph, a contrast is drawn. Be on guard that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy. This is the only time in the NT that the Greek word “philosophia” is used. If you think of what has happened in modernity, where we have tried to ground truth in reason or science, that we as human beings can resolve all the questions we have and can fix ourselves and form for ourselves moral codes based on reason alone, this warning really nails much of what is wrong today.
Paul is making a bold claim here, that all the questions we have about truth and reason, even scientific questions ultimately do not find their resolution in the “fundamental principles of this world.”
Rather, they find their resolution in Christ. Spiritual questions like how can God be three and one? How can God be in charge of every hair on your head and predestine us to salvation and yet at the same time we are held responsible for our moral choices. These spiritual mysteries, and there are lots of them, get resolved not by rationally thinking your way to answers, but they get resolved spiritually, mystically even, the more fully we are in Christ.
Jesus says he is the truth.
All of these questions about truth and philosophy, how was the world made and why is there evil and all these questions that we agonize over. They find their resolution not in philosophy or in human reason or scientific inquiry. They find their resolution in Christ. Even questions about the origin of the world and quantum mechanics find their resolution in Christ. So, when you have questions, lean on Christ and draw close to him, and it is in him that they will find their resolution.
What should we do in certain situations where two paths present themselves to us. Which pastor do we hire? Should we build a new building for our church? Should I take this job? Should I marry this person? All throughout life we are confronted with these questions. We find answers by drawing close to God and rooting ourselves in Christ and who we are in Christ.
Because “in Christ” all of the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form. You are “in Christ.” You have been given the fullness of the presence of God “in Christ.” Remember, we are not given this individually, so much as a community. We are the body of Christ. But “in Christ” we participate in the fullness of the Divine presence. In this Divine presence we come to see and understand the things that those who are “in the world” try to understand through human tradition and the “fundamental principles of the world.”
These “fundamental principles” are related to the “powers and authorities.” Paul is understanding that there is a spiritual battle going on with knowledge itself. You can rely on human philosophy which is “in the world” and under the powers and authorities of the world or you can put your faith “in Christ.”
When you put your faith “in Christ Jesus as Lord,” “in him” you undergo a kind of spiritual surgery, which Paul compares to circumcision. Where once men bore the mark of being part of the people of God on their flesh, now that same mark is done spiritually by Christ. It is symbolized in baptism, which is like passing through the flood. You are covered over in water. You die and are raised again as you emerge from the flood waters that had buried you.
Because of this spiritual circumcision, now symbolized in baptism, you know and believe that “in Christ” your sinful nature has been cut away. It is now possible “in Christ” to do what is good. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is now at work in you.
Where once you were dead, you are now alive by the power of God in Christ. What this does, this spiritual surgery that you undergo “in Christ” means that you are forgiven. But more than this, no longer are you a sinful person whose behaviours must be restrained and regulated by law, even divine law. All of that old self, that old way of doing things, all of it has been cut away and nailed to the cross with Christ. Just as Christ triumphed over the powers and authorities so to, “in Christ” we have triumphed sin and evil, over the evil one and his “powers and authorities.” We are victorious “in Christ.”
Now your behaviour emerges from within, by the power of God in Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit. You are now virtuous. You do all the things the law dictated, the hundreds and hundreds of rules and commands and policies. The policy manual has been thrown out for you.
Why, because you are in Christ, you don’t need it. You are now alive “with Christ.” You have been raised from the dead and now your life, your thoughts, your feelings, all flow out of who you are “in Christ.” You don’t need rules to tell you how to be good and virtuous. You just do it because of who you are “in Christ.”
Even as we fix our Jesus, even as we fix our eyes on him, even as we meditate on who we are “in Christ,” we still have to practice who we are. You can believe that you are a concert pianist, but at some point you have to sit down at the piano and play. In the same way, you can, “I am made new in Christ,” to which I say wonderful! Now show me. Then begins the process of revealing who you are “in Christ.”
But it all flows out of this fundamentally new state of being that you participate in.
Having come all this way, we loop back to the beginning of the passage:
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live “in him,” rooted and built up “in him.”
Unlocking the heart of what the Christian faith is all about believing who we are “in Christ,” meditating on who we are “in Christ,” and then because we are “in Christ,” it means living who we are “in Christ.”
Pray. Meditate. Practice. Be who you are “in Christ.”