The Way Home

Last week, we talked about moving closer to Christ. That takes faith. It can be scary moving closer to him, because it means we’re moving further away from something else – maybe something we enjoy, something our identity is wrapped up in, or something that makes us feel secure. If moving closer to Christ means moving further from the people or things we have relied on, we will only be able to do it if we trust God. Moving closer to Christ can, at least initially, make us feel less secure, and we hate that because security is one of our highest priorities. That’s why moving closer to Christ takes faith.

Moving closer to yourself – the person God made you to be – takes hope. When I talk about moving closer to yourself, I am assuming certain things you may not have thought about. I am assuming that you are not now the self you were in the past, nor are you the self you will be in the future. You have been in transition ever since you were formed in the womb. You did not stop becoming when you were born, or when you turned 18, or got married, or entered a career. Life moves from en utero to en cosmos to en Christo: from womb to world to Christ, and at each stage, we become more ourselves.

Moving closer to Christ takes faith; moving closer to yourself takes hope. St. John says, “What we shall be has not yet appeared, but when he appears we shall be like him” (the ultimate stage in our development), “for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3). A Christian is not driven into the future by the mindless forces of the past. A Christian is drawn into the future by the loving plan of an all-knowing God. Your true self exists in that future: a self at peace within, with others, and with God. A self that: enjoys life and is constantly grateful for it; that sees the enormous value of others; that loves God with heart, and soul, and mind.

Last week, we saw that you can’t move closer to Christ without moving away from something else. This week, we’ll see that you can’t move closer to your true self without moving away from the misshapen – greedy, fearful, victimized – person you have taken yourself to be. Remember what St. John said? “Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself” – that is, moves away from the things that have no place in the person God is making him to be.

To move closer to Christ takes faith. To move closer to your true self takes hope. To move closer to others (both in and out of the church) takes love. So, we have faith, hope and love, and each one affects the other two. As we move closer to Christ, we find that we’ve moved closer to our true selves. When we move closer to our true selves, we become closer to other people, in and out of the church. Once this process gets started, each movement amplifies and reinforces the next. As I move closer to Christ, I am closer to the person God intends me to become, and that moves me closer to others, which moves me closer to Christ, which moves me closer to my true self, and so on. It is a spiritual chain reaction.

Today’s text helps us understand how we can cooperate with God in that process. I say “cooperate with God” because the new creation project is his project. We get to be, by his grace and to our joy, his co-workers; but it will always be his project. If we try to hijack it, we won’t end up with a new self but with a false self – probably just a false front – and we’ll miss out on the wonderful person he is making us to be.

Our text is Colossians 3:1-17, but because what Paul says in these verses grows out of what he’s written in chapter 2, and because it leads directly to what he will say at the end of this chapter and the beginning of chapter 4, we will need to look at what precedes and follows it. One week will not be enough to do all that, so we will continue in this text for two more weeks.

I’ve just said that God is the architect and builder of our true selves. Though he partners with us, he is the boss. When we forget that, we fall into the error of thinking that it is up to us to design and build the true self. But our design is usually only a mashup of other people’s ideas.

That’s what happened in the church at Colossae. First century influencers were speaking authoritatively on how to become your truer, fuller self. They shared fantastic – and probably fictitious – success stories, and led the Colossians to believe that they could succeed too, if they would only follow their plan. That plan included lots of rules and depended on a mind-over-body approach to life. (That’s chapter 2, verses 16-23.) In short, they were telling people how to take control of the new creation project.

That’s a temptation (taking control) that is hard to resist. But it is God – not us – who is the Architect-Builder of the new self. Conforming us to Christ’s image was his project long before we got involved. When we hijack control of that project, we actually delay the changes God is bringing about because obedience – not control – is the key to success. It is not that we are passive, any more than a construction worker on the job site is passive. We are on the job site. We are the job site. There is work to do, and the Architect-Builder expects us do it, but by following his plan, not ours—or worse, some ambitious teacher’s.  

Those first century teachers were so smart. Even Paul admits that their ideas appear wise; the only problem, he says, is that they don’t work (Colossians 2:23). Their shortcut to the true self would undermine the entire project. After warning the Colossians against them, Paul lays out a better way to move closer to the new self.

Now, listen as I read Colossians 3:1-11: Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now 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, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

What could Paul mean by “Since, then,” (or, as it could be translated, “If, as is the case”), “you have been raised with Christ…” How have we been raised with Christ? When did that happen? I don’t remember being raised with Christ, so what could this mean?

A common answer is that this is a metaphor, a poetic way of saying that we experienced a change of status when we trusted in Christ. Our status certainly changes when we turn to God and trust Jesus, but our status changes because there is a change in us. When we respond to the message about Jesus with faith, a connection is established between us and him, and through that connection, God begins reorganizing our lives around Jesus’s life. What happened to him 2,000 years ago – his death, his resurrection, his ascension – is being “downloaded” into us.

But if I have been raised with Christ, why do have I no awareness of it? Well, that is hardly the only thing you are not aware of that is true about you. There is more to you than you realize. Freud told us that, of course, but even he barely scratched the surface. You are more than your body, more than your conscious thoughts, and more than your subconscious thoughts. The you you think you know so well is really a stupendous mystery, even to you! You are more than the sum of your past experiences, more than the product of what has happened to you on earth. You are the promise of what has and will happen to you in connection to Christ. You – the real you, not a metaphorical you – has been raised with Christ and seated with him. And that is because you have been linked with Jesus through faith.

The fulfilled you, the forever you, beckons you on. People mistake that beckoning for hunger, boredom, sexual desire, ambition, but it is more enduring than any of these. To use the theological term, your soul’s deep longing is to be glorified. You can try to satisfy that longing with food, sex, success, sports, but it always comes back—and thank God it does. The core of our being is constantly crying out for something more: for completion—to be “a completed man, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13, LIT). That longing lies behind, and outlasts, every other desire.

It is important that you grasp this. There is more to you – and to your neighbor – than you realize. “There are no ordinary people,” C. S. Lewis once said. “You have never talked to a mere mortal…it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”[1] God is calling us to become those splendours: rich in joy, fortified with strength, and guarded by peace. That is our destiny.

Look at verse 3. The you that lacked a connection to Christ has “died” (that reality is expressed in baptism), “and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Every Christian has a hidden life, and it is not just hidden from others; it’s even hidden from us! Bonhoeffer says, “Though [Christians] are a visible society, they are always unknown even to themselves.”[2] Our lives are hidden with Christ in God, and we are in a cosmic game of hide and seek. The day will come when God calls to all us seekers, “Ally, Ally in free” (at least, that is how we said it as kids—every region has its own form) and we will find, to our astonishment and joy, our true selves waiting for us there. And that true self will be like Christ.

This is far more than a game, but I refer to it as “hide and seek” because Paul uses that terminology. He says that our lives are hidden with Christ, and we must set our hearts on – literally, seek – things above. Your true self, hidden with Christ in God, is one of those “things above.” But you must follow the rules. You’ll never find true yourself by looking for yourself. (That’s a spiritual snipe hunt.) But look for Christ, fix your eyes on Jesus, and one day you will discover – better, you will be rewarded with – your true self.

Now look at verse 4: “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Notice that Christ is your life. Not football, not work, not spouse, nor house—not even church. If football is your life, the game of life will end in sudden death, but if Christ is your life, you will go on forever. That’s why we can say to the dying Christian: “Take heart, brother. You have your whole life ahead of you.” Christ’s life is your life; you have been connected to him. He is closer to you than you realize. When you ask, “Then where was hewhen this terrible thing happened?” the answer is, “He was there – in you; he is your life.”

We’re thinking about moving closer to Christ, to our true selves, to people in the church, and to people outside the church. We’ve already seen that to move closer to one thing is to move further away from something else. What is it that we must move away from to move closer to our true selves? It is our false self, which we have thought of as our real self.

What a relief – a joy – it is to realize that that self-centered, self-promoting, posturing, fearful, irritated person is not my true self! Do you remember what Jesus repeatedly said? It is the person who loses his life – literally, his soul, himself – for Christ’s sake, who finds it.

We see that movement away from the false self in our text. In verse 5, Paul writes, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly” – the self that is not your true self – “nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” Notice the word “therefore.” “Therefore” – not in order to become something you are not, but to complete something you already are in Christ – “put to death these things.”

You see this same motion away from certain things in verse 8: “But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” You must rid yourself, put off, put away these things because they are fetters that bind you to an unreal self. This is not a self-improvement plan. God did not send Christ to die a sacrificial death for the world so that you could be a little better than you are now, but so that you could be your new, Jesus-like self. We are not improving the old, false self—we’re giving it up, trading it in on the wonderful self Christ died to save.

Why does Paul say we must put to death or put away things like anger and gossip and bad language, sexual immorality and greed? Are they really that bad? When that question is asked today, more and more people are answering, “No. Porn is okay. Sleeping around is okay. Filthy language is okay. That stuff is just natural.” I know people who grew up in the church who are saying that kind of thing.

And they’re right: those things are natural … for the false and incomplete self. But if you want to move closer to your fuller, stronger, peaceful, real self, you must move away from these things. You must lay them down or put them down, put them to death.

But you can’t do that by moving toward some idealized self. You do it by moving toward Jesus. Your only hope of ever becoming your true self is becoming Jesus’s true person. You aren’t you without him: he is your life! Seek him, and you will find yourself: strong, real, full. But seek yourself and you will find only a ghost, a shade, a phantom.

C. S. Lewis put it this way on the last page of Mere Christianity: “The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.”

“Look for yourself,” he continues, “and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

But how do I look for Christ? Well, coming here week after week, or to some other gathering of Jesus’s people is a good start. Thoughtfully reading his words and reading about him in the Scriptures and contemplating what you’ve read is a tried-and-true method. Practicing prayer, learning how to do it better, and setting aside time every day for it has helped millions of people.

But the best guidance I can give you about how to look for Christ is to ask him. He’s the Architect-Builder. He knows what needs to happen next. Ask him, and continue to ask, “Lord, how shall I go about seeking you?” then pay attention to the ideas that come to your mind. When he gives you an answer, act on it, and you will start to see things happen.

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, Touchstone Books, Simon and Shuster, 1995. p. 270