First Presbyterian Church
Rev. Michael J. Imperiale
Salt Lake City, UtahAugust 8, 2004
“Custom-Made New Life”
Colossians 3: 1-11
Introduction
It was a beautiful wedding a week ago. This sanctuary was arrayed with bouquets of flowers down the center aisle and up on the chancel. Festive organ music filled the air as sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows. Bride in wedding dress and groom in tux, best man, maid of honor, and bridal party all decked out, family and friends gathered to celebrate. The message of love was recited in vows and prayer.
Moving from ceremony to reception, the band was playing (with special guest trumpet player), the food was delicious, the conversations at each table were buzzing with friendship and joy. The sun set and the much awaited day came to a close.
Now what? A Marriage has begun. After the honeymoon, the bride didn’t go back to her house alone. The groom didn’t do back to his old apartment. They have begun a life together. For the rest of their lives they will grow together in love, understanding, and commitment. They will go through ups and downs together. They will support and encourage each other as a married couple, husband and wife.
This is what the Christian life is like. The Bible likens our relationship with God to a marriage. When Isaiah comforted Israel with God’s promise of redemption and renewal in the Messiah, he said, “Your Maker is your husband – the Lord Almighty is his name – the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer” (that’s Isaiah 54:5). In his teaching on the marriage relationship, the apostle Paul says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord… Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church” (read Ephesians 5: 21-33). And in the Revelation, John sees and hears the great multitude of God’s people singing and shouting, “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad… For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready” and “I saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. (see Revelation 19: 6-7 and 21:2).
In the sacrament of baptism we see symbolically how a Christian leaves behind the old way of life and emerges to a new way of life when he or she comes to faith in Jesus Christ. There’s a new set of values granted to us in the grace of God: giving over getting, serving above ruling, forgiving instead of avenging. Baptism is the sign and symbol of what happens when Jesus becomes Lord and Savior of our lives.
I. Where Do You Set Your Heart? (vs. 1-4)
“Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above,” writes Paul. “Since you’ve heard the good news of God’s love for you, since you’ve accepted the Lord Jesus into your lives, since the wedding ceremony has taken place, go ahead and live in that new relationship.”
Setting our hearts on things above means remembering to put heaven’s priorities into daily practice. God wants my relationship in Christ to be the center of my decisions, my lifestyle, how I go about living with my family, my job, my church, my world.
When we were first married, Dottie and I lived in a little three room house in a meadow three miles outside of a small town in western Pennsylvania. We had one car – a 1976 yellow Vega. Since it was “my” car, I didn’t think twice about taking off to go to the office or the store leaving Dottie stranded at the house. At first, I couldn’t understand why she was so upset when I got back home! Yes, I’m still alive and we’re still married, all to Dottie’s credit. It took this husband a long time to learn that he was married. Twenty-six years later, I’m still learning how to include Dottie in the things I do and she still is a very patient wife.
This is what Paul is suggesting about becoming a Christian. It’s a new life, a new relationship. You now belong to the Lord. So, in the amazing grace of Jesus, keep on centering your life on Christ the Lord. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we pray. In another place it says, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, lovely, and admirable – if anything is excellent or worthy of praise – let your mind dwell on these things” (that’s Philippians 4:9).
II. What Do You Get Rid Of? (vs. 3-8)
“Therefore,” writes Paul, “put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature. Your old life is dead and your new life, your real life is with Christ. That means killing off everything connected with the old way of death.”
And then he lists a few of the problems that plague every human being. “Sexual immortality, impurity and lust; evil desires and greed; anger and rage; malice and slander; filthy language from your lips.”
President Calvin Coolidge returned home from attending church early one Sunday afternoon. His wife was unable to go to church that day but was interested in what their Presbyterian pastor spoke about in the sermon. Coolidge responded, “Sin.” She pressed him for a few words of explanation. And apparently being a man of few words with his wife, he responded, “I think he was against it.”
Of course he was against it. The Bible is against it. God is against it. Because sin destroys. When Paul mentions the wrath of God, he knows what happens when God gives us over to our sinful nature. Someone has said that sin has taken the living God out of religion, the Christ out of Christianity, authority away from the Bible, morality and virtue out of education, beauty and truth out of art, ethics out of business, fidelity out of marriage, and so on. Life falls apart, relationships crumble, hurts abound, and it all ends in death.
Jesus came to reverse that fallen process. His sacrificial death turned to resurrection life. And he offers that forgiveness and grace to all who would hear it, want it, and accept it.
The Bible always follows its theology with an ethical demand. But be careful here! Our godliness is not measured by the things we do not do. It comes from being “with Christ.” Christians often make the mistake of returning to the bondage of law, rules and regulations by which we can measure one another. Being joined to Jesus Christ is alone the foundation of the new life. It is his grace; it is the power of the Holy Spirit that enables changes in our behavior. Paul focuses on what a believer is rather than on what he must do. Here’s where authentic Christianity stands apart from every other religious construct. In the gospel the call to obedience is because one has already been saved and created new. Paul is telling the Colossians and God’s word tells us to live out ethically what we have already become in Christ.
Conclusion
It was a beautiful wedding: Christ the bridegroom and the Church the Bride. As you come into that saving, loving relationship with the Lord of life, set your hearts on things above; live in the new life so that you put to death the things of the old life. Put on the new self because Christ is all. Every item of your new life is custom-made by the Creator, your Redeemer, with his name on it.
Let us pray together.
