Life Together – Colossians 3:11-15
Often times what lies between who we are and who we want to be in Christ is the impulse to hide from life in the community; from life together. In Colossians 3, Paul describes a vision for life together in which we take on the likeness of Christ through our participation in a community of strangers, committed to one another, and under the guidance of the Prince of Peace.
Summary of Colossians
This letter is written to a young church: The Apostle Paul writes this letter from prison to a young church in the city of Colossae that they may grow in “maturity to Christ” (1:28), despite the cultural pressures that they were experiencing.
Christ began a new Kingdom: The foundation for resisting cultural pressure is recognizing we have been saved from ourselves and are now citizens of a new Kingdom– established in Christ. (1:13;1:15-20;3:1)
Spiritual maturity is learning to live in that new Kingdom: Paul believes that learning to live in the Kingdom of Jesus transforms every aspect of our lives.
Our impulse to hide from community
“I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid… The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” – Genesis 3:10-12 ESV
Hiding from community looks like withdrawal or defensiveness.
In defensiveness, I can avoid changing.
In withdrawal, I can avoid being fully known.
But in our hiding, we fail to grow.
Paul’s thesis– We will take on the likeness of Christ when we are in 1) a community of strangers, 2) committed to one another, and 3) under the guidance of the Prince of Peace.
A community of strangers(v.10-11)
“put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” – Colossians 3:10–11.
Paul is deliberate with the boundary markers he chooses to include.
“ The ancient world, just like the modern, was an elaborate network of prejudice, suspicion, and arrogance, so ingrained as to be thought natural and normal…” – NT Wright
Confirmation bias–the habit of searching out, favoring, or recalling information that supports our pre-existing beliefs.
“Christ is all, and in all.” (Colossians 3:11b)
“If we are a people rich in social relationships, we are rich indeed. Whenever we develop significant friendships with those who are not like us culturally, we become broader, wiser persons.” – Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water
A community committed to one another. (v. 12-14)
“12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
Paul anticipates conflict. He assumes there will be hurt, pettiness, and sin– he assumes that as humans we will act like humans; And he gives us a strategy to deal with the conflict.
This list of virtues is little more than a description of love lived out in the community:
“To love the Lord you God…and to love your neighbor as yourself.” – Mark 12:30-31 ESV
“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
A community under the guidance of the prince of peace
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” – Colossians 3:15
Paul uses a word we translate as “rule” that has the connotation of an umpire or arbitrator.
“… seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” – Colossians 3:1-4
“So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.” – Mark 16:19
“While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” – Luke 24:51.
“Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”– John 20:17-18
“And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” – Acts 1:9
This event is known as the Ascension of Jesus.
“The aim of God in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of loving persons, with Himself included in that community as its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.” – Dallas Willard
Paul’s vision is a community of strangers committed to one another under the guidance of the Prince of Peace.
We cannot follow Jesus alone.
“Whether you define church as a Sunday gathering around a stage, a much smaller community around a table, or, as I would recommend, a mixture of both, we can’t follow Jesus alone. Jesus did not have a disciple (singular); he had disciples (plural). The call to follow Jesus was—and still is—a call to join his community of the Way.”
— John Mark Comer, Live No Lie
We will take on the likeness of Christ when we are in a community of strangers, committed to one another, and under the guidance of the Prince of Peace.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE – Commit to the community
Life together is difficult, but it is far better; it's the life we so desperately long for.
We must drop our impulse to hide, withdraw or become defensive, in order to be known and transformed.
This is why we do microchurch. Let us pastor you into one.
