Keeping Your Identity in Christ | Colossians 3:1-17
Brian Hedges | June 26, 2022
Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Colossians 3:1-17. If you’re following along in one of the Bibles provided in the chair in front of you, it’s page 984.
While you’re turning there, let me ask this question: How many of you have had a close friend or family member who at one time claimed to be a Christian but has since deconstructed their faith and now are no longer claiming to be a Christian? Let me see your hands. Okay, that’s almost all of us in this room.
It is a phenomenon that in some ways feels like a modern phenomenon, of people deconstructing their faith. It’s actually nothing new. There have always been people who have claimed to be Christians and then left the faith. If you go all the way back to the New Testament you have Demas, who at one time was one of Paul’s co-workers and yet, “having loved this present world,” he forsook the Lord. So he was an apostate. The real name for this is apostasy.
We’re familiar with many famous examples of contemporary people who once seemed to carry the torch for Jesus but now no longer claim the name of Christ. One of the most famous, of course, is Josh Harris, who was a famous pastor and author and a few years ago he announced on Instagram that he was no longer a Christian.
I also think of Paul Maxwell, who was a professor at Moody and worked for Desiring God, no longer a Christian. You might think of Rhett and Link, famous Christian entertainers of Good Mythical Morning, if you’ve ever watched that show, but they’re no longer Christians. I could give you more examples as well.
Of course we know of personal examples, people we know who once were either part of a church, or maybe family members who once walked with the Lord but now no longer claim the name of Christ. They have “deconstructed” their faith.
What is “deconstruction”? It’s been defined in this way, as a “critical dismantling of a person’s understanding of what it means to be an evangelical Christian.” That’s from Jon Bloom, who’s written a great article on deconstruction for Desiring God.
But as I said, it’s really age-old apostasy under a new name. My focus this morning is not so much to explain apostasy or explore the theology of apostasy; there are other sermons that I’ve preached where you can look at that, and at our security in Christ, and how to know whether someone’s really a Christian or not. But I think this whole idea of deconstructing one’s faith is another aspect of a contemporary identity crisis. In fact, as I’ve talked to people who are going through this process, it really is an identity crisis for them. It’s a very painful experience, I think, when people cease to believe what they once believed, and they’re trying to figure out where they stand. It is part of this contemporary issue of identity.
In fact, I would say that the root cause is similar to the root cause of all the identity issues we’ve talked about in this series, and it is the culture of expressive individualism. When a person embraces Christianity as just one more way of identifying themselves in a very personal way, identifying the desires of their hearts and constructing an identity, and that’s all it is, and it can be taken off as easily as it can be put on—the root issue is the same. I would argue that when someone really comes to faith in Christ, when they really are converted, regenerated, born of the Spirit, they are compelled to follow Jesus Christ. You cannot help but be a Christian once you’ve met the risen Jesus.
It is an identity issue. We’ve been talking about these different aspects of identity crisis for about six weeks now; I think I have about two sermons left after this. We began by talking about creation, what it means to be an image bearer of God, created in God’s image; what does it mean to be a human being; we talked about the fall and idolatry and specifically how idols shape and form identity.
In the last several weeks we’ve been talking about Christian identity, how conversion changes us so that we become a new creation in and through Jesus Christ. Last week we looked at several features of Christian identity—what does it mean to be “in Christ”, and who are you in Christ?
Today I want us to talk about maintaining our identity in Christ. Once you claim to be a Christian, once you know something of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, how do you maintain that identity? You might think of this as a sermon on the prevention of apostasy, the prevention of deconstruction.
If you were to think of deconstructing your faith as a ten-step process, this is not a message for somebody at steps eight or nine, but it is a message for people who are at one, two, three, or four; people who maybe are not quite solid and established in their Christianity. What are the things that you can do—under God’s grace, blessed by his Spirit—what are the things that you can do that will help you maintain your identity in Christ and your identity as a Christian?
I think Colossians 3 really speaks to this issue. In fact, I would argue that the whole letter of Colossians in some ways is written to help us maintain our confession of faith. Colossians 1:23 says that “you are reconciled, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel.” Colossians 2 tells us that as we have received Christ Jesus the Lord we are to walk in him, “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.” That’s Paul’s aim. In Colossians 3 he’s giving us a series of commands and exhortations that will help us do just that, continue in the faith and be stable and steadfast in the faith, commands that if we follow will help us maintain our Christian identity. Colossians 3 is something like a field manual for continuing in the faith of the gospel.
So, I want to begin by reading it, Colossians 3:1-17, and then I want to show you five principles for maintaining your faith that I think come right out of this passage. Let’s read it, Colossians 3 beginning in verse 1.
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is 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 what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 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. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
This is God’s word.
I want to point out five crucial practices for living out, maintaining, your identity in Christ. There’s a lot more in the passage than I’ll be able to cover, but these are five summarizing principles or practices that this passage teaches.
1. Set Your Mind on the Person and Work of Christ
It really starts there. It starts with your mindset. You see it in the first four verses, where Paul says, “If you have been raised with Christ,” so he’s arguing from this reality, this experiential reality of having been buried with Christ and raised with Christ, united with Christ in his death and resurrection. He says, “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.” That word “seek” means to look for or aim at something, or to strive for something.
And then in verse 2 he says, “Set your minds on things above,” and that word means not just set your thoughts; it’s broader than that. The word is phreneo. It means to set your whole personality upon something. It means to set your mind and your affections on something, to direct your attention and your thought and the desires of your heart towards something. It’s a broad word that encompasses not just cognitive, mental aspects of our personality but the affectional, volitional aspects of who we are.
So Paul here wants the gaze of our souls to be so steadfastly and intently focused on Christ that knowing him is right at the center of our ambitions, pleasing him is right at the core of our commitments, becoming like him is our heart’s desire. That’s what it means to set your mind on the person and the work of Christ.
Notice how much attention he gives to Christ’s person and work. He talks about being “raised with Christ,” so there’s resurrection. He says also that our lives are “hidden with Christ in God.” He talks about Christ appearing in glory, and “when he appears you will appear with him.” So he’s really drawing from the whole series of events that make up the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, and he’s saying, “Set your mind and your heart on those things,” things that are above, and on Jesus Christ himself.
What Paul wants is our attention to be fixed on Jesus. Attention is a very important thing; we know this in our lives. The things that you focus on shape you, they form you. This is really important in different aspects of life. Let me give you one illustration from athletics.
Most of you know that I like to golf, and one of the things that I’ve learned as I’ve tried to improve in golf is the importance of one’s locus of attention. What do you focus upon when you’re swinging at the ball? One of the things that I’ve learned is that people who play golf, if your head is filled with all kinds of swing thoughts—you’re thinking about your backswing, you’re thinking about keeping your left arm straight, you’re thinking about keeping your head down; all these things the amateur golfers will tell each other to do when they’re out on the course—if your mind is full of all those thoughts, you’re actually not likely to strike the ball very well. It helps, instead, to have an external focus, where you’re thinking about the target, and your brain is calling in the muscle memory to do what the body knows how to do, once you’ve been taught how to hit a golf ball well. What you focus on matters, in other words, and golfers can really get up in their head and mess up because they’re thinking about the wrong things.
The same thing would be true of a runner, someone who’s running a race. What should a runner be looking at when he’s running a race? Should he be looking at his feet? Absolutely not. If he’s looking at his feet he’s going to fall flat on his face; he’s going to trip up. He shouldn’t be looking at his feet, he shouldn’t be looking at other runners in the race. He’s looking straight down that corridor with his eyes down the finish line, right? He’s looking for the goal; he’s looking at the tape. He’s looking at where he’s headed.
Actually, the writer to the Hebrews uses that very picture in Hebrews 12 as an exhortation for us in the Christian life. You remember this? It says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [think of this great grandstand full of witnesses that are watching the race], let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” That has to be our focus; it’s looking unto Jesus; it’s setting our minds and our hearts on Jesus.
That’s how you live the Christian life. It’s not mainly looking at yourself, it’s not mainly looking at your performance, it’s not mainly even thinking about your identity; it’s looking at Christ himself.
One of the most influential pastors in my life is that great 19th-century Scottish pastor Robert Murray M’Cheyne. I’ve quoted this a hundred times, probably, at Redeemer, but I’ll quote it again. M’Cheyne, in a letter counseling a young woman who was very troubled about her sins, troubled about herself, told her, “For every one look at self, take ten looks at Christ.”
That’s really good advice. That’s a key to living the Christian life; it’s a key to maintaining your sense of identity in Christ; it’s to keep your focus not on yourself but on Christ. For every one look at self, take ten looks at Christ. Listen, for every one look at your sins, take ten looks at Christ. For every one look at any other aspect of your identity, take ten looks at Christ. For every one look at your gender or sexuality, take ten looks at Christ. For every one look at your ethnicity or your race, take ten looks at Christ. For every one look at your political party, take ten looks at Christ. Let that translate itself, let that express itself in your conversation, in your behavior, in your social media posts, that Christ gets ten times more focus than anything else about yourself.
If you want to maintain a sense of your identity in Christ, you have to have Christ at the center of your thoughts, your affections, your ambitions, and your desires. Put Christ first. Set your mind or your heart, your soul, on the person and the work of Jesus Christ. That’s first.
2. Put on the Character of Christ
Here’s the second practice: Put on the character of Christ. You see this in verses 5-11. I won’t take time to read all of this again, but what you see in these verses is a vice and virtue list. There’s a long list of sins, vices, that are to be put away. In fact, Paul uses three expressions to tell us what to do with these sins. He says put them to death, put them away, and put them off. Then he also includes a list of virtues, good things that we should have in our lives. He tells us to put those on. In fact, he says, “You have put on the new self,” and then he goes on to exhort us to put on certain kind of behaviors.
I think Paul’s exhortation here shows us several things. It shows us, first of all, that the gospel changes us. If you come to faith in Jesus Christ, if you are united by faith and by the Holy Spirit to Jesus Christ in a saving way, it will change your life. There will be a contrast between the old and the new. In fact, there is that contrast here between the old self. Paul says, “You have put off the old self with its practices and you have put on the new self.” You’ve put off the old man, you put on the new man. Or it might be better translated this way: you’ve put off the old humanity and you’ve put on the new humanity, because the word that Paul uses there, the word anthropos, probably dials into Paul’s broader theology of two men in history who influenced the entire human race. The first man was our first father, Adam. In Adam we all fell. That’s the old humanity. But the new man is Jesus Christ, the second Adam. I think what Paul is saying is that if you are in Christ, you have put off the old humanity, the way you lived in Adam, and you have put on the new humanity, you’ve put on Jesus Christ, and now there is a new way to live.
To some degree, transformed behavior then is an identity marker. It doesn’t mean that you become a Christian by living in a new way; that gets it backwards. It means that if you become a Christian you will therefore live in a new way, because Christ changes you.
You also see here the image of God language in verse 10. He talks about putting on the new self, or the new humanity, which is “being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.” We began this series by saying that a human being is an image bearer of God, but we’ve seen that idols and sin distort that image, mar that image, disfigure that image. But in Christ that image is being renewed. You follow Christ, you discover what it really is to be a human being. He is the key to restoring us to our humanity.
One more thing I want you to notice here. In verse 11 we see that this new identity in Christ relativizes every other social identity marker. Look at verse 11. “Here is not Greek and Jew [those are racial identity markers], circumcised and uncircumcised [religious identity markers], barbarian, Scythian, slave, free [ethnic and ecomonic identity markers].” Paul says in Christ those things are relativized; instead, Christ is all and in all.
Put on the character of Christ, live as a member of the new humanity. Imitate Christ and find Christ your all in all. That’s the second thing.
3. Be Faithful to the Body of Christ
Then number three, and this one’s so important, be faithful to the body of Christ. If you look at verses 12-15, Paul continues with the exhortations. He’s still telling them to put on certain things, but now he’s addressing them in terms of their identity as part of God’s chosen people, and he is exhorting them in terms of their obligations to one another in the body of Christ, in the church. Look at this in verse 12.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience . . .” That’s five things he wants them to put on, and then he tells how these five things will express themselves, how it will get expressed in our relationships. Verse 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.”
Then verse 14, “Above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”
There are a lot of exhortations there, some of the “one another” commands in Scripture. All of this pertains to our social identity; that is, our connection to the people of God, the church, the body of Christ.
We all have a social identity. We all identify ourselves in some way or another with a larger social group. I have a friend named David Dunham who’s been helpful to me with this. He’s done some wonderful teaching on identity, and he defines social identity as “the feelings of personal meaning derived from the group people belong to.” That’s social identity. It has to do with your sense of solidarity with a certain group of people, your connection to a certain group of people, a sense of belonging, being able to say, “These are my people.”
Paul here is appealing to that. He’s saying, “You are God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved! Now therefore, live this way as part of the body of Christ.”
I’ve been reading a short little book on Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was that great Welsh preacher of the 20th century, pastored for 20-something years at Westminster Chapel in London. This book tells the story of when he was a young man, before he became a pastor he was actually a doctor, a medical doctor, a physician. He was at the beginning of a very brilliant career, very successful; he was an incredibly intelligent young man. He was 26 years old, but he had come to faith in Christ, and he was wrestling with God’s call in his life. There was an experience he had that really made a huge difference; it was a turning point for him.
One night he attended a play at the theater with his wife, Bethan. They were in London, kind of in the square, the center of London. They went to the play, and when they were leaving the play Lloyd-Jones noticed that there was a group of people with the Salvation Army who were standing on a corner, they were singing hymns, and they were sharing the gospel with others.
At that moment, it hit him. He thought, “Those are my people.” He was struck with the contrast between the play he had just attended and the gospel work that they were doing.
That’s not to say going to a play is a wrong thing, but you see how he found a sense of who he was, a sense of belonging, with the people of God. It changed his life. He said he never forgot it. It was one of those crucial turning points that led him eventually to give the rest of his life to ministry.
Listen, your connection to the church is an important part of who you are as a Christian. Here’s something I have seen over and over again: when people deconstruct their faith and begin this journey away from Jesus, one of the very first steps they take is to pull away from church. There’s a reason why Hebrews 10 gives us this exhortation: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
You should ask yourself some questions this morning. You should ask, “Who are my people? Who do I belong to?” If you belong to Jesus, then you belong to the people of Christ, you belong to the church, you belong to God’s people. You should stop church shopping and stop church hopping and actually commit yourself long-term to one local church. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Redeemer Church, though I would love it if it would be, but it doesn’t have to be Redeemer Church. You need to find a place and put down some roots.
You have to go deeper than just Sunday morning attendance. Join a small group, build a network of friends, and start living out these “one anothers” with others in the body of Christ. And you know, part of what that means is that you put up with people’s stuff, you put up with people’s junk. That’s what it means, right? You put up with everything that people throw at you. Listen, the church isn’t perfect! This church isn’t perfect. Christians are going to disappoint you; I’m going to disappoint you, I can pretty much guarantee it. What are you going to do about it? What Paul says to do is “bear with one another in love,” and when people sin against you, you forgive them. That’s what he says, “As Christ has forgive you, so you also must forgive one another.”
Did you realize that you can’t even obey that command until somebody has sinned against you, until your feelings get hurt, until you get ticked off, until your preferences aren’t met? At that point, most people are like, “Okay, I’m not going to that church anymore. Burn that bridge and move on.” But if you do that you’re going directly against the kind of pastoral counsel that Paul gives about how we are to treat one another in the body of Christ.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying there’s never a good reason to leave a church. I’m not saying that, but I’m saying we need to check ourselves against the consumeristic mentality of expressive individualism that’s always looking to have a certain list of criteria met in our preferences for a church. We need to push against that and instead we need to dig some roots and get plugged in and actually start doing the hard work of loving the body of Christ.
It’s part of what it means to be a Jesus-follower, and it’s part of maintaining our identity in Christ, because when you start having good, deep friendships who love you, who care for you, and they care for you through the ups and downs, through the thick and thin, through your best and through your worst. You have people who can come after you when you start to drift a little bit. They can recall you to your true identity in Christ. We need that. So be faithful to the body of Christ.
4. Be Filled with the Word of Christ
Then number four, the fourth practice is, be filled with the word of Christ. You see it in verse 16. It says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
“Let the word of Christ—” literally, the message of Christ. I think what Paul means here is the gospel. Let the gospel dwell in you richly. Be filled up by the gospel of Christ. He’s writing to a group of people, so of course it means that individually and personally the gospel, the word of Christ should fill our hearts; but it means that as a church, the gospel should dwell richly in our church.
You see that in what follows: “. . . teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms with thankfulness in your hearts” to the Lord. What is that? That’s worship; that’s corporate worship. So let the word of Christ dwell richly in your corporate worship.
I think this keys us into something that’s also really important for maintaining Christian identity: it’s the practices of the Christian life that help form and shape us and confirm us in our identity.
There’s a great book by Brian Rosner that I’ve found very helpful in this series; it’s called Known by God: A Biblical Theology of Personal Identity. Brian Rosner says this: “The basic disciplines of the Christian life are undertaken for a number of reasons. We pray, read the Bible, take communion, and so on to commune with God and to know him better, to align ourselves with what he is doing in the world, to please and obey him, to be built up in our faith, to serve and encourage others, and so on. However, a neglected function of such activities is self-knowledge. Establishing our identity is not the sole or main aim of these disciplines, but as it turns out, many of the regular activities of the Christian life also serve to confirm our true identity.”
Once again, these practices become very helpful means of helping us maintain our identity in Christ. He lists eight of them.
(1) First of all, get baptized. What is that? What is baptism? It is a sacrament of the church in which someone identifies themselves with Christ—his death, his burial, his resurrection. We had a baptism Sunday last week in the 9 a.m. service, where Toby Eby was baptized. What was he doing? He was confessing his faith in Christ. He was saying, “When Jesus died, he died for me; when he was buried, I was buried with him; and I’ve been raised in him to walk in newness of life.” That’s what baptism is. It is a declaration of one’s new identity in Christ.
(2) Attend family gatherings. Now, we know family gatherings are important. Just think about your own family. In our household, we have four kids, including some teenagers, so we’re pulled in all different kinds of directions all the time. I mean, everybody’s busy doing things. But we still try really hard to maintain some family nights, some family meals, some times when we’re all there together, because we don’t want to lose that sense of who we are as the Hedges household. That’s important for us to spend time together, for everybody to present. That’s crucial. We need those family gatherings. Healthy, functional families like to be together, they want to be together, they need to be together.
That is true in the body of Christ. On Sunday morning, it’s not just a ritualistic, ceremonial service that we go through. This is a family gathering, where we are coming together to remind ourselves of who we are in Christ.
(3) Read and hear the Bible. What is the Bible? It is, of course, God’s word. The Bible does many things, but among the things that the Bible does is it tells us who we are. In fact, I like the way Rosner puts it. He says, “The Bible tells us who we are and who we aren’t.” It tells us both who we are and who we aren’t. You see it in this passage. “You are God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.” That’s who you are. He also alludes to who we once were but are no longer. He talks about the practices we “used to do,” and he says the wrath of God is coming on those things. You used to do those, part of the old; but now you’re part of the new. We need the Scriptures to remind us of this—who we are, who we aren’t. We need the Bible to keep reorienting us to our identity in Christ.
(4) Prayer. Pray to your heavenly Father, especially the Lord’s Prayer, which we’re going to pray after communion this morning. What does the Lord’s Prayer do? Well, it orients us to God as our Father as well as to the family to which we belong. It’s not “my Father” who is in heaven, it is “our Father” who is in heaven. You can’t pray the Lord’s Prayer without positioning yourself as a member of the family, a member of the community.
It aligns our priorities with those of God and his kingdom. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. [May your name be holy!] Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
(5) Here’s another one: sing the faith. Do you know how important songs are? Just think about national anthems and how important national anthems are. I love that scene from the old movie Casablanca. If you’ve ever seen it, you’ll remember the scene where it’s in Rick’s Cafe, and of course this takes place during World War II, so it’s the Nazis against the French resistance, and the Nazis start singing their anthem in Rick’s Cafe. People are uncomfortable, and Victor Laza is the great leader of the French underground resistance movement, and he comes to the band and he tells them to play the French national anthem, and they start playing, and the cafe just comes alive, because everybody sings, and they outsing the Nazis. What are they doing? They are reminding themselves of their identity. It’s an act of resistance against the tyranny.
What do we do when we gather to worship on Sunday morning, when we sing our faith, when we sing the gospel? Of course, we’re worshiping God, but Paul says here we’re also admonishing one another through these psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. What are we admonishing one another about? We’re reminding one another through song of who we are in Christ.
(6) Number six, say the creed. Again, the creed is a reminder of our basic beliefs and how we fit into the Christian story.
(7) Taking communion is another sacrament of the church that establishes and confirms and preserves our identity as the body of Christ, the people of Christ.
(8) Then finally, live the gospel, which is a practice that encompasses all of life. Paul tells us in Philippians 1:27 to “live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” These practices help us maintain and confirm our identity.
5. Live for the Name of Christ
That leads to the fifth and final point this morning, live for the name of Christ. Look at verse 17. Paul says, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
What does it mean to live in the name of the Lord Jesus? Channeling Spurgeon a little bit here, it means that we do everything through the name of Christ as our mediator, our priest, one who reconciles us to God. It means that we do everything under the authority of the Lord Jesus as our king. It means that we do everything following the example of Christ as our Lord, that we do everything to the glory of Jesus as our God, and that we do everything in the strength of Jesus as our helper. That’s to live in the name of Christ.
You take this verse apart—this would be a good one for meditating on this week. “Whatever you do, in word,” do it for the name of Christ. In word. In your conversation, your words should be spoken in the name of Christ; your small talk around the water cooler or on your lunch break; your use of humor and the jokes that you tell; the way you negotiate conflicts at work or at home; the manner in which you parent your children or work out a difference with your spouse or respond to your parents or to your siblings. The way in which you share your faith; the words you post on Facebook or Twitter; do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. “Whatever you do, in word . . .”
Whatever you do in deed—your actions at work, at school, at home, at play, at church. Your professional life, vocational life, the way you conduct yourself; but also your private life, your home life. All these aspects of our lives—Paul says, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Here’s a diagnostic question for you. This is one that I think would convict all of us; I find it convicting. Can you give thanks to God in and for every activity of your life? I mean, just think about it for a minute. Think about the activities of the last week. Examine it, and say, “Can I give thanks to God for that hour that I spent scrolling through Facebook? That movie or TV show that I watched? That conversation I had, the way I spoke about somebody else? That use of my time? Can I give thanks to God for that?” All of us probably have repenting to do when we examine our words and our actions in that light.
But that’s the call, isn’t it? That’s what Paul says. He says, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” In other words, we are to live in such a way that honoring Christ is always our ambition, it’s always our goal, it’s always the call. That’s always the call in our lives, to live for his name, for his glory.
It’s a high calling, brothers and sisters, the things we’ve looked at this morning. Set your mind on the person and work of Christ, imitate his character, put on his character, be faithful to his people, be filled with his word (the word of Christ, the gospel), and live for the glory of his name. None of us do it perfectly, but I believe that if we will learn to live this way it will prevent us from apostasy, it will prevent us from walking away from Christ, it will help us to maintain our unity, our identity, a sense of who we are as followers of Jesus Christ. That’s the call. Let’s pray together.
Father, we’ve covered a lot this morning, but I pray that your Spirit would take one or two things specifically and apply them deeply to each and every one of our hearts, that we would examine ourselves in light of your word, that we would see this way of life that Paul has laid out for us in this passage, and that we would devote ourselves afresh to following the Lord Jesus Christ. We confess our need for your grace, and we gladly acknowledge that you are a good and gracious God, and that as we come to you we come to a gracious Father, we come to a throne of grace. So hear our prayers, we pray.
As we come to the Lord’s table, may this be a means of grace for us, to establish and confirm us in our Christian identity this morning. May it remind us of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, and as surely as the bread and the juice nourish our bodies, may our hearts and our lives be nourished by the life and the strength and the grace of Jesus Christ. So draw near to us in these moments, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
