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Claiming our Riches in Christ: The Book of Colossians

01/26/2003 - Do You Know Who You Are?, Colossians 1:9-14

One of the greatest films of all time is the Wizard of Oz.  It's one of my favorites.  Released back in 1939 by MGM studios it was nominated for six Academy Awards and quickly went on to become a classic.  It's one of the most watched movies of all time.

Most of you know the story about Dorothy, a farm girl from Kansas, who travels by tornado to a magical land called Oz, a place inhabited by Munchkins and fairies and witches and talking trees and flying monkeys. It's an enchanted world, but Dorothy doesn't really care about all those things, instead all she wants to do is to go home, go back to Kansas.  And a good fairy named, Glinda, tells her that she can if she follows the Yellow Brick Road and seeks the help of the powerful Wizard of Oz who lives in the beautiful Emerald City.

And in her travels Dorothy meets a trinity of characters and they become her friends, the scarecrow, the tin man, and the lion each with their own dreams of finding a cure for their problems from the all-wise Wizard.  But all the while they're pursued by the Wicked Witch of the West, whom eventually captures Dorothy and takes her into her kingdom of darkness.

And in a chilling scene the witch locks Dorothy in a room, turns over an hourglass and Dorothy begins to watch her life drain right before her eyes. Everything looks hopeless until the scarecrow and the tin man and the lion dress up like soldiers, enter the kingdom of darkness and rescue Dorothy from the hands of the wicked witch. And from there they take her to the Emerald City, to the kingdom of light, where she meets the Wizard and eventually finds her way back home to Kansas clicking the ruby slippers and saying, "There's no place like home.  There's no place like home!"

It's a dramatic story with a happy ending, the wicked witch is destroyed, Dorothy's rescued from the kingdom of darkness, taken into the kingdom of light and finally ends up back home.  It's the way we all want life to turn out.  And it will some day for those of us who are "in Christ." Because that's what Jesus has done for us.  He dressed up like a servant, invaded the kingdom of darkness, rescued us from the wicked witch, brought us into the kingdom of light and will soon take us back home.  And one day the evil one, the wicked witch of this world, will be destroyed forever.

How do I know all that?  Because the apostle Paul tells us that in the little letter that we're going to look at today.  This morning we continue our series in the book of Colossians called Claiming our Riches in Christ .  I hope you're going to immerse yourself in Colossians over the next few months. Read it and re-read it, maybe even memorize portions of it. Because if you do, you're going discover how rich you really are in Christ and that's going to change the way you live life.  It's going to inject joy into your life!

Last week we began the series by saying that Paul never visited the city of Colosse.  The church was started by a man named Epaphras, who most likely came to know Christ while Paul was preaching in Ephesus, 100 miles west.  And now Paul is in prison in Rome and the Colossians have sent Epaphras on a thousand mile journey to encourage Paul with a love gift. And when he arrives he sits down with the apostle and tells him all about the church in Colosse.  And it brings tears to Paul's eyes and reminds him that God is working in ways that are beyond what he could ever ask or imagine.

So Paul launches into a prayer of thanksgiving for the Colossian church and last week we looked at the things he was most thankful for. He thanked God for their faith in Christ Jesus, for their love for one another and for their hope of heaven. And we said those are the marks of a strong church. That's what we want Valley View to be.  That's the target on the wall for us.  It has nothing to do with church size, the church in Colosse met in a home.  It has nothing to do with buildings and budgets and staff. It has everything to do with the depth of our faith and the strength of our love and the reality of our hope. Strong churches are full of Christ followers who have strong character.

Paul continues his prayer in verse 9.  If you have your Bible turn to Colossians 1:9-14, the verses we are going to look at today. For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Let's stop right there.  Whenever I read the prayers of the apostle Paul, and they're found in the beginning of most of his letters, I feel rebuked in my own prayer life. Not only does he pray so consistently, but he prays with such depth. My prayers for other people are often so shallow and driven by circumstances.  If someone's sick, I'll pray that they get better.  If someone's out of work, I'll pray that they find a job. If someone's lonely, I'll pray that they find a friend. If someone's taking a test, I'll pray that they get an "A." When I pray for people I often pray that their problems will get solved and that the path of life will be smooth.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that.  God wants us to pray the desires of our heart. But that's just Prayer 101.  There are much deeper levels of prayer, graduate levels of prayer, and that's when we pray for a person's character to be developed and for them to get to know God better and understand the depth of his amazing love for them in the midst of the difficulties they're in. Praying not just for an end to the problems, but praying for them to find God faithful through the problems. That's Prayer 201 and Prayer 301. Those are the things that consume the prayers of the apostle Paul.

Here he's praying that they would be filled with the knowledge of God's will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.  The will of God Paul is talking about here is not, "Should I marry this person or that person?  Should I take this job or that job?  Should I stay in this house or move somewhere else? Should I go to this college or that college or not go to college at all?"  Those are the kinds of things that come to my mind when I think about the will of God. And those are all valid prayers and God wants us to seek him for those decisions.  But they're all about what we do and not about who we are. And God is much more interested in who we are than in what we do, in our integrity than in our itinerary.

So Paul is praying that they would have spiritual intelligence, that they would have the wisdom to see life the way God sees life and then the understanding to apply that wisdom to real life situations.  Parents when you pray for your kids pray that God will give them spiritual intelligence. When you pray for your spouse pray that he or she will see life the way God sees life.  When you pray for those in your small group or others that you know pray that they will apply God's wisdom to the real life situations they're facing. Let's go deeper in our prayers for one another. Pray those kinds of prayers for yourself too. God loves to hear them and answer them.  And as we pray that way then we will live a life worthy of the Lord.

Look at verse 10,And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father

Paul knows life is hard.  Some people think that the moment you become a Christian your life's going to get easier.  All your problems will be solved.  God wants you to be healthy, wealthy and wise all the time. But that's not the case.  Life is hard for everybody.  I had a hard week this week.  Some pretty intense talks with my wife and others that I love, some difficult things going in the church right now, a son who was home sick and out of school all week.  I didn't sleep real well.  It was a rough week and I didn't even get my PECO bill yet.  I can't wait to see that! Life is hard.  But as a believer we now have the resources to deal with life head on.  We don't have to run and hide behind some kind of numbing addiction to alcohol or drugs or sex or pornography or work. We don't have to live life in denial. We can face life with the strength of God's power that gives us great endurance, patience and joy.

The word "endurance" is the ability to deal triumphantly with anything that life throws at us.  Are you being hit hard with something right now?  The word "patience" is the ability to put up with difficult people.  Do you have any difficult people in your life that you have to put up with? Paul prays for the endurance that no situation can defeat and for the patience that no person can defeat.  So that we can live life not by just gritting our teeth and gutting it out, not with a martyr's mentality and a "poor me" attitude, but with joy. We have the power inside to do that. Don't give any situation or any person the power to steal your joy.

How can we live that way?  Only by understanding who we really are and what we really have in Christ. Do you know who you are?  Do you know what you have in Christ?  That's what Paul says we joyfully give thanks for. Look at verses 12-14, joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

That's a mouthful of theology.   But when we unpack those verses we see three things that describe who we really are in Christ.  We have a share in God's inheritance.  We are citizens of a new kingdom.  We have been redeemed from spiritual bondage.

When the apostle Paul became a Christ follower, literally knocked off his horse and dramatically converted while he was on his way to kill Christians in Damascus, he was given a commission by God that contains these great themes.

In Acts 26:15-18, while Paul is telling his story to King Agrippa he says, Then I asked, "Who are you, Lord?"  "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting ... Now get up and stand on your feet.  I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you.  I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me."

So in this letter Paul is doing exactly what God commissioned him to do when he was rescued.  He's opening our eyes to what is really true about us.  And that is that we can live life with joy because we have a share in God's inheritance.  In Bible times an inheritance was the estate that a father passed on to his son. And if he had more than one son, the firstborn always got twice as much as the other boys in the family.  But you had to be in the family to get an inheritance. A father couldn't pass on an inheritance to a son that wasn't his.  And that inheritance meant financial security for the sons.  It gave them a head start in life.

As believers in Christ we have been adopted into God's family, we are now his sons and daughter.  Last week, Jennifer's sister and husband officially adopted a five year-old boy. And Jennifer and Avery were in the courtroom when the final decision was made.  It was a joyous day and the end of lengthy process that brought this adorable little boy out of a dark world of neglect and abuse into a whole new world of love and light. His life was totally transformed. And he will one day have an inheritance in that family.

And God our heavenly Father, Paul says, has passed on his inheritance to us because we're in his family now.  But it's not found in the stuff of this world, which isn't secure. The most permanent inheritance on earth is still only temporary. It's found in the riches of heaven.

Someday all that belongs to God the Father, and that's everything, will be ours. And that will make us far richer than Jack Whitaker, the powerball winner, or Bill Gates, or Ted Turner, or any sheik living in Saudi Arabia. We are rich in Christ.  We have an inheritance waiting for us that nothing can destroy. And we can't be disinherited because in God's eyes our sin has been completely removed from us and God sees us as perfect sons and daughters.  Our riches are waiting for us.  We are all future millionaires in the best sense of the word. That should give us joy.  That is something to be thankful for!

We are citizens of a new kingdom. When we were born into this world the Bible says we were born into the kingdom of darkness under the authority of Satan the god of this world. And his kingdom is under God's judgment. It won't last forever.  But Jesus Christ has taken us out of that kingdom, terminated our citizenship in that kingdom, and translated us into a new kingdom under a new King who is coming back to take us home.

Paul puts it this way in Philippians 3:20, But our citizenship is in heaven.  And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our heavenly citizenship doesn't begin when we die, we're citizens of heaven right now. That's our real home.  We're just passing through this world on a visa. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we've been rescued out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the Emerald City and one day we're going to be home, but it won't Kansas anymore! It'll be heaven!

My mother and her parents were all born in Germany and were citizens of that country until they came to America back in the early 1920's.  They went through Ellis Island in New York City and eventually became citizens of the United States of America.  And when they did they were no longer obligated to the nation of Germany. They couldn't be taxed by Germany, drafted by Germany, or forced to obey German law.  The President of Germany had absolutely no power over them anymore. Why?  Because their citizenship had been changed!

When we were born physically, the Bible says, we were born into Satan's kingdom of darkness. We had no choice but to obey him. We were under his authority.  But when we were born spiritually, through faith in Christ, we became citizens of the kingdom of light, no longer under Satan's authority. We don't need to listen to him anymore. He has no more power over us.  That should give us joy.  That is something to be thankful for!

We have been redeemed from spiritual bondage.  Redemption in the Bible always means liberation from bondage. The most vivid illustration is the liberation of 2.5 million slaves from bondage in Egypt.  In that case the redeemer was Moses who redeemed them by the blood of the Passover lamb that was placed over the door of every Israelite home. The Exodus was the night of their redemption. And on that night the slaves left the land of bondage, crossed over the parted Red Sea, and became pilgrims on their way to a new land, the Promised Land, where they would be free.

Satan is the Pharaoh, the slave owner over all those who are in his kingdom of darkness. They have no choice but to serve him. But Christ came to redeem us, to liberate us, to rescue us, from spiritual slavery.  And like the Exodus there was a price to be paid.  For them it was the blood of the Passover lamb. But for us it was the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  It was Christ's own blood that liberated us.  That should give us joy.  That is something to be thankful for!

Paul ends this glorious section by saying that forgiveness of sins is part of our redemption. The root idea behind forgiveness is "to separate or remove." So that when God looks at us he no longer sees our sin. It has been removed, separated from us forever.

The image here is that of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most sacred day on the Jewish calendar. It was the day when the high priest of Israel would enter the most sacred place in the Jewish temple, called the holy of holies, and he would take the blood of a goat and put it on the mercy seat. The mercy seat was like the altar, under which was the Jewish Law which the nation had broken.  And the blood was sprinkled over the law so that when God looked at the broken law he saw it through the blood.  This is described in great detail in Leviticus 16.

After that the high priest took the second goat, placed both hands on its head, and confessed Israel's sins, symbolically transferring them to the goat. Then the goat was given to a trusted man who took it way out into the desert, to a solitary place, so far away that it could never find it's way back.  That goat was called the scapegoat and symbolized that the sins of the people had been removed, separated from them, forgiven for another year.

But that process had to be repeated year after year after year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, until Christ died, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. So now, when we trust Christ as your Savior our sin is removed from us once and for all, forever.  So that when God see us, he sees us through the blood of his Son. That should give us joy.  That is something to be thankful for!

These are all powerful images that God has given to us through the apostle Paul to give us endurance in difficult circumstance, patience with difficult people, and joy in living life.  This is not dry theology meant for a seminary classroom. This is dynamic truth that was meant to change our lives at the core of our being.  God wants all of us to understand who we really are in Christ and believe it so that we will walk worthy of the Lord and please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.