Cultivate the New Self
Teresa and I are terrible gardeners. When you buy a plant from the store and bring it home, you are expecting to have it grow and produce whatever fruit it is intended to produce. A rosebush should produce roses, a tomato plant should grow tomatoes, etc. What they should not do is wither up and die in the pot. But that is what seems like happens to most plants that we touch.
Fortunately, I have parents that could turn a desert into an oasis. They pull twigs off of other plants and make them grow. It is some kind of magic that I have not learned.
Similarly, we as Christians are a new Creation, we are planted in Christ and we should bear fruit. Jesus is our gardener and through Paul he has shown us what our fruit should look like and he has given us the tools that we need to cultivate this fruit in our lives.
So today as we look at Colossians 3:11-17, we are going to see how we should live now that we are free of the Old Man that we learned how to take care of last week. Paul is going to lay out these new clothes that we should Put on in Christ and then he is going to close out by giving us 5 ways to continue to cultivate this new growth so the Old Man doesn’t creep back in and make us wither in our pots.
New Creation (11-12)
Let’s look at the first few verses together, Colossians 3:11-12a, “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…”
The first word, Here, gives us a question that we have to ask before we can move forward. Where is here? Does Paul mean in Florida? In America? In Colossae? In Israel? In the First Century? What about the 21st? No.
We can understand it if we just look at verse 10. It says that we have put on the new self. We took off those old filthy rags and we’ve put on a new self that is being renewed everyday into the image of the one who made it. Whose image is this? Jesus. This is just a visual picture that Paul is using to show one of his favorite ways to describe being a Christian. In Christ.
New Community
As believers, we have a new address. We are in Christ. So Paul says, Here (In Christ) there is no more division. The thing that separates us is sin and all of its power was taken away at the cross. We died to it there. The only power it has now is the power that you give it. Sadly, even the best of us has to struggle with not giving the flesh any power on a daily basis but instead choosing to live in the reality of our new creation in Christ.
Do you imagine that you are going to struggle with sin in heaven? Of course not right? We’ll be too busy playing our cloud harps and grooming our new wings. Just kidding. But most people imagine that things will be different in heaven.
In that picture of Heaven that John gives us in Revelation 21:1-4 this is how he describes it, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
What a beautiful picture of God making all things new. Finally and perfectly new. God himself will dwell with us and there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain. He will wipe the tears from our eyes as our comfort and rest. There is a little statement in there that has thrown some literal interpreters for a loop. John says, “The sea was no more.” What does he mean by this? No fishing in heaven? No long walks on the beach? No splashing in the water? No.
Remember where John is when he is writing Revelation. According to Tertullian, the Romans dropped John in a vat of boiling hot oil and nothing happened to him. He said that everyone watching at the Coliseum in Rome got saved that day and it freaked out the emperor so much that he had him exiled to the Isle of Patmos to die in isolation.
So for John, the sea means separation from all of his loved ones. From the churches that he loves and is writing to. He says, that in this new heaven and new earth there won’t be any separation. Whenever the Bible talks about death, it is talking about separation as well. That will be the big difference in heaven. We will be fully and completely separated from our old sin natures and we will be surrounded and permeated with God.
Paul gives us a glimpse of this here and now when he says, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” In Christ, we get to experience the beginning of this great heavenly kingdom here on Earth.
Just look at the walls that are torn down in Christ. Racial, religious, societal, cultural, ritual differences are lost in Christ. I’ve heard some teach that this means that we will all become some difference holy race when we get to heaven. I don’t see that anywhere in the Bible though.
In fact, we see just the opposite, Revelation 7:9, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands...” This is not a sea of newly vanilla people, there is beauty in their diversity but they have an even more beautiful unity in the fact that they wear white robes. They wear the holiness of Christ which covers them all and permeates them all.
I was really tempted to just camp out here and spend a whole week talking about how Jesus should do away with separation and how we as believers should be the most inclusive people on the planet. But I’ll let you do that study on your own for now. Paul is saying that because we are new creations in Christ, we should have unity in Christ despite all of the worldly things which might separate us. Jesus is our all in all. We come together in Jesus shaped communities and the next verses are showing us what they should look like.
New Identity
Moving on, Paul says, “Put on then…” and he’s about to get into the description of this new wardrobe and the fruit that we should be yielding, but he takes just a moment to make sure you understand where these new digs come from.
If I looked hard enough, I could probably go outside right now and find a caterpillar. Now you tell me, if I take that caterpillar and tape some beautiful wings on its back, what is it? It’s still a caterpillar right? It has not gone through the metamorphosis in which it is changed into a butterfly. And no amount of my poking and prodding and dressing it up will bring about that metamorphosis. That is God’s doing.
If you are a child of the king today, you have gone through an amazing metamorphosis just like that butterfly. But if you have not received Jesus then you are still a caterpillar and no amount of working and fretting and poking and prodding and playing dress up is going to change you. That is God’s doing.
Paul eloquently and elegantly describes your new identity in Christ, and if you want to memorize any part of today’s passage make it this. The steps that we will look at in a few minutes mean nothing if this isn’t true. So learn this statement. Hear Jesus speaking it over you, and believe it as true for you. “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved…” Let’s look at it a little closer.
God’s Chosen
First word is “God’s.” That is a possessive. You are a people of God’s own possession. We see that statement all through the book of Deuteronomy (7:6, 14:2, 26:18) referring to the people of Israel. But then in Titus 2:14, and 1 Peter 2:9 we see that in Christ we have become God’s people. And this isn’t because we are so great and wonderful.
The second word communicates that. We are chosen. Now when we choose things we pick differently than God does. Imagine if we were playing dodgeball and we needed to pick teams, someone would be first and someone would be last and it would be based upon who we think could help us win.
But God is not concerned with winning because he is almighty and no one can stand against him. There is no question in God’s mind of this. The factor in God’s consideration is his glory. Are people going to love and praise him at the end of the game. Therefore, when God picks teams he picks the weakest links among us so that when he wins there can be no question that the team didn’t win, God did.
This would be horrible and arrogant behavior to teach your kids, but it is completely appropriate in God because it is all true and he can back it all up. Let’s see this when God says that he is going to make Israel a people for his own possession in Deuteronomy 7:6-8, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers...”
Paul says the same thing to believers in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
So don’t get a big head about being chosen. You might not understand why. Most of the time I don’t understand why Teresa decided to marry me and I’m not going to waste my time trying to figure out why, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that she loves me and chose me.
Holy
Not only are we God’s Chosen ones, we are Holy. If this one doesn’t feel quite right, you are in good shape. That is God working on you to make you in practice what you already are in reality. You will be completely and utterly sinless and perfect and this starts today with the blood of Jesus. It purifies us from our sins so we can stand before God in pure holiness.
But the other part of holiness is our usefulness for God. The simple definition of Holiness is set apart. Things that are holy are different and are set aside, usually by God, for God’s purposes. If we go back to the beginning, in Genesis, the first time the word holy is used in the Bible it is saying that the seventh day of the week is holy because God set it aside for his rest after creation and we are told to keep the Sabbath holy.
Later in Exodus, we see God speaking to Moses from a bush that is on fire but isn’t consumed, He tells Moses to take off his shoes because the place where he was standing was holy ground. Was there some kind of special dirt there that God liked more than other dirt? No, it was holy because it was being used by God.
So being holy goes hand in hand with being chosen. God has us set apart for his service. So if you have this thought that being a Christian is just about saying a prayer then living however you want to until you die and go to heaven, you don’t have a clue. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
Beloved
Finally, lest you start to feel like a tool in a toolbox, you aren’t just chosen by God and set apart for service to him, but you are also Beloved.
You are infinitely loved by God. For you ladies, this is your husband God saying with great affection that he has chosen you, and you are special and unique and sacred to him because he loves you. And for us guys, this is your Father saying I love you.
Not everyone grows up hearing that all the time. Some have never heard the voice of their father whispering over them telling them that they are special and that he has special plans for them and that he loves them. And that he has chosen them over all the other things that he could choose: Not a late night at the office, not a few more hours of overtime to make more money, not another tv show or movie or sporting event, not substance abuse, not sexual promiscuity, but you. God, your Father, says I chose you, you are my special child, and I love you.
This is Paul making sure that you know your identity in Christ so it will transform your activity. You are not forgotten, discarded, worthless, dirty, useless. You are God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.
Now from that root, here is the fruit.
New Character (12-15)
Colossians 3:12-15, “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.”
There’s a lot going on here, but the way that I see it, Paul isn’t just shouting out virtues scattershot. I think that he gives 5 traits of healthy relationships then 4 traits of healthy Christians. Let’s see it.
If we just boil down this list to 9 Traits I think it gets clearer.
Healthy Relationships
These relationship traits can be used with anyone whether they are outsiders or in the Church. I’d like to look just briefly at how we see Jesus, our great exemplary older brother, putting these relationship and character traits into action in his ministry and life. And as we go through them, look at how many are completely counter-cultural and would not be considered beneficial in today’s society.
Compassionate hearts: Or as the KJV calls it, Bowels of Mercy. This is just simply caring about other people and their needs. Jesus was full of compassion and mercy. Matthew 9:36, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
Kindness: The root of kindness is treating others with respect. Even when they don’t deserve it. We have been taught that we better go for the jugular anytime we can because if we don’t strike first, they’re probably just going to stab us in the back later. However, think about Jesus’ dealings with sinners like the woman caught in adultery. He looked at her with kindness and compassion and forced her accusers to see her as more than a tool to trick him or an object to destroy. It is for this reason, that Paul says that it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. When we see that God is kind to us in spite of our sin, it makes us want to be better.
Humility: This is one that we just don’t even try for in Western society. Instead, we value the opposite, pride. The Bible teaches that pride is a nefarious evil while humility is what Jesus did in coming to be our sacrifice. Philippians 2:8, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Humility is knowing your place and being satisfied with it not acting as though you are better than others. Not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought. The janitor in a company is humble in their position when they know that they play an important part in helping the company run. However, that janitor doesn’t belong in the board meeting sitting at the CEO’s seat.
Meekness: We often mix up meekness with weakness or letting people walk all over you. That’s not right. Jesus was meek. Actually meekness plays itself out as the opposite of our last example. It is the appropriate behavior of the CEO in that company. He has great power and authority and he could rule with an iron fist and make everyone underneath him miserable. But he understands that while he might be in a higher position than the janitor, it does not make him more important or more valuable than the janitor. Meekness has a lot to do with wisdom. It’s knowing when to listen and when to speak, it’s knowing when to be strong and when to be tender. It is understanding that the authority given to you by God is a gift. We could use a healthy dose of meekness in our day and age.
Patience: We all know what patience is, but Paul throws in a little definition for us when he says, “bearing with one another.” We are patient with others because God is abundantly patient with us. Paul put it this way in 1 Timothy 1:15-16, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” Jesus is perfectly patient with us as we struggle with our sin and wrestle with his call on our lives. I get impatient when someone is driving 60 when the speed limit is 60.
We all have room for improvement in these areas, and they are the safety net which we should be working above. I’m a truth guy. I love to study and read dead guys, but if my passion for the truth comes before the people that I’m in relationship with then things are out of whack.
In our three word motto: Jesus. Grace. Truth. Grace not only means God’s grace towards us in salvation, but our grace towards others. Our relationships should be filled with grace. These 5 things make up relationships of grace. Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
If we don’t have these kinds of relationships then we can never effectively get to the truth part of our motto. These gracious relationships are the safety net above which we do everything. If we have a disagreement about a point of doctrine, it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong if we are being nasty and contentious and prideful with each other.
Our society has created this idea of “safe spaces” on college campuses where there is no conflict, criticism, or actions, ideas, and conversations that could be perceived as threatening. Our churches should be the ultimate safe spaces not because there is no conflict but because we have rich relationships filled with grace to catch us when we fall.
I have to be careful with this because there have been some churches that have taken this too far and have harbored and hidden criminals. In the wake of sexual scandals in the Catholic and Southern Baptist Churches we must say that we will not allow our desire for gracious relationships to trump the law. In fact, the most gracious thing that we can do for the victims and the perpetrators is to bring them to justice.
Alright, I know that I am wearing on some of your patience now. You are struggling with that character trait right now. So let’s move on to these last 4 traits which are not played out so much in relationships with others but within our hearts and lives as believers as we look at how to be healthy Christians.
Healthy Christians
Forgiving: You could say that this one is a bridge from relationships into the heart. This is what Paul says, “if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” So let’s play this out. Healthy relationships will not be free of conflict this side of heaven. Many times there is a clear sinful action on some person’s part which brought about the conflict, but often there is a mix of sin on both sides. The relationship aspect of this means that when you have a complaint against someone that you bring it to them and seek appropriate reconciliation.
Sometimes, reconciliation will not be possible for various reasons including the attitude of the offender, the depth of the betrayal, and the pattern of offense. I want you to see that there is a massive difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. If someone harmed one of my children, I would be furious and I would seek justice for that wrong that was committed, and I would probably not be inviting that person over for pot roast. Reconciliation may come further down the line at some point by the grace of God.
However, forgiveness is the attitude of my heart towards that person. When I have been hurt, I can choose to cling to the hurt and allow it to fester and rot inside me or I can forgive and experience that freedom.
Loving: Next, Paul says, “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Love is the heart attitude from which all of the Relational attributes spring forward. We’ll never have relationships marked with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience if we don’t have hearts of love.
Jesus boiled all of the commandments down to love. Love for God and love for people. That includes love for our enemies and those who hurt us. It should be clear and it bears repeating that this is not something that we do of our own strength. This heart of love is the fruit that springs forth from the new creation that we are in Christ.
Peaceful: Next attribute of a healthy Christian heart is peace. Paul says it this way, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.” That word for rule is only used here in the Greek and it is the role of an arbitrator or umpire. So we could translate this, Let the peace of God act as referee in your emotions and your decisions.
Do you ever feel emotionally conflicted like everything is warring inside you? Imagine peace. The peace which passes all understanding acting as the umpire in your heart? When the oceans rage within you, your new creation should spring forth peace in your heart like Jesus commanding the waves, peace be still. This is a wonderful and precious gift.
Thankful: Finally, Paul says, “and be thankful.” This isn’t just an afterthought that Paul threw in. It wraps up the whole package because without God none of this is possible. As Christians, our hearts should be overflowing with thanksgiving because we deserve none of what we have. We deserve judgement and condemnation but God is rich in mercy and has clothed us in righteousness and calls us his children. I don’t care if you are the richest man in the world or a beggar on the street. If you are a new creation in Christ you have reason to be thankful in your heart and that thankfulness will spill out in our relationships and help us to be compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient.
Five Tools to Cultivate the New (16-17)
So Paul showed us who we are as a new creation in a new community with a new character that reveals itself in healthy relationships springing from healthy hearts. Now here in conclusion, he finishes this section by giving us five tools that we can use in our garden to root out the weeds of the flesh and cultivate this new character. Paul knows I’m not a very good gardener, so he is making sure that I have the right tools and fertilizer to help me grow.
Scripture Memorization: Paul starts by saying, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” How do we do this? It’s pretty simple, we have to read the Bible and let it read us. That means internalizing it.
I encourage everyone to be on a Bible reading plan where you march through large sections of the Bible to get an overview picture of all of scripture, however, if you are taking all of your time of Bible Study in this cursory glance, then I would encourage you to drop a day of the week from your high level reading and instead dive deeply into a book like one of the gospels or one of Paul’s letters and go slowly with it and commit sections of scripture to memory. In this way, the word of Christ can literally dwell in you and it will enrich your soil.
Wise Teaching: Next Paul says, “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.” Notice that Paul doesn’t say listening to good sermons. Rather he instructs us to teach and admonish each other and that guidance and warning should come from wisdom.
If all we are doing in the church is getting a moral life lesson once a week then we are doing things wrong. We should be seeking out guidance and instruction from other wise believers and we should be humble enough to allow that wisdom to sometimes cut us. And we should seek to become the kind of person that others would look to for wisdom. This doesn’t mean that everyone should get up and preach, it just means that relationally we should be people that speak into each others lives and further enrich the soil by teaching with wisdom and sometimes we need to pull up weeds as they show up as well.
Sing!: Next, Paul instructs us to “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” You want to know why we sing songs when we get together? It is because of this. The movie Elf has it right. What is the best way to spread Christmas cheer? Singing loud for all to hear. It’s really hard to sing a song with gladness and thankfulness in your heart while you are holding onto bitterness, anger, resentment, fear, hatred, pride, or unrest.
We sing when we come together to allow us a time to get our hearts right before God. A time for us to prune away some of the stuff that has cropped up throughout the week and to poke some holes in the soil to allow the water of the word to penetrate down to our roots.
Jesus’ Name: This next one is interesting for me because I have a personal story of how I didn’t use the tool properly. Paul tells us to, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” When I was in High School, I knew that I did not drive in a way that brings glory to God. So the way I incorrectly interpreted this was that if I wasn’t proud of it I shouldn’t put Jesus’ name on it. So I didn’t put Jesus fish or Christian bumper stickers on my car because I didn’t want people to judge Christ based on their assessment of my driving. This was backwards.
Paul is saying, look at your life and if there are things that don’t bear the name of Jesus. Then get rid of them. Stop doing them, stop saying them. When you do it the way I did it leads to double mindedness and a spiritual paranoid schizophrenia where we are always looking over our shoulder waiting for someone to find out the sins that we have hidden away and are too prideful to bring under the authority of Christ. We need to pull out the pruning shears and cut off these diseased branches that do not bear the life of Christ before the disease spreads to other parts of our life.
Thankfulness: And finally, Paul says that the last tool in our tool box should be “giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Notice that hearts that are thankful are cultivated through giving thanks. Did you know that if you don’t garden you will never become a gardener? If I just hold onto that identity of having a brown thumb then I will never till up the ground to plant anything for fear that I will fail. But Paul says one of the tools that you have to cultivate new growth in you is practice.
You have all the tools that you need. Jesus has made you a new creation. The only thing left to do is put these things into practice. You can read books about gardening all day, but if you never put a seed in the ground then you have failed before you started. I’ll let this quote from 2 Peter 1:8-11 close us out, “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”