Set Free for Life!

You know when I was in college, my brother, we were in college about the same time, and every time we'd come home for either summer or spring break or weekend or something like that, when it was time to go back to school, there were certain traditions that had to be followed. I mean, of course there was the requisite smothering of hugs and kisses, the goodbyes, there was the full duffel bags of fresh, clean laundry, which is a thrill when you're in college. There was the care package with the favorite cookies or brownies or whatever it takes to remind you that there is no place like home. Never forget that.

And then in our family, there was one particular ritual routine, right as either it could be me or my brother, when a car was pulling out of the driveway, my mother would say, "Now remember, don't drive off the road and end up in a ditch." Every time. "Don't drive off the road and end up in a ditch," which is classic mom advice, if you ask me, right? Well, I was thinking about that this week in context of Paul's letter to the Colossians, because in a way, Paul's message to the Colossians was a bit like my mom's advice to me and to my own brother, because let's face it, Christ has set us free, right? Free to follow Him on the Lord's highway, so to speak, which is where Paul wants Him to stay.

And so his message in a nutshell is, "Hey, Colossians. Hey, Christians, including those at Twin Lakes Church, don't drive off the road and end up in a ditch." With that in mind, find your message notes if you haven't already. Today we are wrapping up our series called Set Free, because we have been set free by Jesus Christ, right? Well, amen, indeed. Well, how do you stay that way? That's our focus today when I'm calling set free for life, and would you agree, you can be given tremendous blessings or opportunities in life and fail to fully realize those, to fully enjoy them?

I'll put it this way. Have you ever squandered an opportunity? Boy, I know I have. More times than I care to count. This week I came across a series of articles by the Washington Post called Set for Life. It's a series of stories about professional athletes and how so often they face real challenges when they retire. Most retire in their mid to late 30s, or mid to early 30s, I should say. Most are healthy and wealthy. You'd think it'd be nothing but easy street from there on out, right? Set for life. Well, not quite.

One of the articles focuses on professional football players, and it says, "According to the NFL Players Association, as many as 80% of retired players endure either divorce or bankruptcy, the majority of those within two years of retirement." Two years, and for most of them, either in their finances or their marriages, they're in the ditch. Now, that's incredibly sad news. It also serves as a metaphor for what Paul is getting at here with the Colossians, because basically he says, "Hey, you've been set free for life. You have an incredible future ahead of you. Don't end up in the ditch by becoming enslaved all over again."

Let me show you this in Paul's own words. Open your Bibles to Colossians 2:6–7, and if you're using one of those TLC Bibles, you'll find Colossians 2 on page 834. I think if there's a main theme in Colossians, it's right here in Colossians 2:6–7. It's also at the top of your notes. You're going to see it on the screen behind me, but let me hear you read this with me. Are you ready? Here we go. "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Very good.

Now, how do we live in the freedom, in the fullness of life that Christ has given us? I believe it's all packed in that little phrase, "Continue to live in Him." And I know that sounds incredibly simple, but this is the big idea that runs throughout Colossians. I want to unpack this just a little bit. How do I continue to live in Christ? What does this look like in daily life? Well, I want you to notice the flow of Paul's thought here. He says, "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him." Now, watch this. "Rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness."

I don't know about you, but I see the makings of an outline right there. So let's just follow this, see where it takes us. It seems to me that Paul is saying that continuing to live in Christ means first that I continue to live in grace. Go ahead and write that down, grace. Now, I know we talk about this a lot here at Twin Lakes Church, but here's the thing. If we don't get this right, we don't get anything right, because the only thing we're actually told to do here is to continue to trust in what's already been done, just as you received Him, continue to live in Him.

Paul reinforces this, in fact, in how he uses the grammar, because continue is an active verb. Active verbs are things that we do, right? But then he immediately says, "We are rooted and built up in Him." Rooted and built up are passive verbs. These are things that are done to us or for us. Now, you get the difference? We receive, we trust in what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. And when we do that, God takes just that little mustard seed of faith, and He fully roots us in Christ. He does it.

And not only that, we are now, even now, being built up in Christ, because here's the thing. This is what's so amazing about God's grace. You can't root yourself. You can't build yourself. All you can do is trust that that's what God is doing for you. So continue in His grace. Continue to live in that reality. I can remember during our Grace Immersion series we did about a year and a half ago. I'll never forget, after one of the services, I noticed right down here at the bottom of these stairs, there was an elderly woman and she was just weeping. I mean, just tears streaming down her face.

And so I walk up to her and I say, "Ma'am, can I help you?" And she says, "Oh, no, no." She said, "These are tears of joy." I said, "I've been going to church for 30, 40 years and it seems like today a light switched on and I think I finally get God's grace. I finally get it." And she was just slain by this, just weeping. You'd be amazed how many times, either myself or René, one of the other pastors, we've had a similar conversation with folks right in that same spot.

Because I don't know what it is about human nature, but we have this built-in resistance to the idea of God's grace. You know, for some of us, maybe we just don't understand it. For others, we're so accustomed to guilt and shame. We can't imagine any other reality. For others, it's our pride that gets in the way, you know, because, "Oh, I can do this on my own." For me, it's all of the above at various times in life. I was thinking this week how sometimes just my familiarity with grace as a doctrinal point can sometimes make me jaded to it all.

Like it becomes the fact that Jesus died on the cross can become like an abstract principle, like a piece of the equation in theology as opposed to a concrete reality. You know what I mean? But when I really think about what happened, that God the Son became human in Jesus Christ, and He actually suffered and actually died on a real cross, and what we're seeing depicted here on screen, it really happened when you let that soak in, it can take your breath away. It is accomplished.

You've heard us mention before, in those last words, in the Lord's dying, it's in the dying breath. He didn't say, "It is almost accomplished." It's kind of finished. He said, "It is finished. It is done." Paul affirms this in Colossians 1:21–22 when he says, "Once you were alienated from God, and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation." Notice, "He, God, has reconciled you." He did it.

How absurd is it to think that we can add anything to what Jesus accomplished on the cross? You know, like, "Hey, look, Jesus, in addition to your sacrificial death, I'm being squeaky clean. I got that going for me, so boy, I got some great new brownie points there." We may as well say that I've got Jesus and a lucky rabbit's foot, because that's how absurd it is to think we can add anything to what Jesus has done. But that's exactly what happens when people will say, "Well, you know, you need to trust in the fact that Jesus died for you, but that's just the beginning. Then you got to do this, that, and the other thing if you really want to be in with the Lord." That type of thinking, that kind of, "You got to kind of add to it" list of duties and obligations, that is as profitable to our salvation as a lucky rabbit's foot, because it is by grace that we are saved, not of yourselves. Amen?

Amen. So, continue to live in God's grace, and number two, continue to live in truth. Did you know that one of the most well-known popular verses in the entire Bible is about what we're talking about right here in this second point? It's, in fact, it's a verse that you know. It's John 8:32. You're like, "Oh, yeah, John 8:32. I know that. Sure, Mark." You know this verse, okay? You just don't know that you know this verse, and I'll prove it to you right now. John 8:32, Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth shall," let me hear you. See, I told you you knew it. Paul is elaborating on the same theme. It's not just that the truth sets us free, the truth keeps us free as we live in it. So continue to live in truth.

Strengthen, Paul says, as you were taught. And once again, we don't strengthen ourselves. The truth strengthens us. The truth that comes through faithful preaching and teaching of the Bible, or through our own study of the Bible, and as the Holy Spirit guides us and teaches us in God's Word. And there are two areas of truth that I think Paul emphasizes. First is truth about the message. Remember, Paul writes Colossians with a concern because there's all these false teachings that are swirling in and around these Colossian believers.

And we don't know all of the details that Paul is thinking of, but he hints to it, especially in chapter 2, when he mentions legalistic requirements about food, drink, religious festivals and Sabbath days, worshiping angels, which in those days was often tied to astrology. The reason for this is that it was commonly held that the planets were governed by a particular angel, and so it appeased these angels to affect the movements of the planets and how that, you know, supposedly affected your life. These false teachers were also saying that you need to learn secret knowledge, you know, mystical secrets. This was supposed to give you a spiritual leg up, and it eventually became known as Gnosticism, this focus on secret knowledge.

And with all of these things in mind, this is where Paul gives his, you know, don't drive off the road and end up in a ditch warning. It's right here in chapter 2, verse 8, when he says, "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ." Now, how do you know if something is off message? Well, he says right there, "When it depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ." And this isn't just theoretical. This is stuff that's happening all around us.

In our staff meeting this week, we, our sole agenda was just to share about how grateful we are to be a part of Twin Lakes Church. And one particular staff member shared just really deep gratitude, which is what we all feel, but it was so personal for her that she needed to write it down because she was in fact part of a group that literally, you know, enslaved people through various traditions and teachings that came from people, not from Scripture. Here's an excerpt of what she had to say. "I grew up in a religious environment that was very toxic. I grew up in a cult-like religious community. We had a ton of rules and strict routines set up by leaders that said they were led by God, but I don't remember them using the Bible. They believed that God spoke to them and they would speak to us." Well, how very convenient for those leaders, you know, to have that direct line to God.

This is exactly what Paul is talking about. And that's why learning Scripture is our best safeguard against being misled and deceived. It's why we have theology classes and Bible study classes on Wednesday night, why we're going to have our 201 class right after Easter on Sunday mornings. It teaches you how to read and understand your Bible because the more you read it, the more you understand it, the more you will see how it points to the complete sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

And not only that, you'll be able to recognize, you know, teachings and trends that just don't jive with the truth of Jesus and His Word. For example, it's kind of like this. Have you ever seen that show, the Antiques Roadshow? You ever seen this, they go around and people bring in their antiques they find in grandma's closet or whatever and the experts tell them like whether it's junk or whether it's worth like half a million bucks or something like that. And everyone's hoping that there's, you know, it's not really junk, it's really valuable, right? You can imagine the stuff they don't film, right? You know, just the stuff is just like, you got to be kidding me. I mean, really? Just because your mom bought this at Kmart in the 60s does not make it an antique, you know, get out of here.

Well, the point is that these appraisals, these experts, they make these appraisals, how? Because they're familiar with their subject, right? They know antiques. Well, in the same way, know your Bible. Be strengthened by its teaching and, you know, you'll have no problem continuing in the truth of its message, at least in terms of understanding that. Not only that, but when I do this, I also become more aware about the truth about myself. Whether we're aware of it or not, I would argue that we see everything through the lens of our beliefs, our perceptions, our opinions. It's all filtered through what we believe, including what we believe about ourselves.

And that's why these next few verses I think are so powerful, starting at Colossians 3:2. Paul says, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory." I don't know what you think about yourself. I don't know how you would praise your life. But I would suggest that the most significant thing that could be said about you, about me, about anyone, is that your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Wow. That's the ultimate game changer.

That changes your past, your present, your future. In fact, there's really no way I can do justice to all that this says, because it's beyond huge. But let me just give you one little example. A few weeks ago, it was a Sunday night, I finished speaking to a group of young people at a Christian camp. And after most of them had filed out of the chapel, there was a young man who wanted to speak with me, and he shared about some of the struggles that he was having in life, and he just needed someone to listen to him. And so I did, and then I reminded him about God's forgiveness and God's love and intention for Him and God's grace.

And when I did that, he kind of goes, "Well, I guess God still makes something of a defective believer like me." Like, he didn't even really believe it, but he didn't want to like insult God by putting limitations on his power. You know, he reminded me of Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, you know? He's kind of like, "Oh, well, I guess there's still hope, you know, defective believer that I am, but I doubt it." And I'm like, "No, no, no, you don't understand. God does not see you like some kind of defective believer." And I took my Bible, I was going to go in old school, I had all my notes on little index cards, and I took one of those cards and I said, "Pretend you're this card. You've seen us do this before here at church."

And I stuck it in my Bible and folded it up. I said, "Now, do you still see the card?" No, because it's hidden now. And in the same way, the truth of Scripture is that your life is now hidden in Christ with God. I mean, that is the truth about you. Not that you're some sort of defect, you know? One of God's kind of castoffs, like, "Oh, well, you know, I guess I got to take this person because, you know, my son died for them, but oh, boy, do I got my work cut out for me." Your life is hidden in Christ. Like we read earlier, we are holy in His sight. Doesn't say kind of holy or a little bit holy. Holy without blemish and free from accusation.

And the more that this truth sinks in, the more we begin to see ourselves the way God sees us. And when you start to realize that, it changes your perspective on everything, including the ways that you used to live. And you look back and go, "You know, I don't know that. I want to be that person anymore." Paul continues in verse 5 of chapter 3, "Put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature." And then, put your Bibles open, you see he essentially lists what might have been the inspiration for the seven deadly sins. He says, "Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed." And then he, a little bit later, "Anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language." Okay, well, that's more than seven. But the point is he's kind of given a for instance list here, okay? It's not intended to be comprehensive, so if you don't see your particular sin of choice in there, don't feel like you're like off the hook, okay?

He's kind of saying, "These are the old ways. These are the things that put our lives into the ditch." So, he says, "Put these things to death since you have taken off your old self with its practices and put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator." I love that phrase, "being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator," because as we continue to live in truth, we become more and more the people that God created us to be. And I know what you're thinking, you're going, "Well, man, it seems like I got a long way to go." Well, you know what? It's a process.

Sometimes a very slow, painful process where we don't see a lot of progress or as much as we would like. But the promise is we are being renewed in knowledge in the image of our creator. That means our life has a different trajectory than it did before Christ, a different destiny. It means that we are literally on a new road and you can take that to the bank. And you know what? Just soaking in this truth and the grace and the love behind it, it will change your life. Never underestimate the power of simply thinking about what Jesus has done for you.

I saw an example of this last Sunday when we were at our annual meeting. It was really inspiring to hear some of the amazing stories that were being shared. And one of them was from a fellow Twin Laker named Stuart McCammon. And Stuart wrote this. He said, "I've changed a lot where I used to be pretty negative, criticizing people, sarcastic, mean, and judgmental." That's his list. "There is now on my best days true love. This isn't the result of trying harder, but instead I was purchased at the ultimate price by a father who loves me. When I was so angry, God was there. And his desire is to take me deeper into a love that is at once transcendent, eclipsing all other loves and at the same time sublime. A shout and a whisper, a hurricane, and the softest breath of air on the back of my neck." Isn't that great?

So well written. But man, if any of you know Stu, it was like a revelation to hear that he used to be mean and critical and stuff like that. He's like the mellowest guy I know, just kind of gentle and affable and stuff like that. But he is being transformed in knowledge and the image of his Creator. So continue to live in grace and live in truth and finally continue to live in gratitude. Paul closes out that little section in verse 7, "Overflowing with thankfulness." I discovered just this week Paul uses the word thankfulness or thankful or some form thereof, more times with a higher frequency in Colossians than in any other book of the entire New Testament. Highest frequency right here in Colossians.

Now why is that? I think it's because when you're so focused on the sufficiency of Christ, on the forgiveness that he provides and the freedom and the future that we have, you understand, "Hey, these are things that we don't deserve. We're not entitled to them. We didn't have it coming." And when you realize that, gratitude will simply bubble up inside of you. You just won't be able to help yourself. And so Paul, he's just kind of, every opportunity he has to give thanks throughout this letter, he does. In Colossians 1:3 he says, "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you." Colossians 1:12, "Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of life." 3:15, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and be thankful." And on and on he goes, "He can't help but be thankful."

Now let's ask ourselves, would you describe yourself as being overflowing with thankfulness? Would you? I think sometimes when we struggle in this area it's because we are losing sight of all that we have been given. And here's the thing, you can't force yourself into gratitude. It doesn't work when you say, "I will be grateful." I will be grateful. I will be grateful. You can try that, but I don't think that that's true gratitude. I think true gratitude happens when we are aware of all that we've been given, things that we don't deserve, didn't expect, not entitled to, it's just pure gift.

I'll illustrate it this way. How many of you, show of hands, have purchased a car before in your life? Let me see those hands. I have most of you, just about all of us, right, at some point in life. When you purchase that car, I would imagine that you were grateful to have the means to buy that car. You might even have been a little bit more grateful if you got a really good deal, you're grateful for your shrewd negotiating skills and the like. But however it went down, you probably didn't go to the seller or the car dealership and say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for selling me this car. You are amazingly generous." I mean, it's just off the chart how generous you are. You probably didn't do that. Why? Because you paid for the car, right? I mean, you were entitled to that car when you handed over your cash.

Now, anyone ever been given a car? Let me see, okay, and not just like some clunker that someone was trying to do. A lot of hands went down on that one, right? Something really nice. Valerie, yeah, has a story there. Another one here. Yeah, totally out of, just gift. Amazing moment. Because you were freely given something that you didn't have coming, you didn't deserve it. It was just a gift. If that happens, you don't have a problem overflowing with thankfulness. Gratitude just happens.

Well fellow Christians, you have been given the keys to a brand new life. God wants you to experience all of the joy and the freedom that comes with it. So enjoy the ride. Let the rush of it blow your hair back from time to time. And don't let anything deceive you or distract you along the way. In other words, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him. Amen? Amen. Let's pray.

Finally Father, we do thank You for the gift of being able to be here as a part of Your church today. Father, I thank You just for the grace that allowed us to rise up from our beds, something we didn't even do in our own strength, Lord. You watched over us in the vulnerability of our sleep. You picked us up and allowed us to be here. So we thank You for that, Lord. And Lord, we're so grateful for the opportunity that we've had to focus on Your goodness, Your grace, and the affirmation of that over and over and over again in Scripture.

And so Father, I pray that the reality of that would just sink deeper down into our hearts because when it does, we're less interested in the things that are off on the side of the road that could attract our attention. We're just so grateful to be going right down the center of the lane where You've placed us. But Father, I do pray for those here today who are either struggling to understand this, pray that You would give clarity. Or those who are struggling to appropriate it to their own life because maybe they're in a ditch right now and they need to be reminded that Your grace is greater than all of our sin.

Father, I pray that they would know that You simply offered to pull them out of the ditch, put them back in the lane and say, "Let's go again." So Lord, whatever it is that we need today, I pray that You would place these things in our heart and in our lives and that they would change us, Lord. We thank You, Lord, for the freedom that we have in Christ, freedom to love You, freedom to follow You, freedom to grow in You. We praise You for these things, are a fount of every blessing. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.