Aleethia!

As we approach December 25th, the country (the world) is gearing up for the celebration of Christmas. The most commercial of holidays. It is the time of year when everyone is buying gifts and throwing parties. Lots of candy will be eaten, stories of Santa will be told, and the beginning of Jesus’ life on earth will be told.

Christmas is a time that brings childhood memories to mind. Gifts will be purchased at a frantic pace. With the economic crunch going on right now, the average American is expected to spend 1.9% more on Christmas gifts this year than they did last year, which means they will spend just over $800. That’s right, the average American will spend $832 on Christmas gifts (more info here).

We, as Christians, often bemoan the crass consumerism of our American culture, but we buy into it just as much. We assuage our guilty consciences by using many little cliches to remind ourselves of the true significance of Christmas.

The reason for the season

Putting Christ back in Christmas

This year, I want to dedicate four weeks to the Christmas story. I want us to look at it from four different perspectives.

First, today, I want us to look forward to the birth of Christ, from the perspective of the Old Testament writers/readers. This will give us a view of Christmas infused with hope. Hope for a Messiah to rescue us from the sin and death of this world. › Continue reading

Last week we looked at a list of seven behaviors we should be cultivating in our lives as believers. We said these things represented the new, clean clothes we are to put on since we have been elected, made holy, and loved by God.

This week we’re going to look at the rest of the paragraph. In these verses, Paul gives us three principles and one overarching attitude, that if followed will increase our likelihood of living out the kind of life we looked at last week.

The three principles are:

• The Peace of Christ
• The Word of Christ
• The Name of Christ

The attitude is: Thankfulness.

Let’s look at each in turn, and see how we can apply these things in our lives today.

The Peace of Christ

Paul says in verse 15 that we should let the peace of Christ “rule” in our hearts. There are three things that need defining here. We need to know what the peace of Christ is. We need to know what Paul means by “rule” and “heart”.

We’ve talked about the heart before and what the Bible means by heart. It simply means your inner man, who you are as a person apart from your physical being. The heart is the seat of your mind, will and emotions. It is your soul.

Next let’s look at the idea of peace. › Continue reading

In the last passage, Paul told us to kill our old nature, to stop living the way non-Christians live. Here he begins to lay out the type of lifestyle a Christians should model. This is the result of the philosophy he taught in verses 1-4. This is what the Christians life should look like.

When he tells us to “Put on” this new lifestyle, we see that it is intentional. It is something we have to purpose to do. Living as Christ isn’t an accident.

Paul tells us we should live this way for three reasons; we have been chosen by God, set apart for his purposes, and loved by him.

To be “chosen by God” is to be one of the elect. I know this can be a contentious doctrine for some of you. But here it is, right at the foundation of Paul’s reasoning for living the Christian life. This is the same word translated “elect” in other places. It is used of Christ (being the Messiah), angles (the holy angles in opposition to fallen angles), and people (as the church). What does the Bible mean when it refers to people as elect, or chosen? Wayne Grudem defines it this way.

Election is an act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of his sovereign good pleasure. ¹

Paul goes on to say that God’s elect are holy. To be holy means to sacred, pure, morally blameless. When applied to anything other than God himself, it means to be set aside for his service. This is what it means to be a ‘saint’. All Christians are saints. We are made pure by Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, and set apart for God’s service. Our living differently from the world is not to be an effort at holiness, it is the result of the holiness imparted to us by Christ. Important difference!

And finally, Paul says we are “beloved”. Which means simply › Continue reading

This lesson was taught on Wednesday evening, 08-27-2008.

In the opening verses of Colossians 3, Paul gives a general outline of the philosophy of Christian life. He has already refuted the false teaching of the Gnostic philosophers, so now in contrast to that false philosophy, he presents the philosophy which should permeate the Christian life.

Remember that a philosophy is simply the lens through which you view the world. It is your fundamental understanding of reality and existence. Your philosophy acts as a guiding principle for your behavior.

This philosophy that Paul explains is the practical outworking of the teaching he has just presented of our being “in” Christ. This union of the believer with Christ is the root principle of the Christian life.

Paul begins verse 1 of chapter 3 with the statement

If then

This is a conditional statement. He is stating that “if” this holds true, “then” it should have this effect in our lives.

The “if” is our salvation, › Continue reading