“Everybody in the world needs to see this. Everybody in the world needs to experience this. This planet and this air that are keeping us alive… they are so fragile. The sky is thinner than your skin. You look up at that blue sky… and suddenly you shoot through it. It’s as if someone pulled a sheet off the Earth— and before you know it, you’re looking into blackness. The sky is so thin… and you’re through it in an instant.” — William Shatner
In the Gospel we discover a reality deeper than our deepest differences
Those who fix their hearts on heaven often make the greatest impact on earth.
Colossians 3:11
Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
TENSIONS AT COLOSSAE
- Jew and Greek — some with covenant privilege, and the unclean latecomers.
- Circumcised and uncircumcised — those who conform to all the traditions of the privileged people and those who bear no marks of that privilege.
- Barbarians — the foreigners, uncultured, foolish by Greek and Jewish standards, with weird languages that sound like “bar, bar, bar, bar.”
- Scythian — The distant people north of the Black Sea, the “epitome of unrefinement and savagery” of whom Josephus wrote, “Scythians, who delight in murdering people and are little better than wild beasts” (Moo, 271).
- Slave and free — the opposite poles in the economic strata of society.
In the community of Christ, we are more than what we look like, what we’ve been through and where we come from, while never having to deny what we look like, what we’ve been through or where we come from. Christ transcends human categories.
CHRIST IS ALL
Once we boasted in our culture and our intellect like the Greeks. But now CHRIST IS ALL. Once we gloried in our tradition and our religious rigor like the Jews, but now CHRIST IS ALL. Once we got our strokes because of our ethnic pedigree. But now CHRIST IS ALL. Once we reveled in not being like the barbarians and the shabby Scythians, but now CHRIST IS ALL. Or once we resented not being the cultured, not being the rigorous, not having the cultured pedigree, not having the wealth and refinement, but now CHRIST IS ALL. – John Piper
Colossians 3:12
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Transformation begins with identity.
When we see ourselves as our Creator sees us, we live as we were created to live.
Colossians 3:12
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Comparison will either torture you to despair, tempt you to pride or tutor you toward growth
How might God be tutoring you through your relationships?
Colossians 3:12-14
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Colossians 3:15
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
Colossians 3:16-17
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
When we begin to see people as God sees them, then we begin to treat them as God treats them
