Colossians 3:1-11
8th Sunday after Pentecost (13C) • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction:
When it finally started warming up this year, my wife put together this shallow plastic bin filled with dried beans for my sons to play in. The bin has little dump trucks, excavators, and front-end loaders in it. My oldest son, Andy, loves those, but James just likes to throw the beans all over the place.
The first time we took this game outside, we let James throw beans all out in the yard and I just left them. I didn’t bother picking them up and didn’t think anything of it. We went out the next couple of days and played with this bin and played with other toys. One evening it rained. When we went out to play the next day, the beans had sprouted up all over the yard!
This is a great picture of what our lives as Christians are like. The lifelong Lutheran is Baptized as an infant and something starts happening, but we don’t really see it. For the rest of that child’s life God is sanctifying her, purifying her, and causing her to grow in faith through the Word and the Sacraments. It is difficult and at times near impossible to see. Then, when Jesus comes back, BOOM, she has sprouted and the whole world knows that she is God’s and that she is holy, perfect, and blessed. Your life as a Christian before Jesus returns in glory is just like that bean between the time water hits it and the seed coat breaks open. God is working in you, but He is working in a hidden way. As Paul says today in the third chapter of Colossians, “You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” ().
A. At your Baptism, God renewed you in a hidden way.
Paul begins the third chapter of Colossians by saying, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (). We’ve heard this language of “being raised with Christ” recently. Last week, we read in Colossians chapter two about how we were buried with Christ in baptism and raised by the powerful working of God. For all y’all out there who have had to memorize Luther’s Small Catechism, you might remember that what Paul says here relates very closely to what he says about Baptism in . “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life ().”
These are wonderful promises spoken to us by God through His apostle, St. Paul. They are promises that faith takes a hold of. God has surely said these words and God doesn’t lie! and say you HAVE been buried with Christ in Baptism. and say you HAVE been raised to new life with Christ in Baptism. says all who have been Baptized into Christ HAVE put on Christ. According to , Jesus himself cleansed you in the washing of water with the word. In Baptism, you put on Christ, were buried, raised, washed in the blood of the Lamb, saved, regenerated. You received the Holy Spirit, new life, a new heart. In Baptism, Jesus circumcised your heart. All of these things I’ve listed are ways that God describes what happened to you in Baptism.
I think we have a problem though. I’ve seen many people baptized. I’ve seen them sprinkled and dunked. I have NEVER seen a single one of them get buried, raised, washed in blood, saved, regenerated, receive the Holy Spirit, a new life, or a new heart. And I DEFINITELY did not see Jesus circumcise their heart. In fact, I didn’t see Jesus doing anything at these Baptisms. All I saw was a man pouring water over a baby or dunking a friend in a swimming pool. So what’s going on?
The reason we don’t see everything that happens in Baptism is because God is working in a hidden way. We have truly died and have been buried with Christ in Baptism. God’s Word says so. We have truly been raised with Christ in Baptism. God’s Word says so. However, that new life that we live is hidden with Christ in God. Jesus’ holy life, innocent suffering and death, and His blessed resurrection are yours in Baptism. It may not seem that way to you all the time and it definitely doesn’t look that way to the unbelieving world, but it’s true. The salvation that Jesus purchased for you by shedding His own blood on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago is applied directly to you in the washing of water with the word, in your own Baptism. No one saw exactly what God was doing when He had the pastor Baptize you with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But God’s Word clearly tells us what was happening behind the scenes.
B. Through your Baptism, God renews you daily, in a hidden way, until Jesus returns in glory.
What God did in your Baptism wasn’t over on that day. God works through your Baptism to renew you each and every day until Jesus returns in glory.
As soon as Jesus was Baptized, he immediately was cast into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. In a similar way, our Baptism seals us and sets us apart. From that point on we are at war. Our enemies are the Devil, the world, and our own sinful nature. Sin isn’t completely obliterated in our lives once we are raised with Christ in Baptism. This is why Paul says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another” (). The Baptized believers that he writes to then and those who hear these words now still struggle with these sins. But here is the key. You struggle with sexual immorality, covetousness, anger, gossip, filthy talk, lying. The unbelieving world doesn’t struggle at all.
God is renewing you each and every day through your Baptism. Sometimes it is difficult for us to see and unbelievers don’t see it at all. God is working in a hidden way. Whether you realize it or not, you are becoming less and less evil and becoming more and more good. Because, as God tells us through His servant Paul, “You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (). You HAVE put off the old self and HAVE put on the new. You are being renewed in the image of God. This is a process. In this process, sin still clings to you. You will always need to take Paul’s words seriously when he says to put off sinful behavior. Stop gossiping, lying, participating in sexual immorality whether it is on your computer, T.V., with another person, etc. Stop having ill-will toward other people, stop being filled with anger and wrath.
Paul isn’t telling you to cease from these things because that is the only way that you are going to be able to please God and go to heaven. You can’t do anything in and of yourself to please God or merit eternal life. We are told to put off this behavior because when you walk in these ways, you cease to struggle with sin. When you cease to struggle with sin, you embrace the sin and become numb to how terrible it is. This leads only to unbelief and eternal death. When you fall into sin, don’t give up as if you have no hope. Instead, to steal a quote from Luther’s Large Catechism, “let everyone value his Baptism as a daily dress in which he is to walk constantly. Then he may ever be found in the faith and its fruit, so that he may suppress the old man and grow up in the new. For if we would be Christians, we must do the work by which we are Christians. But if anyone falls away from the Christian life, let him again come into it. For just as Christ, the Mercy Seat, does not draw back from us or forbid us to come to Him again, even though we sin, so all His treasure and gifts also remain. Therefore, if we have received forgiveness of sin once in Baptism, it will remain every day, as long as we live. Baptism will remain as long as we carry the old man about our neck” (LC IV 86).
Conclusion:
God worked through your Baptism in a hidden way, He continues this hidden work now as you put away the evil thoughts and deeds that are in you and put on the new man by faith each and every day. This work in your life may be difficult for you to recognize, but trust in God’s Word that promises you that you really ARE raised with Christ. You really ARE being renewed in the image of Him who created you. Eternal life with Jesus Christ is yours because when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. On that day, you will be raised from the dirt you were buried in. You will no longer be a believer struggling with sin and shame. You will be perfect, holy, and blameless. You will be in glory with your Lord, Jesus Christ. That day is coming. And it is coming sooner than you think.