The Path to Holiness
Summer 2022 • Sermon • Submitted
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· 99 viewsTo continue from last week’s teaching, we look at what our true path to holiness is. It is not found in things added to scripture. It is found on the teachings of Christ alone. Paul outlines what a holy and sanctified life looks like for the believer that is rooted and grounded in Christ.
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1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Over the past several weeks, we have been going through Colossians focused on the primary teaching of Paul in this letter - countering false teachers. He does this in two ways. First by detailing who Jesus Christ is according to the gospel that was first given to them. Secondly, he shows them that human tradition and pagan practices do not lead them to righteousness. It is only Christ who is above all things. He calls on them to resist the pressure to follow these paths to spiritual maturity because they are ultimately going to be futile and lead a person further from Christ not toward him.
In our passage today, Paul sets forth the Christian path to holiness. As Methodists, holiness is one of the hallmarks of Wesleyan theology. Wesley taught, just as Paul, that each of us could enter into a life with Christ wherein we truly reflect him. Many Methodists have abandoned what it means to be holy and righteous because it seems to be archaic in nature. In all honesty, it has been abused to the point that people fall into some of the same pitfalls that Paul warned against in our passage last week, namely making our walk with Christ into a kind of burden that can cause harm to us because we cannot live up to a standard we have created. Wesley rejected this. Instead, a life of holiness is an outgrowth of knowing Christ in a real and personal way. For Paul and for Wesley, being precedes act. This means that there must first be a change of heart before there can be a change in our lives.
This is where we will spend our time as we finish our study of Colossians.
1. Our deepest focus is to be on Christ. (vs. 1-4)
1. Our deepest focus is to be on Christ. (vs. 1-4)
We can become distracted in this world. Our focus can be on everything that is happening right now to the point that we forget that Christ is above all things. The focus on distractions can be hard to overcome because they are the things that are in front of us - the economy, the fallenness of the world, the hurt and pain that so many feel right now. It is not that we ignore all of these things. They are reality. However, Paul invites us to set our minds on the things above. He has already talked about the cosmic powers that exist in the world. They cannot be ignored. But they cannot be our primary focus. Instead, we are to place our deepest focus on Christ.
Paul eludes to Psalm 110:1, which says, “The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”” This is one of the most quoted Old Testament texts in the New Testament. It is a reminder to us that all the enemies of Christ are his footstool. All of the sin, all of the cosmic powers, all of the ways that our fallenness prevents us from truly knowing God - all of that is a footstool for Christ. Jesus tells us that we are seek first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness. Then all things will be added to us.
This world will be redeemed. The completion of salvation includes the full redemption of all that is seen and unseen. Right now, this is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ appears, then we will appear with him in glory. But this does not mean that we just sit around and wait for Christ to return. It does not mean that we abandon our social and moral responsibilities. Our path to holiness begins with piety of heart and life that knows God in Christ and our focus is completely on him. We know that destination of our world even with all of the chaos around us. It has been revealed to us in Christ.
2. That which is sinful in us must be put to death. (vs. 5-10)
2. That which is sinful in us must be put to death. (vs. 5-10)
If our minds and our thoughts are set on Christ, then we can get rid of the sinful practices in our lives. Paul tells us in Romans 8:13, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” This is done through the work of the Spirit in us. Our response to what Christ has done for us and his triumph over all things is for us to exchange earthly things for heavenly values and norms of life. This is a work of divine grace from the inside out. The piety that we seek as we seek the righteousness of God brings about a transformed heart that is seen in our public actions and in the life of the church.
We take off the old self and put on the new self. It is an end to our sinful way of living and entering into a new way in Christ. We are to put to death anything that opposes God’s will in our hearts. Paul is specific in his list. These things are unholy and oppose what God would have for our lives. What is important about his vice list is that it covers all aspects of our human existence in our relationships with one another and with God. Paul begins with sexual immorality but does not stop there. He adds evil desires and covetousness, which is desiring what others have. He even adds things that we do not often want to add - anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk. We are not to lie to one another.
We hear that list and I bet we find ourselves somewhere. We all struggle with sin in our hearts. It is not always the big sins like murder, stealing, or adultery. It’s the sins of the heart that others may have not clue about. That is why the path to holiness begins with our focus being on Christ. When our focus is on anything other than him, our hearts can remain in a place of sin even though we may publically declare Christ. Our hearts are still found to be in sin. That is why Paul uses such strong language about these things. They must be put to death in us if we are to be holy. We must allow the Holy Spirit to enable us to overcome these sinful behavior so that we can be more like Christ.
3. We put on the new self through sanctification. (vs. 10-11)
3. We put on the new self through sanctification. (vs. 10-11)
What the defining question for us in our path to holiness is what does it mean to be more like Christ. As we said last week, Paul refuses to allow for the kind of enslavement to some kind of rigid plan of self-denial. The new self and sanctification is rooted in our love for Christ and the love of God being pour into us. The human traditions of the Jews, the cosmic powers of the pagans, and the asceticism of the philosophers produce the opposite. Devotion to Christ becomes nothing more than a rule book to follow. Paul tells us that we are to put on the new self because we are being renewed in the image of our creator. We are not focused on the fleshly desires that Paul talks about in Romans 13:14. Instead, we put on the new self that is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. The holiness of heart and life is rooted in God’s love.
Paul uses the social barriers that are created among humans - the uncircumcised and the circumcised, Jew and Greek, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free. These barriers that are produced because of sin and unrighteousness are torn down in Christ because his love poured into us and the changes that take place in our lives through sanctification are greater than these things.
One of the key Christian virtues that Paul is espousing is dropping the destructive barriers that breed discrimination and hatred. That is why much of what we see passing as antiracism in our culture is nothing more than a new kind of discrimination. When you create classes of people based on oppressed and oppressor rather than by the change in one’s heart, there is a new wall of separation that is built. Christ has come to destroy such barriers so that people of all nations, social classes, and races might come together under the banner of Christ. This is not to say that we do not have problems in our society. We do. We should work to build bridges among brothers and sisters in Christ and show the world that there is a way that God has created for us to come together that leads to eternity. We should be working to make sure every child has an opportunity to succeed in this world and make the world better. We must feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Part of being sanctified is being a witness against the ills of this world so that we might spread God’s kingdom and bring others to know Christ. But this must be the goal of all we do as we grow in righteousness and be renewed in the image of our creator.
The path to holiness is the way of every Christian. To do that, we must first have a deep focus on Christ through our prayer and study. The development of pious life and relationship with Christ will change our hearts to be entirely his. We put sin to death in our hearts as we draw closer to Christ. Our desires will not be for evil but righteousness. We will desire to do God’s will in our lives rather than the will of the flesh because there has been a change. The new self we put on is new life in Christ wherein we are sanctified and brought into the image of our creator. This means that we reflect Christ in all things – our relationship with him and our relationship with the world around us. Being holy means that we are doing just as we say in the Lord’s Prayer – “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The goal of the path of holiness is not for our sake but for the sake of those we encounter in this life. It is how we show the gospel to others so they can have a relationship with Christ. May we desire to be holy and become more and more like Christ every day.