Living With Christ - 260111

SPEAKER A Hello, I'm Clive Nash. Welcome to Let God Speak. There are two forces at work in our world: good and evil, Christ and Satan. Bad behaviours result from the influence of evil. Good behaviours stem from Christ. Behind goodness lies the principle of love. That love flows out of a relationship with Jesus Christ. Today we are going to look at what Paul wrote in the third chapter of his letter to the church at Colossae. While we need to attend to earthly matters, a focus on eternity is essential. We'll find that Paul encourages a heavenly focus for all the Colossian believers. Is that good advice for us today? Our panel will discuss Paul's inspired counsel in just a moment. On our panel today we have Rod Butler and Corinne Knopper. Good to have you with us today. I'm looking forward to our discussion. But before we begin, let's take time to pray. Our wonderful God in heaven, we thank you that you've given us the Bible And you've given us the Holy Spirit to be able to help understand it. We pray for guidance today for our panel here in the studio and all our team. And we also pray that you'll bless everyone who's watching or listening to this program today. May your Spirit guide each one, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. SPEAKER B Amen. SPEAKER A Well, first of all, I'd like to read from Colossians 3:1, where Paul says, if then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. So, Rod, this idea of raised with Christ, why did Paul say that? Why did he use that phrase? SPEAKER B Well, he's actually— it's a figure of speech for someone who's become a new Christian. And if we just go back to the previous chapter, chapter 2, and I read verses 12 and 13, It says, that's chapter 2:12-13, it says, "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened," or made alive, "together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses." So what this is saying is that when we become baptized, we have a new outlook on life, a new heavenly focus. And if we go back now to Colossians 3, and I'll read the next verse, which is Colossians 3:2. It says, "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." Now it's not that the things on earth aren't important, but when we put our affections on the things above, we get a new, a new view, a new perspective on the big questions in life, such as where we came from, why we're here, where are we going, so forth. And whilst it's important to do things here, when we do have that perspective, we keep in mind that we have eternity in focus. And it's a bit like when you, if you're in a valley, you only see what you see. When you climb a mountain, you get a totally new vista of what's out there. And when we give our hearts to Christ, that's what we see. We see eternity in mind. We see living with Christ. SPEAKER A Hmm. Thanks, Rod. And Corinne, Paul goes on to say that the Colossian beavers had died. What did he mean by that? SPEAKER C I believe he is talking about baptism into Christ because we get a little bit more instruction from Colossians 3:3, and I'll read verse 3: For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. They don't literally die. But they had been dead and buried with their sins, and that's our carnal nature that keeps coming back to us, trying to resurface, which is a sad thing. And there's going to be a battle to subdue that sinful nature that we have in us as human beings. But Jesus Christ is the master, thankfully, in our new life with our new Christian experience that we are gaining. And it means that baptism by immersion, you come out as a new person once you've been baptized in Christ. You are born again. And going under that water is just like burial, and then come out of the water is comparable to coming to a new life in Christ. Something very special, like he said here, hidden with Christ. And that's how Paul put it. One is publicly declaring with baptism that Jesus Christ is now taking over to give us a new life. SPEAKER A Yeah, man, it's a wonderful new life. You know, we know from experience, don't we, that that's the case in our lives. But Rod, does this imply that it's like a once-only experience? You know, I've died, I'm born again, that's it. SPEAKER B No, that's not what it's saying. If we I want to read from 2 Corinthians 4:16, and this is important because it says, "For which cause we faint not; but through our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." Now Paul knew that our life is lived moment by moment by the decisions we make, and sadly some of us make the wrong decisions and we lose our connection with Christ and fall away. But of those that do fall away, there's hope. They can come back to Christ. They can be renewed again, and there's hope for all. And, you know, there may be a viewer right now who's watching this program who may feel that, well, I've wandered away from Christ, there's no hope for me. Well, there is hope, because whenever we hang on to Christ, there's hope for us, and He will give us the victory. SPEAKER A Yes, we must never think, you know, could God really love me again, you know? 'Cause God's love is infinite. And verse 4 of Colossians 3, I find this really inspiring. It says, "When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." Corinne, does that give you hope? SPEAKER C Oh, absolutely, it gives me the wonderful hope. And it's an assurance I think that I would love for our viewers and the people who are listening to accept there is that beautiful hope in Jesus. And the word in there says, "Who is," like it is in the Bible as we've just read. And when you really literally read that text, it says, "When Christ our life, in our life appears." So Christ is going to come and appear in our lives. And then there was a gentleman named Peter O'Brien who in a commentary wrote a little bit more about this, and I'm going to read it. When writing to the Philippians, he could say, for to me to live is Christ. That was Philippians 1:21. But he did not regard this as true only of himself. Christ is the life of all who are united to him by faith, who are members of his body. Whoever belongs to him has passed from death to life. Beautiful to have that life. SPEAKER A Yes, Christ is life itself. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER A I'm going on to the next verse now and I'll read the first half of Colossians 3:5, therefore put to death your members which are on the earth. So Paul, I think Rod here, Paul's saying, you know, put off your old life, isn't he? What examples does he give of that? Putting away of the old life. SPEAKER B Well, I'm actually reading from the King James, but I'd like to read that verse from the New Living Translation because it brings it into really everyday sort of awareness. And the New Living Translation, it says, so put to death the sinful earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don't be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry. Now that's really telling us that we have to put off and discard those old things which we used to do, and it then goes on to, you know, list those things that we are to put off: sexual sin, impurity, lust, and so forth. Those things are incompatible with the Christian walk, and it's possible to do that. It's possible to live a better life without those things when we have our faith and hope and trust in Christ. SPEAKER A Yeah, so just again, Rod, is it something that we feel, okay, here's the list, I've got to do this, or Or does it sort of naturally flow out of being born again? SPEAKER B Being born again, your focus is on Jesus and those things are a natural consequence of you put them away. If you try in your own strength to put them away, you'll struggle, you'll fail. But the focus is on Christ. SPEAKER A Yeah, now look, I had the pleasure of being raised in a Christian home, going to church with my parents, you know, from an infant. But the devil seems to still, lay his traps for me. What about you, Corinne? SPEAKER C Oh yes, he does. He really does do that to us as human beings, sadly. And Paul knew this dilemma, and he really understood it as being a human being, and he wrote to us to give us encouragement in Romans chapter 7 and verse 19. And he says there, For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. So he was a human being just like us. He wasn't excusing the sins, not at all, but highlights that there is a truth in sanctification. It's lifelong. It's not something that just happens and it stays there. And then he does come to a little conclusion in the next couple of verses that he's a wretched man. Oh dear, he knows the problem and he knows also the solution. So we're going to read that in Romans 7, and it's verses 24 and the first part of 25 there. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 'But thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' And if we accept our Lord Jesus, he will help us through these dilemmas with great trust in him. SPEAKER A So that list, Rod, that we read of in verse 5 of Colossians 3— fornication, uncleanness, etc.— he said, you know, is there help for overcoming these things in our walk with Christ? SPEAKER B Praise the Lord, there is hope and help, yes. And again, I'll pick that up from the Bible. If I go to John chapter 14, I'm gonna read verses 16 to 18. And this is Jesus speaking, He says, "I will pray the Father and He will give you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth Him not." neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you. So that's a promise. And then Jesus goes on to expand that. We go to now to John 16, and we look at verses 8 to 10, and it says, this is expanding on what the Holy Spirit does in helping us. And when he has come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not in me. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more. So we're not left alone to battle all these previous bad habits that we have. We have the Holy Spirit to give us that power and strength to overcome. And, you know, there's some other boosts which we are to do to help us as well, and that's prayer and Bible study. So if we're facing temptation and we need to pray and talk to God about it, we pray. If we need to strengthen our minds, we do Bible study. And through those things, we get a victory. And I just want to close this, the answer to this question, with a beautiful set of verses in Philippians. This is Philippians 4:6-7, and it says, be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving 'Let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.' So when we have the Holy Spirit and we focus on Christ, we do, we do overcome and we get that peace that comes from having that relationship with Christ. SPEAKER A Thank you, Rod. Colossians 3, going back to chapter 3 again. Corinne, there's a bit of a phrase here which jars in my mind. Colossians 3:6, 'Because of these things the wrath 'Wroth of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience.' Why did Paul use this phrase, 'the wrath of God'? SPEAKER C It sounds terrible, doesn't it? But when we are sinners, the sons of disobedience, we're going to experience this. And it's a very sad thing. It's a consequence of separating ourselves from the love of God and from what he has for us. The love of God can only let us have death and judgment if we keep disobeying. He's not a malicious God. So many places in the Bible says about the love of God being so beautiful. He doesn't want to punish us, and it's just a sad outcome. And I love reading over and over, God is love. There's so many places. A love that was so self-sacrificing that He sent Jesus to die for us. Without that beautiful Son of God, our dear Jesus dying for us, it will give us everlasting life. Otherwise we wouldn't have that. But that's the mercy of God, so that the consequences of sin and our disobedience— we don't want that wrath of God. It's just, we want the beautiful one of God, His love and His mercy by following Him. SPEAKER A Paul says in verse 7 that the Colossians were once sons and daughters of disobedience. How does he suggest that their lives could be changed, Rod? SPEAKER B Well, he, if you go on to look at the next few verses, he lists some things which they currently are doing that they need to not do. And I'm going to read verses 8 and 9 of Colossians chapter 3. And it says, "But now ye also put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds." So there's a list of things there that we aren't to do. And then if you go across to Romans 13. I'll just go across to Romans 13 and verse 13. It says, "Let us walk honestly as in the day," and he lists some more things we're not to do. "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering or wantonness," which is lust, "not in strife and envying." So these are the things that we are to put away. Paul gave us, he gave similar counsel to not just the Colossians, but he also gave it to the Ephesians and the, sorry, the Galatians and the Ephesians as well. Now evil practices like Paul has listed are not part of the Christian walk. We have to overcome these and get them out of our life. SPEAKER A Yes, he uses an interesting phrase in verse 9 of Colossians 3. They put off the old man. What do you mean by that? Is he talking about age or what is it, Corinne? SPEAKER C It, I believe, is what he has put forward as you have died to your old sins, you are now converted, you are a new person. The old man has to be put to death. The old person has to be put to death or crucified. And it was lovely to be able to look into Steps to Christ that our dear Sister Ellen White wrote, and she helps us just a little bit a little bit more with us and says, 'It is impossible for us or ourselves to escape from the pit of sin in which we are sunken. There must be a power working from within, a new life from above before men can be changed from sin to holiness.' Okay, so in contrast to the old man, Rod, Paul says, 'Put on the new man. SPEAKER A Does that sound like a simple process? SPEAKER B Well, the gospel is, is simple, but it's also profoundly deep. Um, we will take, I guess, all eternity to fathom out more depth in the gospel, what it actually means. Um, it's interesting, um, Corinne mentioned Ellen White. She also wrote in a book called The Great Controversy, "Through the eternal ages new truth will continually unfold to the wandering and delighted mind." So we'll be able to study this topic. And we'll exhaust this topic. Yes, it is simple but it's also profound. But we don't have to understand all the details of salvation. We can accept it in faith. In the book of Zechariah it talks about Joshua. He was given Christ's robe of righteousness. His filthy rags were are taken away. And all we have to do is accept Christ and we get His righteousness and He puts it over our sinful rags, we get rid of those. So we don't have to understand all the nuances and the details, by faith we accept what Christ has done for us. SPEAKER A Yeah, someone has likened it to being like an ocean. It's shallow enough for a child to be able to toddle their feet in it, but deep enough for a person to be able to get out of it. For a whale to swim in, you know, kind of thing. Yeah, it's a wonderful thing. So Paul moves on from the old man to the new. And Corinne, what qualities does he bring out here in Colossians 3? SPEAKER C Oh, I have to read his good lists. There's so many of them. And he has a very positive list here for us, for the born-again Christian. And we read this one in Colossians 3: Ephesians 3:12-13, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, 'So you also must do.' So the new person in Christ, there's quite a list there. There's being merciful, there's being kind and humble, there's meek, there's long-suffering, tolerant, and forgiving. After all, didn't our Lord Jesus teach us to pray for forgiveness and to forgive others as well? SPEAKER A Yeah, Paul seems to be quite good at lists, doesn't he? SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER A In this chapter, a list of things that we should avoid and put behind us and a list of new qualities that we can take on. So Rod, is there an underlying principle behind these qualities? Is there one word that Paul brings out, do you think? SPEAKER B There is, and that word is love. SPEAKER A Okay, the way that Corrine was talking about it. SPEAKER B Yeah, yeah, God is love and we worship God. So you'd expect if God is love, His followers would also have that characteristic of love. It would be expected to have that characteristic of love because they're following a God of love. Now if we go to 1 John 4:7, It says, 1 John 4:7, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." And that's picked up again if you go back to Colossians 3. Go back to Colossians 3. SPEAKER A Okay, chapter 3. SPEAKER B Yep. And we pick up verse 14, and verse 14 says, "And above all these things put on charity," or love, I'm reading from the King James, but put on love, "which is the bond of perfectness." So again, if we are Christians and our God is a God of love, we will have that quality. We need that quality as well, and we get that quality through the Holy Spirit working in us. SPEAKER A Yeah, it's interesting then, In Colossians 3:15, Paul goes on to say, "And let the peace of God, let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful." Corinne, do you see this peace of God coming as like a natural corollary or consequence of a relationship with Christ? SPEAKER C When you look at it like this, in that context, I think you can have a double application for peace like this, because it can flow through our church just like in Colossae, the one body that Paul mentions here. So peace is a result of our churches following Jesus Christ, and it applies to us all individually as well. We can have peace in our hearts as well as being, having peace with so many others around us. And I think of these words of Jesus because he was, John wrote so many little bits of what Jesus has said. And if we turn over to John chapter 14 and in verse 27, he does tell us here that he says, peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. And so he wants us to have peace in our hearts, to accept that. It's something that's not enforced like our peacekeeping troops from the United Nations, but it's a special inner personal experience. SPEAKER A Yes, Paul then goes on to say, give some practical aids to worship, and can you just enumerate some of those for us, Rod? SPEAKER B Yes, and you get these from verse 16, which I'll read. This is Colossians 3:16: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So the Word of God, the Word of Christ, to dwell in you richly in all wisdom. We need to teach and we are taught from the Word, so that's an aid by being taught and by being in the Scriptures, having the Word in our minds. But also, it's interesting, it mentions there something interesting, it mentions psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We don't tend to associate music with being connected with God. Now obviously the music back then may have been different to modern music with its spiritual element and the lyrics being very spiritual. But, and you would know more than anyone about music because you're a singer yourself, that when you put, say, Bible text to music, you remember them, you retain them, they become fortified in your mind. So the aids are we read the Bible, we've been taught, we can tell teach, but also by singing spiritual songs and listening to spiritual things, we also can have that inner peace, we also can have that growth in Christ. SPEAKER A Yeah, what about you, Corinne? Do you find that Bible truths or maybe even Scripture itself stays in your mind when it's set to music? SPEAKER C Oh, absolutely. I, when you asked me this question, so many hymns come to mind for me. And the first one, because of what we've been sharing with Paul giving us here, for God so loved the world, he gave his only Son. That one stood out to me so much. And then it shows because of what he did for us, giving his dear Son Jesus to us, and he died. There's power in the blood. If we didn't have that blood of Jesus, we would not be able to have the cleansing of our sins, let alone the fact with God having done that, how great thou art. Our God is so great, and that one just stood out to me as well for us poor human beings. And there are so many more that I could say to you. Sound the battle cry, the Lord is my shepherd. We have this hope. And Lift up the trumpet, Jesus is coming again. SPEAKER A Yeah, well, thank you very much, Corinne. My guests today were Corinne Knopper and Rod Butler. You know, for someone who persecuted Christians, Paul became a changed man after meeting Christ. Jesus Christ became all in all to him. And Corinne, an old Ralph Carmichael song says, he's everything to me. SPEAKER C Oh yes. SPEAKER A Is that your experience, listener and viewer? Jesus promises to transform your life and mine if we will allow Him into our hearts. If you are already living the new life in Him, then He promises to continue the work of replacing old misdeeds with the good. Racial differences will disappear too, for in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, but we're all one in Christ Jesus. So please take time to go through chapter 3 of Colossians and read it again to savor what we have been discussing today. We're glad you joined us on Let God Speak. If you were blessed by this program, why not tell your friends? Remember, all past programs plus teacher's notes are available on our website, 3abnaustralia.org.au. Join us again next time. God bless. SPEAKER B You have been listening to let God speak, a production of 3ABN Australia television. To catch up on past programmes, please visit 3abnaustralia.org.au. Call us in Australia on 02 4973 3456. Or email [email protected]. we'd love to hear from you.