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Part 4 of 6
Colossians 3: Theological Foundations Transform Relationships
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Paul's letter to the church at Colossae is structured around a critical principle: Christian virtue builds upon and is the byproduct of theological truths. In other words, I act this way because I believe these things. My beliefs shape my behaviors.
This matters enormously in our current moment. There is a growing trend within the body of believers where individuals claim to be Christians but have dismissed the firm foundation of God's written, inspired, infallible word. When you try to manufacture acts of righteousness and Christian virtue on your own—when you attempt to live as a Christian without aligning to God's word—you produce a wonky, unstable way of living that contradicts God's design. You claim to be a Christian but look nothing like Jesus.
In the first two chapters of Colossians, Paul establishes three theological foundations:
The Supremacy of Christ — God is above all things, before all things. He reigns supreme, is in full control, and is the originator and Creator of all.
The Sufficiency of Christ — God works his redemptive plan in and through every detail and aspect of our lives. He is a good steward who doesn't waste anything—not your time, not your pain, not your experiences. God weaves his redemptive plan through the minute details and mundane natures of life. He fulfills his promise to bring to completion the work he has started within you.
The Sovereignty of Christ — He is not just all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, and always present; he is in full control. He has a plan and he handles his business.
When it comes to God's sovereignty, doubt will creep into every single one of us. To be a Christian is to live within the tension of belief and doubt. The church has created an idol out of certainty—the false idea that once you become a Christian you should have no doubts and no questions. That's nonsense, and it's nowhere represented in Scripture.
Every individual who embarked on a life of faith anchored themselves to some things they were confident in, yet they had to manage uncertainty and doubt. Consider Thomas, one of Jesus's disciples. He had extraordinary faith—so much that he stood out from the others. When Jesus decided to return to Bethany despite threats against his life, Thomas rose up in courage and said, "Let's do it. If you go, I'm going with you, and even if they take us out to death, I'm with you." That's faith.
But after the resurrection, after witnessing his Lord, friend, teacher, and Rabbi be publicly executed, humiliated, and tortured, Thomas found himself wrestling with the complexities and contradictions of his soul. Doubt and fear crept in. Yet he was living in the tension of belief and doubt.
Faith is trusting in advance what will often only make sense in reverse. You don't see God's hand when you're living through difficult moments, but when you look back on life, you trace his heart. God, I don't know exactly what you're doing, but I know you're good. I know you're faithful. I know you're for me. I know you're merciful. I know you'll never leave me nor forsake me.
When you pivot and look back, you discover in reverse God's tender mercy and his faithful ability to be at work in all things. God's sovereignty means you can trust that he is somehow in it all.
One of the overarching claims of Scripture is this: if you follow Christ truly and faithfully, you will get better at your relationships. God is so attentive and concerned with our relationships. Jesus not only makes life better—there's peace, purpose, identity, joy—he makes you and me better at life, specifically better at relationships.
Paul writes: "If then you have been raised with Christ... seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth."
When you give your life to Christ, you take on a different posture, a different demeanor, a different perspective. You no longer obsess over lesser things because you're anchoring your hope, your vision, and your identity to the King of Kings who is seated on the throne.
"Your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."
What Paul is saying is profound: over time, you start to discover God's work in your life. You anchor yourself to the future hope and glory of eternity that has been provided through Christ Jesus. As you give your life to Christ and set your mind on things above, there is coming a day when Christ will return in the fullness of his glory.
Prophets for centuries predicted and foretold that the Messiah, the savior of the world, would show up—and he did. Jesus Christ came and took on human flesh. This is the doctrine of the Incarnation: God in bodily form. It signifies the great reversal.
What is the great reversal? He takes on your brokenness and gives you his righteousness. He steps into your shoes so you could step into his shoes. He takes on your death so you could take on his life. He becomes part of an earthly family so you could join a heavenly family. This is not a fair exchange, but you and I are the benefactors, and he is gracious to us.
For centuries, people braced for the wrath of God—for the day when God would show up and deal with humanity's sinfulness and brokenness. But what no one expected was Jesus standing between us and the wrath of God, absorbing every ounce of his wrath like a sponge and a shield on our behalf. When Christ appears in the fullness of his glory, you too will appear with him in glory. Your eternity is secure in Christ.
When Christ returns and introduces you to your future version of yourself, you will discover yourself at your fullest potential—with no shortcoming, no brokenness. This is the hope of the Christian. This hope reverse-engineers your future into your present: If this is how my eternity will look, if this is how I will act, then how do I pull that into now?
You became a Christian and people were quick to remind you that you're still broken. You still lose your temper at your kids' sports games. You still struggle with patience. That's because heaven doesn't wave a wand over your life the moment you surrender to Christ. Salvation happens in a moment; sanctification takes the rest of your life. Salvation gets you to heaven; sanctification gets heaven through you.
Salvation is a finished work. Sanctification is a lifelong journey where your heavenly Father walks with you diligently, shaping you, building you, and transforming you into the image and likeness of his Son, Jesus Christ. He's not concerned with the speed of your growth; he's concerned with the strength of your growth.
Paul uses firm language: "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."
Don't be offended by Scripture's firmness. Ask instead: Why is God being so firm? The answer is that God is passionately and unyieldingly devoted to making things right. God doesn't wink at the things that harm his children. He is hard on the things that are hard on his children.
The wages of sin is death. Sin doesn't just lead to physical death; as you develop and live in a way that is sinful and dishonoring to God, it comes at the expense of what matters most. It kills your joy. It kills your peace. It robs your identity. It hijacks your purpose. It kills your relationships. Would you kill the things that are killing you? Do not flirt with destructive things that harm what matters most in your life.
Paul makes a radical statement:
"Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all."
What is he saying? The gospel bridges the biggest gaps in your world. Because of Christ, there is no racial, political, social, or economical distinction. He bridges the gaps—the biggest gaps that disrupt our world, the divisions that break us apart. The people of God stand ready and prepared to have a tremendous impact on a very divisive and broken world if we truly embrace what God is saying here.
Paul tells us: "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and bearing with one another. If one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive."
Notice something crucial: these virtues are all relational virtues. Here's where we're getting it wrong in our culture. We are becoming so autonomous, so driven toward independence, so increasingly isolated. Everyone wants to be their own boss. Everyone's an influencer. We are the selfie generation, and narcissism is on the rise. "Don't worry about the world; just obsess over yourself."
But here's the truth: narcissism is one of the fastest growing and most lethal cancers your family could ever experience. What Christ does in and through our life plays out first and foremost through the context of relationships and community. You can tell how well you're doing in your relationship with Christ by how well you're doing in your relationship with others.
Paul writes: "Forgiving each other just as Christ has forgiven you." That's a big standard. That's a high bar. And above all these, he says, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. The grace of God—this love—binds broken things. It reconciles divisions. It bridges gaps.
Matthew 18 provides a powerful illustration of what forgiveness looks like in practice. Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive someone, suggesting seven times. Jesus responds, "No, seventy times seven"—essentially telling him to keep forgiving until he loses count.
Jesus then tells a parable: a master forgives a servant who owes him 10,000 bags of gold. But that same servant turns around and throws someone in prison for owing him just 100 pieces of silver. When the master hears about this, he confronts the servant: "I forgave you of 10,000 bags of gold, and you're sending that guy to prison for 100 pieces of silver? That's not okay."
Jesus makes clear through this parable that unforgiveness in the hearts of His children is something God views very seriously.
The leading cause of hypocrisy within the church is unforgiveness. Our message is the gospel—a message of grace and forgiveness. Yet one of the most comical oxymorons is an unforgiving Christian, someone who walks around with bitterness in their heart.
If you are truly following Christ faithfully, Christ would never lead you to a life of bitterness. He will never support that. Learning to forgive others the same way Christ forgave you is essential to living out your faith.
How did Christ forgive us? Scripture says, "While I was yet a sinner Christ died for me." On the cross, Christ prayed for us, and His prayer was: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." This is forgiveness before repentance, forgiveness before an apology—forgiveness despite their ignorance.
Christ calls us to this same standard. Would you be the type of Christian who carries grace in your back pocket? When someone comes up short, you're there to be "Jesus with skin on," saying, "It's all right. We're all fallen people. We all come up short. But God is good and faithful. He's forgiven me of much, and because of my experience, this expression of grace is natural to me."
Consider the lesson from driving in different countries. In America, we expect people to stay in their lane, and we're shocked when they don't. But in countries like Thailand, drivers expect people to come out of their lane and are prepared for it. There are far fewer accidents as a result.
The same thing happens in the church. We become so "cute and professional" about our religion that we start expecting perfection from everyone. The moment an imperfect person does something imperfectly, we're immediately shocked and caught off guard.
Here's the reality: people are going to let you down. And you're going to let them down. So you might as well be gracious to them, because you're hoping they'll be gracious to you.
Paul moves from these high-level principles to specific application: "Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. Fathers do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged."
Here's what happens: there's agreement when we talk about things at a high level. Everyone's nodding and saying amen. But the moment these principles move from macro to personal application, everyone gets uncomfortable.
We're good at solving the war in the Middle East but can't solve the conflict in our living room. We have opinions about the Second Amendment but won't discuss the violent video games our kids are playing. We're comfortable discussing sex being peddled through media but won't talk to our daughters about modesty. We think we can solve the national debt crisis but won't sit down with our spouse to establish a budget.
What Paul is saying is this: the courageous, the fruitful, the effective—those who honor God and get the most out of the life He died to give us—they stop trying to control the world and stop with character signaling and virtue signaling. They focus on their home: How can we apply these things to our household? How can we live this out?
When you embrace this new life and demeanor in Christ, your entire approach to the home looks different. It's counterintuitive and countercultural, but you might find yourself crawling toward life instead of toward death, escaping the avalanche of this world.
Here's the truth: if God can bridge the biggest gaps within our society and world, He can bridge the gaps within our home. A church and the world are filled with imperfect people—it's the one thing we all have in common. Being a sinner is actually a prerequisite to being a Christian. You can't be a Christian until you acknowledge you're a sinner.
Let's get over it. We're all going to make mistakes. The beauty is found in repentance, forgiveness, apologizing, and taking ownership. Walking humbly opens the door for God's redemptive nature to bridge the gaps and brokenness in our families.
I had a moment with my son Canon when he was about six or seven. The school was saying he should know his alphabet, and he was struggling. I went into parent mode: we were going to sit down, work through worksheets, and he wasn't getting up until he got it done.
I hovered over him as he tried to work through the letters. He kept messing up, and I got frustrated. I noticed he wasn't paying attention—his eyes were moving all over the place. So I started lecturing him about focus. I put both my hands on the sides of his head and said, "Buddy, just look at the worksheet. What are the letters?"
A few months later, we're at the optometrist's office. The doctor comes in and says, "Your son has terrible eyesight. He has severe astigmatism."
Astigmatism is a curvature of the eye that means objects he's looking at are either blurred or double. The curvature creates shadows around what he's seeing. The doctor asked, "Have you noticed that when he's trying to focus, he's moving his head all around like this?" That's what he was doing—trying to find an angle to see what was in front of him.
In that moment, I thought, What a lousy dad. I had totally dropped the ball. I made my son feel lousy about his education when the real problem was that Dad missed the mark. I owed Canon an apology and had to repent.
But maybe that's the beauty of it all: repentance, forgiveness, apologizing, taking ownership. That's what opens the door for God's redemptive nature to bridge the gaps and brokenness in our families.
The word submit in Colossians 3 is a borrowed Greek military term speaking of rank within the military. It literally means "to stand under." When Paul says wives should submit to their husbands, he's saying that wives need to, at moments, stand under in a posture that understands their husband's attempt to try to lead well.
What it's not saying is that, exclusively and across the board, men are better than women and women should always defer to men in every context. You'll never find that in the Bible. God says, "Only within the family unit—your family and their family—do I want there to be some order."
Life is going to come with pressure and inconvenience. When a moment comes where a decision has to be made, what would happen if the wife looked at the husband and said, "I've got your back, and I trust you"?
Here's the problem: men have failed to rise up and become the priests of our homes as we're called to be. We've bought the cultural lie that we're only here to provide. We've shrugged off the responsibility to be caretakers, nurturers, and developers within our home. As a result, we've lost the trust of an entire gender to lead well.
This isn't saying that every decision has to run through the man. It's simply saying, "I understand you're trying, and I believe in you. I see the priest of God in you. I see the leader you're trying to be, and I understand the critical importance of your role within this home."
Think about chess: the queen can do whatever she wants. She can move however she wants. She's more impressive than the king. But take out the king? Game over. Take out the role of men and fathers within our society? Game over.
It's not to say women aren't impressive or that their role isn't wonderful and needed. It's to say that men still have a critical role to play. Paul's invitation here is for men to say: I'm not just going to be a provider. I'm going to be a priest. I'm going to lead within a home that garners the trust and respect of those I get to lead.
If you're not single, please do yourself a favor and do not marry someone you don't respect and trust. You'll just create heartache for yourself and the other person. Marriage is not a casual decision.
When you embrace the gospel, your house will look different. That's the goal.
