Colossians: Out With The Old, In With The New

Jesus's Victory Comes Into Our Lives

Good morning. My name is Yanah. If we haven't met before, I'm one of the pastors on the team. I've been away for a year having a baby, but I'm back. I'm really happy to be here. Welcome if you're joining us online, and a particular welcome if you're visiting or if you've just found yourself here for the first time.

A Question About Transformation

I caught something on TV the other day—an interview with a head gardener and his team. They had transformed these neglected, overgrown gardens into a beautiful oasis over 14 years. At first I thought, "14 years? Can you even call it a transformation if it takes that long?" But then I realized: when you think about how many layers of soil need sorting, how many seasons it takes for plants to mature and flower, 14 years is actually pretty good going.

This raises a bigger question: How long does it take to transform a human life? Does it take longer than a garden or less time? All the layers of history, all the years gone by and how they shaped us—can a human life really change? And more importantly, can it be done at all?

When we look at this passage from Colossians, we're looking at a text about exactly how much a human life can change. It's not just a little change. It's total transformation—not just on the inside, but on the outside and inside. And this is written by a man who experienced being totally transformed himself. He calls it a new self. He's not theorizing; this is his personal experience.

The Theme: Jesus's Supremacy

This letter from Paul has one overarching theme: Jesus—who he is, what he's done, and how it matters in every direction you can think of. Paul focuses on Jesus's supremacy and what it means for us.

The first thing we see in this passage is this: Jesus's victory in the world means victory in us.

Earlier in Colossians, Paul lists all the ways Jesus is supreme. In him, all things are created. He's over all thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities—all things seen and unseen. Jesus is enthroned over it all. But what we see in our passage today is that Jesus's victory doesn't just work on the cosmic scale—it works on every level, all the way down to the very personal level, into your life and mine.

There's a phrase in verse 1: "where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." This is a quote from Psalm 110:1:

"The Lord says to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.'"

This is shorthand for triumph and victory. Jesus has triumphed and is triumphing until every enemy—all the way down—is like a footstool for his feet.

His Victory Works Within Us

First, his victory works within us. This includes our personal battles—the fights within ourselves, the sins that overpower us, the cycles of behavior and ways of thinking we can't break out of. The power of Jesus over the cosmic forces of the world comes all the way down to the forces at work in your heart and mine. Here too, he has the supremacy. There is power in Jesus to totally transform a human life by bringing victory to our personal battles.

If I asked you to think for a moment about your greatest personal battle—not with a person or situation, but within you, what you wrestle with most—your great foe—here too, he has the supremacy.

Paul explains this when he talks about dying and being raised with Christ. It's like we're plugged into Jesus in two ways at the same time. We're plugged into:

1. His resurrection life—coming out of the grave with its power and glory
2. His death—and there is power in this too

When Paul says, "For you died," he means that in Jesus, these things we battle can die. The death of Jesus operates in us, and the things we wrestle with can die in him. Jesus takes these great sins and makes a spectacle of them, nails them to the cross to die. There is power in the death of Jesus.

We are supposed to be walking signs, samples, and tasters of Jesus's victory—over anger, resentment, lust, fear. You and I are supposed to be walking, talking, laughing trophies of his triumph over the greatest wrestles in human life.

Baptism enacts this reality: going down like you're dying into the water, then rising up, plugged in both to his death and to his life.

His Victory Works Between Us

Second, his victory works between us. The sins Paul lists—sexual immorality, greed, anger, rage, slander—are sins that divide communities and destroy human relationships. Paul is not writing to an individual; he's writing to a church, a community. He reminds them that Jesus in his resurrection has created an amazing, beautiful new humanity in himself—one that is beautifully and gloriously united.

Look at verse 11: when Paul talks about there being no Gentile or Jew, no barbarian or Scythian, no slave or free, he's listing racial differences, insider/outsider categories, and economic differences. The point is not that these differences no longer exist, but that they no longer divide. These differences are now a feature of beauty, not a source of division. It's amazing.

When Paul mentions "the wrath of God," he means that Jesus has created this amazing united community. God is coming for anything that tries to destroy or undermine that community. His anger comes for any sin or force that would undo what he has created in Jesus.

In this community, we are together to be a walking, talking trophy of the victory of Jesus over everything that divides human communities. There are so many things that divide us—but he is supreme over them all. Over sexual sins, manipulation, judgmentalism, resentment. He is supreme over them all, and he's doing something beautiful in his people.

The Diligent Effort of Transformation

But how does this life unfold exactly? Paul describes a diligent, focused effort to walk into this new life. Jesus offers us new life. We're plugged in to the life and death of Jesus. This is somehow true of us already. But that doesn't mean there aren't things for us to do.

Paul talks about setting your heart and mind on things, practicing things, getting rid of things, walking in things. He uses that graphic phrase: "putting some things to death." This is a diligent, focused effort.

Think of it like this: Imagine you've been given the holiday of a lifetime. Six weeks, perfect weather, your dream destination. You couldn't earn this. But you've got to sort things. You've got to find someone to look after your dog, put your plants in the bath so they don't die, sort your visa, delegate work, maybe work some nights just to get things done before you go. There's a lot of hard work involved.

That is the flavor of the Christian life. This whole new life has been won for you. Now you've got to make arrangements. You've got to make space for it to come flooding in. Hebrews says, "Make every effort to enter into God's rest." That's what Paul is describing. The Christian life is a life of diligent, focused, joyful effort.

However, this isn't just about thinking about heaven all the time. It's about thinking of the present victory of Jesus today and now, and making space for that to come flooding into our lives. As we make space for it, all of his goodness and his life starts coming into our life now. His peace starts flooding in like rising floodwaters. His joy comes to us more and more. His strength starts infusing ours. His poise, his non-anxious presence starts invading our day-to-day lives. We start living on holiday before we even get there. We're living in his kingdom now, even though it's not yet fully come.

Three Prayers for Daily Life

When we read and dwell on scripture, we're not just looking for truths to understand. We're looking for things to pray. Three prayers jumped out at me from this passage.

Prayer One: Lord, I Want This to Die

Prayer number one: Lord, I want this to die.

Insert your personal wrestle, your sin, your destructive behavior. There's something you want to die—maybe suddenly, maybe slowly but progressively. Some things we'll wrestle with for a long time, but often we give up way too easily or just wait for it to die of its own free will.

This passage is a glorious invitation to bring the sins we wrestle with to Jesus to die. It's an invitation to give ourselves to the diligent, joyful effort of ordering our lives so these sins are slowly starved of oxygen.

Think of it like an ecosystem. Sins flourish in certain environments; they feed off certain things or atmospheres. We can work to slowly shape the ecosystem of our lives so these sins are starved. We remove some of the things they feed off. We change the atmosphere. We fill our lives with gratitude, service, and confession. These sins slowly become shadows of their former selves, robbed of their power and influence.

"Lord, help me order my life so this thing dies. Help me plug in to your cross that this can die. Help me order my life. Teach me to confess it, to persevere. Make this thing a footstool for your feet."

Prayer Two: Lord, Order My Mind

Prayer number two: Lord, order my mind.

Paul talks about setting our hearts and minds on Jesus and his victory, putting that first and letting everything else—all our other calculations for life, for identity, for our future—work their way out under this heading.

Honestly, my mind is not that easy to order. It's like herding cats. But the truth is that the victory of Jesus is to bring order and beauty out of chaos. That's what Jesus does. I want my mind to be an expression of the order and beauty of Jesus more and more.

Think of it like a garden. My mind is often just a patch of land that nobody is looking after—brambles, sticky weeds, chaos. But imagine a mind that is ordered, tended and cared for, where thoughts more or less run where they ought to, and there's space to be, to dwell, to think of the Lord, to think through things as you ought to.

Bringing our minds to the Lord:

"Lord, come order my mind. I put my thinking in your hands. Teach me how to take my thoughts captive and bring them to you. Come and order my mind."

Prayer Three: Lord, Open My Eyes to Your Glory

Prayer number three: Lord, open my eyes to your glory.

Paul is so captivated by the glory of Jesus. He's almost breathless with the thought of life caught up in the glory of Jesus. All through the letter, he's been like this.

I wonder if, like me, you've struggled to feel as excited about it as Paul clearly is. I don't want an "if you say so" heart about Jesus and his glory. I don't want it just to be a concept I believe abstractly. I want it to burn in me. And the only way I know how to do that is to bring it to Jesus and say:

"Open my eyes. Help me see what I'm not seeing. Deal with the hard parts of me where I'm disinterested or distracted or frankly caring about things I shouldn't care so much about. It will be almost impossible to abandon the other things in my life I need to abandon if your love doesn't displace them. If a greater love, a greater joy, a greater excitement isn't the driving force of my life, Lord, come. Do what I cannot do in my own heart. Show me what I need to reorder. Show me where I need to focus differently, but come get me excited about your glory."

Living These Prayers

These prayers are not so much moments as they are lifestyles—things to pray again and again until they shape us and Jesus brings his life through them.