You don't know me like you know many of the other speakers. My name is Dan and I'm a pastor at Norton Summit. Thanks for coming. We're glad you could join us. It's been a great conference, hasn't it? I sort of feel like we're at Lourdes and it's the session after tea in the test and we're five wickets down and I'm the sixth batter. Marsh and Taylor have put on 329. And I've walked into bat. What do I do? Hold up an innings, play some shots. No, it's good, isn't it, to be here. And so just for your information, I'm married to Diane, have two children, older children who live in Melbourne, and a son, Josiah, who's with us in Adelaide. We have returned from Indonesia after 21 years, returned in 2020. We lived in Jakarta and worked throughout Java and other islands. and I've been at Norton Summit since May last year and so it's a great joy to be here and a great joy to have this facility used and shared and an even greater joy to open the Bible and read God's Word and reflect on it as Paul speaks to us as he spoke to the Colossians. Thanks, Hannah. Do you have a little thing on the screen for me? There we go. I'm going to read the text for you. And a somewhat sort of down to earth text, we might say. And reading from verse 5, put to death Therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways. in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these—anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other. since you've taken off the old self with its practices and you've put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all. And therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. bear with each other, forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you and over all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity. That's the word of the Lord. So I thought we would, at this kind of center point, almost center point, of the text, of the letter, perhaps think about where we are. Here's a map to show you exactly where the city of Colossae was located. I've travelled here many times. I used to teach in Turkey and Jordan and Greece. It's a beautiful valley called the Lycus Valley through which two rivers are flowing, the Lycus River and the Meandros River from which we get the English word meander. And inland from Ephesus, as we've heard already, Paul most probably didn't visit Colossae, although he spent at least three years in Ephesus. He could have gone to Colossae for all intents and purposes, but did not. It's a very fertile valley. And when you read Colossians 1, you hear Paul picking up language, you know, which would reflect this valley of the gospel growing. and bearing fruit all over the world and then later in 110 he says that we're to bear fruit in every good deed. Today it's very fertile, they grow tobacco but a myriad of Mediterranean fruits. So the picture of the place is helpful to understand the words in the text. It's actually a tri-city area, not just Colossae but Laodicea and Hierapolis. That's me in Hierapolis some years ago. These cities were within 10 kilometres of each other. Paul has workers, friends, colleagues, who are preaching the gospel and planting the church, establishing the church in these cities. There's correspondence between the cities. Letters are being sent from city to city. But the most interesting thing about Colossae today is this. If you go to Hierapolis, it's a magnificently excavated site. There's just the theater, for example, at sunset. If you go to Laodicea, the Turkish government has invested millions of dollars. The city has literally been razed. Wonderful place. But Colosseum? You're looking at Colosseum. It's buried. It's hidden. Tourists bypass it. Don't even give it a second thought. So I liked it, Trevor, when you said, you know, there are books you've preached at your church but you keep coming back to Colossae. I took a group here once and we actually walked to the top of that mound and we sang How Great Thou Art and, you know, we prayed for a rich American university to invest some money and dig it up. But we don't have to have it dug up, do we, really, to learn about the city, about Christ, about the church. We have the Word of God to inform us. And so, just the hiddenness of Colossae today, buried as it is, is kind of illustrative of what Paul has been saying to us about the hiddenness of spiritual realities. So for example, he says in 126, the mystery that's been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the Lord's people. He's talking about the gospel, of course, and as James said earlier, this word mystery and the hiddenness of the mystery, we're not to think of that like Agatha Christie, you know, where if we just searched long enough and hard enough and we had all the information at our hands, we would solve the crime and find the murderer. It's not that kind of mystery. It's not like the mystery religions of Asia Minor, that whole Lycus Valley region, you know, where the practitioners who were seeking, you know, power over the spiritual realm through worship of angels, ceremonies and rituals, and believing that in gaining such power, they'd unmasked the unseen. believing that they had mastery over the mysteries. And so we read in Colossians, Paul saying that these people, they went into great detail about what they've seen. So their quest for power becomes a source of pride, which Paul opposes. Of course, as James told us before, when we talk about mystery and hiddenness, the gospel, it must be revealed to us. It's revealed to us, Paul says in chapter 1, in the true word of the Gospel, the message of the Gospel that the Colossians had heard. Paul says in Romans 16 that we hear and understand and see the Gospel by the command of the Eternal God in the prophetic writing. So, what this means is Christianity, Christian faith, Christ, is not something or someone that we work out. We don't figure out our faith. We must receive from the Lord, by the Spirit, in the Word, the information that we need, new information, to inform us about his actions in bringing salvation through Jesus his Son. Does that make sense? I hope so, because that's exactly what Paul has said, that Jesus has imaged the invisible. So the pagans can be proud that they've unmasked the unseen, but that's just false. and it's flawed, but Jesus. We must see Him, and in seeing Him, we see the Father and we see the Gospel. And hence, throughout this book, we are told that our life even is hidden with Christ in God. So keep in mind the picture of the buried city. Because it's helpful, I think, to illustrate what Paul is wanting us to imagine as he instructs us. So I don't know whether you've been in a place where you've never known where you are. Have you had that experience? And you've said, not who am I, but where am I? Have you had that experience? I've had that experience a number of times overseas, but had it on a plane trip to Colossae, boarding Turkish airlines in Jakarta, flying 12 hours to Istanbul. The pilot, the cabin crew, those in charge to fly the plane, said nothing for the entire trip. Not a word. I'm waiting for words of reassurance and comfort from the pilot. We taxi out. We take off. Silence for 12 hours. Most of the cabin crew slept. And then we landed. Very unsettling. My wife recently had a similar experience. She was booked on Qantas to fly from Adelaide to Darwin, booked on Qantas, the flight's on time, and then out comes a white plane with the words Alliance, only to discover that Qantas have recently bought Alliance, but there's a problem with Alliance. Alliance does not have any in-flight entertainment. There are no screens. for four and a half hours, however long the trip was, at night. No idea where we are, how high, how fast, how long. It's very unsettling, isn't it? Can be, not to know where we are. It takes us right back to the garden, doesn't it? Adam and Eve hiding because they're naked and afraid and God says, where are you? And so Paul in the gospel can help us answer that question. Where are we? We've been raised with Christ. You don't need an in-flight entertainment service. You don't need a screen. need the Scripture, the Word, the true Word of God. Having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. So that's what we've been learning these last two days. We've been buried, our old sinful self taken to the cross, put to death in Jesus's death, and raised in him into the place where he is in him and that's where we are spiritually, geographically in Colossae, Norton Summit but we're absolutely securely in the resurrected Christ So we can answer the question, where are we with confidence? And that will become very important later on as Paul deals with ethical issues and how we express the faith that we have in God's Son. Briefly, just to remind you, we've heard this in the previous session, but just to say that, you know, we're to set our hearts and our minds on things above, that unseen realm, what we can't yet see. What this is meaning is that because we're in Christ, the things that pertain to what is unseen but are real and true and fitting for people of faith, they're found in Christ and they're found where Christ is. So we look up because we live in Him. The heart speaks to the issue of the affections, the desires, the seat of personality. I'm so sorry, I just hit the wrong button. What we crave for, who we love, what we love. what we want, who we want to be down here. So the mind, of course, avoid Tom Cruise, Maverick, don't think, do. Bad advice. We're to set our minds Our minds are essential to understanding the gospel but also to understanding what is eternal and what is earthly as we'll see shortly. Henry Blamear, who wrote a book on biblical worldview, said this of the church, the mental secularization of Christians means that nowadays we meet only as worshipping beings and as moral beings, but not as thinking beings. Now that's not true in every case, but that's an observation. of the vacuousness, the emptiness, the unthinking nature of much Christian activity. And so, we're to be caught up in all that Christ has done and all that he is, and we're to set our affections, our aspirations, our desires, and our thinking and our reasoning in who he is and what he has done. Now I want to suggest to you that when we're told that Christ is our life, who will one day appear in a second coming, we will also appear with him in glory. As we've already heard, we need to understand that when Christ is raised from the dead, the New Testament is teaching us that not only do we have a hope for the future, and we do, but the future has been brought into the present. So in that space that we heard about, the possibility to be the people of God, as we are to image God, is available and accessible through the power of Jesus. through his death and resurrection. I'll say that again, it's a Tim Keller quote, you may like or not like all that he says, but I think it's good. The resurrection doesn't just give us a hope for the future, the resurrection brings also the future into the present, which is of course our power. But when we say the present, that of course introduces a tension, we read in 1 John 3-2, now we are the children of God, but we do not yet know what we will be. There's a tension. By no means, everything about Christian living is apparent, seen, unseen. Not only to outsiders, for whom much of it appears foolish, but also to Christians themselves, for whom there remains mystery and much questioning until the final revelation. Its hiddenness necessitates that Christians live by faith and not by sight. And therefore, without all the answers to the meaning of many events, in their lives. I find that is an accurate explanation of my Christian experience. You know, to seek all answers, which properly belong only in God, is to be totally frustrated and potentially ruinous to faith. One man put it this way, he said, we don't live in this context by explanations. We live by promises, by which he means the promise of the gospel, you know, in Christ Jesus. And so that could be helpful to you as you navigate the now of the here as we flesh out all that we are and who we are and where we are in Jesus. And so in that context, put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature. It's the language of execution. It's the language of dying. It's the language of warfare. Now, before I read the parts of the passage, one more quote. When we interpret ethical passages, we face the temptation of reverting back to the approach of the Colossian Errorists, issuing edicts. developing strict rules to rein in immorality. Our godliness is not measured by the things we do not do. It comes from being in Christ, dying with Christ, being raised with Christ. No system of do's and don'ts, as we heard before, don't touch, don't handle, can create the image of God in humans. The new life of obedience does not depend on feeble moral resolve, but comes from being united with Christ. So that's an important context, isn't it? To avoid all the errors of the rules, religious rules even, in a feeble attempt to be the people of faith in Jesus. I wonder whether you've been trying hard to be holy. My sisters used to play in a netball team in the southeast. The team was called the Triads. They weren't very successful. So put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature. So let's start, as Paul does, with sexual sins, sins of sexuality, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed which is related to those sins, which is idolatry. I had a very strange experience today while James was preaching. It's okay, James, it's not your fault. My laptop was open, a PowerPoint was on the screen, and it has a dictation feature, so it's hearing James and translating what he says. Do you remember when James was talking about the tree, and then he wanted to take us to the Psalms? And James said, I think, first we must see Psalm 1. And my computer said, first we must sleep with someone. I only say that because, wow. In Colossae, sex was on the streets, as it was in Ephesus. A sex-saturated society, as it is today. But unlike them, here today, it's also on our screens, isn't it? We're bombarded. opportunities to indulge the earthly nature are available for all people. We're to put them to death. We're to understand that because of these actions and attitudes against which God is absolutely opposed, not simply because they're evil in themselves, but because they dehumanize his creation, they deface his image in us, and they are a distortion and denial of his divine purpose for human relationships as the expression of the image of God in creation. It's serious, isn't it? And why greed? Is greed just hanging on the end there? Well, possibly. Or is it connected in the sense that, you know, greed which involves grasping and getting and wanting and using and even abusing, is all part and parcel of the attitude of sexual sin. Again, to the garden of Eve seeing, taking, the sons of God seeing the daughters of men at Genesis 6, they saw them, they took them. That's the essential nature, isn't it, of this need to indulge in this lifestyle. Utterly selfish, of course, and self-centered. Behind all of this is idolatry. which is really humans wanting to un-God God and remake themselves in their own image. And sin, sexual sin, as you know, causes great damage physically, psychologically, relationally. damages faith, damages families, we can say goodbye to godlessness in Christ. It can be put to death because of the death of Christ in breaking the power of sin which defaces and damages His creation. I'm so sad to say that in returning to Australia, people say to me, oh, you know, the issue of broken marriages, but particularly sexual sin within churches. Oh, it's everywhere, someone said to me the other day. You know, it should not be. You know, it cannot be if we're to live the life we've been called into in Christ, dead and raised to life. And then there's sins of speech, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, lying, The tongue is powerful out of all proportion to its size. James tells us that. That is James, the author of James. Both, of course. Anger in itself might not be wrong. God is angry at sin, at injustice. We would expect God to be angry at those sins and we also can be and should be. But in my experience, it's very difficult to be angry and not sin. Was it Tim who said to me earlier that Geoffrey Bingham said, you can be angry for about one second before you begin to sin. That was his estimation. So, well, anger has many forms and many expressions. There's violent anger, explosive anger, rage, volcanic anger, which spills out, spews out, destroys, divides. And then there's that buried, inner anger, which harms spiritually and medically. You know, anger turned inward is but one cause of depression. Anger turned inward on yourself. I was in Melbourne last week, cafe owner, in a good position right next to the state library. He gets all the traffic from the students and then RMIT University. He said, I'm in the best place. He said, this is the corner that is successful. But he said, all the people around me are struggling. And he said, my experience now is that customers are more frequently angry than ever before. So they've been working at home, you know, they're not outside. Still, you know, the city is there, but it's not there. And even today, the edict has been given to return to mask wearing, and if you can, to work from home in Melbourne. And people are angry, he said, and they're demanding. like he's never experienced before. So that's his experience, what's your experience? Have you had my experience where you were angry, you know, in the home about something or someone, and then the phone rings and it's Rob George. Oh, hi Rob, how are you brother? You know, we flick the switch, but we haven't dealt with the problem. Anger still is present and it's powerful. Now I was thinking about anger and thinking that one of the sources of anger is our own insecurity. So insecurity leads to feelings of being under attack. And anger becomes our defence weapon. We lash out. But think of it. We've been raised with Christ. Our life is hidden with Christ in God, with God in Christ. We have no sense or reason to be insecure. We're safe. We're secure. Our sins have been forgiven. Chapter 1, redemption, release. We've received God's grace. God's grace means we have nothing to prove and we have nothing to hide. So the antidote to anger must be the security that we have in Christ. We could go on, couldn't we? Malice. That ugly inner attitude of ill will towards another person. When we get sad because they're successful. Malice. Slander. Gossiping. Backbiting. Shatters friendships. Ruins marriages. Breaks hearts. Divides churches. Pulling people down. Pulling people apart. And so often this takes place when we pray. You know the prayer. I'd like to share a few things about Jane so that we can pray more intelligently for her. You've heard that prayer. We package these things sometimes, even in our prayers. We need to be alert and aware to our language, but the motivations behind what we mean by what we say. Foul language. Filthy language. Slander, I should have said, you know, the assassination of character. Filthy language. We've been shocked coming back to Australia. See, in Indonesia, it's a Muslim country. Don't get me wrong, people swear in Indonesian. But, you know, we could go to a movie theatre in Indonesia and feel totally confident that any film we saw would have no filthy language. It's all edited out. There are no sex scenes in the movies. Now, there's a bit of a dichotomy here because Indonesians love horror. So even though I'm telling you that, you know, there's no filthy language, they're still lining up for the horror shows. But at least I knew I could safely take my children to any movie, not the horror of course, and not be assaulted in our senses by language, which is deeply offensive. But in Australia, How to avoid it? How not to hear it? Netflix! Stan. Everywhere? Everyone? Surely not. But even I have sworn and used filthy language. Just as a new Christian playing football here in Adelaide for a team, I walked back onto the field in the second quarter and I just let out an expletive. I felt like walking off the field. I was shocked. You can say that? You said that? You're a Christian? We need to deal by putting to death in Christ, relying on all the power through the Spirit of the Lord in us to put these sins down and lying, which is, of course, Satan's real work. It's his native language. He's a liar. He's a murderer, John 8, 44. We lie to cover mistakes, misjudgments, deceptions. We deceive ourselves. But we dehumanize people in lying. Throughout this chapter, you'll notice there's a phrase called, each other. This is not solo or solitary language. It's hurting others. It's harming others. It's harming the church. and we should take it seriously, and not just me or you. we're a society, we're a community, we're God's new humanity, we're God's showcase, so that the world will see what His salvation has done, how He's remaking His world to have a worshipping people from every tribe, nation, language and people. And this must be reflected in responsive discipleship to the redemption that we have in Christ Jesus. And so we shouldn't excuse these activities or language, we call it out in ourselves, we invite the Lord to work on us and in us and we invite each other to help us. This is the practical dimensions of living in Jesus, being buried and being raised as his new people. Now we've really actually had this happen because you've taken off your old self and you've put on your new self. This is in the tense of, this has actually already happened to us, this has been done and it's been done by God. So that's true, but it must be true here, tonight, tomorrow, in the reality of the world we live in here and now. And so it's a response to redemption, an asking of the Lord to act in a way to reveal His power over those latent powers contained in the sinful nature. Because we're being renewed. There's a process in the knowledge and in the image of our Creator. It's always been God's purpose to have His image bearers loving Him, worshipping Him, revealing Him to the unseen powers and to those seen. I mentioned it's not just about me but it's about we. Well Paul picks this up because here there is no Gentile or Jew, not just a new self but a new humanity. There's no circumcised or uncircumcised, there's no barbarian or Scythian, there's no slave or free but Christ is all and is in all. I was listening to the BBC last night interviewing a scholar from the United States, and he said, sadly, that by the age of three now, children, young children, are now identifying who will be successful, smart, and honest by skin colour. They surveyed and studied, it's a large study, by the age of three. Oh, you're that colour, you won't be smart. You can't be trusted to be honest. Say again. Wow. Nor will you be successful. Age of three. You know, there are deeply divisive issues in our communities and in our cultures, but look what Jesus has done. Jesus has dealt with the nationality issue, no Jew or Gentile. He's dealt with the religious issue, no circumcised or uncircumcised. He's dealt with the cultural issue, barbarian, Scythian. He's dealt with the status issue, neither slave nor free. one new humanity bound together in the death and resurrection of Jesus. God's showcase of a new society revealing what this life looks like for those who have faith in Jesus through the gospel. So that's the negative put to death But there's also a putting on. Clothe yourself. I'm wearing a jumper tonight. I still feel quite uncomfortable. 21 years in Jakarta, I never wore a jumper. Now, I did wear long pants. You might be surprised. Jakarta's daily temperature, minimum 23, maximum 34, every day of the year. But we never wore shorts, that is, in public. It's very offensive. In a majority Muslim country, men, you wear long pants. Ladies, you cover your shoulders, even your elbows. So to come back to Australia and to put on thick, heavy clothes, I still feel like, I mean, I know it's warm in here tonight, but out there, I could take it off. It takes time, doesn't it? We're not talking about style here, and we're not talking about fashion. We're talking about the fittedness of the life of faith in Jesus Christ. Wow. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Just reflect on these qualities which truly belong to God and are found in Christ. As I say, compassion of tenderness, softness of heart, sympathy towards another, kindness, God's kindness. When the kindness of God our Saviour appeared, Titus. I'm a bit of a fan of Winston Churchill, love his quotes, love his stories. George Bernard Shaw once invited Winston Churchill to one of his shows and he offered to buy him or give him a second ticket if he had a friend, to which Churchill replied, I cannot make your first show, but I can make the second if you have a show. Kindness. Humility. Not self-promotion. Self-abasement. One more Churchill. Churchill was opposed by a Labour politician called Cribbs. And one day, Churchill passed Cribbs in the corridor. And he was heard to say, there, but for the grace of God, goes God. Humility. Remember the Gnostics, the angel worshipers, they delighted in false knowledge, no humility, gentleness, the opposite of rudeness or harshness, patience, the opposite of resentment or revenge. One man said, who drives you up the wall? No, the Indonesians were described by the first missionaries, Dutch missionaries, as the most patient people in the world. I once travelled 10 kilometres in six hours. That's not unusual. I've seen people come to Jakarta and quickly they are undone. They want to get out. 32 million people. in greater Jakarta. Patience, something I had to learn, adapt to, adjust to. Who drives you up the wall? Patience means we don't flare up at provocation. We don't get downhearted at disappointment. Patience overcomes the unexpected. and it outlasts the unbearable. I want that. Indonesians, the most patient people in the world, absolutely true, incredibly patient until they're not. Once saw a man jump off his motorbike and pull out of a machete out of his leather jacket and we were out of there. Bear with each other. and forgive one another. That word bear with each other, it means hold oneself back, refrain, suspend any rightful demand of another out of consideration for their plight or their problem. Bear with. It takes time. and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you. C.S. Lewis said, excusing is not Christian forgiving. Forgiving is forgiving. P.T. Forsyth, who's a great theologian, I like reading, once said that Christianity does not contain forgiveness. It is forgiveness. And we're called to forgive in that costly way, the way of the cross. We're to forgive one another. There's to be a reciprocal response. Just as we respond to what God has done in us and through us and for us, we each respond to each other as we actively apply the atonement and forgive any and all who have offended us. We can forgive. We must forgive. Jesus has forgiven us our sins. Redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. By the grace of the cross and the power of the resurrection, we can forgive and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Well, this is the person I want to be. I think this is the people we can be. Now, as God renews us and transforms us, as we set our mind and our heart on what's unseen, the realities of Jesus raised and us in Him, and then here and now down to earth, living this way, not the old way, which has no part either of our present or of our future. So I wonder whether you agree with these statements. The gospel is thrilling for those for whom Jesus means everything. And Jesus will be seen in us when He is supreme among us. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your word. Thanks for this great text. The city might be buried, Jesus, today, but you're not. You're alive. You're Lord and King. And we are in you. We pray, Father, that as we ponder what it means to not figure out the Christian faith, but live out the Christian faith, you'll make this an increasingly rich experience of salvation here and now. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.