Since, Then

Clothe Yourselves, Sermon 1 — Open Door Christian Church, DeLand

For fifteen Sundays this summer we asked one question at Open Door: Is Jesus who he said he was?

This Sunday we start something new. Twelve Sundays in one letter. The letter is Colossians, and the series is called "Clothe Yourselves."

Before it is over, this letter is going to tell us how to live. How to talk to the person we are married to. How to handle our children. How to work. How to forgive. How to pray. How to answer somebody who is not a believer.

And every bit of it hangs on two words that point backward. They sit at the top of chapter 3.

Colossians 3:1 (NIV) — "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God."

Since, then.

Paul is not building his case in that sentence. Paul is resting on one. And if you do not have the since, you cannot do the then.

So this Sunday we are not going to chapter 3. We are starting with the first half. Who wrote this letter, and from where. Who carried it to them. What the first two chapters say about Jesus Christ. And what they say has already been done for you.

Who wrote it? A man in custody, signing his own name at the bottom of a page.

Colossians 4:18 (NIV) — "I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you."

Who got it? A small congregation in a small town. J. B. Lightfoot, a New Testament scholar and historian of the early church, said that without doubt Colossae was the least important church to which any epistle of Paul was addressed.

Who carried it to them? There is a name in chapter 1. He is not an apostle, and outside of three short mentions we know almost nothing about him.

And what has already been done? That is where we will spend most of our time Sunday, in five verses in chapter 2. Watch who the actor is.

Paul uses a word in that passage for 'putting off' that does not turn up anywhere else in the New Testament. It shows up three times, and all three are in this letter. The order it shows up in is the whole series in one line.

If you have been in the church longer than I have been alive, this is for you. If you came to Christ this summer and the water is barely dry, it is for you too. It is the same ground.

Want to get ready? Read Colossians. The whole thing, in one sitting. It's only four chapters, and it will take you about 20 minutes.

Sunday morning, September 27, at Open Door Christian Church.