Risen with Christ
Col.3:1-4; 2:12-13

In the Narnia tales by C.S. Lewis, there is a boy named Eustace who is a brat. He is on a voyage in uncharted waters and after a storm has done damage to their ship they put into an island for repairs, and the search for fresh water and food. Eustace did not want to work and he stole away from the crew. He came upon a dragon’s lear as the dragon was leaving. A rain storm drove him into the cave and he discovered there was vast stores of jewels, diamonds, and gold coins. He relished playing with it all. After a while he took a nap. When he woke up he found that there was a dragon in the cave. He tried to sneak out, but when he moved, it moved. When he stopped breathing, it stopped breathing. It came as a shock to him that he had become a dragon. Now Eustace the dragon had a big problem. How was he to return to human form and communicate with the others. He tried to peal over the knobbly skin and as soon as he did it, and was ready to plunge himself into the water, the skin returned. He did this three times and each time ended in failure. Then appears Aslan, the Lion,(the Lion of the tribe of Judah) who tells him that he cannot do this himself. He must submit himself to the Lion to have this change take place. Eustace reluctantly does this. The Lion’s claws go deeper than Eustace dreamed, and when this skin was taken off Aslan plunged the dragon into the water, and out came Eustace the boy.

This story gives us a picture of what Paul is talking about in Col. 2:12-3. It is a picture of submitting our lives to Christ. Paul speaks of “being buried with Him in baptism, in whom also you were raised through the faith of the working of God, raising Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,”

What does this mean? How can we be dead in Christ and raised in Christ? It might help us to understand if we look at Romans 5 where Paul talks about judgement that came upon all men by the offense of one man who is Adam. Here the race is summed up in one person. We must not stop there. The race is also summed up in one other man, Christ. “Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” (Rom 5:18)
Now when we look at Christ’s death and resurrection we are not to think of it as an isolated event of one man alone, but we are united to him in a strange and mystical way. We are united so that Christ’s death becomes ours, and his resurrection becomes ours also.

We can see this idea a little if we think of a husband and wife. Husband and wife are closely reunited in commitment to one another and whatever happens to one affects the other. If my wife were to make some great achievement it would be a blessing to me as well. If I were to do some terrible deed and go to prison, she would be affected in a terrible way also. In many ways, whatever happens to her, happens to me, and whatever happens to me happens to her.
We are linked closely to one another by commitment.

In a more profound sense, this is what Paul is saying about our commitment to Christ. By faith and commitment our lives are linked to Christ. Since he was crucified, we have been crucified with him, and since he was raised from death, we are also raised with him.

Now, the Scripture says, “If then, you have been raised with Christ, and you have, then there are some applications to this new life.

I. You have died.....v. 3

Being raised with Christ presupposes that we have died with Him. What does it mean to be dead? There are really two uses of this word “dead” in reference to the Christian life. First, in v. 13, there is the phrase about being dead in trespasses and sins. Before we became Christians, before we accepted Jesus as Lord, we were dead to God, living in sin, living in submission to the demands of lust and passion. But now that we are believers in Christ and have been raised in Christ, we are no longer dead to God, but are declared to be dead to sin. It is in this sense that the word “dead” (apothnasko) is used here. Committed Christians are said simply to be dead, that is, as having put off all sensibility to worldly things that draw them away from God.” (Thayer)

In the book of Romans it speaks of being united with Christ into his death. “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died to sin is freed from sin. (6-7) So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. v.11.

Now being dead to sin does not mean we are sinless. Instead, it means that we are no longer enslaved to sin. Sin is not our master any longer, but Christ is. One can see the analogy from the victory of Christ over Satan at the crucifixion. Satan was defeated at the cross and resurrection; now the process of mopping up operation is on. In the same sense we are declared to be righteous, or justified, but we are not perfect. So we are declared to be dead to sin in Christ, and this is a death to the dominion of sin. God has done that.

Now we are told to consider ourselves dead to sin. Now that I have been raised to a new life in Christ, now that I am dead to the rule of sin in my life, I am to consider myself dead to the practice of sin. Let’s think about what this means.

Let us think of a death and use our imaginations a little. A beloved member of a family is sick unto death. Word is sent to all the family and they seek to get home before the death. Most of them make it before the appointed hour of death, but one. She hasn’t been home for sometime and arrives an hour late. As she comes into the house she is told that her father passed away already. She rushes into the bedroom where this still lifeless form is resting. She cries in sorrow, “Dad, speak to me.” But there is no response. The body cannot respond, it is obvious to all that is going on around it. It is dead.

When we consider ourselves dead to sin, we give it no response. Temptation comes in its most exotic and beautiful form, but a dead person cannot respond. It is a wonderful thing to respond to your most subtle temptation over which you have fallen before many times, “I am dead to you and cannot respond.”

II. Your life is hidden V.3

Now we are declared to be dead, we are also declared to be raised from death in Christ.
Now, your life is hidden with Christ. “It is spiritual and thus invisible and hidden; full of vitality, indeed, so vital that it will pass through temporal, physical death unharmed, but operating with the intangible things it has in Christ” (Lenski,p.154) Jesus told his disciples of this secret life which the secular world in general could not see, nor know, but they could know. He spoke of the Comforter, or the Holy Spirit that he would give to them. “Then I will ask the Father to send you the Holy Spirit who will help you and always be with you. The Spirit will show you what is true. The people of this world cannot accept the Spirit, because they don't see or know him. But you know the Spirit, who is with you and will keep on living in you.” (John 14:16-17)

Your life is hidden in Christ is a wonderful truth to treasure. When you turn your life over to Christ, your life is hidden or concealed with Christ in God. It is though we have placed our lives into the safekeeping of God himself. There is no burglar that can break through to destroy or steal us away. We have the almighty power of God himself who guards our souls. The mystery of God’s supporting power cannot be known apart from faith in Christ himself.
It is for this reason that Paul could write about our relationship with God, in these words, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, not things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Thus evil people can destroy our bodies, but God has the keeping of our souls.

In these alarming times we need this treasure more and more. You people from China know something of the persecution and death of followers of Jesus. We live in a time when terrorists would love to blow up our cities and enslave the population. Nuclear threats are increasing as terrorists gain access to weapons of mass destruction. We need to remember these words of Scripture that nothing, none of these things can separate from the love of God in Christ.

Now because our lives, our existence, our redemption rests in the inward being of God Himself, because we have been raised with Christ, then we are commanded to clothe ourselves with “compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forgiving one another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you all must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” A woman speaking at a Baptist convention once said, “I believe in the religion of the three B’s–the Bible, the bathtub, and the broom–clean lives, clean bodies, and clean homes.” Our lives, our bodies, our homes are to reflect the influence of Jesus in our lives.

Many years ago one of the great conductors of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was Arturo Toscanini. They were rehearsing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Each group of instrumentalists play alone. Then they played the entire work without interruption. The fire in the conductor’s soul touched each player. When the finale reached its stirring close, there was silence. One violinist whispered to a colleague, “If he scolds us after such playing, I’ll push him over the pit.” Toscanini did not scold. “Who am I? he said. Who is Toscanini? I am nobody. Who are you? You are nobody.” Then with his face glowing, he exclaimed, “It is Beethoven, he is everything.”

We may ask ourselves, who am I? I am nobody? Who are you? You are nobody. It is Christ who is everything to us. Our lives are hidden in Him. He is everything.

III. Your Life is Ahead V. 4

We have discovered that our old life is dead, our new life is hidden in Christ, and now we are told that our real life is ahead of us. When Christ appears, then we will also appear with him in all his glory. “Our life shall not remain thus hidden forever. It shall remain thus only until the time ‘when Christ shall be made visible at his coming.”(Lenski,p.154) This simply means that Christ is the ground and basis of our life. Without him there is no hope of eternal life in the presence of God.

Paul is talking about something that many people do not think about anymore. He tells us that Christ is coming again. One day we shall see him coming in all his glory to bring judgement upon the world. Those who have blatantly rejected Christ shall suffer the consequences of their rejection of him. Those who have given their lives to Jesus will be honored with the presence of Christ forever and ever. We shall be changed from the lowly creaturely bodies that are ours and we shall be like him. We shall see him as he is and be made like unto him.

Therefore we are told, in view of Christ’s return, to seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. “Paul does not mean that we should never think about things on earth, but that these should not be our aim, our goal, our master. The Christian has to keep his feet upon the earth, but his head in the heavens.” (ATRob.word pic,p.500)

In view of this, we should not care what our lot is as long as we are content we are doing God’s will in our lives. We should not be content merely to see the gain of possessions, the development of an estate, but we should seek to win people to Jesus. Not too long after we were married we took a trip to the Black Hills. I borrowed a camera from a friend to take slides. I did not know too much about its operation, and somehow we took a double exposure of me. I was standing by a wall with the background of a mountain.However, the middle part of my body was covered by a cloud. My feet were on the ground and my head was above the cloud. I have always thought of that as a picture of how our lives are to be lived in Christ–our feet on the ground with our minds on things up above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

The older I get, I long to see the coming of Christ. Our world has so corrupted itself and things that we used to call evil are now accepted as good. Things that used to be good are rejected as evil. Value systems have been turned upside down. We need the coming of Jesus to put things right.

Conclusion:
1. The Scripture tells us that it makes all the difference in the world whether one is dead or alive in Christ. We become alive in Christ be a simple act of commitment to him.
The story is told that D.L. Moody was returning from a night meeting on a crowded Madison ave. streetcar in Chicago. This was at the end of the 1800's A rider asked who the big man was. Moody was stocky and well-built. When told he was Moody, the evangelists, the scoffer asked him a question, calling to him, “Hey, Sky Pilot, how far is it from Chicago to heaven?” Quickly Moody answered, “One step, will you take it?”

Pushing his way to the door, the man dropped from the rear platform in the street, followed by Moody, who reached the platform, funneled his hands, and shouted to the fleeing sinner, “One step from Chicago to heaven! One step! Will you take it?”

The following night, Moody related the incident at the close of his sermon, and repeated, “One step, one step from Chicago to heaven, who will be the one to take it tonight?”
Our of the rear of the house came a man pushing his way to the platform, saying, “I’ll take that step tonight.” It was the man who has asked the question of the Sky Pilot the night before.
2. One step of commitment brings great changes in life. One step can bring the happiness of marriage, one step can buy a house, one step can mean an education. More importantly, one step can bring new life in Christ. Have you taken it? Will you take it?