Communion - What's Next?
So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.
Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life.
Church camp was always a great time for me. I loved the setting in rural Indiana where I would spend a week every summer learning, playing games, memorizing scripture, worshiping God, eating camp food (honestly, I thought it was pretty good), and hanging out with Christian kids from all over north central Indiana.
One of the highlights of camp was the real way I would experience God. In fact, it seems like every summer, I was led to conviction about something, and on Friday night, I’d make my pledge to God that I’d straighten up, I’d read the Bible daily, I’d do whatever it took to live out the Christian life.
But inevitably by the time I got back to school in the fall, I wouldn’t even remember what it was that I’d committed to. All sorts of other things that were important to me, like sports, school, and girls, would absorb my time, energy, and attention. I left camp with great intentions of winning the world to Christ, but those intentions faded quickly. I left camp with a great relationship with Jesus Christ and wanting to continue, but that relationship faded right along with the other camp relationships.
When I was a kid, we learned the “steps” to becoming a Christian. It all seemed so easy. They went like this: confess your sins, repent of your sins, be baptized, live a Christian life. It sounded simple. Live a Christian life. That’s it. I thought it was supposed to be really easy. After all, I never heard adults admit that they struggled with living a Christian life. Little did I realize, much of the Bible deals with exactly this question: how do we live the Christian life?
So how are we, as resurrection people, supposed to live now? This was what Paul was writing to the Colossians about. In today’s scripture reading, he gave them – and gives us three concrete points to follow:
If we’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.
Pursue the things over which Christ presides.
See things from Christ’s perspective.
In college, in a German conversation course, we were supposed to interview a classmate and then describe that person in a presentation in class. The person who chose my name was a teammate from the soccer team, so he asked me, “I think I know you well enough – do I have to interview you?” I figured he didn’t need to. So in his presentation, he described me: loudmouthed, brash, arrogant, quick-tempered, and short-fused. My classmates were surprised to hear me described in those ways, because that’s not what they saw in the classroom. My soccer teammate, however, described me that way because he knew me on the field, and – this is the good part – he thought all of those were good attributes for his goalkeeper. I lived by the rule that I was the goalkeeper – so I acted like it. I made sure I looked and acted like a good goalkeeper from the minute I walked onto the field. Believe it or not, that carried over into the games. My teammates believed that I was a good goalkeeper, so they played better in front of me, and because they played so well, it made me better, too.
We as Christians have a duty to act like Christians. There is a problem when the divorce rate inside the church isn’t any different from that outside the church. There is a problem when teenage pregnancy rates outside the church aren’t any different than those inside the church. There is a problem when outsiders see church people as gossips, as greedy, as, well, un-Christian. There is a problem when people say, “I like Jesus, but I don’t like church people.” – and believe me, if you haven’t heard this, the only reason is because you haven’t been listening to today’s culture.
They see Christian people living as if there was no God. This is simply unacceptable. If you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.
You might be asking, “How am I supposed to act like it? Wasn’t that your main point – that people always said, ‘Live a Christian life’ but they never described what that looked like?” Paul already thought of that. He goes on to tell his readers to pursue the things over which Christ presides.
What kinds of things does Christ preside over?
[Invite congregation participation]
These, then, are the sorts of things we, as Christians, need to be pursuing. Too often we shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of us, and we ignore what Jesus Christ is doing all around us. The action is where Christ is present, where He is working, and where He is leading.
To get there, we must look at things, programs, and people with Christ’s perspective. What is Christ’s perspective?
Well, when we describe anyone’s perspective, it’s the way they see things. The phrase “looking through rose-colored glasses” is appropriate – if we view things through glasses with a certain color tint, everything will appear that color. We could say that Jesus views everyone through the lens of the cross – cross-shaped glasses, if you will.
In His perspective, we are all people that His Father created in His own image. We are all persons of worth, no matter what our name or background. We are all people whose sins are meant to be covered by the sacrifice He made for us on the cross, if only we accept His grace. From His perspective, we were all created on purpose, for a purpose. Are we living on purpose, or are we just running around like chickens with our heads cut off?
We celebrate Communion today, and as we do so, we’ll confess our sins to God and to one another. We will announce what we know is true – that in the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven of our sins. We will participate in the Lord’s Supper, celebrating Christ’s body, broken for us and His blood, shed for us. We will get to reflect on the great mystery of the faith – Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. And as we rise from the table, cleansed of sin and in unity with Jesus Christ and the Church, let’s act like Christians, pursuing the things over which Christ presides and looking at all things through Jesus Christ’s perspective.
Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life.
Colossians 3:1-3 (Message)
Church camp was always a great time for me. I loved the setting in rural Indiana where I would spend a week every summer learning, playing games, memorizing scripture, worshiping God, eating camp food (honestly, I thought it was pretty good), and hanging out with Christian kids from all over north central Indiana.
One of the highlights of camp was the real way I would experience God. In fact, it seems like every summer, I was led to conviction about something, and on Friday night, I’d make my pledge to God that I’d straighten up, I’d read the Bible daily, I’d do whatever it took to live out the Christian life.
But inevitably by the time I got back to school in the fall, I wouldn’t even remember what it was that I’d committed to. All sorts of other things that were important to me, like sports, school, and girls, would absorb my time, energy, and attention. I left camp with great intentions of winning the world to Christ, but those intentions faded quickly. I left camp with a great relationship with Jesus Christ and wanting to continue, but that relationship faded right along with the other camp relationships.
When I was a kid, we learned the “steps” to becoming a Christian. It all seemed so easy. They went like this: confess your sins, repent of your sins, be baptized, live a Christian life. It sounded simple. Live a Christian life. That’s it. I thought it was supposed to be really easy. After all, I never heard adults admit that they struggled with living a Christian life. Little did I realize, much of the Bible deals with exactly this question: how do we live the Christian life?
So how are we, as resurrection people, supposed to live now? This was what Paul was writing to the Colossians about. In today’s scripture reading, he gave them – and gives us three concrete points to follow:
If we’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.
Pursue the things over which Christ presides.
See things from Christ’s perspective.
In college, in a German conversation course, we were supposed to interview a classmate and then describe that person in a presentation in class. The person who chose my name was a teammate from the soccer team, so he asked me, “I think I know you well enough – do I have to interview you?” I figured he didn’t need to. So in his presentation, he described me: loudmouthed, brash, arrogant, quick-tempered, and short-fused. My classmates were surprised to hear me described in those ways, because that’s not what they saw in the classroom. My soccer teammate, however, described me that way because he knew me on the field, and – this is the good part – he thought all of those were good attributes for his goalkeeper. I lived by the rule that I was the goalkeeper – so I acted like it. I made sure I looked and acted like a good goalkeeper from the minute I walked onto the field. Believe it or not, that carried over into the games. My teammates believed that I was a good goalkeeper, so they played better in front of me, and because they played so well, it made me better, too.
We as Christians have a duty to act like Christians. There is a problem when the divorce rate inside the church isn’t any different from that outside the church. There is a problem when teenage pregnancy rates outside the church aren’t any different than those inside the church. There is a problem when outsiders see church people as gossips, as greedy, as, well, un-Christian. There is a problem when people say, “I like Jesus, but I don’t like church people.” – and believe me, if you haven’t heard this, the only reason is because you haven’t been listening to today’s culture.
They see Christian people living as if there was no God. This is simply unacceptable. If you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.
You might be asking, “How am I supposed to act like it? Wasn’t that your main point – that people always said, ‘Live a Christian life’ but they never described what that looked like?” Paul already thought of that. He goes on to tell his readers to pursue the things over which Christ presides.
What kinds of things does Christ preside over?
[Invite congregation participation]
These, then, are the sorts of things we, as Christians, need to be pursuing. Too often we shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of us, and we ignore what Jesus Christ is doing all around us. The action is where Christ is present, where He is working, and where He is leading.
To get there, we must look at things, programs, and people with Christ’s perspective. What is Christ’s perspective?
Well, when we describe anyone’s perspective, it’s the way they see things. The phrase “looking through rose-colored glasses” is appropriate – if we view things through glasses with a certain color tint, everything will appear that color. We could say that Jesus views everyone through the lens of the cross – cross-shaped glasses, if you will.
In His perspective, we are all people that His Father created in His own image. We are all persons of worth, no matter what our name or background. We are all people whose sins are meant to be covered by the sacrifice He made for us on the cross, if only we accept His grace. From His perspective, we were all created on purpose, for a purpose. Are we living on purpose, or are we just running around like chickens with our heads cut off?
We celebrate Communion today, and as we do so, we’ll confess our sins to God and to one another. We will announce what we know is true – that in the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven of our sins. We will participate in the Lord’s Supper, celebrating Christ’s body, broken for us and His blood, shed for us. We will get to reflect on the great mystery of the faith – Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. And as we rise from the table, cleansed of sin and in unity with Jesus Christ and the Church, let’s act like Christians, pursuing the things over which Christ presides and looking at all things through Jesus Christ’s perspective.
Comments