When You Know You’re Alive

1. As You Have Received Christ, So Walk in Him

When you become alive in Christ. And I really like that word that’s really big on the screen. Alive. And that’s what I want to talk to you about. How do you know when you’re alive? And that’s what he’s talking to the church at Colossae about in Colossians chapter 2. Wish I had the time to read the whole letter, but you’re going to have to go back and get the context of this. But he’s talking to these brethren, beginning in verse 6. And he says, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. Now, if we are alive in him, there is a prescribed walk for us to follow. As you have received Christ, so walk in him. Having been firmly rooted, and that’s what some of those saints were that had persevered through the decades.

Firmly rooted and now being built up in him. And established in your faith just as you were instructed and overflowing with gratitude. I’ve mentioned that verse a lot with you. Not the part really that says to be established in your faith. But I’m reminded of the thing I write at the thank you notes that I send to people who have me into their home or take me out to eat during a gospel meeting, I write at the bottom of every one, Jude 20 and 21. Usually I use those verses because people have to look that up. But what does that say? It’s not common that those verses get referenced. But build yourselves up in the most holy faith. Keep yourselves in the love of God. And that’s how I want to encourage them, my parting words to them.

Build yourselves up in the most holy faith. Be established in your faith. And that’s one of the things that we’re doing as we meet together, week after week. We want to stay grounded and established and firmly rooted in our faith. We start missing assemblies. We start neglecting spiritual pursuit, and we won’t be established in our faith for very long.

2. In Him You Were Made Alive

And along with that, give thanks as we’ve sung. And not just being people of gratitude for all that God has done for us, mostly spiritually, but a gratitude that is overflowing in our hearts. And these warnings follow. Let no one take you captive, verse 8, through philosophy and empty deception. And oh, there’s a lot of that out there. According to the tradition of men. That’s where it originates. According to the elementary principles of the world, those things that lead us away from Christ, the lusts of this world, rather than according to Christ, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. He is God in every way. And in him you have been made complete. And notice the word in him as it keeps occurring in this context.

In him you have been made complete, and he is the head over all rule and authority. And in him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, not something that was done by a doctor or someone in the Jewish community that indicated you were of the seed of Abraham, but it is a spiritual circumcision of the heart, Paul would say in Philippians chapter 3, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Sin has been torn away from our lives and from our hearts, and our hearts have been cleansed by Christ as we have come into this relationship with him. And then this such an important verse, as Ed pointed out to me, one of my favorites on the subject of when a person’s sins are cleansed, in him we were circumcised, in him we’ve been made complete, and the sentence continues, having been buried with him in baptism.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. We are purchased and redeemed by the blood of Christ, Matthew chapter 20 and verse 28, released from our sins by the blood of Christ, Revelation chapter 1 and verse 5. When does that happen? That’s what we were talking about this morning in our auditorium class. When we were buried with him in baptism, when we die to sin, representing his death, Romans chapter 6, we rise to walk in newness of life. What does he go on to say here in verse 12? Look at this with me. Having been buried with him in baptism, and I have this highlighted, in which, there’s the point. In which you were raised up with him. Remember what Romans 6 says.

We’re buried with him in baptism. We rise to walk in newness of life. In which important words, when you study with people, and Colossians 2 12 is a verse you should probably consider using. In which you were raised up with him. Through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. This isn’t about me earning or meriting anything. This is about my confidence in God that just as he caused Jesus to rise from the dead, he is bringing me to life again. He has the power to do that. He demonstrated that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and he can bring me to life again. In which you were raised up with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

And then this, verse 13. And when you were dead, that’s what you used to be, in your transgressions and before you were circumcised, the circumcision of the heart, before that happened, he made you alive. Look at that, verse 13. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of death, consisting of degrees us and which was hostile to us, and he is taken out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. This text tells us how to become alive, the point at which we become alive, and how to stay alive as God’s people.

Alive. The death is removed. What other words are associated with this concept of being alive? Regeneration, rebirth, renewal, rejuvenation or being a new creation. The New Testament talks about restoration. Spiritually alive in every way that matters. When you were baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, through your faith in the working of God, you rose from the dead. And you were made alive. And that’s an incredible concept.

But here’s what I was thinking about.

3. With the Passing of Time, Our Perspective Gets Askew

What happens to those who have been made alive? Who really stop living?

Who go back to death. And that’s what Paul’s talking about in Romans 6. What happens to people? And it’s not a very difficult analysis, really, to know what happens to people. It is simply the result of the things that happen with the passing time. And that’s what I think about as the 32 years have unfolded since I was at Plainfield and what that church was then and what they went through and the troubles that they’ve experienced and where they are now. All of that is a reflection of what happens with the passing of time. And if you’ll look back just six years, and that’s as far back as I’m going to go because that’s when I came, six years ago to Decker Prairie, things look a lot differently here than they did six years ago.

Things happen in the life of a church. People come and go. People experience things in their lives. But what I’m concerned about is have you been made alive? And are you still clinging to life? Don’t allow the passing of time to affect your appreciation and your wonder in regard to the fact that as the children of God, we have been made alive with him. Let me tell you what happens. With the passing of time, our perspective gets askew. Because of all that happens and the passing of time and all that’s going on in our lives and the lives of God’s people, that somehow, the way we’re thinking about things changes, not for the better. So many of the New Testament epistles are addressed to Christians, warning them about their perspective.

The way they’re looking at things, and that’s why I wanted to come back to Colossians chapter 2 this morning, because it helps us with our perspective. Look. The devil is not going to allow you to just tiptoe into heaven without any opposition whatsoever. He transforms himself into an angel of light. 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 14. He does not like the fact that you’ve become alive, and he’s going to do everything within his power to destroy it. And this is how he’s going to do it. He’s going to change or attempt to change your values as he causes your perspective to get askew. And as a result, he will undermine your confidence in God and His Word. And that can happen almost imperceptibly to us. That is, we don’t see it happening.

4. Sin Allures

And yet we start walking as the passing of time occurs and not realize that our confidence in God is not what it was. Our joy over our salvation is not what it was. Our gratitude is not what it was. Our faith has become severely affected. Our trust takes a hit. We start relying more on what we see rather than what is unseen. So quickly this morning, I want to give you six things that I believe contribute negatively to our appreciation of the fact that we are alive in Him very quickly. Obviously, sin allures. And that’s one of the things that happens to us over the passing of time. That’s what happened to the brother that was caught up into that significant sin. Sin is alluring. It’s enticing us and inviting us all the time.

5. Conflicts, Disappointments and Words That Hurt

And it’s attractive to us, and we respond to it because it is so alluring. It seems to offer so much, though it provides so little. And not just a variety of lusts. I mean, that’s what we typically would think about or talk about, but even the way we regard other people. Our attitudes toward others. Less than godly attitudes about ourselves, about others, or about our circumstances, even. Sin with its follies. I gladly resign. That’s what we said. As we sung nearer still nearer. I’ll tell you something else that happens in the passing of time. Things don’t just progress week after week and month after month and year after year without any kind of conflict. We experience conflict in our lives, and that can take a toll on the vibrancy of our faith and our perspective.

If you think we’re going to go through life without any conflict in our homes, without any conflict in the local church, without any conflict in the workplace, you’re living in fantasy land. And those conflicts can negatively affect faith. Listen, brethren disappoint. We should dismiss a pie in the sky view of the local church that everything is going to be wonderful and bliss and happy all the time. And yet when something goes awry, somebody’s faith gets so weak because brethren disappointed it. Let me just tell you, too, about elders and preachers. We don’t have these kind of metallic alloy suits that are impenetrable that we wear. Like superheroes. We’re real people too. And sometimes people in those positions make mistakes. Conflicts, discourage, relationships flowing out of that.

Relationships fluctuate. Family members disappoint us. It’s not 100% agreement all the time. And I’ll tell you why that is, because other people have wills too. Besides you.

6. We Lose Our Fire and Take It for Granted

People say some harsh things. Some hurtful things. Ah, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words shall never hurt me. I don’t know who coined that, but they got some Teflon that I don’t know anything about. Words hurt. We’re sensitive. And words can alienate. And because of the passing of time, we’ve got all these things going on. Circumstances are difficult in our lives. We just lose a little fire and enthusiasm for what we’re doing among the Lord’s people. I mean, it’s something we’ve done week after week and month after month and year after year, as I’ve talked about it, and we just lose our excitement over it. We heard this guy preach a thousand lessons. Well, not yet, but you may. We’ve done this over and over again, and we lose our excitement for it because we forget about the fact that we were dead and we’re alive.

We start taking it for granted. We read Isaiah 53. Well, I’ve heard that so many times before. Jesus paid the price. But there’s some amazing things going on there, right, Jared? We’re being told some amazing things about what the Lord did for us, and we could not help ourselves. We should never get over the wonder of that. In Hebrews chapter 10. I think that’s what the Hebrew writer is doing. We’ve been all over this text lately. We talked about those who go on sinning willfully in verse 26, as we talked about the unpardonable sin a couple of Sunday nights ago. We talked about the hinge verse, Hebrews 10 verse 35. Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. Did a whole sermon on that.

But I want to back up in that context to chapter 10, verse 19, when he says, and I think this is what he’s doing. He’s encouraging their enthusiasm when he says, Brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh, the veil that was torn in two that indicated that access was made available to God. And that’s because of our high priest, he says, verse 21, Jesus Christ. And then he says in verse 22, let us draw near. Do you realize what we have that we can come into the very presence of God despite our sinful past? Let us draw near with a sincere heart.

In full assurance of faith. Our hearts have been cleansed from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Throw that in the baptism necessary section. Our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast. And that’s what we have to do over the passing of time. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful.

Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near. God help us to stay alive. To appreciate the new and living way. Let us hold fast our confession without wavering, even if a great deal of pain comes our way. Do not go on presenting the members of your body to unrighteousness. He says in that context in Romans 6 that talks about what baptism means. He says, you’re alive to God and dead to sin. Never ever lose sight of the fact that we are alive as God’s people. We are those people who are truly alive. There is so much death out there.

People who are lost in their sins without a clue. Don’t get me started about Bruce Jenner this morning. How do you go from Olympic decathlon champion to this? He doesn’t have a clue. It’s really pitiful and sad. He doesn’t know what life means. You would think a guy that had that kind of an accomplishment in his past would have some things figured out, but he doesn’t.

Conclusion

Never lose sight of what you have if you are in Him. You have been made alive. Is there anyone in this audience this morning who has not done what Colossians 2 says or Romans 6 or 1 Peter 3 21, as we talked about in Bible class? Have you been made alive? Have you been cleansed by the blood of Christ? Have you been buried with Him in baptism? And if you’ve done that, what does your walk look like? Are you established in your faith? Overflowing with gratitude? Holding fast your confession without wavering? Drawing near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith? If not, and you need help and assistance, need us to pray for you and with you. We’re here to encourage your response. Let’s stand and say.