If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.  (2) Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.  (3) For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God  (4) When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

St. Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians in roughly 62 A.D. during his first imprisonment in Rome.  The occasion of this letter was news of heretical teaching in Colosse.  Paul is tying his ethical teaching to the doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Redeemer.  The heresies that are alluded to in this epistle seem to indicate an emphasis on the law – circumcision as necessary; certain dietary restrictions; observance of holy days.  Also prevalent was  false teaching relegating Christ to a minor place in the system, with claims that there were other powers that needed to be placated and worshipped.   There was also the error of asceticism – teaching that the body is evil and must be treated as such.  There was an undercurrent of the occult and mysterious.

.  Paul is instructing the Colossians to  concentrate on the eternal realities of heaven.  At the time he was answering the false teachers in Colosse who were instructing the faithful to concentrate on temporal observances.   Paul is saying that those who are saved ought to live worthy of that salvation.   Proper conduct is being taught.  Chapter 3 of Colossians is concerned with practical Christianity and Paul addresses this by emphasizing the believer’s relationship with Christ.  We are to abandon our old life and begin our new life in union with Christ.  We should be aware that the pagan religions of that ancient time said nothing about personal morality – what a person believed or offered had no direct relationship with how he/she behaved.  Christianity is different.  If we have been raised with Christ we have been given a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead.   We are resurrected with Christ and the application of that doctrine is to live in practical holiness in relation to ourselves and others.   This is an ongoing, daily process known as sanctification.

Paul explains the futility of trying to live a spiritual life relying on our fallen selves and legalistic guidance – only because of their resurrection with Christ will true believers realize a new power by which the believer can live a true spiritual life.  Paul is saying that our (the believer’s) resurrection with Christ is a fact –  he has no doubts about that.  The gospel makes clear the freeness and firmness of grace.  We either doubt this or enter into conscious friendship with God.  We make the decision to accept the free unearned gift of grace from God through faith in Christ Jesus.

C.S. Lewis, in his wonderful book, The Great Divorce, says that just to be born means an everlasting surrender to God or an everlasting divorce from Him. This decision is ours –  This is the message of Easter.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, (6) who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, (7) but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  (8) And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.  (9) Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, (10) that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, (11) and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

St. Paul wrote the epistle to the Philippians while he was imprisoned in Rome.  This letter is a very personal and joyful letter but also Paul addresses Christological theology and it’s practical application.   The verses we are studying today focus on the great humility and selflessness of Christ Jesus.  The Apostle Paul begins this beautiful passage by commanding that believers display the same attitude of service and humility, that Jesus has shown.  Paul then writes that Jesus is God but put this aside to be made in the likeness of man in the form of a servant.  Christ did not empty himself of His deity but of it’s outward manifestation and added to it a complete human nature of His free will and choice.   Christ always existed and Christ came into the world in the likeness of man – as a real man.  He was true God and true man which no created mind can fully understand.  Jesus Christ possessed the essence of God’s nature from all eternity.  He is the image of the invisible God.  He humbled himself and carried out His obedience even to dying – dying the death of crucifixition, which death was denied to a Roman citizen as too cruel.

Paul then writes that Chist’s exaltation was as great as His humiliation and God raised Him to be above every name – that every knee should bow to his name on earth, above in heaven and those under the earth; that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  God will not leave one single created intelligent being who does not acknowledge Jesus as Lord – even the fallen, the unredeemed.  Even hell will confess that Jesus is Lord.

Jesus is the final and complete explanation of everything.  All things were created through Him and for Him.  Amen

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ (9) and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; (10) that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,  (11) if, by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

(12)  Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.  (13)  Brethren I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.  (14) I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

The Epistle to the Philippians was written by the Apostle Paul during the time of his first imprisonment in Rome.  This very personal letter was written in a joyful spirit, thanking the faithful in Philippi for send a “gift” and it does not seem that he felt it was necessary to address any  serious underlying problems in that Church.  Paul expands on his relationship to Christ as a model for the faithful – and the warnings he mentions are of a  more cautionary and preventative nature than a rebuke.

The very important message that the Apostle Paul want to convey is that he is a new man in Christ – that what her formerly felt made him a righteousness man with God actually accounted for nothing.  Paul is saying that the acts that men perform – compliance with what the Mosaic law demanded – are meaningless without faith in Christ.  Man’s acts are nothing for salvation.  Man cannot earn salvation.

Using bookkeeping terms, Paul is saying that those things that would count as a gain – obeying the law and practising good works – he now knows that these are a loss.  The Law actually kept him from gaining knowledge of Christ and justification through faith in Christ.  Christ alone is our treasure.  Paul’s previous gain was only on a human plane and in the eyes of men – with his conversion his world was turned upside down and what was gain is shown to be loss – or rubbish.  Personal uprightness means nothing.  God’s righteousness is offered by God’s unmerited grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

The gain that Paul writes of is the gain of our soul – to gain spiritual knowledge of Christ is our foundation and is life transforming.  Paul urges  seeking an ongoing personal relationship with Christ and deems all meaning for this life in Christ.  Paul’s union with Christ was possible only because God imputed Christ’s righteousness to him (Paul) so that it was reckoned by God as Paul’s own.

It is impossible to have this right standing with God on our own.  God is totally righteous and all that he commands, demands, approves and all that He provides is through Christ.  Acceptance with God cannot be accomplished by man’s own supposed merits.  Faith in Christ sets us free from this onerous and useless task.  What Paul wants is not self realization but growing knowledge of Jesus Christ – and that leads to every phase of his life being Christ centered.  There should be a break with our old worldly life – a finality – a new life has been given us as we have been justified by a risen Saviour.  Paul has expectation and hope of attainment of the goal of salvation although he is absolutely certain about our future resurrection.  He does not want any misunderstanding by the Philippians when he states that “I have not attained it.”  Paul is stating that he is working on progression with the goal of sanctification.  Again Paul uses the metaphor of the Greek runner of the early Olympic games.  He urges us to repent, confess our sins and make a break with the past but to keep our eyes steadily on the goal and the prize which is the upward call of God in Christ.  This call is the invitation from God to accept this salvation.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.  (18) Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,  (19) that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

(20) Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us:  we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.  (21) For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

The Second Letter to the Corinthians was written by the Apostle Paul.  It is generally believed that there was a “severe letter” written to the Christians at Corinth addressing deteriorating conditions within the church undermining Paul’s authority and this letter was written between 1st and 2nd Corinthians.  This letter has not survived.  Paul wrote 2 Corinthians in response to favorable reports of the reaction to the severe letter;  to encourage the Christians at Corinth to contribute to the Jewish Christian poor at Jerusalem;  to express his affection for them;  to emphasize his apostolic authority and to expand on his pastoral teachings.

The verses we are studying today from this pastoral letter discuss the theology of the consequences of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and concern regeneration and reconciliation.    Man’s old thoughts and practices are to be replaced with a new heart and a new nature.  This regeneration is grounded in grace through faith whereby we become new people in Christ – all the old has passed away.

Reconciliation is a privileged gift from God.  Man was separated from God because of a breach of faith and sin entered the world.  God was willing to be reconciled with man and this was accomplished by the death of Jesus on the cross.  Jesus was a man without sin who became sin sacrificed for our redemption.  God is the initiator of this reconciliation and entered into a new covenant of grace – freely justifying by grace all those who believe.  Reconciliation is an accomplished fact and also an ongoing process.  It must be personally appropriated.  Humankind must accept what God has done.

Paul writes that God has communicated this message of reconciliation to him and to the other apostles to administer the gospel on Christ’s behalf.  All that remains for men to do is receive what God has effected.

Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, (2) all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.  For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.  (5) But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

(6) Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.

(10) nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.  (11) Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

(12) Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

First Corinthians was written by the Apostle Paul in answer to theological questions and practical problems of daily living  faced by the Corinthians in the earliest days of the Church.  In today’s verses Paul is presenting several examples of sins of the Israel nation at the time of Moses.  Israel had a covenantal relationship with God and enjoyed many blessings and the miraculous deliverance from Egypt but still displayed disobedience and unbelief in God.  The Israelites all passed through the Red Sea, they were under God’s sure guidance of th pillar of the cloud for protection and leadership; they were provided with food and drink from the heavens and from the very rocks.  Still they became idolaters, sexually promiscuous, and murmured against the Lord for bringing them out of Egypt – this protest reached the final provocation at Kadesh Barnea where the Israel nation feared to go forward into the promised land and expressed a desire to return to Egypt and a fear of death in the desert.  God saw their unbelief in spite of all the miracles and signs and only 2 faithful men – Caleb and Joshua – of all those who left Egypt, entered the promised land.  the rest died during plagues and the years of wandering in the desert.

The Apostle Paul is warning the Corinthians against false security by using the examples of the Jews – of the many privileges they enjoyed but they were terribly punished by God for their many sins and we have the record of their history as an example of what not do do as Christians.  Men may enjoy many and great spiritual privileges in this world and yet come short of eternal life.   Some of the Corinthians seem to have also murmured against Paul and in him, against Christ.  Such conduct was very provoking to God and likely to bring swift destruction.  The history of the Jews was written to instruct and warn the Corinthians and us.  If we think we have standards we should take heed of failure – if we are confident and secure we should be on guard.  Others have fallen and this is most likely to happen if we fear no failure and are not on guard against it.  God has not promise to keep us from falling and we must exercise our own care and caution.