{"id":1645,"date":"2015-12-05T11:33:12","date_gmt":"2015-12-05T19:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/?p=1645"},"modified":"2015-12-05T11:33:12","modified_gmt":"2015-12-05T19:33:12","slug":"living-collectively-under-the-rule-of-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/?p=1645","title":{"rendered":"Living Collectively Under the rule of Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living Collectively
\nUnder the rule of Christ<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Col 3:15-17<\/p>\n

15\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Let\u00a0the peace of Christ\u00a0rule in your hearts, to which\u00a0indeed you were called in\u00a0one body; and\u00a0be thankful.\u00a0<\/strong>16\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Let\u00a0the word of\u00a0Christ richly dwell within you,\u00a0with all wisdom\u00a0teaching and admonishing\u00a0one another\u00a0with psalms\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0hymns\u00a0and <\/em>spiritual songs,\u00a0singing\u00a0with thankfulness in your hearts to God.\u00a0<\/strong>17\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Whatever you do in word or deed,\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0all in the name of the Lord Jesus,\u00a0giving thanks through Him to God the Father.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This short passage is full of exhortations about how to live, act, conduct yourself in your Christian life.\u00a0 Living under the rule of Christ means to live in fullness and freedom. \u00a0It means to behave a certain way both on the outside and on the inside.\u00a0 But how do we get to the point where we are capable to live as we have been exhorted to live in verses 1 \u2013 14?\u00a0 How do we find the strength of character to set aside and pick up the character traits in these verses?\u00a0 We have to put ourselves under the authority and rule of someone other than ourselves.\u00a0 If we were to make the rules and do what we wanted to do, we know how bad that would be.\u00a0 There would be no end to the problems we could cause if we were given the right to do whatever we want.\u00a0 In fact, this is the history of modern man \u2013 you find nation after nation ruled by someone who makes their own rules and then kills and destroys to get what they want.\u00a0 We will have to put ourselves under a new Ruler.\u00a0 We need a different King than ourselves.\u00a0 We need to voluntarily put ourselves under the rule of Christ.<\/p>\n

As humans, we tend to avoid adding authority as much as possible.\u00a0 However living under the rule of Christ is the only way to be free.\u00a0 So Paul takes another deeper look at what it looks like to live under the rule of Christ.\u00a0 Not only do we have a responsibility to live our private lives under the rule of Christ, but we also have a responsibility to live together under the rule of Christ.\u00a0 This section is about living together under Christ\u2019s rule.<\/p>\n

By the way, it goes without saying that this passage applies not just to each believer who attends Hobart but all believers and at all times.<\/p>\n

Alistair Bagg divides this passage into the following traits and looks at it all as characteristics of the church \u2013<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Verse 9 \u2013 we are a people of truth. Try doing anything without absolutes.\u00a0 Surgery, driving, flying an airplane, Jesus exhorted us to live by truth.\u00a0 We all know what happens when a human body attempts to survive in any realm other than truth.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need non-truths running around in the church.\u00a0 I recently heard it said that Lincolns\u2019 casket was opened twice.<\/li>\n
  2. Verse 14 – We should be a community of love \u2013\n
      \n
    1. Love intelligently. \u2013 I Thess (not emotionally but a response of the will)<\/li>\n
    2. Love sacrificially \u2013 John 13 \u2013 self-giving love, only explainable in terms of what the Holy Spirit can do in the life of a person.<\/li>\n
    3. Love continually \u2013 Heb 13:1 \u2013 keep the pot boiling, walk into any restaurant and they always seem to have coffee ready.<\/li>\n
    4. Love increasingly – 1 Thess 3:12 \u2013 overflowing love. We find out when we overflow with love when we bump into each other.<\/li>\n
    5. Love purposefully \u2013 love covers over a multitude of sins, the purpose of your love is to smooth our paths together.<\/li>\n
    6. Love deeply \u2013 it is a protective and guards us against many things.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Verse 15 – We should be a community of Peace – Letting the Peace of Christ Rule in our Hearts<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 this is the key that opens peace in our hearts, it is the Peace of Christ. This is the picture of an Umpire. The problem with our view of umpires is we tend to treat them like John McIntyre (the old commentator for tennis).\u00a0 You might remember his complaints about the line judges who called the shots on the line as they saw them and he was sure that he knew better than they did.\u00a0 It was liking watching a train wreck, it was hard not to watch and be amazed at his hutzpah. \u00a0But this case, our Ruler, our Umpire is never wrong. \u00a0\u00a0Notice the area where Christ is to rule or umpire, it is our hearts.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit is going to let you know when your shots have landed out of bounds \u2013 and we can chose to act like John McIntyre, complaining to the Holy Spirit \u2013 \u201cAre you blind?\u00a0 That was clearly the fault of the other person; that was clearly out of bounds!\u201d, or we can respond to the Holy Spirit with the assurance that He knows how to call each and every shot.
        \nAt notice the battlefield, it is our hearts.\u00a0 There is not an exhortation here about using peaceful words, although that isn\u2019t wrong but remember that \u2013 \u201cMatt 7: 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts<\/strong> \u201c.\u00a0 When our words are peaceful, it does make others\u2019 lives more agreeable with ours, but when our hearts are ruled by peace, when are on the path to find what Jesus promised, \u201cHis peace\u201d.\u00a0 Your hearts is an area where no one else can see and that is the very area of the battleground.\u00a0 We are exhorted to have Christ\u2019s peace there, in that hidden place that is shared by only you and God.\u00a0 It all begins there. And as we know, it is what comes from our hearts, from within that defines who we are.\u00a0 (Mark 7 21<\/sup>For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22<\/sup> deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. 23<\/sup> All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man<\/strong>.\u201d)<\/li>\n
      2. Verse 16 – We should be a community of the Word of Christ \u2013 letting His word dwell in us richly.\n
          \n
        1. We have to hear it, we want to hear it and we want to hear it again. \u2013 You know, most of us have some television show we make time for because we find it enjoyable. I don\u2019t care if it is Seinfeld, or Football, or NCIS or Downton Abbey.\u00a0 We make the time for it and by making that time, we demonstrate something that we tend to dismiss, that we do have time for the things we value.\u00a0 But then if you were to ask someone if they have time to read their Bibles or do the studies that they want to do, if we are honest about it, we might say our lives are too busy.\u00a0 I might even be so bold as to say the same is true for coming to church.\u00a0 Now to say that this morning is like preaching to the choir.\u00a0 We are here.\u00a0 But I remember at one time I made a decision not to be out late on Saturday night because it impacts the time that I have at church.\u00a0 What decisions have we made to make sure that the Word of Christ is dwelling in us richly?\u00a0 What choices are we making daily to assure that we are living by God\u2019s word?\u00a0 The word of God is not only going to guide you to make the right choices, but it will also direct you not to make bad choices.\u00a0 So it leads us away from mistakes and into makes better choices.\u00a0 There are a lot of verses about staying on the right path. \u2013 Ps 119:9 \u201cHow can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word<\/strong>.\u201d<\/li>\n
        2. Notice the purpose of letting the Word of Christ being an integral part of your being.\n
            \n
          1. With all wisdom teaching and<\/strong> – there is an interactive sense of the teaching in a healthy church. Everyone is teaching one another.\u00a0 There is a sense in which all strive to be an influence in the lives of each other.\u00a0 Not with the preachy tones that sometimes come across from someone with more experience \u2013 but teaching with all wisdom doesn\u2019t mean just what comes from live but what comes from the Word of God.\u00a0 It is interesting how many times we approach teaching as attempting to impart something that we learned in our youth rather than drawing on the Word of God as our source.\u00a0 Your source of wisdom is not that you have lived longer, but that you have seen the Word of God proved true in your live over the years of your life.\u00a0 It is hard not to draw upon our experiences but when we use the Word of God to understand the experiences of our lives, and we are applying the truth of God\u2019s Word, I believe we are beginning to teach with all wisdom.\u00a0 It is a mistake to believe that just because you are older, that gives you the right to speak with authority.\u00a0 Most of us know that the older we are, the more mistakes we have made.\u00a0 But life, when looked at through the prism of truth and when it is understood through truth becomes an avenue to teach us about God and how He is active and living in every single moment and decision we make.\u00a0 My son in Law called me the other day to let me know he had passed his journeyman\u2019s test in his trade \u2013 and we reminisced about how the Lord had led him to this point.\u00a0 Looking at life through God\u2019s perspective is teaching in wisdom.<\/li>\n
          2. Admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs<\/strong>, – Synonyms for admonishing are: reproving, warning, and reprimanding. Seems a little strange to say that we are going to do that through these activities.\u00a0 But for me, I am warned and reproved through psalms as I examine my heart in light of the words and thoughts that we are sharing.\u00a0 This is why the music is such an important part of our worship.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
              \n
            • Singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God<\/strong> \u2013 So now while you are being admonished with the hymns, you are instructed to be thankful for that admonishment. You are being challenged by something and you are to be grateful for the challenge.\u00a0 Sounds a little like a professional athlete.\u00a0 Do you think that professional football players are thankful for the workouts that they endure?\u00a0 Not so much at the work and the practice but they understand that in order to produce the right results, they have to be put under the stress of practice during the week, so they can be more prepared for Sunday.\u00a0 It is often the opposite for us \u2013 we are put under the stress of rebuke on Sunday, so we can be more prepared for the week.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

               <\/p>\n

               <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              Living Collectively Under the rule of Christ \u00a0 Col 3:15-17 15\u00a0Let\u00a0the peace of Christ\u00a0rule in your hearts, to which\u00a0indeed you were called in\u00a0one body; and\u00a0be thankful.\u00a016\u00a0Let\u00a0the word of\u00a0Christ richly dwell within you,\u00a0with all wisdom\u00a0teaching and admonishing\u00a0one another\u00a0with psalms\u00a0and\u00a0hymns\u00a0and spiritual songs,\u00a0singing\u00a0with …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[83],"tags":[98,24,99],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1646,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions\/1646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}