YOUR LIFE IS HID IN CHRIST
YOUR LIFE IS HID IN CHRIST
Sunday, August 13, 2017, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Christians run from one place to another; and from one voice to another to discover destiny and purpose of their life. They are seeking after prosperity, health, significance, love, joy and peace. Christian your life has been destined and designed from before the foundation of the earth. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3).
You will not find Your Life in the world system, or the enemies of your mind which drive you to wickedness, your own lusts, or your selfish ambition for your life. Put to death your desires which are on the earth; fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
The purpose of the king of darkness is to blind our minds as to who we are declared to be “in Him” from the beginning, lest we grasp the gospel of glory.
Col. 3:4: When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Imagine how much the spirit of death shrouds the carnal man, impacting the spirit, soul and the body stealing the glorious overcoming life of destiny.
For those whose lives are hidden in Christ, they have been raised from the realm of sin and death of the carnal soul. Their affections are on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. We live as He lives.
Divine wisdom is “without partiality.” Christ is not prejudiced (Gal. 3:28). God’s wise answers refuse to take sides---He is for Himself! He is no respecter of persons. All prejudice is from beneath, and is to be swallowed by the wisdom that is from above. Men and women raise these issues and build these walls-male and female, black and white, Jew and Gentile, clergy and laity, old and young (the generation gap), educated and uneducated, rich and poor, or bond and free.
The Gospel of the Kingdom touches every class of people. It can be preached in every nation and to all peoples.
The secret of “your life” is your union with Him, and our fellowship with the Father and the Son. If we never see our worth in Christ, we will rob the earth of our reason for breathing.
The Church in Colosse had apprehended a measure of this realm of life in Christ. Paul writes they had faith in Jesus Christ; love for all saints; hope for eternal life; heard the truth of the gospel; experienced fruit bearing and knew the grace of God in truth.
Col. 1:3-5: We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… Because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the Word of the truth of the gospel.
Then Paul prayed for the Colossians to receive this hope:
- To be filled with the knowledge of His will.
- Be filled with all wisdom
- Have spiritual understanding
- Walk worthy of the Lord
- Walk pleasing to the Lord
- Be fruitful in all good works
- Increase in the Knowledge of God
- Be strengthened with all might.
- Have his glorious power
- Have all patience
- Have all longsuffering
- Have joy.
The love of God, the Son, and the Body of Christ enables us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints. This refers to every promise and provision of the gospel for believers who are delivered from the power of Satan and are translated into the Kingdom of God.
2:2-3: And their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
3:24: Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance for you serve the Lord Christ.
Wisdom and understanding are hidden treasures revealed by the Spirit to those who are “in Christ.”
The knowledge of His will, wisdom and spiritual understanding cannot be garnered through any system of man.
1:13: He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.
This is a metamorphosis. This is changing from one thing into another. We have been translated from one kingdom to another. There is no return, no turning back. There is no vacillation between the two states of being. A wall is established between what we once were and who we have become. Paul incorporated this truth into his testimony that he could see his past in the rear view mirror. None of the things which he had suffered for the kingdom moved him; neither did he count his life dear until himself, so that he might finish his course with the joy, and the ministry which He received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
Like Paul, except for the grace of God, we are all gross sinners, but we have now been translated into the kingdom of light.
Our existence in this new kingdom depends on Him.
Col. 1: 16-19: By him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers, all things were created by him, and for him. He is before all things and by him all things consist. He is the head of the body, the church; who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Rushing cascades of descriptive words flow out from this statement. Words like, “reconciled,” “having peace through His blood,” “presented holy and blameless and irreproachable in His sight,” “grounded and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel” are but a few.
Is the church of the 21st century part of this glorious church? It is one thing to be a “Bible believer” church; it is another to have the church described by the Bible.
It is to the Ekklesia that Paul says he is a minister. It is to this group that the mystery hidden from ages and generations has been revealed. The Ekklesia are the called out ones.
1: 23-25: If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and are not moved from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister; who now rejoice in my sufferings for you; ad fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the Ekklesia. Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God.
Not all Christians, not all churches will continue in the faith and hope of the gospel.
What is the hope of the gospel? Christ is us the hope of Glory. When we are “in Christ,” then we are in His Glory and the fullness of the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations is manifest to his saints.
To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
This hope of glory is for the saint to be “in Christ.” Here is the perfection of the saints.
“Knit together in love,” must characterize the Ekklesia.
Paul experienced “to be absent in the flesh is to be present in the Spirit.” We can pray for people on other continents, and though they are far away, we are present with them in the Spirit. (Col. 2:5).
Paul understood that the communion of the Spirit was orchestrated in the heavenlies and that all things were carried out in intimate union with Jesus, the Father and the Spirit.
Paul knew the Ekklesia were living in the new day of the Spirit and that everything which preceded Acts was preparation for this day.
Col. 2:12-17: We were buried with Him in baptism, in which we were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. Being dead in our trespasses and the uncircumcision of our flesh, He has made us alive together with Him, having forgiven all our trespasses. He has wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us (the Law), which was contrary to us. He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. He disarmed principalities and powers. He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. Let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.
There are many shadows and types in the Old Testament, but Paul dealt with the substance. Paul knew those who are sealed in Christ comprise a living body of which the Head is Jesus Christ in whom we depend for “life.”
If we are dead with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world do you subject yourselves to regulations…according to the commandments and doctrines of men? (Col. 2:20-22)
John 6:27: Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you; for him has God the Father sealed.
Paul preached a spiritualism that outdid the mystics, philosophers, and Jews. He preached that these new creation beings were sealed to One who was invisible to the brightest of their ranks. This One was the One whom all three factions sought to defame. They crucified Him, ridiculed Him or sought to derail His influence. Paul stood and asserted they had failed.
These new creation beings were/are the “elect” of God. They are as holy and beloved as God’s own son. That had put on (1) tender mercies; (2) kindness; (3) humility; (4) meekness; (5) longsuffering; (6) the bearing of one another’s burdens; (7) forgiving one another; (8) they had put on the bond of perfection which is love; (9) The peace of God ruled in their hearts; (10) the words of Christ dwelled in them richly in wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another “in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
The worship of the Ekklesia must be with grace in the heart which forms a perfect circle. Grace, which was poured down from heaven into the grateful heart, now returns to heaven in worship. Outbursts of song follow the preparing of one another’s hearts through teaching an admonishing under the direction of the wisdom of the Spirit.
Heaven knows this kind of service and nothing can compare to it nor can it be faked.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. – I entered into the labors of Chosen
for Greatness by Kelley Varner and Sealed Unto His Coming by: C. R.
Oliver. Comments and conclusions are my
own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their
labors.