How does one BE Christian? How do you live the Christian life?
Paul offers three very simple steps in the passage we read this morning, and I want us to walk through them today.
The first step is very simple -- seek Christ.
There is an old Candid Camera episode. You remember that old show. They revive it once in a while. The whole series had a simple premise in which they would play some joke on people and "catch them in the act of being themselves."
In this one particular episode, a man is on a busy city sidewalk. He is standing there looking down on the ground. He walks around a bit, always keeping his eyes on the ground. People pass by and look at him, and keep walking by.
Then he gets on his hands and knees. He feels around with his hands. People slow down and look at this man whose looking for something -- contact lens, lost coin -- who knows.
Finally, one passerby stops.
She starts looking.
She never asks the first man, "what are we looking for?"
Then another passerby slows down and starts looking.
Finally, the hidden camera has caught a crowd of about a half dozen people looking intently on the sidewalk.
At that point, the actor, the first person who was looking on the ground, quietly gets up and walks away.
No one else notices that he has walked away. They are so intent on looking for -- who knows what. They never asked what they were looking for, but there they are, intently looking, trying to find whatever is lost.
If you want to live the Christ centered life, then you have to have that kind of dedication to a search.
But -- in the Christian life -- you have to know what you are looking for.
St. Paul says in the opening verses of this morning’s text, "Set your hearts on things above."
I was interested to learn this week that this phrase is very meaningful in Paul’s language and culture. To set your heart on something is to seek something. To look for something.
If you want to live the Christ Centered life, then you have to dedicate yourself to a lifetime of seeking, of looking -- not in the sense of the Candid Camera episode where people are just looking for whatever they might find, but looking for and seeking something specific -- namely, the things of Christ.
When you become a Christian, you become a student. A student of Christ.
But it is not like going to elementary, middle and high school and finishing up when you finish 12 years -- or for some of us, 13 years.
Nor is it like college where it is 4 years and you’re out on the job market.
It’s a life-time of study.
You never graduate as a student of Christ. Because there are always things you will be able to learn.
Paul told his own student, Timothy, (2 Tim 2:15, KJV) "Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
This emphasis on seeking and learning new things about God and Christ permeates the entire Bible. In the Old Testament, Proverbs 9:9-10 says, "Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning. ’The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.’"
So let me ask you, what are you doing to seek the things of Christ? What are you doing to "set your heart on things above?" What are you doing to nurture your faith?
There are many things you can do to seek and to grow in the faith.
Sunday School -- if you haven’t tried it, you owe it to yourself. You will not only grow in the faith, you will meet and get to know other Christians.
Bible Study Fellowship -- if you a woman and you want to have a great Bible Study experience, you need to come to one of the programs here at Sunrise on Monday nights at 6:55.
If you are a teenager, you need to be in H2H. If you are a younger child, you need to be in KFC.
And all of us need to simply read and study God’s Word.
You want to live a Christ centered life? Then seek Him. Study Him.
Or as Paul says in Colossians, "set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God."
The second thing that a person needs to do in order to live a Christ Centered life is to THINK.
Christianity is not a mindless religion. It is a faith that demands our brain power -- however much we have of it.
In our reading from Colossians, Paul says, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."
Paul has already said to "set your hearts on things above," now he says that we are to "set our MINDS on things above."
This means that Christ is always in our thoughts.
When I was going through Confirmation class as a young person, my minister told me that "amen" is a word that should only be said in public prayers.
"Amen" means, "I agree" and in a public prayer it makes sense for people to end a public prayer with the word, "Amen," or "I agree with that prayer." "That prayer is my prayer."
But in private prayer, in personal prayer, my minister told me we should never use the word "Amen."
After all, in private prayer, it makes little sense to say a prayer to God and then say, "Amen," "I agree with what I just said." It’s redundant.
In fact, my minister said that using the word "amen" is a danger in private prayer. Because it has the effect of being like talking on the telephone and saying "goodbye."
AMEN almost means, I’m going to stop talking to God now.
AMEN almost means, prayer is over, now my private thoughts begin.
When you stop saying AMEN in your private prayers, you never "hang up" on God. You have your private prayer, and then you begin to continue with your private thoughts, but without the AMEN, it becomes hard to know when the prayer ends and the private thoughts begin.
To live a Christ Centered life, Christ must be in your thoughts all day long.
No matter what you are doing.
In Hebrews 3:1, we are told, "Therefore, holy brothers ... fix your thoughts on Jesus."
In 2 Cor 10:5, we are told, "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
There is that wonderful passage in Deuteronomy 6. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."
In other words, wherever you go, whatever you do, whomever you are with -- THINK about Christ.
Now there is one more thing to do.
If you want to live the Christ Centered life, you must seek Christ. You must think Christ. And lastly, you must live Christ.
St. Paul in the reading for this morning from Colossians says, beginning in verse 5, "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator."
Living Christ is what makes everything real for the Christian.
You can seek to know about Christ, but if you don’t live Christ like lives, it is useless. In fact, Jesus made one of his harshest rebukes toward the Pharisees. In chapter five of John’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Pharisees (John 5:39-40) "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."
St. Paul said in I Corinthians 13, "I can understand all mysteries and all knowledge ... but if I have not love, I am nothing."
Perhaps James said it best in his New Testament letter: (James 2:26), "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead."
You can SEEK Christ.
You can THINK Christ.
But if you want to be a Christian, you have to LIVE Christ.
