At Kairos, our mission is: To encourage one another daily to follow in the way of Jesus. Jesus, and our individual connection to him, has always been relatively in-vogue: Jesus is alright with me sentiments and WWJD slogans stitched into bracelets. It is not uncommon to hear people refer to their “personal relationship with Jesus” as a litmus for overall spiritual health.
Yet, to borrow from Ligon Duncan, the way of Jesus is multidimensional – person, doctrine, and a way of life.
When we talk about resurrection routines, we are basically outlining the various rituals that make up the “way” of Jesus that we’re encouraging one another towards. It is far more than a quiet time or a patchwork of various worship experiences.
So, it was fitting this past Sunday to begin our exploration of resurrection routines with the Apostle Paul’s teaching in Colossians 3.
Colossians 3: 1-4:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
The ESV translations uses a header called Put on the New Self as a way of focusing the reading of this text. This text is a provocative one in 2019. The self is something to be found, to be actualized, and certainly, to be un-obscured. Yet, obscurity is all over this verse:
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
What does this mean for us?
Through sin, we are not able to truly find ourselves – not through vacations, perfect jobs, therapy, or deep friendships alone. These can be tools, powered by the Holy Spirit to help us locate who Christ is in us, which is our truest self. Our lives are “hidden with Christ in God,” which means, when we come to faith, we can no longer appraise our life through our own opinion of ourselves or others’ opinions of us, but only through “Christ hidden in God.”
You set your thoughts on things above because what you are may not be apparent to the world and it may not even be apparent to you, but what you are will one day be revealed. – Ligon Duncan
This is hard for us, because we have low-level gratifications on tap everywhere, but we don’t need gratifying, we need saving. Philip Rieff writes, “Religious man was born to be saved, psychological man is born to be pleased.” When we are deeply saved in Christ, not vaguely pleased, we will be closest to our truest self. Let us worship through this lens, asking God to help us forget ourselves in light of his glory and grace.
– Micah