The New Man Makes a New Home

Colossians 3:18--4:1

Now we're in Colossians, chapter 3, and have come to the very, very practical part of the book, verses 18 through chapter 4, verse 1 Col. 3:18 thru 4:1. Now, this particular section is very, very similar in fact, part of it is verbatim from Ephesians, chapters 5 and 6. The parallel is unmistakable, almost identical. And many years ago 4 or 5 ‑‑ when we studied Ephesians, we went through some of these same precepts; we've covered some of them in other studies also. And they keep popping up throughout the New Testament. We saw some of these in the 7th chapter of I Corinthians; here they are again. They have to do with the Christian as he lives his life among men.

Now, we've been talking in the book of Colossians, particularly, about the individual believer. From Chapter 3, verses 1 through 17, Paul has been discussing the character of the individual Christian, and now he talks about the Christian as he lives in his world, or the new man makes a new home, or the new man approaches his world, the society of the new man, if you will. He talks about how Christianity relates itself to society. It isn't enough to be a Christian and that's all. It's only enough to be a Christian in relationship to other people. It's got to work its way out. I think if we were to analyze this, just to get a running start on it, and talk about the impact that Christianity can have on society, we would agree that the major problem in the world is very simple. It's easy to analyze. The major problem in the world is people. I don't think we'd argue about that. If we could just get rid of the people, we could basically get rid of the problem. And the major problem with people is this: people can't get along with people. The problem is people and the problem with people is that people can't get along with people. The inability of man to get along with his fellow man seem to be the No. 1 problem in our society and in any society in our world. And it telescopes all the way from the inability of a brother and a sister to get along without what psychologists call sibling rivalry all the way to the grandiose kinds of problem of the inability of people to get along, so that you end up in international war. But from the lowest level of a relationship between a brother and a sister when they are children to the high level wars that occur in our world, it's all basically the same problem: people can't get along with people! And Christianity purports to do something about that. Christianity enters into the world and says, 'We not only will do something about an individual, but we offer to an individual the capacity to do something about the people around him, in a positive way." Waldo Beech said that man can be characterized by three words. The first one is "anomie." The second one is "anonymity." And the third me is "alienation." "Anomie" means "no norm" ‑‑ "a‑norm" if you will ‑ without norm, without standards, without rules ‑‑ living by a utilitarian ethic. Beech said, "Man governs his good by pleasure." That's anomie. Secondly, he said man suffers from the problem of "anonymity." Anonymity asks the question "who am I?" He has no sense of being and he has no sense of meaning. And thirdly, the third word that describes man is "alienation." And that defines the fact that man is basically separated. He exists in a world where everybody is basically selfish.

Now, if you want sane other words for this, I'll give you some you might know: immorality, emptiness, and loneliness. Basically, those three things sum up the problem of man. He is immoral; he is empty in himself; and he is lonely because of his inability to give himself to other people. And really, the basic problem of all of this is that he has cut himself off from God. And when he cut himself off from God, what happens is, he experiences that anomie ‑‑ that no-norm, no standards ‑- so no concept of right and no concept of wrong and no concept of self‑worth then, because he doesn't know when he's good or when he's bad really, philosophically, anyway. And because he doesn't know God, he is anonymous, because he has nothing to hold onto. He has no invisible mans of support; he has no anchor. He has no being to give identity to his being. And, thirdly, because he does not know God, he suffers from a terrible selfish isolationism and loneliness. As one writer put it, he has cosmic loneliness. He sees nothing in the universe, to which he can lovingly attach himself. And when a man lives with this no norm, no standard kind of immorality, and he lives with the kind of anonymity that gives him emptiness and the kind of alienation that makes him lonely, he soon begins to see everybody against him. He begins to see everybody stealing his happiness. He begins to see all the people around him as people who infringe upon his potential. And very often, he winds up in negativism and despair and he retreats into a further selfishness and a further alienation. And then he can't get along with people. And people who can't get along with people create problems.

     We saw a little bit of the 3rd chapter of James this morning. There is a word in the 4th chapter there that helps us, I think. It says, from where come wars and fightings among you; they come out of your lusts that war in your members; you lust and you don't have; you kill and you desire to have; you can't obtain; you fight and war; yet you have not because you ask not; you ask and receive not because you ask amiss..." ‑‑ or improperly that you may consume it on your lusts. You adulterers and adulteresses. Don't you know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." And here he paints the picture of the man who is alienated from God, who therefore alienates himself from everybody else. Here is a man who is cut off from a sense of being and so he cuts himself off from everybody else ‑‑ a man who is immoral and a man who, because of his immorality, sets his own standards, and therefore alienates himself from other people who have different standards.

But the marvelous thing about being a Christian is that none of those three things needs to exist. Because when you become a Christian, you immediately have a standard, don't you? Immediately, when you become a believer, the Word of God becomes the standard. And secondly, you immediately have an identity ‑ you don't have anonymity. You know who you are ‑ you're a child of God. You're a son, you're an heir, you're a joint‑heir. Jesus is not ashamed to call you brother and neither are a whole lot of other Christians all over the world. And that brings you to the third concept; you don't suffer from any alienation or isolation, because you're a part of a family. To become a Christian means you have standards. To become a Christian means you have a sense of being. You know why you exist ‑for the glory of God. You have a sense of connection. You're connected up with the divine ruler of the universe and you lose that sense of lonely alienation, because you have those who love you in the family.

So you see, all that I'm trying to show you is that man in our world can very much exist in an anti‑social way. And when you become a Christian that ceases to be necessary. Christianity is not just personal; it isn't just a transformed life. It is a transformed life that transforms an environment in which that life lives. No longer do you feel alienated; no longer do you feel everybody's out to steal your potential. No longer do you feel that nobody understands you and that you have to fight for your own square inch. All of a sudden, you realize that there's a great God who cares and there's a great group of people who care and you're a part of something much bigger than yourself.

So we see, then, that there is in life ‑‑ the life of the new man ‑ is a life lived out among men. And there's surely where it has its greatest impact. The new man has his greatest impact when he affects society.

Now this becomes Paul's discussion in chapter 3, verse 18. He has been talking about the new man, and now he talks about the new man in his relationships to other people. And he talks about a new wife in verse 18. What happens when a person becomes a Christian? What kind of wife does she become? A new husband in verse 19. A new kind of child in verse 20. A new kind of father in verse 21. A new kind of servant in verse 22. A new kind of master in chapter 4, verse 1. All of a sudden, his whole orientation to society is dramatically changed because Jesus Christ has entered his life. And many a husband has testified to the fact that when his wife became a believer, she changed. And many a wife has testified to the fact that when her husband became a believer, he changed. And many a mother who wondered about her child has been able to say, "When my child came to Jesus Christ, he changed." And many a child has been able to say, "Mien my parents met Jesus Christ, our home changed." And many an employer has been able to say, "You know that guy who works for me ‑‑ something happened in his life. I don't know what it was. It had something to do with religion. But boy, is he different on the job!" And many an employee has said, "Something happened to my boss... when he became a Christian." You see, it has tremendous social ramifications to become a believer, because the new man radiates the newness of that life into the world. Jesus put it this way; He said we are salt and light. We affect society. Paul said we are different. We are not citizens here; we are citizens of another kind of life, but he said we live as light in a dark world. We live holy lives in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Peter said we are models of human behavior.

Now, this is our calling. A Christian is not just called to be an independent, solely existing individual, who cultivates between himself and God a relationship independent of anyone else ‑‑ not at all. If he has truly a relationship with God, it's going to have social ramifications. We don't need to suffer from the anonymity and the immorality and the loneliness and the emptiness of the world, because in Christ, all that's covered and we become social beings. We become relational people.

Now, that's a very important word today. Psychologists are throwing that word around, because man must establish relationships. And society realizes today that what we have in our world is a whole bunch of people who aren't related to anybody. They live in the same house ‑‑ they don't have any kind of relationship with the people who live there. They work at a job ‑they don't have any relation to the people who are there. Why? Because of this terrible lack of standards, because of this terrible feeling of anonymity, because of this threat that everybody's stealing from you and threatening your potential and this isolation and withdrawing. And the feeling that you have to defend your square inch or somebody bigger than you is going to take it away. Christianity cones along and says it doesn't have to be that way, because you can lose all of those anxieties in Christ. Christianity is relational.

And you know, we as Christians need to emphasize that today, because that's where the hurt of man is. I, a week or so ago, signed a contract with a publisher to write a book. In fact, the title of the book is interesting. It's going to be called "The Total Christian." There have been a lot of books about total this and total that and total everything else, and so we kinda think somebody ought to say something about the total Christian. So, anyway, we were talking about this and the publisher said to me, "You know, the one thing that we need to do in the book is make sure that it's relational." People are just reaching out to touch real people. And he said, "When you write it or when you work on it and put it together, try to put as much of your awn struggle and your own hurts and your own anxieties and your own life on the page, so people feel that this isn't somebody spouting out information, but this is somebody who's working through the same struggles as a Christian that the reader is." Because people are desperate for somebody to relate to. And I think that's right in a sense. We're looking for somebody to relate to.

But, when you think about it, Christianity's always been relational. Christians throughout all of the history of the Church have reached out and touched society. It isn't true Christianity that retreats to the monasteries; it isn't true Christianity that puts on funny clothes and hides for the rest of its life. It's true Christianity that moves into the world and rubs elbows and makes relationships and builds bridges to people, because that's the definition we find biblically. Christians have always done that. I want to run by a little history for you to show you this in a very general way. When you look back on the history of social reform in our culture western culture in Europe and here in America you find a great amount of that social reform is directly related to Christianity. For example, the l8th century had many of what was called II evangelical awakenings". One who was greatly instrumental in those was John Wesley. And John Wesley was not just a preacher of the gospel, but he was a man concerned about people and so he denounced the evils of his day. He particularly took his whacks at slavery and he urged in addition to that the reform of prisons, the education of the masses ‑and, incidentally, that became the cry of many preachers ‑‑ in the l8th century, that there had to be education. As a result of these, by the time you got to 1776, all the way through to about 1914, tremendous social reform took place in western culture. And much of it reaped right out of the evangelistic awakenings, with John Wesley and others. There was a great awakening in America in about 1725 to about 1775, and the result of it was the building of a number of American universities, which at that time were geared to educate the masses, but were built around religious themes. Christianity was at the core.

The second great awakening led to the founding of a school system for the masses in Britain, as well as the founding of hundreds of colleges and schools in America. There was even a revival among Christians, I should say ‑‑ in Napoleon's day, and out of that revival in Napoleon's day cane a man by the name of Wilberforce and Wilberforce was one of the engineers of the abolition of the slave trade in Africa. And the result of his work, which was the result of the work of an evangelistic awakening, was that the slaves in the British Empire were freed in 1834 and in the United States, they were freed in 1863. There were certain isolated Christians who had a tremendous impact on society, such as Elizabeth Frye. Elizabeth Frye promoted successful prison reform. There was a man by the name of Fliedner, who was a Christian in Germany, who built hopes for ex‑prisoners in order to help give them a halfway house to get them back into society. He built hospitals for the sick, spawned insane asylums, that is, homes for people who were insane, that had some character to them and some quality to them, so that they weren't just holes or hovels where people were thrown until they died. He advocated orphanages for the children, and one of the people trained by Fliedner, trained in one of the schools, was a lady by the name of Florence Nightingale, who became the mother of modern nursing.

There was the seventh earl of Shaftsbury in England, a non by the name of Anthony Ashley Cooper. He describes himself in one of his writings as an evangelical of the evangelicals. In modern terms, he'd be a fighting fundie. He promoted legislation to cut the hours of factory labor in half, to prohibit the use of women working in coal mines, and of children in factories and farm gangs, and he promoted legislation to transfer retarded people from prisons to places where they would be treated as patients. Agencies cam out of these great awakenings ‑ these great Christian awakenings ‑‑ such as the YMCA, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Salvation Army, and many others.

William Carey, a famous missionary to India, secured the abolition of widow burning, which was practiced in India, and child sacrifice. I always remember when I was a boy my dad telling about the natives in the land of India, who believed in the great god of the Ganges River, who would take one of their children and throw the baby when he was alive into the river and watch it drawn as