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Let’s imagine that everyone is a car, each of us driving along the road of life. For the most part, when it comes to rules of the road that govern human behavior, the one thing that most people agree on is that whatever you do, you should not crash your car into any other cars. Do whatever you want to your own car, just don’t crash into anyone else. But the standard we find in these verses is actually much higher than “don’t hurt anyone”. Paul tells us to clothe ourselves with peace, love, kindness, gentleness, gratitude... qualities that you are healthy. So that we, collectively, embody an even better community that doesn’t settle for “well, just don’t crash” but one where people are growing and flourishing internally and externally.

The decisions we make, the actions we take, never exist in a vacuum.  They will always affect someone or something else. But when day-after-day, we repeatedly choose to actually put Jesus at the center of our lives… it changes everything.  It gives us the courage to lay down our vices, to bring them into the light, and to take up our cross.  And it doesn’t just keep us from making decisions that negatively affect others.  Choosing to put Jesus at the center has the power to pattern our lives for the better.  It’s easier to not pick up vices when meditating on the Word or when we’re surrounded by a group of people who are also committed to growing in the likeness of Christ.  It becomes less about following rules and more about assuming the character of Jesus.

Imagine that all you knew about trees came from looking at shadows of trees. Even if they’re pretty cool shadows, they’re a poor substitute for the real thing. And once you’ve experienced a real tree, seen, heard, touched, a real tree… shadows of trees aren’t nearly as satisfying.  In the same way, the Jewish law wasn’t bad, but once you saw what the law was hinting at—once you saw Jesus—the law was no longer satisfying. It would be like settling for the smell of a cinnamon honey toast candle but never tasting the real thing. We don’t have to settle for shadows. Nor must we avoid them entirely. We’re to enjoy what we can touch, taste, and feel. At the same time, we set our minds on things above. And we trust that one day we will get what we really want… that one day, we will not be stuck with shadows but standing in the full light of the sun with our savior.

For many of us, it might be easier to come up with a list of our shortcomings or mistakes than it is to come up with a list of our successes. But through Jesus, all of our sins are forgiven. No other religion or human philosophy or self-help system could overcome our resume of failures. Nothing can truly wipe our slate clean in the way that Jesus can. Because Jesus has triumphed over it all, we no longer have to carry the overwhelming weight of our past mistakes or keep score of the failures of others or surrender to hopelessness when we witness sorrow and injustice. Your record of debt has been canceled, the slate wiped clean, nailed to the cross once and for all.

"Pray this prayer and you'll get your breakthrough."  "Buy this thing and be satisfied."  "Vote for this candidate and they'll solve all your problems."  We tend to be drawn to things, to people, to systems that promise results, and it's not that the prayer or the product or the politician is bad... it's just that we're asking something of them they're unable to actually deliver. This was true of the early Christians living in Colossae as well.  Like today, the winds of the age were blowing in all sorts of directions... and promising all manner of things. But a “long obedience” is the only way that transformation happens. Through the slow, cumulative, unglamorous process of walking with Jesus for years.

And Paul really wants the Colossians to know how much he cares about them… He says he’s agonized for them and for many other believers who he’s never met personally.  He writes, “For though I am far away from you, my heart is with you.” Has your heart ever been somewhere else?  Have you cared so deeply about another that your heart is with them and you can’t help but try and do something to alleviate their suffering?  Suffering has mysterious way of holding us together. It compels us to care about another despite distance and difference. To act in solidarity on behalf of another, to weep with those who weep, to open yourself up to their suffering, is to participate in Jesus’ cosmic act of solidarity on the cross.

We can picture God as big and cosmic, a force, like gravity, that holds everything together—but that God is “way out there”, unaware of our suffering or unwilling to intervene.  And we can picture Jesus, the human being, as our friend, as someone who cares about us… but he doesn’t also seem capable of absorbing all the sin of all the world or reversing death itself.   And yet the Bible never settles for a Jesus who makes complete sense to us. Somehow, he is “big” enough to hold the whole broken universe together. And somehow, he is also “small” enough to die on a Roman cross. It is in the convergence of those two realities, and only there, that we catch a glimpse, fleeting, imperfect glimpse of the great love of God that has been lavished on us in Christ.

The news cycle is moving faster and faster. Wars rage around the world. Our cultural fabric seems to be ripping at the seams. It feels as if the center cannot hold. As if the world is falling apart. Perhaps you’ve felt this way not just about the world around you but about your own life. The loss of a job or a loved one. The weight of an injustice levied against you. Illness and suffering. It can feel as if life is falling apart. But the letter to the Colossians argues that the center does hold. That Christ, the center, holds all things together. And the second half of letter invites us to consider what it looks like to live a life that is pulled into the orbit of Christ’s love. Paul’s encouragement to the first-century followers of Jesus in Colossae was that no matter what they were facing, they could hold onto the hope that Jesus was holding them fast.

Standing on the edge of fiery furnace, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were able to actually embody what it means to have faith. To believe that God is good and trustworthy beyond the assurance of a guaranteed outcome. They knew God was not only in control of their story but walking it out with them.  Their faith was not contingent upon whether God would save them. Even if God didn’t, it was enough for them to know that God could. It was enough to know that God would be with them regardless of the outcome. Whatever moment we think will swallow us up is swallowed up by the moment when Jesus gives his life so that we can live the life of faith.  It's a moment that says, 'O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory?'"

Rahab was a woman, a Canaanite, and a prostitute. She is the kind of person the Israelites would have written off and ignored. And yet, her faith in the God of Israel defies expectations. Before she even asked to be included amongst the people of God, she offers that kind of inclusion to the Israelite spies. In faith, she’s already done the very thing that she hoped God would do for her. As she welcomed enemy spies, she trusted that God would welcome her. As she provided safety to them, she prayed God would provide safety to her. As she protected the life of another by endangering her own, she had faith that God would protect her. Who have you already written off that God has not?  Maybe it’s someone you categorize as not belonging for whatever reason or maybe it’s yourself.

This was a special morning of worship we called More to Your Story. We dedicated an hour to sing and pray together, engage with scripture, and reflect upon our own stories. This summer we’ve been revisiting some of the most famous and familiar stories in the Old Testament and allowing the enduring powers of these narratives to shape and reshape our lives.   But instead of asking these questions of an Old Testament narrative, we’re asking these questions of ourselves. You can use the handout attached below to answer these questions. You’ll also need three different colored pencils, pens, or markers. So, who are you and who are the people close to you with whom you share this life?  What is the setting of your story and why is it relevant to who you are and what you’re called to?  And how is God at work in your story?

In The Odyssey, Odysseus’ crew couldn’t trust his promise that they would survive without eating the cattle. In Exodus, Israel couldn’t trust God’s promise while Moses was on the mountain. And in our lives, we struggle to trust God while we’re waiting for the next chapter of our own stories. Like the Israelites, who make and worship a Golden Calf, we often turn to other things to try to save us—whether approval, success, or security. The Israelites’ problem wasn’t that they stopped believing in God. Their problem was that God wasn’t moving on their timetable. And we do the same thing. We may never melt down jewelry to make a golden calf, but we do become impatient with God’s timing, and in that impatience, we are constantly tempted to place our trust in whatever promises relief right now. But nothing we turn to can accomplish what Christ accomplished for us when he bore our sin, defeated death, and rose again.

None of us hear the stories of the Bible in a vacuum.  We show up to them with our own values, assumptions, and life experiences and we use these things to help us make meaning out of these stories. Similarly, Abraham used his own values, assumptions, and previous experiences with the gods of the ancient world to make sense of this God, the God of Israel. But what Abraham soon discovers is that this God is different than all of the others. That this God has our best interest at heart. God proves this to Abraham in Genesis 22 and Jesus proves to us, that this God longs to bless us, so that we might be a blessing to others.

Rocky. Mulan. Aladdin. The 1980 USA Olympic hockey team. What do they all have in common? They’re all underdog stories. And we love them. We often think of David and Goliath as an underdog story but there’s actually more to the story. It’s the story of what happens when people turn away from God and put their trust in something else. It’s a story about God giving his people what they wanted. It’s a story about a God who "having disarmed the powers and authorities, made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." It’s a story with a hero, but we are not the hero. Neither is Saul, nor David, but it is the Lord.

Of all the ways God could have chosen to reveal God’s self to the world, why stories? Why not a systematic theology textbook? Or an easy to read list of principles? Why not just a giant collection of rules? Often we just want the point, the lesson, the answer, the takeaway, but stories, good stories, work differently. Stories invite us to slow down and get curious. To notice details and ask questions. This goal this summer is to allow ourselves to wonder and wander through the tried and true stories of the Old Testament and along the way, we might discover there’s more to the story than we thought.