August 3, 2025

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon Text: Colossians 3:1-11

Other Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:1-2,12–14; 2:18-26 and Luke 12:13-21

 

1. Explain this phrase: “[Christ is] seated at the right hand of the Father” (v.2). Then mention ways that it comforts you.

 

2. In verse 11, Paul is not saying that Christians lost identifying characteristics when they become Christian. What he is saying is that Christ transcends characteristics and unites different groups of people who find true life in life. What common identifying characteristics is Paul addressing with his list in verse 11? Make applications to congregational life.

 

3. Paul is encouraging “sanctification” – that is, how we should live holy lives towards God. Describe Paul’s tone as he teaches sanctified living. What are strategies we can use as we encourage sanctification to our children and grandchildren?

 

4. Paul reminds you that you have “put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (v. 10). What is the image of God?

 

5. “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (v. 2). What does it look like for Christians to set their minds on things above but still interact with earthly gifts, such as marriage and sexual intimacy?

 

 

1. It is not meant to be taken hyperliterally; it is an anthropomorphic picture that highlights Christ’s exaltation, his authority, and his equality with God the Father. So, it tells us that Jesus is truly in control. But in a lot of ways, it also tells us that he is near. Where is God the Father? He’s everywhere because he is omnipresent. So, where is God the Father’s “right hand”? Well, it must be everywhere. And if the Father’s right hand is everywhere… and if Jesus is at the Father’s right hand… then that must mean Jesus is everywhere (despite retaining his physical body). How does this comfort us? We know that the one we trust in has all authority and that he is close to help his people.
    
2. Paul is addressing racial characteristics (Jew or Gentile), ceremonial characteristics (circumcised or uncircumcised), cultural characteristics (Barbarian or Scythian – both of which were seen as uneducated and inferior), and economic class characteristics (slave or free). Applications for congregational life include us gladly joining with one another to express fellowship by worshiping with each other, praying for and with each other, receiving Holy Communion together, and doing church work together.

 

3. We note how Paul assumes and leans into the present reality of Christians, namely, that they truly are identified as Christ’s and with Christ. That must be the starting point because that’s who they truly are. At the same time, Paul is also realistic about the power of the sinful flesh. He is forceful in his language (e.g., “put to death…”). But he ends by pointing to the power of God who does the renewal in us. These are good patterns for us to emulate. We start by appealing to the new man in every Christian; that’s who we really are. We are realistic about the danger of sin, but we emphasize more so the power of God to overcome our sin and sinfulness.

 

4. Much ink has been spilled on this subject. Here is a good summary from a Lutheran commentator: “One, therefore, can speak of the image of God in a wider sense, including the faculty to reason, to think etc; and of the image of God in a narrower sense: righteousness, true holiness, knowledge of God. The image of God in a wider sense has been retained in man after the fall, though greatly impaired, because it belongs to the essence of man; the image in a narrower sense has been completely lost, and is only restored in part in the new man. [Here], Paul is unmistakably referring to the image of God in a narrower sense. The more a man grows in the knowledge of God, in righteousness and true holiness, the more in an ethical sense does he become God-like, or an image of God” (Wenzel 167).
   
    
5. It means that we can use the gifts in an innocent, joyful, and freeing way – the way they were always intended to be used, and the way that Adam and Eve undoubtedly enjoyed them before the fall into sin. It’s not that all earthly things are to be avoided. They are simply to be used in their proper way because in that way God gives us the most enjoyment.