A Jesus-Centered Life (Centered #1)

Anyone here stressed?

Yeah. Life feels full. Things are a little crazy. Maybe it is because you forgot to export your sermon slides before Sunday morning — which, for the record, is a purely hypothetical example I am definitely not living out right now.

Maybe you are stressed because you have a lot to get done before vacation. Or because you just got back from vacation. Maybe it is because you have little kids. Or big kids. Or adult kids. Maybe there is a lot going on at work, or you have packed too much into your schedule. Some of you are stressed about what is coming in the near future, and others of you are stressed because you cannot stop thinking about something in the past.

When we feel that kind of overwhelm, we look for an escape. Some of us turn to entertainment. Some to food. Some to certain substances. We throw ourselves into a hobby, or pour more of ourselves into work, or plan another vacation.

Some of those things are genuinely good. But so often what happens is we spend a weekend binge-watching a season of a show, or we go camping, or we do something — and then Monday rolls around and we find ourselves right back on the treadmill. The stress returns. We never found the relief we were looking for.

The Promise of “Centering”

Because of this, there has been a movement — I have no idea how long it has been building — to find peace through what gets called centering. I suspect it originated with yoga enthusiasts, or perhaps Eastern religions. But over the last several years I have noticed it is no longer confined to yoga. It has spread through business and through nearly every arena of life.

One wellness site defines it this way: being centered means being very balanced and at peace. It is often described as a state of emotional and spiritual equilibrium. It allows you to accept the good and the bad in life, understanding that things are always changing, while giving you somewhere to return to so you feel more balanced and grounded when things get difficult.

That is exactly what we want, is it not? We want to feel grounded. We want peace. We want equilibrium — so that no matter what life throws at us to rock the boat, we stay steady.

That particular article went on to offer ideas for how to begin. But I noticed something: it never gave you a center. It never gave you a foundation. It says you have to be grounded — but to be grounded, you have to be grounded on something.

So I kept looking. And on another wellness site I found their definition of a good foundation:

You are your own foundation for creating joy and fulfillment.

Let me say that again. You are your own foundation for creating joy and fulfillment.

That idea is not confined to one website. It is all over social media. It is hanging on the walls of coffee shops and salons. It is the advice being shared over a glass of wine. It is being tattooed on people’s bodies. You are enough. You have everything you need. You are the foundation.

Maybe that sounds wise to you. It certainly fits the wisdom of our day. Maybe it sounds genuinely inspiring.

But as your friend and pastor, I have to tell you: trying to find your foundation, your center, in yourself is like trying to anchor your boat at sea to the boat. You may love the look of that anchor. It might look great hanging off the side. You are still going to drift.

To have a foundation, to be grounded, you need something outside yourself.

That is why we are beginning a study of Colossians. Because in this letter the Apostle Paul tells us what our foundation should be — the place we can return to, the thing that gives us equilibrium so that no matter what comes, we stay steady. We stay centered.

Two Stories

Before we open the text, I want to tell you two stories. One is Paul’s, since he wrote this letter and you need to know where he is coming from. The other is a bit more modern. It is mine.

My light bulb moment

Fifteen years ago I was on staff at a large Bible church in Cedar Rapids as the young adult pastor, which meant I rarely preached on a Sunday — maybe once or twice a year.

That particular year, the wife of our senior pastor was having major surgery. He was in the middle of a doctrinal series, taking a Sunday for the doctrine of God, a Sunday for the doctrine of Scripture, a Sunday for the doctrine of man, and so on. Since he would be gone two weeks, he assigned those Sundays to a few of us.

He assigned me the doctrine of sin.

I was not thrilled. A few weeks ago I shared with you my discomfort at having to preach the truth that all people are sinful. And it felt genuinely unfair, because a colleague of mine got assigned the next week: the doctrine of Jesus. I would much rather talk about Jesus. It was like we were being set up as good cop and bad cop, and I got the bad cop role.

So I reluctantly accepted the assignment and started digging into the Scriptures.

If you know the Bible, you will not be surprised that I ended up in Genesis 3, where we read about the very first sin.

If you are not familiar with the story: in chapter 1, God creates Adam and Eve along with everything else — but he makes them differently. He creates them in his image, gives them personality and will, puts something of himself into them, and sets them to care for the rest of creation. In chapter 2 we learn that God gave them exactly one rule.

Kids, how would you like to live in a household with only one rule? You probably feel like your parents have thousands. Adam and Eve had one: do not eat from this one tree. Every other tree was available — there must have been hundreds, if not thousands. Think of the buffet. Just not this one.

Then in chapter 3, Satan shows up as a serpent, tricks and manipulates Eve, lies to her, gets her doubting. So she takes the fruit and eats it, and gives some to her husband, who must be standing right there — and Adam eats too.

The moment they ate, everything changed. Sin came crashing into God’s created order and fundamentally altered their relationship with God, their relationship with each other, and even their relationship with themselves.

A little later God shows up and talks with them. Some people think he is pronouncing curses on them for doing something horrible. I do not think he is cursing them — I think he is announcing the natural consequences of their sin. To Adam: the ground will be hard, and your labor will be toil. To Eve: childbirth will be painful.

But God also says something to the serpent. The first part explains the crawling on the belly. And then, in Genesis 3:15, something remarkable:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Many scholars believe this is the very first prophecy in all of Scripture — and the first prophecy about Jesus.

Start with the word offspring. It carries both plurality and individuality. If I called one of my children up here, I could say “this is my offspring.” If I brought all four of them up, I could also say “this is my offspring.” Both are accurate.

The same thing is happening here. On one level, the offspring of Eve is all humanity, and there is hostility between humans and serpents — and between humanity and Satan and sin. But notice the second half says he. There is an individual too. And this individual has a very particular interaction with the serpent: he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

That is fulfilled at the cross. Satan gets the leaders and the Romans into a frenzy so that Jesus is falsely arrested, falsely accused, found guilty, and executed. That is the fangs of the serpent sinking into the heel, delivering the poisonous blow.

But in that very same act, Jesus crushes the serpent’s head. Because it is through this death that Jesus — the only human who ever lived without sin — dies as though he were a sinner, as though he were a criminal. And in doing so he pays the penalty of sin, so that humanity, the offspring of Eve, could find life again.

So there I am, studying for a sermon on a topic I did not want to preach, and the proverbial light bulb went off.

God’s response to Genesis 3 is the cross.

Cognitively I already knew that. But suddenly it took on a whole new meaning. It suddenly meant that the toil Adam would face in his work could, through the gospel, become a joy again. It meant that the hostility introduced between Adam and Eve could, through the gospel, bring healing to marriages. It meant that what we see in Genesis 4 — the envy, the anger, the strife between Cain and Abel — could be healed through the gospel. It meant that just as Adam and Eve died spiritually the moment they ate, through the gospel they could be spiritually resurrected.

When that light came on, I felt two things at once.

The first was excitement. I was thrilled to see how it all tied together — like putting together a puzzle without the box top, when suddenly the pieces come together and you see what you are making.

The second was embarrassment. This felt so basic. So fundamental. And here I was, a pastor on staff at a large, healthy Bible church, about to preach a sermon, only now figuring it out.

Paul’s light bulb moment

Paul went on a similar journey. And just as my moment changed the way I do ministry, counseling, and interaction with people, Paul had a moment that changed everything.

We meet him in Acts 7, where he is also known as Saul. He is a rising star within Judaism — a well-respected rabbi headed for significant leadership. And he was so zealous for his faith that he went around arresting people to silence them for claiming Jesus was the Messiah. He thought the whole story of Jesus of Nazareth was insanity, that they had invented the resurrection, that this was a threat to the faith and had to be squelched. He even approved of executions.

In Acts 9 he obtains letters authorizing him to go to Damascus, present them to the Jewish leaders there, and round up all these Jesus followers.

And on the way, Jesus himself shows up.

Keep in mind, Jesus had already risen and ascended. He is no longer on earth. And suddenly he appears: what are you doing? In that moment Saul realizes it is true, and he is horrified at how wrong he was. And it changes everything.

Instead of traveling around arresting Jesus followers, he began traveling around making them.

How We Got the Letter to the Colossians

Over time Paul’s ministry became that of a missionary. He would travel to strategic cities, tell people the gospel, some would believe, and a church would form.

And then later, a church would come to mind, or word would reach him that a church was struggling — and Pastor Paul could not help himself. He would write them a letter. Ephesians, Galatians, Thessalonians — letters back to churches he had planted.

There are three letters from Paul in the New Testament written to pastors; the rest are to churches. And of the letters to churches, only two went to churches he did not plant. The first is Romans — Paul did eventually reach Rome, but years later, as a prisoner. He showed up in handcuffs, not to launch a church.

The second is the church in Colossae.

The closest Paul ever got to Colossae was Ephesus, about a hundred miles west. He planted the church there, shared the gospel, people believed, and a church formed. He stayed three years, and because it was such a strategic place, he left Timothy to pastor it when he moved on with his missionary journeys.

It is believed that a man named Epaphras made the hundred-mile walk east to Colossae — he was probably from there — and did exactly what Paul had done. He shared the gospel, and a church was planted.

Then, perhaps a few years later, Epaphras made his way to Rome, connected with Paul under house arrest, and told him: Just as you came to Ephesus and I found Jesus while you were there, I went back to my hometown, shared the gospel, and a church formed.

Paul is elated. He is thrilled. So he writes them a letter to say, I heard about you, and I am so excited.

But I think something else is going on too. Colossae may not have been a strategic city, but it had a reputation. It was a religiously chaotic place with a number of cults, and Jewish people in other cities looked at the Jewish community in Colossae as liberal and compromised, thoroughly infected and affected by the surrounding culture.

So I wonder if Paul, excited as he is, is also thinking: is heresy going to slip in there? Is someone going to lead them astray? He wants to shore up their faith. He wants them to genuinely understand what it means to be centered.

And that is my hope for you. Just as Paul wrote hoping the Colossians would become centered in Jesus, I hope that as we read and study this book together, you become centered in Jesus.

Which means if you are not yet a follower of Jesus, this is the perfect series for you, because you are going to hear the gospel story clearly and see how it can become the foundation of your whole life. If your faith is brand new, this series will help you grow. If you have been following Jesus a while but you are in a dry season, this may be what God uses to bring you out of winter into spring. And if you have given your whole life to this, this will encourage you and help you keep going.

The Text: Colossians 1:1–8

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”

This is how Paul begins nearly all his letters, and it was not unique to him — it was simply how letters worked in the first century. They started with the author, rather than putting it at the very end like we do. Which is honestly smarter. You do not want to open a letter, wonder who it is from, flip to the end, discover it is from Joe, and only then be able to read it in Joe’s voice.

“An apostle of Christ Jesus”

Notice how Paul identifies himself. He is an apostle. There are two layers to that word. There were the twelve apostles Jesus used as the foundation of the church. But the word itself simply means one who is sent — think missionary. Paul was both.

And he does not merely say he is an apostle. He says he is an apostle of Christ Jesus. He wants them to know he is in Christ, not representing some other movement or cult.

And he did not select this for himself because it sounded impressive. This is not someone announcing that God has revealed to them that they are now a bishop. He says it is by the will of God.

Our church takes its name from Ezekiel 47, where a river flows out from the temple, and everywhere the river goes there is life. We believe that river represents Jesus, and there are trees growing along its banks. But there is a section where Ezekiel wades through that river four times, and each time it is deeper. On the fourth pass he cannot touch bottom — it is over his head.

Our desire here is not only that you would step into the river and find life in Jesus, but that you would go deeper, being discipled to become more like Christ. But that means when you reach that fourth level and cannot touch bottom, the river is now in control. You can no longer walk wherever you want, because your feet cannot reach. Now God is carrying you.

That is exactly where Paul was. He had completely handed his life over to God. He had picked up his feet in the river. If God wanted to send him to Ephesus, he went to Ephesus. If God wanted him in Philippi, he went to Philippi. If God wanted him in a prison in Rome, he went to a prison in Rome. He is an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.

How do you see yourself? When people ask who you are, how do you identify?

I think Paul chose “apostle” here specifically because of his audience. In three other letters he identifies himself as a bondservant. In two others he does not identify himself at all beyond his name alongside co-authors. He is considering who is reading.

If I wrote a letter to my wife, I would sign it with my name — but I could sign it “your husband.” If I wrote to my children, signing it “your husband” would be deeply weird. It would be “your dad.”

Paul has never met these people. He does not know their names or faces or stories. All he knows is what Epaphras told him. He wants them to listen. He wants to be sure they understand this gospel. So he opens with authority: this is coming to you from an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. I did not pick this. God chose this.

“To the saints”

And God has chosen them too. That is what verse 2 tells us: he writes to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ.

For Paul to reach the place where he could lift his feet in the river and trust God with wherever he was sent — even prison in Rome — he had to be centered. He had to be at peace with it. And because his trust was in God, he could say: okay, God wants me in prison, I will go. And God used that house arrest to produce letters to all these churches. We have the Scriptures partly because of it. Paul could trust him, because Paul was centered in Christ.

And what he wants them to know is that you too can be centered in Christ.

Some of us think of a saint as someone who has lived exceptionally purely, or holier than everyone else, or someone formally recognized as having achieved sainthood. But to Paul, a saint is simply someone who has put their faith in Jesus.

So if you have put your faith in Jesus, you are a saint. Even if you yelled at your kids this morning. Even if you left work early on Friday. Even if you cut a few corners. God does not approve of those things — but he loves you, and because you are in Christ, you are a saint.

Paul wants them to realize: just as I am in Christ, you are in Christ. And because you are in Christ, you can live a Jesus-centered life.

The Thanksgiving Section: Colossians 1:3–8

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing — as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.”

Paul opens with thanks. It was customary in letters of that era to name the sender and recipient and then move into thanksgiving, often to a god or a collection of gods, saying a lot of complimentary things. Read Paul’s other letters and you will notice the pattern.

And because Paul says a lot of warm things here, we tend to skim it.

Last week some of you got to meet our regional ministry president, who has been visiting churches across our district to get acquainted. After everything wrapped up, he was extraordinarily complimentary. He praised you — and I did not know he was going to do this, but he actually tested you twice. He went and found a place to sit by himself, and within a minute someone came over and greeted him. He was genuinely impressed by that. So whoever did that, thank you.

He said kind things about our worship team. He said he really liked our town and could easily see himself living here, and that if he did, he would attend here without hesitation. He said there was a sweet spirit here, a sense of God’s presence, and that we clearly do things with intention.

But there was one thing he said that made me raise an eyebrow. As we walked in the doors, he said this had to be the best facility he had ever seen for a church our size.

Really? He travels to hundreds of churches. He has probably seen thousands — massive megachurches and tiny congregations and everything between. And I think we have it good; I am genuinely impressed with our design team and the folks who laid this out. But the best?

Since this was early in his visit, I filed it away thinking, he is just laying on the compliments to be encouraging, softening things up because he will probably see something later that is not so good.

I think a lot of people do exactly that with verses 3 through 8. They see Paul saying all these nice things and conclude he is buttering them up before the hard stuff. File it away. Move on to the real material.

That is a huge mistake. Paul so often uses this thanksgiving section to plant clues about the themes he will develop throughout. So we need to stop and look carefully, because it may unlock the rest of the letter.

The Gospel Is Literally at the Center

Spoiler alert: the heart of this section is the gospel. And I do not just mean thematically or figuratively. I mean literally. Look right at the middle, in verse 5: the gospel.

So let us work outward from it.

Just before: “the word of the truth”

He describes the gospel as the word of truth. In other words, this is not the wild fable the cults or others in Colossae are peddling. The story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is true. It changed my life. I have watched it change all kinds of lives. And it is already beginning to change yours.

Just after: “which has come to you”

They did not conjure this up themselves. This was not something they arrived at in a moment of meditation while centering. It came to them. It came through Epaphras and some Jesus followers from Ephesus who walked in and shared it, and some people in Colossae heard it and believed it and recognized it as truth.

And it is not only for them

He says that in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing. It does not simply come in and make a small adjustment. It grows. It gets into the river and keeps going deeper. This is not about praying a prayer and deciding you have secured your fire insurance. It is about continuing to give more of your life to Christ.

And it is increasing right there among them. How does Paul know? Because of what Epaphras told him — he can see it in how they live.

Faith, love, and hope

Go back up to verse 4. The gospel came to them, and first they put their faith in Christ Jesus. The gospel awakened something in them, and they believed.

And that faith led them to live it out — which brings the next phrase: the love they have for all the saints. If you have faith in Christ, it is not merely to make your brain bigger and you smarter. It is to change how you live. Being Jesus-centered leads you to love others, especially fellow believers.

So how are you doing at loving the saints? When you show up on a Sunday, there are probably certain people you greet warmly — and others you steer around. I am thankful I do not know of anything like that here, but I have heard of it in other churches. Are you loving the saints?

If you are struggling to love someone, return to the gospel. Get centered. Let God’s love for you — despite your sin, despite your weakness, despite your failings — wash over you and change you. Because as your faith in Christ grows, you can begin to love even that person.

And this love comes from something else. Verse 5 says it is because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

When Paul uses the word hope, he does not mean it the way we do. It is not a wish — I hope she says yes to a date. It is the confidence of knowing it is coming.

And what they hope for is what is laid up for them in heaven.

Christians unfortunately tend to hold one of two twisted extremes about heaven. Some are so heavenly minded they are of no earthly good — all they can think about is escaping this painful life, so there is no loving of the saints around them. Others give heaven no thought at all, so wrapped up in life here that it becomes overwhelming.

Paul is saying that when you are Jesus-centered, your hope and longing is for heaven, because that is where God is and you want to be in his presence. But because God has shown such love to you, you cannot help but love everyone here.

Heaven should make us appreciate earth all the more, and our time on earth should make us look for heaven all the more.

That is what Paul wants for you. When your life is in Christ, you have a faith that changes you and makes you love, and it instills hope in you. And when you have hope, you no longer find yourself having to run to a screen, or to food, or to a substance in order to find relief. You have God. You have Jesus. You have the gospel.

Let Us Pray

Heavenly Father, we commit all of this to you. We are your people, and this gospel is your story. Write it into our hearts and our minds. Help us become Jesus-centered people living Jesus-centered lives.

For the person who has never put their faith in you — let them hear you calling. Let them realize this whole astonishing story is true: that you, the triune God, made humanity in your image; that men and women sinned against you and walked away; and that even though that image in us was distorted, it was not obliterated or eliminated. You want to resurrect us spiritually. So I pray they would give their life to you right now, and that just as believers in Ephesus and Colossae and all around the globe heard this gospel and it bore fruit and increased, it would increase right now by changing them. Hear them as they confess their sin, declare their faith, give themselves to you, step into this river, and find life.

And I pray for the person who feels young in their faith — maybe with plenty of church background, aware of Christianity for a long time, but the light bulb has never quite come on. Make this their moment. Let them understand your love for them more deeply, because your image is in them and you want to restore it and work powerfully. Help them go deeper into your river. They have stepped in. They know about Jesus. They have given their life to you. But they are so wrapped up in the things of this world — would you lift their eyes to see the hope laid up for them in heaven?

And as you increase our faith, increase our love, so that understanding how great your love is for us would compel us to display that love to the world around us.

There are people all around us trying to find their center in their jobs, their marriages, their parenting, their income. Just as you are calling us to center ourselves on Jesus, those people need you too. So as you call us deeper into this river, help us be Jesus with flesh on — going and loving these people the way you would love them, living among them the way you, Jesus, would live among them. So that one day we might have the joy of watching your gospel, your word of truth, come to them, and see them put their faith in you and begin to love and to hope.

Use these next holy moments — this song, this time of prayer, these communion elements — for your kingdom and your glory and our joy. Call us deeper into this river. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.