Embracing Unity and Diversity in Christ

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do not lie to one another seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator here there is not Greek and Jew circumcised and uncircumcised Barbarian scythian slave free but Christ is all and in all [00:17:38]

do not lie to one another seeing one that you have put off the old self with its practices and two you have put on the new self being renewed after the image of its creator the mark of the old self was that it was a me-centered self reflected up in the previous verses with sexual immorality and evil desire and impurity in reflected a few verses later with these put away anger wrath malice slander obscene talk [01:39:18]

so the new self is the christ-centered self not the me centered self and lest it go unnoticed this is a focus on the individual right these are very individual things you you put off your old self individually get rid of that old nature of yours and put on the new you individually and then it moves to this amazing corporate and relational reality [03:13:59]

everybody must become new if this church this Society here is to be what it ought to be have listed who these groups are to just sum up the tensions Jew in Greek are mentioned that is some Jews with covenantal privilege and then some viewed as unclean latecomers Greeks gentiles and then he mentions this again same thing circumcised and uncircumcised [04:38:39]

so in this church here where people have put off the old self and put on the new self and where Christ is supreme there isn't Greek Jew and circumcised and uncircumcised in Barbarian and Syrian enslaved and free so what's the alternative and he says it two ways Christ is in all Christ is all what does that mean first Christ is in all [06:40:68]

Christ is in Christians he is in all of us he's in the free he's in the slave he's in the scythian he's in the Barbarian whoever trusts Christ is United to Christ and Christ is in them that's very radical you don't abuse people you don't disrespect people you're not hostile to people you don't hurt or reject or exclude people in whom is your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ [07:31:19]

Jesus is more valuable than anything that's what it means to say Christ is all he is more valuable than all for his sake I have suffered the loss of all things I count all things as rubbish in order to gain Christ so I think when it says Christ is all it means for people who have been finding their meaning their significance in their greekishness or their jewishness or their religious rigor [08:30:80]

once we boasted in our culture and our intellect like the Greeks but now Christ is all once we gloried in our tradition and our religious rigor like the Jews but now Christ is all once we got our Strokes because of our ethnic pedigree but now Christ is all once we reveled in not being like the barbarians and the shabby scythians but now Christ is all [09:42:78]

so I think it's hard to say anything by way of ethnic strife and racial tension more radical than Colossians 3 11 of course there are numerous other passages in the New Testament that get it the same reality but let me just end by drawing attention again to the fact that it all flows from Individual Christians putting off their old self old self-centered self-exalting self-enhancing person identity and putting on the new self [10:36:36]

and the essence of the new self is that it is inhabited by Christ and it Treasures Christ above all and if you were to ask and this is important to end with perhaps does this mean there is not Greek Jew scythian Barbarian does that mean that those ethnic racial physical psychological cultural taste realities all the things that go into making up people groups that are different does all of that vanish [11:21:12]

it should make no dishonoring difference it should make no unloving I can write it difference it should make no divisive difference now that's I think what the people mean when they're getting at this there is too much richness in the world's ethnic diversity among the ten thousand people groups that God has brought into being in the world to say that in the Kingdom of Christ none of that means anything [12:49:80]

it means significant things but it doesn't mean that we view each other in any way dishonoring or in any way unloving or in any way exclusive or divisive that's I think what it means when it says there is not Greek there is not Greek in a dishonorary way there's not Greek in an unloving way there's not Greek in a divisive way but those realities are there and now they become precious now they become beautiful now they become part of the fabric that makes up the body of Christ [13:48:30]

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