Do you remember the morning after something big ended? The last exam, the last day at a job, the first week in a new house. Your body keeps running on the old timetable. You wake at the same hour. You reach for things that aren't there anymore. You drive halfway to the old address before you realise you don't live there now.
Life has moved on, but our habits haven't caught up yet. And it turns out that's not just true of school and jobs and houses. It's true of faith too.
This week at One Church, Darren Rowse took us into Colossians 3 as part of our series Colossians: Christ is King. It's a passage Darren described as far too long and deep for one sermon, so he didn't try to cover all of it. Instead he lingered on what Paul is really saying to a church caught between two lives. You can watch the full message in the video above, or listen to the audio version below.
The uniform on the floor
Darren began with a milestone in his own house: one of his boys had just finished his final Year 12 exam. It took him back to walking out of his own last exam in 1989 (a politics exam), with the mix of relief, excitement and nerves that came with it.
But what he remembered most was the week after. For thirteen years his whole life had run on the rhythm of school: the same clothes every day, bells telling him where to be, teachers telling him what to focus on. Then it all finished, and it took a remarkably long time to realise he wasn't a high school student anymore. He kept waking at 7am with no alarm set. Every morning he'd look across to the corner of his room where his uniform usually was (hung up on Monday, on the floor the rest of the week), and it wasn't there anymore.
That, Darren said, is exactly the feeling Paul is writing into. The Colossians had been pagans and were now followers of Jesus. But reading between the lines, they were having a hard time adjusting. They kept drifting back to their old ways, living in a strange time between lives. And if we're paying attention, we do the same.
Darren also noted that this is a letter written to Christians. If you're exploring faith and not at that point yet, it isn't written with you in mind, but it's a perfect letter to listen in on, because it shows what Jesus calls people into.
You have been raised with Christ
Paul opens chapter 3 with these words: "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3:1-4)
Darren pointed out the order. Paul doesn't start with instructions. He starts with who they are. And it's in the past tense: you have been raised with Christ. If you've always assumed Christianity is about being good enough for God, this is where Paul turns that upside down. He starts with something that has already been done for you.
Then, admitting that Linda had recently teased him for obsessing over little words, Darren proceeded to prove her right. There's a small word doing a lot of work here: with. Trace it back through chapter 2 and there's a whole chain of them. You died with Christ. You were buried with him. You were made alive with him. You have been raised with him. Your life is hidden with him. You will appear with him.
That chain is the gospel itself: Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, his place beside the Father, and his return. At every step, Paul places the follower of Jesus with him. And Paul chooses a word that means more than standing nearby. It means sharing the same experience, being caught up in what he went through. Christians call this union with Christ, and as Darren put it, it's as simple and as mysterious as it sounds.
"He died, and so the old you, the part of you that tries to earn its place, it is dead. It's gone."
Hidden, safe and not yet seen
Darren lingered on one phrase: "your life is now hidden with Christ in God." The tense means it is hidden and stays hidden. It's done, and it is still true.
He drew out two layers to the word "hidden." First, it means safe. There is no safer place your life could be than in God himself. Second, hidden means not yet seen. Your workmates can't see that you are with Christ. And some days, we can't see it either. We forget, and we act as if we're not connected to him at all. That's exactly why Paul keeps reminding the Colossians who they are, and why we need reminding again and again.
But verse 4 holds a promise. One day it won't be hidden anymore. Christ will appear and we will appear with him. As Darren put it, "it will be so clear to us that we won't have to keep reaching for the uniform on the floor."
Paul goes further still: Christ is your life. Our world constantly tells us what our life is: our career, our family, our reputation, our bank balance. Paul says none of those things are your life. Christ is.
"Paul is not saying to the Colossians, 'Become someone new.' He's saying, 'You are someone new. So live like it.'"
Set your hearts and minds
Only now do the instructions come, and they flow out of who we already are. Because we're united with Christ, we're to set our hearts and minds on things above, where he is.
Darren explained that "set your hearts" is about what we seek and pursue. If you want to know where your heart is set, look at where you spend your time, your resources and your energy. "Set your minds" is about mindset: not just what you think, but how you see and what you dwell on. Both are confronting to look at honestly.
In the Greek these are ongoing words: keep seeking, keep setting. Hearts and minds don't stay set by themselves. Darren admitted that his own heart drifts, back to the patterns of his old life and towards whatever everyone around him is doing. Unless we're resetting our minds daily, maybe even hourly, we will drift.
And we set our minds above not because the earth is bad, but because, as Paul says in Philippians, our citizenship is in heaven.
Put it to death
From verse 5, Paul turns to the other side: what not to set our hearts on. He gives two lists of five things. Notice the little word "therefore." Paul has just said we have died, so now he says, therefore, put these things to death. Again it flows from who we are.
And "put to death" is a decisive word. Paul doesn't tell us to manage our earthly nature or cut back. He tells us to kill it off.
The first list is about desire, moving from the outside in, from what we do to what we want: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed. Darren walked through each one. Sexual immorality was as normal in Colossae as it is all around us now. Impurity is wider: what we watch, what we laugh at, what we do that we'd rather nobody saw. Lust is desire that has taken over, desire that has you, whether that's sex, or our phones, food and drink, gambling or shopping.
Darren said greed was the one he'd been thinking about most this week, because our world tells us it's normal. It's in every ad, every feed, every upgrade offer: you'll be happier with just a little bit more.
"We don't call it greed. We call it ambition. We call it upgrading. We call it getting ahead."
To Paul, greed isn't bad manners. It's worship pointed in the wrong direction, taking a good thing and making it the ultimate thing. A good career, a nice home, an education, a healthy bank balance, a well curated Instagram reel, respect, influence: all good things that can become the main thing we can't live without.
The second list, from verse 8, is about how we treat each other: anger that smoulders, rage that explodes, malice that wants to hurt, slander that tears others down, and abusive language. Then a bonus sixth: do not lie to one another.
Darren offered a few reflections on these lists. First, Paul gives both lists the same weight. The church hasn't always done that; we've been loud about some of these things and quiet about others. Second, pay attention to what happens inside you as you read them. It's tempting to think about other people's problems. Perhaps the Holy Spirit has already put his finger on something. Third, this was written to a church, so it's worth asking whether our community sees itself in these lists too.
And community is the best place to deal with these things. Darren's experience is that the most helpful step is to ask a brother or sister in Christ to pray with you and to be vulnerable about what you're facing. These things want to stay private and make us feel we're the only ones. When we bring them into the light together, their hold on us weakens.
Clothe yourselves
Verse 12 is one of the most loved and memorised parts of Scripture: "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience."
Another "therefore," and again the facts come first. You are chosen. You are holy. You are dearly loved. Darren pointed out these three names come from Deuteronomy 7, where God spoke them over Israel. Now Paul speaks them over this church.
These five qualities look a lot like Jesus, and that's Paul's intention: these are the clothes God wears. Our culture admires them too. Darren mentioned a school assembly where the principal's list of school values almost exactly mirrored this one. But our world also rewards the opposite. As much as we admire these clothes, they're not very fashionable to wear, in Paul's day or in ours.
Compassion literally means feeling someone's pain in your gut. The Stoics called it weakness. Today, suffering sits somewhere between the recipes and the football scores in our feeds, and it's easy to scroll past. Compassion doesn't scroll.
Kindness in Paul's world was often transactional: I'm good to you, now you owe me. Real kindness doesn't keep score.
Humility was the word for the lowly, the slave, the servant. Humility is happy not to be noticed.
Gentleness is strength under control, like a wild horse that's been tamed, in a world that rewards whoever shouts the loudest.
Patience means slow to the boil, the word used of God being slow to anger, in a world where we can't even wait for a page to load.
Clothes don't put themselves on, so this is intentional language. But Darren closed this section with good news: we don't have to put these clothes on by ourselves. Followers of Jesus are united to the one who wears them, and who went to the cross so we could put them on.
Paul then mentions forgiveness, love and peace. Darren chose not to unpack them (they're too big for the time left), but noted the same pattern: you have been forgiven, so forgive. You have been called to peace, so let it rule.
New rhythms for a new life
Back in verse 9, Paul told us to take off the old self with its practices. The word means more than individual actions; it's the patterns and rhythms that run deep in us. The uniform on the floor we keep going back to by default.
So in verses 15 to 17, Paul gives us new practices:
Give thanks. Paul says it three times. Darren suggested thankfulness is the thing that fights greed most directly: "Greed looks at what you haven't got. Thanksgiving looks at what you do have. It's hard to be greedy and thankful at the same time."
Let the word move in. "Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly." This is more than hearing God's word; it's letting it live in us and among us. It's why we open the Bible on Sundays, in small groups, and why One Church is launching Deep Discipleship, a whole year in God's word.
Remind each other. Paul says we teach and admonish one another through psalms, hymns and songs. When we sing together, we're not only worshipping; we're preaching to each other, reminding one another who God is and who we are.
"All week our world tells us who we are. We are not what we earn. We are not what we look like. We are not our achievements. We are what God says about us."
These rhythms aren't nice extras. Darren suggested they're what actually makes it possible to let go of the old life.
Remember who you are
Darren came back to that uniform on the floor. This week, he said, he knows he'll reach for his old life. There'll be moments when old patterns pull at him, and he suspects we'll feel it too. When that happens, remember who you are. You have been raised with Christ. Your life is hidden with him in God. Christ is your life. You are chosen, holy and dearly loved. You are not who you used to be, so don't dress like it. Put on the clothes he wears and offers you.
And for anyone exploring faith, Darren made the invitation plain: to step into what Paul describes, to be united with Jesus, raised into a new life with him, and to be safe and held and hidden with him in God. It can start with a simple prayer: "Jesus, I want to be united to you."
One way to live it out this week
Notice the moments this week when you reach for the "old uniform": a reaction, a habit, a craving for more. When it happens, pause and say to yourself, "That's not who I am anymore. I've been raised with Christ." Then choose one piece of the new clothing to put on in that moment: a kind word, a patient pause, a quiet thank you. And try one practice of thanksgiving each day, naming three things you already have rather than what you don't.
A short prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you that we belong to you,
and that our lives are safe in your hands.
You know the old habits we keep reaching for.
Help us this week to let them go, to put them to death.
Clothe us with kindness, patience, humility and a readiness to forgive.
Make us like you, and help us remember who we are:
chosen, holy and dearly loved.
Amen.
Personal Reflection
Where do you spend most of your time, energy and money? What does that suggest about where your heart is currently set?
Which "old uniform" do you find yourself reaching for most often, and what tends to trigger it?
Of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, which would be the hardest for you to put on this week, and why?
Small Group Discussion
Darren began with the feeling of waking up after school ended and still living by the old timetable. When have you experienced a season of life changing faster than your habits did?
Read Colossians 3:1-4. Paul tells us who we are before he tells us what to do. Why do you think that order matters? Does it change how you hear the instructions that follow?
The idea that our life is "hidden with Christ in God" means both safe and not yet seen. Which of those two meanings do you need to hear more right now?
Darren said we don't call it greed, we call it ambition, upgrading or getting ahead. Where is the line between healthy ambition and greed? Do you find that line easy or hard to see in your own life?
Paul gives both lists in verses 5-9 the same weight, but churches often focus on some of these things and stay quiet about others. Why do you think that happens? What has your experience been?
Darren suggested these struggles lose their grip when we bring them into the open with other believers. What makes that kind of vulnerability hard? What would make it easier in a group like this one?
Our culture admires compassion, kindness and humility, yet often rewards the opposite. Where do you feel that tension most at work, at home or online?
Which of Paul's new rhythms (giving thanks, letting the word dwell in us, reminding one another through song) could you practise together as a group? Finish by praying for one another, especially for the "old uniform" each person wants to leave on the floor this week.