Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

Text:

Imagine if our world were full of people who walked in a terribly inefficient manner, but they didn’t even know it. This is the reality for all who do not know Christ.

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 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 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.” (Colossians 3:5-11)

This entire passage is based upon the text we read last week (verses 1-4). When we come to believe in Christ, we die to our old life in order to be raised in the new. We cannot shed the sins of our former life unless we are raised with Christ as a new creation. All of this week’s passage is an explanation of what it means to not set our minds on earthly things.

Yet we are told in verse 5 to put to death what is earthly in us. Are we dead to self, or should we be striving to die to self? The answer to both is “yes.” Our old life, before coming to Christ is gone. The entire course of our lives are changed. Yet sin is still clinging to us, and we sometimes still see glimpses of the old man in us.

Most of the rest of this passage names specific sins that we are to put to death in us. It’s easy to read these lists and miss the impact that they are to have on us. Sexual immorality is not just about committing immoral sexual acts, but also includes even thinking about such things. Impurity is any behavior that is not absolutely holy, as God is holy. Passion is lust. It’s good to be passionate about good things, but when our passions are directed towards the wrong things, it is sin. And when our passions for the right things consume us too much, it is sin. Evil desire is fixing your eyes on anything besides God. Covetousness is desiring what your neighbor has, and not trusting the provision of God. All of these dishonor God because they are a result of us not setting our minds on things above. Put these to death! If it were not for sin, God’s wrath wouldn’t need to be shown at all.

These sins should no longer characterize our lives as believers. We should no longer be walking in these sins. They can no longer be the norm in our lives. Yet we still see some of these in our lives sometimes. How is this possible? I think the answer lies in the second part of verse 7. When we live in sin, we find our ultimate joy and purpose in them, and defend those sins with everything we can. But the saved individual, though he may occasionally lapse into those same old sins, is fighting them, not satisfied to continue down that old path, but striving to eliminate them completely by God’s power and for His glory. That’s the difference.

We must not only eliminate some of our old sinful lifestyle, but all of it. Whereas the first list of sins, found in verse 5, had to do primarily with our heart and relationship with God, these deal primarily with our relationships with others. Anger itself is not a sin, but is kind of a heading for the other sins named here. Yet, our anger often becomes a sin when we do not handle it biblically. Wrath is essentially the same emotion as anger, but implies that action is taken. It’s when we take revenge upon another. Malice is the evil thoughts and emotions we have towards others, with or without reason. Slander is speaking negatively about others. Obscene talk is any word spoken which does not glorify God. It’s not talking about profanity. Often non-profane words are sinful because they are spoken out of anger or mistrust of God. God wants us to be holy before Him and holy before people.

Growing in sanctification is only possible because of Christ’s death and resurrection. We have put off the old self. We have put on the new self. The new self is being renewed. How? In knowledge. But not just any knowledge. It must be after the image of its creator. Not merely of God, but after God, seeking to be like God in his holiness.

We are all equally forgiven, cleansed, and made new in Christ. We are united under His Lordship. One nation cannot claim Christianity as its own. It’s great to be proud to be an American. I sure am. But we must never assume that our nation is Christian in a way that others are not. This doesn’t even line up with reality anymore. And we must never so associate our Christianity with our nation or our ethnicity that we exclude people of other backgrounds. When we gather as a church, we gather as people saved by the grace of God, not as Americans, not as small town people, not as people who have a certain skin color, but as the church. Therefore, it should not matter to us how big or small our church is: the more the better! It should not matter to us what ethnicities are represented in our church: again, the more the better! Instead, we ought to just be thankful that we ourselves are saved. Because without the grace of God shown to us, we would experience His wrath.

So we praise God that He has saved us from all of these sins that we have previously walked in, and ask Him for strength that we would put them to death completely in our lives.