Sermon Tone Analysis

The Need to Overcome Sinful Flesh

The purpose of Colossians

To firmly root the Church, every believer, in Christ

To bring the Church, every believer, to maturity in Christ

Essential in this is that idea from then end of our reading: finding the power to stop indulging the flesh.

Flesh in Paul’s letters - sarx - sinful, broken, fallen

We struggle against the flesh - our corrupted nature

Taking the good that God gives and twisting it

Making idols of the gifts, or neglecting and abusing the gifts so that they cease to be a blessing.

We delight in God’s love, but aren’t loving

Christ has accomplished our salvation, so we tell ourselves we have no work to do and shirk our responsibility to obey

Freedom in Christ becomes a license to sin

How do we overcome the flesh, stop indulging in sin?

Again, Paul is confronting the false teaching that was creeping into the Colossian Church, that is our reading this morning

Paul exposes the false teacher’s methods to overcome the sinful flesh and shows the one way to find victory over sin

Worldly Methods Having No Value

Worldly Method # 1 - Legalism - do this and you will live

Food and Drink, New Moons, Festivals and Sabbaths.

We saw before (vs 11) with the mention of circumcision, the influence of Judaic Legalism upon the church.

Food and Drink - dietary restrictions - meant to awaken God’s people to the necessity of purity, to prepare them to enter the temple for worship.

But this could never work: “Its what comes from the heart that does makes you clean or unclean”

New Moons, Festivals, and Sabbaths

Paul is not against the Sabbath - but viewing the Sabbath regulation as mark of holiness

Paul is all for Sunday worship “when you come together on the first day” 1 Cor 16:2

This Triad (New Moons, Festivals, and Sabbaths) is used 8 times in OT, referring to the religious customs and traditions.

In Hosea and Isaiah, God rejects the rituals because they are empty observances, the people’s hearts are far from God

Paul was telling the Colossians, don’t let those outside of Christ judged you in how you worship and come before the Lord.

In regard to eating and drinking, holidays and worship: God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are contrary to his Word; or beside it, in matters of faith or worship

Legalism is alive and well today

We think that holiness consists in not drinking alcohol, not smoking, dancing, or watching certain movies or television; and so on.

But those are not the marks of holiness according to Scripture.

Holy people bear the fruit of the Spirit

By making traditions the mark of holiness, we can fool ourselves into thinking we have evidence of saving faith in our lives when all we have is external conformity to non-divinely inspired regulations.

Regulations don’t work because they are are Shadows, Christ is the Substance

What is a shadow - you can’t touch it, it is powerless - caused by the real substance

The shadows point to Christ.

Regulations were like shadows in relation to Christ because in them, the old testament saints saw something of what would be required for their redemption.

Seeing bulls, goats, sheep, and other animals offered up in the temple showed the people that the high price of death had to be paid to cover their sin.

They did not yet fully understand that the only death that could pay for their sins would be the death of God’s Son in their place, but they did realize that life had to be given for atonement.

The substance, the reality that these shadows anticipated, is Jesus, the One whose death alone is sufficient to pay for our redemption.

Worldly Method # 2 - Mysticism

Greater enlightenment, better thinking, pursuing the spiritual and denying the physical - this will overcome sin

Like Legalism, this is still creeping into the church

Asceticism - beating the body, physical and social seclusion, fasting - all to free the mind for enlightenment

When people fast today - giving up things they probably shouldn’t do anyway, to prove holiness Actually makes the body, the self, the most important thing -

Worshiping Angels - lesser powers, rulers and authorities, the elemental spirits

Spirit guides, horoscopes, the trending and popular church musicians

Going on about Visions -

Part of the Graeco-Roman cult - going on vision quests, then speaking about the vision at great length

Books on experiencing Heaven… and the focus isn’t on Christ - but on the people, on the author; or other preachers and teachers who claim to have a word from God, but contradict the Scripture

Puffed up with Carnal Wisdom -

Saying new, provocative things that come from a worldly mind Mysticism doesn’t work because it draws us away from Christ - and our focus is on man

Putting other wisdom, other leaders, other teachers in our lives before the Word of God.

It is man-made religion, and therefore man-centered, and it drives us way from Christ.

Only when holding to Christ the head, does the body grow - worldly teaching draws us away from him

The Only Way to Stop the Indulgence of the Flesh

Get Busy Dying

If you died with Christ, why are you submitting to elemental powers again… in this rhetorical question, Paul gives the key

In our baptism, we died, and were buried, then were raised to life with Christ Jesus the Lord - to turn to others is to turn from Christ

Like the Egyptians in the wilderness: God had saved them with signs and wonders, leading them through the sea and defeating their enemies.

But when they were hungry - they looked back to 400 years of slavery and oppression and said, “at least we had meat.”

Paul is saying - don’t be like this, don’t turn from Christ.

Dying with Christ is the only way to put an end to the power of sin in your life

Gal 5:24 “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

If you want to put an end to indulging the flesh, die to it.

Take up your cross

Be crucified with Christ, so that you may live in him, growing in righteousness Applying the cross to your sins and dying to them

In marriage: The feeling of love has gone cold, you argue over every little thing, and it just seems that there’s no solution

Emerson Eggerich - Love and Respect - the downward spiral - I don’t feel loved, I’m not respected - what it takes is someone to die to their own needs, and live for Christ -

Though I don’t feel loved, I will love and respect;

Though I don’t feel respected, I choose to love

Husbands, love as Christ loved, die for her - daily dying to yourself so that you may live for Christ and serve and honor her

Wives, love as Christ loved, submitting to your husband as the Church submits to Christ - honoring, serving, and loving

Our marriages require a daily dying to self and rising in Christ in order for them to last

In Anger - we must die to our pride, need for winning an argument (even when we’re right), not letting sin enter into our relationships

In Irresponsibility with time and what I - do I love my leisure more than I love Christ and his people?

Hold fast to Christ

He is the head of our body - that we may grow and mature in Him