Colossians 3:5-11 Putting on the New Self pt II

Intro

Worker w/ Piercings

Read Colossians 3:5-11

Transition

We turn now from the positive to the negative.

There are some people who do not like the negative.

“Give us positive doctrines!” they say.

“Forget about negative warnings and admonitions!”

But the negative warnings and commands grow out of the positive truths of Christian doctrine.

No amount of positive talk about health will cure a ruptured appendix.

The doctor will have to “get negative” and take out the appendix.

No amount of lecturing on beauty will produce a garden.

The gardener has to pull weeds!

The positive and the negative go together, and one without the other leads to imbalance.

Because we have died with Christ (Col. 3:3), we have the spiritual power to slay the earthly, fleshly desires that want to control us

For Paul, doctrine demands duty; creed determines conduct; facts demand acts

Put to Death vs. 5-7

We continue to put on the new self by putting to death the earthly things

It is clear that desires lead to deeds, appetites lead to actions.

If we would purify our actions, then we must first purify our minds and hearts.

What we desire usually determines what we do

Centuries past in England, if a pickpocket was caught and convicted, his right hand was cut off.

If he was caught again, his left hand suffered the same fate.

One pickpocket lost both hands and continued his occupation with his teeth!

Physical dismemberment cannot change the heart.

The verb nekrosate, meaning literally ‘to make dead,’ is very strong.

It suggests that we are not simply to suppress or control evil acts and attitudes.

We are to wipe them out, completely exterminate the old way of life.”

We put to death in the sense of denying these things and considering them dead to us and us dead to them.

“To gratify any sensual appetite is to give it the very food and nourishment by which it lives, thrives, and is active.

“Put to death,” as Paul uses it, means to discard evil practices and, here in Colossians, to get rid of the twin evils of sexual sin and covetousness

vs. 5 What is Earthly?

Paul tells us to put off the earthly

You could call these sins in vs. 5 sins of the groin and the gut

NKJV uses the word members, which means parts of your body

Romans 6:13 ESV

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

There are four elements of sinful sensuality which must be executed.

Immorality

The first is “immorality” (porneia), from which we get the word pornographic.

It means every kind of immoral sexual relation.

Chastity was the one completely new virtue which Christianity brought to the world

Impurity

The second element of sensuality which we are to kill is “impurity,” moral uncleanness.

This is wider and subtler than physical immorality, for it embraces the imagination, speech, and deed of a sensual heart or filthy mind.

Lust

The third element is “lust,” the shameful emotion which leads to sexual excesses

Paul used the same word to describe the “passionate lust” of the Gentiles who do not know God (1 Thessalonians 4:5) and the “shameful lusts” of homosexuality (Romans 1:26).

Evil Desires

The fourth element of sensuality to be discarded is “evil desires”

Personally I can think of no other array of sins more prominent in our society—and more in need of being put away.

Daily living subjects the average American to a sea of sensuality.

Alexander Maclaren said: “It is far easier to cut off the hand, which after all is not me, than to sacrifice passions and desires which, though they be my worst self, are myself

Covetousness

The word “greed” or “covetousness” (kjv) which Paul used here denotes not merely the desire to possess more than one has, but more than one ought to have, particularly that which belongs to someone else.

The mention of this at the end of a list of sexual sins is highly significant, for it is intimately associated with them.

It is really another form of the same evil desire, except that it is fixed on material things.

Whatever I put my trust in, I worship.

Materialism is the true religion of thousands of confessing Christians today

Morgan lists three ways that covetousness is terribly destructive:

“First, it is idolatry, in that it only obtains when man thinks of life consisting in things possessed, rather than in righteous relationship to God.”

“It is also a sin against others, for to satisfy the desire, others are wronged.

“Finally, it is self-destructive, for these wrong conceptions and activities always react upon the soul to its own undoing.”

vs. 6 Coming Wrath

For all of those who are consumed by these sins, the wrath of God is coming

People don’t want consequences for their actions

All of a sudden masks are back in fashion if you are protestor on a college campus

You wear hoodies, glasses, and masks to prevent anyone from ID’ing you

Heaven forbid some future employer pull up pictures of you doing stupid stuff and decide not to hire you

That $500K education would be useless if you don’t get a six figure job where you can do the same thing

You can outrun the college, police, and even damage to your future, but you can’t outrun the wrath of God

Romans 1:18 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

The wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience:

It’s not by accident that most of these protestors are homosexuals, transexual, and pedophiles

These sins invite the wrath of God.

Because the world loves this kind of sinful lifestyle, they don’t come in humility to Jesus.

As they continue in these sins, it adds to their condemnation.

Don’t think the wrath of God is just coming at the time of Judgment or in some kind of public humiliation

The wrath of God starts internally

They start to live in their own version of hell

The wrath comes from the the thoughts, consequences, and demons that come along with those sins

When they lay their head down at night they have to battle the wrath of God

God let them have everything they want and they are tormented by the results

As Christians we don’t have to judge because the wrath of God is already on them

Put Off the Old Self vs. 8-9

To put on the new self we have to put off the old self

It would be easy to focus on the major sins and overlook the minor ones

Most Christians are aghast at Immorality but eagerly practice the ones in vs. 8

Paul tells us to put away these

Ephesians 4:22 ESV

to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,

vs. 8 Put Them Away

There is one common denominator for all of these sins… the Mouth

We express our anger with our words

We spew wrath on those who get on our wrong side

We are quick to tear someone down we don’t agree with

Anger: Deep smoldering, resentful bitterness. The settled heart attitude of the angry person

Provocations don’t create his anger, merely reveal it

James 1:19 ESV

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

Wrath: Sudden outbursts of anger

The greeks likened it to a fire in straw, it flares up briefly and is gone

Malice: the vicious nature that is bent on doing harm to others

Slander: To speak critically of others with the intent to hurt. To falsely accuse

Our word blasphemy comes from this

It is slander when it is directed towards people, blasphemy when directed toward others

Obscene talk: Offensive or disgusting talk. Foul-mouthed abuse

Ephesians 5:4 ESV

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

vs. 9 Do Not Lie

Paul hits on one last

In this section (Colossians 3:5-9) Paul showed two high priorities in Christian living:

sexual morality connected with a right attitude towards material things, 

and simple getting along in love with one another.

It is easy for a Christian community to compromise one for the other, but Paul (by inspiration of the Holy Spirit) insisted that they both have a high place in Christian practice.

Put on the New Self vs. 10-11

We Put on the new self because we are made in the image of our creator

vs. 10 Renewed in Knowledge

2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

vs. 11 Christ is All