Sermon Tone Analysis

: (5-11) 12-17 (ESV)

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.

7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.

8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

14 And above all these put-on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.

And be thankful.

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Goal: For the Hearer to Understand what putting to death our “old self” and putting on our “new self” (In Christ) really looks like and means.

Good Morning Sons & Daughters of St. Paul’s … May the Grace & Peace of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with you all … Let Us Pray.

Well, the season of Advent is over and we are again facing the impending start of another year.

We spent all of Advent talking about the lineage of Jesus as recorded in the first chapter of Matthew.

Now that we hopefully really know Jesus’ path from the Old Testament to the New, we can now start to talk about what it means to be "In Christ.”

For our purposes here today, I have focused on the epistle reading for today but i think we need to start at verse 5 rather than verse 12.

Verses 5-11 says the following …

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.

7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.

8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

The reason that I want to start here is because we are faced with a quandary in our Epistle reading.

We are told by Paul what it looks like to put on Christ.

But, in my study of this passage of scripture I was torn because I think we need to know what to cast off of our earthly vessels before we can even think of “Putting on Christ.”

Before we even get to this “New Self,” we must deal with the old one.

Paul tells us to put to death what is Earthly in us.

He calls Christians to act on the basis of their gift of faith.

He even lists some things in verse 5 that I think many of us have struggled with at some point in our lives.

He talks about:

Sexual Immorality

Perversions of God’s design for marriage would apply here.

Impurity

Sex before marriage or using your body as a tool to get what you want are examples that are applicable here.

Passion

Now, not all passions are bad.

A passion to proclaim the Gospel is definitely ok.

A passion that leads you into sin is what Paul is getting at here.

Evil Desire

Wanting eye-for-an-eye justice or wanting others to hurt for seemingly no sane reason is what we are talking about here.

Covetousness

Covetousness, which is idolatry.

“Whatever you set your heart on and put your trust in is truly your god”

covetousness, which is idolatry.

“Whatever you set your heart on and put your trust in is truly your god”

Paul makes us aware that because of this list, God’s wrath is coming.

God’s attitude toward sin and unbelief will be fully revealed in the final judgment.

And because of that, He reminds us that we need to clean up our acts.

Paul tells us to put them all away as a person might “put off” dirty clothing.

We have to start stripping ourselves of the behaviors that cause us to fall into sin.

Those behaviors that Paul lists in verse 8 are:

as a person might “put off” dirty clothing.

God’s attitude toward sin and unbelief will be fully revealed in the final judgment.

Anger

We have to start stripping ourselves of the behaviors that cause us to fall into sin.

We need to check ourselves.

Paul calls Christians to act on the basis of their gift of faith ().

covetousness, which is idolatry.

“Whatever you set your heart on and put your trust in is truly your god”

Engelbrecht, E. A. (2009).

The Lutheran Study Bible (p.

2047).

St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House.We have to start stripping ourselves of the behaviors that cause us to fall into sin.

We need to check ourselves.

He reminds us that we basically need to clean up our acts.

We have to start stripping ourselves of the behaviors that cause us to fall into sin.

We need to check ourselves.

Wrath

He reminds us that we basically need to clean up our acts.

We have to start stripping ourselves of the behaviors that cause us to fall into sin.

We need to check ourselves.

Malice

Slander

Obscene Talk from our mouths

Now think about the last year of your lives and think about how your behavior stacks up against this list.

Paul then tells us to not lie to one another … especially concerning the practices of the “old self.”

Certainly we have witnessed huge violations of many of these behaviors in the last election cycle.

We saw people making a living trying to dig up dirt on their opponents to try and get an upper hand in their race.

No party was exempt from these listed behaviors.

But Paul tells us that we need to leave all of this behind.

We need to stop committing these sins and become dead to them.

(ESV) reminds us ...

11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

This verse from Romans reminds us that the old self must die before we can again be alive in Christ.

Our bodies cannot exist in both states.

A choice must be made.

Now that we have addressed what it means to strip away the old self … we must look to this “new self”that we are to put on in Christ and what it will require of us.

We must remember that in Baptism, we put on Christ and enter into a saving relationship with Christ.

tells us ...

27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

in Baptism, we put on Christ () and enter into a saving relationship with Christ.

image of its creator.

Our new relationship of faith restores the image of God that was lost because of sin.