Tear Down

Review

So over the course of the summer, camp, soon you will go on mission trips, and the year, Kevin wants you to get this request from Paul.

English Standard Version Chapter 2

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Kevin, and I, want you to walk in Christ.

Last time we met Kevin talked about being rooted. We are going to spend the next couple of weeks talking about being built up.

Let me tell you how we came up with Villain Night. We kinda don’t pick these topics randomly. Last time we did rooted but we didn’t want yall to dress like a bunch of different trees, so we had to think. You are rooted in your past so hence retro. So on built up, Kevin wanted to emphasize that for something to be built up a lot of times something first has to be torn down. Tearing something down has a negative feel to it so, Villain Night, next week we are going to be talking about building up, so Super Hero Night. I know it is a stretch but work with us.

So anyways, for something to be built up we must tear something down. That is where we are this week.

One of the reasons Kevin gave you this little notebook with the entire letter of Colossians is he wants you to read the whole letter all 4 chapters of it, the entire 15 minutes it takes to read the whole letter. We need to be careful when we take just a couple of verses and don’t look at the context it was written. When we don’t look at what Paul was saying in the whole letter we can make 1 or 2 verses mean whatever we want. Unfortunately, this happens a lot in different churches all over, people preach something that is not quite true, sounds good so people think it is true but it is not quite there.

Paul is writing this letter to Colossae to tell them they are straying from the truth. Paul wants them to know that Christ is preeminent. That means he is over everything, he is over creation, over man and all their rules. He is over everything.

Then Paul wants us to know that God worked through Christ, who is preeminent, over everything, to bring us back to Him, to secure our salvation if we put our trust in him alone.

There was something going on in Colossae that made the people think that maybe God and Jesus weren’t all that superior and maybe there were other forces in the world that influenced their salvation. The people of Colossae were starting to believe that they had to do other things to be saved.

Paul is telling them that when Christ died on the cross he defeated all of that. And the only way to be saved is putting your trust in Jesus. That they are already accepted through Christ’s work on the cross they don’t have to earn their salvation. Christ did that for them. And if they put their trust in Him, they have the power to get rid of sinful things and grow and mature in him. back to our verse.

English Standard Version Chapter 2

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

I need you to know that once you understand that God is sovereign and in complete control, once you understand that he has a plan and knows the plan and carries out the plan. It is a lot easier for us to know who we are and what is expected of us.

So what are we to tear down?

Lets flip the page and go to

English Standard Version Chapter 3

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.

Now I know a lot of you are looking at that list of things and dreading that I am going to give you a talk about the things that we shouldn’t be doing. You’re thinking here comes another talk about no sex, no drugs, no porn. eh! Don’t tune out yet.

That is not what this passage is about. If this letter was about the things not to do Paul would have put it at the beginning, but it shows up half way through. And if we had read the whole letter we would have seen that Paul makes it clear it is not about obedience to the rules. Our Christian walk is about our obedience to Him.

look at verse 5

English Standard Version Chapter 3

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

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

The command is not “don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t say this, or don’t think that. There is no command don’t in this verse. The command is put to death. The command is put to death what is earthly in you.

When you put your trust in Christ that doesn’t mean that you no longer have sinful thoughts or desires anymore. Now there is a battle. Now you have the Holy Spirit living in you. What does the Holy Spirit desire? The Holy Spirit desires the things of God. What does the flesh desire? Things of the flesh. Unfortunately we still have the desires of the flesh, the Greek word is Sarx. Read Romans 8 The two are at odds there is a struggle. This is the do do section in . Paul says;

English Standard Version Chapter 7

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

When our sinful desires, when our flesh, rear their ugly head we have to put them too death. We don’t suppress them or deny them, we kill them.

Now the problem becomes how do we do that? How do we put our sinful flesh to death. Most of us just try to avoid the sin. Not to engage in the sin. How is that working out for ya? How do you put to death the source of the sin

It is one thing not to murder but Jesus says anger is just as bad. How do you not get angry. It is one thing to steal a car Jesus says it is just as bad to covet over that car. How do you not covet? We have to go to the source. What is the source?

The heart

If your car is leaking oil you don’t keep putting oil in it you fix the leak

If your roof is leaking you don’t keep painting over the stain you fix the leak

if your house is infested with bees you don’t keep swatting at the bees you eliminate the nest. if you kill the source the symptoms will be eliminated. if you are constantly dealing with the symptoms you will never overcome the impulses of the flesh. You are going to swatting at bees your entire life. We have to go to the source.

Jesus said;

English Standard Version Chapter 7

21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Jesus came to address the heart! Jesus did not come to give us a list of don’ts. He didn’t come to tell us to clean up our act and get on our best behavior. He came to deal with our sinful nature. He came to give us a new heart, not one of stone. He came to give us a new spirit. And now through the power of Christ and only through the power of Christ, with a new heart and a new spirit, I can put to death the desires of the flesh.

Do you all get it? If you keep saying I am going to stop doing this sin, and trust me I have tried, you will never win. It is only through the Power of the Christ working with the Holy Spirit in you can you get rid of it. You cant do it.

I want to look at one more thing

What happens when I don’t put to death these things

Look at verse 6

English Standard Version Chapter 3

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

Too often when we are studying or reading we skip over verses like this. We don’t like them. We have portrayed God as the God of love and that he would never punish anyone. God is love, but God is also a God of Justice and wrath. And because of His just nature, He must punish sinners.  And his wrath is the appropriate response to sin. Because of our sinful nature we deserve the wrath of God. And anyone who persist in their sinful nature deserves the wrath of God, justly.

Now no one really wants to hear this verse.  Sometimes God is simply portrayed as a God of love who would never punish anyone or send anyone to eternal judgment.  But that is not the full council of God. The full council of God is this: God is a God of love, yes.  But He is also a God of justice and wrath.  Because of His just nature, He must punish sinners.  And God’s wrath is not emotional and volatile. It is controlled and an appropriate response to sin.  Sin brings upon people the just wrath of God.  And those who persist in these behaviors will incur the just wrath of God.

Why Jesus came

And that is why Jesus came! Jesus came not to condemn the world but to save the world from the coming judgment. He came to save people from the wrath of God.  He did come to say to the world, hey things are okay. He came to tell the world, “things are not okay.” And if you don’t want to hear the bad news, you cannot receive the good news. It is the bad news that leads to the good news.  You are under the wrath of God: bad news! Jesus came to absorb the wrath of God for you: Good news! Receive Him as your substitute.  He came to die in your place.

Some important questions

So if your life is still characterized by these things. If these are on going sins, if these are sins that keep coming up you need to look at 2 different things. First, the hard one. Are you a Child of God? Do you walk with Him. We will talk about this more next week. But if you are walking with Christ, if you have put your trust in Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit you will start to be able to put to death these sins. Notice I said start. You will not get rid of all the sin in your life, we cannot reach perfection. If there is no desire or attempt to put to death your sin that is an indication that you might not know Jesus.

My fear is that a lot of us have bought fire insurance. We said a prayer when we were 7 so we didn’t have to spend eternity in hell, and we think we are safe, and now we can go ahead and do whatever we want. If you truly accepted Christ into your heart there will be a desire to put to death, not your desire but that of the Holy Spirits. Some of you may need to ask; Have I received the grace of Christ, turned from my sins and accepted the forgiveness of God? If you have not, the wrath of God is still on you.

Now there are some of you that have truly accepted Christ and you still have a sin problem. Guess what we all do. The answer is not to try and get rid of the sin. The way you put to death your sin is to draw closer to Jesus, the only who has the power to put to death the sin. The reason for your struggle is that your relationship is not growing it is not maturing, we will talk about this in a couple of weeks, and it is not Jesus’ fault. Your relationship with the one who has the power to put to death your sin, is not as strong as your relationship with your flesh. Some of you need to build a better relationship with Jesus, walk in Him.