Called to obey, enabled to obey
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
Imagine a scenario with me:
It’s December 7, 1941. You’re listening to the radio, waiting for the CBS Sunday broadcast of World News Today at 2:30.
The broadcast begins and it’s clear from the tone of broadcaster John Charles Daly that something is different. He reads a report from White House Press Secretary Stephen Early: "The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor from the air and all naval and military activities on the island of Oahu, principal American base in the Hawaiian islands."
As you try to process what you’ve heard, the CBS World News Today broadcast then switches to its London bureau where the on-air broadcaster talks with other broadcasters on the air about what this means for the global conflict that has been raging in Europe for a while. And of course they’re discussing what this attack means for the United States — will they finally get involved? When will it happen? What will their response be?
Your fears are confirmed as President Roosevelt stands before Congress and delivers the seven-minute speech that And yet you know that most likely your president is going to call upon you to step up, to do your duty, to serve your country.
But their voices fade away as you begin to think about what this means for you. You’re a 20-year-old young man. You’ve never really felt physically capable. You’re not good in sports. You can’t hold your own in a fight. You gave up on weight training a few months ago.
And you want to. The desire is there. And the calling is there. You heard your president stand up before Congress and ask for a declaration of war. You heard him say, “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” Your draft letter is addressed to you as coming from “the president of the United States and your neighbor”
Oh how the attributes of courage and valor and heroism appeal to you! You want to stand up and be counted! The only question in your mind is, Do I have what it takes?
As Christians, we too are called to engage in warfare. We are called to do battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are called to live a life of obedience. But do we have what it takes?
#1: In Christ, we are called to live a life of obedience
#1: In Christ, we are called to live a life of obedience
5 Therefore >>consider the members of your earthly body as dead<< to cimmorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you also, >>put them all aside<<: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.
Most of the time I like my translation, the NASB. I find it accurate. But I struggle with that here in verse 5. Because the Greek literally says “Put to death your earthly members.” Which is why almost every other translation has something similar.
What does the NIV say? “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.”
What does the NKJV say? “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth.”
What does the ESV say? “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.”
What about our SBC LifeWay translation, the CSB? “Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature.”
And that, I think, is the best way to phrase this verse. “Put to death what belongs to your earthly nature.”
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3
Therefore, >>put to death what belongs to your earthly nature<<: sexual immorality, impurity, [lust], evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.
Now that verb “put to death” - what are some ways we could rephrase that? We could say “kill it.” We could say “stamp it out.” We could say “murder it.”
That, by the way, is a good word for what I found myself doing Friday night. We rented a cabin. A really nice cabin in the mountains for our 15th anniversary. But we made the mistake Friday evening of leaving the back porch door slightly ajar. A few minutes later we had big black ants everywhere. All over the floor! I was walking around the room with a flip flop in my hand. Shannon would say, “There’s one, over by the door.” SMACK. “Oh look, one beside the TV; hurry!” SMACK. I even found one crawling on my Bible that I was reading. Not too fun.
That’s the picture here. Kill it. Put it to death. Show no mercy. Those are fighting words, right? combat words, military words. It’s warfare, isn’t it? So what are we to kill? What are we to put to death? “whatever belongs to your earthly nature”. Well, Paul, what are the things that belong to our earthly nature? By that he means, by the way, the sinful nature. He means that part of you and that part of me that is inclined to live for self rather than God. He gives us a brief list here in verse 5 of the kind of thing he’s talking about.
5 Therefore >>consider the members of your earthly body as dead<< to cimmorality, impurity, [passion], evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
There are five pitfalls he lists in verse 5, and of those five, you’ll notice that three of them are sexual pitfalls. The Bible has a lot to say about sexual sin. It’s not just Paul, it’s not just the OT, by the way. Jesus had this to say about sexual sin:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; 28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into bhell. 30 If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into bhell.
Why does this emphasis on sexual sin find so much space in the Bible? To put in modern day terms, Why does God care who I sleep with? The question is often phrased as though God has more important things to do than worry about that.l I can give you three reasons, and they both relate to God as Creator. As Creator, God has created us as sexual beings. No escaping it. Number two, people were just about as obsessed with sex in the first century as we are today in the 21st century. And number three, as Creator, God knows the conditions and situations and the circumstances and the relationships within which sex is good and beneficial and damaging and hurtful and destructive.
And so he talks about
Sexual immorality - the old KJV word “fornication”; it’s the Greek word porneia, the word we get our word pornography from. It means any sexual activity with anyone outside of the marriage covenant.
Impurity - this could mean thoughts, words, desires, actions, motives that are ungodly and are like moral dirt; and in a context of sexual sin, this is basically lust.
Passion - this doesn’t mean emotion, like “I’m passionate about ending poverty”. It doesn’t even mean the kind of passion a man would have for his wife or a wife for her husband. Those are good passions. In this context, passion means desire out of control. For example, what might be a passing impure thought becomes a preoccupation and then an obsession. Passion is illicit sexual desire out of control.
And finally he talks about evil desire. Desire is not a bad thing, church. After I finish up here, I desire to go home and hang out with my family; haven’t seen them much the last couple of days. Then I desire to come here and teach Hebrews 13; I’m looking forward to finishing that book (and they are too!). Then I desire to go home and maybe watch some TV with Shannon and have some quality time with and get a good night’s rest. All of those things are good desires, desires God gave us, desires God wants us to have.
The problem is not desire. The problem is when our desires are disordered; the problem is when our desires are distorted; the problem is when our desires are misdirected. Even greed, which is the fifth item on the list, is a distortion and a misdirection of an originally good desire. We are made to work. When we work, we earn. When we earn, we buy and we possess. Property, cars, mutual funds, 401ks, mortgages. It’s ok to have those things.
How do you know when you’ve gone past that and you’ve become greedy? You know you’ve become greedy when 1) what God has given you is never enough; 2) when we feel like our happiness depends on acquiring more and more; 3) when we’re tempted to keep acquiring and keep acquiring things maybe through dishonest business deals or just outright theft. That is greed. Originally a good desire, now a desire out of control that hurts us, hurts those we love, hurts God.
Point is, we are fallen people, church. And each and every one of us in the room this morning has had, does have, and will have some desire, whether small or out of control, that is disordered and misdirected and which will kill us if we do not kill it first. You’ll notice that Paul goes on in verse five to say that evil desire, and greed, are essentially idolatry.
And all of these things - sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire - all of these are things that will kill you if you persist in them; they will kill me if I persist in them. How do I know that? Verse 6:
For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience,
Now you might say, “Oh, that’s just Paul. Paul loved to talk about the wrath of God.” Well, I don’t think Paul loved talking about the wrath of God, but He certainly believed in the wrath of God, as did Jesus.
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
Yes, the wrath of God will come on those who persist in these things. I don’t mean those who struggle with these things.
Let’s say a young man or a young woman confessed to having a porn addiction. A professing Christian. He says, or she says, “It started with just one look, and then I was hooked and I couldn’t break free and now I’m on there every day, hours and hours every day. I hate it. Please help me. I know this is not God’s will for me. Help me break free.” That’s a repentant sinner. That’s a sinner whose sin is under the blood of Jesus and who has been changed from the inside out and is being changed from the inside out; that’s why they feel the tension; that’s why they want to break free.
On the other hand, let’s take a middle-aged man who is committing adultery. Again, a professing Christian. Everyone knows about it but his wife. And some of the men in our church go to him and say, “Look, brother, this has been going on and she doesn’t know; you’ve got to come clean; that’s the only way you’ll ever break free is if you get honest…And in fact, you have until the end of the day to tell her, or we will.” And suppose he says: “Okay. Tell her. I don’t care. I’m having fun, I’ve found the one for me, my first marriage was a mistake, don’t remind me of my wedding vows, I don’t care.” Well, that person, tragically, is not a repentant sinner. That person is a hardened sinner, and if he does not repent, the wrath of God will come upon him, because by his refusal to repent he makes clear to everyone that he wasn’t really a believer to begin with.
Paul says that against those who practice these things, those who make a habit of these things, those whose lifestyle is characterized by these things - immorality and impurity and sinful passion and evil desire and covetousness — and it doesn’t grieve them, it doesn’t break their heart, they refuse help, the wrath of God will come upon them, the Bible says.
English Standard Version Chapter 34
6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
Now you know what the good news is, church? Oh, it is such good, good news! The good news, is that Jesus loves that woman stuck in sexual immorality. He loves that man whose heart is filthy with lustful thoughts. He loves that addict whose enslaved by his sexual passions. He loves these men and women, church! Do you believe that? He loves these men and women. If you’re one of them, He loves you. His arms are wide open to you. Don’t you dare think you’ve sinned one time too many and that he’s written you off. The Bible says God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth.
In Christ, we are called to obey, called to live a life of obedience, but there is forgiveness for us when we fall. And best of all? In Christ we are not only called to obey, and forgiven when we fail, but we are gradually enabled to live a life of obedience. REPEAT
#2: In Christ, we are enabled to live a life of obedience
#2: In Christ, we are enabled to live a life of obedience
For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you also, [>>put] them all [aside]<<:
When we lived in seminary housing in Wake Forest, we were a whole lot more social than we are now. The reason for that is we lived in a seminary neighborhood. What you have to understand about a seminary housing complex is that everyone is pretty much in the same stage of life. Everyone is in school, everyone is super busy and stressed out, mostly everyone has kids, mostly everyone is married and quite a few are newly married.
So a typical weeknight in the summer for us might involve eating dinner at our friend’s townhouse a few doors down from ours, or sitting out front in our tiny yard watching Noah and Abigail, who were babies back then, ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk with their friends. It was really a cool environment. You lived your life together with your neighbors. There was activity everywhere, there were people everywhere.
Now, we live in northwestern Lincoln County. Everyone is so busy that we don’t even know our across the street neighbors. And what’s more, their house sits so far off the road that I don’t even know what they look like. Our neighbors beside us are a great family - they’ve got a son, their Christians, we wave and smile at each other, we’ve been planning a get together for about five years and it never seems to happen, but that’s okay. We’re at a different stage of life out there than we were in Wake Forest. We’re busier, we have more commitments, we value our family time.
When you change addresses, you also change activities. You have no habits, new patterns of life.
In other words, Paul is saying, Look, these things characterize the unbelieving world. Sexual immorality, impurity, evil desire, sinful passion, greed - those things characterize the people who don’t know God. And at one time, he reminds them in verse 7, “you also once walked, when you were living in them.” There was a time when you and I lived in our sin. Paul uses words that indicate that sin characterized the totality of our lives. He says we walked in them, and that we lived in them.
But now, something so magnificent and monumental and life-altering has taken place. There has been a change in our spiritual address. Remember that? We’ve been talking about our conversion as a change of spiritual address. We still live here, but our true home, our forever home, is in heaven with Jesus. And in some sense we are already there with Him. And what Paul is saying is that fact of a change in spiritual address will inevitably have some impact on how we live. So that’s why right after Paul says “in them you also once walked, when you were living in them, but now you also must put them all aside.”
What are we to put aside?
But now you also, [>>put] them all [aside]<<: anger, [wrath], malice, slander, and [abusive speech] from your mouth.
Earlier Paul mentioned sexual sins. But these are relational sins. These are sinful patterns that destroy marriages, friendships, families, churches. Anger and wrath give rise to malice, which is hatred, and pretty soon hatred expresses itself verbally when we slander or insult other people and abuse them with our speech. How many of you were told “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” Do you believe that’s true? That’s a lie. Turn to the person beside you and say, “Words hurt.”
Words, you see, when spoken bitterly and and with hatred and anger, they’re like arrows that lodge themselves deep inside your heart and inflict wounds that some people never recover from. Those words play over and over in your mind. They become the soundtrack of your life. You start to believe them: “I’m stupid. I’m not a hard worker. I don’t succeed. I can’t ever do anything right.” These are things people have told you, and now you tell them to yourself, and they define you. And when these words come from someone you love, someone whose approval you desperately need, they hurt all the more.
As Christians, we are not to be people who wound with our words. Instead, we are called to speak the truth.
a>>Do not lie to one another<<, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being brenewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— 11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.
Notice Paul’s logic here. “Don’t lie to each other,” he says. Why not? Because, “you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created Him.” How many of you have done real hard sweaty manual labor in the past couple of weeks? When I come in from mowing the grass or running, sometimes without thinking I’ll go up to Shannon and I’ll be like, “Give me a hug”. She says, “Ummm....why don’t you shower and change clothes first and then come back and hug me?” And when you do get a shower and some fresh clothes on, man you feel like a new person, don’t you?
I think that’s why Paul describes living out our faith in terms of changing clothes. You don’t wear those old sweaty, stinky clothes anymore, so stop doing the the things you used to do. You’ve put off the old man, he says - the old man being the flesh, the sinful nature, the old you who delighted in sin and ran from God. You’ve put that off, he says, and you’ve put on the new self - a new nature - you’ve been born again, that spiritual change of address.
Look at how he describes this new self, this new person we’ve become if we’ve trusted in Christ? “You have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” (Col. 3:10 NASB). What does it mean to be restored to a true knowledge of the image of God?
It’s like this company in South Bronx. They collect old, ruined pallets. What in the world do they do with these pallets? When the pallets come to them, they’re rotted, crushed, broken from all the use. But this company called Big City Forest turns old and broken pallets into valuable furniture and flooring. This furniture and flooring is made of high quality rosewood, cherry, oak, mahogany, maple, because that’s what the pallets are made of originally. So this company takes broken pallets, restores them to their original condition, restores them to their original value, and sells them for a good profit.
That’s what Jesus is after in your life and in mine. We are made in His image. But sin has come and in distorted the image of God. We don’t image God accurately. We image God like one of those distortion mirrors in a haunted house. But part of what God is about in our salvation is not just saving us from hell but also remaking us, renovating us from the inside out, so that we progressively come to look more like the image of the One who made us.
And by the way, all of us are in this boat, right? Your spouse is a work in progress. Your child is a work in progress. Your parents are works in progress. And despite this, Jesus still loves them and is working in them. So can we just agree to show them grace? Let’s give each other a break, amen? In a world that operates by shaming people and cancelling people, let’s be people who lavishly and joyfully give grace to those who hurt us. Then we’re really being like Jesus.
And this is something that has absolutely nothing to do with your race, your social class, your occupation. Paul says this is a
a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.
This is like saying there’s no distinction between black and white, rich and poor, democrat and republican. Everyone - no matter your race or income or political party - this opportunity to be renewed by Christ and renovated and remade from the inside out is an opportunity that is open to everyone who is willing to say, “Jesus, I’ve made a mess of my life. I’ve offended you and hurt those closest to me. I can’t clean this up on my own. I need you. I am yours, save me.”
You see, here’s something we don’t think about but we should: our attempts to clean up our lives on our own are just as sinful as the things that have made our lives a mess in the first place. Jesus gave Himself to you and for you, not that you might have to clean up your life before you can come to Him. Jesus gave Himself for you on the cross in order to clean up your mess Himself. He wants to do that. Are you ready for Him to do that?
Bartimaeus was ready. Bartimaeus was a blind man, overlooked by the world but not by Jesus. Bartimaeus calls out for Jesus, knowing He’s passing by. Jesus seems not to hear Bartimaeus at first. The crowds and even His disciples hear him and try to shut him up. After all, Jesus is too busy and too important to spend time with a blind man. But Jesus does want to spend time with Bartimaeus. So he calls Bartimaeus and asks a question that I absolutely love. It’s a simple question. He simply asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus said, “Teacher, I want to regain my sight.”
What do you want Jesus to do for you this morning? He’s asking you that same question: “What do you want me to do for you?” Too many of us, perhaps, would ask for things that don’t really matter. Maybe some of us would need to ask Jesus to set our priorities in order, to show us what really matters, to give us different desires. Maybe others would say, in line with our passage this morning, “Teacher, I want to be free from this or that sin. Teacher, I want to understand that you’ve both called me to obey you and enabled me to obey you. Show me, make me realize, that as Lord you’ve commanded me to live for you, and as Friend and Savior you’ve made it possible for me to live for you.”