A Scriptural-Spiritual Lens for Resolve in 2022 - Part Three
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Introduction
Introduction
This morning we are continuing to think about resolve in 2022. In two previous sermons, I have tried to show a Scriptural-Spiritual lens for resolving to live for God more in this year. As we do so, I wanted to think about good intentions vs. good actions.
John Piper writes, “Faith, by its very nature, produces action. It is intrinsic. Each of us is wired to feel and act in accordance with what we believe to be true. We cannot help it.”
My thought is this, if your good intentions to live for God are not express in actions that match those intentions, you do not have true intentions to live for God.
If Abram intended to leave Ur, but never did, did ever actually intend to leave Ur?
If the good Samaritan intended to help the stranger, but passed on by did he ever actually intend to help the stranger?
If Jesus intended to save his people, but he never became incarnate man and died on the cross, did he ever actually intend to same his people?
As believers, one of the greater dangers in our live is to substitute the “good intention” for the actions of obedience. Jesus did not die and he was not raised again so that his people could intend, but rarely act.
PRAY
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.
We are called to slay sensuality and greed (5)
We are called to slay sensuality and greed (5)
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you - Mortify, bring death into view. Kill off your earthly members. The word is used to describe a body part that has become useless due to an injury or illness.
For example, in 1999 I tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in my knee. I had to have surgery. After the surgery, my left leg lost a great deal of muscle mass because I could not use it. It took 9 months to a year before I built back up to full strength in my left leg.
Paul is calling the Colossians to stop the use of bodily members and functions for immoral purposes. He is calling them to starve out and execute the fallen flesh and its actions.
28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Sexual immorality - fornication; this is generally every kind of extramarital, unlawful or unnatural sexual activity.
Impurity - uncleaness, sexual impurity, Warren Wiersbe, “ lustful impurity that is connected with luxury and loose living” This term includes evil thoughts related to sexual and intimate acts.
Passion - uncontrolled, unprincipled sexual activity
Evil desire - unrestrained longings for that which is forbidden, lustful intents, evil cravings. This includes fantasizing about things.
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
I think a helpful way of thinking about this list is that we must reject anything that strikes against God’s design for marriage and sexuality. Anything that goes against purity. This includes everything from having dreams of a fairy tale romance with an imaginary prince in shining armor to living out sexual desires by looking at pornography. It could be thinking that a relationship and sex is necessary to avoid loneliness to rejecting that marriage is meant to be one man and one woman for life. It could be having an abusive or selfish posture in your marriage as it relates to sexual relations or being comfortable watching implicit garbage in movies for the sake of some entertainment.
Covetousness - greed, the continual, insatiable desire to possess more and more and more. This includes not only getting stuff but doing stuff.
Which is idolatry - Giving something or someone love, loyalty , devotion and worship other than Yahweh
19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.
We are rescued from wrath and wicked walking (6-7)
We are rescued from wrath and wicked walking (6-7)
On account of these - Because of these activities done by fallen, sinful man. The wrath of God is coming - The wrath of God is the righteous anger and indignation that the Creator of the world has against all in opposition to him..
In these you too once walked - These attitudes and actions used to be your constant way of life. When you were living in them - This was the description of your existence.
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
We are called to cast off of selfish neighboring (8-9a)
We are called to cast off of selfish neighboring (8-9a)
But now you must put them all away - We are commanded by God to continually and exhaustively (put them all away). This language is used of a person that takes off dirty clothes after a long, hard day of physical labor and activity. God’s people are called to cast off the wicked activities of the old man.
This list of sins focuses on how one treats other people. Truly how we interact with other is a test of how we really love God.
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Anger - the human emotion of wrath toward another person. This word refers more toward the attitudes we might have toward someone else. One writes described this as a smoldering bitterness.
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Wrath - anger, rage. This often describes the actual outburst of anger or a fit of rage.
Malice - this is an attitude of ill will. This would be when we are sad or upset when someone else is successful and/or happy when someone fails of is in trouble.
Slander - This is harmful or abusive speech against the reputation of another, this is the action of tearing down another person with your words.
9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
Obscene talk from your mouth - filthy communication, dirty language, foul speech, course humor
4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
Do not lie to one another - do not avoid telling the truth, do not lie or deceive,
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
We are redeemed from the fallen flesh (9b)
We are redeemed from the fallen flesh (9b)
Seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices - Since or because you have in the past cast off the on self. This is a reference to the new birth and regeneration.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Practical Application
Practical Application
Could it be that the reason you are only left with good intentions is because you have never been converted?
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, what do you need to slay and put off?
The flesh is ugly. The fixation on earthly desires is dangerous. The life of self-gratification is misery.
13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Saints, we know we are alive when there is a battle with verifiable victories.
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
