Structure For Christian Living In Colossians 3 Series

“One spring our family was driving from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa, Florida. As far as the eye could see, orange trees were loaded with fruit. When we stopped for breakfast, I ordered orange juice with my eggs. "I'm sorry," the waitress said. "I can't bring you orange juice. Our machine is broken." At first I was dumbfounded. We were surrounded by millions of oranges, and I knew they had oranges in the kitchen--orange slices garnished our plates. What was the problem? No juice? Hardly. We were surrounded by thousands of gallons of juice. The problem was they had become dependent on a machine to get it. Christians are sometimes like that. They may be surrounded by Bibles in their homes, but if something should happen to the Sunday morning preaching service, they would have no nourishment for their souls. The problem is not a lack of spiritual food--but that many Christians haven't grown enough to know how to get it for themselves.” -Leroy Eims, The Lost Art of Disciple Making.

Today we find ourselves in between series, after Christmas, before new years, so as we approach 2024, I thought it would be wise for us to open the Bible, and examine some keys for Christian living.

We’re going to be looking at Colossians chapter 3 today, and we’re going to look at some keys for Christian lifestyle.

We’re going to look at 7 key points. What are the nuts and bolts of how to live a successful Christian life? And for each point, we’re going to be building a structure, a guide, for how to Cloth yourself with the new nature. And we will need God’s help to do live this. So with each of the 7 points we’re going to stop and pray after each point. So 7 prayers will be happen here as well.

Colossians 3:1 says, “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven.”

If you’re a Christian, a real one, you’ve been changed from within. You’re different than you used to be. That’s the work of God within you.

God’s part is to raise you to new life with Christ. Your part in this formula, is to set your sights on God’s ways.

Well, you probably wonder to yourself, how exactly do I do that?

Verse says how: 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.

So this goes into your thought life. From when you wake up in the morning, to when you go to bed at night, what are you thinking about?

I worry we sometimes are thinking about the things of Earth. We’re thinking about money. About things we read in the newspaper. We’re thinking about football games, groceries, cleaning the house, and we aren’t thinking about what God commands us to think about.

Then we’re surprised when we have little joy, and we feel depressed. We aren’t thinking about what God tells us to think about, which is to think about Him.

Our first point today is this: Change your thought life. Find ways to think about God, the Bible, Jesus, heaven, and fill your thought life with these truths.

If we adjust our thought life, to think about God’s kingdom, throughout the day, we are going to be focused on a different drumbeat. And that is going to help us to live right.

That’s the foundation, Christ-centered thought life.

Next in verse 5 we get more instructions… 5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming.

Verses 5 and 6 bring the fear of the Lord to me. It reminds me that the judgment of God is coming, like a flood into the world one day soon.

And I’ve got to practice self-examination. Does it say God is going to put to death the sinful things in us? No it doesn’t. Does it say that’s already finished? No it doesn’t. We’re told you do that. The Holy Spirit will help us, but this is something we need to do.

Put to death the sinful earthly things lurking inside you.

Identify them. What do you battle? My fiancé right now we battle lust, we’ve been dating a year, now engaged, and it’s tough, but we know we’ve gotta fight through and make sure we wait until we’re married to fully express how we feel toward each other.

Lust is a big one. Impurity of any kind though, is mentioned. Evil desires. We all have certain desires that aren’t right.

So how exactly do we “put it to death”? We identify it. We pray about it. We ask God to help us be free from it. Maybe it’s swearing. Maybe it’s pride. Maybe it’s love of money.