I saw a quote the other day that grabbed my attention: “The Christian is not ruined by living in the world, but by the world living in him.” At no other time in Christian history has this statement been more true, for the lines between Christian and non-Christian, between the church and the world, have become blurred in our day.
That’s why, every once in a while, we need to be reminded that we have been called to be a distinct people in the world. Certain actions and certain attitudes that belong to the lifestyle of the world do not fit in the lifestyle of the Christian. In other words, while we live in the world, we are not to allow the world to live in us.
Paul’s urgent appeal in the opening verse of our text reminds us of the seriousness of the issue. Paul said, “Put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature.”
Paul’s negative approach here makes some of us uncomfortable. We prefer to talk about what we need to do instead of what we need to refrain from doing, the positive instead of the negative. And yet, one cannot read the NT without recognizing that there are in fact some negatives involved in the Christian life.
Perhaps, a domestic analogy will help. What would happen if we never took out the garbage at our home, if we said something like, “Oh, we take the positive approach at our house. We just hold on to everything. We’re not against anything.” It wouldn’t take long to stink up the place!
Likewise, in our Christian lives, there are some things that, like the garbage at home,
need to be discarded so they will not stink up our lives. In our text, Paul identified the garbage that needs to be taken out of our lives.
UNDISCIPLINED DESIRES
In verse 5, Paul said we should take out the garbage of undisciplined desires, those desires that are displeasing to God. Five specific desires are noted: “sexual immorality, impurity, passion or lust, evil desires, and greed.”
The word translated sexual immorality originally meant consorting with prostitutes. But, eventually the word was used to identify habitual immorality. Impurity is a broader term that includes our thoughts and words as well as our actions. Lust passion or lust describes desires that are out of control. Evil desires present a similar picture. Greed suggests that these desires are never satisfied, that the person always wants more and more pleasure, more enjoyment. Greed suggests a total disregard for the rights of others. We are inundated today from every direction with these same five desires and the greatest damage done by this saturation of our minds with evil desires is that it plants in our minds the mistaken notion that immorality is the normal, acceptable thing to do.
In contrast, the Bible says that immorality is not the norm. These sick models of human behavior are not the pattern. They are not to be set us as our ideals, nor are they to be imitated in our lives. They belong to our earthly nature and are perversions of what God originally intended for us to do. They are garbage that needs to be put out of our lives.
UNHOLY TEMPERAMENT
In verse 8, Paul added that we should also put out of our lives the garbage of unholy temperament. “But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath or rage, and malice.”
There is more to sin than just the sins of the flesh. There are also sins of the temperament, sins of the disposition.
It was a sin of the temperament that marked the prodigal’s older brother as being under the disfavor of God. It was a sin of the temperament in the proud Pharisee praying in the temple that Jesus contrasted to the saintly humility of the publican.
Many Christians who proudly put out of their lives the garbage of undisciplined desires can still stink up their lives by allowing these unholy attitudes to remain.
Paul identified these sins of the temperament – the sudden flame of anger, the settled spirit of animosity, and the smoldering hatred of our fellow man – as garbage that needs to be put out of our lives.
UNTAMED SPEECH
In verses 8 and 9 Paul identified a third piece of garbage that needs to be put out of our lives. We also need to put out of our lives the garbage of untamed speech. Paul specifically identified the problem as: slander, abusive speech or filthy speech, and lying.
Slander is insulting speech directed at other people. An example is a woman who said to her friend, “My mother taught me never to say anything about anyone unless it was good. And boy is this good!”
Filthy language can be cursing or it can be abusive speech. Perhaps the little boy had filthy language in mind when he asked his mother, “Can Billy and I go listen to Daddy fix the flat tire?”
We know what lying is. It is speaking things that are not the truth. As one boy put it: “A lie is an abomination to the Lord, and a very present help in time of trouble.” Lying has become a part of American culture, partly because of its pragmatic value. We even categorize lies by referring to them as little white lies on the one hand and serious lies on the other. But Paul said, “Don’t lie at all. Tell the truth.” To walk in truth with the One who is the truth demands that we speak the truth.
Slander, filthy speech, and lying are garbage that needs to be put out of our lives.
UNWARRANTED PREJUDICE
In verse 11, Paul added that we are also to put out of our lives the garbage of unwarranted prejudice.
Paul spoke in verse 10 of the renewal that is going on in the life of the Christian. He added in verse 11 that this is a renewal in which “there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and in all.” Christian love also reminds us that the outward differences that make so much difference in our world do not make any difference at all in Christ. And they shouldn’t to us.
Recent events have reminded us of the seriousness of the racial divisions in our country. Yet, our text reminds us that as Christians we are a part of a renewal
in which these differences no longer make a difference! Granted, this is not a concept that is easily accepted.
It took a special outward manifestation of God’s blessings at Pentecost for the Christians in Jerusalem to realize that God’s love was equally available to all.
It took a vision, repeated three times, to convince Simon Peter that God is no respecter of persons. And even then, he relapsed later when he visited Antioch. Yet, as difficult as it is to accept, it is at the heart of the Gospel. In Christ Jesus, every person is important and no person is to be excluded. What a difference Christians could make in our nation if we Christians would put into practice Paul’s challenge and put out of our lives the garbage of unwarranted prejudice.
THE LESSONS
So what lessons can we learn from this challenge?
We need to remember that the Christian life does include negatives. It is a dangerous thing when the pendulum swings too far in either direction in our understanding of the Christian life, when we become so caught up in the positives that we forget the negatives, or when we become so obsessed with the negatives that we neglect the positives. The key is balance. But balance demands that we remember the negatives.
There are some things as Christians we should not do,
• some words as Christians we should not say,
• some places as Christians we should not go,
• some attitudes as Christians we should not have.
The Christian life does include negatives.
We need to remember that the primary target for these negatives is ourselves.
Our text does not say, “Put to death whatever belongs to the earthly nature in all the people who are around you, in your neighbors and in your co-workers and in those who are outside the church.” No. Our text says, “Put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature” (v. 5). “But now you also, put them all aside” (v. 8). Re-establishing the high ethical standard of the Christian life does not mean to demand from others this high standard of ethical living. It means to demonstrate it ourselves. We need to put the garbage out of our own lives.
We need to remember that the purpose of these negatives is positive. The purpose of the restrictions in the Christian life is not to restrict us but to liberate us – to set us free to be what God created and redeemed us to be. Our text has a context. In the preceding verses, Paul declared, “For you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (3:3). And in the following verses, Paul explained that this challenge was given to those who are “God’s chosen people” (3:12). Paul admonishes us to apply these negatives to our lives for a positive purpose – so that we can actually become what we have been saved to be, that we can actually live like the Christian we are.
As Richard Foster reminded us in Celebration of Discipline: “The purpose of the Disciplines is freedom. Our aim is the freedom, not the Discipline.”
The purpose of the negatives is a positive life of freedom. The reason we put the things of the world out of our lives is so that we can be free to bring into our lives the things of God. The purpose of the negatives is positive.
