Message Outlines
Week 1: Colossians 3:1-4 Focused on What’s Above
Week 2: Colossians 3:5-11 5 Spiritual Cautions, 5 Spiritual Disciplines
Week 3: Colossians 3:12-17 In With the New Self (Part 1)
Week 4: Colossians 3:12-17 In With the New Self (Part 2)
Series: Colossians
Week: Two
Passage: Colossians 3:5-7
Title: Out With the Old Self
Focus: 5 Spiritual Cautions, 5 Spiritual Disciplines
Last Week: Seeking, Setting and Security in Christ
1. Seek: The External Action
2. Set: The Internal Action
3. Secure: Safety in Christ
Introduction: If you are a Christian then the passage in Colossians three has lots of application for you. To truly pull the meaning there must be a profession that Jesus Christ is Lord. If not, then seeking the application of the following message is merely an attempt at morality.
Remember, when you trusted Christ think of your salvation as a literal death. “For you have died” (verse 3) “Consider the members of your earthly body as dead” (verse 5). Therefore, since you have gone through this death, you have been “raised up” with Christ. “The old is gone and the new has come”.
Paul states that there is urgency in putting away the things of this earth. We must no longer go on living as though we are still alive to sin when you are not. Christians must put away that old life, which springs from their earthly natures. When Paul says, “Whatever belongs to your earthly nature” is literally “the members that are upon the earth”. Living earthly lives contradicts with the “things above” (Col. 3:1-2).
What do we need to put away as Christians? Take these cautions into consideration (Note: All of these cautions fall into a following of Spiritual Disciplines):
Read: Colossians 3:5-7
Caution #1: Avoid Immorality (Fornication/Idolatry)
• Explanation: Every form of fornication was seriously condemned by the Mosaic law (Lev. 21:9; 19:29; Deut. 22:20, 21, 23–29; 23:18; Ex. 22:16).
o To avoid getting into to must Old Testament sexual detail (stoning prostitutes, death to land and families because of unfaithfulness, etc.), we will explore how the word is more frequently used in a symbolic form than in its ordinary sense.
• Immorality/fornication often means when we forsake God for and how we follow after idols. You “cheat” on God for these things.
• New Testament Idols include (but are not limited to)
o Self – How you see yourself in comparison to God and others
• “When they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.” 2 Corinthians 10:12
o Time – How much work you do, how much time you rest, how well you make use of your time
• “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time.” Ephesians 5:15
o Possessions –What you do with your stuff
• “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Luke 12:15
o Passions – What you are excited about
• “Abstain from the passions of the flesh” 1 Peter 2:11
o Influences – The company you keep
• “Bad company ruins good morals.” 1 Corinthians 15:33
• Illustration: “Whatever a man seeks, honors, or exalts more than God, that is the god of his idolatry.” -William Ullathorne (a 19th century Benedictine Monk)
• Application: What do you use to cheat on God? Your idol will ultimately come out in some point. What you worship on the inside comes out at some point.
• Spiritual Discipline Solution: Worship and Celebration
Caution #2: Avoid Impurity (Uncleanness)
• Explanation: The second sin, “impurity” is spoken of in 1 Thess. 4:7-8. “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” This “impurity means “sexual uncleanness”. The word used is where we get our word “pornography”.
o What “impurity” (pornography) does:
• Defiles: It stains the soul.
• Imprints: It imprints on the mind images that corrupt, pervert, and twist one’s sexuality.
• False Perception: Improper perception of the opposite gender.
• Its addictive and destructive power has been well documented.
• Illustration: FACTS
o Hollywood currently releases 11,000 adult movies per year – more than 20 times the mainstream movie production.
• LA Times Magazine, 2002.
o The average teenager spends three to four hours per day watching television and 83% of the programming most frequently watched by adolescents contains some sexual content.
• Gary Rose, CEO of The Medical Institute
o 38 percent of adults believe it is ‘morally acceptable’ to look at pictures of nudity or explicit sexual behavior.
• Morality Continues to Decay. Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003.
o At 13.3 billion, the 2006 revenues of the sex and porn industry in the U.S. are bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined.
o 60% of all website visits are sexual in nature
• MSNBC Survey 2000
• Application: We have a HUGE problem here! Solution?
o Honest Accountability: “There is now NO condemnation! (Romans 8:1)
o Immediate Confession and Repentance: “Repent and turn to God” (Acts 3:19)
o Ability to Give Grace
• Failure to do so ends in divine wrath. You cannot afford to ignore this!
• Spiritual Discipline Solution: Accountability
Caution #3: Avoid Worldly Passions (Lust/Excessive Affection)
• Explanation: The barriers are created between God and His followers through a “sinful longing” (internal lust). This excessive affection is a pattern of inward sin that leads to the “falling away” from God.
o “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21)
• Lust is the original sin (think Adam and Eve). It is a worldly passion that originates in the heart. Lust (passions of the heart) is said to be the center of all moral forces and impulses of spiritual activity.
• In Mark 4:19 shows a deterrent on what passion (lusts) “choke the Word”.
o The cares of the world
o Deceitfulness of riches
o Desires for other things
• This proves unfruitful and causes the mind to suffer
• Illustration: “With out passion you don't have energy, with out energy you have nothing.” Donald Trump
• Application: If you are passionate about the things of the world, gaining wealth through material riches and strongly desire that in which you lust over, where can the love for the Lord be in that? When the heart eats passionately for the things “above (Colossians 3:1-2) there the rest will follow.
• Spiritual Discipline Solution: Passionate Disciples
Caution #4: Avoid Evil Desires (Illicit Cravings/Concupiscence)
• Explanation: One can desire that which is either of God or of the flesh. While that internally is a new nature that desires God, the internal is forced to reside in something passing away (earthly body). Desire can mean a few things.
o Coveting (Long for/Yearning after that which is of/not of God)
• Rom. 7:8 “Sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.”
o Desire (Craving that which is Just/Unjust)
• Col. 3:5
o Control (Being in/out of personal control (discipline)
• 1 Thess. 4:5 “Each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.”
• Illustration: A man and woman were shopping at a mall kiosk. A pleasing looking young woman in a short, form-fitting dress and walked by. The man’s eyes followed her every move. Without looking up from the item she was investigating, his wife asked, "Was it worth the trouble you're in?"
• Application: Our evil desires can get us into the hardest situations. We often do them without thinking but regardless of the intent, the consequences of our actions remain. This is a discipline of control that often takes learning the hard way. Thank God for forgiveness of His “slow learners”.
• Spiritual Discipline Solution: Control
Caution #5: Avoid Greed (Covetousness/Idolatry)
• Explanation: Greed (as idolatry) means a strong desire after the possession of worldly things. Greed:
o Strives for an Improper Inheritance
• Eph. 5:5 “No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”
o Loves the World
• Heb. 13:5 “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have.”
o Loves Temptation
• 1 Tim. 6:9 “Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.”, 10; Matt. 6:20). It assumes sometimes the more aggravated form of avarice, which is the mark of cold-hearted worldliness.
• Illustration: Rich young ruler
o When the rich young ruler came to Jesus seeking eternal life but then refused to follow Jesus when commanded to sell his riches and give to the poor, he was guilty of idolatry and greed (Mark 10:17-31). He loved money more than he loved God, and the “deceitfulness of wealth” choked out the power of the gospel in his life (Matthew 13:22).
• Application: Rather than be lured into the belief that we can find satisfaction in this world, we should remember the words of the Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62), who wrote that people have an “infinite abyss” within themselves, a “craving” for infinite satisfaction. Only God is capable of satisfying this desire, and he invites us to find this satisfaction and fulfillment in him.
• Spiritual Discipline Solution: Continuous Removal
Conclusion: What do we need to put away (avoid) and embrace as Christians?
1. Avoid Immorality, embrace Worship and Celebration
2. Avoid Impurity, embrace Accountability
3. Avoid Worldly Passions, embrace Passionate Disciplines
4. Avoid Evil Desires, embrace Control
5. Avoid Greed, embrace Continuous Removal
