Above All: A Study in Colossians
Colossians 3:5-11
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
07-17-2022
Mud Bowl
One of my favorite student ministry outreaches we ever did was what we called Mud Bowl. We will till up about half an acre in the back of the church. Someone had access to a fire truck and would pour thousands of gallons of water into this area. Then we invited students to bring their friends and play games in the mud. We always had over 100 students attend and it was a blast.
When it was all over, I would come home and take off my clothes. They would hit the floor with a splat. I would take a shower and try to get the mud out of my hair. Then I would take a bath and then another shower. I would use a q-tip to clean the mud from my fingernails, toe nails, ears and nose. After about an hour, I would feel clean again.
What would you think if I got out of the shower and proceeded to put back on the dirty, grimy, wet clothes I wore at the mud bowl? That wouldn’t make much sense, would it?
That’s the point that Paul is making with the Colossian believers in the verses we wills study this morning. Once we have taken off the old clothes of our old life and put on the new “in Christ” clothes, why would we go back to those dirty old clothes?
Look Up
Last week, we studied the first four verses of Colossians 3:
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:1-4)
In the first two chapters, Paul is seeking to establish a doctrinal foundation for these believers to guard against false teaching. In the last two chapters, Paul moves from creed to conduct, from belief to behavior.
Paul begins this chapter reminding them of their
Position in Christ - they have been raised with Christ, who is seated at the right hand of God.
Priorities - they are to set their hearts/affections and minds/will on things that are above.
Past/Present - they died and now their life is hidden with Christ in God. This means that we are safe and secure in Christ.
Promises of God - we will appear with Jesus, who is our life, in glory.
I said last week that I would be preaching on the second coming, but after the church voted unanimously to participate with Eastview in the All In series, I need to make sure that I can finish Colossians.
Now turn with me to Colossians 3:5-11.
Pray.
Kill it!
“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” (Colossians 3:5-6)
Paul has made the case multiple times already in this letter that when Jesus died, we died. Now, because we have died with Christ, we are to put to death the deeds of the sinful nature.
We are not to try to tame our sin, or toy with it. We are to run a sword through it. We are take radical action against anything that belongs to the old nature.
The Puritan John Owens said it this way:
“Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work. Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
The Christian life isn’t not a merry-go-round. It’s war. It’s a battle. And as long as we are living here, we will be engaged in conflict between the old nature and the new nature.
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” (Gal 5:16-17)
Paul lamented this truth in Romans 7:
“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:21-25)
Do you notice in both of these verses that the answer is Jesus by the Holy Spirit? We can’t do this on our own. Sanctification, growing in Christ, is a grace fueled effort on our part. It isn’t about trying harder but trusting the Holy Spirit to work through us to live out was we say we believe.
Paul then gives us a list of five words that are part of that earthy, sinful nature that we are to deal with radically. These five words represent an area that satan has used to trip believers up for thousands of years - sexuality.
Let’s look at the five words:
sexual immorality (or fornication) - this Greek word is “pornea” and where we get the English word pornography. It means any sexual behavior outside the context of the one man-one woman covenant of marriage.
The writer of Hebrews makes this clear:
“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (Hebrews 13:4)
Impurity (or uncleanness) - a more general term. This can be applied to the area of sex or to general moral uncleanness.
These two terms are action oriented. Again, any sexual behavior outside the marriage covenant is sin and should be put to death.
Chasity was a new thing in that culture. Sexual sin - temple prostitution (both male and female), having multiple wives or concubines, homosexuality, and pedophilia were common in Greek culture.
I read recently that when warriors from Sparta got married their wives would shave their heads and wear men’s clothes to help them transition from having sex with men to having sex with women.
It’s easy for us to look at the culture we live in and use these verses to bash sinners over the head. But these words weren’t written to non Christians. They were written to believers like us.
Sexual sin is rampant in our churches today. Adultery, premarital sex, internet pornography use (by the way, ages 15-24 believe that not recycling is worse than watching porn), the acceptance of homosexual behavior, and child abuse scandals, (in the Catholic and Protestant Churches), have caused nonbelievers to tune us out when we try to speak into the culture.
Over the last generation, I have watched with horror as many of my preaching heroes have been disqualified from ministry because of sexual sin.
Maxine and I visited the church she grew up in several years ago. Two weeks after our visit, the senior pastor, who I really looked up to, resigned because he had committed adultery.
While he was on a mission trip, his wife had committed adultery and when he found out, he retaliated by doing the same thing.
And this is why many of the younger generation want nothing to do with church.
God created sex and it is good. But it has a proper context. Like fire in a fire place, sex within marriage is soul affirming and binds the two together. But take that same fire and put it in a forest and it can burn the whole thing down.
Most of have scars from sex outside of its context. Some of us hide those scars better than others. There is a type of Godly guilt that isn’t mean to gut us but to grace us into repentance and freedom.
“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” (2 Cor 7:10)
Lust (or passion) and evil desires - this is where the behaviors come from. These are internal motivations. We have a basic human tendency toward sin in this area. This is not about what we do with parts of the body but about our heart.
In response to Jesus’s words that if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, the church father Origen castrated himself. This is NOT what Jesus meant. (Although that was radical)
Jesus said it is ultimately a heart issue:
“For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23)
I heard of a pickpocket in Victorian England who was caught stealing and had his left hand cut off. He was caught again and his right hand was cut off. He continued with life of crime by picking pockets with his teeth! He didn’t have a hand problem. He had a heart problem.
Ultimately, Paul writes that this all comes down to greed, which is idolatry.
Greed is insatiable. It can never have enough. It is never content. Another word for greed is covetousness, which takes us right back to God’s top ten:
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:17)
Paul learned the secret of contentment:
“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4:12-13)
Sexual sin is idolatry. It is focused on self not the other. It is focused on trying to meet our own needs instead of trusting God to meet those needs. It is bowing at the altar of pseudo-love instead of agape love.
The next words Paul writes are chilling:
“Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” (Col 3:6)
Part of God’s wrath is Him simply giving people what they want:
“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” (Rom 1:24-25)
I’ve mentioned this before, but a denomination was putting together a new edition of its hymnbook and wanted to include The Getty’s “In Christ Alone.” They contacted with publisher and then the Getty’s themselves and asked one small favor. They wanted to change a line in the song.
The original lyrics say, “on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.” The committee wants to change that phrase to “the love of God was magnified.” Songwriters Stuart Townsend and Keith Getty objected to the change, so the committee dropped the song from their hymnal.
We don’t like to talk about the wrath of God. You might have someone say to you, “God is a God of love and a God of love would never exhibit wrath.” ?
They don’t know the Biblical God. God is love but He is also holy and just. And because He is holy and just, He must punish sin. Wrath is a necessary reaction of a personal God to the violation of His will and His ways.
Because of the sins that Paul listed, the wrath of God is coming. This is in the present tense, meaning the wrath of God has come.
Maxine has made the point in our Sunday school class that she believes that God is currently judging the US. But it’s not just because of the culture’s anti-God stance.
It’s also because of how compromised the church is. In many ways, the church doesn’t look and act much different than the world. We don’t have the prophetic voice to speak into a culture that is self-destructing because we are so distracted by politics and culture wars.
In Chronicles, God doesn’t call the heathens to repentance but His own people:
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” ( 2 Chron 7:14)
Most of the Colossians believers were Gentiles and Paul writes that they used to walk in those ways, in their old life.
Paul says the same thing in Ephesians 2:
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:1-5)
But these believers are trophies of grace:
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17)
They have had a bath and cleaned the med from their ears. Why would they go back and wallow in the mud again?
When temptation comes, and it will, we need to remember several things:
It is God’s will that we be sexually pure.
"It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.” (I Thes 4:3-8)
Flee sexual sin. Just like Jospeh did and David didn’t.
“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” (I Cor 6:18-20)
Be content with the sexual partner God has provided you
“Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with stranger. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love.” (Proverbs 5:15-19)
We all will be tempted in this area in one way or another.
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (I Cor 10:13)
C.S. Lewis tells the story of a man who had a lizard that sat on his shoulder and whispered in his ear terrible, perverted, and blasphemous things. Day after day, year after year he endured the torture of the lizard’s words. Someone asked him who did he not just kill the lizard and he said that he was so used to it’s taunts that he wouldn’t know what to do without it.
One day, he was fed up and finally reach up and grabbed the lizard and slammed him to the ground. In an instant, the lizard turned into a beautiful white stallion. The horse turned to him and said, “What took you so long? Hop on, we’ve got a lot to do!”
There is forgiveness at the foot of the cross.
The actor Terry Crews had a secret that he had hidden from everyone, including his wife, for most of his life. He played in the NFL. He was a successful actor. But he lived in constant guilt and shame because he was addicted to pornography.
Then one day, he came clean. He told his wife everything. Not only that, he went on FB Live and shared his whole story with the world. He says it was the beginning of healing that he never thought possible.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
Let’s take a minute and do that right now. Let’s silently confess our sexual sins and our lack of trust in God to meet our needs. Let’s pray for the church to be a place of purity and holiness and hope to those who are trapped in sexual sin.
Change your Clothes
“But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” (Col 3:8-10)
Paul transitions into another vice list but this time he focuses not on our sexuality but our words.
“Rid yourself,” “”taken off,” “put on” are all verbs having to do with changing clothes. Just like I wouldn’t put on the grimy, damp clothes I wore at mud bowl, we shouldn’t put back on the clothes of the old nature.
He probably has in mind the baptism ceremony where the person would take off their clothes and, after being baptized, would put on a clean, white robe.
What are the things that Paul writes we must put off?
While the first list moves from action to attitudes this list moves from the inner motives of the heart to the outward action of our lips.
anger - this word has to do with heat. This is that feeling that you get when your face grows hot and your temper boils over.
rage - is the outward expression of this boiling over.
malice - the inner attitude of hate and wishing calamity on someone.
slander - this is gossip, the intentional tearing down of someone who isn’t present.
Pastor Scott Sauls describes gossip as “pornography of the mouth. A cheap thrill that offers zero commitment to the person being objectified.”
filthy language - this isn’t about cursing. This is words that are critical and designed specifically to hurt others.
From road rage, to Karens verbally attacking people, to social media arguments, talking heads screaming at other on cable news, to gossip disguised as prayer requests, this culture is angry.
We don’t debate or dialogue, we want to destroy the person on the other side of the issue. Even in the church, how often do we use our words to build up rather than tear down?
Ager is a normal human emotion. As a counselor, I teach that anger most often frustration over blocked goals. We all get angry. That’s why Paul wrote, quoting Psalm 4:
“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” (Ephesians 4:26-27)
Anger destroys relationships and angry words are like toothpaste out the tube.
"An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.” (Prov 29:22)
“Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.” (Proverbs 29:11)
There is a righteous rage that we should have toward sin, like Jesus in the Temple.
Pastor Mike Fabarez gives us three questions to ask when our anger starts to boil over:
I am easily offended?
“Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” (Pro 19:11)
Do I desire to “settle the score?”
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it[i] to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Rom 12:19)
Can I let God deal with my enemies?
“To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:20-21)
If we could pass all of our words through the Ephesians 4:29 grid, I think that we would see significantly less conflict, especially in the church.
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Eph 4:29)
Paul ends this list with a command not to lie to one another. Why because we are new people. Not just new individual people but God is building a bride for His Son called the church.
This new self is constantly being renewed in the knowledge of the image of its Creator.
Paul tells the Roman Christians to “not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of their minds.” (Rom 12:2)
He he goes all the way back to Genesis and the creation of humanity in God’s image. As Christians who have died with Christ, have been been buried with Christ, and raised with Christ, we are becoming what humans were always meant to be.
Christ is All
Paul ends this section with a beautiful picture of the barriers the Gospel breaks down in culture:
“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” (Col 3:11)
In Christ, racial barriers are obliterated between the Jew and Gentile.
In Christ, religious barriers are destroyed between the circumcised and the uncircumcised.
In Christ, even the barbarians are welcomed and accepted. Barbarians were those who didn’t speak Greek and Sythians were ever worse than barbarians.
In Christ, as we will study in a couple of weeks, even the line between slave and free was erased as many slaves and masters died in the arenas together for their faith in Christ.
Christ is all and in all. As I asked last week, is Christ your all? Is He your life?
Jesus told his disciples, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
So we need to memorize these two lists and then avoid them like the plague and then we will be godly. Maybe we could even make rules about following the lists to protect us from breaking the first rules. That’s what the Pharisees did.
Nope. That’s not how it works. We can only live like Christ, if Christ is empowering our hearts from the inside out. It all comes from a new heart. Have you received a new heart? Have you been born again?
We are in a war but we fight with the weapons of grace (Matt Chandler): the blood of Christ, the Word of God and the promises that you can count on.
“For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” (Hebrews 9:15)
Ending Video: The Struggle (Tenth Avenue North)
