Colossians 3:5-9a

  • David Fairchild
  • Sep 11, 2005
  • Series: Colossians

INTRODUCTION

On a summer day in July in Pennsylvania, a miner named Donald Wyman was working on his day off to clear land for his mining company. In the process, a tree which he was cutting fell and rolled on his shin causing a compound fracture of both his bones and crushing his foot pinning him to the ground. He yelled for an hour for help, but no one heard his cries. He decided that the only way he was going to save his life would be by cutting off his leg. So he made a tourniquet out of his shoe string and tightened it with a wrench. He then proceeded to take out a pocket knife which was very dull, and cut through the skin, muscle, and bones just below his knee. He started from above, cutting through his nerves and tendons, his arteries burst with blood and then he came from under and cut up until he freed himself from his leg. He then crawled 30 yards to a bulldozer, drove it to his truck which was a manual transmission by using a file in one hand to depress the clutch and his remaining foot to hit the gas pedal. He drove almost 2 miles with his leg pouring blood until he came to a farmer’s house. He called out to the farmer and they rushed him to meet an ambulance and he was taken to a hospital where his life was spared.

What was it that motivated this man to do what he did? A will to live! Jesus knew that humans love to live. So he appealed to this passion in order to show the importance of purity. Jesus told all who were listening in Matthew 5:27-30

Matthew 5:27-30 "You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY'; 28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 "If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 "If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.

What would you be willing to cut off your leg for? What is of such supreme value to you that you would be willing to cut off your hand for? What is so important to you, so treasured, so loved, that you would be willing to lose your eyes to keep? What would utterly crush you in a bed of misery if you lost it? Whatever your answer, that is where you will find your greatest treasure. Is it money, sex, or power? Is it things, people, or comforts?

If you say that it is salvation- why? Do you want salvation because you realize that without it you will go to hell? So your motivation is fear of hell. What about eternal life? Do you want it because your family and friends will be there? Then your friends are what you treasure most. What about eternity? Do you want to spend eternity in heaven because you hear that there will be no more pain or sorrow, no more sickness? Then it is comfort that is your greatest motivation and treasure.

How we answer these questions says much about what it is that we treasure and prize most. Salvation should be desired not primarily because it means we are forgiven of our sin, but since in being forgiven of our sins we now are brought to Christ. Eternal life should be desired because we want to spend eternity with God, loving Him, praising Him, worshipping Him. Our desire should be Him. Heaven should be desired because it is where Christ dwells and it means we will be with Him without our sins. All of our motivations should end upon Jesus and not anything else.


When this happens, when we finally become satisfied in all that God is for us in Jesus, cutting a hand off doesn’t seem as harsh when I consider both Christ’s hands and feet were nailed to a cross for me. No, Christ isn’t looking for us to become self-flogging monks to prove our love for Him. He desires that we love Him and in doing so the proof He desires is found in His own worth and work.

The opposite of love for Christ is not atheism, it is love for self, or in other words; self-worship. All other religions in this world are nothing more than ways in which we worship self. When we begin with man as the means for righteousness, we end with man as the focus of our worship.

STUDY

I. Self-Worship: sex

Verse 5- Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

This sin is primarily personal, yet with effects that will ripple through an entire social community.

Instruction : Consider the members of your earthly body as dead

Kill it before it kills you.

Description :

- immorality (Gk. Porneia) This is sexual sin, or can be translated sexual immorality. It refers to any intercourse outside of the marriage covenant of a man and a woman. This is sort of the junk drawer of sexual sin. The word ‘pornography’ comes from this Greek root.

- impurity (Gk. Akatharsia) This means sexual impurity. It shows the contamination of character brought on by immoral behavior.

- passion (Gk. Pathos) This means lust, which is sexual urges that are without honor and without purity. It is dealing with a sexual urge that masters you.

- evil desire (Gk. Epithymia) This means a sexual desire that is evil. Not that desire is evil, but when an evil sexual desire is fondled in our minds, it produces a result that is almost always acted upon. Passion is physical, and evil desire is the mental side of this sin.

- greed This is an unchecked hunger for physical pleasure that masters you. Greed is mentioned last because it is the root from which all previous sins spring. It means literally “to have more” or to want what is forbidden. Because it places selfish desire above God, it is considered greed which is actually idolatry.

Result : which amounts to idolatry

This is idolatry of the worst kind because it is self-worship.

Idols cannot be uprooted, they must be replaced. One particular idol may be conquered, but the desire for such worship is always present. Idols are toppled by the presence of the true God who becomes more glorious and beautiful, more satisfying and delightful, than the idol which promised satisfaction and yet only brought misery.

Verse 6- For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience,

The consequence : For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience,

This verse certainly disturbs our saccharin sweet security which tells us that our sins carry no consequences. It is a shocking picture of God’s character. It seems to contradict His mercy, His love, and His grace. Is it possible for God to be both a God of love as well as hate? Is it possible for God to possess both justice and mercy simultaneously? At the apex of history, the cross stands to answer those questions with a resounding ‘yes!’

Does it stun us to think of God brining us peace through His wrath? Of course, any human subject is certainly worthy of His righteous displeasure, but He slays the very One whom He says is His own beloved Son. Christ demonstrates His love for us in that while we were enemies of God, steeped in all forms of sin, deserving of His wrath, despising His person and moral law, He died under the blows of God’s wrath so that we would have God’s loving favor. This creates a problem.

In fact, God’s passion for His own glory, and His perfect goodness and righteousness creates a cosmic dilemma. How can God be both just and yet justify the ungodly? God tells us in Proverbs that the one who justifies the wicked is an abomination (Proverbs 17:15). If God were to flippantly let the wicked go without punishing their wickedness through His wrath, by His own words He would be considered an abomination. Doesn’t his justice demand that all of us receive His wrath instead of mercy? Yes. Since God’s desire is to save a people for Himself, for His glory, He planned from eternity to solve this great dilemma by sending His own Son into this world to take upon Himself what each of us deserved- God’s disfavor and wrath. God’s scandalous grace is magnified when we see the demands of the law standing as our prosecutor crying out to us “guilty,” and God agreeing with the charges, declaring a verdict, requiring a satisfaction to be made, seeing we are unable to satisfy the One who was offended- Himself- and yet providing for us a sacrificial lamb in our place- Jesus- to pay our penalty, accept our punishment, stand in our stead, and die in our place. If we sentence humans to death for treason against the United States of America, we should tremble all the more at the thought of our treason against God. God is a consuming fire and is not be trifled with. He will hold us accountable to every thought and every action of every moment of our life. There are no secrets with God, everything is laid bare before Him. We will either receive the punishment of God’s wrath in the future, or we will receive His grace by faith in the work of Christ who took God’s wrath upon Himself 2,000 years ago. Either way, we have to come to grips with this terrifying thought of God’s displeasure.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, children are inquiring about Aslan who is the central figure of these C.S. Lewis stories. The children ask the animals if Aslan is safe, the response from the beavers is “He’s not safe, but he’s good.”

Christ is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He’s not tame, but He’s good. What makes Aslan is one of those strange characters in literature that leaps from the page and shocks you. He uses his paws to embrace you, and his mouth to kiss your forehead, and yet he is also considered a ferocious man eater. He is feared by his enemies and those same qualities about him that make him gentle and welcoming, are also used to defend and attack those that oppose him.

We see Jesus pictured in the Gospels as a gentle lamb who receives children by His side, who welcomes the marginalized and weary, who calls men to himself and heals the blind, the lame, and raises the dead. Yet this lamb also is a noble lion who opposes the proud, verbally lashes the Pharisees, flips over tables in the Temple, and promises that at the end of days He will judge the living and the dead, and whoever is not on His side, will suffer His wrath. He is beautiful and ferocious, He is a King and yet friend, He is Lord and yet Savior, He is dangerous and yet keeps us safe.

Listen to this strange picture of Jesus in Revelation.

Revelation 6:15-17 Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16 and they *said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

If we struggle with God’s wrath being poured out upon those who oppose God, we should read Ephesians 2:3-5 and be reminded where we once were.

Ephesians 2:3-5 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

True believers, in order to walk in conformity with God, realize that we have been delivered “from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10) and will not experience this wrath. Paul is not warning us that if we sin we will feel God’s furious wrath. Rather he is saying that those who are Christ’s, who have been made one with Him, who love Him and serve His glory, would certainly not wish to participate in behaviors and thoughts that are common among those who will one day feel this wrath. God will chasten those that are His (Heb. 12:5-6), because of His love for them. God will react against sin. The unbeliever will experience His wrath eternally, and the believer will experience His chastening love in this life. Either way, all who pursue sin will suffer the consequence.

Verse 7 - and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

The reminder : in them you also once walked, when you were living in them

Our humility is found in remembering who we once were, and by reminding ourselves of who we are now. Because our salvation came to us by grace, and not by works, there is nothing for us to boast about. We get our humility and confidence from our identity. We are sinners and saints at the same time. Because of this we find our humility in realizing that we are more sinful than we ever imagined, and we get our confidence by realizing that we are more loved than we could ever hope for.

We should remind ourselves of this truth so that we don’t become over-confident by assuming we have done something to earn God’s favor, but rather our favor was won by Christ. And we should remind ourselves that even when we feel a sense of utter despair because of what we’ve done, we look to Christ and see that it isn’t by our perfection that God accepts us, but through Christ’s.

Spurgeon comments on this by asking;

“Christian, what hast thou to do with sin? Hath it not cost the enough already? Burnt child, wilt though play with the fire? What! When thou hast already been between the jaws of the lion, wilt thou step a second time in his den? Hast thou not had enough of the old serpent? Did he not poison all thy veins once, and wilt thou play upon the hold of the asp, and put thy hand upon the den a second time? Oh, be not so mad! So foolish! Did sin ever yield the pleasure? Didst though find solid satisfaction in it? If so, go back to think old drudgery, and wear the chain again, if it delight thee, but deluded the with lies, be not a second time snared by the old fowler- be free, and let the remembrance of they ancient bondage forbid thee to enter the net again!

Remind yourself frequently of who you were apart from Christ. Remind yourself of the Holy displeasure of God as you lived in active hatred towards Him, then remember the cross of Jesus and what He did in order to free you from the bondage that enslaved you. You are free! Free! Free to be a slave of righteousness, through the grace of God.

II. Hating Others: speech

Verse 8-9a But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. 9a Do not lie to one another,

This sin is primarily social, but will eventually destroy the individual.

The imperative : put them all aside: This literally means to “take them off.” Much as one would take off filthy clothes at the end of the day, we should take off our filthy acts sins the days of sin are over in Christ;;;;;;;;;;;;.

The description :

- anger (Gk. OrgÄ“) This is a deep, smoldering, resentful bitterness. It is the bent attitude of an angry person’s heart. Circumstances don’t create the anger, they reveal anger already resident in the person and give him a target for his fury.

Believers are to be “slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God (James 1:19-20).

- wrath (Gk. Thumos) This refers to a sudden burst of anger. This is like a fire in a pile of dry leaves. It flares up quickly, but briefly and is gone. Anger and wrath are close friends. The seething, boiling, under the surface anger that lies just below the surface causes spontaneous eruptions of wrath. Usually, this kind of anger stems from the simple fact that they are disappointed with the way things are. They wish to change it but they can’t. They want to act as the Messiah, but are powerless. Their resentment bubbles until the opportunity to express it is presented and they launch like a rocket. These are hot-headed, plate throwing, immature adults that act like a spoiled 3 year old who didn’t get their way.

- malice (Gk. Kakia) Which is a general term for moral evil. It is the vicious nature that is bent on doing harm to others. In this context, it refers to someone who inflicts harm and pain upon someone through their speech. It is someone who is verbally abusive. They use their words as a weapon to crush those they claim to love.

- slander (Gk. BlasphÄ“mia) This is where we get our English word blasphemy. When this is in relation to God, it is translated “blasphemy.” When it is used in relation to people, it is translated “slander.” The believers speech shouldn’t be marred by hurtful insults or disparaging remarks directed towards one another. Humans are created in the image of God, and therefore, to slander another person is a subtle way of blaspheming God.

- abusive speech The result of anger, wrath, and malice is abusive speech. This refers to derogatory words intended to hurt and wound someone. It’s an evil and foul abuse.

- lies Yet another of the works of hate using speech- lying is from Satan because He is the father of lies (John 8:44). From the beginning in the Garden, Satan has spoken nothing but lies so that we would distrust God, distrust one another, and distrust ourselves. His primary means to disrupt our lives is not to scare us with spooky monsters, but to diminish our faith so that we begin to doubt. Lying is a horrible form of hatred. It characterizes Satan, not god. When we lie, we are imitating Satan, not our Father. We should be the ones who tell the truth most, because our God is the True God who never lies.

For many of you a vine has grown in your life that has crept up the walls of your life and has begun to strangle life out of you. You can sever that vine today and free yourself from its strangle-hold. But the way in which this vine is cut, is not by more human effort. It must be done, but cannot be done within our own resources. The only way to put to death our sinful, earthly, flesh, is by trusting in what Christ has done to free us from the need to like, to abuse one another, to slander each other, to flare up our anger and wrath towards one another. Christ has brought us peace through His own blood, therefore we no longer need to live as if we are without rest. We no longer need to function as our own Messiah. He has crushed the power of Sin and in doing so has called us to trust Him and to worship Him. When we find our greatest joy in worshipping Christ, we no longer need to worship ourselves through sex. We no longer need to give in to greed, which is ultimate idolatry because Christ has given all we need and therefore we need nothing more than His grace.

We are looking for a variety of ways to defeat sin in our lives, yet we are not drinking of the water of grace through Christ who has already defeated sin upon the cross for us. It isn’t going to take an attitude of trying harder, it’s going to take a heart of faith in Jesus. We should see ourselves as desperately week and unable to defend ourselves, and this should be the tonic to run to Christ for victory. We don’t fight the flesh, we feed upon the Spirit of God. Our fight is a Spiritual one, and therefore it is a fight of faith in the grace of God.

We don’t sin out of compulsion. We aren’t legalists with sin, we don’t wake up in the morning and say “I don’t really want to sin, but I have to- it’s my duty!” We sin because sin holds out a promise of pleasure and satisfaction which we actually believe at the moment is more satisfying than Christ. We sin because we are not satisfied in God. The only thing that will break this cycle, is to find Jesus to be desired for and delighted in than anything this world can offer. But we can’t manufacture this joy in Christ. We must come to Him humbly as beggars without any strength and ask for Him to give to us what we need most- a desire for Him.

Until we get close enough to Christ to smell the aroma of His throne, see the beauty of His glory, feel the love He gives, touch His hands and feel the wounds which were given in my place, taste the goodness of His grace, we will never be able to treasure Him more the self, and love Him more than others.

The cure for sexual self-worship is spiritual Christ worship. The cure for hatred in our speech is worship from our lips as we stand in awe of our majesty on high.

You must put to death, kill, get rid of, take off, disrobe and put away all known sin in your life. That’s the command. Here’s the bad news…you can’t and you won’t. You and I deserve God’s displeasure and wrath which will be poured out on the sons of disobedience. There is no way that you can fix this problem on your own, no way to work harder to get rid of sin through ethics or moral strength. Any attempt to try will only end in failure. Perhaps not failure when compared to other men, but it will end in failure before God. It is only through what Christ has done that we are freed to live the life which God is pleased with, because the only righteous act that pleases God is the one done by His Son. The only act of self-sacrifice which God will account to us as righteousness is the sacrifice of Christ Himself for God. Jesus went to the cross as the ultimate act of worship and love. Only when we get this, will we ever end the cycle of self-worship and hatred. Through Christ you and I can worship God and put to death those sins which destroy, and only through the righteous robes of Christ given to us by faith, will we be able to “take off” the filthy clothes of hatred.

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