Put Off and Put On (Part 1)

So, last week we began the section of Colossians that addresses how we should live as believers.

! Paul told us that because we have been raised with Christ, our behavior should be connected to what we believe. So, for a little bit of review, look at verses 2-4 of chapter 3.

It says, Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

In the passage we start studying tonight, Paul gives more specific examples of how Christians should behave. We're only going to cover verses 5-9 tonight, but the whole section goes through verse 17.

So, we're going to go ahead and read through verse 17, and we'll look at that, the rest of it, next week. So, starting in verse 5, Paul says, Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self, with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge, after the image of its Creator.

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all, and in all. Put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.

And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. We need to deal with something right off the bat, because in the introduction last week, we reviewed verses 20 through 23 of chapter 2.

And if you look up a few verses in your Bible there, you'll see that verses 20 through 23 of chapter 2 say, If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?

Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Here in chapter 3, with its long list of do's and don'ts, Paul can seem to be prescribing a list of regulations.

You'll notice when we read the verses, he says, to put off certain things, even to put to death certain things, and then he says to put on other things. But we need to see a big distinction between what Paul is talking about here in chapter 3 and what he condemned in chapter 2.

In chapter 2, Paul's pointing out the folly of thinking that we must behave a certain way in order to be saved. True believers, because they're in Christ, already are saved.

Paul is showing us here in chapter 3 that because we already are saved, we should behave a certain way. So the salvation becomes first and leads to the behavior.

In other words, we should behave as Christ would want us to behave to honor him for what he has done for us. So do you see the distinction there? The behaviors condemned in chapter 2 actually originate out of a desire to earn salvation, and the things that Paul urges us to do in chapter 3 result from a desire to please God because of what God through Christ has already done for us.

We can go one step further than that, too. Our only hope of behaving like what God wants us to behave is because we already are saved. The things that Paul calls us to do in these verses are impossible to do without God's help.

Even with God's help, we'll see tonight that we're not going to be able to follow the directives perfectly, but living up to the standards always should be our goal.

And we're going to break verses 5 through 17 into two sections, only one of which we'll cover tonight. So let's title verses 5 through 9 as Out with the Old.

So Out with the Old is what goes in your blanks. That probably gives you a clue what's going to be coming next week when we get to the second section, but for now let's read verses 5 through 9 again.

They say, Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. The therefore at the beginning of verse 5 ties with what is now said, and it ties it back to the powerful reality which Paul has been talking about in verses 1 through 4.

In other words, because of that reality, you're to put to death what is earthly in you. The implication of the therefore is that there's no way you could do this apart from having died with Christ.

Notice he said in verse 3, You have died. And so verse 5 then, Therefore put to death what is earthly in you. So this is going to be different from a call for just a mere moral effort.

So he does have an imperative here, and it's a summons to that effort, but it's in the context of a power that's not from us. The power comes from what Christ has done for us in his death.

And because we've died with him, our new life is in him as well. And we know that already because we have been raised with him. We've seen that earlier in Colossians. Paul gets directly to his point and emphasizes how serious he is about it.

He says that we should put to death what is earthly in us. And when he speaks of killing bodily parts or members, Paul's referring to the sins associated with those members.

And this hits at the Colossian dualism regarding body and spirit. Remember, some of the false teachers were trying to tell him that the body was evil and the spirit is good. But Paul's saying that the body should be holy as well under the control of the redeemed spirit.

The body does what the inner disposition compels it to do, and a spirit-controlled body must do what is good. And in the passage we're going to look at tonight, Paul gives us two lists of sins to kill.

And these lists include some of the most common and troubling sins that believers face. We know, though, that they're not an exhaustive list of all sins. And we can break the list into two different categories.

The first list comprises sins of perverted love. And the second list contains sins of wicked hate. And if you'll notice, the first list begins with acts and progresses to the motives behind those acts.

The second begins with the motives and then says what acts those motives lead to. And the first list relates to feelings, and the second relates to speech. And in between the lists, Paul gives us two reasons that we should put that sin to death.

So let's look at the first list of sins to kill. And that comes in verse 5. And verse 5 says the list is sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

And covetousness here in the ESV also can be translated as greed. So many of you may have greed in your translation as well. The New American Standard is one of those that lists greed there.

Think about how the things in the list tie together. Sexual immorality, the evil act, takes place because of impurity. That impurity comes from perverted passion and evil desire, which comes from the root of sin, which is the greed.

And you probably know that sexual immorality translates the word pornea, and our English word pornography comes from a combination of pornea and graphe, which means a writing.

So pornography is a writing or a picture about sexual sin. Originally, that word pornea referred to prostitution, and the related word porne is the Greek word for prostitute.

In the New Testament, though, its meaning broadens to include any form of illicit sexual activity. So in sharp contrast to the prevailing attitude in the ancient world, and also today's world for that matter, the Bible strictly forbids any sexual activity outside the marriage bond between a man and a woman.

And the biblical view of immorality is summarized in 1 Thessalonians 4.3. And 1 Thessalonians 4.3 is where it says, This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality.

Impurity there, which goes in your next blank, is a more general term than immorality. So impurity is a more general term than immorality. And it goes beyond the evil act to the thoughts and intentions of the mind.

And we see this in other places in the Bible as well. Think about what Jesus said in Matthew 5, verses 27 and 28. Jesus said in Matthew 5, 27 and 28, You have heard it said, You shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So Jesus' words give us an example of the impurity that Paul is referencing here in Colossians.

And for another example from Jesus, listen to Matthew 7, verses 21 through 23. Jesus said in Matthew 7, 21 through 23, The list of sins we covered so far can be depressing and disheartening.

And here's some news for you, we're not even halfway through that list. But on top of that, we have another list of sins to go when we get to verses 8 and 9. So that makes now a good time to pause for a little bit and look briefly at how we can battle these sins and the other sins that we're going to study tonight.

We don't have to look far to see one way to battle these sins and others. Paul tells us later on in Colossians 3, verse 16, how we can do that.

We read that verse earlier and we'll cover that verse in more detail in the future lesson. But for now, let's just read it again. Paul says in Colossians 3, verse 16, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Does that sound familiar to you too, what Paul wrote to the Philippians in Philippians 4, 8? Here's what he said in Philippians 4, 8. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

So our defenses against the sins we're looking at tonight and any sins are to know the word of Christ and to think on the things that are true, honorable, pure, lovely, and commendable.

So with that in mind, let's go back to the list of sins that Paul mentions in Colossians 3, 5. The next two on the list are passion and evil desire.

And we'll look at them as a pair. And John MacArthur had this explanation for them. He said, the distinction between passion and evil desire is not great. Passion refers to the sexual passion set loose in the body, as its two other occurrences in the New Testament indicate.

And those come in Romans 1, 26 and 1 Thessalonians 4, 5. But then he goes on to say, in this context, evil desire undoubtedly also refers to the sexual lust created in the mind.

Perhaps the difference between the two terms is that passion is the physical and evil desire, or excuse me, that passion is the physical and evil desire, the mental side of the same vice.

So one is the physical act and one of them is the mental act. And then he says, the two terms appear together in 1 Thessalonians 4, 5, where Paul commands Christians not to live in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.

Such behavior is completely inappropriate for believers. The next thing that Paul mentions here is greed or covetousness. And that might seem out of place to some of the ones that we've looked at already.

But it's listed here because it's the evil root from which all the previous sins come from. It's also mentioned last in the Ten Commandments. And the original Greek word comes from two other Greek words that mean more and to have.

So another way to describe greed is the insatiable desire to have more and to have what is forbidden. So James also tells us in James 4, 2, that it's a source of fights and quarrels as well as lust and passions and sin.

Paul then goes even further in his condemnation of covetousness or greed. Look at the last part of verse 5. He says that covetousness is idolatry.

When we think of idolatry, the first things that usually come to mind are the Old Testament people who worship things that they made, such as the golden calf or images that they carved from wood.

The form of idolatry that we have to face today is much more subtle and perhaps even more dangerous than the idol worship common in the Old Testament. Today's idolatry is more dangerous because we may fail at first to recognize today's idols as idols.

Put it simply, an idol is anything that comes in the way of giving God his rightful first place in our lives. The opposite of covetousness is resting satisfied with God.

Covetousness is idolatry because the contentment that the heart should be getting from God, it starts to get from something else. So covetousness, simply put, is a heart divided between two gods.

Any time our pursuit of more stuff is driven or energized by the belief that it can fulfill the longing in our souls in only the ways that God can, we're guilty of idolatry because we put something in the place of God.

So granting any object or possession such a powerful place in our hearts is to elevate it to a position of highest value, and it means it's deserving of our utmost attention.

So we're deifying it, in other words. We're actually bowing the knee to another master, and our hearts have become captive to a different Lord. So we have violated the first commandment that we shall have no other gods before the true God.

Because it places selfish desire above obedience to God, that's why greed amounts to idolatry. We've already talked about how covetousness is the root cause of all sin.

And I put several other quotes in your handout here. Here's one from William Barclay. He wrote, It is therefore a sin with a very wide range. If it is the desire for money, it leads to theft.

If it is the desire for prestige, it leads to evil ambition. If it is the desire for power, it leads to sadistic tyranny. If it is the desire for a person, it leads to sexual sin.

So when people sin, it's at its basis, they're doing what they desire rather than what God desires. And that is, in essence, to worship themselves instead of God.

And that's what makes it idolatry. And here's a quote from Peter Charnock. He said, All sin is founded in secret atheism. All the wicked inclinations in the heart are sparks from this latent fire.

The language of every one of these is, I would be a lord to myself and would not have a God superior to me. In sins of omission, we own not God in neglecting to perform what he enjoins.

In sins of commission, we set up some lust in the place of God and pay to that the homage which is due to our maker. We deny his sovereignty when we violate his laws.

Every sin invades the rights of God and strips him of one or other of his perfections. Every sin is a kind of cursing God in the heart and aim at the destruction of the being of God, not actually, but virtually.

A man in every sin aims to set up his own will as his rule and his own glory as the end of his actions against the will and glory of God. So those are some hard-hitting words there, aren't they?

But we can look at the Bible to see other support for that. Jesus put it this way in Luke 12, 15. Jesus said, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

The things that we've looked at so far are some of the things that make me wish I didn't believe in going verse by verse through a passage because I would like to skip the negativity and get on to the more positive stuff that we'll start looking at next week.

But we need to grasp the importance of Paul's message in the bad news before we can understand the significance of the good news. Listen to this quote from Warren Weersbe.

He said, There are some people who do not like the negative. Give us positive doctrines, they say. Forget about negative warnings and admonitions. But the negative warnings and commands grow out of the positive truth of Christian doctrine.

This is why Paul wrote, Mortify, or put to death, therefore. Then he goes on to say, No amount of positive talk about health will cure a ruptured appendix.

The doctor will have to get negative and take out the appendix. No amount of lecturing on beauty will produce a garden. The gardener has to pull weeds. The positive and the negative go together and one without the other leads to imbalance.

Then going back to our text for tonight, verse 6 tells us why we need to focus on the negative things in verse 5 and why we need to avoid them. Verse 6 says, On account of these, the wrath of God is coming.

In this verse and in most other cases, the word translated wrath suggests the idea of a settled disposition that arises out of God's nature. It's specifically said to be of God in John 3.36 when Jesus says it, as well as in Romans 1.18, Ephesians 5.6, Colossians 3.6, and all the way at the end of the Bible in Revelation 19.15.

We also read of the wrath of the Lamb in Revelation 6.16 and several other places in Revelation. We need to be careful to define what divine wrath is because divine wrath is not the loss of self-control or the irrational outburst of anger.

And we can't think of it as God having a bad temper or lashing out at those who rub Him the wrong way. Divine wrath is righteous antagonism toward everything that's unholy.

And it's the revulsion of God's character to which is a violation of God's will. So we can talk about divine wrath as a function of divine love.

For God's wrath is His love for holiness and truth and justice. It's because God passionately loves purity and peace and perfection that He reacts angrily toward anything and anyone who defiles them.

And this next quote is by J.I. Packer. He said, Would a God who took as much pleasure in evil as He did in good be a good God? Would a God who did not react adversely to evil in His world be morally perfect?

Surely not. But it's precisely this adverse reaction to evil which is a necessary part of moral perfection that the Bible has in view when it speaks of God's wrath.

And here's one more quote about the wrath of God. Leon Morris said, Then too, unless we give a real content to the wrath of God, unless we hold that men really deserve to have God visit upon them the painful consequences of their wrongdoing, we empty God's forgiveness of its meaning.

For if there is no ill desert, God ought to overlook sin. We can think of forgiveness as something real only when we hold that sin has betrayed us into a situation where we deserve to have God inflict upon us the most serious consequences, and that is upon such a situation that God's grace supervenes.

When the logic of this situation demands that he should take action against the sinner, and yet he takes action for him, then and then alone can we speak of grace.

But there is no room for grace if there is no suggestion of dire consequences merited by sin. So listen to that last part again. There is no room for grace if there is no suggestion of dire consequences merited by sin.

It says in verse 6 in the ESV that the wrath of God is coming, but that is a little misleading. Paul may have in mind a more timeless notion that wrath always comes because of these things, not only in the future, but throughout the whole course of human history.

And that is certainly the case in Romans 1.18 and following where Paul indicates that the wrath of God is now visible in his abandonment of humanity to its chosen way of life and its consequences.

In other words, divine wrath is not simply reserved for the day of judgment, although we will see it in the day of judgment in all of its fury, but it is actively present now as God gives up men and women to their chosen course of corruption and wicked behavior.

And if you want to read more about that, you can see especially Romans 1.24, 26, and 28. Unbelievers are storing up wrath for themselves in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

Because wrath comes on account of these things, the sins that Paul just mentioned typify sin in general. Believers should have no part in any of those sins, and sin brings wrath, not blessing.

Sin never brings true happiness. Because believers have been delivered from the wrath to come and will experience no wrath, Paul is warning us that if we sin, we will feel the furious wrath of God.

Or in other words, he's not warning us that if we sin, we will feel the furious wrath of God. What he's saying is that those who are Christ, who have been made one with Christ, who love him and serve his glory, would not want to participate in these types of behaviors and thoughts that are characteristic of those that will feel his wrath.

So in other words, when we demonstrate these behaviors, that doesn't mean we're not saved, but it means we're acting as if we are. So the children of God would certainly not want to act like the children of wrath.

We also know that even though believers have been delivered from God, we're still subject to God's chastening when we sin. Remember Hebrews 12, verses 5 through 11.

The writer of Hebrews said, And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.

For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and lived? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, that he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.

For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. So here's the bottom line that Paul's trying to get across here.

God will react against sin. The unbeliever will experience God's eternal wrath. And the believer will experience God's loving chastening. Either way, all who pursue sin will suffer the consequences.

So going back to our text for tonight, look at verse 7 of chapter 3 in Colossians. This verse is the verse that has some good news. So here's verse 7 again.

In these, talking about the list of sins we reviewed earlier, you too once walked when you were living in them. Do you see the good news? In that verse?

Exactly. The good news is there. We just have to think about it for a minute to see the past tense. Remember that Paul wrote this letter to Colossian believers, early Christians who helped form the foundation of the church as we know it today.

So, he's getting exactly to the point that Mike said. The only good thing about reminding these people that they once walked in sin is that that verse is written in past tense.

The believers once walked in sin, they once lived in sin, but they don't now. So what changed for them and why did it change? Well, we only have to look back to Colossians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14.

That's where Paul was speaking of God when he said, He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

When Paul speaks of the Colossian Christians old way of life, he speaks in their past tense because their old life is behind them. In their new life, they have present tense that we've seen in verses 13 and 14 of chapter 1, redemption.

And that news is about as good as it gets. The second piece of good news in verse 7 is sort of between the lines there. And that good news is that if God can save the Colossian Christians, He can and will save anyone who repents and turns to God.

The sins that Paul mentions in verse 5 are bad, but God can and does forgive sins like that every day. That's also good news which should give us hope for unbelieving friends and family members.

So with that thought in mind, let's look at the next list of sins in verses 8 and 9 of chapter 3. That's where Paul wrote, But now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. sins. So the sins in this second list are not so much personal as they are social.

They're committed directly against other people. And as we mentioned in the introduction, Paul reverses the pattern of the first list. Here he begins with the motive and progresses with the evil act.

So put away is the word that comes from the word that the Greeks use for taking off clothes. So as a person puts off his dirty clothes at the end of the day, believers should discard the filthy tattered rags of their old life.

The word translated anger there is the same term used in verse 6 that was used to describe divine wrath. So apparently what Paul is saying is what is appropriate for God is inappropriate for humans.

Wrath in that verse is the translation of a word that's a more passionate and spontaneous outburst of anger as opposed to the settled seething brooding that the first word for wrath suggests.

Malice may refer to the conscious desire to harm another that's subsequently expressed in evil speech such as slander or abusive language against somebody. The word slander commonly translated blasphemy but most likely here it refers to the defamation of human character instead of God's character.

The word translated obscene talk there is found only here in the New Testament and it isn't so much talking about curse words as it is the type of speech that ridicules and embarrasses others.

So it's interesting to think that any kind of speech that ridicules and embarrasses others can be considered obscene talk. That's not typically how we would think about that term today.

We have to be careful here too because Paul isn't suggesting that there's no place for anger at sin or injustice or cruelty and he's not saying that we should immediately forgive and forget if the person who sinned against us doesn't repent.

He also isn't undermining the importance of church discipline. What he is talking about here is about the anger that erupts and lingers in the interpersonal relationships among the believers in Christ.

And as was the case earlier in Colossians 3.5 when it came to sexual desires, so now with anger and wrath and malice we're responsible before God to do whatever is necessary to eliminate those affections and emotions from our souls.

So it isn't simply the outward expression of anger or physical actions that reveal our wrath and malice. We must also conquer the inner impulse and that's what makes it even more difficult.

And of course that leads to the obvious question of how are we going to be able to do that? Well listen to this quote from Sam Storms about what he has to say on how to conquer the impulse for negative emotions.

and he said I know of only one way by meditating on the magnitude of mercy shown us in the cross of Christ. We must ponder deeply what Christ endured for us rather than fixate on what others have done to create discomfort or pain.

That is to say focus on what Christ has done for you and not on what others have done to you. As we labor to saturate our minds with what Christ has done on the cross it will gradually ever so progressively swallow up and erase the pain of what others have done to us.

This is the power of grace. This is the power of spirit anointed truth. It's interesting to think about isn't it to say focus on what Christ has done for you rather than what others have done to you.

Think about how many conflicts in the church could be avoided if we actually followed that. The last sin of the tongue that Paul mentions here comes in verse 9.

He says very simply do not lie to one another seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. Lying characterizes Satan not God and when believers lie they're imitating Satan rather than their heavenly father.

Believers of all people should be the ones who tell the truth. Listen to what Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 8 44. Jesus said you are of your father the devil and your will is to do your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Contrast that with Paul's description of God in Titus 1 2. And in Titus 1 2 Paul wrote these words. He said he wrote the words in hope of eternal life which God who never lies promised before the ages began.

For more on putting on the old self or putting off the old self you'll need to come back next week. In the meantime let's think about how we need to process the difficult passage that we've studied tonight.

First we need to realize that we're no different than any other believer. believer. The battle with sin is common to all believers even the apostle Paul himself.

The desire of the new inner man to live a life pleasing to God is held back by the old sinful flesh and all of its fallen patterns. And we know that believers are new creatures on the inside.

We see that in 2 Corinthians 5.17. Those new creatures live in old bodies. Our bodies including our tongues can either be instruments for righteousness or for sin.

Listen to how Paul described his own battle with sin in Romans 7 verses 14 through 25. He said, For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.

So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin who dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord. So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

So now you start to see why I said even with God's help believers won't be able to follow these directives perfectly because we see that even Paul couldn't follow them perfectly.

That doesn't change the fact though that we should try to follow them as perfectly as we can. And that's one thing that we need to remember about our study tonight.

And the second thing we need to remember is the good news of verse 7. Because of God's grace what we were before salvation no longer needs to define what we are now.

And also because of God's grace we know that unbelievers living in sin today will be saved. At least some of them will be. So God's grace should motivate us to spread the good news and to live out Paul's admonition to the Romans in Romans 12, 1, and 2.

Of course Romans 12, 1, and 2 are the verses where he said I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect.

With that let's close in prayer. Father we thank you for the reminder of the difficulties that all believers face even though that we know we have been redeemed by you.

Help us continue to look to you and think on positive things and things that are good and true to help us stay away from the desires to sin. Also help us be motivated to share the good news of your love toward others who have not yet come to know you in salvation.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.