Colossians 3:1-10
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Matthew 11:28-30
“28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Introduction:
- Ellie the Dog and her special shirt to cover her cut that would not scab.
We are as believers saved by Christ. This means our sins have been forgiven as Jesus has suffered in our place. This is called substitutionary atonement. Jesus was our substitute. He stood in our place and atoned, paid for our sin.
So, what now?
I have spent last few months going through Colossians 1 and 2 and it addresses how and why Jesus was able to atone for our sin. We have discussed how new birth comes about as an act of God upon the believer.
As we opened Chapter 3, the discussion turned to how we are to put to death what is earthly in us. And we will be addressing some of the more specifics on that today.
You recall the “use to” part of our lives. We USE to be this, but now we are in Christ, and we are a new creation, we are to be putting to death this sin.
We talk a lot about sin in the church. This thing that separates us from God. We talk about what we bring to the table, and it always seems to be a negative.
We come to church, or we were raised in church, and we hear about this sin in our lives. We hear sermons and teaching about sin and forgiveness of sin in Christ and how we can live eternally in the good place.
We like this. We have these things that we have done, said, thought and places we have gone. We begin to feel this burden in our conscience and in our heart and we have this baggage. (illustration with suitcase full of things below)
- Oh yeah, I remember this. I should not have gone to this place
- That thing I should not have said
- I thought this was a good idea at the time, turns out, not so much
- I just wanted them/that person to accept/love me
- My heart was so full of anger and hate that I lashed out
- I felt justified because all that they/he/she did to me
- I am a red head, what did you expect?
- I am Irish, what did you expect?
- I am a man/boy with urges, what did you expect?
- My parents divorced, what did you expect?
- I knew it was wrong; I did it anyway.
Do you mean Jesus will take this away? Jesus will take this upon himself? Oh, thank you Jesus.
We take that and receive that grace. We are so thankful. We continue to live and then we find in our bag that maybe we picked up some of those old things. Maybe there are some items in there that are still there.
Next, you have someone like me that teaches sanctification. That there is instant sanctification, that you are instantly set apart, instantly set aside for holy use. There is also continuing, ongoing sanctification. That we are to progressively be made holy. That we are to grow in holiness. That we spend our lifetime putting to death our sin.
But this is the difficult part – it is like picking scab. If I keep talking about our sin and how we need to grow, at what point will there be joy in our life as a believer. At what point is the burden easy and light?
We look in this bag and there is a never-ending supply of baggage. The content just keeps coming.
I am bringing this . . . again Lord, do you still love me?
I have not grown like I wanted. . . Lord, do you still love me?
I am doing better Lord, but I am still failing. . . do you still love me?
I hope I die on a good day. . . or I hope the Lord returns when I am having a good day.
We never get to a place where Jesus is seen as a light burden. We are weary. We are heavy laden. Where is our rest? How can we live out these words of Jesus? How can we experience these words?
If this is you, then you are missing it here. You are missing it completely. The enemy is sowing doubt and lies in your mind.
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (repeat)
Did you hear this? Do you hear this? How have we died?
Textual Observation:
If we are raised with Christ (and we are) in what way have we died? How were we dead? If one is raised from, what are they raised?
Previously we began to dig into this language here that there are these textual words that say we are dead in one sense and alive in another sense. That we are buried in one way and raised in another.
What does it mean?
When we are alive in Christ, we are ALIVE in Christ. I really want you to hear this. Two weeks ago the sermon title was “The Happiest Funeral Ever.” I told you about Dr. Forbes, death just days away from 100.
That was a happy funeral. But it was not the happiest ever. You know what the happiest funeral is/was? The day you died and rose with Christ.
Those who are raised with Christ, will never die. Not for one second. Not for five minutes. You will never die. Two passages we will look at here.
The first is John 11. In this text we have the death of Lazarus. Jesus comes to the house where Mary and Martha are. They are having a funeral. Martha comes to Jesus v21, Lord if you had only been here, Lazarus would not have died.
“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus says. To this Martha replies, “I know, I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
Then there is this, John 11:25–26, Jesus is talking to Martha, the sister of the man who’s in the grave.
I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
Yes, we die. The text itself says, “though he die, yet shall he live.” But no, we don’t die, because it says in verse 26, “everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” Lazarus’s body lay dead in the grave, but Lazarus was not dead. His body was dead. He was not dead. He had not died.
Now here’s the other verse. This one is even more important. Jesus says in John 5:24,
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life
Believers in Jesus who keep his word have passed already out of death into life. They now have what’s called eternal life. Eternal life cannot, by definition, stop for a second. It cannot stop. You never lose it. It is eternal. There’s not a five-minute pause in the hospital or anywhere.
Repeat after me . . Christ . . . is . . . .my . . . life!
(Now put to death what is earthly in you.)
Put it to death because it is not you anymore. You do not put it to death because you are trying to gain eternal life. You do not put it to death to prove that you are worthy for God’s grace. (Let me clue you in, you are not worthy of your next breath. You are not worthy of your next heartbeat, and neither am I)
You are putting it to death because you are not that man anymore. You are putting it to death because you are not that woman anymore. You are putting it to death because you have a new love. You are putting it to death because you have a new life.
Now is it more clear how Jesus is not a burden? Is it clear how Jesus’ yoke is easy? He is it. He is pulling the weight.
We are not picking scabs here. When we get to verse 5 and it says, “Put to death what is earthly in you,” and then it begins to make a list.
That list can look A LOT like the things that were in that suitcase. It will look a lot like what I brought to the table. It includes this list and even more. Paul was just making some examples.
“Put to death what is earthly in you, sexual immorality.”
Well that is a big one.
When I arrived here at Donnel’s Creek the decision had been made to not make any big changes for about six months. During this time I would get to know you and you get to know me and I would get to know how things operate. I could observe what is working and what can be improved.
As the sixth month date was arriving I began to work on a strategy of growing this body. There are TWO avenues that can be a HUGE source of growth and one of them is the youth program.
We have on this lower end of our body these kids that represent scores of more kids that could really be nurtured and matured. Beth is has done, is doing and I am certain will continue to do a beautiful job with this program.
But I want to give you some insight into what the youth of Springfield, New Carlisle and everywhere in between are facing.
Adult content was something that in the recent past in which you wanted to consume, you had to go somewhere else and get. Those days are over.
This, sexual immorality covers a lot of ground. The word used there in the Biblical language is pornea. It refers to a wide range of things like adultery, fornication, immorality, unfaithfulness, prostitution and in general, any sexual sin.
Paul is making an imperative here: “Put to death what is earthly in you.” Which MEANS that there are earthly things in them.
As a church, as believers in Christ, we are growing in holiness and we are putting to death what is earthly in us. If we are doing that as a church, as those from the outside come in, they will ALSO be doing this.
What are some of the alluring things of the world that is attracting our children. This is not as simple as counseling them to avoid the back seat on Friday and Saturday night. Times have changed.
Heard of Only Fans?
Only fans began in the twenty-teens for content creators. That you can post videos on how to cook a specific dish. You can start the conversation and invite behind a paywall and be taught. Content creators could be anything from mechanics to comedians.
In 2020 blew up with adult content and if one says Only Fans, the two are paired. As of today, 90% of the content is adult.
I have consumed none of it. I will make a pledge that I guard my heart very closely in this area. I will not even look at a mannequin in a Vicotria’s Secret window. It is not arrogance or pride, self-righteousness, it is not legalism, it is self-preservation. I want to give nothing to the enemy.
So much so, that as I explain to you a Tic Tock channel called Bop House, I would not look at it long. These are fully clothed girls, 13+ that is headed by a woman named Sophie Rain.
Sophie Rain claims to be a Christian. She also claims to be a virgin. She is an adult content creator on Only Fans.
There are young women all over the country, (14, 15, 17 years old) whose goal is to make it to Bop House in LA. Why? It super charges their career as an Only Fans model. It guarantees success.
The girls, fully clothed, post videos on Tic Tock that on surface level just appear to be choreographed dances. They are fully clothed but revealing at the same time.
This is attractive. The promise to make tens of thousands of dollars each month and some others flaunting millions of dollars each month is attractive.
One such Bop House resident just recently turned 18. After MUCH publicity, at 12:01 on her birthday she opened an Only Fans account and three hours had 1 million paying subscribers. Do you not think that there are young women who will find this appealing? That they can make major money selling themselves?
There are 1.4 million women on Only Fans. 1.2 million of them are between the ages of 18 to 24. There are only 10 million total women in the USA between ages of 18 to 24. That means that 1 out of every 10 (10%) have content on Only Fans.
There are some models who have made millions. One in ten girls Yet the average income for content creators is $180 per month. Most are selling their soul for this.
Who is consuming it? There are 82 million men in USA. 90% of the subscribers are married. 68% are white. The overwhelming average consumer is white, married male.
What is the attraction? The allure. It is all a lie. That is the definition of sin. It is a lie. It made big promises to Eve, but failed to deliver. This is true in my life. There was great hope in the promises sin has made and it has failed every time.
What do we do with this?
We want to grow as a church. When I pray for this church I pray that we grow spiritually. That we grow in knowledge. That we grow knowing Jesus more, that it produces in us a reverent praise and a commitment to grow in our faith.
But I also pray that we grow in number. As we grow in number, I want to fill these seats. I am serious when I can see a day when we have another congregation. It is possible with God. We can have one in east Springfield. We can have one in Beavercreek. We can plant churches all over the region.
This means we will be bringing in people who are hurt by sin. People who have been lied to by the enemy. People who have scars. People who need to put to death what is earthly in them. People just like you and me. People who need rest.
Jesus says, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.
There are people who need this. We must be a people ready to provide it.
I want to repeat what I said earlier. Paul is encouraging this people to put to death what is earthly in them. This is a reality for them. It is a reality for us and it is a reality for those who come to us.