Out With The
Old…(Colossians 3:5-11)
In our last look at Colossians, Paul exhorted us to
adopt a heavenward focus. He also
expounded the wonderful truth that we have died with Christ, and our lives are
hidden—protected—by Christ in God. So
the first step in the Christian living is setting our minds on heavenly
things. This sentiment is echoed 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”).
The next step in Christian living is to reform our
behavior. Remember what was said last
time: Right-thinking leads to right
behavior. Reforming our behavior is
a two-step process. The first step is
the “putting off” of sinful behavior.
The second step is the “putting on” of righteous behavior. We’ll tackle step one in this lesson and step
two in the next lesson.
1. Put to Death These Things…(vv.5, 8, 9a).
Paul gets right to work. He gives his readers a representative list of
sinful behaviors that ought not be characteristic of the Christian life. This list is not exhaustive. The NT is full of lists of bad behaviors
contrasted with good behaviors (cf. Romans 12:9-21; Galatians 5:16-26;
Ephesians 4:17-32). The whole point of
these lists, and others like them, is to find yourself somewhere on them. If you’re completely honest with yourself,
you’ll see yourself somewhere on these lists.
When you do, the Holy Spirit is telling you that this is a particular
area of your character that God wants you to begin working on.
Notice the severe language the Apostle uses. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in
you.” Sin is serious business,
and must be dealt with radically! You
cannot take half measures with sin.
Consider the story of King Saul and Agag in 1 Samuel 15. God, through Samuel, commanded King Saul to
completely eradicate the Amelekites.
Saul did not comply, and he reserved some of the spoils for himself; he
also spared King Agag. When Samuel
caught wind of this, he rebuked King Saul; and Samuel did what Saul would
not. In 1 Samuel 15:33, the Bible says
Samuel “hacked Agag to pieces.” Now this
true story is a picture of sin in our lives.
You cannot deal with only 90% of the sin in your life and think you’re
OK. You can’t even deal with 99.9% of
the sin in your life and think you’re OK.
You must put it to death. That is
precisely what our Lord said in Matthew 5:29-30 (“If your right eye causes
you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one
of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your
right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better
that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”). We must deal radically with sin!
I’m not going to spend too much time on the
specific sins except to say in v. 5 you have a list of personal sins (sexual
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness), and in vv. 8-9a
you have a list of relational sins (anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk
and lying). In other words, it’s not
enough to excise all the personal sins in your life if you’re still rotten
toward other people. Conversely, it’s
not enough to have all of your relationships working if you’re sinning like mad
in your private life. Finally, I can’t
move on without commenting on what Paul says at the end of v. 5. He equates covetousness with idolatry. Why?
Because the Holy Spirit wants us to know that covetousness—the sinful
pursuit of unnecessary things—crowds out God in our lives, and anything that
comes before God is idolatry.
2. …Because God’s Wrath is Coming… (v. 6).
OK, I understand that I’m to put to death a bunch of
things. Now the question is why? What is my incentive for doing these
things? How about this for incentive: God’s wrath is coming! Put to death what is earthly (or fleshly) in
you because “on account of these [the things mentioned in the previous section]
the wrath of God is coming.” God’s wrath
is serious business! I believe far too
many people (including Christians) don’t take God’s wrath seriously. In 2 Peter 3:3-7, Peter mentions that
scoffers will come in the last days mocking the return of Christ. Those days are here now.
In Matthew 24, Jesus said of his return that the
days in which he would return would resemble the days of Noah before the
flood. What were those days like? The Bible describes them as wicked, where the
thoughts and intentions of everyone were only evil continually (Genesis
6:5). God’s wrath came then, and it will
come again. Don’t think because of the
delay in Christ’s return that God has forgotten. The Bible says each day God delays, he is
storing up his wrath (Romans 2:5). In
other words, the longer God delays, the worse it will be for those who choose
not to repent.
Now Paul says “because of these things” God’s wrath
is coming. He is referring to the sinful
behaviors listed in v. 5 and the rest of the passage. Does that mean as a Christian if I have one
covetous thought, or one angry outburst, or one adulterous affair, I am subject
to God’s wrath? No. Though some have erroneously taught this, the
Bible does not teach that one must be perfect after coming to Christ. Holiness and righteousness, while not the perfection
of your life, ought to be the direction of your life. A Christian’s life ought to see the
decreasing frequency of sinful patterns of behavior. Bottom line, if your life is one unbroken
pattern of sexual immorality, impurity and covetousness, don’t be making any
plans to go to heaven.
3. …And Because You’re a New Person (vv. 7, 9b-11).
Paul gives us another reason to put to death our
earthly desires. That reason is that was
the way we used to act. Notice v. 7, “In
these you too once walked when you were living in them.” Before Christ, we acted in the same way every
other unbeliever acted. Now look at v.
9b, “seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.” “Put off” carries the idea of taking off an
old garment. When we come to Christ, we
take off the “old self.” What is the old
self? That is the person we used to be;
the person described in v. 7. The first
step in coming to Christ is repentance.
Repenting is the act of renouncing the old way of life. So we need to put to death our earthly
desires because in coming to Christ we repented of that old lifestyle—we put
that off.
Furthermore, we didn’t just put off the old self;
we put on a new self (v. 10a). That new
self is “being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.” The idea of “old and new” is not one of time,
but quality. In other words, the new
self is superior to the old self in quality.
Why? Because the new self is
constantly being renewed. So we should
put to death our earthly desires because we are a new person. When we came to Christ, he made us new (2
Corinthians
4. Application Time.
As we said earlier, this is the second step in
Christian living. We need to reform our
behavior. And the first step in
reforming our behavior is “putting to death” (i.e., a radical change) the old
self and its practices. Now, lest we
lose our focus, the theme of Colossians is the supremacy of Jesus Christ in all
things. If that is true, it must be true
in the way his followers live. If we
don’t live changed lives, then is Christ really supreme in our lives? If Christ is truly supreme, then that truth
ought to first change our thinking, and second our behavior. In our next study, we’ll get the second half
of our behavior reformation. It isn’t
enough to put to death our bad behavior.
We must put something in its place.
5. Bottom Line.
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you…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” (Colossians
3:5a, 9b, 10).
Have a blessed day!