The Bible is in turn to Colossians 3. Colossians 3 and verse 5 will be where we begin this morning. Lord willing, we'll make it down through verse 11. I'll begin reading in verse 1 just to give us the context one more time as we launch into our passage for today. Galatians 3.1 says, Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience. And in them you also once walked when you were living in them. But now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free man, but Christ is all and in all. Let's go to the Lord in prayer before we begin. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this time that we can come and worship you through the study of your word. I pray that you would help us to realize that all wisdom and knowledge is encapsulated in the man, Jesus Christ. And I just pray that we would look to him as the author and finisher of our faith and that we would walk in this life the very same way that we received you, and that is through faith. I pray that you would meet with us here this morning. I pray that you would remove any distractions from our minds ears that are ready to hear Your Word, and hearts that are fertile ground for that seed. And I just pray that it would grow and bear the fruit that You have for us. And I just pray that You would help us to be obedient servants of You, always willing to present ourselves as slaves of righteousness in Your sight, ready to do Your bidding. And I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So, the title of our message today is our Spiritual Outfit. You can see there on the screen, hopefully you can see it anyway. What we're going to be getting into is really the mechanics of the Christian life or the foundation that we have to have as believers in order to excel at the commands that He has for us. in our day-to-day lives. We've talked about several times how there are several commands throughout this section of the book and the rest of Colossians really that are going to lay out what the Christian life should look like. But first, we have to lay this foundation of putting off the old man and putting on the new man and understand really what that means in order to carry out those commands. And this is very similar to any kind of sport that you've ever played. First off, you have to learn the fundamentals of the game. You don't just go out the first day of baseball practice and start playing a game. You have to understand what it means to catch the ball and throw it the right way and field it the right way before you can put it all together into the game. You have to have that solid foundation in order to be able to play the game properly. And it's the same way with our Christian lives. We have to understand the foundation, the things that we have in Christ, in order to put those into practice in our daily lives. Of course, we're in the midst of our verse-by-verse study here of the book of Colossians. We've made it through chapters 1 and 2 and making our way into really the second half of the book, really the body of this letter that was written by Paul to believers in Colossae. Important to remember that they're believers because he's telling them all these things to do. If we don't understand that these people are saved individuals and they're doing these things because That is what God expects of us. Not in order to gain some sort of righteousness or favor in God's eyes, but rather just to be obedient. That's why we follow these commands. Not to gain righteousness somehow. In chapter 1, Paul really laid out his joy for the faith that the Colossians have. And he reiterates their place that they have in the family of God as being And then he shows them how Christ is sufficient in and of Himself, really encapsulated in verses 15 down through 20 of chapter 1. How Jesus Christ, the Godhead, the Trinity is sufficient in and of Itself. It doesn't rely on anything outside of Himself. That's the way God is. So that is telling us that we don't need to pursue philosophy. We don't need to pursue legalism, following rules in order to be righteous with God, because all of the righteousness is contained within the person of Christ. And that was the trap that the Colossians could have fallen into, is following man's wisdom, following man's rules in order to have righteousness. But Paul is telling them, that they don't need to do that. Everything is encapsulated in the person of Jesus Christ. The God-man, Jesus Christ. And since Christ is complete, the salvation that we have in Him is complete. We don't need to add anything to it. We've seen that we've been circumcised by Christ. He removed the sin nature as a barrier between man and God. Christ takes care of that at the moment that you put your faith in Him. And then we've also been baptized in the Holy Spirit. We have identified ourselves with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And now we've been raised to live this new life that we have in Christ. And last time, or two weeks ago actually, that since all of that stuff is true, all of those ideas are true, that we have died with Christ. And now we see that we've been raised up with Christ as well. We've died to the elementary principles of the world like he talks about in verse 20. of chapter 2. And then we've been raised up with Christ in verse 1 of chapter 3. So, keep seeking those things that are above. Keep seeking the eternal things. The things that matter in this life. Don't go after the things on the earth, but rather set your mind on Christ and the things that He has for you. And the motivation for that, why we should be doing that is because of verse 4, that we are going to be with Him when he comes again. So now, Paul is going to get into the real details of the Christian life. Really describing those mechanics of the spiritual life. How we need to put off the old man and put on the new man before he gets into really telling us exactly what the Christian life should look like in verses 18 and following in chapter 3 where he really gets into the nuts and bolts of that. that we have there in our outline in the home, at work, and just in our daily lives with the Lord. So what we're going to see today, again, is our spiritual outfit that we need to put sin to death in verses 5-7. And then we need to put off the old man in verses 8-9 and put on the new man in verses 10-11. So notice Colossians 3.5. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed, which amounts to idolatry. Again, we have that very important word there, the first word of the sentence, therefore. So that's telling us again that what is coming is based on what's come before. And I would submit to you That is because of verse 4. Therefore, since we are coming with Christ again when He comes again to this earth, start living that way now is essentially what Paul is going to describe to them. And here's how you do that is what's going to be going forward. We talked about it last time, Revelation 19, that believers will be coming with Christ dressed in fine linen, white robes and that sort of thing. And those robes are essentially our righteous acts. That is the motivation for us. Knowing that that time is coming in the future, we need to start living that way right now. So, verse 4 is really our motivation for how we should be living this spiritual life. And then verses 5-11 and really on down through verse 17 and chapter 3 are the mechanics, the foundation for that. How we actually make that a reality in our lives. How we can go about our daily lives with the right motives, the right foundation ensuring that what we are doing is for the Lord and not for ourselves or some other kind of impure motive. And that translation that I have on the screen there is the New American Standard Bible, but really a more, in this In this instance, a more literal translation, if you have a King James or the ESV, something along those lines, then it's going to be more in line with what the Greek text actually says. A more literal translation of that would be, therefore, put to death the members of your earthly bodies from immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. And that word that appears there, put to death, is the Greek word nekrao, Literally, that, to put to death, assassinate. Don't allow that to live anymore. And of course, that is an imperative. This is a command. Again, something that we have to do. This is the Word of God. This is telling us to do something. So as obedient Christians, we should be willing to do that. And so, as we're putting to death the members of our earthly body, we should be reminded that when we have placed our faith in Christ, we are new creatures in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. So, keep that in mind as you're going about your daily life. You are a new creature in Christ. So, start living like it. And that reminds us of the fact that this is talking about sanctification. Your daily life is sanctification. We've talked about this before. There are three tenses of salvation. Justification, when at the moment we put our faith in Christ, we're saved from the penalty of sin, we're justified in God's eyes. When the Bible speaks of salvation in the future tense, that's speaking of our glorification. That day when we will be delivered from the very presence of sin. That we will be in a glorified body, unable to commit sin. But when the Scripture references salvation in the present tense, that's speaking about sanctification. How we live now in this life. And that's exactly what Paul is going to get into here really the rest of Colossians, particularly chapter 3. Another way to look at this is we have a position in Christ based on our justification, but then we still have our sin nature. We're not taken out of this world as we all know. We still deal with the struggles of this life. We still deal with temptation in this life. So we have a present reality. We have a position in Christ and we have a present reality. Of course, we have salvation in Jesus Christ. There's no other name given among men whereby we must be saved. And we come to that salvation through belief in Christ. Acts 6.31, what must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. We're saved by God's grace through faith. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. And that gives us this glorious position that we have in Christ. This complete salvation that we've talked about. Colossians 2, 10. And in Him, you have been made complete. There's nothing else we need added to our salvation. It's complete in Christ. Ephesians 1.3 tells us that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. At the moment we put our faith in Him, we have all of that. We have every spiritual blessing. And our position in Christ is secure. Once we have put our faith in Christ, it's never going to be taken away. 27 says, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. That no one includes us. Once we've put our faith in Christ, we can't do anything to undo that. Our position in Christ is completely secure. Once you are saved, that is eternal life. It is eternal. It's never going to go away. But the other side of the ledger is the present reality that we have in Christ. Our lives aren't perfect. We're not free from the presence of sin just yet. So therefore, we have to carry on in this life, and the way that we do that is by abiding in Christ. John 15, 1-5, daily submitting to the Lord, abiding in Him, abiding in His words, staying in fellowship with Him through prayer, and setting our minds on Christ, as it says in Colossians 3-2. and walking in those good works that have been prepared ahead of time for us. Ephesians 2.10 tells us that the Lord in His sovereignty has the path that He wants us to walk in and He has prepared these good works ahead of time for us to do, so we need to be about that business that the Lord has for us. But we still sin, so that's a major problem for us. That's a major problem that keeps us on the right side instead of on the left side in our secure, perfect position in Christ, we need to remain in fellowship with Him. But, the Lord in His complete salvation has provided a way for us to be able to do that, and that is confessing our sins to the Lord. And Jesus Christ, through His shed blood, He's faithful and He is righteous to forgive us of our sins. And we can maintain that fellowship with the Lord so we can maintain in this present reality that we have to live in, we can stay in a right, good standing with the Lord. And this is really what Paul is getting at here in the rest of Colossians, is this present reality that we have to live in. How do we go about staying in fellowship with the Lord, being pleasing to Him? And one of the problem areas that we get into, obviously, is sin. And that's what Paul is reminding them of here in verse 5. We need to consider ourselves dead or put to death these certain sins that so easily beset us as believers. And he has an entire litany of things there that are very typical for people to fall into. The first one is immorality or illicit behavior. Things that God has ordained to carry on between a man and a woman in marriage. And if you are not a man and a woman in marriage, that's off limits. That is a dreadful sin in the eyes of the Lord. And that should not be mentioned among us and we should put that to death. And we'll get into just exactly what that means to put that to death shortly. But 1 Corinthians chapter 6 gives us a good inkling as to just exactly what Paul is getting at here with this term. It's always a good idea to look up these terms when you come across them in the Bible. See where else they appear in the Bible and you'll get a better understanding of just exactly what they mean. But why should we put this sin to death in our life? 1 Corinthians 6.12 says, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality. Same word as appears in Colossians 3. but for the Lord. And the Lord is for the body. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, the two shall become one flesh. Speaking of marriage and how these actions can only take place between a man and a woman who are married. Verse 17, but the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price? Therefore, glorify God in your body." Flee immorality and glorify God in your body. And Paul goes on in Colossians 3 to speak of impurity, or really what that means is moral impurity. This immorality and moral impurity really go hand in hand. But we have not been called to immorality, but 1 Thessalonians 4-7 tells us what we've been called to. For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification, living in obedience to the Lord now. And another thing that goes along with these two sinful areas is passion or some strong desire is what it literally means. So we're not to have a strong desire for these sinful actions, but rather, as we've already seen, Colossians 3.2, set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth. And there's nothing that is more earthly or fleshly than what Paul is getting at A couple sins that he mentions there. And another synonym really for that passion is this evil desire or craving, coveting that he mentions. And that word appears in Mark 4, verse 19 where Jesus Christ is laying out the parable of the soils and he uses this same word to say that This is what chokes us out from being able to produce fruit in this life. Mark 4.19 says, but the worries of the world and the deceitful of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. So when our minds are set on things that are on the earth, not on Christ, The Word of God can't bear fruit in our lives. It's an impossibility for that to happen. That's exactly what John 15 is getting at when it says that outside of Christ we can do nothing. As believers in Christ, if we're not abiding in Him, we can do nothing that is pleasing to Him. And then finally, Paul mentions greed or wanting more than what you are due. If you're not married to a man or a woman in this life, and you're wanting something that only a man and woman can have, that is greed. And that's wanting more than what is due to you. And Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God considers that idolatry. Anything that we put in our lives ahead of what God says or God's Word is essentially idolatry. And obviously, that should not be named among a believer in Jesus Christ. Well, it's easy to make this list and then try to just say these things, but how do we do that? How do we put sin to death? And that's really what Romans 6 is all about. We don't have time to get into just exactly everything that Paul says there in that wonderful chapter of the Bible, but Romans 6 is all about knowing your position, knowing that left side of the graph that we had up there. Know the position that we have in Christ, the complete salvation. the fact that He's provided everything for us, all our righteousness is bound up in the person of Christ and we are in Him, and therefore, act on that position that we have in Christ. Romans 6.12 says, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace." We are under grace in this age in which we live. God has graciously provided salvation for us, so how dare we trample on so great a salvation that He has provided for us in living in a way that is disobedient to Him and what He has for us. And I speak these things to myself just as much as anybody here. As much or more. James 4 gives us another good way to put sin to death. James 4.1 says, Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." So when we are setting our mind on things other than Christ, we are an enemy of God. Verse 5, "'Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us. but He gives us a greater grace. Therefore, it says God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And this is the key. How do we put sin to death? Verse 7, submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. That's a promise from the Scripture, from the Word of God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you. That is how we put sin to death in our lives. We submit to His will and His way in our lives. We confess our sin that so easily besets us and we will be exalted by the Lord. He will lift us up. He will keep us in our walk with Him. That key is to humble yourself and submit to God. Submit to His Word. Flee from the devil. And whatever evil makes you stumble, whatever that is, flee from it. Leave it away and draw near to God. Why should we do that? Why should we put sin to death? And that's what we see in verse 6 of Colossians 3. Colossians 3 says, for it is because of these things, these sins, that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience. You see that upon the sons of disobedience is in the parentheses there. That's because that phrase doesn't appear in the earliest But most of the translations that we have today do include that in there. But sin, these things, are what is bringing God's wrath. We saw that last week. Revelation 19, 11 through 21 speaks of Jesus Christ coming again. because of the sins of the people. But that's not just a New Testament invention. Of course, that comes from the Old Testament. Isaiah 63, verse 1 says, Who is this who comes from Edom with garments of glowing colors from Basra? This One who is majestic in His apparel, marching in the greatness of His strength. It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red, and your garments like the one who treads in the winepress? I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with me. I also trod them in my anger, and trampled them in my wrath, and their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance was in my heart and my year of redemption has come. I looked and there was no one to help and I was astonished and there was no one to uphold, so my own arm brought salvation to me and my wrath upheld me. I trod down the peoples in my anger and made them drunk in my wrath and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth." We have the promise from the Word of God that Jesus Christ is coming. to punish these sins that have gone on. He goes on in Zephaniah 1, verse 14, Here is the great day of the Lord, near and coming very quickly. Listen, the day of the Lord. In it the warrior cries out bitterly. A day of wrath is that day. A day of trouble and distress. A day of destruction and desolation. A day of darkness and gloom. A day of clouds and thick darkness. A day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and the high corner towers. I will bring distress on men so that they will walk like the blind because they have sinned against the Lord. So these sins are bringing God's wrath onto the earth. So why in the world would we as believers in Christ want to walk in that way? We should be setting our minds on the things of Christ, not on these sinful things. And we need to realize that believers, again, are going to be with Christ when He comes again like we saw in Revelation 19.14, Colossians 3.4, when Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. The wonderful news of the Gospel is that people don't need to be under God's wrath. Christ paid the penalty for our sins. Colossians 2, 13 and 14, He took all of the sins of the world past, present and future upon Himself on the cross. Verse 14 of Colossians 2, having cancelled out the certificate of debt, consisting of decrees against us which was hostile to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Our sins don't separate us from God anymore. They only separate us in fellowship. They don't keep us from eternal life because that penalty has been paid by Jesus Christ. The only sin, the unpardonable sin that keeps us out of heaven is the sin of unbelief. Christ has paid the penalty for our sins. We simply have to believe, trust in the name of Christ for that salvation. So therefore, we should not be walking like an unbeliever. Notice verse 7 in Colossians 3. And in those sins, you also once walked when you were living in them. No matter how righteous a person thinks he is before he is in faith in Jesus Christ, all of that righteousness, all of those righteous acts are like filthy garments, Isaiah 64.6 says. We used to walk the way that the world walked, but since we are a believer in Christ, we've died to the world. verse Colossians 2.20, if or since you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, therefore, die to those actions. Don't walk in those actions any longer. And really, what death is, when we speak of putting these actions to death, what it really is is a separation from those actions. That's what death is scripturally. When we physically die, our spirit, the immaterial part of us that makes us up, separates from our physical body and we die physically. When Adam sinned in the garden, his spirit was separated from the Lord from God. That's why He spiritually died at that moment that He sinned, because there was a separation between Adam and God that didn't used to be there. Before He sinned, there was not that barrier. After he sinned, there was that barrier. There was a separation between God and Adam. So when Paul is telling the believers in Colossae to put to death these actions, that's exactly what he's telling them. To separate themselves from those actions. Romans 13.14 says, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lust." Dr. J. Vernon McGee tells kind of a humorous story in this regard of a little boy who's standing in the pantry before dinner with the cookie jar open, knowing that he's not supposed to be eating the cookies right before dinner. And his mom says to him, Johnny, what are you doing? And the little boy says, I'm just standing here resisting temptation Don't be like that. Separate yourself from the temptation. Don't stand in the pantry with the cookie jar open if you know you shouldn't be doing that. And that's a really good thing for us to be doing as well. Whatever that sin is, separate yourself from that. And you'll have a whole lot better chance of resisting the temptation. Then Paul changes the metaphor from putting to death these actions to one of Notice verse 8, but now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from your mouth. And on into verse 9, do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices. And what we have there is really two verbs that point to putting on clothes and as we will see, Later in to verse 10, he talks about putting on clothes or putting on garments. But that first one, but now you also put them all aside, that put aside is apotethime, which literally means to undress or put off, rid oneself of. And again, that is another imperative. And it's important for us to see that in the construction of that verb, it's in the middle voice, meaning that when we do this, we do it for our own good. When we put off the old man, put aside the old man, that is for us. It's not for anybody else, but the Lord is instructing us that we need to do this in order to be right with Him for our own good. Sins of the mouth is what is being discussed here when he says, put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech. And again, the book of James tells us a lot about sins of the mouth and the real danger that we have in regard to this area in our life. James 3 and verse 5 says, So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity. The tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our life and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and birds and reptiles and creatures of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by the human race, but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives? Or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh." Notice that he's calling them brethren there a few times over and over. Emphasizing that people who are believers in Christ can fall into this same area of stumbling. These horrible sins from our mouths. That word for slander is actually blasphemy. We need to be fleeing from things that are blasphemous to the Lord, blasphemous to one another. We're all created in God's image, so we shouldn't be running one another down and those sorts of things. And of course, abusive speech, sometimes that will be translated obscene speech or vulgar speech, those kinds of things that shouldn't even come close to being named among us. As believers in Christ, as we see in James 3, and the Lord also spoke about what's coming out of our mouths is what's inside of us. And that is a dead giveaway. When you're speaking in those sorts of ways, you're telling the whole world what's going on inside of your mind and in your heart. So we need to flee from that. Get rid of that. Put it off. Put it aside. As Paul says here, And that next verse 9 says, do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices. That laid aside is another synonym for that same thing taking off. Apekduomai is the Greek word and there's two suffixes on that in the beginning of that verb. Apo, which means from and ek, which means out of. So he's kind of doubly saying, put it off, get it away from you, like it's a garment that's on fire, like your coat that you're wearing is literally on fire. You just want to take it off and throw it away from you and get away from it as fast as you can before it does harm to you. And that's exactly the way we should treat our old man, our old self, the way that we walked before we came the Lord. And we are not to lie to one another. Of course, it should go without saying, but again, he's writing to believers, warning them to not do this. Don't lie to one another, implying that as believers in Christ, we can do these things. So, confess it as sin. Flee from it. Humble yourself before the Lord and don't do it anymore is essentially what Paul is saying. But we've seen this word before in Colossians 2.15 when it says, When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through him. If you remember, God The Father disarmed the satanic powers in this world when Christ was on the cross. Through Christ's death on the cross, those forces in this world have been disarmed. They no longer have any power over us. believers. And this is the same way with our flesh now that Paul is saying, using the same word that our old man, which used to dominate us, is now disarmed. It doesn't have that same power over us. So therefore, we can take it off, throw it away, get away from it, and we don't have to walk in that way anymore. It does not have that power over us. So when we do that, when we do walk in that way, we are consciously, with our minds, deciding that we want to take off the new man, take off the garment that the Lord has made for us. We want to pick up that old one, put it back on, and start walking that way. It's our own volition that's doing that. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you walk that way. You're doing it on your own. So Paul is telling the believers here and telling each and every one of us here in this room, don't do that. Don't walk in that way. pleasing to the Lord." We need to lay that aside and put on instead the new man. Notice Colossians 3.10, "...and have put on a new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him." We are to put on the new man. The Greek word for that is enduo, which literally means to dress or put on. And this is a participle. So it's telling us, cluing us into when this happened. This happened when we put our faith in Christ. We have already put on the new man when He is saying this. So we need to walk in this certain way because the new man has already been put on. We are already wearing that. And this word appears in some interesting places. Believers in a parable that Jesus told about the Kingdom of Heaven. Believers are dressed in new clothes in the Kingdom. They have to be in a certain garment in that parable that was handed out to them. That is symbolizing the righteousness of the Lord. If you're not in that righteousness, you're not welcome in the Kingdom. We are to put on the armor of light. 13, really 12-14 says, the night is almost gone and the day is near. Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regards to its lust. And really, the motivation for us in putting on this new man is found in 1 Corinthians 15-53 that promises us that someday we're going to put on immortality. Where Paul says, for this perishable must put on the imperishable and this mortal must put on immortality. We are going to be immortal one day. We're going to put on a glorified body. So we need to be walking in a way that is pleasing to the Lord now, knowing that we're going to give an account to Him someday. When we stand before Him at the judgment seat of Christ, we're going to give an account for how we've lived here. So we need to get on board with what the Lord is telling us through the Apostle Paul here. And this renewal that he's speaking of, notice that that comes through a true knowledge Colossians 3.10 again, "...and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him." Over and over, Paul has mentioned this knowledge and wisdom and how this is all bound up in Christ. And we don't need to go to any sort of outside source other than the Scripture to gain this wisdom and knowledge of salvation in the person of Jesus Christ. We don't conjure this knowledge up in our own minds through prayer or some kind of spiritual meditation or anything. Like that, the righteousness that we have in Christ is contained in the Word of God. And as we are submitting to that Word, we are being renewed into the image of Christ. That's the whole goal of the spiritual life, is to be more Christ-like. That's what sanctification is, is becoming more Christ-like. Becoming more like the one in whose image we are made. And certainly in this spiritual life, when we're raised to walk in this newness of life, the idea is to be raised to walk in the image of the One in whom we have salvation. Jesus Christ. So, that is our goal. To be more Christ-like. And in that, in verse 11, in this renewal, We see something about it. Verse 11, a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free man, but Christ is all and in all. So what he's saying there is that there isn't any distinction. There aren't any superstar Christians that are in God's eyes higher than everybody else. There's nobody that's lower than everybody else. In the Navy, we had a saying among the junior officers that there was no seniority among the junior officers. Now in the Marine Corps, they did things a little bit differently. In the Navy, if you were an ensign, you didn't have to call the lieutenant, sir, and salute him and go through all of that because all of the junior officers were like a cadre. We were all in it together against the whole world sometimes it seemed like. But that's the way it is in God's eyes as far as Christians go. There's no seniority among believers and Paul breaks this down for us in four different ways. By saying that there's neither Greek or Jew, there's no national distinctions. There's no such thing in heaven as an American Christian, a Chinese Christian, a Mexican Christian. Whatever you are, you are a Christian. You're a believer in Christ. You don't get a higher place in heaven because you're an American Christian or wherever you come from. But there's also no religious distinctions anymore. That's what he means by saying the circumcised and uncircumcised. It doesn't matter if you're a Methodist believer in Christ, or a Baptist believer in Christ, or a Bible Church member believer in Christ. None of that matters. If you believe in the name of Jesus Christ, not thinking that Jesus was a great man, or a great prophet, or that He's the tooth fairy. None of that. That He is the God-man come in the flesh to die for our sins. then you have salvation. And it doesn't matter what angle you're coming from, as far as religions go, all of those distinctions have been done away with. And there are no cultural distinctions. That's what he means by saying the barbarian and Scythian. In the eyes of a Greek, any person who didn't speak Greek was considered a barbarian. And the worst of the barbarians were the Scythians, people who lived up by the Black Sea area. That's what he's getting at there. It doesn't matter where you come from, what your background is, what culture you live in, if you're a believer in Christ, you have salvation in Christ. And finally, the last distinction that Paul makes is an economic one. It doesn't matter if you earn $3 an hour flipping burgers at McDonald's or you're the owner of McDonald's and you have $3 billion a day coming into your bank account, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you are saved. You have eternal life and you should be being renewed to the image of Jesus Christ. And then he sums it all up at the end of the verse there by saying, but Christ is all and in all. That's the whole point of the book of Colossians is to understand that Christ is sufficient. We are complete in Him. Every distinction among men is done away with in Christ because we are all in Christ. Therefore, we all have His righteousness. have to worry about any of these sorts of distinctions that we have. And that should be our goal as we're living this life that he has left us here to live, is to be renewed into that image. And then he's going to go on in the rest of Colossians 3 to describe just exactly what that is going to look like in our lives. But what we've seen today is our spiritual outfit, that we are to put sin to death, put sinful actions to death. In other words, separate yourself from those sinful actions. Don't dwell in the midst of it. Don't stay as close as you can to the fire and see how close you can get without being burned, but separate yourself. from those sinful actions. Put off the old man, that garment that we wore as unbelievers. Take that off. Throw it away. Separate yourself from it. Get away from it. Don't go back to it and put it on. But understand that you've put on the new man and walk in that way. That is our spiritual outfit. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for this time that we've had to study Your Word. I thank You for Your presence in this place. I thank You for the promises of Your Word. I thank You that You will walk with us in this life as we submit to Your Word and we stay in fellowship with You, that we are not left to wander around in this dark world by ourselves, but rather we can look to You the author and finisher of our faith for guidance and protection. And I thank you that you are not an aloof God who doesn't really understand what we're going through, but You came to this earth and lived here among us and had the same temptations, the same forces pressing against you, but you are our spiritual example in that you lived the perfect life, wholly dependent upon the Holy Spirit, always looking to the Father for guidance and protection in this life, and you did it perfectly as our example. I pray that we would set our minds on You and not on things in this earth. And that we would flee from the immorality and just the darkness that is all around us. I pray that You would help us to understand that we are children of the light and help us to walk in the light of Jesus Christ. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy. To the only God our Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. And all God's people said, Amen.