Morning. Open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3. I apologize for my voice and if I cough. I started coming down with something yesterday and I woke up with a really sore throat this morning. So please pray for me. I feel really not feeling good and tired. So I need the strength from the Lord. I'm really enjoying going through Colossians together with you, and we're getting closer to the end of the book. Not quite there yet, but we're going to look at chapter 3, verses 1 through 11 today. All right, would you stand with me for the reading of God's Word? I'm going to look at Colossians 3, starting in verse 1. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 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. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual morality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. 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, 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." This is God's word. You may be seated. Clothes tell us a lot about a person, don't they? What someone wears. Clothes help us distinguish between men and women. We wear certain styles of clothes based on our age, certain styles depending on where we're from, what our profession is, what our personality is, who we hang out with. And our clothes often display to the world who we think we are, what our identity is. Clothes tell a lot about a person, don't they? Well, the Apostle Paul tells us in this section of Colossians that we are to put away our old way of life like a garment that no longer fits us. It's no longer fitting to our identity. We are called to focus on Christ and our identity which is found in Him and turn away from every practice that does not fit with who we are in Christ. We are called here to put sin to death. We are called to put it to death because sin is the enemy of the Christian life. As Paul says in another way in Romans, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. That is what Paul is telling us here in Colossians 3. Now, if you'll remember, last time we were in Colossians, we looked at the danger of trying to overcome sin by mere external conformity, by just trying to do better, right? And we looked at the danger of relying on some kind of a static spiritual experience that would give us special knowledge or, you know, that's the thing we need and then we will have the tools to overcome our sinful desires. We considered how both of these are ways of seeking fullness that does not keep Christ at the center. In fact, what those methods of trying to overcome sin have in common is the focus is on self. Right? Any sin that we overcome by self-will is just replaced by self-righteousness, right? And any kind of spiritual experience that we're relying on is a way of setting ourselves up against our brothers and sisters, thinking that we have special knowledge that they don't, and so we're more spiritual. And all it does is puff up and induce pride, and it has, as Paul said in Colossians 2, no power, no ability to overcome the passions of the flesh. It has no strength to do so. As we saw throughout Colossians, the theme is the supremacy and the sufficiency of Jesus Christ, right? Jesus Christ alone. He is the image of the invisible God. And we must know by faith that when we trusted in Jesus, that He has overcome the power of sin and the devil. And so if we have Christ, then sin no longer has power over us. And the devil no longer has power over us. He can't accuse us anymore. I want us to see today that we are called to... Paul shows us that we need to have first, a right perspective. And second, to live in accordance with that reality. This is what we need to walk away with today. Since your identity is found in Christ, focus on Him and put away the old life. Since your identity is found in Christ, focus on Him and put away the old life. Your identity is in Christ. Look at verse one, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Listen, since you have been raised with Christ, you need to seek the things that are above. It doesn't have the sense of trying to cause you to doubt whether or not you've been raised with Christ, but to say, if indeed this is true of you, if indeed you are in Christ by faith, then you have been raised with Christ. And if you are not in Christ, if you don't have faith in Christ, well then of course this isn't true of you. But if you are in Christ, then if you have trusted in Christ, then you have been raised with Him. So seek the things that are above. This is to assure us that every Christian who has Christ has the fullness of God, shares in this reality. It's not for just some special group of Christians, right, that have been raised with Christ. Everyone who is trusted in Jesus, who has been born again by the Spirit, has been raised with Christ. This is important. Important thing to understand since we are identified with Jesus. Thank you Since we are identified with Christ It can be said that we have been raised from the dead that we participate by faith in Christ's death and resurrection Now when I say participate, I don't mean we contribute to the death and resurrection of Jesus, right? we passively participate we are identified with Jesus by the Spirit and Notice that it says here, you have been raised with Christ. That is a passive verb. That means God is the one who has raised you. You are the one who has received this from God. You have been raised with Christ. God is the one who has done it. None of us has caused ourselves to be raised from the dead, spiritually dead. We were dead in our sins, right? We were dead in our trespasses and sins following the course of the world, following the devil, following our own desires, as Paul says in Ephesians 2. And when we were dead in our sins, God, because of his great love, raised us up with Christ and seated us in the heavenlies with him. So what have you contributed to this work of God. What have you contributed to being raised with Christ? We've added nothing. God is the one who has redeemed us in Christ. It is not by our own efforts. It's not by engaging in some sort of meditation so we can get some kind of spiritual, special spiritual understanding. It's the, it's the work of Jesus Christ, which was revealed to us through the word of God and the spirit who speaks through the word. and the gospel is the power of God for salvation, right? So when you heard the gospel, when someone preached the gospel to you, you heard it from someone, from church, or someone that you know, your family at work, all they were was the instrument of sharing with you what God has done in Christ, right? And God, in His power, brought you to life from being spiritually dead. The Spirit caused you to be born again. It says in Peter, born again to a living hope, right? That's the name of our church. We can't forget that. This is important as we get into what it means to put sin to death. We have to start with an understanding of this reality. What God has done in Christ. So since this is true, by God's grace, seek the things that are above. That means seek the things that pertain to the kingdom of God. Seek the things that are the values, the thoughts, the attitudes, the way of life that is in conformity with your identity with Jesus. That is in conformity with God's realm, which is not of this earth. The things that are above, he says, is where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. When the scripture says that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, that's meant to highlight that He shares the authority of God the Father. That He has all authority over the heavens and the earth. We've already seen that in Colossians, haven't we? That Christ has all authority because He created it and He takes first place in redemption. He is the head of creation and He is the head of His church. And so He has all authority. And when you recognize, when we understand that we have died with Christ, that we're identified with Christ, and we are to seek the things that are above, that means we are to reckon our lives under the authority of Jesus Christ. And we are to live our lives with a recognition that Jesus is our Lord. He is our King. He is our Master. And His kingdom is not of this world. His kingdom is not like this world. When you read the Gospels and you see the teaching of Jesus, you hear the teaching of Jesus, you realize that the way things work in God's kingdom is different than the world works, isn't it? I like to call it the upside-down kingdom, right? The first will be last and the last will be first. The things that you by nature, in your sinful nature, think are of value, are right, are good, God shows us that in His kingdom and under His rule, under His authority, that we are to live a certain way that matches with the identity that we have with Jesus in being under His rule. Jesus is sovereign. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is seated at the right hand of God. So this Christ that you've been raised with is no other than the Christ who rules over everything. And this is your Lord. This is a wonderful thing. It's not like our King, our Lord Jesus, is like any worldly King that has ever existed. He is good. His way is good. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. And He will never disappoint you. Living under His rule and His kingdom will always bring you joy, will always bring glory to His name and bring you good in your life. You need to hold fast to this truth. The second thing he tells us about our identity with Jesus is, since you have died with Christ, do not focus on the things below. So the opposite of, or the corollary to focusing on the things above is not focusing on the things below. Do not set your mind on the things below. He says, set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Now, he's not implying that As far as God's creation goes, that somehow creation is flawed or bad. God created everything and he said it was what? It was good. And what God has been doing since the fall is redeeming all things. And it has come to its climax in what God has done in Jesus Christ. Remember the Christ hymn, as we keep referencing? that he is reconciling all things to himself in Christ. God is bringing a new heavens and a new earth. Paul is not advocating here an idea of what became known as Gnosticism, which is that the spirit is good and the physical world is bad. And that the hope we have is to get rid of the physical, and we see this in all our cartoons, right? And float around on the clouds and play harps. But the hope we have is that Jesus rose from the dead and that he's coming back and that he's going to raise us with new glorified bodies without sin, done away with the sinful nature, and that he's bringing a new heavens and a new earth, right? This is our hope. So when he says the things on earth, he's talking about the things of this world that are not under the authority of Jesus Christ. He has all authority, but anything in this world that is in rebellion against Him, anything in this world that does not submit to His Lordship, do not focus on the things of this world that That have nothing to do with the kingdom of God and that are contrary to the kingdom of God instead focus on Jesus and what he who he is who we are in him and what how he calls us to live as part of his kingdom We need to have a heavenly Perspective which means that we need to have an ultimate perspective. It means our mindset needs to be that this is true This is the reality that that either we are under the Lordship of Jesus Christ or we are not. Either we are under the Lordship of Jesus Christ by faith, or we are dead in our sins and in rebellion. Now if you have been raised with Christ, then focus on Christ. Focus on who He is and what it means to be under His rule, and do not focus on the old way of life. Do not focus on the things of this world. this mindset by faith. Now, this requires faith, doesn't it? You can't see with your eyes that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God at this moment. You can't prove scientifically that you have died with him and rose from the dead with him, right? Spiritually. You must believe this, trust this by faith, holding fast to the Word of God, knowing that we who are in Christ, who have trusted in Christ, have died to sin and have been raised to new life in Christ. And so, when we see the tantalizing desires of the world, or, you know, like Asaph in Psalm 73, and we see how the wicked prosper, and we think, well see, that doesn't lead to anything bad. Living according to the values of this world doesn't make any difference. We need to walk by faith in that moment. We need to hold fast to God's Word and seek the things that are above, not the things that are below, not the things of this earth, not the things that aren't under the authority of Jesus Christ submitting to his authority. We must stand confidently on God's Word. The third thing we must understand about identity is since your life is hidden with Christ be certain you will participate in his glory look at this this is amazing verse 3 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 first of all he says that that our life is hidden with Christ what does it mean that our life is hidden with Christ that sounds kind of strange Well, first of all, it means that we are closely associated with Jesus. That we are identified with Him. Our life is hidden with Him. That He is our life. He is our source of life. He is the one who gives life to us. He's the one who's brought us alive from the dead. Our identity is found in the fact that we are in Christ. that we have Christ. Our identity as a Christian is not found primarily in our ethnicity, our gender, our sexual desires, our socioeconomic status, all the things this world wants to tell you. This is your identity. No, for the Christian, your identity is found in Christ. Christ is Our Lord. Christ is the one who is risen from the dead. We are identified with him. We are part of his new creation. It's problematic to put an adjective on your identity as a Christian, isn't it? to say something like, and I know we're well-meaning when we say this, but just think with me for a moment here. If we say, I am an American Christian, the emphasis is on the first part, right? I'm an American who happens to be a Christian. But it's the other way around, saints. You are a Christian first, you are identified with Jesus, and you are an American. Okay, you happen to be an American there Christians all over the world Christianity is not American, right? the identity we have in Jesus is Represented by him. He is the identity of the believer so you are a Christian and so we are to live as Christians our culture our family culture our our you know, our preferences, all of that can distract from the glory of God. Our values are not to be the values of our culture, of our family, first and foremost. No, our values need to be the values of God's kingdom, of God's family. And we want to bring our family, our culture, our workplace, we want to bring those into conformity with the values of God's kingdom, right? Not the other way around. God gets priority. So, our being hidden with Christ means we're identified with Him, and it means that we have eternal security. We have security because we are in Christ. He is the guarantee that we will appear with Him in glory. Because your life is hidden in Christ, if you have trusted in Christ, if you have the Spirit, and you are identified with Jesus, then your life is preserved by Christ. What a blessed hope, saints! What a blessed hope! If it was up to you to guard the deposit that has been given to you, we would all be lost. But Christ holds us fast. Christ has us hidden in Himself by the Spirit. He says, when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will appear with Him in glory. Since your life is hidden with Christ, we are going to participate in the glory of Christ. Now, again, when I say participate, we're not adding anything to the glory of Christ, are we? No, no. How does God display His glory? He displays His glory through what He has done. And what He has done in Christ to redeem a people for Himself is to the praise of His glory. What is glory? I had someone actually ask me that this week, and we sat there and talked about it for a while. And we realized that glory is hard to define. It's something that is easier, it's something that you know when you see it. But it's hard to explain it. God's glory is His presence. God's glory is His greatness. It's the display of His goodness. It's the display of His greatness. And it's one thing to describe it, it's another thing to behold it. And when Christ returns, we will see the glory of God. Now, when someone's greatness is on display, It's pretty exciting, right? Like when you watch the Olympics and someone has strived hard and they win the gold medal and you see them rejoicing and we could say that we see them in their glory. Oh, the glory that Christ has is far greater than any Olympic athlete. What Christ has accomplished is greater than what any athlete has accomplished. And when Christ returns, the glory of God will be on display in Christ, and we will be with Him in glory. What? Us? Sharing in the glory of God? We will be the display of God's glory. He will show just how great He is because of what He has done in Christ to redeem us. He has displayed His goodness in what He has done in Christ. And your life is hidden in Christ. And you have this firm confidence that this is true. So this is what you need to hold on to, saints. You need to have this perspective by faith. You need to understand that you are identified with Christ. That you have died with Him, and that you have been raised with Him, that you are hidden with Him, and that when He comes back in glory, everything that He has done, and everything in our lives that has been done for His glory will be on display to magnify the greatness of God. So you need to hold on to that as we look at verse 5. See, we're called to put away the old life. Since we're in Christ, we are to live as members of His kingdom, as those under His authority, and not according to our old ways. He gives us two parallel commands here put to death What is earthly in you and then in verse? I'm sorry verse 8, but now you must put them all the way these are parallel commands He's saying we need to put to death now. This is a pretty serious word. It means to violently Seriously put sin to death you can't take it lightly sin is your enemy and When your enemy is trying to kill you, you don't coddle it. You don't treat it like it's no big deal. You have to fight with everything you have and put them away. We must have nothing to do with it. Put it away from us. Our old life was characterized by what Paul, what we'll see here, and we need to take those things off as fiercely as we can and put them away because they have no place in the church of Jesus Christ. They have no place in the kingdom of God. Now let's not get off in the weeds here and forget everything that we learned in Colossians so far. We have seen over and over again that what the Apostle clearly does not mean here is overcome sin by your own efforts. Like we said last time, trying to overcome sin by your own effort is like trying to break up the concrete in your driveway with a 16-ounce hammer. It's ridiculous. And you're not going to get anywhere. And if you do succeed, it only leads to self-righteousness. Notice the word, therefore, in verse 5. That means that what comes next is subordinate to what has been said before. Because you have been raised with Christ, because you are seated with Him in the heavenlies, because you are identified with Him, therefore, put these things to death. The first point is that it's what God has done in Christ. What God has done in Christ has given us the ability, has enabled the fact that we can put sin to death. And it's only by faith. We put it to death, focusing on Christ, knowing who we are, and knowing that sin is an oxymoron for the Christian. It does not conform with who we are in Christ. It doesn't make any sense to live according to the old way. It doesn't fit in the kingdom of God. When Jesus comes back, and establishes the new heavens and the new earth, and there's no more sin, and His glory is on display for all to see, and He will rule and reign forever and ever, none of us will live this way in sin. None of us will walk in sins of desire or sins of the mouth. None of us will live in sin. So if we are in Christ now, waiting for that consummation, why would we live that way now? That's what Paul is saying. This is true of who we are. This is who Christ is. This is who you are in Christ. Therefore, live like a Christian. Live as if you have died to sin, in that it has no more power over you, as we read in Romans. Don't let sin have dominion over you anymore. Consider yourself dead to sin. By faith, consider yourself dead to sin. We must live according to this reality. So what is clearly not meant when we get this list of what we are not to do is this is not a list of these are the things you need to do for God to accept you. It's actually the other way around. Because God has accepted you because of what Christ has done, live this way. Live in conformity with who Christ is in His kingdom and under His rule. I'm going to keep hammering at that because this is something we forget so quick, isn't it? We fall back into trying to earn God's favor. You know, we wake up and we didn't, we woke up late and we had to run out the house and get to work and we didn't have our devotions and then we have this mindset that, well, I didn't have my devotions today, so today's going to be a bad day because God's not happy with me right now. That is not a gospel mindset. That is not a mindset that understands that you are accepted by God because of what Christ has done. So when you seek the Lord, it's because you love him and because that's what it is to be a Christian, to fellowship with God, to live under his authority. We can only overcome sin by faith. We know that we can only overcome sin because Jesus has conquered the power of sin, right? So, we are to put these things to death. We are not to live at peace with them. We are not to have anything to do with these ways of life. And he starts this first list with a list of what I call the sins of desire. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Now, pretty much all of these have to do with sexual sin. Why is that? There's so many more sins that Paul could list. And then he does have a second list here, which are relational sins of the mouth. Well, think about it. The Colossian Christians were primarily Gentiles. And if you know anything about Gentiles in the first century, is they were filled with sexual perversions. If you go and read stuff from that time, you'll blush. And it's no different than the day we live in. The sexual perversion that is in our culture is rampant, right? And Paul is not naive, and we ought not to be naive that these things are temptations for every Christian. In fact, all of these things probably characterized us in one way or another when we were dead in our sins. And these sins in one shape or form have been temptations for us as believers. But we must understand that to live in this way, is to live contrary to who we are in Christ. Sexual immorality means, what's in focus here is fornication and adultery. We must have nothing to do with these things. Let me just say something about these words, fornication and adultery. We need to be careful about the way we speak about sin. Now, sometimes in a certain context it might be appropriate, but most of the time we like to use softer words when we speak about sin. Instead of fornication, we'll say, sleeping together. And instead of adultery, we'll say, an affair. Right? Now, nothing wrong with those words, but either of those words do not have any kind of moral connotation to them, do they? They do not make any kind of judgment on it as a sin. They're neutral. But when we say fornication, when we say adultery, everybody knows what we're talking about, and that we are understanding it as sin, right? Listen, we are to have nothing to do with fornication or adultery. Now, these are temptations. They are a reality. We can't stick our head in the sand and think, oh, Christians don't do that. Yes, this happens. Now, when someone repents of sin, if a Christian falls into sin, we forgive them just as God in Christ has forgiven us, right? This list isn't here to categorize Christians who have fallen into sin and then to say, have nothing to do with them. No, it's saying, this should not be the lifestyle of a Christian. It's contrary to your nature, impurity. Impurity is more broad, and it just means anything that's filthy and corrupted by sin. It can refer to anything unholy in Leviticus, to uncleanness, things that make you unclean before God. If sexual immorality wasn't broad enough to capture sexual sin, that we're to put to death, impurity does. Let there not even be a hint of sexual impurity among us, as we're told in Ephesians. Next is passions. This is not to be confused with the passion, what can be understood as anger, but shameful, uncontrollable sexual desire. Now sexual desire is not sinful if it's directed towards one's spouse, right? But sexual desire that's directed towards someone you're not in covenant with is sin. And we're to put together, put to death, the shameful sexual desires that we feel. They aren't neutral. And then evil desires covers the most hidden inclinations of our heart. Just as Jesus said, if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you are guilty of sexual sin. We must realize that every evil desire that prompts us to sin in our heart needs to be put to death. It's not to be taken lightly. We can't comfort ourselves with platitudes like, well, temptation is not sin. Well, that is true. Jesus was tempted in every way, and he did not sin, but Jesus did not have a sin nature like we do, right? Now, he was tempted. He felt the severity of temptation. He knows what it means to be tempted, but his temptation came externally, right? evil desire, James says, when it rises up, gives way to sin. And we are to put those, even those desires, to death. Now Martin Luther liked to say, you know, you can't keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep it from making a nest in your hair, right? You can't avoid the fact that the magazine racks are filthy. You can't help the fact that sometimes you're on a website and an ad pops up. You can't control the fact that someone at your work might be flirtatious towards you. Those are external temptations, but as soon as you feel the desire in your heart, you need to confess that to God and put it to death by faith. You need to not have anything to do with that because those sexual sins are characteristic of your old way of life and they have no place in the church of Jesus Christ. And then covetousness, which seems a bit out of place in a list primarily about sexual sin, but actually Paul lists it in many other places in his letters, right with sexual sin, because it's getting to the root, the motivation behind sexual sins. It's covetousness, desiring what God has not given you, desiring what does not belong to you. As we can see here, when he mentions covetousness, there is a connection between these sins that he mentions and the Ten Commandments. Covetousness comes as the 10th commandment, which is the only commandment that deals with motivation. And it shows the motivation between adultery, murder, lying, stealing. All of that has to do with covetousness. That's the motivation of the heart. The idea that we would have that the law in the Old Testament had nothing to do with the heart and just external conformity doesn't even fit with the Ten Commandments. God has always desired that His law would be kept from the heart. that we would live from the heart. And that's why we read Jeremiah this morning. Because what God has done in Christ is to put his law in our hearts, so when we're identified with Jesus, that we want to live in conformity with his kingdom. We want to do what brings glory to his name. Not to pay him back. How could we pay back the blood of Jesus? What could we do that's even close to the worth of Jesus? but to live for His glory, to live in conformity with who we are in Christ. So put these things to death, saints. Have nothing to do with them. And if you're struggling with these things, if you're tempted with sin, confess it to God and confess it to a brother or sister in the Lord. Confess it and ask for help that we can put these things off together as we hold fast to Christ. This is how we once lived. But now, you must put them all away, verse 8. Put them all away. Have nothing to do with them. On account of these, I'm sorry, verse 6, on account of these, the wrath of God is coming. Do you understand that? That this old way of life that you used to walk in was when you were under the wrath of God. So why would you want to live according to the way when you were under the wrath of God? Recognize that that God hates sin. He is holy He is righteous and his judgments are just and good And his wrath is coming upon the world because of these things It's one other thought based on that I One thing we ought to check our hearts on is are we delighted with, do we get entertained by things that are bringing about the wrath of God? It's one thing we'd be like, well, you know, I'm not doing that. But do we condemn such things and yet give approval to such things by enjoying them in our entertainment? We must think about that. It's a good, I think, a helpful principle If I'm going to live in a way that brings glory to God, how can I rejoice in something that is bringing His wrath upon the world? We should not delight in sin. This is how we once walked, but no more. Now put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, saying that you have put off the old self. with its practices. See, these sins of speech. He tells us that we are to put away anger and wrath. Now, it's harder to distinguish what's the difference between anger and wrath. Well, anger, in this instance, has to do with a settled feeling of hatred towards someone in your heart. That is not in conformity with who we are in Christ. To hate someone in our heart is not holy. Only God has a righteous anger and wrath, right? Now there is a righteous anger that we can have, but only when it is in conformity with God. What he's talking about here is sinful anger, a hatred that is in our heart, a feeling towards someone. And then wrath has to do with the outburst of rage that comes out towards this person we hate. This is not how we should be as Christians. We're not to be characterized by those people who lose their temper and go into a rage. When you go into a rage, you say all sorts of things that you wouldn't usually say, right? And you regret them. We should never lose control and end up in a rage. Malice is any speech or act that we do toward another with the intention of ill will. And you know what that is. Sometimes we can couch it and try to look good, right? But we say something or we do something and in our hearts we're just trying to stick that dagger in, right? But this shouldn't characterize the Church of Jesus Christ. This is the way the world works. I know some of you have families like that, right? And I know you work in workplaces. That's what it's like in the corporate world. and things are said and done and they're done in a malicious way to hurt someone. Everything we do ought to be motivated by love. Slander is deflammatory speech against another, saying things about people that causes others to think less of them or to question their character. Jesus gave us a model for how to deal with sin and disagreements with one another, right? Matthew 18. If your brother has sinned against you, what are you to do? You're to go to them and try to be restored. And if they won't hear you, then you bring another brother and try to be restored. And then if they won't be restored, then you bring it to the church. And this ought to characterize the way we deal with conflict with one another. Not slandering one another, but bringing down the character of another. Let's recognize that these are God's children. Every even if they're not God's children, they are created in God's image James 3 9 with the tongue We bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse people who are made in God's likeness. This ought not to be brothers This ought not to be Her mouth ought to be used for building up in love. I an obscene talk, can refer to degrading speech that elicits sexual desire, or it can mean abusive speech, speech that is harmful, hurtful, to put someone down and to treat them wrongly. Do not lie to one another. We are to be truth tellers. I remember talking to Brother Jerry not a while back just about how in his work he sees so much deception, so many lies, and he's had to walk according to who he is in Christ and tell the truth, and at times to his own hurt. This is how we are to live. We're not to bend the rules. We're not to distort what is right. We're not to find the loopholes and say things that aren't true to one another or deny the truth. We are to be those who love the truth. We are to love the truth because we love Jesus. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. The devil is a liar and he has been from the beginning. A liar makes you more like the devil and not like Jesus. So be truth tellers. And this is the way of life that is to characterize us as Christians. So brothers and sisters, all these lists of sins is kind of a shotgun method, because in there, none of us are sitting here going, oh yeah, I got those all figured out. Right? No. We all know. that that is the way that we were and sometimes fall into when our focus is not on Jesus. That is what characterized our life when we were dead in sin. But now, we are in Christ. And our identity is in Christ. And we have died to sin and have been raised to new life with Him. So how can we live in sin any longer? Live as a Christian. Live according to your identity with Christ. And put all those things away. Have nothing to do with them. Repent of them. Entrust in Jesus. And remember that it's all by faith. It's because of what God has done in Christ. What Christ has done on the cross. That He has died on the cross and risen from the dead. That He has conquered sin and the devil. And so it no longer has power over you. It no longer has to define you. Stop letting it define you. And hold on to Christ. And walk forward, holding on to Him, putting these things away. Sin brings shame, but Jesus took our shame on the cross. So if you're ashamed because of these things, if you've fallen into these sins, repent, give it to Christ, trust Him by faith, put it away, and hold fast to Jesus. He washes all our sins away. When He canceled the record of debt, how many sins were left unaccounted for? None. He paid them all. They're all paid for. There's full forgiveness in Christ. Rejoice in that and be thankful. Let us hold fast to Christ. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to put these things to death. There are so many temptations that we face, but they're all The old man, they're all the old way of life. They're all part of this world. And they're all, all those things are bringing about your wrath. Forgive us our sins as we hold fast to Christ and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We give the glory to Jesus who has conquered every sin. It's in his name we pray. Amen.