Good morning. Please do open your Bibles to the letter of Paul to the Colossians this time. Colossians chapter 3 and we'll read the first 17 verses. Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 to 17. 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 minds 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 immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you too once walked when you were living in them, But now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another, And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Thus far, the Word of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, once again, our prayer is a simple one. Unstop our ears. Soften our hearts. And let us hear you speaking to us this morning. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Please do be seated. Well, I'm told by the second Friday in January, which apparently is known as Quitter's Day, most people have given up on their New Year's resolutions. I wonder if you've ever experienced that. Perhaps you begin the year determined to go to the gym regularly, determined to eat a more healthy diet, perhaps even something that seems quite saintly, to be kinder to your friends. Perhaps you have resolved to read your Bible every single day. to pray more regularly, to practice family worship, to not sin in some particular way or other. Well, if you're anything like me, you'll have made all of those kinds of resolutions and you'll have broken every single one, maybe not by quitters day, But you've experienced defeat. You've experienced that sense of despair almost, despondency, when your own strength runs out, when your own resolve fails you. You find yourself reeling because you've done it again. You've given in. You've sinned in the way you promised you'd never do. So what are we to do? Give up? Never make a resolution ever again? Set more realistic expectations of ourselves? Be better motivated? Try harder? Use better tools? The passage we just read, Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 to 17 is just jam-packed with rich and glorious and delightful spiritual truth. Paul here writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is able to convey this incredible theological depth in just 275 Greek words. But at the beating heart of what Paul is saying here, what he's writing here is the key to Christian living. He's showing us with vivid and powerful language what it is to be united to Christ. What our union with Christ really is. What he does in us and what we do in him. So Paul begins this chapter with that tricky little word, if, if. But he's not calling into question whether or not the Colossians have been raised with Christ. There's absolutely no doubt in his mind. Just look back at chapter two for a moment, verse 13. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive. together with Christ, together with Him. Paul says, Christian, you were dead, but God has made you alive together with Jesus Christ. You're a new creature. You are spiritually alive. And you're alive by the power of Christ's own resurrection. So in chapter 3 here, Paul is really saying, if you've been raised with Christ, which you have, then seek the things that are above. We're to search those things out, he says. Set our mind on the things above, verse 2. So what are those things above? The things above are tied. to Jesus Christ Himself, who is now above, ruling and reigning, the right hand of the Father. They reflect Him and the new kingdom that He has inaugurated. They reflect Him and all that He is, His infinitely perfect character and being. And they're contrasted with these things that are on earth. Earthly things, Paul says in verse five, things like sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. And for verses eight and nine, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying, those things that characterize the old man, the unregenerate man, Those things that are contrary to Jesus Christ. Those things are not the things above. So then we should ask, what is Jesus like? Look at verse 12. He has a compassionate heart, doesn't he? A compassionate heart. You remember as he suffered in agony, both physical and spiritual, on that cross, experiencing something that none of us will ever have to experience. In the midst of that agony, We read in John's gospel, when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. From that hour, the disciple took her to his own home. in the midst of that excruciating pain and spiritual torment, Jesus takes care of His mother. He takes care of His mother. That He went to the cross at all is an expression of the great love and compassion He has for all those that the Father has given Him. He loves with an eternal, everlasting compassion. He's kind, He's humble, He's meek, He's patient, and He forgives sin. What a savior he is. And he speaks to you this morning. Greater love has no one than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends. He's the one who laid down his life to purchase yours. He's the one who paid your debt. He's the one who sets you free, free from the eternal hell that your sin deserves, that you deserve. free from the death grip sin once had on you, free to live as you were made to live. But Paul is saying something even more in this passage. Jesus is more than a good example to us, more even than the best example there has ever been. He's more than the moral standard. He's more even than the one who pays your debt and sets you free. Look at verses three and four. Paul's saying the old man, the man that deserves death, the man that deserves the eternal wrath of God is dead already in Christ. And now, now your life is hidden with God. Hidden with Christ in God, he says. and more, He is your life. He is your life. Your very life is Christ. Your fundamental identity, the core of who you are is changed. Boys and girls. When you become a Christian, when you realize that you are a sinner, that you need Jesus Christ, you need Him to be your Savior, you need Him to be your Lord. In that moment, when you confess that He is your Savior, that you love Him and you want to belong to Him, in that moment, do you suddenly get a new body? Does your hair change color? Do you get different colored eyes? No. No. You're still you, aren't you? If you look in the mirror, you still recognize that person looking back at you. Yeah. Well, this is what Paul is saying here. In that sense, our life is hidden with Christ in God. Yet something supernatural has happened. Something supernatural has happened. Look at how Paul puts it in his letter to the Galatians. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." This is what John Calvin described as the double grace of salvation. In Christ, you're made completely right with God. You couldn't be more righteous. in his sight, because you're in Christ, you're united to him. And what's true of him is true of you. And yet, and yet you are being changed. You are being transformed. As Paul says in our passage, look, verse nine. You've put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. So you're new and you're being renewed. You're saved and you're being saved. You're counted righteous and you're being made righteous. But notice this vital truth here. You're not becoming a better version of you. It's not what's going on. You're becoming something entirely new. You're becoming you in Christ. John says it like this, beloved, we are God's children now. And what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. The Christian life is not some quest for self-improvement. It's not about summoning up the resources from within ourselves to be a better person. It's never, ever heroism. The Christian life is participation. Participation. Christian, you have been baptized into Christ. You're united to him. You bear his name. It's no longer you who live, but Christ in you. And therefore, the you in Christ thinks and speaks and behaves in a radically different way to the world around you. There's a putting to death that is going on, a putting away and a putting on. You put to death those earthly things that once had complete mastery of you and you put on a whole new way of life, a whole new person. You put on Christ. And so the you in Christ is one that thinks and speaks and acts just like Jesus. Your life is marked by compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, long-suffering, forgiveness, and above all, love. Where once you had no peace, now you have the peace of Christ himself. Where once you were cold and ungrateful and self-serving, now you're thankful. Once you were ignorant, Now the word of Christ dwells in you richly. Once you cared only for yourself, now you care for a whole new community, a joyful, singing community, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. A community where verse 11, Christ is all that counts. Not your particular racial background, not your cultural background, not your level of education, not your social status, not the job you have or don't have. Christ is all and in all in this new community. So now you do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to the Father through Him. So by now, I'm guessing there's going to be a little voice in your head troubling you, accusing you. Perhaps it's a very loud voice. You don't look like that. That doesn't describe you. You still sin. You keep on doing those things you said you'd never do. You don't keep those good resolutions you made, especially those spiritual resolutions that you made. So the question is, how do we answer that accusation? This is our doctrine this morning. In all of life, And especially in the battle against indwelling sin, the Christian must first resolve to reckon himself no longer I, but Christ in me. Before we do anything else, remember, it is no longer I, but Christ in me. Because in our passage, Paul does give us something to do, doesn't he? Look at the language that he's using. Verse five, we must put to death what is earthly in us. The things that might be obvious to others, for instance, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, and the things that no one may ever see, our evil desires. evil thoughts, evil lusts, covetousness, those things that are within us. Verse eight, he tells us we must put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talking, lying. And he tells us to put on something else, put on new clothes, as it were, new thinking, new behaving, new speaking. This is something that we do. We take part in this, putting to death, putting off and putting on. But beloved, all of our good resolutions, all of our determination to keep up our Bible reading, to love one another more, to pray more, to be more like Jesus, all of those resolutions are gonna fail if we attempt them in our own natural strength, with something that we muster up from within us, with our own innate morality, as it were, our own self-produced goodness. If we imagine for a second that Jesus has done his part in dying for our sin and paying our debt, and now it's up to us to live for him like he did, With all the strength that we can muster up, we are setting ourselves up for catastrophic failure. And yet, at the same time, if we imagine that all that's required of us is just to let go and let God, we're setting ourselves up for the exact same failure. We've got to grab hold of this vital, vital truth. We are united to Christ in a death that is not our own and a life that is not our own. See, often we recognize and believe and defend even the first part of that. We're reformed after all, aren't we? We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. We believe in the substitutionary atonement of Christ that he died in our place, bearing our sins so that we might be forgiven, that our relationship with God might be restored. We recognize even that we didn't do anything ourselves to deserve this. That the very faith we have in Jesus Christ is a precious gift to us. But so often we stop there. We stop there and we shouldn't. Not because it isn't true, it is, it is true, gloriously true. Not because it isn't wonderful, it is wonderful, but because there's more. Because there's more, not only is our sin forgiven, not only are we freed from the slavery of sin, not only is the righteousness of Christ credited to us, now we have an entirely new self that shares in the life of Jesus Christ. He is in us and we are in Him. Christ is your life. Listen to how Paul puts it in Romans 6. For if we've been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, We believe that we also will live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died, He died to sin once for all. The life He lives, He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin. and alive to God in Christ Jesus. But did you notice something about the language, the verbs that Paul uses? There's a now, there's an already, and there's a not yet. We have been united to Christ, past tense, we have been united to Christ in his death. We shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. That's future tense. What does this mean? Well, it means our transformation is not yet complete. We're not the finished product. Yet, it is not in any way uncertain. Christ is risen. Hallelujah. His resurrection has happened. Therefore, we who are united to Him will be transformed. Just as certainly as Christ has risen, so that work of His Spirit, that transformation has begun in us. And so we can begin now to reckon ourselves with Paul, no longer I, but Christ in me. When we realize this, when we press this truth deep into our souls, real change is not just possible, it's certain. Because we are united to Christ, we begin to see sin as it really is. We see the horror and ugliness of it. We see that our own sins must be abandoned. Not ultimately because they're contrary to the commandments of God, but because they're contrary to who we are in Christ. That every day in all that we do, we must put off who we were and put on Christ. Again, we're not engaged in mere self-improvement here. We're not living our best lives now. We're putting on Christ's identity. And we're doing this not in our own strength. The Holy Spirit himself, the Spirit of Christ, is working in us and His work as it has ever been is to draw our focus and attention to Jesus Christ. And we're putting off our old selves, putting to death what is earthly. But where we begin is so vital. We begin by realizing that we are in Christ. We're not new improved versions of ourselves We are new creations. We live in Him. The whole Christian life is not I, but Christ in me. But what about that sin? Doesn't it so often feel like sin is squatting without permission in our lives? even though we know that its tenure in us has ended. We know that its power is broken, even though it no longer has the right to live there, as it were. Sin will always seek to turn us in on ourselves, to take us back to the old way of thinking. Sometimes even in our efforts to resist sin, we end up actually serving sin because those efforts are so often defined by what I'm going to do. What I'm gonna do to make myself more disciplined. What resolutions I'm going to keep. And the only thing that will break this cycle of self-righteousness is asking the right question. Not what can I do? But who can deliver me? Who can deliver me? The glorious good news of the gospel is this, brothers and sisters. The same Jesus that has canceled our sin debt is the one in whom sin's power is broken. He's the one who makes us sing rock of ages, cleft for me. Oh, let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from thy riven side which flowed be of sin the double cure. Cleanse me from its guilt and power. So how do we apply this? We'll look at how Paul does it in the passage we've read together. He begins with who we are. Because we have been raised with Christ, because it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us, we're called to action. And so our first duty is to realize, to apprehend, to use an old fashioned word, that all the good that we do, all the mortifying, all the putting off and the putting on is only good because of Christ, because of Christ. The I that could possibly take credit for any kind of righteousness no longer lives. It is now I in Christ who lives and Christ in me who works. The righteousness is all His. I get to enjoy it. I get to walk in it. I get to do in it. because I share in Him. So loved ones, the great doctrine of imputed righteousness, that all of Christ's goodness and perfection, all of his obedience and holiness is credited to me, that's not a cold, sterile, merely intellectual concept. It's not just a question of balance sheets and accounting. It's a deeply personal one. It involves us being joined to Jesus Christ in personal union with Him. The righteousness of Christ inhabits me because Christ inhabits me and I inhabit Him. But see how intimately connected this idea is with action. how it stands against any way of thinking about Christian righteousness that minimizes the importance of its actual manifestation in our lives. As Christians, we are to think righteously, speak righteously, act righteously. Remember how our Savior himself put it, if you love me, You will keep my commandments. See, in Christ, there's a new inevitability. No more is sin inevitable for us. In Christ, we will keep his commandments. So what does that look like in practice? This is what Paul is showing us here in this passage. It looks like putting to death the earthly things in us. And let me give you a real concrete example of that. Just think for a moment about how you use the internet. Internet's an incredible thing, isn't it? The availability and access that it gives us to information and knowledge, a kind of Access was unthinkable just a hundred years ago. But there is a much seedier side to the Internet, isn't there? That same access and availability gives us access to all kinds of depravity. The kind of depravity that would have also been unthinkable a hundred years ago. So the internet provides both a great blessing and an immense temptation to all of us. I'm not just speaking to the men here, not just speaking to the boys here. The internet provides an immense temptation to all of us. Not just a temptation towards sexual immorality, impurity, passion, but a temptation toward time-wasting, a temptation toward covetousness, toward idolatry, toward envy, toward greed, toward gambling in all its various forms. It's a temptation for us to engage in unrighteous anger from behind the cloak of anonymity or a keyboard. It gives us the opportunity to slander others, to use obscene language. The internet is a temptation to all kinds of evil. So how do we put that to death in us? One concrete step that we can take is to make use of accountability software. So here at The Well, we're about to launch a new partnership with Accountable2U. It's a software that allows you to be accountable for every action that you take on the internet with another trusted person or people. And it'll work on whatever device you use to access the internet. And we're going to send out the details on how to sign up for that very, very soon. But loved ones, remember this, the goal of this, the reason why we're doing this is not simply behavior modification. We don't just want you to quit looking at porn. We don't just want you to be nice to the people on the internet. There's something much bigger going on. It's not even that we want you to have a better relationship with your spouse or with the other church members here. The goal of this is that in all of life, even our internet life, we would live in purity, that we would live in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. that the aroma of His goodness would permeate us so deeply that even in the times when we imagine that we're all alone, we would manifest His righteousness. We would exhibit the fruit of His Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And that 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, that we would fill our hearts and minds with those things. With Christ himself. So how do we put on Christ? His compassion, His humility, His kindness, His patience. Let's think about it in two ways. First, inside the church with our brothers and sisters. How do we inhabit the righteousness of Christ in our interactions with each other? Well, Paul gives us the answer. As the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. But how? What about when a brother or sister does something that we think is unforgivable? We have to remember that our faith, that Christianity is not purely an individual faith. It's not something that only relates to me and my own relationship with God. We need to remember that we are not only united to Jesus Christ, we're also united to one another, united with every other precious saint that Jesus purchased with his blood. The same Christ who died for you, whose righteousness is yours, the same Christ in whom you now live is the same Christ who bled and died for that brother or that sister. He's the same Christ who rose again for that brother or that sister. He's the same Christ in whom they too now live. So be honest with yourself. Be honest. You are the worst sinner that you know. Despite what your brother or sister might have said to you or done to you. And if Christ has forgiven you, and he has, then he has forgiven your brother or sister in Christ, and so you can forgive. You have that gift in you. What about our dealings with those people who, as far as we know, are not our brothers or sisters in Christ? How do we inhabit the righteousness of Christ in our dealings with the world outside? How about when we're mistreated or abused or suffer in some way because of the sin of others? We can call this deeply mysterious and wonderful truth to mind, that in those moments, we are participating in the sufferings of Christ. See, he endured all the hell that we deserve to make us citizens of heaven, to make us right with God. And so this light and momentary life with all its points of sometimes intense pain and suffering and hurt is the only tiny taste of hell we will ever have to endure for all eternity. And so we're free, brothers and sisters, gloriously free. Free to love others, to love even those who hate us, to be kind, to be generous, to be humble, meek, patient. And we can be thankful. Thankful that this life is not always full of pain and suffering. Thankful that we don't actually experience the full effects of our own sin, or the sin of others, thankful that the peace of Christ rules in our hearts. See, a thankful heart is a powerful remedy against the sin that sometimes seems to have set up its encampment in our hearts. Have you noticed how much more difficult it is to engage in sin when we're busy thanking God for all that He has done for us, all that He is doing in us through Christ? Loved ones, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer. It's the answer to the enslaving, destructive power of sin. It's the answer to that sin that seems to persist and indwell us. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings freedom and healing and not just forgiveness. The work of the Holy Spirit is to transform us And that's not a consequence of the gospel. That's part of the gospel. And his work is as thoroughly and completely determined by the identity of Jesus Christ, as is the cross. I think we often miss this. We think of the Holy Spirit as some sort of mysterious force who works in his own way to lead us to our own personal fulfillment, to become our own individual new creation. But if we're thinking that way, we've embraced half a gospel. We'll just see the Holy Spirit as one who helps us do what we couldn't do previously. And we leave ourselves open to the pit of legalism and self-righteousness because the Holy Spirit is just helping us to earn God's continued favor. No, no, He is the one who helps us inhabit Christ. He's the one who helps us become Christ's body, His members, as Paul puts it. And so our final duty this morning is to examine ourselves. It is good to make resolutions, especially resolutions to practice the spiritual disciplines of regular personal Bible reading, of family worship, of prioritizing the Lord's day and fellowship with his people. It's good to do that. It's good to take the task of killing sin seriously. But ask yourself in all of that, in this new year, are you pursuing Bible reading just as an end in itself? So that you might have better answers to questions that your friends or colleagues might ask. Or are you seeking to listen to Christ himself and understand what his presence will look like in your life? Are you pursuing family worship just so that your children would be better behaved or so that you as a family can enter into Christ's presence together and to drink from the fountain of his delights so that you grow together as a family knowing the one in whom you live, the one who is your life? Are you prioritizing the Sabbath just so you can be super reformed? or so that you might grow up into Christ. You might hear who he is and who you are in him. Are you approaching this new year as I or Christ in me? Loved ones, whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Keep your eyes fixed on Him. Keep your heart meditating on Him. He is your life. His righteousness is yours. So walk in Him, live in Him. Let all that you do be done in Him, in His name. Kill the sin that remains in you because it's contrary to Him and to who you are in Him. and take comfort, loved ones, because Christ is all and in all. Amen. Let's pray. Gracious heavenly Father, these are lofty things that your apostle Paul has shared with us this morning. Help us not to think that they are something purely academic. Help us not to think that they are out of touch. Help us by your Holy Spirit to see how this truth that it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me is so vital for every day, every moment of every day, until we see You face-to-face in glory. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.