00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
What's nice about Bible teaching
is there's so many avenues and aspects of it. You can talk the
historical side, you can talk the spiritual side, you can talk
eschatology, the end times. We're going to come right back
in here and we can talk about how we're supposed to be living.
In chapter 1 and 2 of Colossians, we've been talking about, in
a sense, Jesus. Chapter 1 is His preeminence
in the sense that He's the first in creation because He created
everything, but also He joined creation, died, and was resurrected
beginning the new creation, which we've now joined as believers.
We've been born again. We have new life. And so He has
preeminence in the created world, but He also has preeminence in
The new world because he is the creator of the new world also
and so we talked about in chapter 2 As we read through this all
the things that he's done that he's the head over all the powers
and authorities. I'm chapter 2 Just looking at
some verses here. It's just celebrating in a sense
what Christ has done Colossians chapter 2 It says So just as you received, chapter
2, verse 6, so just as you received Christ, Jesus as Lord, continue
to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthen in the
faith as you were taught, overflowing with thankfulness. And so we
have this, we can have faith, we believe in Jesus, and so we
join in the new birth, we are born again, we are in Christ,
He's done the work. But this says, just as we began
in Christ, we now have to now live in Christ. Today we begin
to live in this resurrected life, this image of Jesus. We've been
born again in Christ. Now we need to live in our physical
world in this newness of life. But there was a warning. In those
next verses for the rest of chapter 2 it warns you about all kinds
of things that can distract you When it says do not anyone judge
you on what you you know eat or drink or all these what we'd
say religious Activities that now you're Christian because
I do these things. No, you're a Christian you're born again
because you are in Christ and And now you need to start living
that newness of life. But when we start talking about
this newness of life, living in righteousness, you could very
easily slip into here's your list. Here's your religious list
of things to do. And it becomes very, very worldly.
This becomes a thing of the earth, a thing of the world, the lower
things, meaning I'm going to demonstrate my righteousness
by how I cut my hair or how I wear my clothes or what I eat or what
I drink. And these are all these rules.
Well, that's all the earthly things. You've been seated with
Christ in heavenly places. These are the things that are
above. You need to, it's going to tell you, set your mind on
these things and start living this way. And it's such a fine
line. between having this religious
list, because some of these things can go in both categories. Let's
say you're going to try to prove your righteousness in the worldly
way by not drinking certain things. Well, that doesn't prove you're
right. That's just a worldly demonstration of a religion.
But yet, if you're going to live in Christ, there's going to be
certain things you're not going to do, for example, you're not
going to drink and be drunk. It's like, well, it's the same
thing. It's like, well, no, you're being religious here by not drinking
these things or eating these things or doing these things.
But your life is in Christ, and so now there's this list of things,
and not a list of things to do, but you're going to think about
this, you're going to desire this, and so you're going to
walk away from, put off the drunkenness. And now we're just talking about
drinking and drunkenness but it's going to be an attitude
of life and that's where we begin now in chapter three verse one
I'll begin in chapter 2, verse 16, so we kind of wrap this part
up right here. I'm reading in the NIV. The notes
are going to be the English Standard Version. Chapter 2, verse 16. Therefore, do not let anyone
judge you by what you eat or drink or with regard to a religious
festival or a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day. That's all
these earthly lower things. These are all these, I just act
like I'm a Christian. These are a shadow of things
that were to come. The reality, however, is found
in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights
in false humility, religious activities, and the worship,
that goes on into some other things, the worship of angels
disqualify you from the prize. Such a person goes into great
detail about what he has seen. That starts talking about the
false teachers that they're having to deal with. They've had visions
and all these things. Verse 20, since you died with
Christ, now this is an important verse, since you died with Christ
to the basic principles of this world, why as though you still
belong to it do you submit to its rules? Do not handle, do
not taste, do not touch. In other words, this right here,
this world, you can't find salvation here, you die to this world and
are resurrected in Christ, so your life is now up here, not
down here, which now begins, we can look in chapter three,
verse one, since then, Chapter 3, verse 1, So no longer think
about all these things you're going to do. Think about Christ
and where He's seated above. Now again, this is going to give
you, you're not just going to become mystical and spiritual,
you're going to have, your mind is going to be renewed, you're
going to have things to think about, things to do, you're going
to have a whole newness of life. Now some of them may be similar
over here to these false copies, you know, just like Satan tries
to become an angel of light. It's like, is this an angel of
light or is this Satan? It's like, how can you tell?
They're both appearing as angels of light. This can look very
religious and very holy, but it's nothing but this world.
Where in Christ, this is where it's going to come down to. It's
going to be your mind. Paul even tells in Romans 12,
the renewing of your mind, to understand these things. So here
we go. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
And I have to point this out as we go by, I'll maybe say it
a couple more times, but this is where Bible teaching comes
in. Really, Bible teaching and understanding the Scriptures,
I've said it a thousand times, It's not really an option. If
you're going to say, I become a Christian, I believe in Jesus
Christ, I'm saved, and now I'm going to just follow my heart,
I'm going to follow a good Christian religious practice, you're going
to end up down here. You're going to end up in the
earthly, worldly, whatever the cultural trend of religion is,
this is what's going to become your Christianity. You have to
have the Word of God that's going to renew your mind, because this
is the Word that told you the way of salvation. I mean, I repeat
myself, if we're going to, without the Bible, make a list of things
you need to do to go to heaven, it would be, you know, be this
good person and make sure you treat people this way. Yeah,
and you say, OK, this and that's why people have funerals and
they talk about how good they you know, they're a good person.
They've gone to a better place now because they've done all
these things right here because they've decided what salvation
is by shutting the Bible. And let's just talk about if
we were God, what would be the requirements to get into heaven?
Well, we'd have a list. Well, and we pretty much, we
could generalize, have a democracy, we could all kind of, we all
agree on these things. And this person right here, we're having
a funeral for, that kind of describes them. So surely they've gone
to heaven. Well, no, no. This tells you
the way of salvation is through Jesus Christ. He is the door.
Without having faith, without accepting, without giving your
life to Jesus and letting Him be your Savior, there is no salvation. How do you know that? It wasn't
on the list, right? It's not on the list, it's in
the book. So now that you've found the way of salvation from
the book, oh, okay, this is how we're saved. I'm a Christian,
I've accepted Christ. How should I live? Well, it looks like this
list is pretty good. Well, you didn't find salvation
except in the book. Where are you going to get your
lists from? How are you going to live your life? Well, it comes
in the book. The same place salvation comes
from is where we get our information. And so it says this, set your
minds on things above, not on earthly things, these lists that
we come up with. For you died, and your life is
now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life,
appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory." And this
is, again, a contrast. We are in Christ, but we look
at each other, we don't look like we're in Christ, we look
like just anybody else at the shopping mall or the grocery
store or wherever we go. We look the same, except when
He appears, the life that is inside of us is going to manifest. Just like He was resurrected,
we will be resurrected. When Christ, who is your life,
appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death,
therefore, because this is true. Now here comes your list. again
be careful because the things on this list are going to look
a lot like the things on this list or the things down here
because they're going to be so many of them are moral issues
put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature
here we go here's the list sexual immorality impurity lust evil
desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the
wrath of God is coming." We're going to talk about this and
the previous part where we talked about when Christ appears, when
He appears in glory, when He comes back He'll come back in
salvation for believers, but at the same time, He'll be coming
back in judgment for unbelievers. So when He appears, we'll appear
with Him in glory, but also when He appears, because of these,
the wrath of God is coming, He's going to come in wrath. There's
going to be salvation for believers and wrath for unbelievers. So
you've got His second coming is there on both aspects of it,
the salvation and the judgment. And the wrath is coming because
of sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed,
which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of
God is coming. You, and that would be you, plural,
talking to the Colossians of 62 AD, you used to walk in these
ways. Now, by application, we would
assume, yes, we also used to walk in these ways. But he's
talking to the Colossians. You used to walk in these ways
in the life you once lived. But remember what happened, that
life you once lived, you died and were born again. You turned
to Christ, you gave yourself to Christ, and there was a, in
a sense, a spiritual born-again experience that's going to eventually
manifest in a resurrection. So you've died to these things.
You used to walk in these ways in the life you once lived, but
now you must put yourselves, excuse me, but now you must rid
yourself of all such things. And these are, again, we'll look
at this going closer. These are in the active sense,
the imperative active. It's a command and you're supposed
to do it. Christ has done the work. He
is the creator. He is the one who was born from
the dead first. He's the one that's prepared
the way for us. We've got salvation because of Him. But now that
we've joined Him, we now have an imperative. We have a command. And we're going to do it. I mean,
we have the Holy Spirit. We have the Word of God to renew
our minds. But we have to do these things. The list continues.
Now, we had five. We have some more. You used to
walk in these ways in the life you once lived, but now you must
rid yourselves of all such things as these. Here comes another
list. Anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your
lips. do not lie to each other since
you have taken off your old self, which is the part that died,
the self that died, with its practices and have put on the
new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge, in the image
of its creator. Notice again, put on the new
self, which is being renewed in knowledge, in the image of
its creator. So just like Paul says in Romans,
be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This is saying,
very similar, which have put on the new self which is being
renewed. How? In knowledge in the image
of its creator. So if you just have, again, your
little human list of things that you're going to have, this is
not going to renew your mind. This is what you already think.
You're going to need to come to the Word of God, receive the
knowledge, the insight, the information, not just how to be saved, but
how to live, what is His standard, and renew your mind. And that's
going to be a source of faith. It's going to be a source of
power for the Spirit of God to help you sanctify yourself. uh... verse eleven here there is no
this is going to be we branch off into a new category here
uh... but we'll read this in the next
verse here there is no greek or jew circumcised or uncircumcised
barbarian sithian slave or free but christ is all and is in all
and that verse eleven now kind of kind of gives a a look back
at what the false teachers were probably dabbling in Because
some of the things they've talked about, you know, the feasts and
the dietary laws, sounds kind of Jewish, possibly, like something
that's coming out of the Jewish culture affecting the Christians.
Well, and Paul says, that's a shadow. We're leaving that behind. And
now we start comparing Greek and Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised. So again, that looks like there's
been some division between these are the Jews, these are the Gentiles,
these are the circumcised, these are the uncircumcised. But he
goes on and includes The barbarian, the Scythian, the slave, the
free. So again, there's a multi-cultures, many religions coming together
trying to confuse the collagens that Paul's pushing aside, saying
that's the false teaching. Once again, that's why knowledge,
if you're just going to get together and have a big community of religious
people, you're going to have all these religious ideas, but
it's going to be very confusing and it's not going to lead you
anywhere. You need to renew your mind to this, and Paul's pushing
all those others out of the way, saying this is the truth here.
And in verse 12, Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and
dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,
and we're going to get into these things next week, the more the
positive side. But here, notice right here,
we'll make a contrast, it says clothe yourself And earlier it
says to put on or put off. So we're talking about taking
clothes, the old self or the clothes off, and putting on the
new clothes and the new self. And all of that is, again, Christ
has done the work. We are saved. But now that we
are in Christ, our responsibility is to put off the old self, put
off the old clothes, and put on the new self, and put on the
new clothes, which is basically in your mind, in your thinking,
and then in your speech, and then in your actions in your
daily life. Here's what we're talking about.
I'll write these things down. The first thing is Justification. How do you spell that here while
I'm talking? Justification. And that is where you've been
justified, not because of anything you've done, because Jesus died
on the cross for your sins. He's paid for your sins. You
join Him in the resurrection. You're justified. That's what
chapter 1 is about. There's no blame in heaven. When the courts
of heaven hear your case, there's no evidence. You are innocent
before God. Christ has paid for your sins. Your past sins, and even your
future sins. It's like He didn't just pay
for your earlier sins and now that you're born again, you're
on your own. He's paid for my sins for all time. So I am justified
because of the work of Christ. It's not because I'm a good person.
I'm justified because of the work of Christ. But because I'm
in Christ, I need to become like Christ. Now you may want to say,
become a good person, but I'm not sure what you mean when you
say, I need to become a good person, because you could come
over here to this list. What is a good person? And a good
person, you have this whole list of things. I'm not going to follow
this list of what you say a good person is. I want to become Christ-like. I want to become sanctified. Sanctify. Sanctified. Okay, you don't know how hard
it is. You probably do. I have a hard time spelling, but I'm
talking while I'm saying it. Sanctified. Okay, talking and
spelling. Mine's going three different
directions. Okay, this, you may want to say this is the good
person right here. But I'm not sure where you're
getting your definition. You may be getting your definition from
talk shows or Hollywood or the woke community. So I'm not interested
in what your definition of good is. I'm not trying to become
a good person. I'm trying to be sanctified.
I'm trying to put off the old self and put on the new self
and be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. So he's done
the work here, justification. We are now actively doing this
work of sanctification. Now, again, you've got the Holy
Spirit, you've got the Word of God, you've got other believers,
you know, other members of the body of Christ that are all leading,
guiding, encouraging, helping you sanctify yourself. But this
is your work of sanctification. And when he appears, we will
appear with him. We will be resurrected. And at
that point, we will be glorified. That is where the work is complete.
I am saved. Today, I'm in the process of
being saved. And when he appears, I then will
be saved. So again, I was saved in the
past. I am being saved in the present.
And I will be saved in the future. So that's saved, saving, and
will be saved, if that's the idea there. So this is justification,
sanctification, glorification. Glorification is mentioned in
our verses today. We're talking about sanctification
because we spent chapters 1 and 2 talking about the fact that
we've been justified in Christ. And so these verses are about
our present sanctification. Now, the question could come
up if you have faith in Christ and you are a believer, uh... then you need to live a holy
life right here that'd be the sanctification uh... so that
you can then go to heaven in the future so this would be justification
in the past sanctification now i'm living holy so that i can
go to heaven glorification in the future so i'm saved by faith
i'm a believer but what happens if i don't quite do the holiness. I just say, again, this is in
a sense an open-end question. It's kind of like several things. I mean, you're going to have
an answer. There is an absolute truth. But
in this mystery of life, how do we know? You know, we talk
about eschatology. When is the rapture? You know,
pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib. You know, no rapture. It already
happened. We're already there. We have ideas. Some things we're
not real sure of, like explain the Trinity. We've talked about,
you know, the Trinity is a mystery. There's only one God, but yet
there's three persons. Well, that mathematically doesn't
work out. 1 plus 1 plus 1 is 3, not 1 plus 1 plus 1 is 1.
And so it's like you've got to work with that. And same thing
here. I am saved. We are saved by faith
in Jesus Christ. But what happens if I sin, what
happens if I, maybe yourself have had a time in your life,
or maybe you know somebody that's a Christian or went to church,
became a believer, but they just kind of walked away, they're
just going through their life. Maybe they go to church, maybe,
especially on Easter and Christmas, but they're really not too concerned
about their holiness or their sanctification, and forget about
renewing their mind to the Word of God, They're not even sure
the Bible's true. It's just a history book, a legend,
whatever. But they do believe salvation
comes through Jesus Christ. Now, are they going to experience
glorification? Do they have faith in the past,
sanctification now, and they're going to be glorified in the
future? Well, if this is missing, I mean, at some point, if this
is missing, there's nothing here. Zero. There's nothing here. In one answer, and we go through
the scripture, in one answer, you'll know them by their fruit.
If this is a zero, they don't have saving faith. They've got
some kind of, you know, yeah, I think, you know, is it Muhammad
or Allah? Is it Hindus or the Buddhists? Is it the New Age or is it Jesus? I believe in Jesus. Okay. You chose one of the world religions,
but did you have faith? Have you trusted Him? Have you
placed your faith? Have you committed yourself to Christ in the sense
that I'm a sinner and I need to change and I want Christ to
save me and I'm going to make effort to conform myself into
His image? Now, if this is a zero, it's
like that probably didn't happen. You had some kind of youth group
experience, you know, an emergency situation, you needed God. Who
knows? Who knows what? But if you have
no sanctification, That's probably not saving faith. There's probably
no sanctification today and no glorification in the future.
Your destiny is another direction. We're not going to talk about
that at this point, but it's damnation. Now, if the sanctification,
like if it's a, you know, let's say a bar graph, it's this much
sanctification, it's a little bit higher sanctification, maybe
this guy's really, you know, he's got a Bible teaching ministry
called Generation Word and he's really pushing the limits here,
you know, or maybe this is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
and then Friday's down here. It's like, I mean, you know,
and this probably describes a lot of our lives right here. I mean,
at what point Even Paul says, it makes it clear,
no one is hitting 100%. He even says, not that I've already
been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which
Christ Jesus took hold of me. Christ Jesus saved us, took hold
of us, we are here, and he's got a purpose and he's helping
us grow into that purpose. Which again, be careful when
they say purpose, It's like we've all got to find our purpose in
life. You know, I'm a truck driver, I'm a musician, I'm a teacher,
I'm a mother, I'm a father. It's like, okay, that's your
worldly response. Your purpose, in the general
sense, is to be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. I
mean, we cut it short with our self-help church programs. Everybody
find their purpose, find their place. your place is to be sanctified
and conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Now, you may
be driving a truck or teaching a class or having a business
or whatever, being a parent or something, but whatever you're
doing, that is almost, again, this is not your typical self-help
Western church message, that's almost second. It doesn't matter
what you're doing. It doesn't matter, I found my
place in this world. You have no place in this world.
You are passing through this world on your way to glory. And
so if you found your place in this world and you're content
with that, that may be putting yourself over here on this list
also. I found my place in this world. you're not looking for
something above, something better. My purpose is to be transformed
into the image of Jesus Christ. Yes, but I'm a truck driver,
I'm a teacher, I found my place in this world. That's totally
secondary. If you're a truck driver or if
you own the trucking business or if you own the business that's
producing the stuff that's being trucked and you're a billionaire,
that doesn't matter. What matters is each of those
people trying to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ
during this process of sanctification. And I think that right there,
that statement like that, if you are here, Pushing towards
this being transformed you realize you realize I am a sinner I have
in the past made mistakes Rebellion towards God I daily face sin. I have a I live in rebellion
I live in a world that's in rebellion and And I recognize this and
I cry out to my Savior to deliver me from my past sins, my present
sins, my future sins, and I'm trying to grow and mature this
way. Now we're talking about saving
faith. You have been saved and you are
in the process, again here, process of being saved. And if you say,
well, John, I mean, I can go to 1 John, anyone who says he
has no sin, is a liar. I mean, John says that, because
there's going to be those that say, well, I've reached, I've reached sanctification. I've reached maturity. I don't,
I don't say it's like, John is like, oh, come on, man. I mean,
if you are a man living in this fleshly body, your thoughts,
your actions, your responses, the things you don't even realize
what is offensive to God. No, but I'm keeping this list
right here. Now maybe the people on the talk
shows or in the community, what a fine individual, but the very
fact you're using this list to justify yourself is a stench
to God because, ah, I'm doing this by myself. It's like, okay,
that's a sin right there. I'm doing this by, no, you're
not. You are a sinner and everything you try is failing except for
the fact that you're being conformed in the image of Jesus Christ.
And so that again is the process of sanctification. And again,
heaven or glorification is in the future for this person. But
this is where we struggle at. And again, I think there's a
place where someone can say they've got faith and they've got zero
here. Okay, they've got faith in Jesus Christ, they say, but
all they've got is what we'd say, good works. They're just
doing this list. I'm doing all these things to
prove that I've got faith. It's like, you don't prove you've
got faith. You're pursuing Christ and you're
producing what we'd say fruit. You're alive and you're being
transformed. Things are changing. Well, no,
I just check these things off my list to prove I'm saved. That's
what Paul's talking about in chapter 2. Don't let anyone judge
you by these things, what you eat, what you drink, all these
practices. That's just good works trying to prove that I've got
salvation. Don't even worry about that. What you're doing is you're
focused on Jesus Christ, and by growing, you'll start producing
fruit. Now, going back to this list, we're going to look at
the notes, and we'll read through this again on the English Standard
Version. And we'll get into some more terminology here, but this
is going to be the negative verses on these are the things that
you're putting off. And again, they're pretty drastic
stuff. I mean, it's pretty dramatic, gross sins that are being mentioned
here. i'm on i forgot to put numbers
on the bottom of these pages so good luck keeping up with
me collages chapter three verse one on the top of i can say page
one because i know it's page one after this i'm gonna get
lost chapter three verse one from the english standard version
of already read it if then you have been raised with christ
you're born again seek the things that are above where christ is
seated at the right hand of god uh... and again point one if
or since is in the first class condition which means that means
it's assuming you have been raised with christ it doesn't say that
doesn't mean if i don't know if you are or if you're not that
means if and we know you are this is assuming there's four
classes of if in the greek and this if is and we know it's not
a question So this is the first class condition. And so it's
assuming that you've been resurrected already into this new domain
and are no longer part of this world. You've been resurrected.
And so this over here, the things of this earth are not of your
concern. Again, we've got to be responsible.
We've got to take care of things, but you're not using this world
as your standard. Your standard is above. And notice
right here, the next thing, You have been raised is a passive
verb, point three. You have been raised. This happened
to you. I didn't raise myself. I was
raised. Now this sanctification is something
I'm actively doing. These are in the imperative in
these verses about commanding. You're being commanded. You do
this. So you either are or you're not sanctifying yourself. This
faith or this raised, that happened to you. That was done to you.
Now that you're here, Start tapping into it. You have the ability.
God has empowered you. You just have to decide, am I
going to do it or not? And that's where it talks about
the knowledge of this comparison. If you don't know any of this,
you're not going to try this. You're going to make up your
own plan. Point four, this is written in
the imperative, I've said that, and urges or commands the Colossians
to a, think, learn and understand Christian theology. Now be careful
when I say Christian theology, I mean the ways of Christ, the
ways of the Word of God. And again, it's Christian theology
because it's not, you know, a talk show or something. It's not some,
you know, university philosophy. It's the ways of Christ. And
so you learn those, and once you learn them, point B, you
live, do, and act that theology out in your life. Point five,
set your hearts on things above. Again, that means to seek or
desire. In fact, if you look up there,
the word is at the end in the Greek line, the first Greek line,
it is where it's in the transliteration or the word for word translation,
it means to seek. uh... and it's matches up with
things like jesus says in matthew six seek first the kingdom of
god uh... and jesus told nicodemus that
you talk about things that are above not below philippians three
fourteen talks about the upward calling galatians talks about
the upward city so we're we're moving up and point six there's
that word desire it is the word zetteo z-e-t-e-o and it means
to seek, to search, to require, even to demand. So, since you
have been raised with Christ, desire, seek, demand, your focus
is on the things that are above from this world where Christ
has been resurrected, where He has gone to be seated, where
Christ came from to the world to save us from this world below.
Set your minds on things above. It's a whole changing of your
focus. And again, point seven, it mentions the word above, set
your minds on things above. It is possible that in the mystics
and the false teachers of Colossians, Paul is reclaiming that word
above because you can even see in pagan religions, you know,
It's always above where the stars are, where the spirits are. And
they may have had some false religions. And so he may be,
instead of just using the way Jesus used it, talking about
above where Christ is seated, he may, in a sense, be reclaiming
it, taking that word from the false teachers and putting it
back into a Christian theological perspective. And it goes on to
list all the things that happened above. The spirits were defeated.
That's where Christ's domain is. It's the location of our
treasures. Those are all things that Jesus
talked about. Chapter 3, verse 2. Set your minds on things that
are above. not on things that are on earth.
So you have a contrast. The things that are above, which
would be from heaven, it's going to be the abode of God. It's going to be where our treasures
are. It's where our hope is. It's where life comes from. And
then the things on earth are things that are temporary. They're
passing away. They are in a fallen world. The things of this earth are
in a fallen state. I'm of this world. I'm of this
earth. So I am in a fallen state. Fallen means not just sinful
and rebellious, but it means you're dying. You're not going
to last. You're passing away. And so instead
of having your minds on these things, set your minds on things
that are eternal. That's that chapter 3, verse
2. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that
are on earth. That's step one. How do I begin to sanctify myself? I've been saved. How do I begin
to sanctify myself? Set your mind on things that are eternal,
not on things that are passing away. And then always a preface,
because we are of this age, we have to eat food of this age
to keep this body alive in this age. So there's jobs, there's
responsibility, there's things we need to do. God has left us
here for a purpose that we need to take care of. But our desire,
we're not seeking these things as a permanent fixture. We're
seeking the things that are above. Point one under chapter three,
verse two, We saw this very thing in chapter 2, verse 20, where
it says, if you have died with Christ, it is now contrasted
with if you have been raised with Christ. So if you've died
with Christ, you've been raised with Christ, and that's point
two. Chapter 3, verse 2 is a parallel to chapter 3, verse 1. Chapter
3, verse 1, I've got it written down there. It says, set your
hearts on things above, which means to seek and desire things
above. Chapter 3, verse 2, set your minds on things above, not
on earthly things. So they're similar. And I already
described earthly things. You see that there's some more
discussion about earthly things. The flesh contrasted with the
spirit. And yeah, point five, Paul was
critical of the same thing to the Philippians, urging them
to avoid earthly things, Philippians 3.19, and thinking and having
the mind of Christ. So having the mind of Christ
and thinking about these things instead of thinking about the
earthly things. That's Philippians 2.2 and Philippians 3.20. Chapter
three, verse three, for you have died and your life is hidden
with Christ and God. That's a great line. You have
died to this age. You know, you're not dead. but
you have died to this age. In a sense, you are unresponsive. Now, people never, in a sense,
die. If you think of the word die,
meaning cease to exist. That is really one of the scary
things about reality, especially when you come to the Christian
faith, is no one dies and ceases to exist. you may lose contact
with your body and so you are dead to this body and you've
gone your body remains here but you didn't like cease to exist
you've just lost contact with this body and that's the same
idea here when you accepted Christ You have died to this age. You
didn't cease to exist. Your relationship with this world
was broken, was severed. So you are, it says you're seated
with Christ in heavenly places, but we're living, still moving
in this world. But the problem is we sometimes
think that we are connected or we make decisions like we're
connected here when actually these things of this age are
passing away, but you are living, you've already tapped into the
new life, you're living eternally. And so, you have died and your
life is hidden with Christ in God. And this is important, point
three, I'll read this under chapter three, verse three, it's hidden
along with the treasures in Christ, Colossians 2.3, in whom are hidden
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So in Christ all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge have been hidden and that is
where you are seated and that is what your focus is to be on.
And what Paul is doing here is this is a historical truth rather
than mystical. This is what's different between
Christianity a biblical Christianity and what we may say contemporary
Christianity, a watered-down Christianity, is it becomes mystical,
it becomes spiritual, it becomes something that, well, I feel,
I have this emotion, I've experienced, I've tapped into, do you sense
that? It's like, well, no, no, no.
This is a historical reality. These are facts. Jesus entered
time. He died in a body, was resurrected,
and then ascended into heaven in a physical body that was resurrected. We have placed faith in that,
and so we've lost contact. We've been severed from our relationship. When Jesus Christ returns, we
go with him. We do not suffer the wrath that's
coming on the earth. We have no place here. We are
dead. It says, well, for you have died
and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Now, no one in
this room has died. No one in this room has died
and then come back to life. I mean, maybe possibly if you
had like some kind of a heart situation, they shocked you back
to life. You could have been dead for
20 seconds or something. But We're all alive, but yet we're
dead dead. How does that mean it means to
this age? We are dead and our life is hidden
in Christ. And so that is where we're to
be tapped into that source of power and it is a historical
reality it happened to christ and we have been transferred
we don't see it and this is part of understanding the scriptures
we don't experience i i feel pain i i can i can stub my toe
i can spend my hand in the car door you things that happen in
life disappoint me or or excite me or cause pain in my my memories
or something but it's like This age is passing away and it will
not drag you down into judgment or wrath or death because you
are hidden with Christ. You're in this tension. It's
now you're in Christ, but not yet. We're still in the sanctification
part. It wasn't hard to get saved.
Jesus died on the cross. We go, OK, I'll accept that. And it's not going to be hard
to be glorified when he returns. We'll see him as he is. We'll
be resurrected. It's like, oh, look what I did. I was like here
and boom, there I am. It's right here is where that
fluctuation you are saved and you will be glorified. And that's
going to happen. This right here is the tension. This is where we are tapping
into this or where we're not as we should be. Chapter 3 verse
4, when Christ, here it comes, the glorification part, when
Christ who is your life appears then you also will appear with
him in glory if you do step 2 correctly. No, no, wait, it doesn't say
that. It says, when Christ, who is your life, appears, if you
are hidden in, it says you are hidden in Christ. Now, that ideal
of being hidden, it has the ideal of security. It's not, you're
hidden, but you know what, if you escape, you know, everybody
goes to sleep for the night, and you sneak out the back door,
and you sneak out, and you run back down to the earth, well,
now you're losing your salvation. Now, I'm of the position, it's
another decision, another question, can a person that's saved lose
their salvation? I say no. I think the Bible supports
that. Again, that's a huge conversation.
I think if a person appears to have lost their salvation, they
were never saved in the first place. They were never in that
saving faith. They were never hidden in Christ. They bought themselves a cross
necklace or they went forward at some youth concert when the
music was really loud or something happened or they had to choose
a God and they chose Jesus. Okay. Okay. That's not saving
faith and you're not hidden in Christ. And so you're not saved. Now you may look like you lost
your salvation, but I would say in my theology, again, this is
debatable and there's different in good, good Christian theological
groups. There's good debate in all of
it. There's some churches and theologies that are just stupid
and are demonic. Then there's some that it's like,
well, you know, they're, they're, they're struggling with these
mysteries. I have come to the place that if you have faith
in Christ and you're hidden with Christ, you will not lose your
salvation. You will then be glorified. And
that's what I think this is saying. It says you've been hidden in
Christ. Now, chapter three, verse four,
when Christ, who is your life, if Christ is your life today,
then you also will appear with him in glory when he returns.
Again, I wrote heaven here, but this would be his return and
the process of glorification, or we could say the resurrection.
And again, that's simplified in Hollywood terms as you go
to heaven. But this is where you're glorified
and are resurrected into the image of Christ and your process
of salvation is complete. So if you're hidden with Christ,
the glorification is going to take place. So when Christ, who
is your life, appears, you will also appear with Him in glory.
Point one at the bottom of that page appears is the word, you
can see it up there in the Greek. It's the fourth word in on the
Greek box. Phanerothe, which means to make
visible, to make clear. It's used to say to make clear,
to make visible, to manifest. John 3.2 uses that word, Phanero,
which means to become manifest. He says, beloved, we are God's
children now. and what we will be has not yet
appeared." We are God's children now, but what we will be has
not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears,
right there is your word we shall be like him because we shall
see him as he is when christ appears he reveals himself we
will also then see him because we ourselves will appear romans
chapter eight Creation is waiting eagerly, it's desiring, it's
longing, creation, the world that God created that went under
the curse when Adam sinned, creation is waiting for the sons of God
to be revealed. Now we are, John just says right
there, he says, Beloved, we are God's children now. You are God's
child now. You have been born again. Your
life is hidden with Christ. You are seated with Christ in
heavenly places. But we look just like the world. We're still
in this age, during this age of sanctification. But when He
appears, the sons of God will be revealed. And Paul writes
in Romans, when the sons of God are revealed, All creation is
set free. I mean, the new creation will
take hold. Just like God made the earth
in Genesis chapter 1, in the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth, okay, Jesus did that. Adam's sin, the whole thing
was handed off into sin, futility is what Romans says in Romans
chapter 8. Well, Jesus came to this earth as a man, died for
the sins was a resurrected the first one out of the grave to
begin the new creation we place faith in him have joined that
new creation and when he appears that new creation takes over
and this earth is relieved of its utility and brought into
the age of the sons of god so when when jesus christ is not
just us being glorified and resurrected it is all of creation being brought
into that new state of of Jesus' resurrection. It's like He created
it and His resurrection from the dead creation is setting
the stage for the new heaven and the new earth. And so that's
exciting things right there. And so, the next, where are we at here?
Am I? Yeah, I'm on page... Okay, I
don't know what page we're on. Chapter 3, verse 3. Chapter 3,
verse 4. The next page after chapter 3, verse 4. Yeah, at
the top. Just so you know, we're looking
at that word for appears, when he appears. There's four other
Greek words that are interesting. You're familiar with some of
them. Parousia is talking about Christ's coming. That's his parousia. The epiphaneia is the manifestation,
the appearance, or we get the word epiphany. Epiphany, he comes
and appears. The apocalypse or apocalypse
is revelation, where he's revealed. These are all four, in a sense,
could be synonyms, but they have a slightly different shade of
meaning. And then, of course, the one that's used here, phanero,
he appears. So the coming of Christ, the
manifestation of Christ, the revelation of Christ, and the
appearing of Christ are all four different words that are being
used. Romans 8, 19, here's the verse I was referring to. For
creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons
of God. And there the word revealing
is the word apocalypsin. Chapter 3, verse 5. So, because
this is true, I'll read the last two verses. For you have died
and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who
is your life appears, then you will also appear with Him in
glory. So those two verses, you have died and your life is now
hidden with Christ. You have faith, your life is
hidden with Christ. You've been justified. Now, because you've
been justified, when He appears, you will appear with Him in glory. You'll be glorified right there.
You'll appear with Him. Now, back to this middle. So, what about now? Well, because
you've died to the earth, you still have tendencies, because
you're of this earth, to follow that. Put those things to death. Now, you've died and were hidden
in Christ, but you still have, well, these desires, this sinful
tendency. It's your responsibility to say,
no, you're dead. We don't go there. Put to death,
therefore, what is earthly in you. Here it is, verse five. Sexual immorality, impurity,
passion, evil desires, and covetousness, which is then I described as,
which is idolatry. And if you notice right there,
I've got in the box the word put to death. You can see the word
necrosete in there. Necro, talking about necro death. Put to death, it is the aorist
tense, which means it's an action in the present or the future. Put to death now, or in the future. It's imperative, which means
it's a command. You put it to death. If you don't
do it, no one's going to do it. And active, the subject does
the word. Again, the active makes it you're
the one that's doing the command now or in the future. And it's
a second person pronoun plural, which means you or you all. And
so you all, you all, collagens in the context, all you collagens
that are Christians, you put to death these things. And the meaning of put to death
means this right here. It means put to death, make as
dead, render weak. So that you could, if you want
to kind of play with that a little bit, put to death. Well, how
do I put it to death? Well, you can make it weaker.
You can render it weak. You cannot feed it, let it starve. Or reduce to impotent. Just keep walking away from it
until it has no, it gets no attention. Again, those make it sound sometimes
easier than it is. But these are the things, the
five things that you are to put to death. There's six more coming
after this. And here they are, the five of
eleven, and they all seem to be wrapped around some kind of
sexual sin, or at least they can be connected to sexual sin.
I think as you get further away from the first one, they become
a little bit broader, but they all can tie into sexual sin.
So the first one, these are the things you are to put to death.
It's a command. You're the one who's going to
do it. You need to render it weak. You need to stop feeding
it. Make it impotent. And sexual immorality. That's
the word pornea. You can recognize the English
word. And that is any sexual activity outside of marriage.
Sexuality is good. God created it, but he created
it in a framework. He created it for a purpose.
And sexuality can be, in a sense, holy or sanctified when done
the way God created it. But like anything, it can be
taken out of God's place, God's purpose, God's intention, and
brought over here into the world and perverted. I mean, they can
pervert, in the Garden of Eden, the tree of knowledge, the fruit
was perverted. Don't. They did. How can you
mess up a tree? Well, they did. So everything
God created can be twisted and perverted. Look at Satan. God
created Satan. Satan twisted it and perverted
it. So we're not saying sex is impure. We're not saying sex is immoral. We're saying pornea, sex in the
wrong frame, is a problem. And again, you could put that
with food, with attention. You want attention. Anything
that is good, you can give a child attention, or you can give a
child too much attention. You can give a child food, or
you can give them too much food. Everything in the world can be
twisted. And so right here, this is talking about sexual immorality,
and that's sex outside of marriage. In the Old Testament, very interesting,
and it's much broader than I even understand, it's associated many
times with idol worship. Anytime there's idol worship,
there was sexual immorality. I don't say anytime, but very
frequently. I don't even want to put a percentage
on it, but if I would, I'd say 80% of the time. If there was
idol worship, there was sexual immorality going on around that
activity. And so it's interesting that
that's connected. And so Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah,
Micah, all connect idol worship and sexual immorality. Impurity,
that word also can be translated uncleanness. In the Old Testament,
uncleanness was manifest in two ways. Ceremonial uncleanness,
meaning you violated some kind of dietary law, you violated
some kind of social code, you did something, it could be considered
sin. But it really wasn't like a rebellion
as much as it was you didn't follow the correct order of things. It became unclean or impure. Sexual morality is also considered
to be impurity. That's seen in Romans, 2nd Colossians,
and Galatians. So impurity means uncleanness. either dealing with ritual worship
or with sexuality once again. Passion, the word is pathos.
The word pathos translated passion here in the English standard
means that which befalls one a passion or a suffering. It's used to say suffering, emotion,
depraved passion, or lust. Here it refers to lust and uncontrolled,
shameful passions. Now, there's things that you
can have a passion for things in an appropriate sense, but
this is an uncontrolled, shameful passion, and possibly associated
with sexuality, but it could branch off into a variety of
things. Point D on the next page is evil
desire or covetousness. It is two words, epithumian and
kakan. Kakan means evil or bad and it's
epithumian It means desire, passionate longing, lust, or inordinate
desire. So generally this is referring
to some kind of passion that is evil, something that is bad,
something that is evil, and you've got a passion, a drive for it. It's an evil desire. Again, you
can see how that fit into sexuality, but it can refer to a variety
of things. And again, everything in its
place, passion is good. You may have a passion for the
Word of God, or you may have a passion to lead people to Christ.
Those would be a desire. Paul had a drive, he was driven,
he had a passion, but it was a passion that was set on something
above, something on eternal, not something of this earth.
And the last one of these five is greed or covetousness. It basically means advantage
or covetousness. It comes from two words. Two
words combined there is pleion, which means more or numerically
more. which means to have, and it's
a desire to have more, which means just an unnatural desire
to want more, more, more, more, or to gain some kind of advantage.
I want more of an advantage. I know we both got, you know,
I don't know, not green yards, but I want a greener yard in
my front yard. I deal with that. And so anyway,
but you know, that would be an example of the problem with that. And it says, this is now, which
is idolatry, that desire and unnatural, normal desire for
an advantage is idolatry. And that's where that connects.
Now chapter three, verse six, or tick tock, here we go. On
account of these, The wrath of God is coming. And again, like
we just talked about previously, when He appears in glory, our
salvation will be there and we will appear with Him. But also
when He appears in glory, guess what? The believers are going
to be resurrected and see Him in glory. But when He comes in
glory, On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. This
is also the day of His coming is the wrath. That's when the
prophet says, why do you long for the day of the Lord? Well,
the day of the Lord, it's salvation. The day of the Lord is a day
of wrath also, and it's going to be a day of judgment. And
on account of these things, these five we just mentioned, the wrath
of God is coming. Point 3 at the bottom of the
page there, Paul talks about the wrath of God being revealed
in time. In chapter 1 of Romans, the wrath
of God is being revealed even in time. You can't always pin
it down and say, well, that was the wrath of God. But the judgment
on this fallen world is taking place even now in time. But there
is a day coming. That's in Romans 2, verse 5.
Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you
are storing up wrath against yourself on the day of God's
wrath when his righteous judgment will be revealed. And that is
going to be the eschatological in the future. Romans chapter
1 verse 18, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven
today. So God is judging the world at
some level today, and we don't always understand the concept,
but there's a day coming. Eschatologically, Romans chapter
5 verse 9, since we have now been justified by his blood,
how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? If you've been saved by the blood
of God, you're going to be saved from the wrath that comes at
his glorification, when he comes in glory. And also here's the
big verse everybody wants to talk about when we talk about
the rapture, 1 Thessalonians 1.10, And to wait for the Son
from heaven, we're waiting for the Son from heaven, whom He
raised from the dead, Jesus, who rescues us from the coming
wrath. So when we appear with Him in
glory, which it seems like that's the rapture, then we're also
being delivered from the wrath that's coming to the earth. So
as we go up to meet God in resurrection glory, the wrath of God is coming
to the earth. And so that will play into the
eschatological verses. Chapter 3, verse 7. In these you too
once walked, all these things, we just mentioned those five
things, and those five things are one of the reasons God's
wrath is coming. In these you too once walked
when you were living in them. That was your old nature, your
old practice. It says chapter 3 verse 8, but now you must put
them away, put them all away. And now here comes another list
that we've got to pick up next week. But now you must put them
all away. Those first five we just mentioned,
put them away, render them useless, dead, don't feed them. but also
anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth
and again here it says put them all away I've got that Greek
word circle or put in a square box that is put off just like
you put on Christ you put on the clothes you now put these
off you're putting on these clothes you're taking these clothes off
or these garments are being put off and as again you're doing
that But now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice,
slander, and obscene talk. And it says, from your mouth.
And this right here, the fact that this ends with the phrase,
from your mouth, may not just be referring to, in fact, I've
got it in a box at the end of the Greek, at chapter 3, verse
8. out of the mouth of you, that could be referring to just that
last word, the foul language or obscene talk, or it could
be referring to all of them, reading them backwards, it would
be foul language from your mouth, slander from your mouth, malice
from your mouth, rage from your mouth, anger from your mouth.
I mean, that could be a definition for all of those, just like idolatry
was a definition for those others, those first five. There's more
here, of course, that we've got right here. How close did I come?
Not very close. Looks like I've got notes for
next week, too. I don't want to spend too much time on this,
but next week we'll talk about those negative meanings. And
then it goes on and says, Do not lie to one another, seeing
that you have put off the old self with its practices. You
put it off, you're not going to be lying to each other, talking
about the community. and have put on the new self.
Once again, you're putting off the old self in chapter three,
verse nine, putting on the new self, chapter three, verse 10,
which is being renewed, here it is, which is being renewed
in knowledge after the image of its creator. Your new self
is being renewed. And the best thing I can tell
you, besides you just pulling yourself up by your bootstraps
and doing it, the imperative, you do it, is which is being
renewed in knowledge. You, the best I can do to help
you is teach you that this is God's word. This is the truth.
These are the things that he wants you to put away. These
are this is where you're seated with this knowledge. It gives
you some. OK, I'm walking away from this. I'm going to not feed
this. I'm going to seek this. And with that knowledge and having
put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge, your
new self in Christ is now today. You're already hidden in Christ.
But today it's being renewed. in knowledge after the image
of the Creator. I mean, that's why Bible teaching
is crucial right here. Paul says in Romans, be transformed by
the renewing of your mind. This is right here, being renewed
in knowledge. If you shut this book and say,
we're not going to, we're just going to just, you know, worship
God and fellowship and go to church and have activities. Well,
you're not being renewed in knowledge. There's no knowledge. You're
just, you're in a group, pretty soon you're going to be following
this list over here, listen to talk shows in the woke community
and think, ah, I'm a good person. And you're not going to be growing
in the sanctification. Now, I'm not going to say you
don't have salvation. I'm just saying you're just not
very sanctified. I mean, that's another whole
conversation. OK, I'll pray and we're done. Father, we do thank
you for the chance to look into your word. We ask that we would take these
things serious, that we would realize the great gift that you've
given to us in salvation and the great hope you have prepared
for us. with the resurrection of all the believers. We look
forward to these days. But right now, in between the
justification, the glorification that we're looking forward to,
we ask that we may take serious the sanctification process that
we would put on the things that you've called us to, that we
would, in the knowledge that you provided for us, use that
to evaluate decisions we make and the things that we do to
walk away from the things that are dead on this earth and pursue
the things that are alive. from above where Christ is seated.
We do thank you for this opportunity and the life that is in us. In
Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you for your time.
Colossians 3:1-11
Series Colossians
| Sermon ID | 91124319474216 |
| Duration | 1:03:25 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Bible Text | Colossians 3:1-11 |
| Language | English |
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.
