Sermon Extras

SERMON NOTES

Colossians 3:5-11 “Renewed and Reformed”

INTRO> I want to set up where we are going today. Shortly after Courtnee and I got married we moved to STL and I became a student pastor there in South County. South County had a mall, and I love malls and I love sneakers! I’ll never forget coming home one afternoon after hanging out with some of the kids at the mall and I bought a pair a sneaker.

Courtnee was like, “Oh, we didn’t talk about that.” That’s when I learned that in marriage it isn’t my money but OUR money.

APP> A single event changed the way that I lived my life.

CONTEXT> That’s what we have been learning about Colossians Chapter 3. This is the Apostle Paul’s thesis statement for the rest of the book: “If then you have been raised with Christ…” Colossians 3:1 We will keep coming back to this over and over again, because if we attempt anything separated from this, it is a failure. This is the Big Idea today

Big Idea > We put to death our old life by putting on our new life in Christ.

CONTEXT> This is the language that Paul uses it is extremely strong language, the phrase “put to death” literally means to mortify, to kill. Listen, Loving the cross of Christ means hating our sin that put him there.“God isn’t a kill joy. He is just against anything that kills our joy.”- John Piper.

APP> Here is what I want to look at, 1) What we put to death and 2) How we put it to death.

• What we put to v5-6
  1. Earthly Passions. Here Paul lists what these earthly passions look like, these are how the world operates:
     • “sexual immorality” – its interesting that Paul leads with this. This is a problem in the church it’s THE problem. The word that Paul uses here is πορνεία (porneia) this is where we get our word “pornography” from. It is a generic term used in the scriptures to express any sexual activity of any kind whatsoever that is outside of God’s created ordered between one man and one women in the covenant of marriage. Jesus used this very word in Mark 7, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come

evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

• “evil desire” this word is fascinating to understand and the English translation actually confuses the The word is ἐπιθυµία (epithumia) which means an “over desire” *ILL> Think about a horse getting loose in the barn and getting into the feed bin, what happens? The horse will eat until it literally dies. APP> Why do we do this with sex?
• “covetousness, which is idolatry” Bingo this is the key! Sex isn’t the problem, our view of sex is the problem! We are using it in such a way that God never intended

3 ways to view sex:

• God
• Gross
• Gift *ILL> Using the wrong thing to clean my windshield and I hurt myself.
• “On account of these the wrath of God is coming” “Paul mentions the coming judgement in v6 not as a threat to Christian believers, as if that will motivate the Colossains to reforms their ways. It is simply saying that these sins point to what is wrong with the word and why God must do something about it. In fact, it is good news that we will do something about it. If this grisly list seems only to confirm people’s worst fears about what Christians are obsessed with then simply ask this: What is it like to be a victim of each sin on the list? We go lightly on ourselves when we are the perpetrator, but we never do when we are the victim. Surely that reveals everything we need to know about ”- Mark Meynell, Colossians for You, pg 13
  Earthly Practices. v8 “anger wrath etc…” Now Paul deals with our speech!

APP> Whatever fills our heart, spills out of our mouths. APP> The heart of every problem is a problem of the heart.

• How we put it to
• v10 “ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of it’s creator” That’s it! That’s the key! The words that Paul uses literally mean that we are being renewed by an outside force! GOD IS DOING THE WORK! Our job is to believe it and walk in it!

APP> We fight the power of sin not by focusing on sin but by focusing on what Christ has done to pay for sin, the Cross!

Illus: Pastor Craig Barnes shares the story of Roger, a 12 year old graciously brought into his family by his parents, after he had lost both his parents to a drug overdose. Since there was no one to take care of Roger, his parents decided to raise him as if he was one of their own. Pastor Barnes says, “At first it was quite difficult for Roger to adjust to his new home—an environment free of heroine-addicted adults! Every day, several times a day, I heard my parents saying to Roger: “No, no. That’s not how we behave in this family.” “No, no. You don’t have to scream or fight or hurt other people to get what you want.” “No, no, Roger, we expect you to show respect in this family.” And in time Roger began to change. Now, did Roger have to make all those changes in order to become a part of the family? No. He was made a part of the family simply by the grace of my father. But did he then have to do a lot of hard work because he was in the family? You bet he did. It was tough for him to change, and he had to work at it. But he was motivated by gratitude for the incredible love he had received. Do you have a lot of hard work to do now that the Spirit has adopted you into God’s family? Certainly. But not in order to become a son or a daughter of the heavenly Father. No, you make those changes because you are a son or daughter. And every time you start to revert back to the old addictions to sin, the Holy Spirit will say to you, “No, no. That’s not how we act in this family.”

Big Idea > We put to death our old life by putting on our new life in Christ.

Application:

• Recognize and confess what your struggles are on these lists.
• (Community)
• Return home to the Father.