The very first thing we learn about God is that He is the Creator of all living things. He is a God of life. Life comes from Him. Life is supported and sustained by Him, Colossians 1:16 and Acts 17:28. God wants you to have life and to have it to the full, John 10:10. Whatever compromises that full life, then, goes against God’s design for life. It sabotages the life He wants us to experience. If He wants us to have a full, abundant life, and we pursue or allow things into our lives that minimize or compromise that full, abundant life, the Bible tells us that we are to get rid of them. Paul goes a step further and says, “Put them to death” in Colossians 3. That means, for us to fully live, we have to put to death the things that threaten the abundant life Christ died to give us. It means we must die to live. Let’s read Colossians 3. I’m going to include the heading for the chapter from the NIV translation because it speaks to our theme for today.
Living as Those Made Alive in Christ
Paul is going to teach us here how we can live as those who are made alive in Christ.
3 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Paul says in verse one that we have experienced a resurrection. Something dead was made alive. We have been raised with Christ. If this is new or difficult for you to understand, ask the Holy Spirit to help it make sense. Your identity, as a Christ follower, is in Christ. He was raised from the dead. He overcame sin. He defeated the devil. We are in Him. We are raised with Him to be able to do the same things.
Paul says that living out our resurrection means we set our hearts on the things above and not on the things of earth. We will start to consider what will please God. We will start to ask what the will of God is for our lives. We will begin to ponder what it means to be people whose citizenship isn’t on earth, but whose citizenship is already in Heaven, Philippians 3:20.
Paul not only says that we are to set our hearts on things above, but our minds also must be set on the things that are above. You won’t find the truth you need for abundant life in an academic institution, in an intellectual friendship, on a Jeopardy Board, in the news media or on a social media platform. Truth is only found in Christ. It is expressed through the Word of God and in a relationship with the Holy Spirit who guides and leads us into all truth, John 16:13.
Truth isn’t subjective. It doesn’t change with cultural trends. It’s not your truth versus my truth because there aren’t multiple truths. There is only one truth, and it is established by God. Do you want to live free? Set your heart on the Kingdom above and set your mind on the truth of God’s Word.
Now, here comes the dying to live part. It’s a little harder to swallow than what we just went over.
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.
Whoa! That sounds harsh. To be honest, it sounds violent. You want us to do what, God? I thought you died so that we didn’t have to, Jesus. I thought you did all the heavy lifting. Where is the grace in all of this? Some of you may be asking about now, “Where is the exit door in this sanctuary?” Take a breath and remember, Jesus only wants you to put to death that which could steal your life.
I don’t just preach against sin because it offends the holiness of God, although that would be a good enough reason, but I preach against it because I love you, and I don’t want the abundant life to be taken from you.
Back to Paul’s words in Colossians 3: 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.[b] 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
How badly do you want to live? How eager are you for the kind of life God promises? How important is your intimacy with God? How interested are you in having His power flow into your life? How much do you want His wisdom? How attractive is deep, abiding peace, joy, quality in your relationships, and living out your God-given purpose? How much to you long to be used of God?
Sin compromises all of these and more. If any of those things are important to you, you have to put to death anything that could steal them from you.
Paul goes on his passage about putting sin to death to say, 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. None of these things are consistent with a culture of life. We need to put them to death. Anger and rage cannot motivate or control us if we are going to live as those who have been made alive in Christ. Malice and slander aren’t life-giving. And filthy language? If you are modeling Jesus-talk, none of that is supposed to come out of your mouth.
9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
The nitty gritty of this message is that sin causes death, spiritual death and death to our quality of life. Think about it with me. Think about a time you have gone against what God wants for your life. Can you list the top three good things that happened because of it? I’m not talking about something you perceived as good in the moment, that felt good in the moment, but something lasting that you can actually say is good.
I’m not sure we see sin the way Jesus does. Our sin required the death of Jesus, but His death is an invitation for us to die to sin. Look at Matthew 16:24-25: Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
A cross is an instrument of death. Jesus died for us, and He invites us to die to sin. We need to live a cross-centered life, a life always with Jesus’ sacrifice in view, so that we don’t make light of what He did on the cross, so that it is clear who and what we are living for. We were purchased for God with Christ’s precious blood, I Peter 1:19.
God has given us a prescription to deal with sin. It first needs to break our heart. We have to agree with God about the consequences of sin. We need to be sorrowful over our sin, and we need to regularly confess it to God. Some people have a hard time admitting they have done wrong. They struggle to say they are sorry, and struggle to humble themselves to ask for forgiveness. Without that humble and sincere step, there will be spiritual death and more that you will live to constantly try to revive. You can’t resuscitate your own life. If you are working so hard to “build a life” for yourself, you might need to stop and see what is standing in the way of simply receiving the abundant life that God promises. When you have a name for the sin that is separating you from God’s fullness, confess it, renounce it, repent of it, and ask to be cleansed of it.
You and I need to learn to hate sin. It cannot be your friend. You won’t kill a friend. You need to view it as an enemy.
Romans 6:12-13 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.
We need to stop showing up for sin and start showing up for Jesus. We need to stop offering our bodies, our minds, our hearts to Satan and present ourselves fully to God. I’m not saying we will never struggle with sin, but we will always struggle with it if we keep offering ourselves to it.
As one pastor and author has said, “Sin is what we do when our heart is not satisfied in God.” John Piper
If you are living to sin and you love it, your heart is in trouble. It clearly doesn’t belong to God. Pray, as David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” Psalm 139:23-24.
Confess your sin, view sin the way God does, and make sure your heart is fully committed to God. II Chronicles 16:9 says the eyes of the Lord are roaming the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. God will help you say, “No” to sin, but you have to get your heart singularly focused on Him. Become relentless about being in church, about worshiping the Lord, about regular prayer to ask the Holy Spirit to help you resist all temptation, and about reading His Word. Psalm 119:11 says that we hide God’s Word in our hearts SO THAT we won’t sin against Him.
Today can be a turning point, a defining day for you. Today can be a crucifixion day where you put sin to death so that you can live. In this moment, Satan wants you to think one of three things. He wants you to think you can manage your sin, that it isn’t out of control, that you are in charge of it and won’t “let it get out of hand,” that you can stop whenever you want to. It’s a lie. Don’t fall for it. He also wants you to think you deserve to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it, that your happiness is of the utmost importance. It’s a lie. Don’t fall for it. Third, he also wants you to think that your “secret” is actually a secret and that it isn’t impacting your quality of life. It isn’t a secret. God knows every thought, word, and deed that proceed from our life, and if we think “secret sin” isn’t taking life from us, we have become fools for the devil.
Who will choose to die to live today? Who will choose to be done with sin? Who will choose to kill that which is killing you before it is too late? Who will decide today to get real about real life with Jesus? I don’t want anything to stand in the way of the abundant life God has for me. I want the abundant life Jesus died to give me. I want to show up for Jesus, presenting myself to Him, and I want to receive the power I need to say, “No” to sin.
