Turn to Colossians 3. My title for today’s message may sound a bit confusing, but let me put it out there now and unpack it as we move through our text. It is called, “Dying to Live.” When you hear a phrase that starts with “Dying to” you usually think of something you cannot wait to experience. “I’m dying to go to my prom.” “I’m dying to graduate from high school.” “I’m dying to get married and settle down.” “I’m dying to go on vacation.” “I’m dying for some good pizza.” “I’m dying to see the latest movie or to update my phone.” Or for those over 50, “I’m dying to sit on the couch and do nothing for hours.” Right? “I’m dying to” means we are eager for something to happen. We’re going to think about the phrase, “Dying to” from a different perspective. It will involve an intentional act of our will and death to things that may seem fun and even fulfilling in the moment, but in reality, they steal life from us. Today’s focus is life. I hope we are all eager to live, but I’m not sure we are all eager to die in order to live our best possible life.
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, in order 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. Where your citizenship resides is what determines where your allegiance lies. It determines what kind of culture you are going to be part of, what kind of initiatives you will pursue, what kind of structure and boundaries you will live inside to keep you in line with your citizenship status. For those of you who have studied what it means to become an American citizen, who understand that many people have paid the price for our freedom, who appreciate the opportunity you have to live in this country, you live a certain way to reflect that you respect and cherish your citizenship. The way you feel about your country in your heart impacts the way you live your everyday life. The same should be true regarding the reality that our citizenship is in Heaven.
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.
We pursue the abundant life by filling our minds with truth. Talk about activation, our theme for the year. This is something we can all do. Whether you listen to the word on an audio app or read and underline portions on a page, as you meditate on it, it becomes part of you and infiltrates your thought patterns, but it is something you must pursue. You have to choose to fill your mind with truth.
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. Get that with me this morning. There is only one truth, and it is established by God. In John 17:17, Jesus prayed to the Father, and we were the subject of His prayer. He said, “Sanctify them by the truth. Your Word is truth.” As we get into the Word of God, more than just on Sunday, but every day, it washes our minds. Bible reading is like a bath or shower for your mind. As you read it, it will become your mindset and will become part of you. Truth leads us to life, real life, supernatural life, life with Christ.
And through the washing of our minds that comes through reading the word, we can know the truth and the truth will set us free, John 8:32. 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.
If someone broke into your home, brandished a weapon, and told you they were going to take your life, you wouldn’t sit down in your lazy boy recliner and say, “Have at it, Bubba.” No, you would do whatever you could to immobilize, to subdue, and to destroy the threat. Am I right? You wouldn’t just let someone take your life, and yet, when we don’t set our hearts and minds on Kingdom life and on the truth of God’s Word, it is like we are opening the door to Satan to say, “Come in and take my life. Want my reputation? It’s yours. Want my joy? You can have it. Want my marriage? I’ll just hand it over. Want my peace? Ok. Sleep is overrated anyway. Want my future? I surrender it to you.” That’s ridiculous, right? But y’all, it is happening every time we pursue sin.
I don’t know if you have ever looked at it that way, but I’m not being dramatic about the destructive nature of sin. When we choose a life of sin, it is like handing Satan a key to our hearts, minds, and lives and saying, “Take whatever looks good to you.” Church, the Bible calls repetitive, habitual, unconfessed sin, that lifestyle that doesn’t please God, the Bible calls it giving the devil a foothold, Ephesians 4:27. When someone has a hold of your foot, it doesn’t take much to knock you off balance and cause you to fall and to fall hard.
Y’all, if you were at the Young at Heart lunch this past week, and you saw Bill Craver put the hurt on Randy Snyder by getting a hold of just one little piece of him and taking him all the way down to the mat, you can begin to understand what I am saying. If Bill Craver could just get access to one piece of Randy Snyder, he could lay him out. I think he could do it just by getting a hold of Randy’s ear. He demonstrated that a small, strategic hold can take down a healthy, strong, vibrant guy like Randy Snyder. Randy ain’t no sissy. Randy is a man’s man. Randy works out. I wouldn’t want to meet Randy in a dark alley! (Just kidding) What I am saying is that when our enemy is seeking to take our lives, he doesn’t have to walk through the door with both guns blazing, announce he is the devil and that he has come to destroy us. He just needs to gain access to one piece of our life, and he can have us flat on our backs. Listen, 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 lists sexual sin here first. You can’t open the door to the possibility of sexual sin and think it is just innocent fun. The look, the flirting, the sexting, the porn, the movies that don’t qualify as porn, but in the back of your mind you know that’s exactly what you are watching, the strip clubs, the lingering longer and hanging out to spend extra time with people you know are off limits, the one-night stand that leads to an entanglement that will cost you everything…I mean nothing good is going to come from any of that.
Idol worship. A lust for more. Materialism. All of it puts self at the center, instead of Christ. Lust is really a worship of self, and when you give in, you will become a slave. Worshiping Hollywood, or superstar athletes and musicians, being driven by a quest for more and more things or the status you think they bring…There is no life in any of that. What they offer is counterfeit. It is fake, and it is an open door for Satan to rob you blind. You may think you are amassing wealth by gambling, by cutting corners, by working overtime to afford everything you want, and your bank may concur, but in the process, Satan will rob you blind. Idol worship will never be worth it in the end. You’ll never be able to enjoy what you acquire because you will be grieving all you have lost at the same time.
Paul says those things provoke the wrath of God. That doesn’t sound like abundant life to me. 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. Anyone want to come up and testify and tell us how blessed you are because of some sin you have committed? Anyone?
Our passage for today came to us through the Apostle Paul. He says to kill sin. What about the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:29-30. Buckle up, friends. 29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
I think I was in about the fourth grade the first time I read that passage, and it freaked me out. I was, and still am, pretty literal, and the thought of maiming myself to please God scared me spitless! I was glad my mom had the correct and quick explanation about this passage, and it stuck with me for life. Jesus wasn’t promoting the dismembering of your body here, but He was saying, no action is too drastic in dealing with sin. We need to do whatever it takes to destroy the presence of sin in our lives.
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.
Do you see the title of this message in these two verses? “Dying to Live.” 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.
If those verses aren’t enough, look at it from Romans 8:12-1412 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds (sin) of the body, you will live. 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.
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, so after I give an invitation to come forward, I will be going to the altar to pray for myself. Come and get a fresh start and a fresh heart with me this morning. Let’s die to live.
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