Colossians: Put On the New Self… · 2015. 2. 12. · Colossians: Put On the New Self Aaron Brockett | Colossians 3:1-17 ) Good)morning)–)it’sgoodtoseeyou.Ifyou’vegotaBible,goaheadandgrabitandg

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Transcript May 31 & June 1, 2014

Colossians: Put On the New Self Aaron Brockett | Colossians 3:1-17

Good morning – it’s good to see you. If you’ve got a Bible, go ahead and grab it and get to Colossians 3. Colossians chapter 3 is where we’re going to be today, and as you’re turning there, as Petie said, I do want to welcome anyone who may be visiting. I know that since we’re in the summertime, this is oftentimes a time of transition for a lot of people. I met a number of people at last night’s service and this morning, brand-‐new to the area who just got transferred because of a job or school. If that’s you, man, welcome to Indiana or welcome to Indianapolis. Glad that you’re here and I’d love to get a chance to meet you sometime soon. I want you to know that two weekends from today is Father’s Day and I’ve got a special guest that’s going be here that weekend in each of the services who I’m going to be interviewing, and no, this individual does not have a beard! Sorry to let you down about that, but I really am looking forward to introducing you to this person, you’ll not want to miss it. So, invite all the men that you know of in your life, as well as the ladies, too – it’ll be a great morning together.

And then as Petie said, June 28th and 29th, we begin our summer sermon series in the book of Proverbs, which is just a book packed with all kinds of practical wisdom, and so we’re going to be in that this summer. Then, in mid-‐August, we’re launching into the Gospel of John, and so I’ll be preaching through the Gospel of John through the end of this year. I don’t know how long we’ll be in it, as long as it takes to get through it, alright? And I’m looking forward to that.

But, we’re in week number 6 of Colossians, and if you are visiting with us, if you’re a guest, if you’ve been gone for a couple weeks, we’ve just been ploughing our way through this book of the Bible, which as many of the books of the New Testament are, was a letter. Paul writes this letter from a Roman prison cell to a group of people that lived in a city called Colossae. It was a brand-‐new church that had gotten started and so that’s why we call the book Colossians. If Paul were alive today and he was writing a letter to a church in Indianapolis, we’d probably call it the Hoosiers. We’d say, “Turn to Hoosiers chapter three”.

That’s why we call it Colossians, and so he’s writing to this church and here’s the thing that you have to know about this particular group of people. There was nothing wrong or broken inside of this church. That’s not always the case when Paul would write a letter to a church. If you were to flip over to the letters that he wrote to the Corinthians, man, they were messed up, they were broken, they had some things that he needed to address with them, but that’s not the case with the Colossians. The Colossian church was a faithful church, it was a good church, it was a church that you’d probably want to be a part of. But, as always, there were some storm clouds off on the horizon. There were some threats to their faith.

Colossians: Put On the New Self May 31 & June 1, 2014

Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 2

And so, basically the big idea – we’ve been calling this series “Against The Flow” because here’s what you have to understand: When you give your life to Jesus Christ, there’s nothing neutral about that. You can’t stay in neutral, you can’t just stand there. Eventually, you’re going to fall over because there is a flow and if you are just standing and saying, “I’m a new creation in Christ, He’s my Savior and my Lord,” you will fall. As we just sang, “I’m going to clothe myself in His righteousness.” And that automatically places you against the flow of some things and if you just stand there, eventually you’re going to fall over.

I’ve asked this in every service up to this one, haven’t had a whole lot of luck so I’ll try it with you. How many of you are planning on visiting a water park this summer? More of you, I think it’s because of what I just said. But, this is interesting, we are not a big water-‐themed park church and I don’t blame you. I am less and less liking the water parks. There are just some images I can’t get out of my mind, it’s just like – you just can’t.

And so, like too much skin, bad tattoos, alright? I mean, I’ve gone to Holiday World. The free soda ain’t worth it! Okay, so I used to like the big massive water slides. You get up to the top and go like, Mach Two down the thing and the older I get, the less and less I like that. I gravitate now more toward (long pause) the Lazy River. Hey, man, we’re on the same wavelength here! Man, if I could build a Lazy River in my back yard, I would. That would be awesome! And just get in that thing, kick back, close my eyes, take a little bit of a nap.

Now, here is the thing about the Lazy River: I love it but if I go to a water park, about the once a year that I might go, and I see that it’s packed I’m probably not going to get in. I mean, it’s just not worth the elbow to the face, the teenagers that run through playing Marco Polo, and let’s be really honest, you know with that many people in there, somebody’s peeing in it, alright? I mean, I’m just being straight up with you.

But if it’s empty, I kind of like to get into the Lazy River. Now here’s what I want you to think about. Have you ever gone into the Lazy River and just walked in and stood there? A couple of years ago, I got into the Lazy River and we were with some friends. And we were just standing there over by the steps, just talking and it was like this (swaying back and forth) the whole time. Like, the current just constantly keeps coming and people are kind of looking at you like, “Dude, you’re in the Lazy River, man – enjoy it!” and we’re just kind of standing there against the flow and eventually, you’re like, “Man, this is kind of annoying! Let’s just grab an inflatable donut and talk while we drift,” alright?

And this is the idea as Paul writes to this Colossian church. He says, “You responded to the Gospel message of grace, you gave your life to Jesus Christ, not just as your Savior but as your Lord. But what happened when you did that, was you stepped in against the flow of the current, which is flowing against you.” And so, you’re standing there like this.

Now here’s the thing: You can’t follow Christ in neutral. Eventually, you’re going to drift. You’ve got to put some effort to kind of work upstream. Now, here’s where it gets dicey and complicated, when it comes to talking about this kind of a thing because, as human beings, we are really a work-‐oriented kind of people. We like the idea of earning our keep, working for whatever it is that we will get.



As we do this with God and we call it religion. And so, man-‐made effort to get to God is religious behavior. So what ends up happening is we throw the baby out with the bathwater and we say, “Well, no, no, no, all these actions. I can’t justify myself, so I’m not going to do anything. I’ve got freedom and security in Christ so I’m just going to stand here.” And it will get said like this, “Well, I believe in God, I grew up in church, I prayed a prayer, raised my hand, filled out a card, walked an aisle, had an emotional experience at camp one time, I’m good to go.” And yes, your salvation is secure in the finished work of Jesus Christ only, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t put in some effort to put on the righteousness of Christ, to strive in maturity toward Him.

I had nothing to do with my physical birth. I was born at Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland on April 17, 1976 to Mike and Linda Brockett. I didn’t have a say in any of that. Didn’t have a vote as to who my mom and dad would be, where I’d be born, and what kind of room I’d be in. I’ve had a lot of say as to my maturity as I’ve grown up, and sometimes of my immaturity. As so, this is the decision where I say, “I’m going to put in some effort. I’m going to put in some effort to grow.”

So, I want you to hear this, because we’re going to walk through some things. Paul says, “Here are some things you need to physically or tangibly do.” This is not anything you do to justify yourself in the eyes of God, you’re already secure in Christ. What he’s going to say is, “Put in some effort to move your character or bring your character into alignment with your new identity in Christ.” That’s what he’s going to get at in this passage.

Now, there are four chapters in Colossians. We’ve already covered the first two chapters. We’re in chapter 3, and chapter 3 is a transitionary chapter in the book. One of the things that you’ll notice about Paul’s writing is that he oftentimes will start off a letter with a greeting, and then he’ll just dive headlong into theology. And so he’ll talk about these very complex issues and subjects, and Paul’s done that in Colossians.

If you haven’t already noticed, we’ve covered two chapters and he’s just been banging away at the identity of Jesus Christ. Here’s who Jesus is, this is what He’s done, this is the difference that He’s made. And the big, scary word for that is “Christology”. The first two chapters of Colossians are all about Christology, and it’s heady stuff.

I have a pastor friend of mine from another state. He knew I was preaching through Colossians, and just this last week, he pinged me and he said, “Hey, how’s Colossians going?” And I said, “Actually, it’s going good, but I’ve actually found it more challenging than I anticipated.” If you’ve been here long, you know that we recently finished preaching through Hebrews and preaching through Revelation, which I think, aside from the book of Romans, are two of the most complicated books of the Bible. And I said, “Actually, I’ve found the first two chapters of Colossians have been more of a challenge for me than Revelation even was, and I didn’t even anticipate that.”

And he said, “Well, what do you mean?” And I’m like, “I’m trying to figure out what I mean by that. I think what I mean by that is in the first two chapters of Colossians, Paul does such an awesome job of communicating who Jesus is and what He’s done, that I’ve actually, when it comes around to preparing the sermons, I’m at a loss.” Because I’ll read it and I’ll go, “That sounds pretty good! Maybe I should get



up and read it and be like, let’s go home.” And you guys will be like, “That sounds like an amazing idea, Aaron, the best you’ve ever had! Why don’t you just do that?”

I’ve just found it to be challenge because it feels like Paul’s way up here like Mount Everest and I’m like, down here on some little hill. And I’m trying to, like there’s nothing I can add to it! But what he’s doing here as we come into chapter 3 is he’s turning a corner into personal application, and so these last two chapters, the remainder of the series, is really packed full of application which should be good news for you.

But here’s the thing, what I want you to connect to is that now that Paul has given us all of this knowledge about who Christ is, now he’s basically going to say, “This should be a no-‐brainer, you should bring this into your life, you should apply this to your life.” Because we all know that acquiring knowledge is really silly if you don’t do anything with it.

Acquiring knowledge, learning about something and then just kind of setting it aside and not employing it in your life is, you could even say, it’s kind of just insanity. It would be like you saying, “It’s time for us to buy a new car.” So you do all the research, and you do the price-‐shopping, and you settle on the make of the car and the brand, and you go down to the dealership, and you work it out with the sales person, and you sign all the paperwork.

I mean, it’s a decent amount of work that you’ve got to invest – all the research, all the preparation to get a car. And you do all that and then they bring the new car up right outside the lot – and you ride your bike home. “Well, aren’t you going to take your car home?”

“Nah, just go ahead and leave it here. It’s mine but just leave it parked on the lot.” You’d be like, “Yeah, that’s silly.” Yeah, so is learning about all this stuff and not doing anything with it. So Paul, what he’s going to do here, he’s going to say, “Here’s who Jesus is, this is what He’s done, the difference He’s made. Here’s the difference it should make in your life.”

Now, as we jump into verse 1, Paul is going to give us this analogy. It’s the analogy of take off some clothes, put on some new clothes. Take off some clothing, and this is just a very simple routine. In fact, scanning the room right now – let me do it real quick. I am 100% certain that everybody put clothes on this morning, and I’m really grateful that you have, I’m really grateful that you have. And you are equally if not more grateful that I am wearing clothes right now, that’d be awkward.

But everybody in here this morning, you got up ... I’m sorry for the visual, I’m sorry, alright? That one slipped through the filter. Didn’t mean to do that, but here’s the thing. Everybody got up this morning, you got up this morning, you took whatever you were sleeping in off, you put on whatever it is you’d feel comfortable coming to church in. And you do that every day. Whatever it is you do for a living, I would say that you wear to work what would be appropriate for you to work in. And if you got up yesterday morning and you’re doing some yard work, you probably got up and you put on the clothing appropriate for that task.



Last week, I was watching the Indy 500 and I couldn’t help but notice, there was this small group of people who were dressed in very bright-‐colored jumpsuits that went up to their neck, and they were wearing these narrow little Puma shoes, and I was like, “What is that? Is that like a new style, is that a new fad?” No, they’re the race car drivers, alright? And, they were dressed like, different than everybody in the crowd because they were getting ready to jump into the race. So the clothing that we wear is an indication of, really, you could even say, who you are and what you’re getting ready to do.

That’s the analogy Paul’s using, said, “If you’re in Christ, what are you still wearing those raggedy old clothes for? Take those things off, put on the righteousness of Christ.” Look at what he says in verse 1, “If then you have been raised with Christ,” so he’s writing this to Christians. That’s important to understand, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”

We’ve talked about that before, Christ is sitting down because there’s no more work to do. When you’re done with the job, you sit down. So Jesus finished the work to justify you on the cross, He sits down at the right hand of God the Father, that’s a position of authority and privilege, where He can there have access to God, to mediate on your behalf.

He says, “I want you to focus on this.” Verse 2, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.” Now the plain meaning of that is just simply this question. What do you primarily think about? What primarily consumes your thoughts? And I think there are two aspects to that. The first aspect to that could be, that any time you have a goal, any time you have a desire, any time you say, “Here’s something I want to accomplish,” the very first step in that is mental. Have you ever just heard that phrase, “So as your thoughts go, there you go.”? So it’s this idea that I’m going to fix my mind on that, I’m going to set my mind on that, I’m going to think through that.

Maybe the most tangible analogy or explanation that I could use is when I met my wife, and I went after her. I set my mind on her. Man, I remember when I saw her when she walked into the room for the first time. I was like, “Man, she is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve got to meet her!” And I didn’t know how I was going to do that. And so, I set my mind to it. And so, I started to scheme, and I started to think, and I started to just kind of show up, accidentally bump into her around the corner. Like, “Oh, oh, there you are. I had no idea.”

And you might, some people call it stalking, “Tomato”, “tomahto,” alright? I just call it setting my mind on this. And so, I ended up like, I was trying to figure out how to like, ask her to spend some time with me in a way that she couldn’t reject me. And so, I was preaching – this is going to sound so pathetic. You’re going to lose respect for me, but that’s all right. I was preaching at a chapel service for a local high school, and so I called her up and I said, “Hey, would you come with me and sing for this?” I mean, she’s not going to say no to that. I mean, she’d be unspiritual!

So, she said, “Yes.” She went, she sang. I thought, okay, this is going to be awesome. Like afterwards, maybe I’ll just say, “Hey, let me, I don’t know, take you to Sonic and get you a cherry limeade to thank you or something.” And she ended up like, having somebody else pick her up. Like, she just bailed. And so, I set my mind to it again. Got bucked off that horse – I’m going to get right back on.



So, I call her up and I thanked her for singing and I was just going to ask her out while I was thanking her. And to hear her tell the story later, she thought I was asking her, she was anticipating that I was going to ask her sing for something else. So in her mind, she was preparing to say yes before she heard the question. Now that’s awesome, alright? So I said, “Thanks so much for singing, you did a great job.” She’s like, “Oh, you’re welcome.” And I said, “You want to go to Applebee’s?”

“Yes. What??” She’s been trapped ever since, man, trapped ever since. Her loss, my gain.

Now, that’s one aspect of this, this is like the set your mind to it, this relentlessness, this, “I’m not giving up. I want to mature. It’s not enough just for me to have my hide covered, and Jesus to be my Savior. I want Him to be Lord. But there’s some resistance to this, in my own self and in the culture in which I live. So I’m going to set my mind toward maturity in Christ. What do I have to do to grow in that, to swim upstream?”

But the second aspect of setting your mind on things above, and I know some of you read this, and you’re like, “Man, Aaron, that just is, I just don’t know that I can do that, because you don’t understand. I’ve got three screaming kids in the minivan. And I’ve got demands at work. I’m in a very stressful environment. I can’t walk around all day, just imagining what heaven is going to be like.”

That’s not what he’s saying. Don’t make that so trite. He’s saying simply this, “What is the filter by which you perceive reality?” You could call this an eternal perspective, a wide-‐angle lens. Have you ever gotten worked up over something that in the grand scheme of things, really just isn’t that big a deal? This is the idea of thinking through things through the perspective of eternity.

So, here are a couple questions I wrote down. I never want to preach a sermon to you that I haven’t already preached to myself. So, as I was preaching this to myself this week, I thought, “Okay, what does this look like for you, Brockett?” And so, I wrote down this question. What do you think about as soon as you wake up in the morning? That’s a huge indicator as to what you’re leaning into to justify yourself.

What’s the very last thought on your mind as you drift off to sleep at night? What do you worry about consistently? What do you continue to struggle with consistently? What is the filter by which you see reality? Your thoughts are really important things. It’s kind of like the junk food of the soul.

And so, if you’re daydreaming about something silly, if you are watching or reading or ingesting something, it’ll influence your thoughts. It affects moods and behaviors. Romans 6 puts it this way, “The mind that is set upon the flesh leads to death, but the mind that is set upon the spirit leads to life.” Jesus would say it in Matthew chapter 6, “Seek first the kingdom of God. Hey man, all these other things will be given to you as well.” C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite authors, he put it this way, “If you aim at heaven, you get earth thrown in. If you aim at earth, you don’t get either one.”

As we go on in verse 3, he gives an explanation of why. He says, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” That’s pretty dramatic language. He says, “You have died.” And oftentimes, I think that, when we come to Jesus Christ, we don’t spend enough time on the fact that what that means



is that you’ve first got to die. You can’t live for Christ if you don’t first die. You die to yourself. Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow Me.”

I think this is the reason why God invented such a thing as baptism. It is a very tangible picture of your being buried in a watery grave and then resurrected as a new creation in Jesus Christ. And if you found yourself trying Jesus and it doesn’t work, ask yourself, “Did I kill myself first?” I know that sounds weird to say, but see, oftentimes what we do is, we want Jesus to be an add-‐on, we want Him to be an upgrade, we want Him to sit in the passenger’s seat. Yeah, sure, come along Jesus as I live my life. He goes, “No, no, no – this is a hostile takeover!”

And many times, we’re like, do any of you guys remember that movie, Weekend at Bernie’s? I don’t know what it’s rated, so I’m not recommending it, alright? I think I only saw it once. I saw it on TBS, where they edited it or, I don’t know. And so … that one slipped through the filter, too. But, have you ever, do you remember that movie? The dude’s dead and they’re like, propping him up all weekend, I think so they can have access to his beach house or something?

Are you doing that with your old life? It’s like, “Yeah, sure, absolutely, I’m following Christ but my old corpse is coming along with us. My old desires, my old wants, my old needs.” And Jesus says, “Man, what are you dragging that thing around for? Get rid of it, you died, your life is now hidden in Christ.”

Verse 4, “When Christ, who is your life appears,” man, I love the totality of that language! Jesus is not an add-‐on, not a snap-‐on, He is your life. Jesus, who is your life, appears. He’s going to appear. I know it’s been a long time. I know the Bible says to live by faith. I know some of you are struggling. I know some of you are trying to do everything you can to dodge Jesus. One day, He’ll appear. And then you will also appear with Him in glory. That is an incredibly comforting and an utterly terrifying thought, all at the same time. But at one point, He’s going to rip open the sky and everything will be illuminated – every hidden desire, every private thought, every action behind closed doors, illuminated like a giant spotlight.

Here’s the question that I asked of myself this last week, “Brockett, what are you going to be thinking about, what are you going to be doing, what are you going to be saying in that moment when Jesus cracks open the sky? That’s terrifying. I mean, I’ve just had this image. Am I just going to be telling somebody off? “I’ll give you a piece of my mind!” Do-‐do-‐do-‐doo! (trumpet sound) Whoa!! “I really love you brother!” I mean, I’ve got this terrifying thought of like; I let my mind wander off into a lustful thought. All of a sudden, Jesus returns, rips open the sky.

I remember when I was in high school, me and bunch of my friends wanted to go swimming late at night. And, we had a neighborhood pool. It was a hot, humid, July, southern Missouri evening and we had a neighborhood pool. And you had to have an adult and a key to have access and we didn’t want to mess with either one of those. And so, we just decided to jump the fence. And so, we were all playing in the pool, it was like midnight and we all thought we were getting away with it because it was pitch black outside, and we were just carefree.

All of a sudden this car comes around the corner. They must have heard us, they parked, shined their headlights right at the pool, turned their brights on and started laying on their horn. Man, you’ve never



seen a group of teenage boys move so fast in your whole life! You ever opened up a dark room and a bunch of cockroaches just scatter about? That’s what we looked like. We’re like, “Every man for himself!” You know, we’re grabbing our stuff, diving over the fence, trying to get back to the darkness.

Here he says, “Jesus is going to rip…” Now here’s the thing -‐ in that moment, when Jesus rips open the sky, I’m going to want an advocate. I’m going to want a champion. I can certainly tell you, I don’t want Him to be a stranger. Like, “Hey, I know it’s been a while since we talked, but since You’re here, let’s catch up.” No, it’s like, I want my relationship to be maturing and growing with Him where immediately, He is my advocate, He is my champion. This is the thought here.

Now, Paul’s going to get into verse 5, some things that we need to do. And once again let me caution you, these are not things you do to get saved, these are not things you do because that’s what good little Christians do. These are things you do to bring your character into alignment with your identity in Christ. And so he says in verse 5, “Put to death,” I circled that in my Bible. That is a dramatic, aggressive language. He says, literally, “Murder what is earthly inside of you.” Don’t play around with it, don’t send it to its room, don’t put it in timeout. Kill it.

So what does he say for us to kill about our earthly nature? He just gives a list here, probably not too much of what you would, I mean, you would probably expect to see some of these things. Here’s the thing, most of us, though, probably don’t expect to see ourselves in this list. And so, as we read this, resist the temptation to say, “Man, this is really good, I hope my neighbor is watching on the live streaming right now. This is really good. My boss should really listen to this sermon.” Resist the urge to do that. Put yourself in the hot seat.

He says, “Put to death sexual immorality.” Now that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve actually physically done something with somebody else, but that also includes your thoughts. He says, “Put that stuff to death. Just get rid of it.” You can’t just manage that kind of thing. And I’m all for the computer filters, and Covenant Eyes, and accountability and all that. You’ll still figure out a way around it. You got to put it to death.

And I always have to say this whenever the Bible mentions sex, especially for those who may not be in Christ yet, sex is not bad. Maybe you’ve come back to church for the first time in a long time and you’re like, “See, I knew it, all preachers talk about is ‘sex is bad’ and ‘give me your money’.” Number one, I’m not talking about money today, so you can relax. Number two, sex is a good thing. Can I get an amen on that? I know you’ve got an amen on that, I know you do, alright?

Sex is created by God. It’s meant for procreation, it’s meant for our pleasure. Here’s the thing about sex. Sex is a lot like fire. Fire is an amazing thing within a certain context. And so, on a really cold winter’s evening, fire in a fireplace is amazing. In the barbeque grill, fire is amazing. You go camping and you put some stones around a little campfire, roast a little bit of marshmallows. There’s something about a nice fire that just stimulates great conversation. Awesome thing.

Fire will also burn your house down if it gets outside of the context in which the Creator designed it for. And our culture is so filled with hypocrisy when it comes to this. Our culture calls out, “Give us sexual



freedom, give us sexual freedom, we do whatever we want.” Then somebody crosses the line, “Oh, how dare they?” They’re on the front page of the paper, and “Oh, they’re filthy!” What did you expect? You took a little bit of the coal and you threw it outside the boundaries in which the Creator designed it for. He says, “Man, put to death the sexual immorality.”

He goes on and he says, notice in your Bibles, he says, “Put to death impurity.” That’s relatively self-‐explanatory. He says, even just a little bit of impurity, get rid of that. The next one requires a little bit of explanation, actually the next two. He says, “Put to death passion.” Now that one confused me.

I was reading that this last week and I was like, “What are you talking about, Paul? You don’t want me to be excited anymore? You don’t want me to be passionate?” Because, in our culture, passion means something usually that’s celebrated, right? And so we say, “Man, that person is really passionate.” Or, “Man, you need to get more passionate about that.” The NBA Finals are on right now, and the league really markets itself on this, “Who’s going to have the most passion to take it all?” Clearly, the Pacers didn’t have it. I’m really bummed about that! I’ll go on, alright?

So, anyway, he says here, “Put to death passion.” What do you mean by that, Paul? What he means is that you and I, every single person in this room, we are driven by our stomachs. We are driven by these desires that we have, that’ll end up overtaking us. And so when we see something we want, I would say the big three are food, sex, and money, all three are gifts from God that get outside this boundary. We see something we want to eat, we see something we want to purchase, we see some sort of sexual image that we want to ingest, and we say, “I’m going to go for that, I’m filled with passion for that, regardless of the collateral damage it might cause me or others.” He said, “Put that to death.”

And then this last one. He said, “Also put to death evil desire.” Now, I’ve never met anybody, I’ve never had anybody come to me and say, “Pastor, could I talk to you? I really need some prayer, and I’m really struggling through some things.”

“Yeah, sure, what can I pray for you about?”

“I’ve just got a bunch of evil desires.” I’ve just never heard anybody say that. So what does that mean? Immediately, the image that I had as I was studying this this last week was me in my lair, stroking my cat and going, “Wahahahaha” (evil laugh). I just need to put that to death. What is that? That’s not what he’s talking about. This concept – if you’re visiting today, welcome to the nut job, alright? I’m sorry. Every now and then, I see myself out of the peripheral on the screen and I’m like, “What am I doing?”

Alright, so this idea of evil desires, this actually is one Greek word that’s difficult to translate into English. But the Greek work for evil desires is “epatheumia” which means a magnified, overbearing desire. Do you get a general theme here? And so he says here that you can actually desire something that’s good, but by the way in which you desire it, it becomes evil because it will destroy you. And he says, “And the covetousness which is idolatry.”

This is the idea that we are, as human beings, made to worship. And worship does not mean singing. It means whatever you’re addicted to, whatever you pursue to make you feel better, whatever it is that



you look to to justify yourself, to give your life meaning, to give your life fulfillment. Whatever that is, that’s what you worship. And so, he says we’re constantly worshipping with our eyes. We look around and we say, “Man, I really like what they’re wearing. I wish I had that! Man, I really like what they’re driving. I wish I could drive that! I love the house they live in. I wish we could live in that house! I wish that I had their family, I wish that I had their job!”

And we are constantly comparing our insides with other people’s outsides. And it always looks better. And he says this leads to idolatry because anything you have given your heart to, listen to me, anything you’ve given your heart to converts you. We are a room full of converts. The question is what have you been converted by? And so, he says, “Get rid of all this covetousness that leads to idolatry.” In other words, you’ve got to set your mind and your heart on something greater than the idols that have been driving the desires of your old self.

And at the end of verse 6, he says something equally as alarming. Look with me at your Bible. On account of these things that he’s just listed, the wrath of God is coming. Now that’s uncomfortable to talk about. Once again, I’ve never had anybody… Every now and then, I’ll have people say, “Have you ever thought about preaching on this particular subject or this particular book of the Bible?” Or, “We’d really love to hear this series.” I’ve not once ever had someone come up and say, “Would you think about doing a series on the wrath of God? We’d really love to hear that.” A lot of preachers dodge the subject of the wrath of God, and I can understand why. I probably have at times, as well. And we don’t like to think about the wrath of God. In fact, it’s one of those kinds of enigmas in our heads.

Like, if God is love, how can He be a God of wrath? And I don’t know how to reconcile these two. Even to the point of false teaching, where people say the God of the Old Testament is a different God from the God of the New Testament. Because the God of the Old Testament is clearly a grumpy old man and the God of the New Testament is a loving God. And I’ve had some people say, point-‐blank to me, “The reason why I’ll never give my life to Christ, the reason that is the big barrier is I can’t believe in a God of wrath.” And I always want to just say, “Really?”

Now think about this with me. What does wrath mean? Wrath means angry, wrath means furious, irate, steaming. Have you ever been one of those? Well, if you’re human, you have been. Now, here’s the thing you’ve got to understand. There is a way to be destructively angry, and a way to be constructively angry. Would you not agree with that? We would call that righteous wrath and unrighteous wrath. You’ve got to understand, we just throw wrath into a big category of out-‐of-‐control craziness. That’s not what that means. This is righteous wrath.

So, let me give you a practical example. Here’s an example of unrighteous anger. You cut me off in traffic, and so I speed up beside you and ram into your car, sending you careening off into a canyon, where the car blows up. That just came to me, alright? “Preacher, we will pray for you this week. You’ve got some serious problems.” Alright, so would you not agree, that’s unrighteous wrath? You’d be like, “I can’t believe you did that! I’m calling the authorities. That’s out of control. You’ve lost it.” Okay?

Now here’s an example of righteous wrath. Your daughter, who’s in college, goes on a date with a guy. He physically assaults her. If you’re not angry about that, you wouldn’t be a good parent. You would be



righteously angry, and by your righteous anger, you demonstrate that you care. You demonstrate that you love her.

Your teenage son has a friend, a young man who’s two or three years older than him. He begins to look up to this guy, this guy earns his trust, and he introduces him to a drug or to a narcotic that your son then gets addicted to, and his life spirals out of control. He drops out of school, he can’t get a job, he’s living on the streets. If you’re not angry about that, there’s something wrong with you.

What you’ve got to understand is that when the Bible talks about the wrath of God, it was never meant for His kids. And you’re His kids. And the thing that’s assaulted you, and the drug that you’ve gotten addicted to, is sin. And God’s wrath was meant for the sin, not His kids.

But, if your daughter then went and married the dude who assaulted her and said, “Forget you, Mom & Dad, I love him!” then she would get in the way of your wrath. If your high school aged son said, “Forget you, Mom & Dad, I love this lifestyle too much,” he would get in the way of your wrath. The same thing is true of sin. And so, if you bridle yourself up next to it, you end up getting in the way of the wrath of God that was never meant for you.

This is why the Gospel is good news, because Jesus came and stepped in between that and said, “I’ll absorb the wrath of God on your behalf. Quick, take off those clothes and put on My righteousness!” That’s what the Gospel is.

And so he says in verse 7, “In these, too, you once walked, when you were living in them.” So these Colossians would have remembered a time in which all those things that we just listed were perfectly normal. And he says, “You were once living in those things, but now – but now – you must put them all away.” And then he lists them out and this is where, if you thought the previous list didn’t apply to you, this list will nail you.

Nobody’s getting… I love Paul’s writing, he did that intentionally. He wanted you to breathe a sigh of relief, like, “Whew! I don’t think I’m too bad on the first list.” And then he’s going to nail you on this one. Nobody’s getting out of here clean. “Anger,” this is interesting, “wrath,” didn’t we just talk about that? Yeah, sending somebody off into the canyon. That’s what he wants you to not do, “malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth, do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge, after the image of its Creator.”

See, one of the indicators that you are maturing is that you put some things away. You put away the video games, you put away the dolls, you put away the things that were perfectly normal at one stage and season of your life, and now you put it away.

If you were to go to my house and go down into the basement, in our storage closet, there is a plastic bin and there’s a tag on the front of it that says, “Aaron’s memories.” And if you were to open it up, there are just a few things that I no longer engage with on a daily basis, but I didn’t want to give them up because they meant something to me in my past, but I’ve put those things away.



So there’s like a little train set that my great-‐grandfather gave to me. He was a train engineer. Didn’t want to give that up, I used to play with it all the time, I’d run it around the living room. That would be a little weird now. There’s an old belt that I used to wear every single day of elementary school, and I loved that belt, and it won’t even fit around my thigh anymore. But, I keep that in that little storage bin, and there’s my Dukes of Hazzard lunch box, which I just love that thing. I tear up when I see it. Love that thing, but it would be very awkward to me to come to church every day with my Dukes of Hazzard lunch box and be like, “Hey, guys!” And, you put some stuff away.

Now here’s the thing. As your pastor, and I say this with love, but I say this very directly. Some of you need to put some stuff away. You’ve claimed the promises of Jesus Christ, you’ve responded to the Gospel message, but you’re still wearing that old sweatshirt with the stain on the front of it, and you’re okay with it! Take it off, not because that’s what makes you a Christian, but take it off because you’ve been given a new identity in Christ. Now it’s time to let your character reflect that.

Social media is so frustrating in this. I mean, just last night as I was drifting off to bed, I just real casually looked at my Twitter feed and there was somebody on there, who is a part of our church, a younger person and their Twitter profile picture was this person’s baptism here. I thought, “Oh, man, this is pretty cool.” This person had the “All In” t-‐shirt. This person is standing there with friends, big smile on this person’s face. I looked at this person’s little biography and it had, “Love God, I love people,” here’s the scripture passage.

The very first tweet that I saw from this person was an inappropriate picture filled with expletives. I was so furious last night, in love. It was not unrighteous wrath, it was righteous wrath. And I was so tempted just to say, “Would you please change your profile pic?” Hey, you want to talk like that? Knock yourself out. Just don’t represent Christ that way.

And I’m not trying to crush anybody here (applause). Listen, I’m not trying to crush anybody here. Man, I’m with you! I am with you. There are episodes, and moments, and things that come out of my mouth, and conversations that I’ll have, and thoughts that I’ll have that are just as bad, it’s just not all over social media. And in that moment, I’ve got to say, “Brockett, what are you doing? Take that off! You’re making a mockery of the cross. Bring your character into alignment with Jesus Christ.”

He says in verse 11, “Here,” he’s talking about your position in Christ, “there is neither Greek or Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free. But Christ is all, and He is in all. So put on then…”

Verse 12, here’s what you should put on, “…as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,” So there’s no question about your salvation. You’re already saved, but you still need to put something on. He says, “…put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.”



Man, what a great passage just for our church. You get a group of people together, we’re going to offend one another, we’re going to hurt one another, we’re going to misunderstand one another. He said, “Bear with one another in love, be patient, forgive one another.”

Verse 14, “Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” Something rules in your hearts. What is it? Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart, “…to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.” Any of you finding this hard to do? Maybe it’s because gratitude is missing. Gratitude is the thing that boosts up our spiritual immune system. Grateful people are really difficult people to frustrate, because they’re just so grateful. And you begin to live in that.

See, here’s what I want you to catch here, and if you’ve begun to drift off, if you’ve begun to daydream, if you’ve begun to think about what you’re going to have for lunch, I can’t fault you. I probably would be if I were you as well. I’m A.D.D., that’s why I preach, alright? To stay focused.

But, if you’ve begun to drift off, I just want to bring you back. I’m closing the sermon. I just want to bring you back for this. There is a key difference between a supernaturally changed heart, and a morally restrained heart. And if you’ve found the Christian life tried and wanting, if you’ve tried to follow Jesus and found it frustrating, if you found yourself on a plateau, if you found yourself overwhelmed by doubts, if you found yourself feeling bored with this, chances are you just tried to live through the process of moral restraint.

Like, “I know I shouldn’t lose my temper, so I’ve decided right now, I’m never losing my temper again.” And then you lose your temper an hour later. Ever done this? “I am never lusting again! Okay, I just did. Alright, I’m sorry.” Ever just been, “I’m going to pursue this, I’m going to go after this.” And what ends up happening when it’s just you? You can only white-‐knuckle it for so long. What you end up doing is you just end up feeding the monster. You just enable it because you’re not operating in the strength of the Spirit. There is a difference between a supernaturally changed heart by Jesus Christ and a moral, restrained one.

Now I know what you’re saying, you’re just saying, “Well, how do I get that?” Well, you get this through the process of every single day; just what he’s talking about – the renewal of your mind, the renewal of your mind. Who is Jesus, what has He done, the difference He’s made, now here’s how you live your life in light of that. Take off those old rags, put on the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Verse 16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Man, I love that! Any of you own those Bible reading plans where you’re trying to get through the Bible in a year? You know, I’m so out on those things because you know what – not that I’m against reading the Bible. Okay, some of you are going to take that in a sound bite, “Our preacher said he didn’t like you to read the Bible in a year.” That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m saying this, the last time I got on that plan, I found myself just trying to get through it. I mean, “I lost a couple days, let me just kind of speed-‐read this!” He says here, “Let it dwell in you.” Man, read it, chew on it, digest it. You don’t have to be a fast reader. Just let it dwell in you. Let it marinate in you,



“…teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.” That’s what we’re doing right now, that’s why we get together on a weekly basis, “…singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

Three questions and I’m done. These are three questions of application I want you to ask of yourself. I want you to ask this in your Life Groups. I want you to ask, if you’ve got a smaller group of people that you get together with and I hope you do. Man, I hope you do. I hope you’re not just coming here and watching a service and then leaving and not connecting in any other way. These would be good questions to talk about around the dinner table.

Here are the three I want you to think about. Here’s the first one: Are there any areas of my life right now that are not currently reflecting the lordship of Christ? Do an inventory. I’m not asking if you’re saved. I’m asking, is there any area of your life that, if you were just to be honest about it, you’d say, “Yeah, that does not reflect the lordship of Christ.”

It could be the areas of entertainment, now that might be a matter of conscience for you. You might think it’s okay to participate in this activity, somebody else may not. I’m just asking. You get to the end of the day, you say, “Is that accurately representing the lordship of Christ?” When it comes to your finances, when it comes to your thought life, are you accurately representing the lordship of Christ in all those areas?

Here’s the second question: Have I declared war on my sin? Have I declared war on it? Now, what oftentimes happens is that many of us come to Christ and there are sins that we struggle with generally, and then there are sins that we struggle with specifically. And we’ll always have both, but what ends up happening is the specific sins that we really struggle with, whatever they might be, instead of putting them to death, we try to domesticate them. And so, we put a leash on them, we lock them away in a room. We put them in a cage. And we bring them out every now and again and interact with them and then, “Back you go, in your cage, you’re not going to consume me, but I’m going to interact with you a little bit.” Now, here’s the thing about that. It will eventually consume you.

Have you ever seen that show, “When Animals Attack?” Every time I’m flipping through the channels and it’s on, I have to stop and watch. It’s just like, “Oh, no.”

“Here’s our pet lion, Sparky.” And I’m like, “Oh, no. Oh, no, this is not good.” All of a sudden, Sparky turns and bites somebody in the leg. “I don’t know what happened! Sparky was so playful before.” Sparky’s a lion! That’s what happened, alright? Sparky shouldn’t be in your backyard, shouldn’t be in your house, he should be out in the wild.

And so, what ends up happening is that we end up kind of flirting with these sins and then something big happens. We get exposed, we get caught, “I don’t know what happened.” You were playing with the animal that should have been put to death. So, have you declared war on your sin? Don’t manage it, don’t domesticate it, put it to death.



Here’s the third and final question: When I stumble and fall, and you will, probably before the sun goes down today. When I stumble and fall, where do I run? That’s a huge indicator of the lordship of Christ in your life, of your maturity in Christ, the clothing that you’re wearing when you stumble and fall. Here’s what I mean. When you stumble into sin, when you stumble and fall, when you mess up, do you run from Christ or do you run to Him? Running from Him can look like this; passive aggressiveness, rebellion, apathy, “I don’t want to deal with you, God; in fact, you know what, God? I’m just so sick of the fact that you put these parameters around me. This is who I am, I’m just going to do this, and I enjoy it.” And you’re running away from Him.

Maturity in Christ is when you stumble and fall, you run toward Him, saying, “Man, how good is God? That He would take me back in this and through this, back toward maturity.” And you know what we call running to God after you stumble? Worship. That’s what it is. Worship is not singing songs. Worship has nothing to do with instruments. Worship has everything to do with, “When I fall, where do I run? What do I hear from Him? Let me sing it back to Him.”

It oftentimes can be mildly frustrating at best when I talk to people. In fact, I don’t want anybody to think I’m looking right at them, so let me just say it like this (looking up at the ceiling). It can be mildly frustrating at times when I bump into somebody and they say, “Yeah, you know, we’re just really not into singing. We come a little bit later in the service, and just come for the teaching.”

Now, if you’re not a Christian, wouldn’t expect that you’d get that yet. If you’re in Christ, you don’t understand what it is you’re saying. Man, I don’t have a musical bone in my body. I couldn’t sing to save my life. I’m half afraid at times that my mike is on when I’m down here. (Singing) “In your presence, whoooo!” Like, I look around and the whole place is empty! It’s like, wow, alright! It’s like I can’t sing for my life. But listen, man, when I get in here, it’s an audience of One.

Now, I’m not asking you – I know, I always kind of walk on kind of dicey material because we’re all wired differently. I mean some of you, you can literally be standing here like this and I know you’re probably tracking. I mean, internally, you’re with it. Others of you are more expressive. I’m not talking about the external package. All I’m asking is – you’ve got to police this in yourself. I can’t police this in you.

Are you locked in? Are you coming here somewhat passively, you know, walking in sort of late, kind of casually, like “I’m not really into this.” And I’m sitting here, thinking to myself, “Man, I stumbled this week.” Did you? Man, I fell. Before I can hear from God, I’ve got to get my heart right. I’m like, “God, I’ve got to run to you, I need you to pick me up, I need you to receive me in this.” And only then are we ready to hear from His Word, and after that, we sing back to Him what it is that we’ve just heard. That’s what it looks like.

Is there any area of your life that is not submitted to the lordship of Christ? Have you declared war on your sin? And, when you stumble and fall, where do you run? Take off that old, ratty t-‐shirt that you’ve been wearing. Man, you’ve been made a new creation in Christ. Put on some clothes that represent that. Bring your character into alignment with Jesus Christ.



“Father, I come to You right now. I know this is a hard sermon and I know that it’s convicting. It’s convicting for me, and yet I ask, God, that You would take this teaching, that You would press it down deep within us. I pray that if there’s anybody here who needs to be comforted by your Spirit, I pray that You’d offer that. I pray that if there’s anybody here that needs to be made uncomfortable by Your Spirit, that that would happen as well. And as we respond back to You by receiving communion and by returning to You our tithes and offerings, I pray that this would be a moment of worship where your Spirit would minister to us deeply, that we would make a tangible decision to set our mind on things above. Not because, by those physical actions, they save us or even make us a better “Christian”. But it’s because we understand the reality that You rescued us from being taken hostage by our own sinful rebellion, and now we want to bring our character into alignment with our new identity in Christ. So help us take off the old and put on the new. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, and the church says, “Amen.”

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Colossians: Put On the New Self… · 2015. 2. 12. · Colossians: Put On the New Self Aaron Brockett | Colossians 3:1-17 ) Good)morning)–)it’sgoodtoseeyou.Ifyou’vegotaBible,goaheadandgrabitandg