Christ Central Living Part 2: Putting Off Sin

You may be seated.

Kiddos, you're in with us this morning,

and I just want to let you know,

children, in with us,

this first opening story

is a made-up pretend story.

Would you open up your Bibles to Colossians 3?

I'm going to be preaching on 5 through 11,

but I'm going to read 1 through 11.

It's on page 1169.

And 1170 of your pew Bibles.

Colossians 3, 1.

If then you have been raised with Christ,

seek the things that are above,

where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things that are above,

not on things that are on earth.

For you have died,

and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears,

then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you,

sexual immorality, impurity, passion,

evil desire, and covetousness,

which is idolatry.

On account of these, the wrath of God is coming.

In these, you too once walked when you were living in them.

But now you must put them all away.

Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and 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 the knowledge

after the image of its creator.

Here, there is not Greek and Jew,

circumcised and uncircumcised,

barbarian, Scythian, slave, free,

but Christ is all and in all.

May God bless the reading, hearing of his word.

This is pretend.

Imagine a young man in desperate need of a new suit.

New to him.

Broke and unwilling to ask for help,

he gets an idea.

That night, he sneaks into Green Ridge Cemetery,

just south of here,

and he digs up the corpse of a man

who's been dead for eight years,

who just happens to be a 42 regular,

36-inch waist, 30-inch inseam.

The living man removes the grave clothes

off the dead man,

puts the dead man back into the coffin,

buries him,

and then puts on the dead man's grave clothes.

Stains of death.

Smell of death.

The crusty texture of death.

That grave suit certainly is disintegrating.

Well, the next day,

that young man is walking along the harbor side

in these grave clothes.

And walking towards him

is this bright-eyed older woman

who sees this young man in these grave clothes,

and so she approaches him and asks,

young man,

why would someone alive

be wearing the grave clothes

of someone dead?

She goes on to say,

come with me.

Let's dispose of those old grave clothes.

They don't belong on you.

I'll get you a new lively suit

that you were born to wear.

What are you, a 42 regular?

Christian,

why would someone made alive

continue wearing the clothes

of someone dead?

Christian, you've been made alive in Christ.

So put off the old clothes of the grave.

And make new room for the new.

Those made new,

put off the sin of old.

Three points from this passage.

Christian, you've been made new.

Second point,

put away the old.

Third point,

make room for the new.

Why would someone made alive in Christ

continue wearing the clothes

of those dead,

separated from Christ?

It's not who you are anymore.

Let's look at this first point,

your new self.

Two weeks ago,

I preached on chapter three,

one through four.

And I made the case,

we need to have our thinking rewired.

Your identity now is in Christ.

Remember 220,

you've died with Christ.

Remember 3.1,

you've been raised with Christ.

We are now united with Christ

in his death and resurrection.

We're not who we used to be.

We have a new identity.

And we have a new aim in Christ.

We set our minds on the things above

where Christ is.

He's our aim.

He's our priority.

And we're on a new time frame.

We live in between Christ's first coming

and his second coming.

We live in the midst of the already and not yet.

Church, what time are we on?

Christ time.

And all of this informs

a Christ central way of thinking and living.

It's who we are now.

Well, in verses five and 11,

Paul continues to develop this new way

of thinking about ourselves

and about our relationship to sin.

In verses seven and eight,

he develops this thinking about ourselves

in terms of before and after.

Look at verse seven.

In these, you too once walked

when you were living in them.

The things that he's talking about,

the them that you were living in,

points back to verse five,

a list of sexual sin.

I'll come back to that in a little bit.

But he's saying,

that was your old grave clothes.

That was before.

Did you see the word once?

See the word when?

Those are time markers

pointing back before you were converted to Christ.

Before, Jesus graciously changed you.

And then in verse eight, of course,

is the but now.

You once were that

when you were living in them.

You're walking in a manner

worthy of yourself and sin,

not Christ.

Before, but now,

we put those things all away.

Because we've been made new.

So there's this development

of how we think about ourselves

in terms of the before and after.

So it's just very helpful.

There's the before mic

when I was living for sin.

And there's the after mic

where Christ is the controlling center

of my life more and more.

But there's also another

kind of line of development.

In verses nine and ten,

it's along the lines of old and new.

Verse nine,

do not lie to one another.

Why?

Why?

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.

So not just before and after,

it's old and new.

We're talking about the nature

of who you were

before and after your conversion,

the spiritual quality

of who you were

and who you are.

So when Paul talks about,

in verse nine,

the old self,

that's the way the apostle Paul

is talking about

who you were

before you were converted to Christ.

And just to spell that out

a little bit,

that's when you were separated

from God

because of your sin.

That's when you were

spiritually dead.

that's when you were

under God's wrath

justly because of the sin

that you were committing

against him.

You were walking in them.

You were living in them

because that qualitatively

is who you were.

You were spiritually dead

in those grave clothes.

Well, those just came

naturally to you.

Another way to think about it

is in terms of

chapter one,

verse 13.

We read this.

He has delivered us

from the domain of darkness

and transferred us

to the kingdom

of the beloved son.

The before you,

the old self you,

was you

when you were living

in the domain of darkness.

That's who you were.

Christ was not

the controlling,

life-giving,

treasure center

of your life.

You were.

Sin was.

And what Paul says

in verse nine

is that

that's been put off.

It's no longer

who you are.

If you've put your faith

in Jesus Christ,

that old self

is before

before.

You were once

clothed

in the old self

with its

evil practices,

but that's not

who you are anymore.

That old self

died

with Christ.

The new self,

verse 10,

is Paul's way

of describing

who you are now

having been raised

with Christ

to newness of life.

Elsewhere,

in 2 Corinthians 5,

the apostle Paul

talks about it like this.

You're a new creation.

The old

has gone.

The new

has come.

You're a new creation

in Christ.

You've been united

with Christ

to his death

and resurrection

and you've been

made new.

Dead to sin,

alive to God.

He has forgiven

all of your sins,

all of them.

That's why God's wrath

is no longer

over your head.

There is therefore

now no condemnation

for those who are

in Christ Jesus.

We no longer walk

according to the

practices of the

old self,

but we walk now

in a manner

worthy of the Lord.

He's our aim.

He's our aim.

He has delivered us

from the domain

of darkness,

old self before,

and transferred us

into the kingdom

of the beloved son,

the kingdom

of the new selves,

the community

of the new,

and we live

for him now.

So,

here we have

your new self

united to Christ.

There's a before,

there is a old,

old self,

old man

that's no longer

died with Christ

and now you're new,

brother, sister,

in Christ.

You're new.

Christ has made you new.

By virtue of being,

you being united to him,

you're new.

Christ has made you new.

Does anybody remember

that great show

way back?

Extreme Makeover

House Edition.

Ty Pennington

and his crew.

Well,

here's what would happen.

There would be this family

and they're living

in this old,

dilapidated house

and they would be sent

to like Disney World

for a week

and Ty and his crew

would come in

and they'd rebuild the house.

They'd bring the family

back in

and they'd put them

behind this bus

and that bus,

they would say,

move that bus

and that bus would move back

and then that family

would see

a new updated house.

Do you remember

what they do?

Faint.

No way.

Joyous.

The old is gone.

The new has come.

The new has come.

Christian,

you're an extreme makeover.

Christ edition.

That's who you are.

The old is gone.

The new has come.

So I got a question for you.

I'm going to ask you

a question.

If you're a Christian

in the room,

I want you to answer it.

I'm going to say,

who are you?

And you're going to tell me,

I've been made new.

Who are you?

I've been made new.

Here we go.

It's who you are now.

It's your new self.

Now we move on to the next point.

Now that you've been made new,

we've been made new,

we must put away the sins of old

because it's not who you are anymore.

Why would someone living

be wearing the grave clothes

of someone who is dead?

In our passage,

in verses five and eight,

there are two sets of grave clothes

of the old man

when you live in the domain of darkness

that we cannot wear anymore

because it's not who we are.

We need to put them away.

We need to put them to death.

And the two wardrobes

are sexual sin

and sinful speech.

Let's take one at a time.

In verse five,

Paul lists out this wardrobe

of grave clothes

of sexual sin.

He lists five of them.

Sexual immorality,

where we get the word porneia.

Impurity, passion, evil desires,

and covetousness.

Now I know what you're thinking.

Covetousness?

Why is that?

What's that doing in a sin list

of sexual sin?

In Exodus chapter 20, verse 17,

Exodus 20:17

it's the list,

20 is the listing of the 10 commandments.

Remember those?

The big 10?

The 10th

is a command against coveting.

And God says,

you shall not covet.

You shall not covet

your neighbor's house.

You shall not covet

your neighbor's wife.

Do you know what I'm saying?

If covetousness

is a kind of greed,

he's talking about

sexual greed.

Wanting someone sexually

that you are not allowed to have.

That's the covetousness

he's talking about here,

the apostle Paul.

It actually

sums up the whole list.

It's a sexual greed

that's forbidden by God.

Now here's what you need to know

about these sexual sins.

They're all distortions

of God's good gift

and design

of sexuality.

We can't make

the categorical mistake

of thinking that sex is bad,

sex is wrong.

It's God's good gift to us.

So just to be very clear,

the gold standard

in which God gives us

for us to enjoy

our sexuality

is in marriage.

And so in Genesis chapter 2

Genesis 2:24

verses 24 and 25,

God gives Eve to Adam

and they were both naked

and not ashamed.

They became one flesh

and what that's a picture of

is the only place

that God has given

for our good

that we can enjoy

this good gift.

You know what that means?

Anything outside,

any sexual experience

pursuit outside

of these biblical gold standard

of one chromosomal man

and one chromosomal woman

exclusively committed

to each other

before life,

before God,

anything out of that

is a distortion

of God's good gift.

It's sin.

It's wrong.

Based upon what God says.

It's even idolatrous.

Do you know why

it's idolatrous?

Here's what happens.

People reject God

and yet they're still worshipers.

And so you know what they'll worship

in place of God?

Something that makes them happy.

Sexual pleasure

falls into that.

And so what happens is,

this is Romans 1,

people reject God

and they will replace him

with distorted sexual practices.

It's idolatrous

and therefore provokes

God's wrath.

So let me just be crystal clear.

Marital infidelity

when one spouse

of a marriage

is pursuing sexual relationships

outside of that marriage.

That's sin.

That's wrong.

That's grave clothes.

That's old man living.

That's old man living.

That's old man living.

Unmarried sexual enjoyment.

Even when it's committed partners

but you're not married

or it's friends with benefits.

These things are outside of God's good design.

They're wrong.

Pornography in all of its forms,

it's wrong.

It's outside of God's good design.

Self-sex,

homosexuality sex,

it's all outside of God's good design.

Now the world will say,

the earth will say,

these earthly desires,

those who practice them

will say something like this.

Well,

well,

they're in vogue.

They're fashionable.

It's okay.

But God's word is crystal clear.

This is sin.

This is wrong.

It's not his design.

It's not to experience his goodness

along his terms.

So what must we do?

What happens if you're in the room

and you're having an extramarital affair right now?

What happens if you're in the room

and you're looking at pornography?

What happens if you're in the room

and you're having a relationship,

you're not married but with another person

and it's sexual in nature,

what do you do?

The first three words of verse five.

Put it to death.

And what that means is this.

At the basic sense,

it's considering these sexual practices

that are not God's design

as having been put to death

with Christ at the cross.

That's old self.

It's not who you are anymore.

It's not me.

It's not me.

You know those medical dramas

where a critically injured patient

gets rolled into an ER?

The doctor rolls up,

assesses,

starts doing CPR,

takes out those pad things,

doesn't work.

CPR more.

And despite all this,

the doctor has done

in order to resuscitate this person,

the person dies.

Do you know what the doctor does at that point?

You've seen it.

They say something like,

I'm calling it.

Time of death,

6.43 a.m.

with a little look.

Brothers and sisters,

here's how we put things to death.

You've got sexual sin in your life.

You've got to call it.

You're dead.

When you were converted,

you were united to Christ's death

and resurrection.

And Christ's death,

scholars say,

took place on April 3rd,

33 A.D.

at 3 p.m.

You call it.

That died.

April 3rd,

33 A.D.

3 p.m.

It's not me anymore.

It died with Christ

on the cross.

We don't wear

these grave clothes

of sexual sin anymore

because it's not who we are anymore.

It's idolatrous.

And it's not loving your neighbor.

If I asked for a show of hands,

every hand would go up.

Who has experienced,

don't raise your hands.

I'll raise mine for us all.

Who in this room

has experienced

the disintegration of relationships,

the destruction of relationships

as a result of sexual sin?

everybody's hand goes up.

Whether it's something you've done

or something someone else has done

that has affected you,

we've all experienced the fallout.

it's not loving your neighbor.

That sin

died with your old self

on the cross

with Jesus Christ.

it's not who you are.

It might be common to man.

It might be fashionable

in this world at this time.

It's idolatrous in God's sight.

And you stand on that.

The second set of clothes,

grave clothes,

is raised in verse 8.

We're to put away

all anger,

wrath,

malice,

slander,

and obscene talk.

Do you know what they all have in common?

Where they're coming from.

From

your

mouth.

anger

from your mouth.

Wrath

from your mouth.

Malice

from your mouth.

Slander,

which we get the word

blasphemy

from.

It's attributing,

it's saying

something

is true of someone

when it's not.

And obscene talk,

filthy talk.

From your mouth.

Before.

This is like

your sexuality.

Before you were converted

and you were the controlling center

of your life,

then your controlling center

governed your sexuality.

And it's the same

with your speech.

Before you were converted

to Christ,

before he made you new,

because you were the controlling center,

your sin was

it governed your speech.

You spoke

out of it.

In Luke 6,

Jesus is teaching

and helping his disciples

kind of see false teachers.

And what he says

is helpful for us all,

not just for false teachers,

but to see stuff in ourselves.

And he talks about how

a tree is known

by its fruit,

that the evil treasure

that someone stores up,

it bears evil fruit,

evil speech.

The good treasure

someone stores up

in their heart,

well,

it bears the fruit of,

good fruit.

And then Jesus says,

out of the abundance

of the heart,

the mouth speaks.

Do you know why

we speak sinfully?

In anger

and in wrath

and in malice,

slander people

obscenely?

It's because

sin is still in our hearts.

We've been made new,

yet there's this

still sinful nature

that's got to be put to death

and put down.

And sometimes we go back

to the old way

of our speaking

in which we are

speaking out of self-protection.

We are speaking

to attack someone.

We are speaking,

well, you know what?

Here's another tactic.

You don't speak,

you give the silent treatment,

but it's actually

a verbal attack of a sort.

These are old ways

of speaking.

And these sins

are common to man.

Now, if you are regularly

wearing these grave clothes,

or better yet,

you are speaking

grave talk,

I want to help you

become convinced

of the sinfulness

of those things.

Read James chapter 3

James 3:7–12

verses 7 through 12.

Take a look at

Ephesians chapter 4

Ephesians 4:29

verses 29, 30.

In fact,

let's go there right now.

Ephesians chapter 4,

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

29 through 30,

we taught our kids

verse 29.

They were grown up,

we would drop that dime

like twice a week,

three times a week.

In verse 29

of Ephesians 4

says this,

let no corrupting talk

come out of your mouths,

but only such

as is good for building up,

as fits the occasion,

that it may give grace

to those who hear.

That's how we speak now

with Christ,

our treasured center,

functioning.

We're not to speak

grave talk.

It tears people down.

It's disintegrating

of relationship.

But it's verse 30

that I want you to see

in the connection

that's being made.

Verse 30,

seemingly out of nowhere,

he says,

and do not grieve

the Holy Spirit of God

by which you've been sealed

for the day of redemption.

Your speech,

your trash talk,

it grieves the Holy Spirit.

Do you know why?

Do you know what the Holy Spirit

is seeking to do

in our church?

The Holy Spirit

is seeking for us

to speak the truth

in love to one another,

to build up our church,

to unite our church.

And when we speak

grave talk,

trash talk,

it goes against

the very work

that the Holy Spirit

is seeking to do

in our midst.

it grieves

the Holy Spirit.

So what do we do?

We put this kind of talk away,

Paul says,

in verse 8.

Put it away.

It's another way

of talking about

putting it to death.

April 3rd,

80.33,

3 p.m.,

dead.

That stuff

doesn't come out

of this mouth anymore

because it's dead.

this is a mouth

made new.

This is a new self.

I'm not going there.

We put this

trash talk

in the trash can

because it's not

who we are anymore.

It grieves God

and it's unloving

to others.

For every couple

I get to marry,

I walk them through

a premarital counseling

sequence

and one of the articles

I have them read

is by Paul David Tripp.

It's called

Speaking Redemptively.

It's a thick,

dense article,

but it is so good.

Kelly has put

20 of those articles

at the connect desk

in that vestibule

to my right.

Pick one up.

It'll help you

think about

your speech more.

Why would someone

living

be wearing

the grave clothes

of someone

who's died?

we put these

things to death

and we put them

away

is another way

of talking about

repenting of your sin.

Turning from your sin.

Turning to Christ

decisively.

And when we do,

we make space

for something new.

We put off the old

and now point three,

we make room

for the new.

What we have

in verse 11,

let me read it.

Here there is not

Greek and Jew,

circumcised and uncircumcised,

barbarian,

Scythian,

slave,

free,

but Christ is all

in all.

Do you know

what we have here?

We have a radical

new way

of relating

with one another.

Let me help you see it.

There are four pairings

of old man relating

where you would relate

to other people

according to a worldly way,

an earthly way.

Here are the pairs.

Here there is not

Greek and Jew.

It's measuring somebody up

based upon their culture,

their background,

their religious kind

of practices.

He goes on to say,

here,

there is not

Greek

or Jew,

circumcised and uncircumcision.

It's, again,

a difference

between cultures

and physical

distinctions.

Don't measure people up

like that.

That's an old way

of doing things.

The next one

is barbarian,

Scythian.

You're like,

whoa,

barbarian,

Scythian.

These are two types

of Gentiles.

And barbarians

were Gentiles

who didn't speak

Greek.

And the Scythians,

well,

they were like,

the bottom of the barrel

when it comes to Gentiles.

Has anybody heard

the expression

of white trash?

Scythians

were the white trash

of Gentiles

in the first century.

That's how they were

looked on.

So you have this,

within Gentiles,

you have this

measuring up

category.

Oh,

you're white trash.

I'm a barbarian.

And then,

of course,

there is slave and free

who's got the power.

These are old

ways

of relating,

of measuring up.

And when Paul says,

here,

he's saying,

among you,

church.

Here,

there is

none of that.

Among you,

none of that.

None of that

old,

Christ-less

way

of relating

to one another.

Every one of those

pairings

had hostility

within it.

today,

we

measure people up

in a variety of ways

by physical beauty,

by physical health,

by the appearance

of physical wealth,

of having it all together.

We measure people up

politically.

We measure people up

educationally.

We measure people up

racially.

We measure people up

according to their gender,

according to their

moral adherence.

We do this.

We default

into a measuring up

of one another.

And when it comes

into the church,

it's an old way.

These are grave clothes,

brothers and sisters.

believers.

In fact,

Paul

introduces a whole

new category

for our church

in how to relate

with one another.

It's those last words.

But Christ

is all

and in all.

You could say it like this.

Here,

Christ is all

and in all.

Christ is our

everything.

Christ defines us.

Christ unites us.

We don't do

the old stuff anymore.

We live here now.

That's how we relate

with one another.

We put out

those old clothes.

Christ

is all.

He is our everything.

He is our life.

He made us new.

Because we've been

united to him

in his death

and resurrection,

we've been made new.

So if I were to point

to different Christians

in the room,

I'd be like,

he's new.

He's in Christ.

She's in Christ.

Born again.

Regenerated.

Yep, yep, yep.

He's changed us.

And so what that means

is he defines us.

Our union with Christ

is more important

than what defines us

politically.

Our union with Christ

is more important

than what defines us,

how we come down

on social issues

or race

or gender.

What elevates us,

what defines us

are none of these

old ways

but Christ.

in the book of Ephesians,

the apostle Paul

talks about

those in Christ

as a whole new

people group.

Neither Jew,

neither Gentile,

a whole new

people group.

The blood bod

of God.

In chapter 1,

verse 18,

the apostle Paul

is talking about

how awesome

Jesus is.

1.17,

and he is before

all things

and in him

all things

hold together.

Verse 18,

and he is the head

of the body,

the church,

he's the beginning,

the firstborn

from the dead

that in everything

he might be preeminent.

In our relationships

he's preeminent.

He defines us.

And then there's

Christ in all.

He's in every one

of us.

He defines us.

He's in each of us.

And therefore,

he unites us.

Do you know,

I've used this

illustration before,

so bear with me.

Pretend with me

there are two

baby grand pianos

on the stage.

They're both in tune.

If you hit center

C in one,

you will hear

center C

resonate in the other.

Our center C

is Christ central.

And so when we

hit Christ central

as the preeminent,

uniting,

defining

person of our lives,

it resonates

with us all.

Christ is all.

He defines us.

Christ is all.

He unites us.

The thing is,

sexual sin,

sinful speech,

this old way

of measuring

one another up,

they detract

from our unity

as a church.

That's why we've got

to put them away.

That's why we've got

to put them to death.

At the beginning

of the sermon,

do you remember

what the old lady

asked the young man

wearing grave clothes?

Why would someone alive

be wearing the clothes

of someone dead?

Christian,

why would

someone made new

in Christ

continue to wear

the old grave clothes

of the old man?

You've been made new.

We put those

old grave clothes

to death.

We put them away.

They're not who you are.

They grieve God.

They're unloving.

And when we do,

we make room

for the new.

New ways of relating

and those made new

in Christ

they come

and they experience

a new way

of relating.

That's who we are.

This is Christ-centered

living.

And next week

we're going to see

how,

what we must put on

in order to live

out

being Christ's

community

with him

at the center.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus,

thank you so much

for who you are,

for what you've done,

what you're doing,

what you will do.

We're so grateful

that you have

taken center stage

in our lives

individually

and as a church.

God,

would you grow us

in both

our personal holiness

and in our

corporate holiness

that you would become

more and more

the controlling center,

the controlling treasure

of our lives

together,

defining us,

uniting us.

God,

we pray that you

would deliver us

from grave clothes

so that we can walk

in newness of life

together.

In Jesus' name

we pray.

Amen.