Not Carnality but Christ (Colossians 3:1-11)

Colossians 3, chapter Colossians 3, verse 1 through 11.

Colossians 3:1–11

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things, for you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, when you also will appear, then you will also appear with him in glory.

Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual morality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.

Because of these things, God's wrath is coming upon the disobedient.

And you once walked in these things when you were living in them.

But now put away all the following anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self.

You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.

In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, scythians, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this morning, for the privilege of gathering here to study, to fellowship freely.

We thank you that you have given us your spirit to lead us into all truth.

And I pray that you would quiet the things of this week and then of our minds.

We would not be distracted by trials and tribulations of the checklists and the to-dos.

But you would bow our hearts, you would uh have free reign to speak to us in whatever way that we need to hear, and that we would have listening ears.

Pray all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

All right, is the volume okay?

All right.

This morning we are continuing our journey through the book of Colossians.

Paul's writing to the Colossians.

He's never visited this place, but he's writing because there's some important and critical heresy happening in the church.

That's one of the big themes that's going on as we're going through the passage.

This thing is Gnosticism.

It directs, it relates directly to what we're we're talking about, what Paul is writing about.

Gnosticism is just this big word.

We have, sometimes the big words get in the way, right?

Just think about secret knowledge.

Like I've got some secret knowledge or philosophy that's going to lead me to some better or bigger understanding of what spiritually and physically is happening in this world.

The problem was that there was heresies and there are things that direct distracting the people from the Word of God, from the truth.

One of those things that direct our related to our passage was that people thought there was led that the material realm was evil, so abstained from all of it, to the point of like abstaining from any form of pleasure.

And so from that, Paul brings in chapter two of Colossians.

The other was, well, the physical world's good, the physical is going to be destroyed, the spirit, the physical and spiritual not really related.

We're gonna, these things are they're just not gonna impact our spiritual world.

And so let's just give ourselves over to whatever old animal animal appetites we desire.

That's kind of what we're going through this morning.

The formal leads to legalism, which Ben preached through last week, and the latter to carnal living.

That carnal word, we'll talk about that too.

It's just it's another, sort of another word we hear, but as we're getting into the second half of the book, the way I'd look at chapters two and three, and this is not that spiritual, this is just the headings off of the chapter.

It's that simple.

I like the headings.

So, first half of chapter two, Paul says, not philosophy but Christ.

And that's battling this Gnosticism.

In the second half of chapter two, he says, not legalism but Christ.

And this week, first half of chapter three, not carnality but Christ.

What's this word carnal mean?

Think of being under the control of your animal appetites and impulses, right?

Sometimes they think of an animal, literally an animal, like where they just cannot contain themselves, like their instincts or reactions, uh, their appetites.

Think of, I like to think of self or inward focus, self-focus, lack of self-control, driven by your appetites, not by the Spirit of God.

Paul says in Romans 7, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin.

There's that nature in us that wants to uh all by itself run after the things of its direct desires.

Well, last week Ben brought us through part of chapter 2.

Paul has an exhortation, exhortations in there not to submit to empty regulations or rules.

He says in 2, verse 20, starting 20, if you die with Christ to the elements of the world, why do you live as if you still belong to the world?

Why do you submit to regulations?

Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch.

Verse 23, although these have a reputation for wisdom, for promoting self-made religion, false humility, severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.

So as we get into chapter 3, Paul is going to hearken back to again to chapter 2, verse 12.

He'll say, or he says, When you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

Well, verse 1 starts by saying, If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

Well, this word raised, we're not talking physical, right?

We're here.

Not yet.

It's a spiritual thing.

And it's what we're getting into is a spiritual reality.

We're seeing in the passage this morning, the physical and spiritual, these are all related.

We don't, we don't, we can't separate them.

Where is Jesus?

He's uh seated at the right hand of God, the right hand of God.

This place is of equal position, honor, power, and authority.

And Jesus is seated because the work is finished.

That's that title used die, Jesus said on the cross cross.

He said it's finished.

Right?

The work is done.

He's seated there because that's his position.

Authority, he's God.

If I should just say it like that, let's be clear.

So Jesus is there.

He is God.

That's where he is.

Well, there's two commands, seek the things above and set your minds on things above.

That word seek, keep, seek after, aim or strive, right?

Where's our gaze?

Where are we looking?

The word set, you direct your mind or seek or strive after that.

We're looking, right?

We're setting our mind on a thing, fixing it.

And then things above and not earthly things.

He says, things above, what are things above?

And this is a little bit, maybe it maybe this seems a little conceptual, but really there is a lot jammed into the things above.

And often we can be distracted from what those things are, right?

There's a lot right in front of us.

Things above, good and perfect things.

Where does all good and perfect things come from?

Wisdom, power, incorruptible hope, things that last.

Truth.

God's wonders and his presence.

It says not earthly things.

That word earthly, it just means soil, like arable land.

The ground is just the things of the earth.

It's very simple.

Well, the difference between these is that one set is lasting, eternal, one set is temporary, fleeting, corruptible, changeable, right?

What's not there are circumstances, pain, death, corruption, lies, malice.

We could go on, right?

Paul says, You've been raised with Christ.

Set your minds there.

Then he said, For you died.

Well, we weren't, we didn't, we weren't raised first.

We first died.

To our old life.

We were slaves of sin.

Romans said, we were dead in our trespasses and sin.

That was our state before Jesus.

In Galatians, Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

This uh then he says, your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Does anyone here feel hidden?

I don't feel hidden.

I don't feel hidden.

I don't think I'm not hidden.

But there's a truth here, and if we're not studying God's word, we're not gonna understand and be able to walk in that truth.

Here's the reality of our state.

Okay, who or what is life?

Jesus.

Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and life.

Right?

Where is Jesus?

He's seated at the right hand of God, right?

Is he hidden?

He's hidden.

Okay, so our life is Jesus, and he is with the Father in heaven, hidden.

Our life is hidden with God.

It's right here in the scripture.

Our life is hidden with Christ and God.

We may not feel like it's hidden, but this is the truth that we need to walk in.

It's easy to be carried away in our minds or in our life, the chaos of things, with the busyness, with the tasks.

But the reality is that our true life is in Christ.

And when it's hidden with him and he's in the heavens, who can touch that?

I think the biggest way that can be touched is we can just be led away in our minds and our anxieties and our busyness instead of dwelling on the truth that our life is in him.

Paul said it, I think, well in Ephesians 2.

He said, But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in trespasses.

You are saved, you are saved by grace.

He has also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

These verses in these first four verses, part of what Paul is getting after is if we are if we've died, if we're dead, if we've died to the old man, if we have been raised with Christ, we have a new perspective, an eternal perspective, a new world view, a new reality of new spiritual reality, right?

Paul wants to drive home that our focus needs to be on this on this eternal perspective.

But how do we do this?

It seems a little bit um I don't know if the words conceptual, but I have a job.

I've got kids.

What does he mean by set your mind on things above?

Well, okay, well, I I have a lot of things to set my mind on, right?

I mean, we really do have a lot going on.

We have media.

There's so many things that can be in our mind, but we just have responsibilities.

Soccer, laundry, right?

What about the homeless, the oppressed, political issues, the directions of our country, abortion.

There's a lot of issues here right in front of us.

It's been said, this is over a hundred years old, you're so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good.

I would say the scriptures this morning would say otherwise.

It can be countered if you're not heavenly minded.

I hate, I hope this is not cliche, but I think it's important.

It would be countered if you're not heavenly minded, you can be no earthly good.

What I think Paul is saying this morning is priorities.

We first set our mind on Jesus, on heavenly things, on the things that are above.

That's where eternity is pointing, right?

And in it, as it follows, come everything else.

The physical life, our needs, our responsibilities.

We all have things and things we want to be effectual for.

But in line, setting our minds on things above is getting us pointed like a north arrow in the right direction.

Paul's not saying these physical things don't matter, or even that these other intensive important things on earth that we don't need to address.

But let me ask, as we think about what Paul says, Christ who is your life, if someone would be if would ask, or maybe you've heard or said, man, sports is his life.

Or man, that guy's all for the party.

It's all about making money.

It's all about his family.

And though there are plenty of things that are not bad, we want to ask, where is our life?

And what do we live for?

Where are we setting our minds?

Our gaze.

Where are we looking ahead?

Well, Paul goes on in verse 5.

So we've looked in the first four verses, and we see Paul getting us focused on these, on the eternal.

Where's our perspective given these things?

We've been raised with Christ.

We don't want to submit to regulations.

Here's the reality.

We've been raised with Christ.

So he says, therefore, we're gearing up here.

We're going to say, okay, in that case, I have an illustration as we get into this.

Let's read first, uh, starting verse 5, just uh right before.

Paul says, Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, greed, which is idolatry.

Because of these things, God's wrath is coming upon the disobedient, and you once walked in these things when you were living in them, but now put away all the following anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.

Okay, so uh this last few months, uh we don't really have these problems, but we discovered that there was a mouse living in our house.

And I didn't didn't know how in the world uh the mouse got in, but we found signs.

You know, the signs, the feces.

Um there was a mouse, the early mornings, this the quick darting across the floor in the shadows.

You know how that goes?

Makes you jump a little bit.

Nothing's supposed to be moving, but something moved.

Months went by.

One evening, getting ready for bed, ready to go to bed.

The cat was starting her job.

She had cornered this mouse under the piano.

We were ecstatic.

The cat finally, after 10 years, is doing her job.

Okay.

My wife is laser focused.

She, and I'm telling after this is 20, 30 minutes later, she pins the mouse to the floor behind the piano, alive.

She's got a live mouse under the broom handle sitting behind the piano.

The good husband that I am, I grab a jar, I get the mouse in a jar.

We now have a live mouse in a jar in the house.

So what do you do with the mouse?

We can get your shoes on, drive out to the country, and you can put away the mouse.

You can also put to death the mouse, right?

Okay.

So what did we do?

I'm not gonna tell you.

It actually would take too long, and we're already, I'm already trying to keep the keep the pace going here, but I won't tell you.

But you can all imagine either that mouse cannot stay in the house, right?

Cannot stay in the house.

Whether you put it away or put it to death, you can't stay in the house.

Okay.

Keep that in mind.

And I know this is sort of laughing, but what we're talking about is more serious than mice.

I know there's disease, yes, but it's still more serious.

So this is the best example.

This is the illustration that came to me, okay?

Here we go.

Paul says, therefore, put it to death.

You've been raised, you're seated, you uh get my mind right here.

You've been, you've died, you've been raised with Christ, you've set your minds and things above.

So here, what are we gonna do with that?

Here's his conclusion, the verse, the next seven verses.

Here's our application.

Put to death what belongs to your earthly nature.

Put to death.

This is like Thayer's lexicon, it says, deprive of power, destroy the strength of evil desire lurking in your members.

The amplified version, so put to death, and deprive of power the evil longings of your earthly body with its sensual and self-centered instincts.

This is not suppress or reduce, this is putting to death.

This is a it's a little theoretical, so how do we do this?

How do we do this?

Well, let's think through this.

We can deprive it, we can starve it, we can stop feeding, we can shed light on it.

Some things just don't live in the light.

We can deny it, we can remove the opportunity and show no mercy, right?

There are ways we can kill, there's different ways, right?

We go about putting things to death.

Do we have the power to do this?

Not by ourselves.

Not by ourselves.

We do have access.

But we can do it through God's Spirit.

Paul says in Romans 8 5, for those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit have their minds set on the things of the spirit.

Now the mindset of the flesh is death.

But the mindset of the spirit is life and peace.

Let's take this in the other direction.

When you're putting to death, or we will get into putting away, do you find yourself frustrated, defeated, or discouraged?

Getting nowhere?

This can be a sign that we're doing things in our own strength.

We can't do this all by ourselves.

But Paul says in Galatians chapter 5, he says, I say then, walk by the Spirit, and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

So Paul says, put to death.

He says, because of these, God's wrath is coming upon the disobedient.

He's going to say, put them to death, but these things are going to cause trouble.

They're bringing God's wrath.

We'll get more to that.

He says, and you once walked.

Once walked, right?

And look at the words here in verse 7.

Walked and lived.

Living.

You walked in these things when you were living in them.

Those are words of continual lifestyle, habitual things.

Day to day, hour to hour, week to week.

The amplified version says, those who fail to listen and routinely and obstinately disregard God's precepts.

Here's a question.

Is there anything that you're routinely and obstinately disregarding of God's word?

And something to think on.

Are there things you're not?

You know?

There are things we're going to struggle with.

God says put them to death.

1 Corinthians 6, Paul says, and some of you used to be like this, but you were washed.

You were sanctified.

You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

Is that a reason to celebrate?

Yes.

Paul's saying this was once you.

But we're going to put these things off.

They're no longer part of the new man.

Verse 8, but now put away all the following anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self.

So whereas verses 5 through 7 speak about putting to death, Paul says, put away.

And that's just literally cast off.

Lay aside.

Put them all aside.

Literally, put them all aside.

This is now largely more about things we we uh speak, right?

It seems pretty specific.

Well, Jesus says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

This is not about adding rules or regulations.

The things that Paul's saying, they're not just about the words we choose.

They're about where our heart is at.

And that's why this isn't about last week like the legalism, right?

Because Paul is, Jesus and Paul, they're about where our hearts are.

Hearts are at.

And the things he's talking about, malice and slander, man, those come from within.

Didn't Jesus say it's not about the outside of the cup, but the inside?

So we're not talking about just rules.

It's injurious speech, wishing ill, words of hatred are not becoming of the Lord.

And he says, since you've put off the old self, this is wholly putting off from, with its practi with its practices.

And he says, but put on.

And so this and this word put on is like clothes.

It's like putting on clothes.

We put on.

But now put on, he says, and have put on the new self.

So this is uh one of the ways I think, but if you've ever done any work in an attic or under a house, and I I hate to just go back to the rodent thing, but that's really I've spent I've spent my share of time with rodents and under houses and in attics.

You know, you're up in there, the insulation is everywhere.

You're in the thick of just fog of dust, and then you see the feces, and you sorry, and I hope this isn't too grotesque, but right, you're you're crawling in in and you find the mummified animal into the house.

And you're like, where what is happening and what else is actually still living?

Okay, you get done with your job, maybe the end of the day, you take a shower, you take off the clothes, right?

Get clean, it feels good.

Do you get out of the shower and put those clothes back on?

We put off the old self and we put on if we put on the new self.

We'll get into what we're putting on in just a sec.

So Paul says then, and again, we're talking about more serious things than dirty clothes, but hopefully that's good, that's a good visual, right?

Because we've been clothed with Christ.

But anyway, in verse 9, Paul goes on, he says, You are being renewed, uh, it continues in verse 9, you're being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your creator.

So do you see how interconnected the physical and the spiritual are in this passage?

Renewed in knowledge, setting our minds on things above, being clothed with Christ.

This is not the Gnosticism of separating these things in our life.

So Paul's saying, being renewed according to the image of your Creator in knowledge.

What I think is happening, what Paul's doing is he's hearkening back to Genesis 1.

We forget there's so much wrapped up in the fall.

What happens?

They eat the fruit, right?

Of what?

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Well, there were things we weren't necessarily supposed to know about, good and evil, right?

We need to be renewed in our minds because there's things in our minds that we understand and know and be exposed to.

We need to be renewed in those things.

So as part of setting our minds on these things is being renewed in knowledge and not just in knowing things, because the Gnostics were all about not knowing things and philosophy.

We need to be renewed in the truth of God's word.

Have you heard the scripture this morning?

This is why we've got to be in the scripture because these truths change our perspective.

When we remember the truth of who we are in Christ and we're clothed in Christ, it changes the way we walk every day.

All right.

He says in verse 11, in Christ there is not uh there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all.

What are these things?

These are differences in ethnicity, in socioeconomic class, in foreign versus national.

What Paul is reminding us, we're being renewed in knowledge because there's a fundamental change in who we are in Christ.

We aren't just renewed or clothed in these same divisions.

There's a fundamental change that happened when Jesus went to the cross.

He doesn't see men in these classes, education, you know your philosophy.

We've cast off the old man, and there will be, in Jesus' view, there is no ethnic, religious, spiritual, cultural, or foreign or social status.

It's just, are you in Christ?

Paul sums it well in Galatians 3.

For those of you who are baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.

There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female, since you are all one in Christ, and if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise.

Some things to chew on this week.

Go through that list.

I don't know if I mentioned it, reading through Romans 2, reading through Romans 8.

Where is your mindset on?

As you go through the week, take some time to think about where is your mindset?

Or where do you start with your mindset?

Where is your gaze?

Okay.

Our life is hidden with Christ.

So who or what would you say someone would say your life is all about?

If they knew you?

Or do you do you think that life is, is your life feeling right now like it is really just in the midst of the chaos and busyness?

Is there anything that needs to be put to death in your life?

And I think the best thing, the easy thing, and maybe that list, right?

That list is not, we don't just sort of uh we don't let the mouse, in my opinion, let out near the house, even outside.

You put it to death.

But some things need to be put to death.

And we can't do that.

So are you discouraged and frustrated in the things that are not dying?

If you're discouraged and frustrated and defeated, you can ask afresh this morning to call out to Jesus to move by his spirit in our life to give us the power.

If you don't know Jesus personally, if you don't have a relationship with him, these things are not for you yet.

Jesus doesn't call us to put to death and put away before he does his work.

It's not just about cleaning ourselves up.

That's not what he desires.

This is not, man, you can't be in this room.

You can't be a church.

You haven't put those things to death.

Well, the very first thing when we come to Jesus, even if your heart and mind are not, if your heart's not there, the first step, acknowledge in your head that what you're doing, what you walk in, is wrong.

It's sinful.

It separates us from God.

The first step is Jesus.

He wants to clothe us in his grace and in his life with himself.

His wrath is coming.

And so that's a serious verse in there.

It's not for the believer.

You'll see that it was, you know, once you walked in these things.

But for those who don't know Jesus, this is the reality.

You walk in those things, his wrath, he is so patient.

So patient.

He's waiting.

He is not impatient for those whose hearts he has a plan for.

But we don't know the day or the hour that he will demand our life from us.

The good news is that we can have Jesus and we can be clothed in him and by his blood be forgiven from everything.

Past, present, future, in an instant.

We can be raised with Christ.

We don't have to battle with the things that are really the wrath will be coming upon.

What do we do?

Repent of those things, call on the name of the Lord, we'll be saved.

Romans says that while we are still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.

You too can be raised in newness of life.

Those in Christ, we've been raised with newness of life.

We can celebrate that this morning.

Father, we thank you so much for your word, that we have been raised with you.

We've died to that old self.

We can set our minds on things above, that you, by your spirit, can put to death these things that do not belong in our house.

They're not becoming of you, that you can put them away, Lord, that you can move in us and work in us.

Thank you that our life is hidden with Christ and God.

It is not wrapped up and susceptible to things of this world, but it is protected in you, and that we have things in your grace in its immeasurable expanse, Father, in the eternity of all goodness and hope that you have laid before us.

I pray that you would work in us through your word.

Lord, we thank you so much for all you desire to do in and through us, and we ask that you would have your great work in Jesus' name.

Amen.