Colossians 3:1-11 | Put Sin to Death

This is City Post Church. We're about three things.

Build, equipped and send all under the lordship of Jesus

Christ. A small church plant in Fort

Worth, TX who decided to do things a little differently.

Adoramos Ajesu Cristo I love City Post because of the people.

It's where I belong. We truly preach the word.

I love City Post because of the community we've been able to

build. To do ministry like Jesus.

For light to push back darkness. This is City Post podcast.

Very good morning, everybody. You guys good, awesome.

All right, So one of the things that I like to do to relax.

And like I said, this is my show, my age.

Because even yesterday I got home, man, went to this amazing

car show. Shout out Daniel back there,

man, we had a great time with bombs in the park.

And I got home and I look outside and I was like, I got to

fix the yard. Like as a man, you know, like

the inside of the house could be destroyed.

But if the lawn looks terrible, I I got to do that.

But for me, it's the lawn. Mowing the lawn like weed eating

all that stuff is actually a way that I relax.

I know some of y'all looking at me like I'm crazy, right?

And there's something so satisfying of you fixing up your

lawn when it looks like a jungle outside.

And then you just fix that thing up, man.

You, you trim like the edges like you weeded and it just

looks like a perfectly green carpet.

Even, like when, when William does this, like the church, like

there's something refreshing, like when you see it all, like

manicured, like looking sharp. And you're like, yeah, that

looks like we did that. And there's something about you

working on your lawn outside and it's and you're sweating.

And then you stand out there. You take your shirt off.

I mean, it's just me. It's hot.

And then you're just staring at your work.

And then your kids are like, Daddy, can I get you anything?

Yes. Water with tons of ice, right?

Or you pick your beverage, whatever, right.

So like I'm, you're standing there and you're just admiring

your work. You're like, this is awesome.

It feels great. But as good as it looks, I what

I realized is that we live in Texas, so our grass is not like

Saint Augustine grass. We could just run out there

barefooted. You know, I'm going with this.

So even as good as my lawn looks and as green as my lawn looks,

there's still patches outside because we live in Texas.

Don't get me that there are, is what we call Texas weeds, not

Texas weed. Texas weeds don't get me mixed

up. And there's parts where I'm

like, Liv, you still got to wear sandals outside.

And, and I was talking to somebody and they're like,

listen, the way that you get out of that, the way that you get

Saint Augustine grass or you get like that hard stuff out of your

lawn is that you must RIP out all of the weeds and replace it

either with seed or just kind of get grass patches.

And then you got to really like start all over.

But you cannot water that grass expecting all that Texas wheat

to disappear just because you cut it every Sunday.

You trim it down or you water it or you throw wheat.

I mean, you throw seeds in it because all you're going to do

is you're going to get grass with weeds.

It's just going to mix together. So it might look green, it might

look manicured, but at the end of the day, it's not really

grass. It's like half grass, half Texas

weeds. And guys with the Christian

life, it's the same thing with us.

Yes, when you come to life in Christ, you have been saved from

the penalty of sin. But because the flesh is weak,

we still struggle with the power of sin.

And what I want to encourage us today, and what we're going to

look at what Paul says is that because we've been made alive in

Christ, listen, you're going to have to RIP some things out of

your life in order for a new things to grow back.

And what many of us do is like we came our life to Jesus and we

want to keep the weeds around, but we also want the new grass.

And Paul's going to look at us and he's going to say, that's

not the way this works because Christ went to the cross,

resurrected from the from the grave.

He has power over death. So that means that you and I are

no longer a slave to our sin. And through the Holy Spirit, you

have power to overcome your sin because of Jesus.

The problem is as believers, we fall into the power of sin

instead of being victorious over our sin.

So what I want to look at today is how do we do that?

You're like, man, Ricky, I've been trying, I've been fighting.

I've been fighting this addiction for too long like, and

for some reason it keeps dragging me back in.

Well, today I want to encourage you that Paul is going to give

us a way out. He's going to walk us through a

text that shows us kind of what to do in order to overcome our

sin. So the next two Sundays, we're

going to be dividing this thing up.

Today we're going to talk a little bit about, like we're

going to talk a lot of it about putting things to death.

Next Sunday we're going to talk about how do we replace those

dead, those dead things with the things that God wants for our

lives. So let's look at verses 123 and

four and then we'll talk about it.

Man, this is, I find her, this is encouraging to you because as

I was studying this, I was like, man, this is awesome.

It's a great reminder to myself as well.

So look at verse one. Since then you have been raised

with Christ. Set your hearts on 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 now hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will

appear with Him in glory. So the first two chapters of the

book of Colossians is pretty much theology.

Paul talks about the supremacy of Christ.

He talks about the theology behind that.

He goes after the isms, the false teachings.

But now the last two chapters, chapters 3 and 4, Paul's going

to give us practical things to do.

And what we see in the study or what we see a lot in the

writings of Paul is that Paul always matches up theology with

practice. It's never just, it's just, it's

never just learn this, learn this, learn this.

No, it's learn this and do this do and learn it all comes

together. So we're going to look at now is

the do part. We talked about the theological

aspects of the supremacy of Christ.

Now we're going to look at the why, like, what do we how do we

do this? So verse 1, he starts out with

since thought since is kind of like saying therefore he's

connecting with his his last thoughts.

Last week we talked about the reason why we can be victorious

is because Christ went to the cross.

So because Christ defeated sin, you and I now could live a life

over sin. So what he's reminding us now

all of that theology. He talked about the supremacy of

Christ, how the headship of Christ over the church, over all

authority and creation. Since you have been raised with

Christ, right? So we died with Jesus.

This is what he talks about in Galatians 220 For I've been

crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live in the flesh.

I now live through Christ, His spirit that lives through me.

And Paul is saying, since we've been raised with Christ, so that

means that we must have died with Christ.

We died to our sin. We put our sin to death since

we've died with Christ, He says. Set your heart on things above.

I want you to pay attention to the wording here.

I died with Jesus. That means I resurrected with

Christ. And because I'm a follower of

Jesus, my heart, that means my affections, my hopes, my

feelings, everything. Things I am as a human being

must be about the things above. It's all about being united with

Christ, understanding the spiritual truth, the realities,

the blessings, the will of God. I have to be aligned with His

will. Why?

Why should I focus my heart on things above?

Because that's exactly where Christ is.

That's why Paul is just walking us through this thing.

He says you focus on things above.

That's where Christ is. He's seated at the right hand of

God. So Paul is saying it's not just

where Christ is, it's because that's where Christ reigns.

He's he's looking at Christ, not just his authority, but his

positioning. We focus on Jesus because Jesus

is reigning and ruling all of heaven.

That's where our hearts need to be focused.

And then because of his exaltation, we find blessing in

his exaltation. So because Jesus is King and

Lord of all, and he's been exalted for all eternity by the

angels, if I focus my heart on him because I'm exalting him

along the angels, I will find blessing in exalting Christ.

I'm going to find satisfaction and joy in my exaltation to King

Jesus. And Paul is saying you've got to

set your heart up there. You can't focus on other things.

But he doesn't just say heart. Look at verse 2.

He says set your what? Your minds, right.

We talked about this, the connection with the mind and the

heart. Set your minds on things above,

not on the earthly stuff. So we set our minds.

So think about this like in the Greek word, it means to, it

translates to think, but a better translation is inner

disposition. That means that my natural

tendency, all of my perspective should be on the things above,

not on earthly stuff. It should all be about Kingdom.

That means that if I have a compass, it's always pointing

up. It's always pointing to Jesus.

So no matter where I am in life, even if I feel lost, my compass

says up to heaven. That's where my perspective is,

that's where my natural tendency lies, that's where I'm looking,

my heavenly thoughts, the heavenly realities, all of that.

Now where is my compass, the word of God?

So if I'm walking through life and I'm not sure about

something, I set my mind things above, but what do I have to

help direct me God's word? And that's why we're so big on

this. Like you've got to know what God

says you have. You are pouring all into it.

You know, one of the things I love watching is, is I love

UFCI, love watching fights. Except the whole Gina that was

trash, right? I mean, we all knew she was

going to lose. Ronda Rousey is going to roll

her. But if you watch like the UFC,

like the the fight nights, they always give a story of the

fighters and every fighter before they fight in Vegas or

wherever it is, they do like a 13 to 15 week training camp.

So they leave their families and they go train, whether it's in

Florida, Vegas, Phoenix, all these like like big fight

centers. And for those 13 weeks, all

they're doing is that they're training three times a day, they

hire somebody to cook for them, they're getting the proper rest,

nutrition, they're they're focusing on weight cut and

strategy in order for them to win the fight.

What did I just described there? I just described their mindset.

I described that they put themselves in a position that

their natural tendency for those next 13 weeks is trained in

everything and to win the fight. It's the same thing with Paul.

Listen, because we said our minds with the things above our

natural tendency, our focus on everything heavenly,

strategically feeding our our minds, our hearts serving the

Lord and everything that is our natural tendency in order to win

the fight of sanctification and holiness.

So our natural inclination should be to the things of God

and the things of heaven, not the things of this world.

The things of this world don't last.

It's important for just a small time, but then it goes away like

a vapor, Like it's it, it, it relies on nothing.

You know, I start thinking about like men who won the high school

football championships in 2003. Who cares?

It's 2026. Life moves on, things move on.

It was important for that moment.

But in the scope of eternity, it doesn't really matter because

what matters is what you're doing now.

And it's the same thing. Earthly wisdom and the things of

this world focus on the now. They don't focus on the

eternity, and if you set your mind and your hearts on the

things above, that means that you are focused on the eternity.

You're focused on the Kingdom to come, but the Kingdom that's

already here as well, which is through Jesus Christ.

I've got to keep going. So Paul's going to continue to

say this in God for verse 3. For you died and now your life

is hidden in Christ. In God you died and now your

life is hidden in Christ. Now that term in verse three

could be a little heavy. How in the world is my life

hidden in Christ? What does that mean?

So I just want to give you 3 little concepts I'll put on the

screen. This is what it means for your

life to be hidden in Christ. And I think this is going to

help us understand the next couple of passages here.

When I say my life is hidden in Christ, or my life is hidden

with Christ in God, what I'm saying is that now I have

something in common with the Father and the Son through the

Holy Spirit. So because my mind is set on

things above, because my mind and my heart are set on the

heavenly things, I'm able to understand and comprehend what

God's telling me. I'm able to walk through with

the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I'm able to worship the Lord.

Listen, without the Holy Spirit, none of this stuff makes sense

to you. Like we're going to look crazy

to the outside world, but because my life is hidden with

Christ and God, I now have this common spiritual life that is

tied to the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit #2 the

world's not going to understand. Just just be of a believer's new

life. When you come to Jesus, people

look at you crazy. They're like, what's wrong with

him? Or they might say things like

they told me, oh man, he's, he's church hustling now.

Everybody finds God when life is hard, you'll be back.

People say things because they don't get it.

And that's that's it's OK. People are not going to

understand what it means to be hidden with Christ in God.

So don't feel bad. Actually, you should pray for

people. And then lastly, we are

eternally secure. We have an eternal security

knowing that this is not the end.

This is only the beginning here on this earth, right?

So like when I pass away on this earth, my life begins in

eternity where I get to spend all of eternity in the presence

of God. So that means that I'm protected

by all spiritual enemies and I have access to God's blessings.

And I'm not talking about, like, Kenneth Copeland, Rich, You know

what I mean? One time, you're going to get a

plane. The blessings.

Yeah. Hopefully, maybe a card.

Now the blessings are that I'm able to be forgiven for my sin.

The blessings are that I was angry and now I'm loving.

The blessings are I get to serve Jesus and experience my life

work through the Holy Spirit in life.

The blessings are that the Holy Spirit guides my life.

So if I am looking for work, if I am looking for new

relationships, I know that God's got me.

That's the blessings that he's talking about here, that the

Lord takes care of his children. So we get to experience that.

So if your life is hidden with God in Christ, you get all of

this stuff, you get this. So the reminder is that if I'm a

believer, then how come I don't live this way?

What is it about life that that I can't do this?

So look at verse four. Look how he finishes it.

When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will

appear with him in glory. So Paul is all saying, hey, this

Jesus that you serve, he's going to come back again one day.

And if you belong to him, you go with him.

And it's actually glorious for believers.

Like we look forward to the day that Jesus returns.

That's why we gather together like man, that's why we work so

much to get people, as many people to know how to be in God

through Christ as ever. So that way when he comes back,

it's not going to be awkward for them.

We're going to get to go with him and he's going to be so

awesome. And so is So what we see here

as, as we get into these next verses, Paul is constantly

mixing, he links doctrine to practice and all his epistles.

So he's, he's giving everybody these points like he he's

showing everybody like, hey, remember, he's reminding us of

the doctrine that he talked about.

And now we're about to jump in to some practices.

And what Paul is going to show us is that as believers in

Christ, listen, you've got to cut ties with simple patterns in

your life. Jesus, a lot of us are like,

Lord, if I just pray, if I just pray, if I just pray, it's going

to just magically disappear like he's some genie.

And no, what, Jesus, like I've given you the power through the

Holy Spirit. I have to feed it sin.

But because there's free will, you have got to cut ties.

You have got to stop. You have got to be able to put

sin to death. Which leads to point #1 listen,

the goal for believers is not to be sinless.

It's to sinless. The only person that existed in

this world that is sinless is Jesus himself.

So you can't walk around trying to achieve perfection.

Like, like like you're. Going to just walk around being

busy all the time trying to be sinless and.

When you fail and when you fail, you're going to fall.

And when you fall, you're going to try to pick yourself up.

And when you try to pick yourself up, it's not going to

work and you're going to be frustrated and you're going to

get get deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper in your mess.

But what Paul is aiming here is that because we're followers of

Christ, we should want to sin less.

Sin should not be appealing to us because our hearts and our

eyes are fixed on the things above, not on the world.

So then the question is, how do we do that?

How do we send less? How do I cut my addiction?

How do I stop doing the things that I want to stop doing that I

promised myself that I would stop doing 150 times and for

some reason I continue to do it. How do we?

How do we fight this thing? And also the truth is, you know,

we can't, we can't talk about holiness and spiritual maturity

when sin runs rampant in your life.

And if we want to achieve things and if we want to grow in our

faith, and if we want to mature in our faith and we want to rely

on God on things, if sin is just going crazy, if it's rampant in

your life and you're ignoring it or it just becomes a part of

you, don't expect it because that has to be dealt with to

death by the grace of God. So how do we do it?

It's in verse 5. Put it to death.

Cut the head off, kill it. You got to put this thing to

death. Look what Paul says.

Paul says put to death. Therefore, whatever belongs to

your earthly nature, sexual morality, impurity, lust, evil

desires and greed, which is idolatry.

You know, Romans 812 and I'll just go and read this for us.

Paul also talks a lot about this in the book of Romans.

In Romans 6, he talks about how you shouldn't be a slave to your

sin. But Romans 812 says, therefore,

brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but it is not to the

flesh to live according to it. Verse 13 For if you live

according to the flesh, you will die.

But if you live by the Spirit, you put to death the misdeeds of

the body, and you will live. So I want to show you guys

there's two big spiritual words here.

These are big seminary words I'll put on my screen.

There's 2 words. There's a word called

mortification, and then there's a word called vivification.

And what Paul is talking about here is putting things to death,

which is mortification. Now God doesn't just save you.

From something God saves you to something many of us believe.

Like if I give my life to God that my life's going to be lame

and boring and I'm not going to have any fun and it's just going

to, it's just going to suck. It's not going to be any good.

But On the contrary, what God is saying is that when you put

earthly things to death, you're going to revive, you're going

to, you're going to, things are going to grow in your life in

their places. So you just don't put things to

death, but then God adds things to replace those things with,

and that's what a blessing shows up.

And many of us thinks it's opposite.

I put to death and it's just going to be lame.

I'm not going to be friends anymore.

I'm not going to be able to do anything.

And God is saying no. Like through Jesus, when you put

things to death that are sinful, what the Lord does is that he

revives other things in its place.

And I think many of us have not experienced vivification yet

because you have not put things to death in your life yet.

You're still rocking with the weeds and God's trying to give

you new grass. You can't have both.

And Paul is saying, listen, you got to put these things to

death. You need mortification.

We got to kill these things. And then I started reading like

in verse 5, you know, I always get curious, you know, with the

Bible, Paul gives us a lot of lists.

And it's not that he's just spitting things out.

Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

There's a reason for why Paul listings in the way they they in

the order that they go on. So look what he says in verse 5.

Whatever belongs to the earthly nature, so the earth.

Sees these things. And the earth says it's OK.

The world says this is part of the worldly perspective, this is

acceptable to the world. And Paul says you got to put

these things to death. And he the first thing he starts

starts with is sexual immorality.

Another Greek word would be porneia, which is where we get

pornography from. But really this word is

fornication. It translates into anything

sexual immoral. So what is anything sexually

immoral? What is sexual sin?

Well, what the Bible describes as anything outside the confines

of marriage. And many people think like, oh,

no, it's just what you watch. And no, it's like, I get to

have, you know, intercourse with my girlfriend.

Boy. Listen, anything outside of

God's creation of marriage is sexual immorality.

That's what that's what the Bible talks about.

But then it goes deeper. So sexual morality.

Paul is focusing on the act, but then he goes into impurity,

lust, and evil desires. Impurity is uncleanliness, which

I like. I encompass beyond the act of

sexual immorality, but this one encompasses evil thought and

intention. So even in the confines of

marriage, if you have uncleanliness in the marriage

bed, which means that you have evil thoughts or intentions,

that could be sinful too. So your heart for your spouse,

your wife must be pure. So Paul is saying it's not just

the ACT, but it's also the mind and the heart behind it as well.

And then he talks about sexual sin, but then he deviates.

And then he talks about evil desires and greed.

A better word is covetousness, wanting what people want.

So he's referring to wanting more to gain more of the things

that are forbidden. So if I'm living according to

the world's perspective and I taste.

Sexual morality. I see it.

It's in my mind, it's in my heart to do these these, these

horrible things that the world sees, that is.

Cool. What's going to happen is that

as you do it, you're going to want more of it.

It's you're going to need it stronger.

You're going to need it more often.

You're going to, you're going to need it.

It's going to get worse and worse and worse in order to

fulfill the flesh. So Paul is not just saying that.

For sexual morality, but we talked about evil desires and

passions as well. It's the things that we want

pretty much more than Jesus. So he's talking about the body

here, the physical side, the vice, the evil desires is the

mental side. Passion is what I do.

Evil desires is how I think about doing it.

And it's all going to connect. Now, why does Paul address

these? He talks about sexual impurity,

evil desires, covetousness. Like like how?

How is all this connecting? And it's in the last part of

verse 5, because it becomes idolatry.

It becomes an idol in our lives. When I covet something and I

want more and more of more of something, what I'm doing is I'm

putting myself 1st and above everything else.

I'm going after it myself, my desires and my passions.

I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want.

And what Paul is saying is no, because you died in Christ, it

is Christ in you that lives. So it's not what you want.

It's what Jesus wants through you and that difference.

And Paul is saying because you died with Jesus and you

resurrected in a new life with Christ, it's not as well.

This is strong teaching from Paul.

And anything outside of that becomes idolatry.

And when you have idolatry, Jesus and idols don't go well

together. It doesn't end well for the

idol. And if you are holding on to

that idol, it's not going to be well for you as well.

God is very, very specific about this.

So Paul has catalogued these desires.

That honestly feed the flesh rather than God.

He's going after what mankind wants, in essence worshipping

self. It's all about what I want.

It's what I could get it. I want the praise and God is

like, no, I get the praise. So it all leads to idolatry.

Now look, look what he does in verse six and seven.

Paul's going to make a sandwich here.

Verse 5, he's going to say, listen, you put these things to

death. And then in verse 8, he's going

to say you also need to put these things aside.

But in between verse five and eight, he's going to give us 2

reasons why we got to do this. So look at reason number one.

Reason number one is because sin brings God's wrath and judgement

on your life. Hold on a second, Rick is but

isn't God love? How you talking about wrath?

And I would make the argument that the stronger the wrath, the

stronger the love. Now listen, I I know I've used

this example before, but I'm I'm a pretty laid back individual.

I'm a peacekeeper. I don't want no problems, but if

anybody but but the day that Elena was born and they put that

little baby in my arms, the the love in my heart exploded And

parents, I, I think you could relate to me the love that I

felt for the first time in my life when I had that little baby

in my arms that I'd be like, I will kill any fool that does

anything to you. Like I will do enough to spend

about a year in jail and go start a prison ministry right

now. I'm so good.

So what happened? The love in my heart exploded

when I held my daughter for the first time.

And because the love in my heart exploded, the wrath also grew

because the same thing with God. Listen, God loves so much.

He loves you so much that He gave his own wine.

That whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal

life. Why is God's wrath through sin

so serious? Because his love is serious,

that's why. And when you sin, you are

bringing judgement of God on top of your life.

Yes, you're covered by his grace.

You're covered. Remember, we, we are saved by

the penalty of sin, but there's consequences of sin as well that

you do in verse 6 is because of these, the wrath of God is

coming. Take it serious.

Don't be sons of disobedience. Take sin serious.

And then he gives us reason number two reason #2 is that

this is part of a believer's past.

Guys. When you were forgiven of your

sin, God had forgiven you already.

That means that you're that's in the past.

Verse 7 says you used to walk in these ways.

In the life you want lived, I don't know anybody whose life

was made rich and says, you know what, I want to go back to

slumming it. And they purposely gave

everything up to go back to slumming it.

That is not what Paul is saying here.

You are a new creation. You don't go back to being old

creation. Jesus talks about this.

You don't put new wine in old wineskins, Paul is.

You don't put new fabric on old fabric.

It's going to tear it up. And what Paul is saying is

because you have been forgiven, it's done already.

You don't keep going back to the past hoping to relive the past.

Now I know some of us tend to do this where we love to focus like

man bro before Jesus do ABCDE and I want to tell you

everything about it. Something like you're bragging

about it. I don't care.

Like man, God saved you from that.

Use it as a testimony. Praise the Lord man.

Use that story to connect people to Jesus.

But don't just hang in there for it.

You don't put hand, you don't put hubcaps on a Lambo.

I'm not going to put spinner hub caps on my M on an M5.

Nobody looks at a car. Like that and be like, you know

what I need to go do bro, I'm going to go to Walmart.

They got the spinner hub caps. No, you don't do that.

Why? Because that's a new work.

You don't tie those old things with the new things.

It ruins it. So sin is part of the believers

past guys, this part of your past.

I think some of us need to move on from our past and start

looking toward the future that God has for you because he has

some amazing things that he wants to do to death.

Oh, we got to move on. Look at verse 8.

So he Paul's making the sandwich, he says put to death

and then he pretty much explains the things that please and

gratify the flesh that will become idolatry.

And the reason why you do it is because like sin brings God's

wrath and judgement, and also sin is in the past.

But then look at verse 8, He goes, but now you must also rid

yourselves. So he says put to death.

So I, I want you to pay attention how he's saying this

put to death the things that gratify the flesh and lead to

idolatry, because that is the Genesis, that is the basics of

opening the door to other sin in your life.

So if you could fight that, if you put that to death, then

you're going to be able to rid yourselves of some other things.

The word Ridge yourself or the word rid means to like take off

or remove dirty clothes after a long day work.

So you just, you want to get rid of that and put some fresh

clothes on old garments. You don't want to just keep the

old filthy rags on your body. You want to remove them.

That's what Paul's saying. So what does he say?

You Ridge yourself of such things as anger, rage, malice,

slander, filthy language from your lips.

One stacks on top of the other. Anger lingers in the heart.

It is a bitter pill that has been planted inside of a It

creates and lashes out. So when you do anger, then it

it, it creates rage. So you're angry and now you act

on it. That's rage.

But then it goes to malice. Malice is intent.

I want to do something bad to you.

But then it goes to slander and in filthy language.

Why does Paul mention this? Because the Bible says that

whatever comes out of your lips, out of your mouth, is inside of

your heart, which is point #2 you need to watch if you really

want to know, if you really want to know what somebody's about.

You're going to put point #2 up there if you really want to know

what somebody's about. Just just look at, look what

they say, whatever they say reflects their heart.

If somebody specifically talks about something over and over

and over again, guess what's in their heart.

So if you really want to see people for who they are, listen,

right? Because that's what's deep down

inside of it. And then in verse 9, Paul goes

ahead and he tells us. And I think this is really

interesting. Because he says, put this to

death, get rid of this. But look how he ends it in verse

9. Do not lie to each other.

I'm like, why would you end with lying out of all those things?

Don't rage, don't be angry, don't hey, and and finally stop

lying to one another. Verse 9.

I just thought that was so interesting.

Let's talk about this a little bit because let's just read

verse 9. Do not lie to each other since

you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put

on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the

image of its creator. Why does Paul, why does Paul

hang his hat on that whole thing?

Don't lie. Don't lie to you all.

Start thinking about if you even if if somebody were to do a

study on lying and you look at the book of Genesis, think about

like all the times you've seen a lie.

So it's not going to be on the screen.

But I just want to give you like a little like little snippet

because Paul warns against lying.

Satan lied to Adam and Eve. Cain lied to God after murdering

Abel. Abraham lied claiming Sarah was

his sister instead of his wife. Sarah lied to the three angelic

visitors and king girl girl. Isaac lied about denying that

Rebecca was his wife. Rebecca and Jacob, like in their

lied about their conspiracy to defraud Ethan, his birthright.

The the brothers lied about killing Joseph.

Potiphar's wife lied about Joseph.

Guys, that is just barely in Genesis.

Lying does not bring anything positive.

Lying. Actually.

This is going to be the deeper here, but when you look at

scripture, lying characterizes Satan.

The Bible calls Satan the father of lies, the deceiver, John 844

And when believers lie, they're imitating Satan more than

they're imitating their heavenly father.

And I think that's why Paul goes in on lying so much.

Christians of all people should be people of truth and telling

the truth and love. We should not lie about things,

whether it's taxes or whether it's to save your job or to

break up with somebody. It's me, girl, ain't you?

That's a lie, right? So can't do that.

No, it's you. But but lying is not from God.

And I think Paul is really just honing in on that.

And then last verse here. Here there is no Jew or Gentile,

circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or

free. But Christ is all and is all.

There is no separation when it comes to knowing Jesus.

You see what religion is that? Religion creates barriers and it

separates people. If you look at the acidic Jews,

even today, Jews. Believe that they're chosen and

everybody else is not. I would even say the Hebrew

Israelites believe that if you're not black or brown, then

you're not chosen by God. Jehovah Witnesses believe that

they're part of the 144,000. They're chosen.

If you're not part of that group, we can't rock with you.

Religion is constantly dividing people.

Religion is putting a gap between people and God.

It's constantly saying that. And what Paul is saying is

through Christ, because of Jesus, there is no such thing as

division. It's all unified now.

It's Jew and Gentile, it's uncircumcised and circumcised,

it's barbarian and Cynthia. Like all of these are polarized

sections. These are all polarizing.

It's free and slave. Everybody's in this thing

together, and Jesus is the only reason why.

It's not about religion, it's not about traditionalism.

It's all about come together in Christ because Christ is the one

who has eliminated the power of sin.

And if you give your life to Jesus, all that matter, all that

matters is Jesus. That's what we should focus on,

and I know that there's fights over music and all that stuff.

That's fine. Deck it out.

Who cares? It's not going to happen here

because Jesus is our center. He's the one who we want to.

So last two things and then we'll be done.

I got 5 minutes. Here we go, last two things.

How do I fight sin? How do I fight?

How am I victorious over my struggle with sin?

So two things and we'll be out of here.

Number one, you starve it. You starve it because whatever

you feed grows. If I'm struggling with my sin,

if I'm struggling with lust, if I have a problem fighting

pornography, I'm not going to go to a restaurant where the

waitresses are dressed halfway. I'm not going to watch certain

things. I'm not going to watch any of

this stuff that's going to feed my sin and the things that I'm

struggling with. If I'm struggling with alcohol

addiction, I'm not going to go to a bar to go eat lunch.

You can make fun of me all you want to.

Too bad. The things that I'm struggling

with, if I continually feed it, it's going to continually grow

and listen. And then I'm going to be up

here, fight, like crying and be this thing, Take it away from

me. Yeah, but what are you doing?

You've got to fight this thing. And the way that you fight it is

that you starve it. You know, I was reading a story

on in the Arctic, the way that they would kill wolves because,

you know, wolves are just dangerous.

And in their new sense, they're super strong.

So it's not like you just shoot it at night like they're hard to

see. So what the?

Survivalist wrote was that what he would do is that he would

take his knife and he would dip it in blood and then he would

put it outside and then it would freeze.

And what wolves would do is that wolves would go and they would

smell the blood and they will start licking the knife.

And as it began to melt, they kept licking the knife, and it

would get more and more intense to the point where they couldn't

tell whether it was their blood or the blood that they were

licking. To the point where their tongues

would be so cut that they would not be able to eat.

To the point where they would starve and die.

And listen for us. When it comes to sin, you've got

to starve it. And the way that you starve it

is that you do not feed it. And the way that you do not feed

it, I think sometimes it's you have to cut it off and you put

it to death and that thing's going to keep coming and keep

cutting. But because you have put some

boundaries and parameters or place for your life is going to

keep hitting it to the point where it can't feed anymore and

it's going to eventually die. You got to starve it.

So you cannot feed anger or resentment.

You can't cater to sexual lust or covetousness.

You you can't keep doing that. And then the last thing is, how

do I kill this? How do I defeat it?

By crowding it out with positive graces.

You crowded out, you push that thing out.

How do I push that thing out, man?

And and with this all in Texas Wesley and two of the

quarterbacks for Texas Wesley and serve on the board for

spiritual life. And as we were having a meeting,

I was talking to them and I was asking them about the rule where

like the quarterback, you know, when they do like snap and then

people push them through like it's a big thing in the NFL

right now. And one of the quarterbacks, he

goes, man, Ricky, that's like my favorite play.

And I was like, what do you mean?

And he goes, he goes whenever it's like fourth and one or half

a yard, he goes, all I got to do is snap the ball.

I hold on to it, just make sure I don't fumble it.

And everybody behind me just pushes me forward.

And he goes even times like I just want to laugh.

How fun it is. It's like a mosh pit.

So what they do is that they run a wishbone.

So what he says is like they get on the line and he goes.

So the guards and the tackles, he's like they're in the

trenches. So their job, the the guards job

is just to eat up the tackles. And usually they cut their legs

from underneath them. They just create a big pile or

they they pretty much do some, some stunts.

So the goal is they have to get by the linebacker.

So the linebacker shoots the gap because it's goal line.

The backers shoot the gap. So it is the backer versus the

quarterback versus the full back versus the running back.

So he says all they have to do, all he has to do is push hard

enough to get the linebacker out of the way and all he has to do

is hold on to that ball. So he says Hut boom, he takes a

step forward. It's a massive collision.

Linebacker comes and hits them. But then I got two big old boys

that are going to push me over that goal line.

You guys listen to me when it comes to sin, all you got to do,

you hold on to that ball and you fill your life with some some of

those, those those graces that God has been telling us about

those those positive granier points.

You hold on and those things in your life are going to push you

over and through that sin, it's going to get it out of the way

for you. What are you talking about,

Rick? Colossians 316.

And this will be more next week. Whatever is honorable, whatever

is true, whatever is right, whatever is pure, lovely,

excellent. Anything worth of praise, let

your mind dwell on these things. Listen, when your mind dwells on

those things, it's going to push sin out.

Sin is going to come to hit you in the face to stop you from

getting to God. But those things are going to

push it through and it's going to push it out of the way, and

you're going to be able to successfully enter into a life

where you walk with God free from.

Sin, starve it, push it out of the way.

Some of us are struggling with this because you're like man

Rick, you don't know what it means.

Listen, whenever you give your life to Christ and when you set

your things on the your minds and things above, people are

going to start falling out of your life.

They're going to get pushed out. Problems are going to start

falling out of your life. They're going to get pushed out.

Habits are going to get pushed out.

Things that are behaviors are going to get pushed out.

You're going to have better clarity about things.

And there's things that are holding you back that are going

to get pushed out and God's going to push you through.

Hold on. Just hold on to him and let Him

do it. But you got to be able to put

those things to death. Pray for us.

So Jesus, we love you and we thank you for all that you do.

Lord, help us to fight our sins.