In high school, I was on the school golf team. Now, when I say that, you might get the impression that I am pretty good at golf. That would be false. Our golf coach’s best advice to me; his very best coaching moment was when he said, “Blair, hit the ball farther…and straighter.” Then he walked off to read the newspaper. (True story.)
But I tried. I enjoyed the game sometimes but mostly it was just frustrating because I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. I didn’t have anybody to tell me how to hold the club or how to stand or anything else and so I finally just gave up. It doesn’t look that hard. Just hit the ball with the stick until it goes in the hole but evidently there is more to it than that.
Bruce and Karen, I know y’all to be avid golfers. Let me ask you some questions that might help my golf game. What is the most important part of the golf swing? Is it keeping your eye on the ball? Is it keeping your knees bent; maybe holding the club just right? What is the most important part?
Let me ask you another question. Why do you play golf? What is your motivation? I’m sure it’s fun but there has to be more to it. Why play golf? How does it feel when you really connect with the ball and make a long, straight drive? That has to be an awesome feeling. I bet that is really nice. I never could, so for me, it is just frustrating.
Some people live their Christian lives like I play golf. It doesn’t look that hard to a beginner, right? Just walk down the aisle and say a few magic words, maybe get baptized and start going to church. How hard can that be? But instead of living that full and abundant life that Jesus promised in John 10:10, you get frustrated and you don’t know what you’re doing wrong. You wonder if you even want to play this game anymore because you aren’t seeing all the promises of God you thought you would see.
Thankfully, we have a good coach in the Apostle Paul as he wrote to the church in Colossae which became the New Testament book of Colossians. What makes a good coach? Do you want a golf coach that has never played golf? Do you want me to be your golf coach? Of course not. You want a coach that has a lot of experience and has mastered the game to teach you how to do it.
Turn to Colossians 3 and let’s let Paul teach us how to live in peace and wisdom and gratitude. Does that describe your life right now? Would you say – or even better – would other people say your life was characterized by peace, wisdom and gratitude? Maybe you need a little coaching. Paul is a great coach. He said in Philippians 4, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”
I want that! I want to be able to say truthfully that I am content no matter what is happening to me; no matter what this virus is doing; no matter what the government is doing or my wife is doing or my kids or my dogs. I am content. So, how do we do that?
Paul tells us in Colossians 3:1-17 that first we need to put some things off. Then we need to put some things on. And he tells us how to do that just like a good coach would. Colossians is in between Philippians and 1 Thessalonians. This is kind of a long passage but you really need to read all of it to get the full meaning. You’ll be glad you did.
Colossians 3:1-17 says, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.[b] 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. 12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Going back to the golf analogy, sometimes the best thing a person like me could do is to get rid of all the bad habits I have developed over the years that keep me from playing golf well. Paul is writing to Christians here and what he is telling them is not how to be saved but how saved people ought to act and the first thing they have to do is lose all the bad habits that keep them from living the life Paul said they could have.
In this passage, Paul is specific about some bad habits and more general about others but this applies to whatever bad habits we all struggle with. Maybe your bad habit is eating or drinking or otherwise putting something in your body that is not good for you. Maybe it is something that comes out of your mouth or through your mind. Maybe it is a place you go or something you choose to put before your eyes. Paul did not intend to name every bad habit so I won’t either. We don’t have to. This passage applies to you and your situation no matter what your bad habit is.
Paul starts off by giving us an overview of how we should live. We should get up every morning and set our hearts on things above. That’s verse 1 and that sounds real good, doesn’t it? But what does it mean? What does it really look like for us to set our hearts on things above? Does it mean we should just think about Heaven all day?
Well, there’s nothing wrong with thinking about Heaven. We should probably do that more often but there is more to it than that. Setting our hearts on things above means to concentrate on the eternal more than the temporal. It means to focus more on what is going to last; what we are going to get rewarded for in Heaven rather than what might be rewarding in this life.
So, with that mindset, Paul starts to get a little more specific. He says in verse 3 that we have died. He is talking about our death to self that is represented with our baptism. We know that baptism doesn’t save us but it represents our old self being put in the grave and our new self – in Christ – being raised from the dead.
Some people may not completely understand that when you became a Christian, you made the choice to make Jesus Lord of your life and I don’t think that is always explained well enough. It means that what you want to do and how you want to live (your old self) is no longer your driving force. It doesn’t mean you don’t have preferences anymore. It means that you want what God wants for your life and nothing else matters.
I hear professing Christians say sometimes that, sure, they know what the Bible says, but they are going to do it their way instead. Let me make this real clear. That is your old nature and that is sin. In verse 5, Paul actually says that we are to put to death that old nature and gives some examples of what that old nature looks like.
The commentaries tell me that this first list of five things is primarily sexual in nature, even the last one, greed. It starts with sexual immorality which would be something like out and out prostitution. Now, even prostitutes would say that is a bad habit, right? He goes on with impurity which might be something like living with someone you are not married to. Lust would include wanting someone sexually that is not your spouse. Evil desires might include looking at porn and down to that interesting word, greed, that might include something we might think is as harmless as comparing your spouse to somebody else.
Those are bad habits and Paul goes on to say in verse 6 that I don’t care who you are, God will punish that kind of lifestyle. You used to live that way, Paul says, in your old nature. That’s how unbelievers live. Don’t be surprised when they live that way but we, as believers and as disciples of Jesus, don’t live that way. The behaviors in that list are all things that are destructive to us. 1 Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”
He goes on to another list that is indicative of our old nature and it includes things we do that are destructive to other people. This includes anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language and also lying. Those are obviously bad habits but Paul goes on to say that all of these, whether sexual sins or other sins, are like clothes that we as Christians just don’t wear.
He already told us in verse 5 to put this stuff to death. Have you ever had any clothes that need to be put to death? You know, put out of their misery? Ok, so here is today’s episode of “Todd’s Embarrassing Stories”. I’m in middle school and I wore a pair of pants to school that I hadn’t worn in a while and didn’t realize until I got there that the pants had a small hole in the worst possible place.
I thought for most of the day that I was getting away with it until Renee York ever so nicely whispered for me to please keep myself covered because all the girls were laughing at me. Yep. True story. What do you think happened to those pants when I got home? I couldn’t kill ‘em fast enough. I was mortified; embarrassed to death so I killed those pants in humiliation and that is just how we should all feel when we wear those clothes of our old nature.
When our bad habits come to light, we should be humiliated. That is not how we are to be as followers of Christ. We can’t live the full and abundant life God wants for us and it should be so embarrassing to us that we can’t stand it and will do whatever it takes to put those old habits; those old clothes to death.
In verses 9 and 10 Paul says that we should have taken off our old selves and should have put on the new self. Now we have to move on to the meat in verse 12. Are you still there? Look at it. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Did you know that you, as Christians, are God’s chosen people? Do you understand the significance of that? Do you understand that the Creator of the universe, the great I AM, who just spoke the worlds into existence and at whose name Satan and all the demons quiver in fear…chose you? He may or may not have chosen the other guy but that is not your concern. God chose you and that is more than enough.
In verse 12, Paul makes that point and goes on to call us “holy”. Do you feel holy? I don’t but God calls us holy. What does it mean to be holy? It means to be set apart just for God. It means to be different. That’s us. Right? Then Paul says we are dearly loved. Dearly loved by that same King of kings and Lord of lords. Proven before the world was created and proven again to the point of sending His Son to die for our sins in our place. Chosen. Holy. Loved.
I had a friend years ago (Tracy Morgan) that could play golf really well and he invited me out to play one time. I told him to feel free to give me any pointers he thought necessary. So, when I showed up wearing some raggedy old shorts and a tank top, that was the first thing he addressed. Before I ever took a swing, he said, “If you dress like a hack, you will play like a hack.” Now, I don’t know just how true that is in golf but I do see the pros on TV dressing pretty nice so maybe it is true.
But in our spiritual lives, it is absolutely true. Paul tells us in this passage to put off all those things that hurt others or ourselves. Take them off like clothes and put on all the things he tells us to put on. Take off that old man and put on the new man. You can’t live a full and abundant life; you can’t have peace and joy; you can’t be a faithful witness to others if you are wearing that old stuff. Take it off and burn it. Don’t go back to it and put it on. That’s not you anymore.
God has chosen us. We are holy to Him and He will not share us with the world or our old nature. He has proven His love to us and we should dress how He wants us to dress and He says to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Forget that old lifestyle; that old self, the old man with those bad habits. We are new creations and we should dress like it.
I don’t want to hear you say, “Well, that’s just who I am. That’s how God made me. I’m just blunt. I just tell it like it is. I’ve always been angry. I’ve always been this or that. It’s how my daddy was or it’s just like my mama.” No! That is your old, sinful nature and that is sin. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are made new.” So, stop telling that lie about yourself and stop believing that lie about yourself.
Now, I want to close with one last piece of meat found in the last paragraph. Verse 15 says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.” That’s another one of those passages that sounds real pretty but it’s hard to know exactly how to do it. That word “rule” is an athletic term and literally means “to preside at the games and distribute the prizes.” In the Greek Olympic games they had judges or rulers. We might call them umpires.
The peace of God is the “Umpire” in our believing hearts and churches. When we obey the will of God, we have peace but when we step out of His will, we lose it. (Wiersbe, Bible Exposition Commentary, V.2, page 139) How do you know what bad habits you need to forget? Do you have peace in your heart while you are doing it? If there is no peace, call that bad habit “out” like an umpire.
Lastly, look at verse 17. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
And whatever you do…
And whatever you do…
Can you do this habit with peace and can you do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving Him thanks for it? That’s the test. If you can do whatever it is in peace and you can thank God for providing it and do it in His name, then wear those clothes. But, if not, put those dirty clothes with all their embarrassing holes to death. That’s not you anymore and that is not what a representative of the King looks like. It’s also not how you live a full and abundant, peaceful, joyful life.
That is what the life of a Christian should look like. Does that describe your life? If not, then, if you are a Christian you need to figure out what to put off and what to put on. But maybe you aren’t truly a Christian. Maybe you don’t have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus. Maybe you have gone to church all your life and maybe you walked the aisle and said some pretty words but you know deep down that it didn’t really change you.
I’m reminded of an older couple (Grant and Mary Timberman) that came to me years ago. The man told me that he had been a faithful church member since he was a kid and had served in churches before in several ways but he had come to realize that it was just religion for him and he wasn’t sure he would go to Heaven when he died. So, we prayed together right there and he asked God to forgive him and save him and change him and they left with him feeling a huge burden had been released.
The next week, the same couple came back to me and the wife said, “What he did last week, that’s what I want to do right now. I want what he has!” She, too, had spent her life in church but had never truly believed in and committed her life to Jesus. If that is you today, I need to talk to you right now. Let’s pray.
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