Colossians 3:1-17
One of the best days in my Granddad’s life was the day he was dismissed from the British Army after World War 2. No more marching. No more fighting. No more war. No more standing to attention. No more of the Sergeant shouting and screaming and yelling at them. Free. He was free.
Walking away after he was dismissed, he saw his sergeant approaching. Immediately his arms went straight at his sides, his chest went out, his whole posture stiffened and changed as he went to attention and his hand was ready to salute.
And then he remembered. “I’m free”.
And all the attention went out of his body, his hands went in his pockets, and he whistled a happy tune. The sergeant was furious, his face turning bright red, looking like he was about to burst – but his rage was powerless. He had no authority.
How often do we stiffen to attention and salute and obey the old sinful nature within us? How often do we forget that we are free, and keep living the old way? We live like we’re in the Army, instead of living as free men.
Brothers and sisters, live as free men and women. Live as those who have been set free by Christ. Why go back to the old way of living? Why listen to the world, your own sinful desires, and the devil? Why allow yourself to be ruled by the old nature?
We have died to that old life. It no longer rules over us: it is dead. We are alive to Christ. As we see in this passage, death is the pathway to life. And only when we understand that, can we start to live like Christ.
1. Death leads to life
2. Live for Christ: anger does not rule you
3. Live for Christ: be like him (Put on the new nature)
1. Death leads to life
3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. 5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you
Christian, you are dead. So live like it! You are dead to the old life, alive to the new, the new life of Christ. You have been raised to life like Jesus, perfect, holy, full of love and compassion and righteousness. You are now tender-hearted, kind, humble, gentle, patient, forgiving, loving, at peace (v12-15). That is who we are in Christ. That is what we were made to be. Imagine a society like that!! That is what the new creation will be like one day. We will, all of us, be like Jesus.
So let us lift up our eyes to heaven. Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honour at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.
And if we are looking up to heaven, our vision filled with Christ, then we will see our sin as the dirty enemy it truly is. In the presence of Christ Almighty do you want your mind to be full of lust? In Him, can you lie? With Him by your side can you be full of rage?
5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming.
Last week we dealt with these verses. If you weren’t here, download it listen to it, particularly if you struggle with sexual sin. In other words: all of us! No matter what your sexual sin, your sexual struggle, you are not judged here. You are welcome here. There are things in our past we are ashamed of, just like you. But you know what. We have been declared holy and blameless. Our sins have been confessed and forgiven. We have made right and asked for forgiveness where we have had to make right and ask for forgiveness.
God does not call the holy, but the broken. That is why Jesus came. You cannot deal with your sin. But he can, and has.
So if you are a sexual sinner, you are welcome here. Actually, let me correct that: you are a sexual sinner, and you are welcome here. You are among friends. And we urge you, turn to Christ – he is the only one who can wash away your sins, set you free from addiction to your bodily urges. Only he is a better vision.
There is no room for sexual sin in the Christian, so put it to death. There is no room for greed in the Christian, so strip it off. Greed says “I’m worshipping something else. I’m looking to this thing to satisfy me” – instead of looking to Christ. Strip it off, put it to death. And if that means you close your eyes during the adverts and avoid the shopping mall and stop looking on finn.no then good for you. Do whatever you need to do to get rid of greed in your life. That goes for food too. We probably all of us here eat too much and exercise too little. I know I do. Greedy little piggy. Look to Christ, not to food to satisfy.
We must put to death these things, brothers and sisters, because they belong to the old life – and we have died to that old life. We must not go back under the authority of the Sergeant, standing to attention, obeying his every whim. We are free! Let’s live as free men. No sexual sin, no impurity, no lust, no evil desires, no greed for we have found what is real, what truly satisfies.
Let Christ rule your sex life, you thoughts and actions. Let him fill your needs and lead you away from greed. We have died to that old life, and live for Christ. Death leads to life.
2. Live for Christ: anger does not rule you
7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. 8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behaviour, slander, and dirty language. 9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. 10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.
Paul now changes the picture from death/life to clothing: stripping off and putting on. Rip off the old life, put on the new life of Christ. And part of what belongs to the old life is anger and rage. Rage. That fury which bubbles underneath the surface in all of us, just looking for an excuse to come out.
We have a problem with anger, rage and malicious behaviour. These come so naturally, so easily to us.
My children regularly disagree. “I say Kaleb, would you mind terribly giving back that toy that you just took from my hand.” “Certainly, just as soon as you stop driving it into my foot and messing up my game.” “Oh, I am so sorry, I do apologise”. Is not how things normally go. Things escalate rapidly: Stop it! No, YOU stop it. Give it back! Not if you don’t stop it! No! Yes! Give it! Nyahh, nyahh! Graaaaaah! AAAAAAAHHH! And enraged they fly at each other grabbing and hitting and kicking.
Now what’s remarkable about that picture is that we’ve never taught them that. We’ve never sat them down and said “Now, first you yell and scream, then you go red in the face, then you insult him, and then you hit her there, and...” No, we say the opposite time and time again. But blind rage comes so easily to us. Revenge. Maliciousness – because they deserve it. Kids fighting over toys is one thing, and we shake our heads and go “huh, kids” – but we adults do the same, and it becomes deadly serious. Hamas shoots rockets at Israel, and Israel hits back. Both sides enraged by the other, until the actions and reactions leave thousands dead and thousands more wounded. In Mosul Muslim warriors are enraged at the “blasphemy” of Christians and Shia Muslims, and run rampage through the town murdering anyone who stands in their way, and justifying it through selected suras in the Khoran. Our anger is the just anger of Allah they say, while holding up the heads of innocents.
How is this possible? How can ordinary men and women be so easily converted into murderous lunatics, so full of rage and anger against their fellow humans?
The Nazis managed to turn ordinary Germans into murderers. They would be sitting down to a pleasant meal with their family only a few hours after savagely beating, stripping, and gassing Jews.
And here we have our own Anders Bering Breivik, so enraged by the policies of the Arbeiderpartiet that he plans and executes the cold-blooded murder of children and teenagers – and to this day thinks his actions are justified, in fact, good, instead of monstrously evil.
There is something wrong deep within us.
And I say “us” because we are just the same. The same anger, the same rage burns in us, just in more socially acceptable ways. The guys cuts us off on the road, and we fly into a rage. At work, we complain about our colleagues or our boss behind their back, all the while presenting a fake smile to them. And then we mistreat those under our authority. Maybe we take out our anger on them, using cutting words – slander, malicious behaviour, lies. Whatever it takes to build us up and to tear them down.
Now this might sound way too extreme. Seriously, you’re comparing me snapping angrily at a bad driver to..to murder? Really? Well, let’s take us out of a situation where irrational anger is frowned upon and socially unacceptable and put us in a group baying for blood in front of someone we intensely dislike. The crowd is shouting, egging us on – glory awaits in giving in to our anger, our hate – and if we don’t we will be an outcast, disloyal to the cause, shunned perhaps even beaten or killed. You still think you wouldn’t give in to your rage? You still think you’re so peaceful?
In 1994 the country of Rwanda exploded into bloodshed as ordinary people turned on their neighbours and murdered them because they were of a different tribe. Doctors let patients die, teachers murdered their students… over half a million people died in less than 100 days.
What is wrong with us? It’s sin. The root of this anger, this rage that flares up so quickly, is idolatry. Idolatry of self. “I believe I am God” is the root problem. That is what sin is: replacing God with something else (most often me). And when people do not do, say, or believe what I do, say or believe. How dare you disagree with me? How dare you get in my way? How dare you have a different opinion? Feel my wrath.
Someone once said “What would happen if you put a weapon in the hand of a two-year old in a temper tantrum?”.
7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. 8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behaviour, slander, and dirty language. 9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. 10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.
Strip off the anger, put on the new man. As the words are about to flood out, pray! Say, Lord, I hate this person right now, please help me to love them, please help me to see them with your eyes.
Strip off the old. Put on the new.
3. Live for Christ: be like him (Put on the new nature)
10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. 11 In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. 12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
CS Lewis once described Christianity as a renovation of a house. He compares our lives to a run-down house in need of repairs. At the beginning, you can see him fixing up the roof, and replacing windows and fixing the pipes – all good things, and you feel better. But then he starts tearing down walls, and digging new foundations, and putting up a whole new wing over there, and lifting the roof off to put a new floor – and it’s painful! It hurts. It’s HARD! You see, you thought you were just going to be a nice little garden cottage – but Jesus is transforming you into a palace. Why? Because it’s his house, and he’s the King.
Being a little bit better is insulting to the King. We are not called to be slightly nicer than everybody else. That’s religion. That’s a self-help program. That’s a waste of time – chapter 2 told us that. Christianity is a program of perfection, of pure holiness. It is utterly extreme in its demands. We are not called to be better. We are called to be exactly. Like. Jesus.
10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.
A while ago there were little bangles that really popular with WWJD on them: “What would Jesus do”. They were a little bit silly, I suppose, but they really got to the heart of this truth: that we are to be like Christ in everything we do. Look at v17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
In everything we do. We are not to be like each other, or like this church group or that type of Christian. But we are to be like Christ. He is the standard, he is the goal. Because one day we will be with him, in his very presence. His holiness burns like the noonday sun, his righteousness a blazing fire. And anyone who is not perfect will be destroyed in his presence. Remember the Temple in the Old Testament, how no-one could go in to God except the High Priest and even he had to first be made holy through lots of sacrifices and elaborate rituals. How not even Moses could see God’s face without being destroyed? How Uzzah reached out to steady the Ark of God’s Covenant as it was about to fall off the wagon it was on – and was struck down dead because he was unholy and the Ark was holy?
We will be in the presence of the Living God, in his terrifying holiness! And we will be seated on his lap, our Abba, our Daddy, because he who began the good work in us will complete it. We will be made holy. We are declared holy. We are being made holy. Be like Christ.
We have died to our old life, and now live for Christ. Our new life is Christ’s life, and we are being made like him. That is our goal, our destiny. That is the Holy Spirit’s work within us.
So, no more sexual immorality, but love. No lust, but kindness. Not evil desires and malicious behaviour, but mercy and gentleness. Not anger and rage but patience, harmony, and forgiveness. Not greed, but thankfulness.
What would Jesus do? Well, often we know exactly what Jesus would do. My Dad wore the bangle he said to ask not what would Jesus do, but what will Jack do?
This week, before you act, before you speak, ask yourself what would Christ say? What would Christ do? And then do that.
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