Killing the Sin in Your Life

today on grace to you the truth will take a back seat to our agenda and we will say whatever we need to say to express our anger you're going to live the Risen life that's the positive side you're going to have to be killing that which threatens that that which pulls you down into sin the world makes us so embarrassed about the gospel I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified [Applause] [Music] foreign concern to the Lord that we be Sanctified that means to be separated separated from sin unto God from sin unto holiness we are to be increasingly like Christ we are as we learned last time to live lives that essentially are Heavenly lives rather than Earthly lives in that they manifest all the virtues that belong to the Lord and the Saints in glory so let me read the opening nine verses of Colossians 3 as a setting for what we're going to see today therefore if you have been raised up with Christ keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God set your mind on the things above not on the things that are on Earth for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God when Christ who is our life is revealed then you also will be revealed with him in glory therefore consider the members of your Earthly body as dead to immorality impurity passion evil desire and greed which amounts to idolatry for it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience and in them you also once walked when you were living in them but now you also put them all aside anger wrath malice slander and abusive speech from your mouth do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him now we saw last time that we are called to live the Risen life that we are to reach the World by leaving the world we are to live lives of seeking verse 1 the things above verse 2 setting our minds on things above not on things on the earth now remember that Paul has in this letter in the first two chapters demonstrated powerfully the supremacy and sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ but as we come to this third chapter it begins with the word therefore and then down in verse 5 has another therefore this is consistent with how Paul structures his letters there will inevitably be a section of Doctrine at the beginning of the letter in which he lays out truth about us truth about what it means to belong to God in Christ and then at some point you will see the word therefore and the transition takes place from theology to behavior from Doctrine to conduct and that's what we find in chapter three because of who Christ is and what he's done because of the fact that we are in Christ and complete in him and in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and we are complete in him because of these realities of our life and death in Christ because we have everything we need therefore we need to live consistently with that identity in light of all these glorious truths there's a certain way we are to live to sum it up look down at verse 17 in chapter 3 whatever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ giving thanks through him to God the Father everything you do everything you do inward everything you do indeed should be consistent with your identity in Christ and should be an offering of thanks given to God the father that's how you are to live your life that's the sum of it all whatever you do word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ as an expression also of gratitude to God the Father for what he has done now this means on the positive side that you need to live a Heavenly life and that's what we saw in the opening four verses seek the things above set your mind on the things above the things that are Heavenly the virtues that belong to the perfect the perfect God and the perfected Believers and the Holy Angels live above the world leave the world to reach the world that was the message last time now reality would tell us that's fine we need to do that we we Endeavor to do that we want to live in the heavenlies we we want to live as it were in Christ Consciousness we we have died with him we have risen with him we have been seated on the throne with him he is in us and we are in him and we want to live in a Heavenly expression of these realities and we're empowered to do so by the Holy Spirit but with all that lofty thinking about living the Risen life and living in a Heavenly way Paul comes down fast to Earthly reality with another therefore in verse 5. if you're going to live the Risen life if you're going to leave the world to reach the world you're going to have to deal with what remains on Earth of your sinfulness and that requires some very dramatic and consistent practical action and of a strong nature look at verse 5. therefore consider the members of your Earthly body as dead as dead some translations say kill the members of your Earthly body this is not talking about some a monastic self-castration or flagellation or inflicting some unnatural uh in wounds or inflictions on your physical body like the ascetics once did when he's talking about killing he's talking about killing in the spiritual sense it's Romans 8 13. if you kill the Deeds of the sinful nature you will really live if you're going to live this Christian Life to the max you've got to be killing the Deeds of the sinful nature if you're going to live the Risen life that's the positive side you're going to have to be killing that which threatens that that which pulls you down into sin we are new creatures on the inside as Paul said in Romans 7 but we still have remaining Flesh on the outside and the members of our body the faculties of our body can be instruments of righteousness or they can be instruments of iniquity but if we are new creatures we want to be sure that they are instruments of righteousness and so we have to be killing the remaining aspects of our flesh that's part of living the Christian Life so Paul says look not only on the positive side do you want to reach up for all the virtues that basically Define holy living in heaven but you want to remember that you have to deal with the fallenness which Still Remains in your own life fallenness that will show up through the instrumentation of your human body your mind your speech and your actual conduct those are essentially the instruments in which your Fallen flesh will Express itself simply unless you are killing it we're not to ignore sin we are to be killing sin we are to be considering the members of your Earthly body as dead and then to be specific he wants to help us not only with a list of sins that we need to be dealing with but there's a there's a certain pathology here that's very helpful two lists of sins one in verse five you can see it there and the second list down in verses 8 and into verse 9. the first list deals with perverted love and the second list deals with perverted hate the first list deals with what we do the second list deals with what we say let's look at catalog number one in verse 5. therefore consider the members of your Earthly body as dead to immorality impurity passion evil desire and greed or covetousness which amounts to idolatry now notice the sequence it starts with evil action immorality and it ends with idolatry so it flows from the action back to the motive that's the pathology you're going to see here it flows from the action back to the motive in fact you go back from immorality to impurity to Passion to evil desire and to Greed and to idolatry now let me just kind of explain how this pathology works the word immorality basically refers to any unlawful sexual act any unlawful sexual act and to make life simple for everybody there's only one lawful sexual act and that is the sexual relationship between a man and a woman who are married that's it that's it so anything other than that is unlawful and falls into the category of immorality now this Behavior Springs from the next word impurity impurity simply means uncleanness our Lord's words in Mark chapter 7. help us maybe to see this in Mark 7 and verse 21 but we can start in verse 20. Jesus said that which proceeds out of the man that is what defiles the man so when you see the defiling behavior it's coming from something out something inside the man verse 21 for from within out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts fornications thefts murders adulteries Deeds of coveting and wickedness as well as deceit sensuality Envy slander pride and foolishness all these things proceed from within and defile the man the problem is not outside us it's what it's inside us immorality is the product of evil thoughts sex in Behavior is the result of sexually sinful thoughts you control your mind and you control your sexual conduct so you go from immoral Behavior back to what causes that which is impure thinking and then the next word is passion passion is describing for us something behind impure thoughts it's some rumbling from deep within our nature some almost passive term something that lies latent in US it reflects a deep-seated fire that can easily fan into Flame and then behind that is the word evil desire or the term evil desire evil desire reaches down a little bit deeper into what we really are we're susceptible to Passion because built into our fallen flesh is evil desire John calls it the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life James 1 14 and 15 says that sin starts down in those categories in those catacombs in those deep Caverns of lust that's not necessarily something that's stimulated by something we see it's Who We Are what activates evil desire that inflames passion that leads to impure thoughts and immoral Behavior the next word is greed greed now we're getting close to the bottom greed some of your translations might say covetousness essentially it's the same word it is the desire for what isn't yours it is the desire for what is forbidden it is the desire for what is against the will of God it's the desire for something you have no right to you're not entitled to pleonexia from two words pleon Moore exain to have the desire to have more than you have it is the absence of contentment it is the opposite of contentment it is the desire to have more and in the case of the fallenness of the human heart it is a desire to have more of something you're not entitled to are we at the bottom with greed and covetousness no the end of verse 5 which amounts to idolatry what is idolatry worshiping someone other than God right puts the top of the Ten Commandments the first one you shall have no other gods so idolatry is the root of all sin that now we're at the bottom of this pathological process idolatry is at the bottom of every sin it's when you stop worshiping God and you decide you're going to worship yourself it's like saying I will not submit to you as my sovereign I want what I want I will be sovereign you're not going to tell me what I can and cannot have I will determine what I can or cannot have Market so you understand that you have to deal with it at what point well the easiest point to deal with it is at the level where it begins right so you deal with it on the basis of what it is it is idolatry how serious is it to kill sin look at verse 6. it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience the kind of things that we're talking about here immorality impurity passion evil desire greed and idolatry are the sins that damn people to Hell forever verse 7 he says in them you also once walked when you were living in them look for two reasons you don't do this one these are the very things that God punishes unbelievers in hell for forever and you know better because you have lived there before why would you go back there's a second catalog here in verse 8 and 9. catalog 2 is perverted hate there are some things we ought to hate all sin all unrighteousness all that offends God but here is a kind of hate that is directed at people now you also put them all aside anger wrath malice slander and abusive speech from your mouth do not lie to one another that's catalog number two here he begins the opposite way the first catalog he began with the deed the act and went back to the foundational motive here he begins with the motive and moves toward the deed the motive is anger that develops into wrath that releases malice that turns into slander and abusive speech and lying Paul is just saying look put off verse 8 put all aside it's it's a verb you used to throw off dirty clothes and in this particular category he's not talking about what we do but what we say the vicious vicious capacity that we have to use our verbal member for violent sin and he looks down at what comes out of the mouth and he goes all the way to where it arises from anger anger or gay deep down smoldering hostility deep down smoldering hostility that too is a product of self-worship somebody offended you really and you took it seriously like you were that important you're deep down smoldering anger is idolatry you're worshiping yourself not God it bursts forth in Wrath that is too much that's a blaze of sudden Fury you start then with this deep seated anger that's down in your self-worshiping heart and it explodes the Greeks used this word to describe the kind of fire that burned up grass or straw quickly inflamed deep-seated anger explodes in Wrath and leads to malice a general term for moral evil it does it's just evil in a broad sense and this has to do with how you speak so it's evil in your heart evil intent that results in slander this is the word for blasphemy and not just God but people defaming people slander then produces abusive speech abusive speech it's not speech to borrow Paul's words in Ephesians where he says in verse 29 of chapter 4. let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth but only such a word as is good to build up according to the need of the moment so that it will give Grace to those who hear let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice exact same words as we saw in Colossians be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you we should be full of forgiveness not constantly indicting everyone this is unacceptable abusive obscene blasphemous language that blasphemes other people why would we think for a moment that the Lord would be pleased with that no matter what we think justifies it we ought to be speaking what is edifying what is comforting what is encouraging what is virtuous what is Godly but if there is deep-seated anger smoldering in our hearts it'll burst into Wrath it'll result in evil which shows up in slander and blasphemy of others and then on top of that verse 9 do not lie to one another lying the truth will take a back seat to our agenda and we will say whatever we need to say to express our anger or our self-worship lies lies are Protectors of self-worship Satan lied in deceiving Eve Adam and Eve lied to God attempting to evade responsibility Cain lied to God about his brother Abraham lied to Sarah Sarah lied to the angels Sarah lied to the king of Gerard Isaac lied denying Rebecca was his wife Rebecca lied in the conspiracy against Esau you're you're still in the Book of Genesis and you've got everybody's a liar having gotten out of Genesis because Satan is the father of Lies Paul is horrified that we would be so idolatrous as to live with smoldering anger that unleashes itself on people and justifies itself and even leads to lies to fulfill its agenda Paul is horrified of that we must be mortifying those things and you better start all the way down at the bottom with that whole issue of self-worship your anger is connected to self-worship and it smolders until something fans it we should be marked even when genuinely offended by forgiveness where is that Jesus said 70 times 7 that's how many times you forgive so we are told here in this matter of sanctification to reach up and live with Heavenly virtues that that's the the upside the downside is to realize that we have to kill the members of our body that still are fleshly and we have to deal with sin at its very foundational point it's very origin which is idolatry how do you control that how do you do that at the lowest level then where idolatry breeds all of this if you are a god worshiper and a Christ worshiper the battle is one and the more you know about God and the more you know about Christ and the more you love God the more you love Christ the more you submit gladly sin is simply a manifestation of self-worship and Rebellion against God see it for what it is deal with it at the level you have to deal with it we live in the heavenlies yes but we also have to be realistic about the flesh and Paul calls us to both how can we focus on killing sin in our lives when almost everything that surrounds us other than the church and the universal body of Believers encourages its practice the movies that are praised the media posted daily the music and talk shows streaming through our cars and homes the fashion displayed on billboards and magazines all embolden the vices we strive to kill however we are called to sanctification to pursue think and practice the gospel daily when our minds and hearts are set on Christ and what he's done for us everything else becomes background noise and we then become advertisements of Christ to learn more about how you can do this visit us at gty.org and order a copy of a small but very informative booklet called freedom from sin this resource will help you unlock the tools at your disposal for battling Temptation and sin order your copy by giving us a call at 88857 Grace or logging onto our website gty.org and searching for the booklet freedom from sin on behalf of John McArthur and grace to you thanks for joining us today we'll see you next time [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Grace to You

Views: 183,529

Keywords: John MacArthur, Bible, Preaching, Christianity, Expository, Exposition, Sermon, Jesus, Christ, Grace to You

Id: ewZ3lKDduR8

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 10 2021