Death to Self

[Colossians 3:5-11]

As is typical when you’re in the midst of a transition like this, I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on the last seven years in this church. I was remembering the day we unloaded the semi trailer of our stuff at our house. It was a day full of delays. The truck had multiple issues on the way out, which meant that he didn’t get to our house until very late and the unloading process was pretty rushed so that we could get the driver back on the road. As soon as he got the truck backed up to the house he and I started unloading it right away. It was a hot, muggy day and we had been unloading for about an hour by the time the church crew showed up. I still remember Joanne Verhage making the mistake of slapping me on the back and saying, “Hey Pastor!” which was immediately followed by an “Ewwww!” because I was drenched in sweat. We kept on unloading the truck for another two to three hours. By the time we were done unloading, not only was I exhausted, but I was also really gross. I couldn’t wait to get into the shower, get cleaned up, and get some clean clothes on and relax a little bit.

Guess what didn’t go through my mind as I got out of the shower? I didn’t get out of the shower, look at that pile of nasty, sweaty clothes and think, “I should put that back on.” Even the thought of that makes me cringe. Once you finally get clean, you want to stay that way and put on some clean clothes.

That’s really what Paul is talking about in this morning’s passage. Basically, he’s reminding the Colossians that their old, sinful life is a pile of stinky, sweaty, nasty clothes that they’ve taken off and they’ve been cleaned and cleansed by Jesus Christ, why in the world would they ever want to put that nasty stuff on again?

And just to make sure the Colossians realize what he’s talking about, he gives them a couple lists of sins that represent that old life. He talks about, “…sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry…anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another…” (Colossians 3:5–10, ESV). These are the nasty, stinky old clothes from our old life.

I mean, take a look at that list of sins and tell me how any of those have resulted in any positive fruit in your life. I’ve often said that it’s really important to look back on the sins you’ve committed over the years in order to be reminded how they didn’t actually do anything for you—to be reminded of their lack of fruit. Each of these things promises a bit of pleasure or release, and you may get that for a moment, but over time they slowly kill you—like all sin. Letting your anger explode may feel good for a moment, but the damage it causes lasts much longer. Slandering someone or lying may feel good for a moment, but ultimately slowly destroys you. Sexual immorality and lust may feel good for a moment, but the negative consequences linger for much, much longer.

And the benefit of being reminded of this, and being reminded of this from real examples from your life, is that it takes away the level of temptation today. The example I give quite often is that I went through a period of my life when drinking and getting drunk was quite a temptation for me. I’d go hang out with friends and it wouldn’t take much encouragement from them for me to get drunk right along with them. Eventually, God convicted me of this sin and I haven’t been drunk since. One of the things that helped me was for me to remember all of the stupid things I did when I was drunk and how terrible I felt afterwards. Why would I want to do that again? It was dumb. The same thing applies to various other sins in our lives. It’s why Paul says, “But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.” (Romans 6:21, ESV).

In providing this list of sins, Paul is actually getting at something deeper. He’s not just helping them remember the various sins they’ve struggled with throughout their life, he’s also making a major point. He says something really important in the middle: “…covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Colossians 3:5, ESV). He says that covetousness is idolatry. That should really stop us in our tracks. Basically, Paul is saying that the first and the tenth commandment are pointing to the same reality. There have been many theologians throughout history who have said that the Tenth Commandment, in some sense, contains all of the other commandments because it addresses the heart.

In helping us to understand this point, I typically like to take us to a passage in James: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.” (James 4:1–2, ESV). He’s saying the same thing. Why do you fight? Because you covet. Why do you murder? Because you covet. Why do you commit adultery? Because you covet. Why would you worship another god? Because you covet.

In a simple way, coveting is desiring something we don't have, but it's more than that. At its core, covetousness is about distorted desires. It's not just about desiring things we don't have, but desiring the wrong things. The definition of the Greek word says this, “…in practice it means either ‘consuming ambition’…that aims at supremacy and is linked with arrogance…; or more often ‘greed’ for wealth, covetousness gone amuck, various forms of epithymia, the desire to have what is forbidden, more than one’s due.” (TLNT). It’s this idea of never being satisfied, always looking for more, always willing to use something or someone else for your desires. Yet, those things will never satisfy you, which is why you’re never satisfied and are always looking for more, more, more—hoping it will be different this time.

Then in the midst of this, Paul reminds the Colossians of something important: “In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.” (Colossians 3:7, ESV). Just as they were getting disgusted at these long lists of sins, he reminds them that they used to live this way. They used to live life wearing these stinky, nasty, sweaty clothes all the time. They were used to wearing these clothes, so they didn’t bother them as much, but they need to remember that they used to live this way. He wants them to remember. He wants us to remember.

Not only does he want them—and us—to remember how nasty that lifestyle was, or even how lacking it was in producing fruit in our lives. He actually wants us to remember something more powerful than that. He says, “On account of these the wrath of God is coming.” (Colossians 3:6, ESV). It’s not just that these sinful actions and sinful lifestyles don’t bear any good fruit, but it also dishonors and angers God. These sinful lifestyles result in the wrath of God coming. That’s how serious sin is in our lives and in the lives of other people.

I think it’s so important for us to be reminded of this on a regular basis. Sin isn’t just foolish, it angers God. Sin isn’t bad simply because it’s bad for us—which it is—it’s bad because it angers and dishonors God to the point where his wrath comes. Sin is so serious that God couldn’t just overlook it or ignore it, but he had to pour out his wrath on Jesus Christ so that our sins could be forgiven. So, if you want to see the seriousness of your sin, you can look at Jesus Christ, beaten, bruised, and hanging the cross. You can see Jesus crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, ESV). That’s how serious sin is.

He goes on to remind us that when we look to Jesus Christ in faith and we put our trust in him for the forgiveness of our sins, something happens in our life. There’s a decisive change in our life. He says, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self…” (Colossians 3:9–10, ESV). That’s one example. Basically, he’s saying don’t keep on sinning and living in sin because Christ has taken off your old, stinky life and has cleansed you and has now given you a new life. Something has changed in your life now. Now you know what it’s like to be clean and you don’t want to go back to that old lifestyle anymore. You are a new creation. You’re a new person. You don’t do those things or live that way anymore.

It’s actually stronger than that. The ESV translates verse 5 as saying, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you…” (Colossians 3:5, ESV) but I think the NASB gets it closer. It translates verse 5 as: “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality…” (Colossians 3:5, NASB95). It’s basically saying that once you’re in Christ, you look at your old lifestyle and say, “You’re dead to me.” In Christ, you are now dead to all of the sexual immorality of your past, to all of the substance abuse of your past, to all of the anger and malice and lying of your past. That life is now dead and gone. You can honestly say, “That’s not who I am anymore!”

I want to take a moment to make sure you see how this is connected with last week’s passage. If you remember, the point of last week’s passage is that since you’ve been united with Christ and are seated in heaven with him, you are to seek and set your mind in heavenly things. That was the point of last week’s message. This week’s passage is building on that by saying that not only are we to seek and set our minds on heavenly things, but we are to consider ourselves dead to all of those earthly things—earthly ways of living and thinking. We’re dead to those things because we’ve been raised to new life and made new creations in Jesus Christ.

So, when we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, there’s this decisive change in our lives. However, there is also an ongoing renewal that happens in our life. It’s the tension in this passage. On the one hand Paul says, “…you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self…” (Colossians 3:9–10, ESV). That’s talking about something that has already happened. However, he immediately goes from talking about something that has already happened to saying, “…you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed…” (Colossians 3:9–10, ESV). Being renewed is an ongoing process. It carries this idea of something that is continually happening throughout the rest of your life. So, yes, there is a decisive change in our lives when we first put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, however, we’re not fully renewed in that moment. The rest of our lives will be this process of living into the reality that we’ve died to that old life and been given new life in Jesus Christ.

One of the best illustrations of this comes from a practice in the monastery. I can’t remember which order of monks does this practice, but it’s good nonetheless. When they join the monastery, they enter the monastery with an old, tattered, worn-out robe. In the process of being welcomed into the monastery and becoming part of the fellowship, they are given a clean, new robe. However, they don’t get rid of the old, dirty robe. Instead, when they wake up each morning, both robes are hanging next to each other—the old and new—and the monk has to make a choice not to put on the old robe, but to put on the new robe each morning.

That’s kind of what Paul is talking about in this morning’s passage. In Christ we have this new identity and are new creations with a new life, but we continually struggle with the temptation to fall back into all of our old sins—to fall back into our old lifestyles and habits and sins. That’s why he says, “But now you must put them all away…” (Colossians 3:8, ESV). He’s talking about your sinful lifestyle and actions. Not only do you need to consider that life dead to you, but then throughout the day you need to continually kill it—put it to death. Or to use his other analogy, you have taken off that old lifestyle and thrown it to the side, but throughout the day you will be continually tempted to put it back on and you will need to continually fight that temptation and continually throw that old lifestyle off over and over and over again. As we’re all very aware, the old man dies, but he doesn’t die quickly or easily.

All of this reminded me of a famous quote by a Puritan named John Owen. He famously said, "Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” It’s this powerful reminder that sin isn’t neutral in our lives. It’s not okay for us to simply try on some sinful behavior and wear it around for a while—or to be aware of some sinful actions in our life and simply try not to think about them or ignore them. Those sinful actions and desires are literally trying to kill you. That’s their only goal in your life. So, you need to be actively seeking to kill them in your life or you will be killed by them. You need to be actively seeking to throw off any sinful actions that are hindering you from following Christ and becoming more like him.

That’s the ultimate goal. Paul says, “…you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” (Colossians 3:9–10, ESV). This is really powerful in so many ways. This brings us all the way back to the beginning of the bible, to the very first chapter. When God creates man and woman we read, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26–27, ESV). There’s a lot I could say here, but I’ll keep it basic for now. Humanity was created in the image and likeness of God. It’s the epitome of how we were created to live and function in the world. Yet, when Adam and Eve sinned, that image was distorted and messed up. It didn’t disappear, but it was messed up. So, what we’re being told here is that through Jesus Christ—who IS the image of God (if you remember that from a few weeks ago)—we are not only forgiven, but we’re also being renewed into the image of God. We’re being renewed and restored to live the life we’ve been created to live. And, since Jesus IS the image of God, our lives are being renewed to look more like Jesus Christ.

This is the goal of our salvation—that we would be forgiven and set free so that we can be renewed into the image of Jesus Christ. That’s why we put to death everything that is earthly in our lives, because we want to become more like Jesus Christ and live the life we’ve been created to live. That’s why we put away all of our sinful actions and desires, because we no longer want to anger and dishonor our God and Savior, and because we want to put on our new life—which is Christ.

That’s also why Paul ends with this beautiful statement: “Christ is all, and in all.” (Colossians 3:11, ESV). Christ is everything for us, which means he must be central to everything we do—he is in all that we do—because we are being renewed to become like him. That’s also why Paul connects this to the fact that, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” (Colossians 3:11, ESV). His point is that those are all earthly distinctions that don’t matter anymore. We could keep adding to that list for sure, couldn’t we? We come up with so many different ways to divide ourselves up. But Paul says that those are all earthly things that don’t matter any more. Christ is all and in all and we are in Christ. Keep your eyes on him and follow him.

Don’t get so caught up in all of these earthly realities and lifestyles and ways of thinking. Rather, you’re now dead to those things and are alive in Christ. Don’t forget that you’re dead to those things. And continually focus on killing those aspects of your life that dishonor God and destroy you. Continually focus on throwing them off and putting on the new life you have in Christ as you are slowly and steadily renewed to become more like him.