This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Ignite the Light Ministry's radio and podcast. It is our mission to help listeners develop a deeper relationship with Jesus. by sharing what the Bible says and what it means. We aim to encourage and equip you to serve others, share the gospel, and reflect Christ in every aspect of your life.
I'm Pastor Wyatt Cudd. Thank you for tuning in. This Sunday, we're going to be looking at Colossians three, five through eleven.
So if you have your Bibles, turn there. If not, it'll be on the screen.
So, verse 5, we're doing a clean read-through, then we'll go back and we'll talk through it.
So verse 5. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature. Sexual immorality, impurity. Lust. evil desires and greed.
Which is idolatry. Because of these the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways. In the life you once lived, but now you must also rid yourselves of all such. Things as these.
Anger Range. Malice, slander. and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other. Since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self.
which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here, there is no Gentile or Jew Circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, Slave or free? But Christ is all. And is in all.
So in the previous sermon we talked about Christian Liberty. Uh this sermon And that that's um Jesus says in Mark 7, 15, it's nothing outside a person that can defile them by going in them. Rather, it's what comes out of a person that defiles them.
So last week we talked about the things that go in us that do not defile us. This week we're going to talk about the things coming out of the heart that do defile us. Yeah. It is not the perishable things that go in that corrupt us, nor is it the avoidance of them that saves us. This is last week.
Uh they come in, they go out. But corruption is from the heart. and salvation from Christ. For example, using something on this list. Paul gives us, he uh he gives us this list.
One of them is greed.
Now It is not money that corrupts, but it is the greed that comes from the heart that turns money into an idol.
So that's a good little example there.
Now Christ moves us from law to life. And there's freedom in that.
So here Paul's pivoting to talk about the sinful, wicked junk that comes out of our hearts. We are putting off the old and putting on the new. Put off the old and be putting on. The new.
So, Paul talks about this wickedness that comes out of our hearts, and boy. He gives us a list, and if you spend enough time reading that list, you will see your name on it. Verse 5, you got sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed. Verse 8, you have anger, rage, malice, filthy language, and then Paul caps it off verse 9 with lying.
So Paul gives us this big list. And it's broken into two parts. Sexual immorality, impurity, lusts, evil desires, and greed, this is one, and this is a broad category of sexual sin. And I find it fascinating that Paul lumps greed in with this list. If you think about it, great is this Uh idolatrous belief.
That everyone and everything exists or should exist for my own amusement and my own purposes. I find it it always conquests for more. Greed always conquests for more and never finds satiation. Fits nicely with sexual sin in a broad sense.
Now I want to be crystal clear top I want to be crystal clear talking about this list that Paul is not talking about physical intimacy itself as sin or something to avoid. And it's easy to gain this perception that the church teaches that sex is wrong. And there's a name for that. We call that purity culture.
Well, You ever read Song of Solomon? It will some of it not make you blush. Intimacy between a husband and a wife is a beautiful gift. from God. It's part of the original design and the Garden of Eden.
There's nothing wrong or shameful. In fact, it can be an act of worship to God. To love your spouse. And only a way that you can That's not shameful. That's obedience.
Rather, what Paul is talking about here is the misuse, the abuse of this intimacy, having it in the wrong context, turning it into an idol. And of this we are all guilty.
So we'd be putting off the old. and we put on the new. Then verse 8, our list of our other list. Anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, this is a broad category of sense of anger.
Now anger is on this list, but this verse cannot mean that the emotion anger itself is a sin. How do we know this? Because Jesus felt anger. Mark 3:5, Jesus looks at the Pharisees with anger when he asks them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? And they said, Nothing.
Mark 11, 15, Jesus goes into the temple and starts flipping tables because these Pharisees had turned his house of God into a JC Penny. He's flipping tables. He's angry. Mark 1.41, a man with leprosy approaches Jesus. And asks Jesus to be healed.
And Jesus does heal him, but before he does, it says that Jesus was. indignant Indignant with what? With sin. with suffering. It pains Jesus when we suffer.
It makes him angry. when his children are hurting.
So Paul here cannot mean that anger itself is a sin. In context with the others, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, Paul means the misuse, the mishandling of that emotion. And that is a sin. And to that, we need to be putting off the old ways and putting on the new. Men, I don't know about you, but I didn't need anybody to teach me how to get angry.
It's just it came came with the full package deal. It just comes with being alive. There I was, I was four years old, sitting at a restaurant. And I was frustrated because I was having to try a new food and I didn't want to.
Now I was thinking mom I ain't eating these mushrooms. It won't be held or high water that makes me eat this mushroom.
So when she wasn't looking, she set a bowl of mushrooms in front of me. And when she wasn't looking, I took them and just. Dropped them in my pants, one after the other, until that whole bowl was gone. And it seemed like a good strategy until my mom turned around and was like, man. He must love mushrooms.
I'm going to get him another bowl. It wasn't by until bowl four I started getting a little nervous. But we tend to be good at getting angry and nobody needs to teach us how to get angry and I believe it's for a reason. I believe God designed us to have That emotion.
Somebody breaks into your home. starts threatening your family? The people you're supposed to love and protect? No. Pick up your sword.
with the hollow points. And get angry. Police have a response time. But you don't. And you have an obligation to protect your family.
and a lot can happen in five minutes.
So don't wait for somebody else to do your job. How's that for application?
Now for that, Luke 22, 36, if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Exodus 22, 2. If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck with a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed. That's my scriptural justification for that.
So it's important that the church understands anger Especially for this next part. Because God gives us emotions, including anger, for a reason. It can be misused, yes, but it can be wielded for the kingdom. We put off the old and we put on the new.
Now, how do we put off the new? The old. Paul says verse 5, Put to death. Therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.
Now, we teach our children to be nice and sweet and loving, and sometimes I think we assume that's the right response for everything. But when it comes to sin, I want you to get angry. I want you to arm yourself. I want you to put on the armor of God and draw your sword of truth, and I want you to wage war on your sin. Since Especially your sin, ought to make you angry.
It ought to boil your blood. The corrupting things coming out of our hearts, Paul says, put them to death. These wicked things from our hearts, causing us to sin, hurt our neighbor, causing us to rebel from God. Paul says, kill it! Don't quell it.
Kill it. Don't let it lie. Make it die. Don't play Kate. Amputant.
Anger is an emotion. that uniquely motivates us to fight for what is right and demand justice.
So get angry at sin. Don't get angry at yourself. Get angry at your sin. There's a big difference there. Don't get angry, put on your armor, pick up your sword, and go to war with your sin.
Now Jesus says Matthew 5.30 If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. For it's better for you to lose one part of the body than your whole body to go to hell. And Jesus uses such harsh language because sin is a festering threat to us. If we are not killing it, It will be killing us. Destroying our life, our joy, our relationships, strangling out our future.
We Cannot negotiate with Satan. We cannot negotiate with sin because it will take you further than you ever wanted to go. It will cost us more than we ever wanted to pay. And it will stay longer than we ever wanted to keep it. We cannot negotiate with sin.
So put off the old. and put on the new. And when we put off the old, Killer. Make sure it's dead.
Now when you do sin, Love yourself. And when other people sin against you, We respond lovingly to them despite the sin. But when it comes to sin itself, I want you to hate it. I want you to fight it. I want you to hunt it down to its bitter root in your life and rip it out with a fiery passion.
And that's gonna hurt. But it has to be pulled up if we want to heal. We do not fight against flesh or blood, but of principalities and powers. Sin, wickedness, and Satan are our mortal enemy.
So we need to be slaying these dragons wherever they appear in our lives. or they will be slaying us.
So Why am I still dealing with sin? Why am I still dealing with it? I thought I was saved. I thought we were free from the flesh. Why is sin still a thing in my life?
Why are we still dealing with it?
Well, we are saved. But we're all still works in progress. We are justified by faith alone. That's justification. But faith without works It's dead.
And that part is the sanctification, the other half of that point. Sanctification is us gradually becoming the image of Christ in our actions and our deeds. But it is not until we die, we're dead in the ground, that we are fully glorified, where we fully become that image of Christ. We Aim to be Christ and we work, work, work towards that. And then when we die, Jesus brings us the rest of the way.
And praise God. And then we are fully transformed into His image.
So verse 6 it says Because of these, this list, the wrath of God is coming. God is perfectly good and perfectly holy. Because of this, He cannot turn a blind eye to sin or wickedness. If he were to just excuse sin, he would not be just. And we talked about this last week: that the law made it clear: humanity is unable to be God's perfect partner, and that's why we need Jesus.
Jesus stepped in and was God's perfect partner on our behalf. gives us his righteousness and takes that punishment for wickedness upon himself.
Now, God is God is a perfectly good God, and so every case is said it must be punished. It's just who is taking the punishment. Every knee will bow.
So We will either glorify God by being a story of His mercy and grace. or by being a display of his awesome wrath. Either way, Every person will glorify God, and we get to choose.
So Do not put off the old way and be putting on. The day.
So some might say, well, ah, that's not fair. I didn't choose I didn't choose to be alive. Uh why can't God just let me be? You know, what's he saving me from himself? Why can't God just leave us alone?
And God will leave you alone. If that's what you want. He will leave us to our own devices to implode in on ourselves like a dying star. We think that hell, that the hell we create for others doesn't deserve punishment. We think that man's version of peace doesn't lead directly to hell anyways.
God will leave us alone, and that's exactly what we don't want. The judgment and the wrath will be of our own making. And the consequences of our actions, that might as well be a law of nature. It's not God's fault. He's the one trying to help.
We don't want him to leave us alone. Verse 7. You used to walk in these ways. in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourself of such things as these.
So Paul mentions Filthy language. I want to talk about this for a second.
Now when I hear filthy language, the first thing I think of are some four-letter words. But a quick flip through the Bible and you will see there is no list of words that are inherently sinful. In this there are no uh sinful no-no words in the Bible. It was written in Hebrew and Greek and uh our English no-no words. There's not a list of do not say these words.
So as I've said before, sin has everything to do with the intentions of the heart. And we can just as easily cut someone down without using a single curse word. Filthy language here has more to do with how we are treating others, how we are speaking to them. I think the words were used.
Now in cultural contexts such as ours that don't welcome such words, we ought to be sensitive enough to adhere to that, otherwise we're in the wrong.
So be wise with your word choice. You know, don't be dropping them four-letter words in the middle of church service. It's just, it's not a good look.
Okay. It's not a good idea. But what is said, not particularly the words used, is what is being talked about here. and that filthiness that originates in the heart.
So Paul cats this list off, verse 9. Do not lie to each other. Now to me, it's surprising that in light of everything else he's talked about, all other types of sin, lying, that's the capstone of his list. That's the thing he mentions last. And I think there's significance there.
But I want to ask this question. is lying in all circumstances Right? Honey, does this dress make me look fat? Yeah. It's a trap.
It's a trap. There's no right answer. Gentlemen, just don't say anything. Just run. Just get out of that belt.
Get in your car and just move to Montana, okay? It's okay. You can't win them all.
Sometimes you just strike out and get back on the saddle. and just start over. Is lying wrong in all circumstances? Let me see if I can thread this needle.
So Lying is generally wrong because deceit is the most sinister form of it. It's gaining. Oh, let's see here. Deceit in its most sinister form, Aims to gain a selfish advantage over others. And this cannot be reconciled with the Christian virtue of love.
Christ says, love God and love your neighbor.
Now there's plenty of verses to support this. The notion of lying is wrong. It's in the Ten Commandments. It's in Proverbs 6, 16. It's everywhere in the Bible.
Do not lie. But Rayhab Rahab in the Old Testament is an interesting case. That's in Joshua 2:3 through 5. Uh so Rahab uh is hosting Israelite spies. And there are some guards that come to her door and ask, Hey, have you seen these spies?
And their intentions are: We're going to take these spies and we're going to kill them. And Rahab lies to them. She says no. I saw them, but they're gone. They left.
And she kept them in her house, and she lied to these guards. But Hebrews, and we don't see her repent from that either. There is no repentance in this story for this lie. And matter of fact, Hebrews 11, 31, it says, by faith, the prostitute Rahab. Because she welcomed the spies in, they were not killed.
So it was by her faith that these spies were saved. Her actions were by faith. She didn't have to go and repent for lying later. There's no indication she should have either. But it says in Hebrews 11, her actions were by faith.
How on earth do we make sense of that? Either she tells the truth and they die. Or she lies. It's it's a lose-lose. Right?
So I'll say right now, theologians do not agree. On the solution for this one. I could be wrong in my own understanding, so I encourage you to go with what Scripture says and follow the leadings of the Holy Spirit first. But here's what I think. This is a beautiful example that sin has everything to do with the intentions of the heart.
Rahab was intending to protect the spies that God had sent her. Her intentions were not to do harm, not to take advantage. She wasn't trying to manipulate anyone, and she certainly wasn't trying to conceal her own evil. She was doing this to protect them. And this falls right in line with Jesus' teachings in Mark 7: that it's what comes out of someone's heart that defiles them.
This is the other side of that coin. that good fruits Also come out of the intentions of the heart. That's nice.
So if you ever find yourself in the Netherlands. during the 1940s. And Nazi soldiers knock on your door looking for Anne Frank. hiding in your house. The Holy Spirit will be there to lead.
Do not be afraid to act though. I don't know.
So that's a highly specific, nuanced case, but it does display that sin originates in the heart. In most cases, lying is wrong. We ought not to lie to each other. and sharing truth, even hard truth. We're intimate with each other.
And that's what relationships are built on. If we're not truthful with one another, We can't trust one another. And if we can't trust one another, we can't ever really know each other. It just undermines Christian community.
So I believe Paul saves this, this sin, for last as the capstone, because there is nothing that absolutely destroys a relationship like mistrust.
So brothers and sisters Do not lie. You will ruin that relationship so fast. And for what? Temporary gain? Do not lie.
Put off the old. We put it on the new.
So Moving on to verse 9 here. You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge and image. of its creator.
So we have taken off the old and we are putting on the new. Following The following section, 1217, where we get our verse of the month. The um let the word of Christ dwell richly in all wisdom, teaching, admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. This next section talks about what are we putting on? Yeah, yeah, get it, put off the old.
Well what's the new thing I'm supposed to be putting on? What does that look like? And I wish I was here with you guys next week so I could do like a deep dive into this section because it's so beautiful and rich. Uh but to summarize it, uh we put on compassion kindness, humility, gentleness. Patience.
We put on forgiveness. And then verse 14, over all these virtues, put on love and it binds them together in perfect unity. It's like a big overcoat that goes on everything else and ties it all together, ties the loose ends. Put off the old and be putting this on, the new on. And if it's hard to remember all that, well, simply put, put off the flesh.
and put on Christ. Put off the flesh and put on Christ.
Now Paul words this section As if we have already put off the flesh and have already put on the new. But there's also this kind of pressing of we still be putting on the new, we still be putting off the old.
So, what's up with that?
Well, there's two things going on here. We have justification. Uh and that is What Christ did on the cross has secured our salvation. The thief on the cross needed to do nothing more than put his faith in Jesus to be with him in paradise.
So it's by justification. that we are saved, but sanctification is our progressive movement towards becoming the image of Christ. Hey there. I hope this sermon has enriched your day. If you like this message, I want to personally invite you to join us for Sunday worship.
We have two locations in Virginia, Trinity Methodist Church in Concord and Mount Comfort Methodist Church in Appomattox. Come join us Sunday morning at 9.45 and we will help you get connected. As always, I'm Pastor Wyatt Cudd. Thank you for tuning in.
