Mortification of Sin: Sanctification by Grace

If you would open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3, we will be working out of that text tonight. Hear God's Word for us. Chapter 3 starting at verse 5. In the account of these, the wrath of God is coming.

In these, you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we open your scripture tonight, I pray that the Holy Spirit, that your Spirit teaches us your Word. Lord God, I pray that you keep me from error as I share in this text. And Lord God, may what we do here tonight bring honor and glory to your name. Father, as we look at difficult passages about our responsibility, Lord, teach us how we may meet that responsibility and move forward in a life that is honoring and pleasing to you. Father, we thank you for all that you do. We ask that you be with us during these next several minutes and teach us. And it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. It's amazing this morning when I came to the service and Doug started his message, I leaned over to my wife and I said, I think he's going to preach my sermon. And then as Eugene shared his little snippet before I felt like walking up with my notes and saying, here, just finish, because it's a tremendous thing that we all have the same mind, or God has moved us to the same mind on this topic for today. When we look at a text like we just looked at in Colossians 3, 5 through 8, there can be a tendency on our part to read them in isolation from the context of the whole. And we can build doctrines that are error filled and lead to misery in the Christian life. Clearly, we see in these verses that we are commanded to put to death or to mortify our sin. We are to put away what is earthly. And this is a true scriptural teaching that is given to the believers. The issue is that when we use text improperly or not contextually, then we can build improper teachings that harm the body instead of edifying it.

What do I mean by that? Looking at verses 5 through 8, I can build a legalistic doctrine and stand in the pulpit and give you a list of vows that you should take and rules that you should follow. And if you don't do that, then you should consider that your salvation may be in danger. I can stand up here and I can try to encourage you to build your own resolve to be stronger so you can go out and face the world in your strength and get through and make God honored and pleased by your work. We mistakenly even can think we're able to do things within our own strength even if we add some context to it saying God does this but then we're able to add to it with our own ability.

This is an error that's common in many phases of the world and in the church. If you look around, man relies upon man in our culture, doesn't he? We talk about being our own man and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.

Every New Year's, I've used this before from the pulpit, many men and women make resolutions and I think the average that a man lasts in his own willpower, they say is anywhere between 7 and 17 days after the first of the year. We see it continually in diet and exercise. I cannot think of a time that I haven't watched a time of TV where there hasn't either been a commercial about diet or exercise equipment that you can get to make yourself a healthier you.

And we buy and consume these things and yet we don't get any healthier but in the United States especially, we see that the country gets worse in obesity and in health problems due to diet. General behavior, the culture itself, I don't know, have you ever seen the pass it on, I think it's passiton.org, they're little snippets of commercial or they're commercials with little snippets of pithy things like be kind to one another. And they show a young gentleman sitting on a bus as it's traveling down the road, an older lady is holding on to the arm and he stands up and offers her seat and he stands and then grabs. I looked up the organization and at its website, it said trying to bring goodness to the world without, and it dealt with not having a biblical basis. It was man trying to come up with their own goodness. And we see it to the other side, not just trying to be disciplined but in the culture there's the thought of live and let live. So we can air either even in culture into a legalistic way or I'll do it myself way or into a licentious way, live and let live, don't tell me what's wrong. My life is my life, leave me live it. And that leads us to a relevant relativistic thought process. If it's true for you, then it's truth. Now that doesn't work but that's the world.

And if it was just the world that'd be great. But we moved to the church. We know that there are churches out there that teach, I believe not intentionally false but an error, lists of rules and do's and don'ts that sometimes can be supported by scripture and sometimes cannot be, that you must keep them or you are in danger of losing either your salvation or your connection with God or whatever they want to say.

But if you keep these rules, no matter what the state of your heart is, you are doing the right thing. We also see that there is teachings about how you can do things to merit, cause God to credit you merit to infuse grace. I don't know anybody here Roman Catholic. My dad's family, his side, he became a Protestant but they were all Roman Catholic and they had do's and don'ts that were scriptural in a sense, but they were all designed if they did them, that it earned the merit so that Christ or the church could infuse more grace to them.

It was a system where they said, if you do this, this and this, and we are in a time that's of a special importance to them, the Lenten season, they are told by the church that they are not to partake of meat on Friday. If they do, it is a sin and they must confess it and they must repent of that sin and follow what the church is commanding and if they do then God or the church Christ will infuse more mercy or grace to them. So we see that the church is not outside that realm of legalistic doctrine to work your way to salvation.

We also see the church is not out of the licentious side. There are churches that teach that all you need to do is believe that Jesus saves and you are fine. You can live your life any way you want as long as you assent, Doug mentioned it this morning, as long as you assent that Jesus saves from sin. In this case, they're wanting to be saved in their sin.

They are told that it is okay, that all you need to do is ask for forgiveness when you fall, and that is a truth. There is a tremendous amount of grace and we're going to touch on that verse from 1 John when he said, I write these things so that you may not sin, but if you do sin, there is an advocate, a mediator. It leads to that we will sin and need to ask for forgiveness, but we can't live a sinful lifestyle and expect that we are truly saved by the gospel of Jesus Christ. So reading Colossians 5 through 8 can lead us down to many errors if we do not read those verses in context. This is why I subtitled today's message.

The message was titled Mortification of Sin, but the subtitle is Sanctification by Grace. If you will hear the word of the Lord, I'd like to read to you Colossians 3, 1 through 5a. If then we have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. Verse 5 becomes a new verse when we take the context of verses 1 through 4 and apply it to what is being taught. We do clearly see that mortification of sin is being taught.

We are to put to death those things that are earthly in us or sinful in us. You know, this isn't the only section of scripture that challenges us. 1 Peter 1 16, be ye holy as God is holy.

You have from Matthew 5 48, the Sermon on the Mount, you must therefore be perfect as he is perfect. You know, in Sunday school we've been discussing the parables of Christ and we've been focusing on the parables of the Christian life, how we are to live. Jesus is teaching in parables of how a Christian is to live. And each of these parables that we've covered reveal a responsibility that we have, that scripture gives us, that Christ gives us. In the wise and foolish builders, we saw that we must walk what we profess.

In the two sons, repent and obey. In the lamp under a jar, we are to have a soberness in our hearing and our doing. And so I would end Sunday school classes with giving us an application or something that we must go out and do. And my concern was I wasn't tying it to relying fully on the grace of the Holy Spirit.

We're very easy in a church or in a Sunday school setting, able to speak what the text tells us to speak. But in that application, not drive you back to the very thought of how we can do the thing we're being called to do. You know, in the reformed faith, we talk about us in our natural state being unable to respond.

We're going to touch on tonight those ways God enables us to respond. And yes, it is in the form of regenerating us and bringing us to justification before a holy right and just God. But it is also grace that enables us to do the things he calls us to do.

We are not unable once we are regenerated, because it is the grace of God through the Holy Spirit who enables us. When we look at the text tonight of Colossians one through five, and actually one we can go to eight or we can go clear through to verse 17. The text gives us the way in which you and I can carry out our responsibility. We see from the text that it is not by us looking inward or pulling us up by our boots ourselves up by our bootstraps, but it is by looking especially in those first four verses by looking at the work of Christ, and what he has done that will enable us to do the work that God is calling us to do. I would like to share two points this evening from this text that teaches how we are to mortify our sin to put to death those earthly things in us. And we need to remember that both of these have their common foundation in God's grace. The two points that I'm going to look at number one is only the regenerate can mortify sin. Number two, mortification can only occur when we seek and set our minds on the things of Christ.

As we move to these points, I want to make it clear. I am not up here preaching tonight that we can completely mortify sin in us and attain sinless perfection in this life. As Doug touched on it this morning, this side of the consummation while we are drawing breath, we will not be perfect. Philippians 3-12 Paul says those words that not that I have attained or am perfect.

First John 2 one and two. If you say you have no sin you deceive yourself. Understand we are not going to attain sinless perfection. But that does not change the fact that God is commanding you and I to live a life of continual battle against sin to glorify Christ. Don't forget that you are called to a war.

Doug makes that statement from this pulpit many times. The spiritual battle is a war that we must engage in every day. If not, we will become dull and we can become alienated from our relationship with God by sin winning battles over us instead of us winning the battle through Christ over sin. Even though we can't fully mortify this sin, we are called to that battle and I hope after tonight's message we know how to enter that battle a little bit stronger each day. I'm going to reread for point one, verse one a and three and four because the statement I make in point one is only the regenerate can mortify sin. We have a world who tries to get better, who aims to do good.

That's what they say. The world's motto is you're not a bad person, there's good, you are good at heart, but you just fail at times. Scripture doesn't tell us that, does it? Scripture tells us that we are by nature sinners outside of Christ and we will rebel continuously and do evil. What Paul is saying here to the Colossians, if then you have been raised with Christ, one a, and then move down to three, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. These verses are teaching us, Paul is instructing the Colossians and us that it is true believers who he is calling to put to death their sin. Unregenerate man cannot mortify sin. Their nature is to sin. Before we were brought by the Holy Spirit to a conviction of our sin, we desired and sought after sin. That's what Scripture tells us in Romans 3. No one seeks God, no not one.

Everyone turns his own way. I use that text a ton because it applies so well to what man is outside of Christ. Unregenerate man can attempt to become a better moral agent, but even in this, and we see it continually in the world, he fails.

Why? First, I believe he fails because he needs to rely fully upon his own strength. Unregenerate man has nothing but himself. And so he must succeed within his own power and strength of will to be a better person.

I don't know about you, but I try to do certain things through my own strength and my own will. I shared with you the last time I spoke about trying to lose weight. In December, on the 17th, when I started the process, I weighed 192 pounds. By now, I'm supposed to weigh 180 pounds, or 178, something like that. Do you know how much I weigh? I weigh 189 pounds. I lost 3 pounds.

It's not hard. I know exactly what I should eat and what I shouldn't eat. I know I should wake up in the morning and go for a walk, and if I'm tired and I don't do it, I should do it in the afternoon or the evening, but I just don't. I don't want to weigh what I weigh, but I can't make myself in my own discipline, so I have a group, and they have helped.

Without the group, I would probably be 199 pounds. Because we're able to communicate one to another a little bit, so it's helped somewhat, but left to myself, my strength, my resilience, now we can pick an item, and it can become of such importance to us that we become fixated on and for a time seem to succeed, but even that in the world loses its enamor, and our wills just cannot stay focused. That would explain why on New Year's, all these people with these resolutions, whether it's I'm not going to swear as much, I'm not going to drink as much, I'm not going to do...

They fail within seven to 17 days. That's not the church. That's the world. That's the true statistics of man's own self-will. The second, though, why an unregenerate man fails is that he has to answer correctly what is the moral absolute, and that is a problem for our world, because the moral absolutes have changed in the culture.

They haven't changed. As believers, as followers of Christ, we know there is one moral absolute standard of right, and that is God himself. But in the world, in my 53 years, what is accepted morally now as right is so far different than what it was when I was 20. In 33 years, I almost can't recognize the moral rightness of culture.

And I'll give you one quick example. There is a young man who is swimming for the University of Pennsylvania as a woman, and we are told to accept it because that is what he wants to identify as, but even the women that he is competing against and beating quite easily, I might add, are maddened, but they still want to support his right to decide that he's a woman. It is the most confusing time that I have seen in a culture because there is no moral absolute within that culture for them to stand on. Relativism is causing them such conflict, so their ability even to change, not to mortify sin, but to become a better moral agent is very difficult because when the morals change, as you become better, you might actually become worse depending on the change of the culture. We see it in many different ways, but the final thing is an unregenerate man will never get to the root of sin, and actually the opposite will happen. If we look at Romans chapter 1 verses 28 through 32, we read this, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossip, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree and those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. The unregenerate man is actually going to devolve to a place where Paul, speaking to the Colossians, to the believers, says this, put to death there what is earthly, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire, and covetousness. And later on in the text down in verse 8, he says, put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. The unregenerate man actually does the opposite and falls so deep into those things that he says they are right and the opposite is wrong.

I want you to think about that. As Paul is teaching this, he is teaching it to us. We are to mortify sin because we are, as believers and followers of Christ, the only ones who can do so. We are able to mortify sin because of the gracious work of God through Christ. Verses 1, 3, and 4 we have already read and we see. If you have been raised with Christ, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God, when Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory. What we see that it is the gracious work of God regenerating us to truth that allows us to mortify sin.

Doug said it very early this morning. He said that in that justification process for many, God is knocking off big sins right away. It is God who is knocking them off as He is bringing you justified before Him through Christ in His blood. But we also have to understand that we are to be meditating, learning, growing in grace. Colossians 2, 11-15. In Him also you who were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him. When we read what God has done in our justification, it is all of God and none of us. So as we move from that justification step to the sanctification step, though we are called by Scripture to a responsibility that is truly ours, we are not going to be able to do it unless God is the one empowering us to do it. Because salvation, all of salvation, which is saving, sanctifying, justifying, sanctifying and glorifying are all God's work done through Christ for us. When we start to think about that, it can be overwhelming to us in a sense of driving us deeper and deeper into Christ. When we step back and realize what God has done through Christ, what can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Tonight you sit here, if you are a believer, right and whole before God because of what Christ has done. And God has permitted you the faith to believe Him who He is. It is all a working of God and it carries through through our sanctification and our glorification. So it brings the question of most importance, how do we uphold our responsibility and mortify or put to death our sin? Point two, mortification can only occur when we seek and set our minds on the things of Christ. Verses one and two says, if you then have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth. Then we move down to verse five and Paul writes, put to death therefore what is earthly in you. Because of what Christ has done, you need to be meditating and coming to the grace He is providing and resting in there.

And as you come to that, you will be able to put to death the earthly things that you still cling to, that still haunt you. When we look at this, Paul teaches that we are to seek the things that are above and that we are set our minds on the things above. I have said it in Sunday school class before, I probably have said it from this pulpit. I grew up hearing a cultural proverb in the church that says, don't be so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good. What I think Paul is saying in verses one through four is that you are to be so heavenly minded that you show forth Christ into your own heart and then out into the world. There should be no other thoughts that consume our time than that of God and Christ and what they have accomplished on our behalf.

Paul is saying, you Corinthians need to be focused on what Christ has accomplished for you and you need to grow in Him. And by doing so, then you can put to death the sin that is in your life, the desire for the earthly things we cling to. We are to seek and meditate on the things that are above.

What are they? How are we to do it? Scripture teaches we are to do several different things as believers and I'm going to walk through them quickly here this evening. But the very first one I would say, and they're all wrapped up by our church's doctrine in what's called the ordinary means of grace, but they're commanded by Scripture. When we talk about the ordinary means of grace, it is how does God interact with us to deliver the grace that we need, not just for salvation, but to live day in and day out. You and I are as dependent on grace as believers at this moment as we were when we were outside of Christ and needing saved.

We are dependent upon God's grace for everything, whether it be salvific, justification, or our walk in sanctification, or even the simple keeping of our life. So as we look at the ordinary means that God uses to send His grace to us, the very first and foremost to jump out is to read and to listen to the preached word. We are called to read the Scripture and we are called to sit under the preaching of that Scripture. In Timothy 2, chapter 2, verse 15, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

The old King James is the way I learned it the best. Study to show thyself approved, a workman rightly dividing the word of God. 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16. All Scripture is breathed out by God.

If it stopped there and didn't say anything else, that would be a great statement. But for us, the redeemed, it says this, and it is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be completely equipped for every good work. What is sanctification? Sanctification is God moving us into the works that He has prepared beforehand.

How do we do that? We read His Scripture. We sit under the preaching of the Scripture. 2 Timothy 4, verse 1 and 2, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge of the living and the dead, and by His appearing in His kingdom preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. As believers, we are not, and this is not a law that I want to sit and say you have to be under the preaching every Sunday. Yes, there are times you will be out of church. But as a believer, that preaching of the word has an impact on us being able to do those things God has called us to do to prepare us to equip us, and it's like studying the Scriptures ourselves. In 2 Timothy 4, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, to reprove, rebuke, and exhort.

Think about it. I have sat under the preaching of Doug and Eugene for many years. There have been sermons where I think they know the sin that I'm struggling with and they're preaching it right to me, convicting me out of the word of God. I have sat here on Sundays and I have been lifted up, John Jackson preaching how we are to praise God.

I've been lifted up by Doug and Eugene's teachings on how we have full assurance in Christ. The teaching of the word, when we sit under a preacher that is bringing forth the truth, it is designed for the believer to elicit the response of our growth into those works that God has called us to. Many say when it comes to reading or coming to church, I don't have time. I've heard I really don't enjoy reading, so I don't really pick up the Bible and read it.

These excuses that people use should cause them an alarm to examine their selves. If the only revelation of God we have is his scripture, it should be our desire as believers to pick up and read the word, and if we don't enjoy reading, to hear sermon after sermon of grounded pastors in orthodox teaching on the word of God, because that is what God uses to communicate to us. His word is how he teaches, reproves, rebukes, and equips us to move forward.

If when we ask those people, are you sure that you're in a relationship with Christ? Many will answer yes, and we want to make sure we ask the question, then you want to follow the command he gives. And Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commands. In that obeying of those commands, you must know those commands, and the only way to know those commands is either under the preaching of the word or the reading of the word. What are we to do when we read and listen? Well, it's amazing to me when we look in the Old Testament and we see Israel many times, they rehash the great workings of God. They rehash his great attributes.

They teach it to their children that way. So what should we be doing when we open the word of God? We should be looking at his great attributes and his great works, his holiness, his righteousness, his justice, his grace, mercy, and love that's seen page after page in Christ Jesus. We should be meditating on the cross and the work at the cross. We should be meditating on the empty tomb. We should be meditating on Job who declares, I know my Redeemer lives. Is that what we meditate on when we wake up in the morning?

Is that what we think about as we go to sleep? Is that what we teach our children during the day or at mealtime when we have conversation? Do we understand the importance of what God is calling us to? We also see that we have in this ordinary means of grace prayer, which is our communing with God and entering his presence. John 11, 1, the disciples asked, Jesus, teach us to pray.

Why did they do that? Because they saw Jesus wake up early in the morning and he went out and prayed. How many times in the gospels do we read about Jesus going and praying and we see the disciples longing for that? Do we long to pray to go in prayer? We also see Paul in his teaching saying that you are to pray unceasingly. We should be in prayer in communion with God continually as believers. And finally, in these ordinary means, we have worship in the sacraments. And this includes the singing, reading of hymns and psalms. I don't know how many of you grew up in a hymn filled church. I did and it was tremendous because to this day, those songs will pop in my head, those hymns. When upon life's billows, you are tempest tossed.

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost. Count your many blessings, name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. Or it is well with my soul.

You can go down through the list. I love Libby when she does the prelude. There are so many old hymns that she uses and it drives me into a thought process of worship because it hits on those, does Jesus care? Does Jesus care when I say goodbye to the dearest on earth to me?

When my sad heart aches till it nearly breaks? Those are truths because the answer in the chorus is yes, he cares, I know he cares. His heart is touched by my grief.

How do we know that? Because scripture declares that. Because it says that I love you. Jesus Christ calls it from the cross but he also says that you are now my friend. And I go to the Father and I prepare a place for you. Does Jesus care?

He absolutely cares. So worships hymns and psalms, the Lord's Supper and baptism. I can't be a bigger proponent for those means of grace as the Lord's Supper. I believe we demonstrate the gospel to those who are here who are unbelievers. But to us who are here, we enter a time of special communion with Christ. Where spiritually he is present with us in the bread and in the wine. And he is demonstrating that love that he did in order to save you and me. When we think about all those things, does that really lead us to the mortification of sin?

I would like scripture to answer it and I'm going to close with these two passages. Psalm 119 verses 97 through 104. Listen to this progression. Oh how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers for my testimony for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ages aged for I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from evil every evil way in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your rules. Listen, why? Because it sounds like I either for you have taught me. And he finishes how sweet are your words to my taste sweeter than honey to my mouth through your precepts.

I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way. If we are so immersed in Christ and his word, what that will lead us to is not only that we can mortify sin, but we can see the ways that we are to avoid and totally abandoned.

Not even give chance for them to make a hold in our lives. The final one I want to share with you is Titus chapter 2 verses 11 through 15. And this sums up how we are reliant upon grace, but still have a responsibility. Paul says this to Titus starting in verse 11 of chapter 2. For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people.

A lot of people like to stop there. But verse 12, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age. Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are all zealous for good works. Declare these things. Exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Brothers and sisters, tonight you are commanded by scripture to mortify sin.

Left to yourself, you cannot do that. You need the Holy Spirit to continually provide you the grace and drive you to scripture and drive you to Christ and drive you to his work. And as that becomes your treasure and your sweetness, then we can put to death those earthly things that cause us to sin.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We praise you that it is your work. As we come before you, we are fully dependent upon you. We ask tonight that your Holy Spirit develop in us the desire to study your word, to meditate upon your word, to come to you in prayer, to lift songs of praise and joy, to participate in the Lord's table and, Lord, to come together and worship, calling out your glory, your honor, for you are the only one worthy. Father, we thank you. We ask that you move us continually to be conformed more to the image of Christ and to look upon this world in a very dim light, looking for Christ's return and praying, Come, Lord Jesus, come. Father, we thank you and we praise you, and it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.