*Our video recording messed up this week, but we have a rough sermon transcript below.
Colossians 3: Putting Sin to Death
Introduction
Turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3. That's where we will be this morning. Today Paul is going to address the Colossae church, and to us, the idea of sanctification.
And we'll be exploring this over the next few weeks in our Colossians passages.
Sanctification: The ongoing process of becoming more and more like Jesus. More conformed to His image. More responding like He would.
If you are here and you are a Christian, you are in a sanctification journey. God is at work in your heart and your life, forming you. Shaping you. Rounding out the sinful edges of who you are.
Symptoms and Roots
Ever since Caroline and I were blessed to get a house, I've been concerned with our yard. I guess I'm just becoming an old man.
I was walking around it the other night, and I saw, man, there's a lot of weeds and vines that are starting to grow in some spaces I don't always notice and look at.
Like there's this spot near our crawlspace door, right in the corner, and it's easy to miss, but it had this vine that was crawling under the door into the crawlspace. And I was like, if left neglected, what would this have led to?
It would choke out any flowers or bushes we wanted to plant, and it might kill my grass.
And so I didn't really feel like doing a lot of work, so I just yanked it, and part of it broke off, and I threw it in the yard and then went on my walk.
What's going to happen in a few weeks?
There are two gardening truths here that, when applied to how we think about sin, frame up our topic this morning:
1. What we allow to grow will eventually take over.
Haven't we all felt sin that we went to thinking we could control, it eventually controlled us?
This is one of the reasons God takes sin so seriously. Yes, it is an offense to His demands on us as His creation. But God also takes sin so seriously within His creation because He knows the price we and others pay for it.
2. To properly get rid of weeds, you must dig up the roots.
But many of us, myself included at times, look at the process of uncovering the roots of our sins and come to the conclusion that we don't have the proper tools to do deep work, or like me the other night, we just don't want to put in the effort.
Question: So let's just take stock for a second. When you think about your spiritual life, do you deal with your sin seriously? Do you give it the attention, in a healthy proportion, that God would have you?
I say healthy because some of us spend too much time thinking about our sin, and some of us too little.
The Tension
Now here's the tension. Some of us in here, perhaps the Lord has shown you, I don't think about my sin at all. There may be more weeds in your life than you are aware of, lurking in some dark corners. We can be so blind sometimes we don't even see it.
And some of you, you're very aware of your sin. But if you're honest, you are exhausted because you've been mowing over weeds and they keep growing back. Or maybe you've been doing some deep work, trying to pull up roots. But you're exhausted.
And these problems aren't new. Christians long before us have grappled with these things, and Paul, writing to a church in Colossae, wants to help them.
We have five main thoughts that will help us frame our passage today:
1. The Starting Place of All Sanctification Is Christ
When you think about killing sin, when you think about growing in Christlike character and your whole life being formed to Him, where you start really matters.
If we get the starting place wrong of our sanctification, we loop back to all the false teachings we explored a few weeks ago in Colossians 2. And it breeds pride if we think we're killing our sins well, and it breeds bleak hopelessness if we feel crushed by our sins.
The starting place of all sanctification is not you.
Verse 5: "Therefore..."
What does that mean? This is a key transitional phrase. It's basically Paul saying, because of all that I said, do this.
So let's go back and see what He said.
1 So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Because you are a new creation, and you have been saved and raised to a new life by the life and death of Jesus Christ. Which you did not do, Christ did.
Out of this foundation we fight our sin.
It's the only place that will sustain your wrestle with sin. Anywhere else and you'll think God's love for you rises and falls on your performance. That upon your strength alone does your sanctification rest. And that isn't true.
You can know your starting place for killing sin is something other than Jesus when what dominates your approach to killing sin is not prayer, is not worship, is not Christian community, is not abiding in God's love, but you trying harder.
We fight sin not to earn God's love, but because of God's lo