Colossians 3:5-10 - Putting On the New Man

The Call to Mortify the Flesh

All of the things we've discussed about legalism and why God hates it and why we should therefore hate it and all of the things we've looked at as far as how to deal with it so far, and we're not done with that yet, but we've dealt with several things about how to deal with the flesh, which relates to the law and how not to deal with it.

And that's why therefore is the second word because of all that, now this verse chapter three, verse five says, mortify, which means to kill or to make it dead, mortified therefore your members, which are upon the earth.

That's our body that we live in. I want you to think about your brain for a minute. It's a fantastic, amazing computer that no human, they look into artificial intelligence. They try to figure out how God did that.

They don't believe in God, but I mean, they do look at the brain and try to figure out how it's created and they don't think it's created, how it exists in their opinion, right? And they try to try to copy that and create computers that can think like that.

The problem is the computer's not gonna have a soul and they don't know how to build that. And so anyway, when you think about that brain that God's given you and your body, I mean, think how your body can literally, most of your body can regenerate itself.

And I think I've been thinking about, of course, Sharon with that awful wound on her leg. I mean, you've heard me say it's like she got hit with a shotgun shell, you know, from close range. It's that big.

And the doctor said, oh, don't worry. It'll fill itself back in. And Sharon and I were sitting there thinking, it's just gonna be a hole with skin over it. That's what Sharon told me. It's gonna kind of cave in.

There's nothing there. And the doctor said, oh, no, no, it doesn't work that way. Your body will fill all that tissue back in. And I'm going, of course, God built it to do that. But think how amazing that is.

And Jenny's eye surgery was, you know, amazing because they took part of this and had to reconstruct part of the eyelid that they had to remove the bottom eyelid on the right eye. And what God will do is he's made her body where it will regenerate that area and try to put it, the body itself will try to go back just like it was, which is an amazing thing.

And how in the world people think all of that can exist with no creator, no designer, no engineer, no architect that designed it all is amazing. And that's why God calls them foolish, right? They're fools, but they can't help it.

They're blind. And so we pray for the world with Charlotte and I were talking about it on the way to church, how we were just talking about some of the things that just like nothing can just exist without God's not only having designed it all, but his is touching it to keep life in everything.

And how sad it is that most humans don't see it. And then we were talking about how in the millennial kingdom it'll be a mirror image, it'd be a flip-flop of that where the huge majority of people will see it.

Remember the verse where it says that you will not go to and fro and tell them no God for they shall know him. Isn't that a beautiful verse? So the huge majority of humans in the kingdom age will be saved people, God's people will know God.

You won't even have to witness and a tiny majority will be lost, you know, tears. It's the opposite now. And isn't it sad that the human race cannot give God glory for the amazing things he's done even to their own body.

They don't see it, but we do. Be so thankful that your eyes have been opened by the Holy Spirit. And Ben was talking about regeneration in his Sunday school lesson this morning. It's just, it's an amazing thing.

It's totally a recreation of something new, a creation of something new, a new you. It's in this old body and we have to deal with that, but it's amazing that God has saved us in that fashion. And because of all that, mortified therefore the members that are upon this earth, that is the fleshly part of us, the carnal part of us that will push against God's law naturally.

And that's your old mind, that brain you yourself have put bad input into and also the world put bad input, the world system and so did the devil. And so that brain of ours that we want to call the old man is corrupt, can't be fixed.

And the lesson this morning was also, you can't make a set of rules and fix it. Even the beautiful laws of Moses is beautiful and majestic as they were. The apostle Paul said, I count, he said, I kept that perfectly, as good as any Jew ever kept it.

And he said, but I counted as done. It's worthless to me. Because what counts is God's mercy and by not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but by his mercy, he saved us and regenerated us.

And a beautiful Sunday school lesson. But this passage we're getting into, I think is fascinating for this reason. It puts together once again, the idea of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man all in one place, working together at the same time.

And it's always that way if you have good doctrine. Bad doctrine is when you're over here and you say, God is sovereign and there is no responsibility. That's a hyper-Calvinist. Bad doctrine is when you're over here and say, it's all man's will.

It's all whatever man does is what saves us. That's Arminianism, both are bad. The truth is both are working together all the time. We'll see it in the very grammar of this passage. So mortify therefore your members.

Which are on the earth.

The Sins of the Flesh and the Wrath of God

And the second half of that verse names some of them. Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, that means lustful passion for evil things. Evil concupiscence, which means longing for forbidden things.

Covetousness, which means wanting things that you don't deserve because you didn't work to get it. You didn't earn it. And then that in itself is idolatry. And it's funny that in your Sunday school lesson, you mentioned idolatry and you said it still exists today.

Well, how does it exist today? Through covetousness. Not worshiping trees so much, at least not in the West, right? It is still done, but not in the West. So we worship things sometimes, but we're instructed by the Lord not to be idolatrous.

So now let's look at verse six in Colossians chapter three. For which things sake, what things? Those things he just listed, fornication, uncleanness. And that is of body and mind. You can have unclean thoughts.

You can have unclean deeds. And you see some of the prophets of old say they are a man of unclean lips. You've heard them say, I'm a man of unclean hands. All of that, unclean mind, all of that is in this word, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, which is idolatry.

Because of those things, the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. Now that's not you, by the way. It doesn't mean God's children who are disobedient. It means the children who are tares.

It means the children who are goats. They're not saved. They're not God's children. The children of disobedience, their father is the devil. Jesus said so as he spoke to the Pharisees. He said so in the parable of the sower.

Did I get the name of that right? Let me think a minute. The parable of the wheat and the tares, where he said, I'm not the one that planted the bad seed. And the disciples and apostles couldn't understand what he meant by that parable.

And he said, I didn't plant them. Satan did. He named his name. He said, the devil planted them in the earth and they're here, but I didn't put them here. So they're not God's children. Now we don't always know because a lost sheep looks like a lost goat to us.

Usually, I think probably always. And the very one that you think could never be saved will be saved. I mean, Dave Senior's proof of that. Okay, he's listening. I knew you were either praying or sleeping.

I didn't know which.

You have to listen, don't you? Yeah, he'll get the last word. He always comes up here and gets the last word. Anyway, so the wrath of God comes on the tares.

Why?

Because they do these things. What things? That list we just named. There's another list coming up here in a minute too. But now think about this. So what would be a really good reason for us not to do those things?

Because Satan's kids are doing those things. And when we do them, we confuse the whole world. We confuse even the lost sheep. And they're thinking, well, why should I ever get saved?

Look at them.

They're no different. We don't want people thinking that because of us, right? So there is a really great reason to really be careful with the flesh that we live in because it's always pushing us to the edge.

It's always pushing us into the gray and then beyond that if it can. And Satan wants to help. The demons wanna help. And there we go. It's a struggle. It's a race. And it's difficult, but it's necessary.

And it brings great glory to God. But because of all those things, we need to avoid these things. Now, look at verse seven. In the which you also used to walk. Wow. So he's talking to the church at Colossae saying, congregation, you did all these things before you got saved.

So don't judge these people. You did all these same things. You were doing these very things the day I met you. Although if Paul is their direct spiritual father, it's either his children or his grandchildren spiritually.

And he said, you were doing the same stuff. It's good to remember that, isn't it? I don't know how you covered everything you covered in that lesson. I can't even get to my sermon. I keep hitting these highlights.

But he talked about why we shouldn't be self-righteous. I mean, because we can start thinking, well, we've got the doctrine right here at this church and they don't, right? We can, that's kind of can happen.

And so why, what keeps that away is, well, because we used to be like, whoever we're pointing at, we were like that. Now, I like the way he said, you also walked in the past tense, right? Once upon a time.

That's what sometime means there. In which you also walked sometime, once upon a time when you lived in them. Now think about that. When you lived in what? Those fleshly sins, that was your life. You lived in those sins.

Isn't that something? You were not in Christ, you were in those sins. You were in your fleshly body. You were in the old man. That's how you were the day you met Jesus. And he saved you in that state.

That's how we know it's grace. We were still in that state when he met us and saved us through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, wherever you were in the moment when that happened in your life. And so we walked in it, we lived in it.

Look at verse eight. I like the word, but now. The phrase, but now, that shows a contrast. We are not this way now. We're born again now. And his lesson was on regeneration. Once again, we are born again now, but look what else it says.

But now you also put off all these things. Now, see, that goes hand in hand with being born again. That's why I love the book of James. I didn't like it most of my life till maybe five years ago. Charlotte could tell me, Ben and Charlotte, they remember everything.

They could tell me when my eyes were sort of open to the book of James. It's when I read the thing about Spurgeon, about the cause and the effect can't be the cause of the cause. And then I said, okay, now I got James figured out.

James is a book of effects, mostly. And where it does discuss the cause, it's perfectly in line with Paul. Took me a lifetime to see that. We got grandbabies six years old that'll know that already in this church.

Isn't that great? How far ahead are they than me and Charlotte's generation? So we also walked once upon a time and we lived in these things, but now we also put off all these things.

Putting Off Anger, Wrath, and Malice

Why?

Because we are born again. We don't put them off to get born again because if that were true, we would have already done that in our life and we never did it. We never put those off. We were living in them.

Whatever your sin is from your youth, and you all have one, you were living in it. And yeah, you might've tried to stop it, but you didn't. And you never maybe would. Some of you may just have struggled with your whole life.

That's okay. That's part of God's plan. But it is his plan for you to intend to get rid of it. It is his plan for you to intend to have victory over every sin habit that came from your youth and to flee from those sins of the youth, he says.

Well, how?

How can this happen? We have to be number one, born again. And when we are, we do begin to put off these things. Now he gives a new list. If you look at your scripture there, there's a new list here. But before we get into this new list, I want to look at the phrase put off because that's a verb, a verbal phrase.

And in the Greek, it is aorist, middle imperative. Now, aorist means sort of, usually it just sort of means a snapshot of something. It's just true. It's not an ongoing thing on a timeline or else it would be present or past in the Greek.

But aorist means it's just something that is now true. It's hard to describe, but that's a good way to think of it, especially with what we're talking about here. Middle, when something's in the middle voice in English and in Greek, it means it's something you do to yourself.

It's something you do to or with yourself. Isn't that interesting? So now are we talking about responsibility here or the sovereignty of God where he just does it to us?

What do you think?

If it's middle voice, it's responsibility. It's us doing it to ourselves or for ourselves or with ourselves, all right? And imperative, what is that? Ben talks about them all the time. What is an imperative?

We're commanded to do it. So think about that. Just the Greek says, it's very fascinating to me how you can mix aorist and imperative and middle because middle sort of implies in an ongoing fashion, you're supposed to be doing this yourself.

Imperative means you're supposed to be doing this, the supposed to part. And then aorist is like, but it's already a done deal. Whoa, do you like that? You see how the sovereignty fits in right there?

It's like it's done deal, but you're supposed to do it. So the salvation has been done. The means of salvation have been done, but the continuation of the salvation is being done. You're supposed to be putting off these things.

Now look at the new list. First one is anger.

That's a good one.

Anger can get us in a lot of trouble, can it? Because we don't think, when we're angry, we don't think first, we act first. It can get us killed actually, especially if you're in your car with road rage in Texas because everyone in Texas has an Uzi in their car, especially in Houston.

I met a guy back in the 70s had an Uzi in his car in Houston. So he was a landman. So he had lots of money and he was driving a Jag, a Jaguar, and he had an Uzi under his seat. And he gave a whole box of strong concordances to our church when it was brand new.

So he was a Christian with an Uzi. Like me, okay, kind of. So anger, but see, anger gets us in trouble. What's another one? Now here, it's another list of the sins of the flesh. The flesh can cause this.

The old man, our brain has input in it. It makes us know the things that make us angry before we even get there. So anger, we gotta watch out for. What about wrath? Wrath, we're supposed to put off wrath.

What's the difference between anger and wrath? Isn't it fun to think about words? My favorite thing in Bible study is word studies. So what's the difference? Exactly, Brother Dave. Wrath is when you act on the anger and you lash out at somebody.

Malice, that's thinking about it before you do it for maybe several days. That'll get you a lot longer time in prison if you hurt somebody with malice where you planned it out, right? That's called the first degree, murder in the first degree.

So these are part of the old man that you still live in. Don't ever get prideful and think you're such a great Christian because you got this stuff in the old part of you. That's not really you anymore, but you live there and unless you're paying attention to what you're thinking about and monitoring it and your new man is in control of it, you can get in trouble with these things still.

So that's why we are commanded in the imperative to put these things off, to get them out of our mind, get them out of our actions. And then blasphemy, that's hard to believe, isn't it? That we would do that.

But the old man can do that. Do you know that there are people sitting in churches all around us today going to church that are blaspheming Christ because they think they can lose their salvation and get it back because they're taught that by their blasphemous teachers.

The Bible says in Hebrews chapter six, that's blasphemy. Because if you could lose it, the only way you get it back is recrucify him and put him to open shame, that's blasphemy. There are blasphemers all in church, all over Corsicana today.

Let it not be us, God forbid, but that's something the flesh will do. And then filthy communication out of your mouth. How many so-called Christians do you see that will just spit out a cuss word like it's okay?

They won't do it here, they won't do it in church usually. But, you know, other places, just throw one out there as if it's okay. Filthy communication out of your mouth is not something the new man will ever do.

Charlotte is correct about the C word. Shouldn't be saying I'll have to put Brother Paul in there with Charlotte. Those words, you don't need them. Thank you, Mom, thank you, Dad. I mean, you think about that.

We don't need filthy communication out of our mouth. That's the old man. We're supposed to put that off. Now, look at verse nine. Here's another one, lying to one another. I want you to look at the context of that one.

That's talking to church people. This isn't talking to the world. Paul's saying, okay, Park Meadows people, don't lie to each other. That tells us that we do. Or we could, or we're tempted sometimes by the old man to lie to each other.

Pretend that we're something we're not. Lie not to one another, seeing why. Because you've put off the old man with his deeds. You've already put him off. He's already crucified, but you're practicing putting him off.

Remember what tense this is in, middle voice. You are putting him off. You're walking a walk where you're putting him off moment by moment. And the only way you can put him off, by the way, is listed in verse 10.

Look at this. And have put on the new man. You know what's interesting about that? What does Ephesians 2 .10 say? We all know Ephesians 2 .8 and 9, right? We can quote it. Let's say it together, ready?

Everybody.

For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast. But what's the next? Did I say it wrong? Not of works, lest any man should boast.

What's the next verse say? Basically it says, say it Dave. And that word should is an old English word that means would. It doesn't mean you might, it means you will. Check it out. In the Greek it's the same thing.

You will walk in. God has already ordained that after you get saved, you're gonna walk in good works. Isn't that beautiful? Now, check this out. And have put on the new man. Remember everything we just read about the old man, it was in the aorist middle imperative.

It's something we are supposed to be doing ourselves, working at this ourselves, and it's a command of God that we do it. And now it shows us, well, one of the best ways to do it is put on the new man, and you don't have to worry about the stuff not to do.

You stop thinking about, well, don't do this, don't do that. And you just start serving people. Start ministering to people and fill your day. I love what Brother Otis said, fill your day with good works.

You won't have to worry about not doing the bad stuff. You won't have time to do it. That is the greatest thing.

Don't you think?

One of the best things he ever taught. So true. Where'd he get it?

Right here.

So, have put on the new man. That is called in Greek, a verbal adjective. Now, I want to help you, because it's been a long time since you guys were in school. Most of you, not all of you, but most of you.

What is an adjective, first of all? What does it tell? Three things. Come on, some of our teachers can tell us. Yeah, which one, what kind of, and how many? Or is that an adverb? Which one? No, that's an adjective, right?

Adjective.

What kind of? Which one and how many?

Okay.

What kind of, which one, or how many, right? Because adverb is how, when, and where. So what kind of, which one, or how many is always what an adjective tells. What does it mean, a verbal adjective? It means it's a verb.

The word is normally a verb, but in this usage, it's used as an adjective. So it's a verb that tells what kind of person you are, or how many people you are, which is not gonna be that, or which person you are, it's kind of that.

It's which one, what kind of person, what kind of, and which kind of person you are. You are a person who has put on the new man. Do you see how that's different than an aorist middle imperative verb, where it's something you're supposed to do?

This is something you are. You are this. It's a description of you. What kind of person are you? I am a person who has put on the new man. That is the sovereignty of God. That is not responsibility. Sovereignty of God.

This is something God did to you the minute he saved you. This is something that in Ephesians 2 .10, he foreordained before the foundation of the world that you would walk in good works, because you are saved now.

It's something he did to you. It is the kind of person you are. You are a new man. You have put on the new man. You're a, what kind of person are you? You're the kind of person who have put on the new man.

Now, because I have put on the new man, the old man is now crucified. He's dead, because he can't live at the same time my new man's living. Does that make sense? I think it would be more accurate to say this.

The old man cannot be operative at the same time the new man is, because your new man's always alive, but he's not always operative, okay? The old man is dead, but sometimes he's operative. Strange, isn't it?

But this is the life we live. The lost world can't figure us out, because like Ben said in his Sunday school class, quoting me, we're schizophrenics, and that's a good thing. It means we're saved, because if we weren't saved, we wouldn't be schizophrenics.

We would just be the old man. It would just be one of us. So here we see God's hand in this through the salvation that he gave us as a gift. He made us to be persons who have put on the new man. Now, let's keep reading, though.

The new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. So who created the new man? Jesus Christ created everything that exists. So he created our new man, and the day you were born again is when he created it.

It was created that day, just like your old man was created in the womb at the moment of his conception. The Lord created you with all your attributes, all your genetic dispositions. Some of that affects how you think.

Some of it's genetic. Some is how you grew up, right? Some is how the Lord has molded you and all that, and the Lord has done all of that for us, but now, once we were born again, he created within us this new man, this new birth, this new creation, this new creature, which is renewed in knowledge after Jesus.

So the more we spend time in this book, which is a book about Jesus from the first page to the last page, the more we spend time in it, the more like him we can be, and the less we spend time in it, the less like him we will be.

And some of these very problems, like bad, filthy communication out of the mouth, like malice, like thinking bad things about each other, anger, blasphemy, even uncleanness of thoughts and actions and all these things that are listed can happen if we're not walking in that new man.

But as we renew our mind, our brain, now think about this. Do you think that the new man has to be renewed? Or is he, by definition, a new man? So what is it that's getting renewed? Your brain, which is part of what?

Part of your flesh, part of your body, part of your carnal person. It is what has to be renewed because we have already perverted it. When we were born, we were born in sin, the Bible says. From the day we started crying when we weren't really hungry, we were lying to our parents, putting them to work, right, Matt?

Beautiful new baby girl is a lion to you sometimes when she cries. She's not always hungry. She just may wanna be held. So just let me know if she needs that. I'll come on back and Ben can take over. But it's a beautiful thing how the Lord has put within us this new man, but our old man has to be renewed in knowledge.

The brain has to have new knowledge because the new man needs our brain. So the new man is supposed to be in control of our soul and then our body, the whole of us is under the control of the new man.

And therefore the new man and the Holy Spirit will move us to be in the word more, to walk with the Lord more, so that the old brain can be renewed in thinking correctly because previous to that in our lost state, we were corrupt.

Our brain was corrupted already. Now you know what? It's a beautiful thing when kids are saved at a young age. That's why it's so great for parents to know, we need to be talking about Jesus from the womb.

Even before they come out of the womb, they should hear the Bible, I think. But then in school, kindergarten, second kindergarten, first grade, second, all the way through 12th, they get to have that brain renewed to think right.

And the word of God is so important in that. And we'll see that in this passage. So anyway, seeing that we have put off the old man with the evil deeds and put on, we are a tight person who has put on the new man.

And then we're a person who is renewing the knowledge in the brain after the image of Jesus who created the whole of us. He created our body too, didn't he? See, our body is not, well, I hate to,.

Can't put it that way.

So you have to be so careful with your language when you're up here. We should be everywhere, right? But the old man, the body itself is not, let me just put it this way. I'm gonna put it in the positive.

I'll be safer here to get this right. The old man, your body can be used as an instrument of God. It is a living sacrifice to be used to serve God. So it's not all bad, is it? But you know what I'm struggling with, right?

It is corrupt. The old man is corrupt. And it is the part of us that the prophet said is filthy, above all things, who can know it? That's our old man. But it can be used of God as long as the new man's in control of it.

Does that make sense? So we are supposed to be a person. The verbal adjective means we are a person who is putting on the new man moment by moment. We're continually. Now, let me ask you this. When you just hear this in English, to put on the new man, doesn't that sound like something you have to be doing sort of continually?

It's not something where you just put him on and he's there all day. And I really think we're onto something when we think of how can a person go from the new man back into the flesh? It's because he quit putting effort and energy into walking in the new man.

And once you relax, now you're in the old man. If you're not monitoring your mind, some of the stuff that was put in there before you were saved even comes around and Satan will use it. And you can start imagining and thinking and there all of a sudden you need to confess and say, Lord, hold my hand.

And now you're in the new man. So this idea of you being a person who puts on the new man is very important. That is our job. And it renews our mind and makes us think more like Jesus would think. He is our wisdom and we have to be walking with him.

The Engrafted Word, James 1, and Ezekiel 36's New Heart

Look at verse 11. Well, before we do that, let me just show you this. So how does this all work? This rebirth, but the old man is still there. We're supposed to count him as crucified, but in fact, he is still with us.

And yet we're supposed to be people who are putting on the new man all the time. If you don't believe that, let me read to you James chapter one, verse 21. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness, I love this, and superfluity of naughtiness.

That means a whole bunch of naughtiness. Lay aside. Now this is speaking to Christians. This is not a us and them thing here. This is like us. We should not lie one to another. We should put apart filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.

That's thinking of naughty things. I like that word because we're like children, thinking of naughty things, doing, thinking of doing naughty things. We're supposed to lay that aside and receive with meekness the engrafted word.

So what is it that helps us put away the naughtiness? This, the engrafted word of God. Staying in this book makes our communication be more holy. Staying in this book makes us be men and women who want to be walking in the new man more moments of every day.

And we despise the flesh when it pops up. More than if we weren't in this book. So I love what James says. As we receive with meekness the engrafted word, why does it say with meekness? Well, I think anyone in here who studies a lot can realize there can be a pride in that, right?

Ashton talks about that a lot, doesn't she, Ben? About how all of a sudden Satan can make us prideful in our righteousness. And it's so great when you see that. And it keeps us from being those legalists that we've been preaching about.

We listen, with meekness we receive the engrafted word. We don't deserve it. Do you really think we should even have this book on the earth, let alone in our house? It came from eternity. It was given to us as a gift.

Jesus had to die for us to get most of this book. Most of it's about that. He had to die to give us this book. He was the only one worthy to take the book into space and time from the hand, it's not really a hand, of the Father.

As it came out through that, whatever that thing is, where the mercy seat is from where the Father is to where we are, here it comes. And Jesus grabbed it and gave it to us. And we have it. Receive it with meekness, the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

That's powerful. But look what it says in the next verse. But be ye doers of this word, not hearers only, deceiving your own self. How many people are scholars of the Bible and they're wicked as the devil?

They teach false things. They live bad when you're not watching them. They have superfluity of naughtiness. How many preachers have fallen in the last three years into sexual immortality? Yeah, they become immortal because they're known for that the rest of their life.

Think about it. And so they are hearers of the word and teachers of it, but they weren't living it, were they? All right, so that's a problem. Now, verse 25 there in James chapter one says, but whosoever looks into the perfect law of liberty,.

That's this book.

Whosoever looks in this book and continues in this book, you look at it and it tastes so good, you just stay in it. You just keep studying it your whole life. You continue therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work.

I love the, you think it would say of the word, don't you think it would say that? Is that always something I look at? Why does it say of the work? He's looking into this Bible and he's a doer of the work.

What work?

The good works, doing good, the new man stuff, putting on the new man. All right, so he is now a doer of the work. This man shall be blessed in his deeds. His works will receive rewards in heaven because they're blessed deeds.

They're not just done to look spiritual. They're not done to be higher than your other brothers and sisters. You're just better than they are. They're just done because the Holy Spirit led you to do it and you did it.