Killing Sin — Donny Coulter

Raising money for a bag of rice, so teach your children to give and send them with some funds to give away every Sunday morning. Speaking of, there are some bottles back there in the back for the Lethbridge Pregnancy Center that we want to encourage you to fill up with your change as well.

I guess you could never stop giving, could you? There's lots of stuff to give too. Just an encouraging reminder too that if you're putting your kids in Sunday school that sign them in or Allison will fire me.

Christ as the Believer's Life and the Call to Holiness

Colossians chapter 3 if you would, Colossians chapter 3. We are continuing on our journey to figure out what it looks like to live a life of holiness. What exactly does that look like in the life of the believer?

And we have covered now two sections of scripture. The first section was in 1st Peter which covered relational sins against one another. Last time we looked at several sexual sins that once again are against one another or against our own temple.

Today we're adding a few more to the relational sins from Colossians chapter 3. Join with me as we read chapter 3 verses 1 through 17 again. And he says that we have died with Christ. If you remember the illustration we had the little donkey in the cover that was Christ.

Our life is hidden with Christ in God and we are rejoicing over that. Aren't you? Do you rejoice over the fact that your life is hidden in Christ? Amen. When Christ is our life appears. And I don't know about you but it sure seems like it's closer and closer all the time as I look around the world.

But if it's not, it's closer than it was yesterday. Amen. It says when Christ who is our life appears. Christ is our life and he will someday appear then you will also appear with him in glory. Remember this is the standard by which we are to measure our life and holiness because Christ is our life.

All of our life. Our whole life. Christ is our life. Someday we will appear with him in glory. And so why are we waiting until glory to allow that cleansing work to happen in our lives? Why do we wait?

If we are to appear then should it not be our lofty goal to pursue a life of holiness here while we wait for that life to appear? Verse 6 or verse 5. Therefore because Christ is your life. Because you someday will appear with him.

Because you are to put your mind on things above and not on things below. Because your life is hidden in Christ. Therefore because of all of those things put to death. It means to completely annihilate.

It means to destroy. It means to kill. These are not easy words. These are not make you feel good words. These are tough words that Paul is using. Put to death. Kill. Mortify. If you have the old King James.

Mortify the deeds of the body. Look what he says. Mortify. Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth. Those sensual desires that still linger within even though you have been forgiven and your life is hidden in Christ.

Your battle is still with the flesh. He says to put those things to death. Now he's going to name some of those things for us and we went through these a couple of weeks ago. Fornication. Any kind of sexual immorality.

We went through all of that. Sex outside of marriage. Sex before marriage. Sex with same-sex sex. All of these things that we call sexual immorality or fornication. Uncleanness or impurity. Passion. Evil desire.

Covetousness which is idolatry. Coveting that which we do not have which someone else may have above God. That is idolatry. Verse 6. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.

Now catch a hold of the power of that one verse and statement alone. Some of these things were things that we used to do. He's saying that these are things that you used to do. That you once lived in these things and lived these things out.

That you yourself once walked in these things. That was the way that you were characterized. These kinds of things characterize your life. When they spoke of Donnie they spoke of these things. That's what he's saying.

You used to walk in this when you lived in them. That's how you walked, right? That gives us the idea that there should be something different, shouldn't there? That it shouldn't be the same. That when we come to Christ and Christ is our life.

That there should be some kind of change that takes place. There should be something that's different about me and different about you as the children of God who has Christ in our life. And if it's not, if there's never a change, then I fear that something is wrong.

Putting Off Relational Sins and Putting On Christlike Character

Verse 8. But now you yourselves are to put off all these. Now you'll notice again, once again, there is no exception clause included. I love it when Paul writes like this. Peter writes like this when he uses the word all.

Take note of that word. Because of these things, I'm sorry, verse 8. But now you yourselves, notice who the agent of the action is. But you yourselves are to put off all of these. You ready for the list?

God's list. Not mine, not yours. God's list. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy or slander, filthy language out of your mouth or abusive language out of your mouth. Do not lie one to another. Since you have, now here's why we don't do these things.

Because you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in the knowledge according to the image of him who created him. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on, we have put off all of these things that we just read. Now we are instructed to put on. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.

If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you also were called in one body and be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing with grace in your hearts and to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, to God the Father through him.

Let's pray. Father, take these next few moments that we have, I pray. I pray that your Holy Spirit would be our teacher, that his power to arise in us, the knowledge, the recognition of those things which are offensive to you and offensive to the gospel in our lives, no matter how strong or how high on the scale of wickedness they may be.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would speak directly to us, drill into those things, bring them to the surface. God, I pray that we would repent from them, that we would turn from them and we would turn to you, that we would put them away as we have been commanded here to do.

Father, I pray for my own life that you would do that in me. It's amazing how you can reveal so much ugliness in us. And Father, I pray that you would that you would do that even this morning through the wisdom of your Holy Spirit.

Bless the words that are said, God, because I want them to come from you. Use them for your glory, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. So, he says then to put aside, put aside all of these. Now, you notice there's no exception clause, right?

It says put aside all of this, all of these. Not only do you put aside sexual immorality and all the list of all of the wicked things. Now, we would look at verse five and we'd say that things like fornication and uncleanness and passion and evil desire and covetousness, those are really bad things, aren't they?

Those are things that we can see and we go, ooh, he did what? She said what? We look at those things and we think that these are bad things. And the reason is, is oftentimes they are recognizable from the outside.

But, he says here to us that we are to, verse eight, but now you yourselves are to put off all of these. In other words, anything that is contrary to the gospel, the message of the gospel, Christ in you, anything that is contrary to him, you are to put off all of it.

Put off the ugly stuff as well as the stuff that we don't consider to be so bad. And then he gives a list of things that we have, for some reason, come to accept as normal for us. We've just accepted some of these things as the normal way that we're supposed to act and react to people around us.

To my husband, to my wife, to my neighbor, to my boss, we're supposed to act this way because, well, you know, they hurt my feelings and they did something wrong to me. But he says to put aside. It means to completely rupture the former association you had with those things.

That means to, it is to put it in a completely different location. Put it aside. Put it away. Dislocate yourself from these things, he's saying. There should be some separation between you and them. These things.

Paul's intention here in using this word is so that the believers would stop doing the things that they have become accustomed to doing. They, as believers, are accustomed still, even as believers, in doing these kinds of things.

And he's using these kinds of words, put off all of these. He's using that kind of word, that separation, that idea of dislocation, so that they will stop doing the things that they have become accustomed to doing.

In Acts chapter 7, the Jewish leaders, if you remember the story of Stephen, the stoning of Stephen, and they went to stone Stephen and the Jewish leaders laid their robes aside. They put aside. Same word that we have here.

They put aside their robes at the feet of Paul, Saul, as a witness to the stoning. If they did that, and they did that so that their ability to throw the rocks would be unhindered. Think it through. Look at the word, the picture.

They took their robes and they set them aside so that they could have the freedom to do an evil work. So then why can't the believer lay aside sin so that he can go about holy living unhindered? If they can take their robes off to do an evil work, shouldn't we put aside these things to do a holy work?

Casting Off Darkness Before Christ's Return

Romans 13 verse 12. Turn there if you would with me. Romans 13 and verse 12. Verse 11. Let's just go back up to verse 11. And do this knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

Just what we said just a few minutes ago. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, therefore, what is the therefore? Because the day is at hand, the night is far spent, therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness.

Let us cast off, same word, lay aside. Let us lay aside, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. You know what? I believe that Christ's return could be imminent. I do.

As I look around the world, I believe that it could be imminent. But I want to tell you right now, I do not want that to be the motivating factor. Christ's return being the motivating factor for me to turn away and put away sin in my life.

Do you understand what I'm saying? I believe that Christ could come tomorrow. The world is moving. The fulfillment of prophecy, if you look and connect things, it looks like it's there. But if we are completely wrong, I don't want that, Christ's immediate return being the one thing that motivates me to put aside my sin.

I want my love of Christ and the gospel itself to be the motivation for me to put aside the sin. I want to be motivated by the gospel, by His love for me now. Not by His coming. I want to be motivated by His love for me now and my love for Him.

Doesn't that make a better picture? That I've got some pending event that's coming down the pike? That I need to get to work and why shouldn't I just get to work? Because of the gospel. Because I love Him and He loves me.

The tense of the word that's written here, back in Colossians 3, the word put aside, it's used in such a way as to say, do it now. Don't wait. Do it right now. That's the way it's written. Don't put off putting aside.

Don't put off putting off. Don't keep delaying this. Do it now. Put the habits of the old self away from you. All of the things that are listed here are things that seem to give you the satisfaction of winning.

Winning the fight. Getting the upper hand in the marriage. Coming out on top. Being the one, the number one. We spoke of Jacob the bamboozler and he always wanted to be number one. Got him in trouble.

He lived up to his name, bamboozler. And Paul says, stop doing it. Stop it. They are an offense. Now listen to this. This is an important fact. All of the things that we're about to talk through are offensive to God and are offensive to the gospel.

And if we don't catch on to that, then we're going to just go on about life as normal. We're going to keep being angry. We're going to keep being slanderous. We're going to keep having malice towards people.

We're going to keep having these outbursts. We're going to keep having these things because we don't consider these things to be offensive to God, to offensive to the gospel that has saved me and hidden my life in Christ.

If we don't believe that they are bad stuff, you look at verse 5 and you go, well, it's not as bad as that. It doesn't matter. There's no comparison in scale. It's offensive to God. And we have to start right there.

That's why we see, if we understand that they are offensive to God, then we will begin the process of putting it away, of stop doing it. Now let's look at the list. Here's another list of mostly relational sins that we must put away.

Anger as the Root of Relational Sin

Look at verse 8. Anger. Anger is a deep-rooted, smoldering bitterness. I do not believe that this speaks of the emotion of anger. What I believe here, it's speaking of the heart of anger. Have you ever met an angry person?

Ever seen somebody that's just angry? I believe that that's what this is speaking of. You don't just feel angry. You are angry. You don't just feel it. It's who you are. It defines you as a person. It's deep-rooted and down inside, and it comes up all of the time, no matter what's going on.

Turn to James chapter 1. Now, depending on your translations, some translate the word anger here as wrath. But in the Greek, it is the same word as we have here in Colossians. James chapter 1, verse 19.

So then, my beloved brothers and sisters, let every person be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Some may say wrath. The new King James uses the word wrath, but the word is the same word in Colossians as anger.

He says, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Well, then his context is talking specifically about a response to God, but we could bring that down to people and understanding that when we have anger, it does not accomplish.

Anger will never accomplish the purposes of God. Let me read you a statement from Robert Morgan. A holy life never grows out of an angry spirit. Bitterness never makes us better. A hot temper never leads to higher ground.

Positive accomplishments for the Lord are never produced by angry passions. This kind of angry, bitter spirit or heart in us will destroy relationships. Those of us who have been in toxic relationships will understand what I mean.

The slippery slope down in relationships begins with this deep-rooted seeded anger. Jesus said that anger is the seed or the beginning, the root of murder. Do you remember that in Matthew? But if you look at Genesis chapter 4 and verse 6, do you remember the question that God asked Cain when he had a response to his sacrifice not being acceptable?

Do you remember? And his brother Abel was acceptable. Do you remember the question that God asked? He says, why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen? And then Cain went out and killed his brother.

Anger, this deep-rooted heart of anger. Add a D on the end of anger or the beginning of anger and you got what? There you go. Anger. And we are to put away anger. We are to put that away. It is not to be a part of us.

Wrath, Malice, and the Desire to Harm Others

In a minute, I'm hoping to give you some things to help you practically if I don't run out of time. I'll keep you hanging on until next week for the practical help. Number two. Let's move on. Number two.

Wrath. Wrath. Now we have anger which is a deep-rooted inside heart thing. Wrath is the eruption of anger on the outward. Wrath is an outburst of rage. When we become physically and emotionally abusive.

So the anger and wrath work together. When we feel angry and it gets the best of us, there's this outburst of rage that comes up within us and it shows up on the outside. It's the throwing a wrench across the garage, slamming the car door, slamming the bedroom door after an argument with your wife.

It's road rage on the road. It's trying your best to find that guy and run him down. I have to tell this in my crazy brain. I have to tell you the story. I had a friend of mine in Colorado who had one of the most intense road rage incidents I've ever heard of and this was 20 plus years ago.

He was a bull rider and he was driving out of Denver and somebody swerved or something and cut him off and he went and cut him off. Well, they pulled over on the side of the interstate. Cars are driving by at 65 miles an hour and they went to fighting and they fought like in the ditch.

It moved from the ditch right up onto the road and he said, hold on a minute. Let's move back to the ditch. They stopped the fight. It's too dangerous. Moved back to the ditch and continued to fight and he came home a bloodied mess.

That's an outburst of anger. That is wrath in itself. That is a description and a picture of wrath and we are to put away wrath. Anger and wrath work together and oftentimes it produces the third thing which is malice and we've talked about malice a couple of weeks or a few weeks ago.

Malice describes this vicious intention and it's a vicious intention that expresses a desire to hurt someone else. Malice says, I don't like you. I don't like what you did and I would love for you to get hurt because I don't like you, because of what you did.

Wrath has now become the intention to hurt. See, wrath has gone from an outburst to an intention of throwing fist. Malice. Webster says that malice is the desire to cause pain, injury or distress to another and implies a deep seated often unexplainable desire to see another suffer or experience pain, injury or distress.

Do you ever have malice? Do you ever want what's bad for your wife, your husband or your neighbor or your brother or your sister or your co-worker or your boss? You wish them hurt? The fourth one is slander or blasphemy.

Slander, Blasphemy, and Filthy Language

This is speech that denigrates or defames. It's speech that puts people down. Slander is speech that is of false words towards someone, a misrepresentation of someone with the intention of doing them harm.

The Greek word is blasphemia. It is most often translated blasphemy when it's about God. So in other words, if it's about me and God, then it's called blasphemy. If it's about me and you, it's called slander.

It's usually translated slander. Towards God, when you impute evil to God, he made me sick. God lied to me. He didn't keep his promise. God is not trustworthy. Those are the kind of things that we would say and mean towards God.

When we misrepresent God to others or by perverting the truth of God, that is what we call blasphemy. But towards others, it's circulating untruthful stories. It's using bad language and bad words towards someone else, lies about someone else, misrepresentations, all for the intention of doing harm.

Do we slander one another? Do we speak bad and ill of others? The fifth one is filthy language or abusive language. Oh no, preacher, you're not talking about that, are you? Yeah, I am because God did.

It's a derived, this word is derived from a two part word in the Greek. The first part is to say and the second part is filthy, to say something filthy. It means to be foul-mouthed. It means to have obscene talk.

Look at Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 4. Ephesians 5, 4. We'll go back up to verse 5, I mean verse 1. Chapter 5, verse 1. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. Be holy as I am holy. From 1 Peter.

And walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, have we heard this before?

Let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints. Did you hear how serious Paul is about this? It should not even be named among us. No one should talk of these things within those who belong to the body of Christ.

It shouldn't even be a part of us. Verse 4. Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather the giving of things. Do you see what he's saying? That the words that we use, the filthy words and the filthy language, the filthy talk, the obscene talk that we have.

I read this week in studying, I read a story of a man who was with a bunch of Christian men. And he looked around the room and said there, notice that there's no women. He said, well, now that there's no women around us, I'd like to tell you this story.

And one of the men said, brother, although there's no women around us, the Holy Spirit is here. Will it offend the Holy Spirit? Needless to say, he did not tell his story. Filthy language, coarse language, jesting.

Should the believer who is pursuing the holiness of God have language that sounds like those who do not know God? Should our mouths sound, whether it's a swear word or whether it's a lie or whether it's an off-color joke, should those things come out of the mouth of the believer?

Ephesians 4, just turn back a little bit to chapter 4 verse 29. Look what he says. Let no corrupt word or unwholesome communication proceed out of your mouth. Don't let it come out. Put it aside. If your language sounds like that of the rest of the world, if your language sounds like that that you hear on TV, I can't watch anything anymore.

It's so bad. I got rid of cable because it was getting bad. Then I got Netflix. Oh my goodness, that was even worse, except I can control what I watch. But if my language begins to sound like some of those shows that I watch or some of the people that I work with or stand around, then look what he says.

Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth but that which is good for necessary edification. I would love to spend an hour right there because just in those three words, which is good for necessary edification.

In other words, the words that we speak have a purpose for those that are around us. And that is, it is to be good because it is necessary that we edify, that we lift up and build those up, that we may impart grace to the hearers.

A new self equals a new language. Would you agree? It ought to. It ought to for all of us. And I'm not just talking about swearing, I'm talking about the way that we, the kind of words that we use, the kind of, especially when it comes to sexual things, when we talk about things, when we talk about things we disagree with, the words that we use, may they reflect the new self, the new creation.

Lying, Self-Preservation, and the Unity of the Body

The last one, number six, is do not lie. Lying is contrary both to the law of truth and to the law of love. You cannot be truthful and you cannot be loving if you are lying. It speaks of communicating what is false.

It is intentional. It is not accidental, it is intentional. I accidentally lied today. I said that there were snacks in the back. There were no snacks in the back. I told an untruth but it was by accident.

I thought there were snacks in the back. Now, if I had known there were not snacks in the back and I told you, oh, there's some good old snacks back there, some cinnamon rolls and buns, then that would be lying.

That's intentional. More often, now listen to this for a moment, more often than not, lying is born from a need of self-preservation. Would you agree with that? When you think about all the times that you have lied, it is most often because you feel the need to preserve yourself, your reputation, to keep you from looking bad.

Anytime we tell a lie, it is focused on self. It's focused on producing a self that is seen better than it is. That's why we lie. It's to my advantage when I come to the border, and I haven't done that for a long time, but when I come to the border and I have $800 worth of stuff in my truck and I tell them I've only got $300 because it brings me underneath the tax, I don't have to pay a personal tax after being out for 24 hours or 72 hours, whatever it is.

When I come up to that gate and I intentionally, that's lying so that I can be at an advantage. Believe me, there have been times when I have been tempted to lie in that place, but I don't. Do you remember Acts chapter 5?

Remember Ananias and Sapphira? They had sold some land. They had done a great job in selling land, and they were going to give a gift to the church, and they gave a misrepresentation to all of the people as to how much they were giving.

We're giving it all, but they had actually held back some for themselves. They lied, and because they lied, they died. I'm glad we're not living there, but why did they lie? So that it would look like they were more generous than they actually were.

It was a self-promotion instead of a self-preservation. Why should we not lie? Back in Ephesians, I hope you're still there. Look back up at verse 25. Ephesians 4 verse 25. Therefore, putting away lying, now we're using exact same word as put aside, putting away, putting separation.

He says, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor. Why? For we are members of one another. You are a part of the body. You are all connected. To lie to those within the body, or to anyone for that matter, but specifically within the church, to lie to someone in the church, completely breaks the rules of unity.

Doesn't it? Because we're talking about the unity of the body, how we are all connected, and if we're lying to the body, he says, because you are all members of one another. Don't lie to yourself and to others because you are of each other.

We are members of one another. In verse 9, now back to Colossians. Colossians 3, last one, promise. The rest of it's your homework. Colossians 3 in verse 9. Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds.

You see, he's saying, he just told us that you are, in verse 8, put off all of these since you have put off the old man, you have put away the old person. He says, now do not lie because the old man does not exist anymore.

The old man is, you have put him away. You have put a distance and a separation between them. Now, since you have put off the old self, don't lie to one another. It does nothing for the body to lie to one another.

Don't do it. So we've had now killing all of these things in verse 5, and now we have put off or put away all of these things in verse 8. In verse 9, do not lie. How in the world are we able to do that?

Five Practices for Killing Sin

Let me give you five things quickly. Five things, they're in your notes. This is your homework, okay? If you want practical help, go home, mull over these verses, these ideas, work through them, and put them to work in your life, okay?

Number one, you must realize and reckon the old self to be dead. That is scripture. The old person you were before you came to Christ is dead. You have died, and your life is hidden in Christ. Romans chapter 6, Romans chapter 6, verse 6 and verse 11, Colossians 6 and verse 6, Galatians chapter 5 and verse 24, 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7, all tell us this is how we must realize that the old man is dead, and then Romans 6 talks about reckoning that to be true.

That means to take into account that it is dead and make it work. We must believe it and then make it so in our lives. Number two, make sin your enemy. No matter how big or how small that that sin may be, make it your enemy.

You know why? Because it's the enemy of God. Sin is the enemy of God. God hates sin, and so should we. Number three, rebel. I said the word. I'm telling you to be a rebellious Christian. Rebel against sin's power.

Rebel against the power of sin. Romans 6 and verse 12, rebel against the power that sin thinks that it has over you. It no longer has power, so now rebel against it. An uprising. Number four, do not leave the door open for sin.

Do you remember what God said to Cain again? Sin crouches at your door. Don't leave the door open. Don't give yourself room to do it. Shut the door and lock it. Deadbolt it. Romans chapter 13 and verse 14, and then the fifth one.

Acknowledge and confess. Repent of sin every day. Now I know that almost sounds like a work, a religious work, but you know what it does? Here's what I believe it does. Not so that I can remember. We're not doing any of this to maintain and hold our relationship with God.

But if I am recognizing my sin, acknowledging it, and I'm confessing it, and I'm repenting of it every day, guess what happens? You become more sensitive to sin. You do. If you deal with it on a daily basis, you become more sensitive to all of the sin that seems to creep up in your life.

So deal with it daily. Don't wait until Sunday morning and you wake up and go, oh boy, this has been a bad week. Deal with it. Look, I had a bad day on Friday, and there were people around me that I came to on Saturday and said, I dealt with it on Friday night between me and God.

And then I came to those people that had seen me. I don't know if they were offended or hurt or recognized it or whatever, but I came to each one of those people, my wife, my child, Jerry, anybody that was around me, David, anybody that was around me, saw me, heard me, felt me.

I said, I'm sorry for being a bad representation. Forgive me. Deal with it on a daily basis, and it will make you more sensitive to sin. And then lastly, don't forget to seek God's power that's yours.

2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 3. You have the power that's been given to you to do it. Now let's do it together. Can we? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word this morning. So much to cover and so little time to cover it.

I pray that you would use it to glorify yourself in us. I pray, God, that somehow we would respond to you in all of these things. May we not look at someone else and say that's their problem. I pray that we would look deep inside and see us, see in the places where we are an angry people, deep-rooted anger, when we are full of malice and wrath, slander for one another.

God, I pray that you would set us free from filthy language.