Let's open our Bibles to the
book of Colossians chapter three. Colossians chapter three. Let
me again just express for Debbie and me our gratitude and our care and love for the brethren
here. I'm thankful that we can come
down as often as we can, that the Lord gives us these opportunities
and As I said, we stay in touch, and we've got several projects
that we're kind of working on together as sister churches,
and we're just thankful for that. But I'm so glad to be here this
morning, glad to see all of you. As I said, I see some old friends
and meet some new, and that's great. All right, I'm going to
preach on this subject this morning, putting on the new man. putting on the new man. And let's
just read, bear with me, let's read through the first 11 verses
of Colossians chapter three. Apostle Paul writing by inspiration
of the Holy Spirit. He says, if you then be risen
with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ
sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead. That's an interesting
statement, isn't it? Ye are dead. And your life is
hid with Christ in God. I'll comment on that later, just
bear with me. He says, when Christ, who is
our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with him
in glory. Mortify, therefore, your members
which are upon the earth. fornication, uncleanness, inordinate
affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, which is idolatry,
for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children
of disobedience, in the which you also walked sometime when
you lived in them, But now you also put off all these, anger,
wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old
man with his deeds. And here's where we come to the
crux of the message. You put off the old man with
his deeds and have put on the new. The word man there is in
italics. That means it didn't appear in
the original, It's all right to put it there. Put on the new
man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, but Christ is all and in
all. We'll conclude our reading there.
If you're familiar with the book of Ephesians also, you know there's
a parallel passage of this in the New Testament, in Ephesians
chapter four, where the apostle, in about the same way, but there
are some variations concerning this issue of putting on the
new man, Ephesians 4.24, for example, and that you put on
the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and
true holiness. So it's a common theme concerning
the life of a sinner saved by the grace of God, the life of
a true believer. Well, the first thing that we
need to understand before we understand what it is to put
off the old man and put on the new man is what is the old man? What is the new man? What is
he talking about? He's talking about the Christian
walk here, talking about believers going through what Paul wrote
of in Galatians chapter five as the warfare of the flesh and
the spirit. But what is he speaking of? He
says, put off the old man. He said in verse nine, he says,
you have put off the old man with his deeds. You've already
done that. Now we still, have to fight sin
in our lives. That's a warfare. It's a daily
thing for a true believer. That's not something you have
to do on Sunday, but not on Monday, but it's something you do every,
every day that you're on this earth. You have to fight. It's a warfare, and that's what
the scripture says. That's how it's portrayed. I
mean, it's a warfare, out-and-out warfare that that exist on this
earth where we have to fight the remaining influences and
contamination of sin, the remaining flesh, what the scripture says. Sometimes the scripture when
it uses the word flesh is talking about the human body. Now there's
nothing sinful about these hands necessarily, but I can use these
hands for sinful purposes. And that's what he means when
he's talking about the flesh as far as sin goes. The warfare
of the flesh and the spirit. And so it's a continual warfare,
and we fight that warfare, and listen to this now. And this
is important. It's a warfare of grace. It's
not a warfare of legalism. And what I mean by that is this.
We who are saved by the grace of God in Christ, we fight the
flesh not in order to be saved, but because we already are by
the grace of God in Christ. See, if you're fighting a warfare
to be saved or to, as people say today, get saved, I don't
necessarily like that term, but that's common. Did you get saved? If you're fighting a warfare
to get saved, you're not fighting a warfare of grace. Your warfare
is not between the flesh and the spirit. You're just having
a war in your natural conscience. And unbelievers can have that,
lost people. So we fight the warfare of the
flesh and the spirit not to be saved, not to try to earn our
way into God's favor, not even to try to earn God's blessings.
There's blessings connected with obedience, but it's not because
we earn them. They're given freely in Christ
Jesus, blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. In other words, we're fighting
this warfare not to be made righteous, but because we already are righteous
in Christ. Now Paul has laid the foundation
of that. So what is this old man that
we've put off? Well, he's talking about believers,
those who have been born again by the Spirit. And what he's saying here, that
they put off the old man with his deeds. Now the old man, there's
a couple ways you can describe it. The old man, first of all,
is our former connection with Adam in sin and death. Our former connection with Adam
in sin and death. Over in Romans chapter 6, I referred
to this in the last message, but if you want to look at that,
Romans chapter 6, he says here that that old man is crucified.
And that's a past tense phrase. In other words, the old man is
not in the process of being crucified or it's not in the process of
dying, but the old man's dead. What's he talking about? He's
talking about our former connection with Adam in sin and death. He says in verse five of Romans
chapter six, for if we've been planted together in the likeness
of his death, that's the death of Christ. If Christ died for
me, He's my substitute, my representative. If my sins were imputed, charged,
accounted to him, and he took my debt and paid that debt in
full to put away my sins, to establish the only righteousness
based upon which God can justify a sinner like me, then it says
we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Out of his
death comes life. And I want you to understand,
it's not out of his death comes the possibility of life. It's
out of his death comes life. Christ didn't die to make salvation
possible. He died as a surety to make salvation
sure for his people. And it says in verse six, knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him. That's our connection
with Adam in sin and death. What does that mean? It means
Christ paid my penalty in full. Jesus paid it all. All the debt
I owe. He redeemed me. That means he
paid the redemption price. He didn't do his part, now I
do mine. You see what I'm saying? We have
a part in this, but it's the recipient of God's grace and
power. It's not supplementing what Christ
did in order to make it effectual. That's not what it's about. He
paid the full redemption price for all my sins. And he did that,
that the body of sin might be destroyed. That is the whole
realm of sin. Even that which I have to live
with today, the flesh, even that contamination that hounds me,
that's going to be destroyed when I'm dead and go to be with
the Lord. And so he says that the body
of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve
sin, for he that is dead. Now remember Paul said over here
in Colossians 3, he says, for you're dead. Well, here in Romans
6, 7, he says, for he that is dead, that is dead to sin. That's what he's talking about.
Now that doesn't mean I'm no longer a sinner, because I am. There's only two types of people
in this world, sinners lost in their sins and sinners saved
by the grace of God. The whole point of this is this,
to show us that nothing but Christ on that cross can remove sin,
can destroy sin, can take care of this issue of sin. Listen,
nothing I do will take care of it. That's right. Being sorry for
it will not pay the debt. Should I be sorry for sin? You
bet I ought to be sorry every day. Paul calls that godly sorrow
in 2 Corinthians 7. Repentance will not pay the debt. No. Should I repent? Yes, I should. But that's not what pays the
debt. Confession will not pay that debt. No, sir. Should I
confess? All the time. Not just every
now and then. But confession will not pay that
debt. Should I be sorrowful? Should I obey? Should I worship? All of it, yes. But that's not
what pays the debt. Only the blood of Christ pays
that debt. Only the blood of Christ can
take a sinner like me and make him righteous before a holy God.
So he that is dead, dead to the penalty of sin, even dead to
the power of sin, but only in this sense, the power of sin
to keep me condemned, it says he's freed from sin. That means
he's justified. Now how did all that come about?
by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians 521.
He was made sin, Christ who knew no sin for us that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. Now as a result that
looked down at Romans 6 verse 17. He says he that is dead is freed
from sin. That word freed there is justified. That means we're not guilty. If you ever find out by the Spirit
of God what kind of people we really are before a holy God,
sinful, deserving of damnation, all right, if God ever shows
you your sin, then this will really impress you, this message. that I, a sinner, can be not
guilty before a holy God. Now that's God who sees things
about me that you don't see. Really, who knows me better than
I know myself. Especially given passages like
Jeremiah 17, the heart's deceitful and desperately wicked. And then,
can declare me righteous. You know, righteousness is not
just doing the best you can. A lot of people think that. Well,
there's a righteous person. He's doing the best he can. Not
in God's sight. The psalmist said, man at his
best state is altogether what? Vanity. Paul wrote, there's none
righteous. No, not one. There's none that
seeketh after God. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. And as I said, don't say except
me on that one. Don't add your There's none righteous,
no, oh, except me. No. It's all of us by nature. That's why we need grace. Well,
look at verse 17. He says, but God be thanked that
you were the servants of sin. Now, to be a servant of sin refers
to one who is an unbeliever. He's under the power, a person's
under the power of sin that keeps a sinner from coming to Christ.
And it says, but you've obeyed from the heart. You obeyed from the heart. Now
where does obedience come from the heart? Does it come from
your will or my will? What separates one who obeys
from the heart from one who doesn't obey from the heart? Are you
a better person than that one who didn't? No, it's the power
of God that separates it. You must be born again. Romans
or John chapter 1 and verse 13 tells us it's not a not of blood.
It's not by Physical heritage. It's not a nor the works and
will of the flesh It's not by works and it's not by the will
of man, but of God but of God and He says you've obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine that teaching which was delivered
you I believe a better translation of that would be which you were
delivered to and God brought you under the preaching of the
gospel. And then look at verse 18, being then made free from
sin. Now that word free there is liberated. The word freed
over in verse seven is justified. That's our legal justification
before God based on the righteousness of Christ freely imputed to us,
charged to us, accounted to us. But here he's talking about the
effects, the results, the fruit of that. And that's the liberation
of a sinner. from the power of sin that keeps
him ignorant and lost and in unbelief. And he says, being
then made liberated from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.
Now, what is a servant of righteousness? Servant of righteousness is a
sinner saved by the grace of God who believes in the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is our righteousness. I have no righteousness but Christ.
That's the testament, right? That's what you're gonna be confessing
in believers baptism. I have no hope of salvation but
Christ. I have no righteousness but Christ.
I have no forgiveness but Christ. He's my all and in all. That's
what Paul's dealing with over in Colossians 3. Look back at
it. Now to put off the old man is to literally, and his deeds,
is to literally put off those thoughts and ideas and powers
of sin and death and condemnation that pervaded over me as an unbeliever. as an unbeliever. I've been crucified
with Christ. I've been crucified with Him.
And when it says put off the old man with his deeds, that's
talking about the lifestyle and the walk associated with that
state of unregeneracy as an unbeliever. Now he mentions things here. Look back at verse 1. He talks
about if you're risen with Christ, Seek those things which are above,
that is, those things which come from God and glorify God. Where
Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, he sits there as the
mediator, the advocate, the representative, the substitute, the intercessor
of his people. The right hand being the right
hand of justification, the right hand of acceptance, the right
hand of power and blessing. How have I been risen with Christ?
That's what you're going to confess in baptism. When he died, I died.
He was my substitute. You see, this is the language
of substitution. God saves his people through
a substitute. Somebody that took the place
of his people. He calls them his sheep. He said,
I lay down my life for the sheep. God chose them before the foundation
of the world and gave them to Christ and put all the responsibility
of their salvation upon him and then sent him into the world
to fulfill all the conditions that were required. What am I
saying? I'm saying everything that God
requires of me in order to be saved, in order to be justified,
is found fully and completely in Christ. Not in me, in Christ. It's the language of imputation. Most people don't understand
what that word means today, impute. This generation, more than any
other generation that ever lived on earth, ought to understand
imputation. And I'll tell you, I'll give you two words that'll
give you an idea of what I'm talking about there. And here
are the two words, charge it. Is there any generation that
ever lived on earth that ought to understand that more than
ours? Charge it. And I always use this
analogy in teaching the doctrine of imputation to our children.
And I look at it this way. I said, if you found yourself
to be in debt, let's say you owed a million dollars to a local
bank here in town. And then all of a sudden you
realize you don't have one, one red cent to pay that debt. Oh, my soul, what would you think?
You'd be in a quandary, wouldn't you? And let's say the bank calls
that note due. What are you going to do? You don't have anything
to pay it. So you're going to go down to the bank, and you
want to see the bank president, and you're going to cast yourself
on his mercy, which I'll tell you right now will do you no
good, if you know any bank presidents.
Not bank presidents. They can't do it. They can't
legally do it. They can't show mercy. They'd have to break the
law to show you mercy. That's what they'd have to do.
But let's say you go down to the bank and you say, I'm in
a mess. I owe this money. I don't have
a red cent to pay you. What am I going to do? Well,
they'd say, you've got to go to jail. You're in arrears. But the banker looks at you and
he says, well, what is your name? And you tell him your name. And
he looks up the books. He says, now your name is Jim
Casey. Well, it says here you don't
owe a dime, Jim. Jim, you say, well, I know I
owe that money. I know what I am. I know what
I've done. No, he says, right here the book is wiped clean.
You don't owe a dime. You know what happened? Somebody
came in here and paid that million dollars for you. Substituted
for you. He come in here and he looked
at me. I remember it now. He said, he come here, he looked
at me, and he said, put it on my account. Put Jim Casey's debt
on my account, and I'll pay it in full. Boy, could you imagine
the feeling that would come over you? What a burden lifted. Can you imagine the sigh? What's the first thing you want
to know? You want to know, well, who is that fellow? I got to go thank
him. But you get up and you start to leave and the bank says, hold
on, there's something else here. I'm looking down here at the
book, it says that that same fella put a million dollars in
your account. What, put a million dollars in
my account? Yeah, you're a million to the good, Jim. Boy, now you
really, now that's what amputation is all about. That's what the
Lord Jesus Christ did for his sheep. In other words, it's like he
came before the father and he said, the debt that they owed
you, put it on my account, I'll pay it in full. And his payment
in full equals out righteousness that's laid to our account for
he made him to be seen Christ who knew no sin for us, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Now in this phrase
here, look here in Colossians chapter three in verse one, If
you then be risen with Christ, that's what that means. That
means he died for me. That means he paid my debt. And
he was buried. He buried him. He put him away.
He put all my sins away. And in his resurrection, we see
the success, the payment of that debt equaling righteousness.
You see, righteous, sin demands death. Righteousness demands
life. For by grace are you saved through
faith. That not of yourselves. It's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For
as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
You see that? That's what it means to be risen
with Christ. And you think about that. You
know, if you were in debt like that, physically, And you went
into the bank and you found out somebody had paid your debt and
gave you a million dollars. You know what you'd be? You'd
be a new man. Your attitude would change. Your
thoughts would change. Your mind would change. You'd
probably even have a skip in your step walking out, and you'd
probably walk into the bank like this, and you'd probably be bouncing
out. That's the way it is. And that's what he's talking
about. Look here. He says, if you then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above. You'd want to find out who paid
that debt. And you'd want to honor him and
thank him. You'd want to serve him. See that's what I'm saying? He says, where Christ sitteth
on the right. Christ is the one who paid the debt. He's the one
sitting on the right hand of the Father. What does that mean?
It means He paid the debt. He finished the work. Rest in
Him. Christ is our Sabbath. Hebrews
chapter 4. He finished the work. He fulfilled
it. He died the death that I deserved. And then he says, set your affection.
Now that word affection there is the mind, but it's not just
an intellectual thing. The Hebrews and the Greeks, they
would look at the mind as being the whole person, the heart.
It's the mind, the affections, the will. Set your affection
on things above, not on things of the earth. He says, you're
dead. What does that mean? Your debt's
paid. You're no longer deserving As far as condemnation, you're
no longer liable for it. The power of sin to condemn you
is totally gone. You're dead. You've already died.
When did I die? In Christ, when he died. That's
what you're confessing. That's why we do this believer's
baptism. A sinner saved by the grace of
God, confessing that when Christ died, I died. When he was buried,
I was buried. When he arose again, I rose.
And your life is hid with Christ in God. You know what that means?
That means you're protected. It doesn't mean that you're a
mystery to people, you are, but that's not what this means. It
means your life is hid with Christ in, it means you can't lose it. I asked a fellow one time, he's
talking about, well, you'd be saved one day, lost the next
day. I said, what would you have to do? What sin would you have to
commit to lose? He said, I don't know, but that'd be something
pretty bad. No. Your life is hid with Christ
in God. When Christ who is our life shall
appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. And that's
what he's talking about. Now with that as your foundation,
put off the old man and put on the new man. The new man is our
present connection with Christ as the church of the living God.
sinners saved by grace, not condemned, but righteous in God's sight
in Christ, and as regenerate, born again by the Spirit of God,
he says back here, look down at verse 10, he says, and have
put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the
image of him that created him. What does that mean? It means
the same thing that Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3, growing in grace
and knowledge of Christ. The more I know and learn of
Christ, Listen, the more I learn, that's
what causes me to look to him more, rest in him more. That's
the motivation that God's people have to fight sin and to seek
to be obedient. You see, the motivation is not
law. The motivation is not legalism. The motivation is not mercenary
promises of earned reward even. The motives are grace, love,
and gratitude. Just like that fellow who paid
off that debt and gave you the meal. You didn't deserve for
him to do that. You didn't even know who he was. You didn't earn it. But once
it happens, what do you want to do? You want to thank him.
That's what obedience to God is. It's thanksgiving. And he says in this, Christ is
all and in all. Turn over to Romans chapter 7.
Now this is an example of what I'm talking about, putting on
the new man. How do we put him on? We believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ and we continue in him. We follow Him. We rest in Him
for all forgiveness, for all righteousness, for all eternal
life and glory. We don't rest in anybody else.
We don't rest in men, no matter who the man is. We don't rest
in self. We don't rest in the church or
in the denominator. We rest in Christ. That's what
it is to put on the new man. And we learn more and more of
him. He's renewed, this new man. What I am in Christ, that's what
that is. That's the new man. That's my
standing and state in the Lord Jesus Christ. That new man that
I am in him is renewed in knowledge. The more I learn of him, the
more I worship him, the more I'm going to put on that new
man and realize and give thanks. Look at Romans 7 verse 4. Paul
writes here, wherefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the
law. What does that mean? That means
the law cannot condemn you anymore. You know, for the people of God,
it never did condemn us because we've always been in Christ.
But we deserved it, didn't we? You've become dead to the law.
The law cannot condemn you. Now, how did I become dead to
the law? How did that happen? Well, because I turned over a
new leaf and started doing this, or because I joined the church,
or because I got baptized in what? No. You are become dead
to the law by the body of Christ. That's how a sinner, saved by
grace, becomes dead to the law. By the body of Christ. Christ
offering himself on the tree. Christ who was made sin. Christ
who was made a curse for me. He died for me. That all happened
in order that you should be married to another, even him who's raised
from the dead, that is, united to Christ, married to Christ.
You know, the Bible says the church is the bride of Christ.
And the church is married to Christ, united to Christ. And
that's for every believing sinner. That's for every sinner saved
by grace, not just for this segment or that segment. It's for every
sinner saved by grace. And he says that we should bring
forth fruit unto God. Now believer, a sinner saved
by grace does not produce fruit. We bear fruit. Just like the apple tree, the
source of life for that apple tree doesn't come from the tree
itself. But now the Bible does use that analogy of Christ is
the vine, we're the branches. We bear fruit from the life of
the vine. And then he says in verse five,
for when we were in the flesh, when we were unbelievers, the
motions or the passions of sins, which were by the law, did work
in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. And that works
in one of two ways. These passions of sins, which
were by the law, works in one of two ways, and you can see
it in people. You can see it in yourself before
salvation. It either, that the passions
of sin were stirred up by the law of God either in abject rebellion
against everything that God says, and you see that in the immoral
practices and attitudes of our day, or the passions of sins,
which were by the law, stir up a person in false religion. Now think about this. Think about
what I'm saying here. Listen to what Paul writes. Now
who was Paul? What was his name before God
saved him on the Damascus Road? Saul of Tarsus. What does the
Bible tell us about Saul of Tarsus? He was a very religious man doing
his best trying to work his way into God's favor trying to establish
his own righteousness before God and look here what he says
in verse 5 he says for when we were in the flesh Paul saying
I was right with you now you may have expressed the passions
of sins in your in the flesh in your way In another way, other
than what Paul did, you may have been a rebel, you may have been
a drug addict, you may have been a whoremonger, you may have been
a lot of things. And that's the passions of sin, that's rebellion.
But how did Saul of Tarsus express his passions? Trying to be saved
by his works. And he says all he was doing
was bringing forth fruit unto death. Well look at verse 6,
but now we're delivered from the law. Now there's the new
man. that being dead wherein we were
held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in
oldness of the letter. We should serve as we're motivated
by the spirit of God in grace, love, and gratitude, and not
by legalism and self-righteousness and religious pride. That's how. And so when Paul says this, when
he writes this, put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge,
after the image of him that created him, seeking to be conformed
to the image of Christ according to the grace of God in him. He
says in verse 11, where there's neither Greek nor Jew, that Greek
was a way of referring to all the Gentiles, it was a Greek
world back then. Circumcision or uncircumcision,
Jew or Gentile, doesn't matter. He says barbarian, Scythian,
bond afraid, but Christ is all.