Let's open our Bibles to Colossians
chapter 3. You know, as a pastor, as a preacher,
an evangelist, which I consider, you know, I don't like the segmented
roles that people give preachers. He's an evangelist, so he only
shows up in spring and fall or something, or he's a pastor,
he's a teacher, Somebody told me one time, said, well, you
don't really preach, you teach. And I said, well, I've never
really been able to tell the difference. I guess I need to shout a little
bit more. Maybe they call that preaching.
I think that's more of a early American idea than it is a biblical
idea. But my point is this. When I
prepare messages, I pray, Lord, give me the message for your
people. that we all need to hear. I don't pick out individuals
and say, well, I got one person I'm going to preach to because
there's a problem there. And I've seen preachers do that,
and the person they wanted to preach to didn't even show up.
But anyway, I know my former pastor one time, he said something
in a message, and a lady got offended. And after the message,
she was going down to shake his hand. She said, were you preaching
to me? And he looked at her and said, well, were you here? I never forget, too, I had a
fellow who was up in Ashton who was being kind of divisive because
he didn't like me. I don't understand that, you
know? But he was being quite divisive in the congregation,
and I had to call his hand on it. And you know me, I preach
pretty much expositorily, verse by verse. And it just so happened
that I was in a portion of scripture that talked about Christian unity.
And there were several messages on that, the true Christian unity. And he told me, he said, well,
you've been taking pot shots at me from the pulpit. And I
said, well, if I happen to run across a verse that condemns
stealing, I guess every thief in the audience will think I'm
taking pot shots at them. That's just the way it is. But
here's something today that will cover, without a doubt, everybody
that's here this morning. It's a problem we all have, every
one of us. And it's a three-letter word,
S-I-N, sin. So if you think I'm taking pot
shots at you, I am. I'm taking pot shots at me and
everybody else. And I've got several messages. I don't know how many, because
I'm just going to start this and get as far as time will allow
me, and then pick up next week. Because this is where we've come
to in our understanding and reading of the book of Colossians beginning
there in verse 5 of chapter 3 with the word mortify. Mortify therefore
your members which are upon the earth. And he speaks of fornication
and cleanliness and we'll look at these in just a minute. But
what I want us to deal with in a few minutes, it may take two,
it may take three, I don't know how far I'll get. But I've entitled
it, The Christian Way of Dealing with Sin. The Christian way,
the true Christian way of dealing with sin. Because that's what
the apostle's talking about here. And I want to say at the outset
that we need to understand something. That we as true Christians do
not always deal with sin the way we should. We don't always do it. We don't
always deal with it in a Christian way. And that's part of what
we call the struggle, the warfare of the flesh and the spirit,
and I'll explain that later on. But God gives us the right way
to deal with this thing of sin. And of course, we could say,
very blanketly, I'll say, that the
right way is the way of His grace through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Basically, here's what I'm saying, we really, in our own power,
cannot deal with the problem of sin. It takes the Spirit of
God. Brother Randy read there, if
you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body. It's through
the Spirit. But I want you to go back to the Old Testament
with me. Go back to Genesis chapter 4. And you know the chapter, I'm
talking about Genesis 4, Cain and Abel. And you know the story how they
came both to worship God. Both of them, Cain and Abel.
Both of them were religious men. They both came to worship God,
they both came seeking acceptance, seeking blessing from God. And Abel came with the blood
of the Lamb. What a beautiful picture. All
the way through the Old Testament, isn't it? Of Christ, the Lamb
of God. Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sins of the world. Now it's Christ who settles this
issue of sin, we know that. And we're gonna talk about that
a lot. But then here's Cain. And he came without blood. What's
the problem with coming without blood? The blood is a picture
of death, which is the consequence of sin, and which must be satisfied. The justice of God must be satisfied
by the blood of a God-appointed, God-willing, able substitute. That's Christ. He's appointed
by God. He's willing. He said that. He said, no man takes my life
from me. Again, I laid down of my sin. He was willing to take
the sins of his people and bear them on the cross. And he's able. He's able. You're not able. I'm not able, but he is. To do
so, to satisfy justice, to bring, as Daniel said, to make an end
of sin. So Cain comes without the blood.
He comes with the fruit of the ground that he worked hard for.
He sweated for his works. That's what that says. Well,
God did not accept Cain's offering. He will not accept any man's
person. He will not accept our works as to the attaining or
maintaining salvation. Salvation is not by works, it's
by grace. G-R-A-C-E. Somebody said grace
stands for God's righteousness at Christ's expense. I like that. And so Abel came by grace, seeking
grace as a sinner. Abel came admitting, I'm a sinner
and I don't have anything to recommend me to God. I don't
deserve the least of God's blessings. Is that the way you feel? Whatever
you have. And I always bring it down to
something very practical. And that's the next breath you
take. That's a gift from God and you didn't earn it and you
don't deserve it and neither do I. And especially that pertains
to salvation. and all the blessings. They come
not by our merits, not by our righteousnesses, which we have
done, but by Christ's righteousness. So Abel was accepted. Cain was
not accepted, and he grew angry. Now look at verse 6 of Genesis
chapter 4. He says, And the Lord said unto
Cain, Why art thou wroth? Why are you angry? Why is thy
countenance fallen? His face showed his anger. Couldn't
hide his feelings. This was something that was just
so welling up inside of him that he couldn't hide it. And then
God says, verse seven, if thou doest well, shalt thou not be
accepted? In your concordance there, if
you've got one, it might say have the excellency. Now what
is it to do well? Well, the context tells us. Do
what Abel did. Come to God pleading the blood
of the Lamb. That's what it means to do. He's
not saying, he's not saying, Cana, if you'll keep the Ten
Commandments, you'll be accepted. Abel couldn't do it. How do you
know Abel couldn't do it? He brought the blood. Why would
you need the blood if you can keep the law? Why do you need the blood of
Christ if you're already righteous by your works? You don't need
it. If you're righteous by your works, You don't need grace. You don't need mercy. You're
fine. You're different from everybody
I know. You're not. You just think you are. So if
thou doest well, shalt thou not be except. Bring the blood. That's
what God commanded. Come to Him as a mercy beggar
seeking mercy. based on the blood of Christ,
based on his righteousness. And he says, and if thou do us
not well, sin lieth at the door. You see that? In other words,
sin's still a problem here. It's like a line outside your
door, just waiting to pass. And unto thee shall be his desire. And what is sin's desire? James said it. Sin, when it reaches
its goal, is death. And look at the last line of
verse seven, and thou shalt rule over him. Now that's a little
confusing. He's not saying, Cain, if you don't come bringing the
blood of Christ, you've got a sin problem, and it's up to you to
rule over it. What he means by that is this.
If you don't have the blood of Christ, if you're not washed
in his blood and clothed in his righteousness, you've got a real
problem of sin, and you've got it to master and you can't do
it. You can't do it. This is a task
that you can't handle. This is a war that you cannot
win. This is a disease that you cannot
cure. See? Now, go back to Colossians 3. The Apostle Paul here has been
speaking to this little church, seeking to encourage them and
admonish them with reference to false teaching that they had
evidently had been exposed to. And incidentally, the vast majority,
if not all false teaching, comes down to this issue of how am
I to deal with the problem of sin? You know, all false gospels
are false ways of dealing with the problem of sin? And Paul's answer to them is
really simple. In fact, it's so simple that
the natural man won't receive it. Here's his answer. Christ and
his righteousness is sufficient for our whole salvation from
sin and death. We have no reason to go to the
heretical teachings of men concerning matters of salvation, matters
of obedience, and matters of how to deal with sin. And Paul
says this, he says, in Christ are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge. He says, in Christ dwells all
the fullness that God has for his people. In Christ dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you are complete,
you're filled full in him. Christ is all, down there in
verse 11, the last line, but Christ is all and in all. False
religion says, oh no, you need something else. You gotta put
your two cents in there. You gotta add your faith, your
repentance, your this, your that, your works, your baptism, your
church attendance, your love. Christ is not enough to them. And Paul has stressed
that the answer to all our spiritual problems is a fresh realization
of our union and our identification with Christ in His death, burial,
and resurrection as we stand in Him, again, washed in His
blood and clothed in His righteousness imputed. Look at the first four
verses. Let's just read these first four verses. I preached
on these the last time. It says, if you then be risen
with Christ, Seek those things which are above where Christ
sitteth on the right hand of God. You know what that means?
That's talking about looking to Christ as the author and the
finisher of our faith. That's a finished work. It is
finished. And what did he finish? We finished
what the prophet Daniel prophesied, Daniel 9.24. That person, that
Messiah, the God-man is going to come and he's going to make
an end of sin. He's going to finish the transgression.
He's going to bring in everlasting righteousness. He's going to
seal up the vision and the prophecy. That's what Christ did. See,
the gospel is the preaching of a finished work. Something that
is done by another who is God in human flesh. It's not what
you do for him, it's what he's done for his people. And he says in verse 2, set your
affection, your mind, your heart on things above, not on things
on the earth. Now the things on the earth he's
talking about, if you look at the context of Colossians, he's
talking about false religion there. Now I know some people
who are very materialistic. I mean, life is all about what
they can accumulate, what they think they own, and all of that.
More, more, more. You know, it's like I've told
you the story about the reporter who was interviewing Howard Hughes
before he died, and he asked, Howard Hughes, he said, Mr. Hughes,
he said, why do you have to buy so much property? Why do you
have to own so much property? And Hughes said, I don't want
to own that much, just whatever's next to mine. And that's the
way it is. Very materialistic. And that
would be included those who set their affection on things of
the earth. Their life is earthly. They're not spiritually minded
or heavenly minded. They haven't been given a new
heart. They haven't been given eyes to see and ears to hear.
But what Paul's talking about in the context is the taste not,
touch not, handle not of false religion by which people measure
righteousness by what they do and what they don't do. You see,
we don't measure, if we're believers, we don't measure righteousness
by what we do or don't do. We measure righteousness by Christ,
what he did. Acts 1731, what does it say? God has appointed the day in
the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained, and that he hath given assurance unto
all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead. You want the
measure of right? How good must I be? How righteous
must I be to be saved? Well, what are you doing and
what are you not doing? No, it's what Christ did. And that's what
he says in verse 3, for you are dead. Now keep that in mind. You're dead. What does he mean?
Your life is hid with God in Christ. You're protected. You're
shielded. He's my rock. He's my high tower.
He's my refuge. I'm protected from all that would
come against me and separate me from God. I'm protected by
Christ. I'm washed in his blood. I'm
clothed in his righteousness. God will not charge me with sin. Satan's charges will not stick. I'm justified, I'm sanctified. I have life from God, I'm protected. I'm certain and sure in Him. And he says in verse four, when
Christ who is our life, notice that, Christ who is my life.
The life that we have, is not that which we have naturally.
We're born spiritually dead in trespasses and sin. If we have
life, it's the resurrected life of Christ which springs forth
from the righteousness that he accomplished in his obedience
unto death. Romans 8.10, you read it. This
body is dead, this physical body is dead because of sin. That's
our problem. But the Spirit, the Holy Spirit,
is life because of righteousness. Now where's a dead person like
me gonna find righteousness? Only in Christ. So he says, when
Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall you also appear
with him in glory. A certain assurance of final
glory in Christ. Now, he then brings us to one
of the most important and vital aspects of the Christian life,
Christian living. And that's this, how we as believers
justified sinners, sinners saved by grace, how we are to view
this issue of sin, and how we're to deal with the problem of sin. And it comes under the heading
of this one word. Look at verse five. Mortify therefore
your members which are upon the earth. Mortification. Mortify. What does that mean? It means
put to death. Kill it, that's what it means.
Now it can mean this way, it can mean consider it as dead. But it can also mean kill it,
put it to death. There are basically two Greek
words translated mortify in the King James Version. One right
here, and actually the word mortify here is the only time this Greek
word is used, but it means put to death. And the other time,
look back over in Romans 8 that Brother Randy read earlier. Romans
8, verse 13. He says, for if you
live after the flesh, Now, to live after the flesh is a wide
umbrella. But what it means, basically,
is to live your life without Christ. It can refer, and in
the context of Romans 8, does refer to religious people. You
see, religion without Christ is flesh. Did you know that?
Now, immorality, as men see it, that's flesh too. But religion
without Christ, without grace, without truth, is flesh. And
if you live after, Cain was living, when Cain came to worship God,
by his works, he was living after the flesh. Do you understand
that? You know, a lot of people who call themselves Christians
don't. Cain was living after the flesh.
The Pharisee who stood and said, I thank God that I'm not like
other men, He was living after the flesh. The false professors
who stood before the Lord at judgment said, Lord, Lord, haven't
we preached in your name? Haven't we cast out demons? Haven't
we done many wonderful works? They were living after the flesh.
Now that's so important if we're going to understand the Christian
way of dealing with sin. But look here in Romans 8, 13,
he says, if you live after the flesh, you shall die, but if
you through the spirit do mortify. Now that's a different Greek
word than what you find over in Colossians 3, but it's a synonym. It means the same thing. It means
to put to death. That word in Romans 8 is translated
four times as put to death. In fact, it's In 1 Peter 3.18,
listen to this, it says, For Christ also hath once suffered
for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.
In other words, he was mortified, he was put to death, he actually
died on that cross. And why did he die? For the sins
of his people accounted, reckoned, imputed to him. Sometimes it's
translated as kill. Remember when Paul wrote in Romans
8, 36, as it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the
day long. That's that same word. One time
it means to become dead. But here in Colossians 3, he
says, mortify, put to death, therefore your members, which
are upon the earth. Now let me give you this for
this morning, and then I'm gonna, Couple more messages, I'm gonna
give you some details on this. But mortification, putting sin
to death. And here's the thing about it.
One thing we need to realize is basically this. Every problem
that we have can ultimately be traced to that three-letter word,
sin. Every problem we, I'm talking
about even believers. Sin is still our problem, isn't
it? We live with sin every day. Preacher once joked he was going
to a conference and they put him in a motel on the second
floor and a brother preacher was downstairs and the guy said,
well, he got up and pulled, he said, I'm finally living above
sin. I'm living above brother so-and-so. You're never going
to live above sin. Listen to me. You know, if we
get a dreaded disease, we want to go to a doctor who knows what
this disease is all about and can prescribe the cure. Isn't
that right? Well, in order to deal with sin in a Christian
world, we need to understand this issue. I want to tell you
something right now. If you've been convinced of sin
by the Holy Spirit, you realize you can't ever get away from
it. Did you know that? And you know why? Because it's
in us. While in this world, in this
physical flesh, in ourselves, we will never be or find sinless
perfection. The only sinless perfection that
I can tell you about and be honest is Christ. I stand in Him complete. And even as sinners save from
sin, even dead to sin in Christ. You know, the Bible says we're
dead to sin in Christ, all right? What does that mean? By grace,
do you know still the remaining presence and influence and contamination
of sin keeps us from being righteous in ourselves? The psalmist wrote
in Psalm 130 verse 3, Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities. Who among us would stand? Now
somebody might say, well now that's when he was committing
adultery with Bathsheba. I'll guarantee you it applies
when he was writing the 23rd Psalm. In himself. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed. What does that mean? That means
this. Right now. Right now. If God were to judge
me based upon what I deserve or what I've earned, it would
be eternal death. Right now. And sin is a matter of the heart.
Now, you can't deal with a problem unless you know the nature of
it. Christ told his disciples, he said, look, it's not what
goes into your mouth that defiles you. It's what comes out of your
evil heart. It's not actions only. And you
know this now, here's another thing about sin. All sin is ultimately
against God. David said that in Psalm 51,
against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil.
Now he sinned against a man named Uriah, didn't he? Committed adultery with Uriah's
wife and then connived to have Uriah murdered. But David said,
you know what he did? He broke God's law. Sin is transgression
of the law. Whose law? God's law. All sin
is against God ultimately. And you know what that means?
That means all sin deserves death. All of it! And in this sense, all sin is
the same. This heresy of the Catholic Church,
venial sins, cardinal sins, some sins don't deserve this, My friend,
that's the traditions of men. It is anti-biblical. Now, don't
be fooled. The Bible does make a distinction
between sins of the heart and scandalous sins. Not for us to
become self-righteous or to condemn other believers who fall into
such scandalous sins, and I'll deal with that later. There is a descent, but all sin
deserves death. So how are we gonna deal with
the problem? Some say, well, let's bring everybody under the
law. Let's preach the law to them, okay? Here's the problem. The law doesn't cure the problem. The law does not cure it. In
fact, the Bible says the law will just stir it up. Because
the law will either bring out your abject rebellion or it will
make you self-righteous to the point where you're coming to
God like Cain. In fact, the Bible says we're
not under the law, but we're under grace. Now, does that mean
we break the law? No. Somebody say, oh, here's how
we're gonna deal with it. Here's how we're gonna deal with it,
Eager Avenue Grace Church. We're gonna appoint a discipline committee.
Well, here's what you've got. You've got sinners policing other
sinners. Somebody says, well, I'll tell
you what I'll do. I'll go live in a cave. What's wrong with that? Well,
the problem is the one living in the cave is the problem. Somebody says, well, let's punish
ourselves. You've seen these Catholic monks
that whip themselves. Well, the problem there is it's
not by our stripes that we're healed. It's by his stripes that
we're healed. Somebody says, well, let's just
forget about it, throw caution to the wind. We just don't care.
No, no. The gospel and the power of the
spirit brings us to what? Repentance. Somebody says, well,
let's work hard so that we become less and less sinful and more
and more righteous and holy. Well, that's not scriptural.
Did you know that? Oh, we're to grow in grace and in knowledge
of Christ, but if you look at the scripture and if you look
at the experience of true believers, the more you grow in grace and
in knowledge of Christ, the more you'll see your sinfulness and
your need of Him. We are to strive to be more like
Christ, to grow in grace and in knowledge of Christ. And this thing about sin, here's
the thing about it. If we're going to deal with it
biblically, we need to stop thinking of sin in terms of immorality
as we naturally see it only. Now, let me say this. Immorality
is sin. And we, as Christians, are to
be moral people. We're to fight immorality. But
here's the problem. Even our morality is not perfect. Even our morality. Listen, as
moral as I try to be, I still won't wash away my sins. As moral
as I try to be, it still won't make me righteous in God's sight.
Again, what can wash away my sins? Huh? Nothing but the blood
of Jesus. Do you believe that? Sin is anything that falls short
of the glory of God. That's what Romans 3.23 says. All sin and comes to... And what
is the glory of God? It's Christ. Anything, you know,
anything that falls short of the perfection of righteousness
found in Christ is sin. Well, let me just say these two
things, and this is what I'm going to build on in the next
messages, about mortification. He says, mortified therefore
your members. Look back at Colossians 3. Let
me close with this, all right? Colossians 3, he says, mortified
therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, that's unbridled
lust. Covetousness, which is idolatry,
that's the ungodly desire for things to the point that it takes
you away from spiritual issues, spiritual matters. Verse six,
for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children
of disobedience. Now listen to me, a child of
disobedience is an unbeliever. And somebody says, well, even
believers Even believers are punished sometimes for their
sins. That's true, it's called the chastisement of God. It's
never called the wrath of God. Believers are never under the
wrath of God. Now if you want, let me prove
that. If you want to define the wrath of God, where are you gonna
go? The cross. That's the wrath of
God poured out upon our Savior in our place. And so we are chastised sometimes,
but now let me tell you, I'll caution you on that. I'm going
to deal with this too later. We don't have the wisdom and
the knowledge to look at any individual and say, well, God's
chastising you for this specific sin or that specific sin or anything
like that. That's what Job's three friends
tried to do. But look at verse seven. He says, in the which
also you walk sometimes when you lived in them. In other words,
by nature, we were just like the children of disobedience,
the children of wrath, even though God had appointed us unto mercy
before the foundation of the world. He says in verse 8, but now you
also put off all these anger, wrath, and he's talking to believers
here now. Blasphemy, filthy communication,
lie not one to another. I had a man say one time, there's
not room in a Christian's heart for lying. I said, buddy, you don't even
know what a Christian is. He's a sinner saved by grace. Only
a sinner saved by grace. This is my story. To God be the
glory. Lie not one to another, seeing
you have put off the old man with his deeds. Now, I'll deal
with that later, but basically, there's two ways you look at
mortification in the Bible. Number one is you look at it
as an accomplished act. Accomplished by the Lord Jesus
Christ on the cross for the sins of his people. And that's what
I believe that Romans 6 is talking about and we'll look at that.
Accomplished for us by God's grace in the death of Christ
for us as our surety and our substitute. Paul said it up here
in Colossians 3, 3, 4, you are dead. How am I dead? I'm dead
to sin in the sense that sin cannot be charged to me, imputed
to me. Sin cannot condemn me. It was
charged to my Savior and He put it to death. I'm righteous in
God's sight, not in myself, not by my works, but in Christ. I am made the righteousness of
God. in him and therefore sin cannot
touch me legally in the court of God's justice. In fact, God
says he'll remember it no more. He will not bring it up. He has
no record of it in his legal books, in his law books. I'm
justified before God. My sins have been mortified.
That's our legal moral. And then secondly, mortification
as a desired goal. That's what Paul's talking about
in verse five. Mortify therefore your members. Is it even possible
to deal a death blow to sin in ourselves? It's not possible
for us to do so. It's not going to be accomplished
in this life. But what he's talking about there
has to do with repentance and warring against the flesh. Not
in order to be saved, but because you already are. How do you know
that? One word there in verse five,
therefore. You see a therefore? Find out
what it's there for. He's referring back to what,
you're already dead, you're already righteous in Christ, you're already
justified. Now go to war against sin, that's
what he says. And we'll talk about that in
the next message, all right?