Colossians chapter three, and we'll read from verse one. If ye 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, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify
therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness,
which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of God
cometh on the children of disobedience, in the which ye also walked some
time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these
anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your
mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing
that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have
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 nor
free, but Christ is all and in all. Amen. May God bless to us this reading
from his word. There is a lovely passage in
the prophecy of Zechariah that, well, it came to mind as I was
thinking about our study this evening. and I just wanted to
share it with you. It was actually this little passage
that pointed me to Mr. Watt's hymn about why should
the children of a king go mourning all their day? And the verses
come from Zechariah 2, verses 10 and 11. And they say this, Sing and rejoice, O daughter
of Zion. For lo, I come, and I will dwell
in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall
be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. and I will dwell in the midst
of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent
me unto thee. That's a lovely little passage,
and of course it's a gospel passage. There it was given in the Old
Testament dispensation, given to the Jews particularly, but
it is a clear reference to That day when the Lord Jesus Christ
would be sent of his Father and he would come to his church,
the daughter of Zion, and he calls the people of faith to
sing and rejoice. We are not a people who are to
be depressed and mournful and heavy laden, but a people that
are to sing and rejoice. A people who know that amongst
the gathering in of the Gentiles, amongst the gathering in of the
elect, the people of God have an interest in the everlasting
promises, the goodness and grace of the Lord. The little phrase
says that many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that
day and shall be my people. A most wonderful truth that believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ in that day, in this day, because these
are the Gospel days. These are the days of the gathering
in of the Gentiles. And indeed, these last 2,000
years are what Scripture calls the last days, the days from
the coming of the return of Christ into glory and the going forth
of the apostles to gather in the Church of Jesus Christ. These
are those days. And we, according to that little
prophecy in Zechariah, we are joined to the Lord in these days. And we have been joined to Him,
joined to the God-man, united with Him. And this is the point
that the Apostle Paul is making. He is reminding these Colossians
that Christ is in us and we are in Him. Now we might ask, how
is that? How is it that we are in him? And we remind ourselves that
in the past few weeks we've been thinking about the ways in which
the Apostle Paul has described this union that we have with
the Lord Jesus Christ. He has called us dead with Christ. He has said that we are buried
with Christ. We are risen with Christ. So joined are we that when he
died, we died. When he was buried, we were buried. When he rose again, we rose again
in him. And when the Lord God sees the
Lord Jesus Christ dead, buried, and risen again, He sees you
and me who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. We who are his
people, we who are of those many nations that shall be joined
to the Lord in that day. He sees us dead, buried, risen
again with the Lord Jesus Christ. So much so that he can't tell
us apart. So much so that Paul tells these
Colossians that we are hid with Christ. That when God looks on
the Lord Jesus Christ and all of the victories that he has
in his death, burial and resurrection, he cannot, as it were, distinguish
and discern between Christ and his people, Christ and his bride. And there is that picture of
the bride and the marriage that has been joined together and
the two have become one flesh. and they've become indiscernible
because they are so united, so joined together in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what? There's even
more to it than that. If that wasn't amazing enough,
Paul goes on to say, that we have ascended with the Lord Jesus
Christ also into glory. He died, he was buried and he
rose again and we died and were buried and rose again with him
and he ascended into glory and you know what? We also have ascended
into glory with him. Even now, where I am sitting
here in my living room, and where you're sitting, wherever you
might be this evening, do you know, how can we grasp the wonder
of this? How do we get our heads around
the magnitude of what the Word of God is actually saying in
these things? You know, we imagine that we see things are right
and we can, oh, I don't know, we can knock on the table and
we can see the wood and we can look around us and we can see
the tangible things that are in this world. And you know,
we imagine that we're seeing something that has got a reality
to it. But if we could just see the
spiritual, we would see so many things different. I was speaking a little bit earlier
this week to Shelby Fortner and she passes on her regards to
you all, but she was remarking, what wonderful things her husband
is seeing now in the presence of his saviour. What enhanced
views, what glorious things that he is able to discern and grasp,
that just were hidden to us in this flesh, in this world, in
this false reality that we have around about us. And I know that
there is a need for us to be in this world and go through
this world. But let us not be limited in
our aspirations or in our vision. Let us look to the Word of God
and see if we can grasp something of the wonder of this union that
we have with Jesus Christ. Paul explicitly tells the Ephesians,
that for the sake of his everlasting love, the everlasting love of
God to his people, God who is rich in mercy, for his great
love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath
quickened us together with Christ By grace are ye saved, and hath
raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. So that's the nature of this
union. We're dead with Him on the cross,
we're buried with Him in His tomb, we're risen with Him in
the resurrection, and we're ascended with Him into glory. And right
now, so united are we to Christ that we are seated together with
Him in heavenly places. Now, that's not the old man of
flesh, and that's got to go back to the dust. That's what the
Word of God tells us. Dust we are, and to dust we must
return. But in the new man of the Spirit,
we are holy in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are so united
to Christ that we are one, indistinguishably one with him. And such is that
nature and the extent of our union and our interest in the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are completely
one and inextricably joined to him. for time and for eternity. We will be so joined to him,
like that bride is joined to the bridegroom, that man and
wife, that one who left his father's house and came and took his bride
and took her to himself and joined himself to her, and the two become
one flesh, that we will be united with Christ for all eternity.
I struggle to grasp all that that means. But I know this,
if we died and are buried and are risen again and ascended
and seated together in heavenly places in the Lord Jesus Christ,
if we are head with him, then we can never be eternally lost. We can never be forsaken and
we can never be without our Saviour. And that surely is a great reason
for us to sing and rejoice. That is a great reason for praise. And if we just take a moment
and pause again on that little phrase that was given to Zechariah
all those years before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
if we take the Holy Spirit at his word, when he spoke to Zechariah,
we discover a couple of things. We discover that Christ will
dwell in us because that's what the Lord Jesus Christ said through
Zechariah. Christ will dwell with us and
we shall know we are his spiritual creation and his body. we will know it. Christ will
dwell in us and we will know that we are his spiritual creation. You know, conversion, salvation,
I should say, salvation isn't simply about our conversion or
us getting saved. And that's a big problem in our
religious world today. There are so many churches out
there who imagine that their whole reason for existence and
everything that's geared up and active in their churches is targeted
at getting people saved. Salvation isn't simply about
conversion any more than living is about being born. It's God's
work to convert His people. It's the Holy Spirit's work,
and certainly the Lord is gracious to use the church, His body,
and preachers to go forth with the word of truth by which, through
believing, men and women are converted and changed. But we are changed to an end. We are changed for a purpose.
We are converted to enter into this life, this new life, this
new creation, and this understanding of what it is to be united to
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are called out of deadness
into life. We are called out of inability
into an enabled ability. to live accordingly in the service
of our Master, to the glory of His name, and together with Him
in this world. Paul tells the Colossians, and
he tells us, and he tells all who have read this little book
that he sent, this little epistle that he sent, he's saying, live
what you are. Look at what God has done for
you. Look at what God has made you.
Look at what you have become in the Lord Jesus Christ and
live what you are, a new creation. Seek after heavenly things. Seek after those things which
are of interest to you and which you have an interest in. And
neglect those things of the carnal. of the old, of the worldly self,
of the flesh and times past before that new creation took place,
before that conversion happened. And this is what he says in these
verses that we have before us in chapter three. He says in
the opening verse, if ye then be risen with Christ, which he
has already established we are, and this union that we have with
him. If you're risen with Christ, if you're dead, if you're risen,
if you're dead and buried and risen and ascended and seated
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, then seek those heavenly
things. set your affections on the things
which are above. You know, he's almost saying
to us here, if you are seated together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus, look around you, look around you and see what
you can see of that heavenly realm. Think about those things
which are heavenly and are of above. Now what things are those? Things that you know about because
they have been revealed to you. Things that you know about because
they have been made precious to your heart. that you've been
informed of, that have been revealed in the Scriptures with regard
to the great accomplishments of God's covenant purpose, the
great work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessed ministration
of the Holy Spirit and Comforter as he brings these truths and
applies them to the hearts and lives of the people of God and
the Church of Jesus Christ. Think on those heavenly things,
those things from above about holiness. about the holiness
that has come down from heaven and been revealed amongst men,
about that holiness that is granted to those who once were lost in
their sin, dead in their trespasses and sins, but have been united
to the Lord Jesus Christ through his death and brought into the
experience of the very righteousness of God in their souls. Think about that righteousness.
Think about purity. Think about spiritual rest, no
longer having to labour in order to try and attain something that
we never could, no longer feeling that burden of unworthiness and
inadequacy upon our souls and the weight of sin and guilt because
the Lord Jesus Christ has done all things well and redeemed
for himself a people. Think about the comfort that
the Holy Spirit brings to us. Think about the things that we
hear about in the Word of God that have been revealed to the
hearts and minds of men and women, of sinners like us, to show us
what we have in Christ. Think about the peace that passeth
understanding, the grace of God, and the glory which is laid up
for us. These are heavenly things, things
above. And these are the things that
the Apostle Paul says, you have been joined to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Meditate upon these things, the things of Christ, the things
of God's nature and his perfections, his power and his majesty, the
gospel truths that he has revealed and the joy, the joy unspeakable
and full of glory. Think in these things. things of forgiveness and mercy,
things of long-suffering and love, things of eternal life
ever spent in the presence of our beloved Jesus. that will
never be taken from us, that are our possession now, for though
we do not see them in their fullness, yet the promises are laid up
for us and we will inherit because the promises of God in Christ
are yea and amen and will never be taken away. Child of God,
you have been brought to glory. You are seated together in heavenly
places with Christ Jesus. We have been brought into a celebration
of divine privileges as we read the gospel together, as we have
been made to see that these things are our portion in the Lord Jesus
Christ. These are our privileges. His
successful accomplishments are our blessings and benefits. It's a spiritual gift from the
God of all goodness. It is grace imparted to needy
sinners. And the Lord Jesus Christ says,
come and dine. Come and drink, come and feast,
come and bask, come and enjoy these great privileges that have
been set in place for you. Your redemption, brother and
sister in Christ, has afforded you great honours, great freedoms,
great rights in the sight of God. and these don't have to
be worked for. They are already won and they
are freely gifted to us and they are yours. We're not servants. We're not menservants and maidservants
of God. We're sons and daughters. This
is our inheritance. We're heirs and joint heirs with
the Lord Jesus Christ because we are in him and hidden him. And these things are ours. The
heavenly blessings of everlasting life, which begin now and have
begun for us. The great and precious promises
of our God. These are ours to possess and
to meditate and to be thankful for right now. 2 Peter 1, verse
4 says, Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature. partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
lust. Oh, there's plenty of lust in
this world. There's plenty of people desiring
self-satisfaction. But the child of God has an inheritance
that is incorruptible, that is glorious, that is complete, that
is perfect in every way. And we already have entered into
the beginnings of that experience and undoubtedly it is going to
be enhanced and improved and enlarged in the days to come. But let us rejoice in these things
even now. Let us rejoice and sing that
these things are so. If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God, and where we sit together with him. we are not
to be preoccupied with this world, nor indeed the rudiments of this
world. Remember that chapter three has
just begun where chapter two has left off. And the apostle
has said there in verse 20, wherefore if ye be dead with Christ, which
he has established, this is our union together with him, from
the rudiments of the world? Why, as though living in the
world, are ye subject to ordinances, touch not, taste not, handle
not, which all are to perish with the using after the commandments
and doctrines of men? These things about what we touch,
what we taste, what we handle, what we do, where we go, these
are not of the essence of our relationship with God. Our relationship
with God is forged upon not what we are, not what we do, not what
we experience in this world, but upon the promises of the
application and the bestowal of the graces of God through
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So don't turn your attention
to the fleshy, natural, legal observances of this world when
freedom and liberty and riches and sweet contemplations of Christ's
infinite achievements and salvation's blessings are set before you
in the precious Son of God. And that's what the apostles
sing to these Colossians. Why would you follow these mean,
tawdry, dirty, fleshy, worldly ordinances when the glories of
Christ are set before us? The Jews. These Judaistic Christians,
we call them, because they obviously had some concept of Christ, but
they wanted to melt him together. They wanted to wed him together
with the Moses and the law and the ceremonies and the practices
of the temple. Even, we might imagine, with
the altar and the sacrifices. These Jews, these religionists,
these legalists, they have their equivalents today. And then and
now they want to rob the child of God of our blessed privileges
and rights as that spiritual body of Christ. And we are called
by the Apostle to tell them in no uncertain terms, away with
you! Away with you! You've nothing
to say to the blood-bought people of Christ. You've nothing to
say to the child of God. They point their fingers and
they cry, sinner, sinner. And we say in reply to them,
forgiven. They say, unworthy. And we say,
righteous and holy. They say, culpable, guilty. And we say, redeemed of the Lord. They say damned, and we say all
glorious. Why? Because we belong to Christ,
because we are united to Christ, because we are hid together in
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle says, For ye, verse
three, are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Our life is hid with Christ,
united to Him, one with Him, living in Him. We are dead to
the law, and our lives are hid in Christ. Listen, the law has
got nothing to say to the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing to say
to him. In all of his perfections, in
all of his immaculate words and works and person and doings and
everything about him, in his glory, in his sinlessness, the
Lord Jesus Christ hears nothing of the law. The law has nothing
to say to him. And if it has nothing to say
to him, how can it have anything to say to those who are hid in
him? How can it have anything to say
to those who are crucified with him, buried with him? dead with
Him, risen with Him, ascended with Him, and seated together
in heavenly places with Him. The Law has nothing to say to
the Child of God. It is gone. Listen, the Law can't
even find us. Even if it looks for us, it can't
find us. Because we are inextricably linked
with our Saviour and we are head together with Him and God. Colossians
3 verse 4 says, When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Verse 4. Think about that for a moment.
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also
appear with him in glory. Now, I don't for a moment doubt
that your immediate thoughts with respect to that verse is,
when the Lord Jesus Christ appears at the end of time, we will appear
with him in glory. And that's absolutely right,
we will. But right now I want to look at that verse in another
way. And I think that this is absolutely wonderful. I think
that this is a joy to contemplate. Our first thought likely is that
Christ will appear at the last day at the end of the world and
we shall appear with him in glory. But the truth is we don't have
to wait until then. We don't have to wait until then. And why should we wait until
then? Because when Christ shall appear, he appears to his people
every time we look to him in faith. Every time we set our
view upon Him, He becomes the believer's comfort. Every time
we see Him with the eye of faith, He appears to us as our Great
High Priest. He appears to us as our Blessed
Redeemer. He appears to us as our Mighty
Saviour. He appears to us as our All-Sufficiency,
our Jehovah Jireh. He appears to us as the God that
he is, and he appears to us as our precious bridegroom. And as we contemplate the revelation
of God the Holy Spirit to us in Scripture, in all of the names
that the Lord Jesus Christ takes as the way and the truth and
the life and the vine and the door, And as we think of him
as the resurrection and the life, all of these things that the
Lord Jesus Christ has declared of himself and had revealed of
himself throughout the whole of scripture, they come together
for us in a glorious, glorious person who is Jesus Christ whom
we look to and see by faith. And every time we see Him, every
time He appears to us through one of these names, through one
of these insights, through one of these revelations, then what
is that but that we appear with Him? in glory. So when he is
called the door, we see him as the door through whom we enter.
When he is the way, he is the way upon which we walk. When
he is the resurrection and the life, we see him as being united
to him and raised together with him into new life. as he is seen
as the bread of life, so we feed upon him. And every time we see
some aspect of his glory, he has appeared to us and we, of
necessity, having been joined together with him, appear with
him in that glory. That's not something we have
to wait for. That's the consequence, that's
the outcome of seeking those things which are above and setting
our affections and our minds and our view and our vision upon
them and upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We see him by faith and
then by faith we see ourselves in union with him and we see
our own appearance with him. Like looking in a mirror. How do you look? How do you look
when you see yourself in Christ? All glorious, all holy, all pure
in the Son of God. Do you see what Paul's doing
here? He is equipping us. He is giving us the ammunition.
to enter by faith into all the glory of our inheritance and
our privilege and our possession in the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is showing us where our strength is to be found, where our resources
come from, not within ourselves, but in looking by faith to Him,
spiritually discerning. These heavenly things, these
glorious things, which are around us, who have the eye of faith
to behold the glories of Christ. Paul says to the Philippians,
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any
virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. Now we
can think on them as means of the graces of God towards us,
that God has opened to us the truth which is in Christ and
shown us the beauty and the benefit of honesty and integrity and
that we've seen something of the justice of God and the purity
of his ways and the loveliness of the person of Christ and called
to hear that. good report of Him who has done
all things well and the virtue of our Saviour. And all of these
things are true. But let us trace these great
blessings back to their source. And when we think of what is
true, let us think of Christ the truth. And when we think
of what is honest and pure and lovely, let it be Christ that
we see. not the evidence of these things
in our own life in the first instance. but the source of them
as being Jesus Christ himself, that one who is of good report
from eternity, that one who was set up as the dearly beloved
of his Son in whom he is well pleased. Have you got a better
report card than that? This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. Is there anyone who is more virtuous
than the Lord Jesus Christ in whom there was no sin? Who was
that Lamb of God without spawn and blemish? Who is the Holy
Child? And if there be any praise, O
the praise of the Lord Jesus Christ, think on these things,
tracing them back to the Saviour. Think on Christ. And when you
think on Christ, He will appear to us in those glorious robes
of revelation which He has taken and laid upon His shoulders that
He might be revealed to us in His humanity. And when He appears
to us, We shall also appear with him
in glory, for we will see that we are a partaker of all of these
graces, all of this goodness in him. When he shall appear
to the eye of faith, we shall appear in truth, with honesty,
justified, pure. virtuous, praiseworthy, and full
of good report. And God will look upon us as
he looks upon his dearly beloved son and he will declare, this
is my beloved son and these is my beloved son's wife in whom
I am well pleased. These are the graces and the
blessings of the new man. And these are the graces and
the blessings which are on view in us. Now, I want to take a
few verses from verse 5 down through to verse 11, and this
is the second part, as it were, because the Apostle Paul has
established this principle that we have been discussing and thinking
about in the opening verses here, and then he makes an application,
and this is the short part of our message tonight. Much shorter,
much shorter, so don't worry. passage has to be seen in light
of what he has just said. Because this is the strength
of the new man. What we have just said, if ye
then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth in the right hand of God, and you being united
with him, have got all of these blessings yourself. If you see
yourself head with Him, if you see yourself with that glory
that He has given to us, then that is the strength of the new
man. We are not inherently strong
in any way. And when we have to contend with
the world and the flesh and the devil, we will soon succumb to
that. But there is an equipment, there
is an armour that is given to the child of God that strengthens
that steals, that gives a boldness to the men and women of faith,
who having faith in Christ and looking with the eye of faith
to Christ, seeing Him in all His glory, understanding our
union with Him and our death and our burial and our resurrection
and our ascension and our session together with Him in glory, see
themselves in Him and know whence their strength may be derived. Our war with the old man is not
to be fought in battling him on his terms, or indeed with
the fleshy weapons of legal observations and dos and don'ts, but rather
by faith. We are to fight this war with
the world, the flesh, and the devil, with the old man, by faith. not by some rule of life which
is the old law of the old dispensation that only ever had the job of
exposing our sinfulness and never could make us righteous. We are
made righteous. This is our state. And this,
and looking to this, is where we derive our strength to fight
the battle. That's the mistake of the legalist.
Now, sometimes when we talk about that and we think about that,
we think about the Roman Catholic monk who's in his little cell
and he's beating himself up and he's flagellating himself with,
I don't know, some sort of whip or some sort of, and he's trying
in some way to become holier and purer. Well, that's one,
perception or image that we might have in our heads. But really,
that's what the religious world is doing all the time. And maybe
they don't use a whip made out of a branch of a tree to beat
themselves up. But that's all they're doing
when they impose the law on themselves and on one another. And that's
what Paul is warning the Colossians and warning us against. Any Protestant
church Any denomination, whether it's Methodist or Episcopalian
or Presbyterian or Lutheran or Baptist or whatever it might
be, any Christian church, Protestant church, that brings believers
back to the law for their sanctification and for their holiness are doing
exactly what you might be thinking about with that monk in his cell. The law never makes holy, never
could, never will. Christ makes us holy and we receive
the benefits and blessings of that holiness by faith in Him,
by seeing Him and what He has done through the revelation of
Scripture. God imputes righteousness to his people and he imparts
righteousness to his people. He imputes it to us in our justification
in Christ, predicated upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ
and his death on our behalf. And the goodness and the grace
of God that he gives us freely as a result of that death. And
he imparts it to us in the new birth, in the new creation, in
the new man. And we win the battle of mortification. That's what we're going to talk
about. Verse 5. That concupiscence just means the beginning of lust. the early things, the temptations,
the first spark of passion that drives us to lust after the temptations
of this world. That's concupiscence. And covetousness,
which is idolatry. And he goes on to talk about
anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communications out of
your mouth, lying one to another. These are the things that have
to be mortified. How are they to be mortified?
If somebody points you back to the law in order to mortify these
things, if someone points you to doing certain things, to not
going certain places, to not touching certain things, they've
failed to grasp the reality of where our strength for sanctification
comes from. It's in Christ by faith and looking
to all that he has accomplished. We will win the battle of mortification
by faith, through the Spirit, through the Holy Spirit who dwells
in us. And Paul's purpose here is to
warn the Colossians off of the legalists. Their thrust is to
impose the law in order to suppress wickedness, but it doesn't work.
Romans 7 verse 8, the apostle gives us his own experience.
He says, There's that word again, starting to trigger off the lusts
of the flesh. For without the law, sin was
dead. For I was alive without the law
once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. When I had a clear view of Christ
and all that he had accomplished, the law had nothing to say to
me. But when I went back under that law and imagined that I
could do for myself, then sin revived and I died. That's the apostle's testimony
there. Now look, if this didn't work
for Paul and it's not going to work for the Colossians, it won't
work for you and it won't work for me. And Paul enumerates this
long list of fleshy sins that flow from the passions of the
natural man. We've just read verses 5 to 9
together. How are we to mortify those fleshy
earthly passions, these selfish desires and these lusts? by looking
to Christ in faith. And that's what I want to leave
with you tonight. We are to look to Christ in faith. We are to remember who we are
in Christ and what we are in Christ. We are to concentrate,
we are to seek out those things which are above, those heavenly
things, those things of Christ's accomplishment. That's what we
have to think on, that's what we are to look to with the eye
of faith and that is how we will overcome these fleshy earthly
passions. By listening and hearing the
work of Christ. by hearing the voice of the Spirit
of God, by viewing our union together in the death, burial,
resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of
God, of our own soul in the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 8.13 says,
if ye live after the flesh ye shall die, but if ye through
the Spirit that is by faith mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall
live. Now believers can certainly sin
and we do and we succumb to temptation and we indulge in lust, the lusts
of the flesh. But what have we discovered since
we've become a Christian? We have discovered that that
sinfulness, that succumbing to temptation and indulging of the
passions of the flesh conflicts us. We're not at peace. We're not
at ease. It shames our conscience. It disgraces our testimony. And we feel the guilt and we
feel the weight of that. and maybe we're going to resolve
to make some changes and we're going to do something different. We're called to look to Christ.
We know when we have sinned, and if we don't know in the moment,
then we certainly shall know in the cold light of day, which
is the aftermath. We know when we have sinned. If we are the Lord's, then the
awfulness of our sin weighs heavily upon our heart and upon our conscience. And what happens is that we learn
this lesson. We learn that having sinned,
we have sinned principally against Christ himself. who died and
carried that sin in his body. We learn when we have committed
a sin that the Lord Jesus Christ died for that sin. The Lord Jesus
Christ suffered for that sin. The Lord Jesus Christ's blood
was shed for that sin. The Lord Jesus Christ received
the anger of God for that sin. The Lord Jesus Christ was tormented
in his soul for that sin. And we see something of the awfulness
of that sin and of the willfulness that could commit that sin when
we knew better and yet we did it anyway. The Lord Jesus Christ
has suffered for our sins and he has felt the wrath of God
for them. Child of God, you are more sensitive
to sin because the punishment of that sin, the blow for that
sin, was struck against your Saviour. Do you remember Psalm
51? We read it last Sunday. Verse
4, David had seduced Bathsheba and he had murdered Uriah her
husband. And without doubt, I reread that
passage again today. Without doubt, it makes me wince when I read of
what David did both to Bathsheba and to Uriah the Hittite. How
devious he was, how underhand, how manipulative to that man
who was faithful to a fault for David and for his reign and for
his throne and for his country. and David dealt with him in such
a horrible, terrible way. And yet, do you know what David
said? David said, for all he had sinned against Bathsheba
and all he had sinned against Uriah, he said, against thee,
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. You know
why he was able to say that? Because he knew as a child of
God, that his sin had been directed principally at Christ, and that's
what made him so lament in that situation. This is the battle
of flesh and spirit. This is the old man and the new
man, the fallen nature and the hidden man of the heart. coming
together in this battle and if we do something and it doesn't
matter what it is and it doesn't matter against whom it is, the
child of God knows that ultimately that sin wasn't Whatever it was,
and the long list is there in chapter 3, whatever it was, wasn't
just against somebody. It was against Christ himself.
It was against our blessed Saviour. And when we look in faith to
what he has done for him, it causes us to regret that sin
in a deeper and more profound way than we ever could or would
had we not that glimpse of our saviour by faith. That is what
it is to fight the battle of the flesh and the spirit, the
old and the new man. We do not live like the men of
this world. like the old man unrenewed. He, that old man, he sits no
more upon the throne. His lusts and his passions no
longer rule us. Look at verse nine. Lie not one
to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his
deeds. You have put him off. He's off
the throne. and have put on the new man. You're not being told to do this. Paul's not saying put off the
old man and put on the new man. He's saying you already have. And that new man is renewed in
knowledge after the image of Christ. When we sin in this world,
when we sin in the old man, the new man feels the sting of that. The new man feels the shame of
that more cleanly. And it drives us back to Christ
and it drives us back to his blood. And here we summarise
now. Look at verse 10. This new man,
we're told, is renewed in knowledge. That is the spiritual knowledge
and faith that we have in Christ after the image of him that created
him. This is the knowledge that we
have. The knowledge is the image of Christ or the characteristics
of Christ, the nature and the accomplishments and the glory
and the words and the miracles and all of the things that Christ
has done. And we're renewed in our knowledge,
we understand the significance of these things. Romans chapter
8. In verse 29, the apostle writes,
for whom he did for know, he also did predestinate, listen,
to be conformed to the image of his son. And that's what we
are, conformed to the image of Christ. We are conformed. And
so the apostle goes on to say in chapter 12 verse 2, Be not
conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing
of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God. In Christ, The Jew or the religionist
with his works of law has nothing to say to the child of God if
we are in Christ. Our struggle with the old man
is a battle of faith. It is waged at a spiritual level
and it is won, this battle is won by returning time after time
to the blood of Christ, to the love of God, and to the fellowship
of the Holy Spirit. And that is why I will always
point you to Christ. Never turn you again to the law,
never turn you again to your own works, never turn you again
to battle in your own strength, but always say to you, for all
of these things, For all of this strife and conflict and pressure
and anxiety that we feel in our breast with respect to our life
in this world and our life in this flesh, look to Christ because
that's where your strength and your consolation will be found. The Apostle says to the Colossians
here, Christ is all. It must be all about Christ. It is all about Christ. Christ
is all and in all. He is in all of his people. Christ
is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the Alpha
and Omega. He is all that we need, and he
is the supply of all that we need, and he is sufficient for
all we ever will need. We began our service this evening
by thinking about that prophecy in Zechariah, where the Lord
Jesus Christ said, In that new covenant day, in that New Testament
day, in that day of the gospel dawn and light, I will dwell
in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts
has sent me unto thee. That's how we started. And we're
going to end with the song of Zacharias, father of John the
Baptist. So not Zachariah or Zechariah,
that was the prophet. This is Zacharias. And he said
in Luke chapter 1 verse 72 following, he says, Christ is come. As Zechariah
had prophesied he would, now we see the fulfilment in the
song of Zechariah's. Christ has come to perform the
mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath which he swore to our father Abraham. that he would
grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of
our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and
righteousness before him all the days of our life. What a
beautiful promise that is. This is how we serve our God.
We serve him Right now, all the days of our life, in holiness
and righteousness before Him. All the days of our life, without
fear, because we look to our Saviour. We see Him in His loveliness. We know by the promise of God
that we are joined together with Him. and in that state we have
all the blessings that we ever can need. Well, might Zechariah
say, rejoice and sing unto the Lord. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us and encourage our hearts upon them and may
we be blessed to follow through on the Apostles' direction and
look always to the Lord Jesus Christ by whom we mortify this
old man and the sins of the flesh. Amen.