Seeking Things above

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Well, I learned something about a month ago during the ice and snow that we had. I learned that stop signs just don’t mean that much in the mountains when it’s icy. And some of you have heard this story, but I came up here on Wednesday.

We closed the office either that whole week or most of that week because I didn’t want the ladies to have to get out, and most of y’all weren’t even thinking about needing us anyway. We were all just trying to keep warm. So we closed the office, but I thought, I ought to come up here and check and make sure pipes haven’t frozen.

We don’t have leaks anywhere. So I got out on Wednesday and drove up here, and I told Jarla, I’m going to be careful. Don’t worry about me.

I’m used to driving on this. Not a big deal. Yeah, I’m not used to driving on it in the mountains. And so we came out of our neighborhood trying to get on the highway 49 and you go uphill.

Well, I stopped at the stop sign, as you’re supposed to do, and then couldn’t get back going up the hill. I learned after that, just don’t stop. Just keep watching and time it.

If any police are watching, that’s purely hypothetical. But I only ever do that during the ice. But I learned on this particular day, you stop at the stop sign, you’re never going to get going back up that hill again. And my thought was, well, okay, I’ll back up and try to get a running start going up the hill.

But about that time, as luck would have it, there comes a vehicle and I can tell they’re wanting to turn and I’m kind of in the middle of the road. Okay, I need to give them a wide berth, so I start trying to turn ever so slowly and try to angle ever so slowly as I’m backing up to get a running start up this hill. As I’m trying to angle back to the right, though for some reason, Charles’ big vehicle I was in wanted to go to the left.

And I’m trying to correct and I’m still just careening this way. And finally, I ended up someplace I’ve never been in all the times that I’ve driven in ice and snow. I ended up in a ditch in the side of the road backwards on the wrong side of the road.

And my first thought was, okay, I could walk home about a mile and it’s freezing cold. And then I thought, why? I’ve got a full tank of gas, the heat’s on, I’ve got a cup of coffee, I’ve got snacks with me, talk radio, nobody’s screaming.

I’m just going to sit here and wait and see if somebody comes along. And it wasn’t too long. I had been on the phone with Max right before that, and he had told me he was in the area.

I said, I’ll text Max and tell him I’m in the ditch. Before I could get the text sent to Max, some guys came by with a strap and pulled me out. But I thought, I’m okay right here.

Why am I anxious to get back home? Charlie, you’d have done the same thing. Why am I anxious to get back home?

I’ll just stay right here. But it was very, very, very easy to end up in the ditch when you’re on the hill. Never had happened to me before, but it’s incredibly easy.

And we got out the next day. It was a little better on the roads. And I showed the kids, look, that’s where daddy ended up in the ditch because you can still see the ruts where I’ve been up to the running boards.

It is so easy in those slippery conditions to end up in the ditch on either side of the road. And the Christian life is a little bit like that. We’re trying to get down a road that if we’re not careful, we can end up in the ditch on either side.

Where I’m going with this is we’ve been looking on Sunday nights at the book of Colossians, and we’ve been comparing some things that Paul talks about that the Colossian believers needed to know about. And when we were last together on Sunday night, I kind of discussed with you legalism. I don’t remember if I used the term legalism or not, but we talked about the rules.

We talked about this idea that we get in our minds, and I think is just natural to us, that if I just follow the rules, if I just check all the religious boxes, do all the things that I’m supposed to do, and I show that I’m a good moral person, then that’s what God expects from me, and that’s really all I’ve got to do, is follow the rules. As a matter of fact, sometimes we take that even to a further extreme, and say that’s how I’m going to get God to accept me, is if I could just do enough good things, if I could just follow the rules, then God will accept me. We either think He’s going to be more pleased with us because we follow the rules, or we think He’s going to accept us at all.

Some people are trusting in that for salvation. It’s easy to get off into the ditch on that side. But as I was reading the passage that we’re going to look at tonight, I noticed that it is a mirror opposite of the one we just talked about.

Because where Paul was concerned about people who were wrapped up in the rules for their relationship with God, There was on the other side a group of people who were wrapped up in, because of their relationship with God, they could do whatever. And so I’ve heard this described as legalism or licentiousness. Legalism or license.

You know, license to do whatever you want. We know what a license is. You’ve got a driver’s license, you can drive a car.

You’ve got a concealed carry license, you can concealed carry. Hunting, fishing license, you can go do those things. A lot of times we’ll take grace.

Some people will take grace as a license to sin. Because I have this grace, because I have this relationship with God, this forgiveness of sins, I can go out and do whatever I want. And the truth is that we as Christians are supposed to walk in grace.

We’re supposed to head down this road of grace, down this middle way, and the ditches on either side are the legalism or the license, and it’s very, very easy to fall off into either one. And so he warned against both of them. Tonight, we’re going to look at the dangers of falling into this sort of self-indulgent license where we think because of the relationship with God, we can live however we want.

And he talks about it in Colossians chapter 3. If you’ve already turned there with me, if you’d stand. If not, if you’ll turn there.

Colossians chapter 3. We’re going to start in verse 1 and look through verse 11 tonight. It says, As if then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth, on the earth.

For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth.

Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.

But now you yourselves are to put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, nor free, but Christ is all and in all. and you may be seated.

The point that Paul is trying to make throughout this passage, and as a matter of fact throughout the passages that we’ve already studied in Colossians, the point he’s trying to drive home to these people is that Christ is superior to everything else. You go back to the opening verses of Colossians, you read through Colossians chapter 1 and he talks about the role of Jesus as creator, he talks about him as the sustainer, he talks about him as the image of the invisible God. The point of Colossians is the superiority of Jesus to everything else.

And he brings that here in the beginning of chapter 3 to drive home the point that Jesus Christ is superior to our old way of living. Each of us was saved out of an old way of living. I don’t care how early you were saved.

I don’t care how sheltered or unsheltered a life you lived before Christ. You were saved out of something. And some of you have told stories about the lives you lived before Jesus Christ. And you are not unclear on this, what you were saved out of. Because you know, you can see the difference of where you were and who Christ has made you.

You know there’s a difference. For those of us who were saved at an early age, raised in Christian homes, it’s a little harder because you tell people, well, I realized at five years old I was a sinner and I trusted Christ. And the natural reaction from people is, what kind of sin did you commit at five years old? Well, it doesn’t matter.

Sin is sin. at least in terms of what it takes to condemn us before a holy God. One sin is enough.

If I sinned one time and never followed that up throughout the rest of my life, first of all, that would be incredible and impossible. But even that would be enough to condemn me before a holy God because his standard is absolute perfection. But at five years old, I realized that even if it was something that the world would look at and say is very minor, like I have disobeyed my parents, like I had an attitude when they told me to clean my room.

Maybe I had told a lie. Maybe I had taken my friend’s pencil in kindergarten when they weren’t looking. Something minor, it was still sin and it was still evidence of that natural person inside of us that lives to be at odds with God and lives to rebel against Him.

And so Paul is making the case that we have all been saved out of this old way of living. that we’ve been plucked out of it. Maybe you’re like me and you didn’t stay there long enough to let it really bloom, but we were all saved out of this fleshly way of living.

And Jesus Christ is superior to that old way. And He’s writing this to people who might have been tempted to go back and kind of flirt with that old way of living. And if we’re honest, sometimes that’s a temptation for us as well.

That wasn’t just a 2,000 years ago thing. That’s true for us sometimes as well. We you know gee I might miss x y or z and it may not even be all of it you know maybe you don’t miss chasing the girls but you might miss a drink here and there I mean it’s it’s different for everybody but there’s a temptation and that’s what he’s addressing there’s a temptation to go back sometimes and and and dabble in the old way of living and he’s making the case that Jesus Christ is superior to anything else that we could ever want any any way that we’ve ever lived and he he tells us that that old pagan lifestyle is so spiritually dangerous that Jesus Christ calls us to put to death every trace of the old life that we find in our lives.

He says in verse, I’ll get there in just a second, in verse 5 he lists some of the examples of what this looks like. Some of these traces of the old way of living that we might see in ourselves. Talks about fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Now, some of these, you may look at and say, well, those are bigger than some of the others. Fornication, bigger than, say, for example, evil desire. Because we would draw a distinction between those and say, well, in one, you did something, in one, you just wanted to do something.

But it’s all rebellion against God. And he says, when you find it, when you find that tendency, when you find that desire, you’ve got to get rid of it in verse 5. He says that these things characterize what our hearts look like without Christ. You look at verse 7 and he talks about these things.

He says, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. He said, this is what you were. It’s not who you are now.

It’s not who you’re supposed to be now. It’s who you were before Jesus Christ. And so those things aren’t supposed to be there anymore. We’re not supposed to, not that we will never struggle with them, but we’re not supposed to play footsie with them and act like it’s okay because we’ve got grace.

He says these things are so dangerous because look at verse 6. because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. He says, all of these sinful ways of living, all these sinful attitudes and all these sinful habits, all these things that characterize who we once were, these incur the judgment of God.

Now, it doesn’t mean that you as a believer, God is going to cast you into hell because you slipped up and sinned again. But God does judge these things. And the point is that if God is going to bring his wrath down on the sons of disobedience, if he is going to judge the world outside of Christ for these things, what makes us think that he’s going to just let it go if his children are engaging in them?

It won’t be the same kind of punishment. It won’t be the same kind of consequence, but there is a consequence. You know, if I catch one of my children in my bedroom, say I hid money in there, I don’t carry cash, but say I hid some cash in my room and I found one of my children in there rifling through my drawer.

My reaction is going to be a little different than if I just find a stranger in there rifling through that drawer, right? We’re going to react differently, but there’s still going to be a consequence to my child. And Paul’s saying, if these things are serious enough that God is going to send his wrath on the children of disobedience for them, what makes us think that they’re okay for us?

They’re not. And so he tells us what we’re supposed to do here. In verse 5, he says, therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth.

That’s not talking about an extreme form of church discipline either, okay? Just to be clear. Not saying like the church members put to death when that’s not what he’s talking about.

He’s talking about these things that made up who you used to be. A lot of times the word member in Scripture is used to indicate body parts, okay? The components of who you used to be, things that there might still be traces of there.

He says, put those things to death. You and I need to be in constant communication with God. We need to be praying like David.

Show me if there’s any wicked way in me. Father, reveal to me any place where I fall short. Reveal to me any place where this sin is taking up residence and it doesn’t belong there.

Show me any place that I’m not consistent with your will and with your word. And then our job when he reveals it to us is to do everything we can to put that sin to death in our lives. Now, ultimately, we cannot do that on our own.

Ultimately, we cannot do that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in us. He is the one that has to uproot it, but we should be in there cooperating instead of treating it as our pet sin. He tells us to take those things and put them to death.

When we see evidence of fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry, you may say, I don’t struggle with any of those. Folks, that’s not the whole list. that is a representative example of the kinds of things he’s talking about. He says, by the way, these things are idolatry.

And I’d submit to you, I think all sin is idolatry. Because ultimately, anytime we are sinning, we are putting something ahead of God and His will. We are choosing something.

It may just be our own desires, but we are choosing something over God. We are worshiping something ahead of God, and that is idolatry. And so if we see any trace of who we used to be, He says, put it to death.

And you may be sitting there tonight saying, well, that’s unrealistic. You’re asking me to be perfect. I’m not asking you to do anything.

I’m telling you what God’s word says. And God does say the standard is perfection. And I’m not telling you anything that’s not true for me as well.

I’m not telling you anything that I’m not expected to do as well. And I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying this is the road that we are on.

And folks, God does understand we are not perfect and cannot be perfect on this side of eternity. But at the same time, this is the goal. That when we find these things, when sin rears its ugly head, we do have a choice. Are we going to treat it as a pet?

Are we going to make room for it? Or are we going to put it to death? You know, we had trouble a couple of years ago with fleas.

And I hate even saying that because they’re just gross. It was right before Carly Joe came along. We’d been battling them for quite some time.

I’d forgotten about this until Charla and I were talking about it the other day. We were battling them for quite some time. We lived in between people who didn’t take care of their animals.

And so Charles’ dog, Theo, got fleas. I said it was from running around with his hood rat friends. He should have kept better company.

But he had fleas and he brought them into the house. And we kept trying to do all sorts of things. I had bought foggers.

They didn’t work. I put diatomaceous earth all over the house. That helped a lot, but it was murder on the HVAC system.

we were trying all sorts of things and and charlis said you’ve got to get these fleas taken care of because I’m not bringing that baby into the house with fleas okay I don’t like the fleas either but we we had a choice to make we could either wall off part of the house and let the fleas have their side and us have our side that wasn’t going to work or we could kill the fleas there’s no way to confine the fleas to one room of the house they were just going to go where they wanted to go We had to kill the fleas. Sin is like that. We can’t just play with it over here and say, I’m going to try to restrict you to just this part of my life.

It will take over. Instead, we have to kill it wherever we find it. And I realize that sounds a little militant, but I’m using the example that Paul gave us.

Put it to death because it’s so dangerous. It’s so dangerous. The old way of living is so dangerous to our spiritual health.

And so Jesus calls us to walk as though He’s thoroughly changed us. I don’t say that in the sense of pretending. Like when I tell my children, we go out in public, okay, let’s act like we have manners.

He’s not calling us to pretend. He has thoroughly changed us. And now He tells us to act like it.

To walk that way. And it’s going to begin with dealing with the more outward expressions of sinfulness. Some of the things He lists in verse 5, some of those are things that show up very clearly on the outside.

but then Jesus calls us to change even in our words and our attitudes. Those are harder to change, aren’t they? You come to Christ, it’s easier.

It is easier to give up things like being drunk every night. It is easier to give up things like being on drugs. It is easier to give up things like sleeping around than it is to control the tongue.

And that’s not my opinion. The book of James even says that. Who can control the tongue?

I am convinced it is far easier to change our outward sins and our outward behaviors than it is to deal with the condition on the inside. As a matter of fact, the Pharisees were really good at controlling the outward behavior, not controlling the inward behavior. And Jesus said, you’ve got to do better than that.

If your righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. And in verses 8 and 9, he talks about some of these things that he says to put away from us deal with internal matters. They deal with our words.

They deal with our attitudes. He said, You put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Words, attitudes, don’t lie to one another.

Words, attitudes. And these sometimes are not outward expressions. These are things that take place in the heart.

More than once, I have come home and told Charla about something that’s happened and said, I’m just furious. And I’ve said it just like that. I have never been so angry.

Christy laughs because she’s seen me in the office. That’s pretty much me. and be seething, and you may not know.

Because we can hide these attitudes. We may not be able to hide the fornication and the idolatry and all that, but we can hide the anger, the wrath, the malice. We can hide those things that lurk in our hearts.

Those attitudes are more difficult to change. The words that come out of our mouths are more difficult to change. But He doesn’t stop with just the outward behaviors.

He says we’ve got to put off the old ways of thinking, the old attitudes. Those things need to change because Jesus hasn’t just changed us on the outside. He’s changed us on the inside as well.

And now that doesn’t mean that you’re going to immediately become super calm and super laid back. If you’re saying, well, before Christ, I had a problem with my temper and I still get angry sometimes. You’re going to.

But as He has changed us, that ought to change as well. Maybe He changed it for you overnight. Maybe He changed it for you immediately.

It took me 20 years to calm down. And still, I get angry. And I get angry sometimes at things I shouldn’t.

But it’s even taken me 20 years to get to a point where I don’t necessarily blow up and show it. But these are things that He continues to work on us, and these are things that should change in us. We should become more loving and more forgiving and more like Christ. Not just in our outward behavior, but in our internal attitudes as well.

He’s changed us. He’s thoroughly changed us from the inside out, and we ought to walk like it. But folks, the only reason this is possible is because we are new creations in Christ. I don’t want you to get off on the other side of the ditch again into the rules and say, well, if I just clean up this attitude and I just watch my language here, then I’m good.

No, no, it starts with that relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the one doing it. He is the one making the change. It’s just our job not to purposely go the other way of the change He’s making.

These things are possible because we’re new creations in Christ. He has to do it. He can change us, and He does change us, no matter where we’ve come from. Just look at verse 11.

It says that in Christ, there’s neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. It’s talking about all these people from different backgrounds. Jews or Greeks.

Greek is often used as a synonym for any non-Jewish person. It can be used as a synonym for Gentile. So whether you’re Jewish or not, circumcised or uncircumcised, whether you followed the Old Testament law or not, whether you’re right according to the law of Moses or you’re not.

Barbarians. He can save barbarians. He can save the people that don’t act right, that don’t talk right, that don’t smell right.

He can save them. Scythians. He’s naming people from specific countries, specific areas.

Slave or free. Regardless of their background, their parentage, their lineage, their finances, any of it, whether they’re slave or free. As he lists all these people off, he is providing the entire spectrum of the ancient world at that time and saying you were all these things.

You were sinners, but it doesn’t matter what background you’ve come from. Christ is all and in all. And this is important because sometimes we will hear this.

Sometimes I have heard this. In ministry, people have occasionally liked to use my past against me. And what I mean by that is they say, well, you’ve been raised in church.

You’ve lived a godly life. You had Christian parents. What do you know about what I’m going through?

Okay, fair point. But it doesn’t matter where you’ve come from or how much you’ve sinned. God can still save you the same way He saved me.

And maybe the fact that I seem to have had a leg up in that with my upbringing is because of the fact that God gave me that extra grace because maybe He knew I needed it because I was weaker. It’s possible. But it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter whether you grew up in church or not. We all need Jesus. It doesn’t matter whether you came from the right side of the tracks or not.

It doesn’t matter whether you had the right role models or not. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve lived a righteous life up to this point, as far as mankind would look at it and call it. Jesus Christ is in the business of saving all kinds of people.

And when He saves all kinds of people, He can transform all kinds of people. No matter where you’ve come from, no matter where you’ve been, He can save and transform all kinds of people to make us more like Him. Greek and Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, rich, poor, black, white, Republican, Democrat, gay, straight, native, immigrant.

It doesn’t matter. He can save people from any kind of background. And He can make them more like Him.

And He does this by renewing our mind, by changing the way our mind works, by changing our way of thinking, by opening our minds to those spiritual things so that we can become more like Him. He says in verse 10, we’ve put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created Him. We’re not talking a brainwashing situation.

But the Bible says that the natural man is blinded by the God of this world. That before we come to Christ, like Satan has put blinders on us where there are things that we cannot understand, the things of God, Jesus Christ rips those blinders off and renews our minds so suddenly we can understand the things of God. He renews our minds and makes us able to be more like Him.

Makes us able to be more like Him. And He takes up residence inside of us. Why He ends this passage by saying Christ is all and in all.

Talking to this group of believers and says, Christ is everything to you and He’s in every one of you. And folks, tonight, if you are a believer, if you are a believer, He has taken up residence inside of you. He has saved you.

He has transformed you and He is in the process of renewing you to be ever more like Him until you go to be with Him. So we want to avoid getting off in the ditch either direction of saying, my relationship with God is just based on the rules and if I do these things, I’ll be good enough for God. We can never be good enough for God through the rules.

We don’t want to get off on the other side either and say, well, because God is loving and accepting, I can just live however I want. No, His Word says these things are deadly to us. He expects us to be changed.

He expects us to walk like we’re changed. Even though we will fall short, He forgives us. And He cleans us off.

He sends us back on that straight road. So tonight I want to leave you with these thoughts from verses 1 and 2, where He tells us what to do. Sometimes a passage will give a long explanation and then at the end tell you, now here’s what you do with it.

Other times it’ll start off with, here’s what you do with it, and give you an explanation for why. This is one of those that starts off with, here’s what you do, verses 1 and 2. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on things above, not on the things of this earth. So He calls us to focus on higher things. Not just the things that seem good to us right now, the things that seem appealing to us in the moment.

But He calls us to seek after His righteousness. Now, we’re dependent on Him. We’re dependent on Him for our righteousness.

We’re dependent on Him for the change. We’re dependent on Him for the power to walk in a way that’s pleasing to God, but at the same time, we are called to seek those things. We’re called to pursue those things.

Put our minds on those things. Because ultimately, your life, your joy, your hope, all the good things that you’re looking for, they are found in Jesus Christ rather than the things in this world. And when we start to think, I’ll just go back and play footsie with this old sin, with this old way of living, that’s a lie from Satan.

A lie from Satan. We try to convince you to go back to the old way when He knows full well that Jesus Christ and what He offers you is far superior to anything that He has to offer.

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