Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

This is not the normal way that I would usually start a sermon but I was scrolling through Twitter the other night and I came upon this insightful tweet which has great bearing on our message this morning.

The tweet reads like this “You know what I love about verse-by-verse teaching?

You can’t hide from what’s in the next passage.”

And really that is something I would prefer to do this morning - honestly we did discuss somewhat light heartedly last Sunday afternoon not skipping this passage but possibly putting it off for a week or not having this Sunday be family Sunday because what we are going to talk about today could be uncomfortable for some of the ears listening.

But as I prayed and studied this week in preparation for this morning I was comforted by the fact that God knew this was the passage that was going to come up this morning and He knew that in our particular context that it would be a family worship day and so we cannot and will not avoid these topics but we will deal with them with a sensitivity and an understanding that these are topics that are facing us but that are also greatly impacting our children in the world that we live in and we can’t shy away from them simply because it might be uncomfortable for us.

So with that brief introduction in mind turn with me to Colossians 3 and we will be looking at verses 5-11 this morning.

Now just to recapture your thoughts briefly into Colossians, Paul has been writing to this church at the behest of Epaphras because the church is being taught false doctrines.

And so Paul has systematically been dismantling the doctrinal errors of the teachers as he first confirmed for the Colossians Who Christ is in chapter one of our Bibles.

Then he spent much of chapter 2 telling us what Christ has done for us culminating in the passage we looked at a few weeks ago in the first 4 verses of chapter 3.

And now Paul is coming to the portion of the epistle that, when I was in the Navy, we would have referred to as the WIIFM - What’s In It For Me. How does this impact me?

It’s great knowing who Christ is and what He has done - it’s even great for us to know this today.

But there has to be a response to it.

In his epistle to the church James would say it this way - you say you believe in Christ?

That’s great - even the demons believe and know who He is but the difference is what are you going to do with that?

Of course that is my paraphrase and you know why I stick so closely to the text.

Paul is now going to turn his epistle to the WIIFM passages - the practical living and the impact of Christ on our lives.

He’s going to give us a picture of two distinct natures.

This week we’re going to see the nature that is opposed to everything that Christ taught and next week we’ll see what the Christian life should look like.

This week though Paul is going to expose us to three dangers - two are explicit in the text and the last is really implicit more because of the world’s reaction to the change that takes place in a Christian.

We’re going to see dangerous ideas, dangerous attitudes and then we’re going to see the dangerous remedy proposed by Christianity.

In the end what we’re going to discover is this - When Christ is all and in all, it doesn’t matter what direction you look - from actions to desires or desires to actions, it will all scream Christ.

Dangerous Ideas

Colossians 3:5-7; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 2 Peter 2:22; Philippians 2:12-13; Colossians 1:29

There is much in the Bible that is offensive to the world and Paul makes two statements in this text that serve as bookends for this first idea of dangerous desires that spoken outside of the walls of this building would immediately draw the ire of the world this morning.

If I were to directly quote these on either Facebook or Twitter I would be inundated by virulent responses intimating that I was a hater or intolerant or some sort of bigot.

Paul first says that we are to put to death what belongs to your earthly nature and then later in the passage he says “and you once walked in these things when you were living in them.”

The world, and some sectors of the church, is very convinced that this is not possible.

That we are born a certain way and that we cannot change the way we were born and so we should instead learn to live just the way that we are and be happy to be created in that way.

The eminent theologian Lady Gaga recorded a song that supports this notion called “Born This Way”.

And while that may seem tongue in cheek, the song is meant to send a theological message that is contrary to what Paul is telling us in this passage.

“No matter gay, straight, or bi Lesbian, transgendered life

I'm on the right track baby I was born to survive

No matter black, white or beige Chola or orient made

I'm on the right track baby I was born to be brave

I'm beautiful in my way 'Cause God makes no mistakes

I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way”

Don’t change.

Don’t worry.

Live your own life the way you want it - you were just born this way.

It’s funny as I was typing that last sentence my fingers moved a little quicker than they should have and what I initially typed was live your own lie - and that’s exactly what the world is encouraging us to do.

To embrace the lie that you were born this way and that you can’t change.

Paul here makes the case that you can in fact change and put to death that earthly nature which has alienated you from God.

In another passage that gets us in hot water with the world 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Paul writes it this way

He tells us in our passage this morning that we once walked in them when you were living in them.

We were like pigs living in our own mire - in our own slop.

In the book of 2 Peter, the Apostle writes about false teachers who having heard the truth of the Gospel return to their own false teaching and sinful lifestyles

But how is it that Paul can say that we once walked in these things?

His initial statement tells us that we are to put to death what belongs to your earthly nature but there is a paradox here.

This is an imperative, a command that seems to imply that we can put to death the sinful nature on our own.

The puritan John Owen summarizes the paradox inherent in this command neatly in two separate statements.

Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

but then he also said

There is no death of sin without the death of Christ.

So this is not an either or proposition but instead a both and reality .

That it falls to us to kill our earthly nature but that we accomplish this through Christ’s death and the strength supplied by the Holy Spirit working in the life of the believer.

To the church in Philippi Paul wrote

and earlier in our own epistle Paul wrote to the Colossians regarding his own work to prepare for preaching

We can overcome the earthly nature that separates us from God through His strength.

Contrary to what the world and again some in the church will tell us there is a sinful nature that must be slain and now Paul is going to delve into the depths of that nature to expose the problem.

Dangerous Attitudes

Colossians 3:8-9; 1 Corinthians 6:18; Matthew 5:27-28; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5; Philippians 4:7-8; Matthew 15:18-20; Psalm 37:8; Genesis 4:6-7; Philippians 2:4-5

To demonstrate this ideal that we should put to death our sinful nature Paul is going to provide two examples of actions the bely a sinful nature.

Look at these lists carefully with me for a moment before we dissect each one for a better view of it.

In the first list Paul starts with a resulting action - sexual immorality and then tracks back through the desirous attitudes that result in that action.

In the second he goes in the opposite direction - he starts with the underlying attitude in anger and works toward the actions of slander, filthy language and lying to one another.

A quick note here to say that we’ve often been admonished not to attempt to judge the motives or heart of another individual by their actions - that the way that they are acting doesn’t necessarily tell you what is in their heart.

What Paul is telling us here is that you certainly can judge a book by it’s cover - not in the eschatological or eternal sense because that is only God’s role to pronounce that judgement but in the local, more temporal sense we can certainly make a judgement of where a person might be based on their actions.

This doesn’t mean that anytime someone sins against us that we should write them off as being unsaved but instead that if a pattern emerges in someone’s life we may have cause for concern.

Paul starts off attributing sexual immorality to our earthly nature.

This is an exceptionally dangerous sin to the individual.

Commenting on this sin in his epistle to the Corinthians Paul would write

In his commentary on that verse Dr. John MacArthur says this “although sexual sin is not necessarily the worst sin, it is the most unique in its character.

It rises from within the body bent on personal gratification.

It drives like no other impulse and when fulfilled affects the body like no other sin.

It has a way of internally destroying a person that no other sin has.”

The Greek word here is porneia and it is where we get our modern word porn or pornography.

I’ve weighed long and hard how to navigate this today and I’ve come to the conclusion that head on is best but not in a salacious manner but instead with sensitivity to our current dynamic.

Focus on the Family reports that this scourge on our society is available to children as young as 8 (and likely even younger) - with a recent study published just this last week from the National Center for Sexual Exploitation saying that 64% of kids age 13-24 actively seek it out weekly.

30% of the information transferred on the internet is related to this issue with the leading site in 2018 alone logging more than 5 billion hours and more than 33 billion hits.

Charisma magazine reported in 2018 that 68% of men in the church and 50% of pastors report to viewing it.

All of that is to bring the issue to your attention and now that I have it let me make two comments.

To the kids - if someone shows you pictures or your come across a site on the internet that shows you parts of people’s bodies that you know should be kept private you need to not look and you need to let your parents know.

Parents - and really all adults here - if you fall into one of the usage categories you need to stop and you need to stop now.

This is not just a male problem - I just didn’t want to spend too much time on statistics because we still have a lot of Scripture to cover but this needs to be exposed.

And if it is in our body then we stand ready to help anyone who is struggling with this to walk away from it in the freedom that Christ has promised.

Paul peels the onion a bit further back to reveal that before sexual immorality takes place - the action - there are mental images that take place.

Christ discussed the sinfulness of lusting after something in the Sermon on the Mount.

He said

What Paul is demonstrating here is that evil behavior begins with evil thoughts.

This has been well known for years and it was the premise for the book series that some of you may remember from around 2009 entitled “Every Man’s Battle”.

The Apostle Paul also addressed the thought life and the importance of the thought life telling the Corinthians

and then writing to the Philippians Paul would admonish them

Paul knew that what was in the young man’s mind would rule his actions - but also that it is what’s in his heart that drives the mind.

He says that the source of lust and impurity is evil desire and greed.

Here he is borrowing again from his Master as Jesus pronounced in Matthew

Our hearts are corrupt from birth as a result of the sinful nature that is passed on to us as the seed of Adam.

And it is a fickle master.