Colossians 3:5-11
GET THIS: You do not have to wear the chains of sin, if you are hidden with God in Christ.
There tends to be disconnect among Christians regarding the resurrection. We know how to dress up for it. How to celebrate it. How to sing about it. But have we learned how to live in light of it? The resurrection is both an historical event and an avenue of present power. We don’t want to remember the resurrection as if it were only a past tense reality. Christ’s victory over sin and death is practical for the Christian in that it changes everything. Are you struggling with loving your neighbor? Dying to self? Pride? Prayerlessness? Do you lack godly confidence in ministry? Could it be that the resurrection is something you know but don’t believe. And by believing, I don’t mean you don’t believe Jesus actually got up. What I mean is, it’s possible you don’t believe that because He did, you can too. We’d do well to take some time before or after the elaborate celebrations to examine our lives. Including our most besetting sins, insecurities, and struggles and ask ourselves, “What does Christ’s resurrection have to say about this?” —Jackie Hill Perry
All The Follows is Rooted in The Whole Gospel
See first 9 words of Colossians 3:5: The “therefore” is there for the prevention of ever thinking you have to carry the weight of what follows by yourself! And that’s good because the two places he uses to make his point about what not to wear are very personal and touch so much of our day-to-day living!
There is certainly an imperative here, and it is a summons to effort. Yet it is set in the context of a power that is not from us: the power of what Christ has done for us in his death (and therefore our having died with him) and of our new life in him (we have been raised with him). —John Woodhouse
What Not to Wear in Your Sexuality [v5-7]
See Colossians 3:5-7
What are you consuming on your phone?? Are you walking the line with flirting because it just feels so good? Married couples are you treating your spouse with dignity and respect and honor in the bedroom? Or are you being manipulative/apathetic/controlling or even unsafe? Etc?
What Not to Wear in Your Speaking [v8]
See Colossians 3:8: (1) Anger/wrath. (2) Malice (Words spoken in haste that are nasty and hurtful). (3) Slander: defamation damaging someone’s reputation. (4) Obscene Language: disgraceful speech.
The Christian view of how we are to speak is no less bizarre in a pagan world than our view of sex. It is only that the pagan world is more obsessed with sex, and so it notices our weirdness more there. Yet the very idea that speech is not for putting others down, nor for expressing your frustrations and annoyances, nor for lashing out, but for building others up, for expressing kindness, for turning attention away from yourself, is as strange to an unbelieving world as anything that Christians believe about sex. —John Woodhouse
Does your speech damage or build up? How do you talk to your spouse when she is frustrating you? What is your tone when your children disobey you? What do you say about the other baseball parents when they aren’t around? What kind of jokes are you telling around the water-cooler at work? Do you use hospitable speech with your neighbor? Etc?
Own Your True Identity! Don’t Live A Lie [v9-11]
See Colossians 3:9: When we dress up our soul in clothes from the what-not-to-wear pile: we’re lying to each other. Because we’re not who we used to be anymore. We’ve been made new! See Romans 8:9-11.
See Colossians 3:10: And in place of the old is the new and this is the same gospel reality we just read about in Romans. Your new self is a work in progress. And a work of renewal.
See Colossians 3:11: Jesus! Jesus is ALL! As in: Jesus is Everything to Me! Jesus is Enough! You can have all this world, Give me Jesus! He’s worth anything and everything! Jesus IS ALL! And He is IN all! Christians… ALL CHRISTIANS, have ALL OF CHRIST. IN ALL OF THEM! This is the all-surpassing-identity of us as Christians! And this reality underlies that wardrobe decisions we make for our spiritual clothing!
If you’re not a Christian: See John 8:36: Trust Jesus! … believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved!…
If you are a Christian…
1. How (practically) are you taking ownership of your true identity? What you put first, will shape your identity… What are you prioritizing? What messaging are you feeding yourself? Investing in? Playing the loudest?
2. What do you need to be putting off? Sexually? In your speech? In any other area?
GET THIS: You do not have to wear the chains of sin, if you are hidden with God in Christ.