Colossians Lesson 16 Week 1
Colossians · Mike Doyle · Oct 12, 2014
Colossians (2014), No. 40
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926443171845

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3 verse 5. Now what I want to do, how I want to start is I want to read a couple of versions because different versions kind of give different ideas and I think it would help. Does anybody have King James or the New King James? Would you read that? New King James? Which verses did you want me to read? Five. Three, five. Three to five? Three, five. Oh yeah, I got that.

Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil desire, and covetous adultery. Okay, the word mortify means to put to death, right? Yes. Okay, who's got a New American standard? Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed, which amounts to adultery.

Those two verses say the same thing? Well, the first part, just the first phrase. One says to put to death. The other one says consider. They say the same thing? Mortify means to put, the command is in the King James, is to put to death the members of your bodies, is that how it goes? Yeah. The other version says we are to consider them to be dead.

Carol? I'm nothing. I just thought you weren't going to do this as-dead thing and I was going to bring it up. Excuse me. So, my question is, are those two verses, are they really saying the same thing? No. And if they're not, explain. Well, one is saying, if you consider it as-dead already, the other leaves it up to you to put it to death. Yeah, isn't that right? Isn't that what they're saying? Isn't one person saying, here you go, You do it. The other version says consider them to... It's done. What's that? Done. Consider it. Well, read the verse again. Consider what? Do you have that version? You do. Listen to this. Go ahead. Read it. Oh, he's got a mouth full of cake. Okay, go.

Therefore consider the members of the earthly body as dead. It's already happened. It has happened, hasn't it? But the members of your body aren't dead. Who's dead? You are. I am. I'm the dead one, not the members of my body. The other one says, you put them to death. In other words, you put them, what? Out of your life. You're the one that's supposed to do the killing or the separating, right? Which one's right? Which one's right? Or is either one of them right? Consider is dead. Consider who dead?

The old self. No way. No way. If your old man is dead, you're in the wrong class. You need to go over there with Vern or somebody. My old man isn't dead. He's dancing all the time. Well, you're not a slave to it anymore. Yeah, why am I not a slave? Because I'm the one who's dead. I'm the one who's dead, not the old man. I'm the one who died.

There's a difference. Don't you see it? That's exactly what he's saying. Who died on the cross with Christ? Your old man or you? You did. You're the one that died. You're the one that got separated. So, if you're the one that got separated, isn't it logical that The writer of scripture would say, because you're dead, put to death the members of your body. Would that be more accurate or not? Okay, while you're thinking about that, the big question is, how do you do it? That's the big question, isn't it? How do you do it? Because if you're like me, Your old man is bugging you all the time.

And you really wish you were more free than you really are, practically. And here's a command, and God isn't fooling around about this. He's serious about it. He wants us free. How do you do it? I have to do it by faith. Okay. You have to explain. have faith in what the Lord Jesus has done by going to the cross and dying. Okay. Okay. That's really good. You hear what he's saying? Not only for you, but... In other words, did you really die or didn't you? How many of you died on the cross with Christ? How many of you are absolutely persuaded that that happened?

Liars. So wait a minute. So. So the old the old man. I thought that. It's your sinful nature that keeps popping up. Is that the old man that's trying to creep back in? But you died on the cross with Christ. Right. But because you have a sinful nature, it occasionally peaks up. Always? No, that's good. That's good. It's really good. You're going to Florida, right? Yeah.

I think what you've taught me today is that When I was crucified, it's really, you talked in the past about the I, it's like the real me, the creature in Christ was crucified, and now I'm a different, and so that old nature, even though it still tries to be active, I'm not that old nature. There you go.

So within the believer, There are two natures, right? One of them is the new nature or life of the resurrected Christ. The other one is the old man. Now, what the Word of God teaches us is that when we were included in Christ's death on the cross, a separation took place.

When you die, What happens, really, I mean from a practical sense, let's say you die this afternoon, you won't have to worry about your back anymore. What happens is you get separated from here, but you go somewhere else. So you're now separated from the world. And we say, well, you died. And we're going to have a memorial service for you, and you're going to really like it. But you're not here. When we died on the cross with the Lord Jesus Christ, we were separated positionally from that old man.

Now that doesn't mean that he went anywhere outside of you. You're the one that went somewhere. Where did you go? You were buried, resurrected in Christ. So if you look inside your own body, inside your own psyche, to find goodness in there, it ain't in there. It's in Christ. And He's your life now.

So when the Word of God says, consider yourself dead, I'm just saying I'm alive unto God, Romans 6.11. I am to reckon, believe, like Bob said, that I died unto sin. Sin didn't die, I did. And at the same time, I'm alive unto God.

When you have that principle in place, and like in Colossians chapter 2, there was a whole thing about the identification truths, here comes what you're supposed to do about it. The first thing you do about it is what Courtney taught, since you'd be risen with Christ.

Is that true? Are you really risen with Christ? Well, how did you get risen? What's got to happen before you get risen? You've got to die. So you got risen with Christ. Now that that's a fact, here's what you should do as a risen one. What should you do? Study the Word. Now what does the verse say? Seek those things which are above. How much time do you spend this week doing that? A couple of hours. Set your mind and your affections on things above and not on things of the earth.

Why? Because you died. You died and your life is now hid with Christ in God. Now, we get down two more verses and it says, well, based on that information, here's something else you can do. If you have a King James or whatever, what else you can do, we're going to put, from a practical standpoint, we're going to put the old man out of business. And you're going to be involved in it, because you're going to live by faith in the facts.

Not how you feel, but in the facts. So when Paul says, look, my old King James says, mortifier, put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth. Would he tell you to put them to death if they were already dead? No, he wouldn't. So that version, the New American Standard says, consider them to be dead, is not accurate. Because they're not. Right? Right? So, I mean, they're still, they're like the merry-go-round at Ely's. Horses are going up and down and the music is still playing. The thing is, is that you're not on the carousel. So here comes the question again. How do you do it? How do you mortify? How do you do it? You do it by faith according to Bob. You mortify all these deeds and the Holy Spirit gives you the power to do that. Not true. The Holy Spirit isn't going to give you power to do anything. So let's go back to Jack. Do you think the Holy Spirit is going to help you do this?

No, he's not. Why wouldn't he? He just had a battle. You know, I looked up what's-his-name, Macaulay, and he was saying that that's really a battle within us. The Holy Spirit is in us, but so is the old nature, the old man. Right. And that there is an inner battle. Yeah. And how does that battle work out? That's what we want to get at. How does that thing work out practically in your life?

Are you saying it isn't a matter of the Holy Spirit helping us, but Him actually doing it? That's it. What? It's not the Holy Spirit helping you do anything. It's Him doing it all. He does it. So what does He do? He takes the facts of the cross and He implements them in your life. What do you do? What's your role in this? What's that? To go with it. How do you go with it? You believe it. I'm going to quote something out of A Hungry Heart from last week. This I thought was kind of cool. This one is called Dethronement. And the verse he uses for brethren, you have been called to liberty.

And he says, our know to the old will be absolutely ineffective unless we are standing upon the facts of the new. Everybody get that sentence? Our saying no to the old man will be absolutely ineffective if we are not standing on the facts of the new man. since you be risen with Christ. Do you see that? Now, when I plant my feet on the fact and say no, as for me, I stand in the Lord Jesus as my life.

Its governing power is broken, it is not annihilated or eradicated, but it has lost its throne. I mean, I don't think believers really understand that before you were saved and a lot of your existence after you were saved, your old man ruled you. All you did was put a little holy water on it.

You know, in the Garden of Eden is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and over on the left side are the evil branches, over on the right side are the good branches. What you did is you just moved across the tree. And you got in those good branches and you thought, wow, this is wonderful. You know what? There was another tree in the garden. What was the name of that tree? The tree of life. And what really happened is you got taken out of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and you were put in the tree of life.

That's not goodness. That's holiness and righteousness. See that? So we spent a lot of time trying to be good. I've got more here. We want to get clear in our minds that the father does not mean to improve the old man on the one hand or to remove it on the other. So your old man isn't going to get better. If you look at question number two, I can't wait to hear your answers. It is not the Father's will that sin should have dominion over any child of His.

All died with the Lord Jesus. All were united with Him in crucifixion. But few enter into the joy of the freedom of the sons of God because they do not believe His word. That's where it all lies. I mean, were you really crucified with Christ? Do you really think that's true? Were you buried with him? And were you risen with him? And are you risen with him right now? Seated with him in the heavenlies?

Now, let's say that you're like me. You say, well, yeah, I buy it. I believe it. But I wish it was experiential in my life. Here's the best paragraph of the whole thing. He says, will you not now bow to your Father before your Father and thank Him regardless of what your feelings are? It may take a day or a month, I don't know how long, but I do know that when any child of God will believe and begin to express that faith, in thanksgiving day by day, thanking him for the fact which one may not yet have experienced, the Holy Spirit will lead that one into a glorious personal realization of his identification with the Lord Jesus in his death, burial, resurrection and ascension.

How do you like that paragraph? Isn't that cool? Isn't that cool? So what do you do? You go and you sit and you say, Father, I bow before you and I thank you for what you've done and I'm trusting you to make these facts real in my life. And I don't care how long it takes. A day, a week, a month. I trust you. He's going to do it all. All of it.

And he's going to persuade you that those facts are true. And when he does, your life will change because you'll now operate as one who is risen. Seeking the things which are above will be a natural thing for you to do. Putting to death the deeds of your body will be just the normal thing that you do.

What do you think about that? Pretty cool, huh? Alright. How do you do it? Roy? Just an observation that has been going through my mind. Is it going through very fast? I think that the Holy Spirit is transforming my mind finally a little bit. Just a little.

But the point is that today we think that people are evil by what they do. But they're evil because of what they believe. And they're good because of what they believe. And God says that. We don't. But we don't acknowledge that fact. We just say, well, it's a disease or it's something else. Rather than going to the root of the matter, what we believe determines what we do.

Yeah. So what does it take on your part to implement this command? To accept it. What? To accept it. To relax and accept it. And believe it. Yeah. It's true. It's true of me. And there's a dependence that's learned in the middle of this for the Spirit of God to do the persuading. I hate to use this example, but it's a good one.

If you really are a die-in-the-wood world Bronco fan, and you would skip church because they're playing the early game, And we laugh at that. People are doing it right now. Right now. Because the Denver Broncos are more important to them than the Lord Jesus is.

So let's say you realize, boy, I've got a real problem there. What am I going to do about it? What am I going to do about it? Turn the TV off? No, what are you going to do about it? Change your mind, change your thinking. What's that? Change your mind, change your thinking. So you begin to realize what?

Because you're being mastered by a football game instead of Christ. So you recognize I'm mastered by a football game, but guess what? It's still mastering me. I'm going to go to church, but I'm going to sit in church with my ear plug in. I'm going to be pining to want to know what the score is. Well, this verse may say right here, set your affections on things above. Sure. But the sending your affections on things above, the putting to death the activities of the members of your body, is a work for who? The Holy Spirit.

This is just a little bitty item. But for years and years and years, I've been taking the Denver Post. First thing I want to do in the morning is get out. It distresses me so badly that I've come to the conclusion and I've cancelled it. Good for you. Let me tell you what's going to happen because I did that about 10-12 years ago. About a year from now somebody's going to give you a Denver Post and you're going to read it. You know what you're going to find out? It's the same old crap you read a year ago. J.D. I'm going to throw a key in your class a little bit. Good.

It seems to me if we're looking at our behavior, whether we're in church or at a football game or reading the paper, it's kind of losing sight of the person of Christ. I mean, if I chose to watch the game, that doesn't mean that I care less about the Lord Jesus. It may or may not. May or may not. Yeah.

But I think we just have to kind of taper our perspective on where we are given Sunday morning and how that pairs with our love for the Lord. Because some days I do things like that. It doesn't mean that you're the only one. But yeah, I think it's just interesting for us to not be one who measures one another against like a penance or anything like that. Yeah. No, I agree.

This is not an issue of measuring myself against you or you against me. I think it comes down to the issue of, and again I work with the Holy Spirit, is the Lord Jesus the most valuable thing to me? Is he the one? That's between you and him. That's right. That's exactly right. When you study a book like Colossians, there's an assumption that he is. He is.

And the person is saying, well, let's see, you did everything necessary to bring me near to you from an affection standpoint. I want to be close. You're the only thing that matters to me. And what do I do? Paul's epistles tell you what to do. But there's an assumption that there's an intimacy been created over time via the Holy Spirit that he has made Christ the pearl of an estimable value. There's nothing more important than him.

Mike, doesn't it come down to, you know, The change in, I was raised in a denomination where I had to go to church every Sunday. And it comes down to a change in me that changed that perspective from I have to, to I get to. And it's a matter of any worldly being put up against what's my affection and desire to know the Lord better. Yeah, that's right.

It isn't a matter of Holly Hills or the Broncos. It's, you know, Lord, here I am, I belong to you today. What do you want me to do? I just want to do what you want me to do. I don't care. If it's a church, fine. If it's not, that's okay too. I don't want to do what I don't want to do what my flesh tells me would be kind of a cool thing to do.

There are a lot of holy, and I mean holy, righteous, wonderful people that can't find a church. There's no place to fellowship because it's worse than staying home. You know? So, you know, I just use the Broncos and going to church as an example. That doesn't mean that you better be here next Sunday. You're going to be gone, aren't you? Not next week.

But, you know, I think you go back to like the beginning, since you then be risen in Christ. I mean, is that a moment by moment realization? Yeah, am I? I mean it always goes back to am I? The thing that gets me is, is it really true of me personally? Do I believe that I've already been positioned in Christ? I don't have to work to get the position that I'm already there? Do I have to really work hard at honoring him by abiding in him? No. No, I don't. But the world seems to, the circumstances, the world that you live in, moment by moment, seems to always be picking at that. You know, are you really? Yeah, maybe put it this way.

Do you know what a privilege it is to think of yourself as being in Christ? It's a privilege. It's not a command. It's a privilege to think of yourself as being in Christ. You know what hinders all of this? Unbelief. We read it and we don't buy it because of circumstances, because, I mean, we love to go to the Lord and say, yeah, but that isn't where I live. Who's right? Me or him? Who's reality? Me or him? It's so easy just to read over these things and not understand what they're telling us.

And I think a large part of my life that's what's happening. But coming here to Sunday School and this church is so much detail and discussion of what it means that it clarifies for me what I believe because of what it says actually in the text and so I think that enables If you'll listen to me when I'm teaching up here, I'll ask a question and somebody will zing out an answer. And I'll say, what does the scripture say? Read the text. Isn't that interesting?

We look at it, we have an opinion about it, and we forget, what did it really say? Let me ask one more question. Do you think your sinfulness and your failures alter your acceptance and position before the Lord? Not a bit. Not a bit. I'm going to read one more paragraph to you.

There are two basic things that the believer has to learn. One is that you are not to have the man here and the place where he is. You get that? You're not to have Adam and you're not to have the place where he lives. Earthly. Why do you think he says, since you be risen seek those things which are above? Where is your home now? Second part of that is the place where he is. The other is you do have another man and the place where he is. You see that? I don't know how the Holy Spirit does it to take our attention off of the circumstances of our life and to get us heavenly minded. I'm not sure how he does that, but he does do it.

I don't care what the Denver Post has to say about anything. Yeah, politics are important, I'm going to go, but I don't really, come on. It's their world and it's their man who's Adam. and he isn't my man anymore and this is not my home. I think everybody has somebody in their life who has turned away from looking at Christianity because of viewing other Christians as being hypocritical and is it that we try to follow certain character traits, not to sway somebody, derail somebody from accepting Christianity.

But that doesn't have anything to do with this depth of understanding. Yeah, see, what's interesting about this is that there's a... as you enter into a greater intimacy with Christ via faith, and you believe these facts, what the Spirit of God is doing is creating a greater intimacy between you and Christ. Doctrine is wonderful, but if it doesn't translate into an intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ, what good is it? It's just doctrine.

Do I know Him where He is? And I mean personally know Him, so that when I do die, I'm not a stranger. I've always had this vision in my mind that all the theologians I've ever met in my life will be walking down the road in heaven with all the books under their arms and they'll come up to Christ and say, excuse me, and walk right around him. They don't know him. They don't know him. It's our privilege to know Christ intimately. Now, what happens? Because of that, were conformed to his image, more and more all the time.

So you're not living a Christian life based on somebody else's principles, somebody else's list of things you should do to be looking good as a Christian, that you just live, beholding his glory. You live by faith in the facts. And this growing intimacy that you have with him, everybody can tell Can all of you tell that I love Donna? Can all of you tell that I love the Lord Jesus?

It's Him that does that. If they can't tell that, you might as well quit. Do you see that? You should be able to tell. I should be able to say, I know Russ loves the Lord Jesus. I see it. I know this person that thinks I'm a hypocrite loves the Lord Jesus, or the person that they call hypocritical. If they love the Lord Jesus, how can you call them a hypocrite? Because you're consistent. When you say quit, what do you mean? What's that? When you say quit.

Well, I probably spoke too fast. You ought to go to the movies. No, I mean, the point is that if The great thing about the Word of God is that it's leading us all to an intimacy with the second person of the Trinity, who is the Son of God, who is your very life. If it's not doing that, it's just religion. Do you see that? If that's not happening, then you might as well go with Bruce to the Catholic Church. Because you're not going to have an intimacy with Christ there.

Because I grew up in the same church. I hope I can get through it this week. This week has really pounded me from a different perspective. We keep looking at it from our perspective. This week I got hammered. The Lord hammered me on the other way. Looking at it from His perspective.

Just the thought of, you know, if you have somebody in your family, you know, grandchild, son, wife, spouse, anything, a friend, and you love them, just ultimately love them, but they don't respond. And they just, you know, whatever, they don't respond to that. If you have a child that just doesn't respond, but you love them with an immense love, how that tears you apart.

I put that in perspective of the Lord. Oh boy. He looks at us and how I treat Him and how I take it for granted or just meet my needs. It just pounded me this week. I looked at it from His perspective. And it's a complete change. If you love somebody and you don't respond, how that tears you apart, look at what He did. And if we don't respond to that, And he never stops. He never stops.

Yeah. That's good perspective. You know that's what's so good about God. Because sometimes I'm out in space too and the thing of it is he's so patient. God is so patient. When I was a complete screw up he was always right there and I thank him forever for always having had the patience and to wait. See, the thing about growing in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus is you begin to know him from a character standpoint. And you know, Kortney's right. We take for granted everything he's done to get us to here. And this is the least he's done. This is the least.

But look at it from his perspective. And we keep looking at it from our perspective. Look at it from his. That's the thing that just flipped it around. We keep thinking about how he meets our needs and how he gets us out of trouble and how he does. Look at it from his perspective.

It's that he loves us so much that he went to the cross. He has infinite love that can't be separated. And if we keep turning away, or, you know, I think in verse 17, whatever you do in work or deed, do all in the name of the Lord, giving thanks through Him, God the Father, verse 17. You know, if the object of your love, you can't get your eyes off of. How is that, you know, He has that looking at us, how do we look back at Him? Just by means, you know, getting through this day. That doesn't matter, it's the love, the empathy with Him. There's an old brother and writer I really like named C.A. Coates. I was reading something of his one day and he was kind of complaining actually.

He said he runs into Christians in the morning and they talk about what the Lord has done for them. He said, but nobody ever says, let's just sit down and talk about the glories of Christ Himself. What has the Spirit of God shown you today about who He is? Not for your benefit, just Him. I think the Holy Spirit would rather do that than anything.

I was wondering if you could clarify in verse 5 there what my members are. Okay, to maybe do that, let's go back to Romans chapter 8, verse 6. And 6, let's start with 12. It says, Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in as lust, neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members, as instruments of righteousness to God. Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace." How does the sin nature actually sin? What does it use? Yeah, uses your body. So what is he saying in verse 5?

Well it appears that the members are the fornication, the uncleanness. These things where usually I think of my hands and my feet as being my members. But those are already dead and they don't look like that. No, they're not dead. No, they're not dead. You are. I'm dead to them. Right. It's really important to make that distinction. So what are my members? Are they my hands or feet? They're your mind. They're your will. They're your body. They're your emotions. They're all of who you are as a human being.

Okay, so why doesn't it say those things instead of saying the things that it says? Because if you look at Romans chapter 1, at the end when men turn away from God, we're not talking about salvation, we're just talking about men in general turning away from God. What happens is they immediately go to those things in terms of expression in their life of sin. You know, we always think that's why...

Oh, this is a good time to ask the question. Question two. Somebody read question two. Loudly. Cowards. Okay, I'll read it. Are the members of your earthly body better than the person sitting next to you? So are your members better than Roy's? Is Roy's better than yours or yours better than are they? It doesn't matter. What do you mean? It doesn't matter. We're dead. Yeah. Oh, you mean I'm not better than. So.

Do you have, I mean, we read, like you were just reading, about fornication, all those kind of things, and we say, oh, that must be somebody else. The problem is that when you get to Romans chapter 2, if you're the kind of person that judges other people, and you're better than them, guess what chapter 2 tells you? You do the same thing. So you're just as guilty. Now, we may be old and tired, and fornication isn't one of our deals anymore, But there's some things in there that are. Do you see that? Wanda.

Romans 3.10. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. That's right. That's exactly right.

So your sin nature, who you were in Adam, and Debbie's sin nature, who she was in Adam, is exactly the same. And all of these nice descriptions in Romans chapter 1 and here and other places, you can read about what you used to be. And you can read about what you still are if you're going to let your sin nature rule.

You're not going to live by faith. No. No. You don't have time for that. It isn't about you, it's about Christ. Let me ask you a question. A thousand years from now, you and I are in heaven with the Lord. Do you ever remember your sin? Why not? Because anything that's not of him... This part that's sinned is not there. That's right, it's gone. Is it gone now? Before him? Is it gone now before him?

I would say so. Sure. I asked the class in Parker one day, these ladies, I said, now look, let's talk about repentance and forgiveness. If you are going to examine your conscience, list your sins and then confess them, if you're really sorry for them, does God forgive you faster than the person next to you who isn't so sorry? What do you think?

I feel better asking for it. Because repentance has nothing to do with emotion. There's no emotion involved. It's a change of mind. How do I say this? I don't want to spend any time hating my old man. I haven't got time for it. You see that? Because my time, my energy should be spent on beholding Christ.

Colossians talks about that whole self-abasement situation, and that's a form of legalism. So it's not grace, that's legalism. Having to put yourself underneath the law of, I don't know, however you do it, or how one would do it. The Gnostic Colossian challenges were having to do with They gave examples of how they were self-abasing, but we might do it totally differently. We might lock ourselves in a closet and try to pray or something like that. Go off and be alone. Or deny ourselves food so that we could...

Well, fast. Yeah, fast. But you can do that under legalistic terms as opposed to the grace of a human. So self-abasement has already kind of been covered as a form of legalism. Bruce and I got a couple of hair shirts from our Catholic days, if you guys want to borrow them.

If you're focusing on that, how do you do? Keep seeking things above where Christ is seated at the right hand. Set your mind on things above. If I'm looking at my issues and my stuff, are you setting your mind on things above? God is done with it. Done with your sins. Well, you know, you dance around about all this, that and the other thing.

And then Paul has this little verse that says, whatever is not of faith is sin. Oh, well, that kind of settles it. You know, whatever is not of faith is sin. See, we don't realize that your sin nature, if you're operating out of the flesh, you're sinning because you're not living by faith. Your old man doesn't sin and take a day off and sin and take some time off. It's constant sin because it's not a faith. Whatever's not a faith is sin. Falling short of the mark. See that?

That's pretty simple. Isn't it true too that we aren't We obviously aren't that old in nature. We're a new creature. That's right. So, you know, we can dislike the old man giving us, you know, trying to prod us to do things, but I'm not that old man.

That's right. And the Spirit of God is constantly, as He's revealing Christ to you, He is revealing the depths of your own name. But He wants you focusing in on Christ. Okay. All right, we've got to close. Pretty good, Courtney, two questions. Father, how we thank you for your grace and how we thank you for what you did and accomplished and that we have unrestricted free access to the Lord Jesus Christ to behold his glory and to rest in him, Father. We thank you. We pray in his precious name. Amen.