Colossians 3:5

Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 to 5, our focus on verse 5. 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 the 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 you 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 idolatial. May God bless to us the world. reading of his sacred and holy word of this morning. In ancient times, there was a story told about a man who was discoursing on a brilliant philosophy, and people were in fraud with what he had to say, and the crowd applauded him, and he was pleased with himself, or he thought, I have many new disciples. Then suddenly in the market bell rang, and not a single person remained. They all deserted him. because there was profit to be made, and no philosophy could compare to making money. That was the top thing in people’s lives. In a similar way, we find that people will show some interest in religious matters, and they’ll listen, perhaps even to the preaching of the Word of God. They may even profess to be a Christian and proclaim that they are following Christ but then Satan rings the bell for sin, for earthly pleasures, for worldly amusement, for a financial profit, and these people abandon any interest they had shown in the things of God. The voice of the world captures the attention of most people, and the Word of God is abandoned. Now, Paul has been speaking about fixing your mind, on the things that are above, on heavenly things in verses 1 and 2, not on the things of the earth. You’re to be dead to the world, he tells us, in verse 3, and alive under the things of God. If we are born again, if we are risen with Christ, we are new creatures in Christ, our thinking should be different from that of the world around us. and all of this leads then to the fact that we have a true home in heaven from which we look for the Savior to come and one day we will be with him in heaven. We’re just a pilgrim then while we’re here on earth. But we reach this point now in verse 5 where he applies this teaching to the idea of mortification of sin. In many so-called Christians serve, circles, this would not be a very popular subject. You probably wouldn’t hear perhaps too many people preach on this. However, the scripture often presses upon us the need to mortify sin in our lives. And so it is an important duty that we must consider here. So let’s talk about your duty to mortify sin. Mortify, therefore, your members, which are upon. on the earth. Now, what does it mean for you to mortify sin? Well, its most basic meaning is this. To mortify something is to put it to death. You know what a mortician is, don’t you? It deals with the dead. And so we’re talking about ending its existence, eradicating it, removing it from your life. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die. But if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Romans 8.13. We’re to make the body of the old Adam, the flesh, as a dead carcass, if you would. Now, this mortification involves putting to death all that flows from your carnal nature, your corrupt nature. Now there are various aspects of mortification of sin. One aspect is this. You have to be sensible of the evil of sin if you’re going to mortify it. Paul declares he had not known sin but by the law. If he did not know what the law said, he would not have known what transgression was. Sin is transgression of the law. And therefore, to mortify sin, you must know what sin is sin is. is. Thus God has given us the Ten Commandments, or more generally, the Word of God, to aid you. You must view sin as a great evil, as something contrary to God’s revealed will. It’s something to be hated, something to be avoided. That which I see not teach me, if I have done iniquity, I will do no more. We have to know what iniquity is, and we must be willing to break off that sin. So when you sin, it ought to fill you with godly sorrow. You have violated God’s law. You have violated His word, and therefore, it should work in you repentance. You remember Joseph at one point was in Egypt as a slave. in the house of Potipher. Now Joseph was a young man, and the Bible tells us he was quite handsome. He attracted the attention of Potipher’s wife. And Potipher’s wife, being of the world, didn’t hesitate to pursue sexual relations with Joseph. However, Joseph, being a child of God, was afraid to sin against God. He was afraid, you know, he knew that adultery was wrong. He knew that adultery was wrong. He knew sexual relations outside of marriage was wrong. So Joseph says quickly put to death such a thought, how could I do this great wickedness and sin against God? So his first thought was, I know what sin is, I know God would not be pleased with me doing this, I cannot do this. Being sensible of evil, it’s the first way that we begin to mortify. The second thing is, we have to resist sin. When a temptation arises in your life, and it certainly will arise, mortification requires you to resist it vigorously. The Bible says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. So our focus is now on now resisting what we know to be evil. The great danger is to indulge the temptation, to be like David on top of the house, looking down and seeing, uh, bashed Shiba and lusting after her, not cutting off of this situation. Jesus taught you how to resist sin in his temptation in the wilderness. Each time he had to deal with sin and temptation to evil, he used the word of God to combat it. In other words, he kept before him what God wanted him to do. That’s what we must do. We must know what God. wants us to do in the situation. High God’s word in your heart, the psalmist says, that you might not sin against the Lord. Psalm 119. So you resist sin. You must avoid occasions of sin. Friends, there are dangerous people, and there are dangerous circumstances. And it would be best to avoid them so that you’re not even tempted to sin. Don’t be foolish enough to place yourself in harm’s way. Scripture talks about fleeing temptation, not just fleeing sin, fleeing temptation, keeping your distance. Again, look at Joseph. What did he do when Potiphar’s wife said, come lie with me? He avoided her like the plague. He stayed away from her. If she was in the house, he tried to be outside the house. You know, he tried to not be in the same room with her. Keep his distance from her. He took pains to do so, to avoid her presence, so not to be tempted. So we have to use some holy discernment and watch out for those occasions which may lead us to sin and keep our distance. You want to avoid occasions of sin if we want to mortify it. and then we have to use means to subdue sin. There are several things we can mention. One, we have to pray. You know, every day we ought to pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Knowing how weak we are, we need to always pray that the Lord will spare us and not place us in a dangerous circumstance by his providence. We need to pray that God would empower us when we do sin that we would turn from and empower us to avoid the temptation and not give in to it. We should use the Word of God. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy Word is truth. The Word of God always is the guide for us in this life. We always ought to follow its teaching. We know what’s evil. because God says it’s evil. We should have our senses exercise to discern evil and good, and know what’s wrong and what’s right. The third thing is we should look to Christ for strength. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheth me. There is no temptation that has taken you, but such is as common to man, and God will make a way of escape, and Christ will give you strength to overcome it. The fourth thought I’d be. would mention is this. There are some occasions when we must fast in order to deal with a particular sin in our life. We read Isaiah 58, is not this the fast that I have chosen to lose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke, there are occasions where there are sins that are very difficult for us to deal with, and we may have to fast and plead with the Lord to help us overcome. So what does it mean for you to mortify sin? The basic meaning is put it to that. But we talk about the various aspects of mortification, being sensible of the evil of sin, resisting the sin, avoiding occasions of sin, and using the means to subdue sin. But notice this also this morning. You should realize sin is spread throughout your whole person. Mortify their Therefore, your members, which are on the earth. By members, Paul means both the inward and outward faculties of your person which are used as instruments of sin. Many times in Scripture, members refer to the members of your body, your hands, your eyes, your feet, and so forth. However, members also at times refer to the faculties of your soul, your mind, your will, your affection. I think Paul means you must mortify the members of your body and your soul that would lead you to sin. When he says which are on earth, which are concerned with earthly things of the things of the world, things that arise from earthly mindedness, worldly lust and pleasures, not the things related. to the kingdom of God. Now, if you would look with me at Matthew Chapter 5 and verses 28 to 30, Jesus says this. But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman the lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right, I offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body, should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Jesus here is speaking about the commandment thou shalt not commit adulter. And he reminds us here of the true meaning of that commandment. The wanton look and love lust violate the commandment and makes you guilty of adultery before God. Heart adultery is where physical adultery originates. This filthy lust in your inner person where your mind thinks evil thoughts. Your will desires what’s forbidden. Your affections burn with a longing for what is illicit. Leads to your physical members getting engaged in the action. Your eye looks lustfully at the woman with sexual desire and then your hand is motivated to touch the woman and have the physical contact. Jesus is teaching you must keep a strict watch over all your members, your heart, as well as your hand and your feet. and so forth, right hand and excuse me, right eye. So such lustful looks, such evil heart desires and physical contact is dangerous to your soul because you’ll end up being cast into hell. If there were no other way to restrain your bodily members, which blessed be God, by grace there is, it would be better for you to pluck out the right eye and cut off. the hand, he says. Now, Christ is not encouraging you here to mutilate yourself. But he is pointing to the fact that drastic action is necessary to deal with sin. It would be better to go through life maimed than to keep using the eye or the hand for sin and the whole body end up in hell. The difficulty of course is hurting your own body will not actually prevent you from sinning because adultery starts in the heart. and those members of the heart or the inner person need to be addressed as well. So you need a new heart. You need a spiritual renewal to deal with his sin. As Jesus taught in Matthew 23, 26, cleanse first that which is within the cup and the platter. in other words the heart that the outside of them, the physical actions may be clean also. He says, start with the heart so that the actions outside you will be right. Right eyes, portray that which is precious and gives pleasure, right hands, portray what is profitable and useful to you. So to walk in the spirit, and the way that God would have us, then we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And this will be the most effectual way to cut off a right hand or pluck out a right eye. So you should realize sin is spread throughout your whole person. You have to realize that you have to deal with both aspects. So let me make this a couple observations here. Your mortification is an ongoing process throughout your lifetime. The spiritual work of mortification of sin is not easily done, nor is it quickly done, nor is it really ever done in this life. The infection of sin that contaminates your soul, your mind, your will, your affections, and has governed the use of your bodily members, your eye, your hand, your arm, your ear, and so forth. That’s the problem that we have. Now we’ve come to faith in Christ. But the best of Christians must make it their daily task to mortify all the members, because you still have the remnant of the corruption of that nature from Adam in you. And that we still have to address. You can never say, well, I’ve completely dealt with that sin. I can put that behind me, I’ll have to worry about that anymore. You always have to deal with every sin. You can’t think that you’ve eradicated that sin. It will raise its ugly head somewhere along the line. You’ll recall the second labor of Hercules was to kill the Lernean Hydra. From the murky waters from the swamps near a place called Lerna. The Hyde would rise up and terrorized the countryside. Now the hydra was a monstrous serpent with nine heads and each had fangs in it with poison and so it was very dangerous. Nor was this beast easy to kill because one of its heads was said to be immortal and therefore indestructible. So Hercules took his trusty nephew, Iolus, to help him as he hunted the nine-headed menace. Now, near Lerna, there were some springs, and they learned that that is where the lair of the hydra was. And so they went there and in the ensuing battle, the hydra wrapped one of its coils around Hercules’ foot, and it was impossible to escape. With his club, Hercules would smash the heads of the hydra, but as soon as one head was crushed, two would grow out. of that head. And so he ended up multiplying the heads of the hydra by crushing them. Well, he solved this problem by having IOLUS hold a torch after he smashed the head on top of the head and burn that, and so it prevented the regrowth of new heads. And after destroying the eight mortal heads, he cut off the immortal one and buried it. And supposedly that took care of the hydra. Well, sin is sort of like the hydra. You think you have it defeated and it keeps coming back. It keeps regrowing and it’s flaring up again. Just when you think you killed it, it comes back twice as troublesome in your life. So we must always be aware of that. Your mortification efforts have to continue throughout life. We can never rest at ease. Well, that sin is taken care of. No, it’s not. It may not be your life at the moment, but you’ve always got to be on your guard against it. So your mortification is an ongoing process that is lifelong. Secondly, let me say this. You can only engage in mortification of sin as a regenerate person. You know, this scriptural command to mortify sin is not given to everyone. It does not apply the ability in someone who is unregenerate to just put away put the death sin. Jeremiah 1323 says, can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can the leper his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil. Man in his natural state can’t mortify sin. But Paul is writing to regenerate people. He’s writing to the saints and the faithful brethren in Christ, is chapter 1, verse 1, tells us, those who have experienced the circumcision of Christ, of their hearts as chapter 2 verse 11 has told us. Those who are risen with Christ is chapter 3, verses 1 and 2 have told us. So you need Christ’s power and grace to do this great work of mortifying your members. Have you been granted a spiritual birth? That’s the first question you need to ask. And do you know the power associated with the resurrected Christ? Then, then you can walk in newness of life. Then you have the fact that sin’s power is broken and cannot have dominion over you as it once did and you can put to death the sin. And that’s what’s important. So the first thing you knew is regeneration. And then you can, by Christ’s power, put to death, sin. So your duty is to mortify sin. We talked about what it means and realize that this sin is spread through. throughout your whole person. Now, secondly, let’s look at the particular kinds of sins that you need to mortify. Now, you’re given a general list of sins here to mortify. This is not a complete list. But I think he’s giving us some general principles here. These are the kinds of things you need to cut out of your life. And he begins with the word fornication. Pornia. It’s a basic term. In Scripture, it means every kind of sinful sexual activity. Now, we have to be very careful because according to our justice system, we can become confused because it always uses fornication with regard to premarital sex. But that’s not the way the scripture uses the word pornie or fornication. When Scripture speaks to fornication, it refers to premarital sex, adultery, incest, homosexuality, lesbianism, beastiality, all those things are all included. Now our society is very tolerant of sexual sins. As if it’s no big deal. But Scripture condemns all forms of fornication in the strongest of terms. So we must not have fornication. So we must not have fornication. in our life. This has to be a sin that certainly mortified. He also mentions here uncleanness. This is a broader term than fornication. It includes any type of sexual indecency. Uncleanness includes all fornication, but it goes beyond just a physical sexual activity. It includes thoughts, words, intentions of the heart, desires, and passions as well. When God demands purity of you, he demands double purity of the flesh and of the spirit. Here’s what the Bible says. 2. Corinthians 7.1. Dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Included under uncleanness, then, be all filthy imaginations and filthy fantasies, sexual looks, posturing, gestures, unchaste, touching, and fondling, lured notes, letters, emails, films, pornography, sexting, provocative acts, like striptease or something of this nature. We put all this under this category of uncleanness here. Of uncleanness here. and then he says inordinate affection this is an unlawful passionate desire it is to love what God forbids you to love now we can easily and readily receive a temptation to see if our hearts open to it if we want to you know if we have our heart readily available to do it if we’re just waiting for the opportunity your unlawful affections willingly immediately yield themselves to the bonds of lust, even as Samson yielded himself up to be bound by Delilah. We’re just readily going into this. That’s dangerous. So he says, don’t have that about you. And then he mentions evil concupiscence. Concupiscence means desire. It can mean any desire. It can be a good or a bad one. But he defines it here further by adding the word evil. Evil conco-eval, evil desire. It’s clearly related to inordinate affection. It’s the first motions of sin and the readiness to commit it. Here the term appears to be broader. The term includes every fleshly lust, every kind of every sort. He sort of just keeps powing up these terms, but a lot of them are closely related to one another. It carries the same idea in the Hebrew phrase evil imagination we find in the Old Testament. And then he says covetousness. This is the constant desire to have more, to have what your neighbor possesses. Another’s property, another white, another’s wife, another’s goods. This is an excessive and immoderate adherence to the goods of this world. And it’s interesting that he classifies this as idolatry. He says, this is what it really is. It’s idolatry. Now, the idolater looks on his idols with deep devotion. So does the coveted person, a covetous person, his possession is riches. Idol worshippers worship an image. But the covetous person worships gold and silver. He trusts in uncertain riches. The covetous person loves the objects of his passions and renders service or devotion to them above any devotion he may have toward God. You know, the covetous person prefers to worship Mammon instead of God. That’s what the scripture says. In other words, it is what he puts before God and what becomes in essence is God. It is his wealth. is money, or the pursuit of it. So you’re given a list of general sins here to mortify, and these things certainly must be mortified in our lives. Now let me make a couple of practical observations here. And the first is this. For your mortification to be successful, it must deal with the lust of the heart. You’ll notice he does deal with fornication, which is the physical aspect. But look at how much he speaks about the heart condition. the affections, the lusts, the desires within, the covetousness. To avoid the greater sin of fornication, you have to be, you must not be tolerant of the lesser sin. Because these lesser sins are the root which leads to the physical action. You know, evil desires and unlawful affections must be uprooted. And we have to concentrate on mortifying these things. You cannot rest satisfied with outwardly appearing righteous unto man while you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity within. You know, the world’s philosophy is you can look, you can lust in your heart, as long as you don’t touch, you don’t commit sexual, sinful act. That’s not God’s standard. And it can’t be yours as a lot. Christian. Immortal sexual acts begin first in the heart. And therefore, you covet your neighbor’s wife before you commit adultery with your neighbor’s wife. So you must battle your thoughts. You have to bring those into subjection to Jesus Christ. That is where we have to start with our mortification. If we’re ever going to cut off sin, we have to start where it originates. And that’s within us. So for your mortification to be successful, you have to first deal with the lust of the heart. But notice something else. You will find that covetousness is extremely difficult to mortify. There was a young boy. He put his hand in a pitcher full of hazelnuts, and he grasped as many as he possibly could. And he caught quite a handful of them. But then when he endeavored to pull his hand out of the pitcher, he couldn’t because it was too big to come out of the neck of the pitcher. Unwilling to lose any of the nuts, He was unable to withdraw his hand. He burst into tears quite disappointed. The bystander said to him, be satisfied with half the quality, and you’ll readily be able to remove your hand. It’s impossible for a person who is covetous to be happy because they’re never content. They always want more. They always are craving for something else. You will find it extremely difficult quote, to leave the nuts of the world behind. To refuse, we sometimes refuse to let them go. I’ve always said this. God doesn’t begrudges any good thing in this life, but he also wants us to learn to be content with what we have. In other words, we have to learn contentment so that we’re not always seeking after something new to satisfy us. The danger is to become covetous, which turns us into an idolatry. and steals our heart away from God. Learn to find your true satisfaction in knowing God. Don’t get constantly wrapped up with acquiring things in order to be happy because we see the danger here. So these are the particular kinds of sins you need to mortify. And we’ve looked at the general list. We’ve made some practical observations. Let me close by saying this. The man. And discoursing on philosophy held his audience until the market bell rang and all they all left. People will show an interest in religious things, but when the market bell of the world rings, it steals away people’s hearts. As a believer, we’re called upon the mortify our members, both the inward members and the outward members that we have a body and flesh. And you’re given here, a body and spirit, and you’re given here a general list of sins. These are the things to begin with. These are things that must be cut out. But remember, it’s the heart state at which we must address first, where the heart state leads us to the actual physical sins that are mentioned here as well. Let us close with a word of prayer.