TranscriptAmen! If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. Colossians, chapter 3, is where we’re going to be again. If you were here last weekend, we started what was going to be three weeks in Colossians 3, verses 1 through 17. Really what we’ve been talking about is really how God takes us, transforms us, smoothes off kind of our sharp, jagged, broken edges and transforms our heart over an extended period of time.

We used last week this imagery or this illustration of sea glass, which is pieces of broken pottery, glasses, wine bottles, or whatever, and it spends 30 to 40 years in the ocean immersed in saltwater. Via calm seas, rough seas, and currents in the ocean, it is smoothed out, smoothed over. Its surface is transformed. Then it becomes something that’s kind of valuable, where people gather it. They make jewelry out of it, and it becomes this really beautiful thing.

I said it’s just a beautiful illustration of what God has done for us. He grabs us when we’re broken, fractured, and jagged, and he begins over a long period of time to transform us, shape us, and turn us into something beautiful. We looked last week at the first four verses, but we started in verse 17 because we said verse 17 was really the summarization of all 17 verses. Why don’t we look at that quickly together, and then we’ll dive into the text for today?

In Colossians 3:17 , we get a sense of God’s vision for our lives. Here’s what it is: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” You see two things God is actively up to in our lives. Here’s the first one: God is after our greater integration as human beings…word and deed, head and heart. He is shrinking the gap of hypocrisy over time.

What was interesting to note last week is actually kind of astonishing. When I asked the question, “How many of you sense a gap between word and deed, head and heart?” the only people who didn’t raise their hands were liars. It was amazing! We all feel this. We get a sense that there’s a gap. We can call that gap hypocrisy, but God’s vision for our lives is for that to be ever shrinking until there’s integration of head and heart, word and deed.

That’s not all God is up to. We see also in this text that on top of integration, on top of head and heart, word and deed, he also is transforming us to be a people marked by gratitude and gladness. There is not a greater apologetic for the Christian faith in 2017 than lives marked with gratitude and gladness. We live in a day and age that’s pessimistic. It is hyper-aware of what it does not have. It is ready to be offended by anything.

What happens when the people of God just shine brightly by not being perturbed but just being grateful for what we’ve been given, for what God has entrusted to us, for his kindness to us in Jesus, I’m telling you, that will shine brightly in the cynicism of our day. We said this is what God is up to. He is after our integration. This is his vision for our lives: integration, gratitude, and gladness.

Then we looked at kind of how that path starts, how that process starts. It starts with this mindset, a mind that’s set on the things that are above, not on the earth that’s below. We have our mind set on Jesus. We went really kind of radical. We said as Christians, we’re like all in on Jesus. We’ve pushed all our chips in. We don’t have another bet. We’re not hedging. Jesus is our guy, so much so that whatever you want to talk about, we’re going to need to talk about Jesus.

You want to talk about marriage? We’re going to need to talk about Jesus. You want to talk about children? We need to talk about Jesus. Do you want to talk about work? We need to talk with you about Jesus. Do you want to talk vacation? Jesus. Right! You name it, I need to talk about Jesus so we can understand one another. We are all in on Jesus Christ. “Christ-ins.” I know that doesn’t make sense, but it makes the point. Then in one of my favorite passages, one of my favorite ideas in those first four verses was found in verse 3, where it says, “…your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

It’s this idea that our lives, all our failures, all our shortcomings, everything about us, is actually hidden in Christ in God, which creates a kind of freedom that empowers and enables us to live the Christian life in greater power, in greater freedom, and in greater joy the longer we follow after him. We are hidden in Christ and Christ in God. Therefore, since that’s true (since your life is hidden with Christ in God), here’s what the next part of this process of sanctification, of being made more like Jesus, looks like.

Colossians 3, starting in verse 5: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you…” Then he lists them. “…sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.

In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”

That’s all next week’s stuff. Verse 11: “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” Now if you have a background in church or you have a cursory understanding of religion, nothing I just read is somewhat shocking or surprising to you. I don’t think anyone in here was like, “Wait a second! We shouldn’t be a part of sexual immorality? Why has no one told me this?”

We have an understanding of what’s going on here. Something I want to draw your attention to is the seriousness of what’s going on in this text. The Bible just said, “You should put to death, you should murder, you should kill, you should act violently toward…” and then this list of behaviors. John Owen said, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.”

He is pushing this point. When it comes to sexual immorality, when it comes to sex outside the bounds God has given us, you should be serious about putting that to death. Do not play with that thing. Do not try to train that thing. That thing is not a friend. It is not a pet. It will devour and destroy you. Something is trying to kill you, and you shouldn’t play around with that.

He doesn’t just mention sexual immorality here. He mentions impurity, and impurity is any moral corruption. If you are morally corrupt… So you’re shady at work. You’re underhanded in a relationship. That’s moral corruption. He moves on from there and talks about passion. Now don’t go all Nike commercial on me, all right?

He is not saying you can’t be passionate about things. He is saying you shouldn’t be led by your stomach. Are you tracking with me on that? You just give yourself over to various passions. Then when he talks about evil desires in this text, he is talking about impulses or compulsions that are out of step with God’s good plan for our lives. Everyone in this room, regardless of how long you’ve been around church, will have these impulses, these compulsions, to give ourselves over to things that are out of God’s good design for our lives.

Then he moves on, and he talks about covetousness. Here’s why coveting is such a big deal. I think coveting is one of those things that we’re like, “Oh, I mean, in the list of sins, surely, man, that’s like junior varsity, B-team, third string tight end in a system that doesn’t use a tight end.” But coveting is an accusation against God.

When you covet, you make the accusation against God that he is not good, that he has not done what’s best for you, that he is cruel, that he withholds from you what is good for your flourishing. You make an accusation against God that is a lie and smears his character. Coveting is a very serious sin. In fact, this is the one he calls idolatry.

You make yourself your own God when you covet, because you say, “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what’s best. I know what’s best, and I deserve this. I should have this, and I need these things. You have not given them to me.” That’s coveting.

What he says here if you stop and think is you have this permission toward violence. He is saying, “Put these things to death. Drag these out back, and put a bullet in their brain. Then empty the clip, and if you have any more rounds, you need to reload that thing. If you’re out of rounds, then you grab a shovel, and you just pound it until you don’t even know what it is anymore. Then you bury it, and then you burn the shovel you did all of that with with the weapon. Then you vacuum that up, and then you destroy the vacuum.”

You don’t play with this stuff. Now he is not talking about harming yourself or physically punishing yourself. He is saying where you catch whiff of these, this is your flesh and your Enemy trying to kill you. You shouldn’t play around with that. You shouldn’t pretend this is no big deal. You should not be like those fools who take baby lions and try to train them as pets.

Don’t be that person. You end up on a show called When Animals Attack! It’s just like, “Oh, he is so…! Let me stick my head in his mouth.” Right? Yeah. Then you or your children die, and you’re like, “It’s crazy! He was so cute! I raised him since he was a kitten!” He is an apex predator. He kills stuff. That’s all apex predators do. They eat things. Nothing eats them. They eat everything else.

This is what’s happening in this text. Don’t play with this. That’s what the apostle Paul is saying here. “Hey, you mess around with this, someone is going to die.” I’m just saying very few of us take this approach to sin. When we have impulses and compulsions and they’re toward sexual immorality or they’re toward moral corruption, very few of us have the thought, “Something is trying to kill m