2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. 3 You have multiplied the nation; You have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. 4 For the yoke of His burden, and the staff for His shoulder, the rod of His oppressor, You have broken as on the day of Midian. 5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. 6 For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Isaiah 9:2-7
“The Eternal Salvation and Kingdom of GOD” by John Goldwater
Isaiah the prophet is given an incredible vision of the eternal salvation and kingdom that GOD will bring. GOD’s fight will bring light to darkness, hope to gloom, and victory to defeat. All these wonderful transformations will be accomplished by His power and experienced by His people. GOD Himself will accomplish all that He promises.
In Isaiah 8:19-22, the prophet describes those who have forsaken GOD and His Word in favor of occult practices. This practice of abandoning GOD and seeking spirits, sages, philosophies, religions, sciences, theories, or just man-centered feelings and wisdom, is still a practice prevalent in modern times. These twin sin of abandoning GOD and seeking others always and inevitably leads to darkness, hopelessness, and fruitlessness. And this is the backdrop into which GOD announces His coming eternal salvation and kingdom.
Isaiah 9:1-3 identifies the people and the place where GOD’s great initiative will first impact the earth. Ground zero of GOD’s great work will be the northern section of Israel, “Zebulun and the land of Naphtali…beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles” (Isaiah 9:1). These lands were devastated by the cruel Assyrian invaders and the residents there suffered greatly. The people described as the distressed, the lightly esteemed, the heavily oppressed, the Gentiles, the people who walked in darkness, and those who lived in death’s shadow. It’s just like GOD to take on the lowest people in toughest places during the darkest darkness, so that His light and glory will shine brightest.
This mighty and gracious act of GOD is meant to be experienced by His people. The light of GOD’s glory is meant to be seen and felt. They “have seen a great light…Upon them a light has shined” (Isaiah 9:2). The bright future of those who put their trust in GOD will not be hidden forever, eventually the darkness will flee in the light of the brilliant dawning of GOD’s saving power. GOD’s brilliant victory over darkness brings an ever-increasing joy. Joy like a bountiful harvest and joy like soldiers coming home from war will sweep away the years of want, suffering, and shame.
Isaiah 9:4-7 describe the perfect Savior and King in action. Verses 4, 5, and 6 all start with the word “For” to confirm that it is GOD alone who causes this victory, therefore it is to GOD alone to receive glory and honor. GOD will destroy the power of the enemy to oppress and burden His people. Just like the prophecy of Genesis 3:15, the special born Son who will crush the head of the serpent, implies, there cannot be lasting peace if there is a lasting enemy. Like when GOD struck down the Egyptians and the Midianites, He again will break the power of the His enemies. Furthermore, He brings an end to war itself. The uniforms and the gear used for war will become useless except for burning. This is all GOD’s doing.
GOD’s mission, His fight, is going to take place in close quarters and in the filth of this world. The Child born and the Son given will be none other than the Mighty GOD, God the Warrior, and Everlasting Father. These titles cannot rightfully and especially not biblically be address to any other being but GOD, the One True GOD. He will enter the fray and penetrate the darkness. He will be King at His birth and even His vulnerability is stronger than man’s strength (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 2:1-2, 1 Corinthians 1:25). His wisdom and counsel will be unstoppable because He is the Wonderful Counselor. The idea of Wonderful here carries describes that which is beyond human and worldly understanding. He is the Prince, the Ruler, of peace (Genesis 14:18, Psalm 110:4, Hebrews 7:1-3). He manufactures peace like a car manufacturer makes cars (Colossians 1:19-20). GOD, the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty GOD, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace (note He is both Father and Son=Prince), will both Give His Son and the Child born will be GOD with us, Immanuel – God with us. Because of this mysterious, gracious, and glorious incarnation the victory is assured.
The loving governance that He brings will rest on His shoulders and will last forever. For those who hope for real justice and righteousness to rule this world, hold it is coming. GOD will fulfill His promises through His Son JESUS. JESUS was born of the tribe of Judah and of the family line of David (Genesis 49:10, 2 Samuel 7:12-16, Romans 1:2-4). JESUS is the Child born, He is the Son given, He is the Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14), and He is the personification of the “Zeal of the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 9:7). Take time this season to think about how wonderful it is that GOD Himself, the perfect Savior and King, came to establish His Eternal Salvation and Kingdom.
“Joy to the world! The LORD is come; Let earth receive her King!”[i]
Reflection Questions:
Reflecting on v. 2, how does it describe the powerful impact of the light of Christ on places and people in darkness and despair?
Think on the titles and roles of Jesus in vv. 6-7. What do they tell us about who Jesus is?
📖 Revelation 4:1–11In this episode of The King is Coming, Keith Harris and Jamie Harrison move beyond Jesus’s letters to the churches and into the next part of John’s vision. In Revelation 4, John is invited through an open door into heaven—and what he sees is the throne room of God.At the center of everything is a throne, and seated on it is the Lord in all His glory. From this point forward in Revelation, the throne becomes the focal point of the entire book.John describes the scene the best way he can: the brilliance of precious stones, a rainbow surrounding the throne, flashes of lightning and thunder, and a crystal-like sea before it. Surrounding the throne are twenty-four elders and four living creatures who never cease to worship the Lord.Together, Keith and Jamie discuss:✔️ Why Revelation 4 marks a shift from the letters to the churches to John’s heavenly vision✔️ What the throne room reveals about God’s authority and security over all things✔️ Why John uses comparisons (“like” and “as”) to describe the glory he sees✔️ The mystery of the twenty-four elders and what we can—and cannot—know✔️ The constant worship of the living creatures crying “Holy, holy, holy”✔️ Why heaven’s worship centers on God simply because He is worthyIn the throne room, everything points to one truth: God alone is worthy of worship.“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)🔗 If you would like to see a written version of this podcast, complete with footnotes and cross-references, you can find it here.
[i] George Thomas Kurian, Nelson’s New Christian Dictionary: The Authoritative Resource on the Christian World (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001).
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
📖 Revelation 4:1–11In this episode of The King is Coming, Keith Harris and Jamie Harrison move beyond Jesus’s letters to the churches and into the next part of John’s vision. In Revelation 4, John is invited through an open door into heaven—and what he sees is the throne room of God.At the center of everything is a throne, and seated on it is the Lord in all His glory. From this point forward in Revelation, the throne becomes the focal point of the entire book.John describes the scene the best way he can: the brilliance of precious stones, a rainbow surrounding the throne, flashes of lightning and thunder, and a crystal-like sea before it. Surrounding the throne are twenty-four elders and four living creatures who never cease to worship the Lord.Together, Keith and Jamie discuss:✔️ Why Revelation 4 marks a shift from the letters to the churches to John’s heavenly vision✔️ What the throne room reveals about God’s authority and security over all things✔️ Why John uses comparisons (“like” and “as”) to describe the glory he sees✔️ The mystery of the twenty-four elders and what we can—and cannot—know✔️ The constant worship of the living creatures crying “Holy, holy, holy”✔️ Why heaven’s worship centers on God simply because He is worthyIn the throne room, everything points to one truth: God alone is worthy of worship.“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)🔗 If you would like to see a written version of this podcast, complete with footnotes and cross-references, you can find it here.
It seems that as I grow older (although not yet old), it seems that things take a little longer. As Indiana Jones says, “It ain’t the years; it’s the mileage.” This has been especially the case with our Bible studies. Essentially, I mean that I am getting to a stage of life where I am more convinced – maybe convicted – that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. Part of that is, as I grow older and my responsibilities and opportunities grow, too, is that I do not have to get everything done. I do not have to check every box on my to-do list. The Lord knows what He wants me to do and how much time each task of His will take. So, I trust that as I spend my time each week nothing is wasted if I spend that time pursuing Him and looking to serve Him well in all areas of my life. Part of that is daily choosing to take off the old self and put on Christ. Just as each day starts with rising from bed, taking off the bed clothes, rinsing off the old in the shower, and putting on what I need for the day – deodorant, clothes, a decent volume of hairspray, bifocals – I must consciously lay out in my mind and meditate on what it means to put on Christ before heading out to meet the day.
My wife is a pro when it comes to laying out what needs to be put on the next day and how what is taken off is to be cleared away. The kids and I are blessed to have her remind us, more of them than me as their trainability leaves her more hopeful, to lay out our clothes for the next day and to remove the old to be washed or discarded as needed. When we do this, there are no distractions or detours when it comes to getting ready. When we listen to her and follow instructions, we can get up, take off the old, and put on the new. It just works. When we get off course, it seems like everything goes awry. Socks cannot be found. Shoes have been misplaced. Questions of whether we even have pants to wear or if homework is in the backpack instead of on the coffee table or if everyone’s teeth are brushed…. It never fails that precious time has been wasted, we are close to running late, or something has been left. It would all be so simple if we just laid out what we need to put on and take with us the next day. Could it be that walking with Christ is somehow similar?
Our past few Bible studies (The Tough Love of Colossians 3, Be Killing Sin & There’s No Such Thing as Imitation Fruit) have walked through the parts of Colossians 3 that tell us how we need to take off the old self and remove the sin that clings to us like dirt. We have also studied who we are supposed to be – “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” (Colossians 3:12) — Who are You? parts one & two Now, we are getting to the practical part of walking with Christ: what to wear.
Because of its practical nature, this Bible study has been hard for me to complete. I want it to be clear. I need to be clear, especially considering that this list of things to “put on” is not a list of practical tips for a better life. In fact, they cannot truly be put on if one is not saved. I do not say this to exclude people. I also do not say that to include. I say it to invite people to come to Christ. I also say that to hopefully help you understand that the Christian life – a life that has been taken from dead in sin to alive in Christ – cannot, hear me canNOT be lived apart from Christ. The commandments will beat you down, suffocate, and smother you because they are meant to be accomplished through God’s power given by His Spirit to those who have put their faith in the Son. So, a big part of this study is helping you understand again what it is to be in Christ. If you find you are not in Him, I would love to help you come to know Him! And if you are in Christ, dear Sojourner, I want to help you lay out what you need to put on, namely Christ, so that you can build helpful habits (not self-help but continual parts of your relationship with Him) that will strengthen your walk with Christ and fulfill what Paul prayed for the Colossians (and I for you) in Colossians 1:10, that you may “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God”. So, what to wear?
What to Wear (vv. 12-14)
Those three words – what to wear – can be either a question (as in what should I wear? or what I am supposed to wear?) or an instruction telling us what we need to wear for a certain occasion or for a certain event or activity. This ain’t that, but the analogy is helpful. Our righteousness (because of our sin) is the equivalent of putting on dress clothes after wallowing in mud – without taking a shower or so much as hosing off. The dress clothing will obviously be made dirty because we ourselves are unclean. We can compare putting on Christ then, at least to a small degree, to putting on fresh clothes after being cleaned by Him. In this analogy, Jesus is the one who cleans us and provides us with the clothing to cover us. Jesus justifies those whom He saves and covers their sin and shame with His blood, making them clean.
Paul explained to the church at Ephesus that learning and being taught in Christ helps us learn what it is “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, …and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:21-24). That is the image Paul is trying to get across to us throughout Colossians 3:5-14. Our sinful flesh belongs to the way we used to be before Jesus saved us. We need to take it off. That old life is our grave clothes. Think about it like this: do you think Lazarus (who had been dead in his tomb long enough that his decomposing body had begun to stink – John 11:39) kept on wearing his grave clothes? That would have surely been lovely and appetizing at Martha’s dinner party the week before Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection (John 12:1-2). Nothing says, “Let’s eat”, like the smell of something dead. No, the grave clothes had been discarded – Lazarus went from death to life and came out of his tomb at Jesus’s command (John 11:43-44)! Grave clothes are for the dead. The old self and its former manner of life are products of the wages of our sin – death (Romans 6:23). It is time for those who are alive (Colossians 2:13, Ephesians 2:4-5) to put on Christ. But what does that even mean?
First, we need to understand that putting on Christ is not something that we take on and off. Salvation and the new life that comes from Jesus saving us – from Him taking us who were dead in our sins and making us alive in Him – are reality. They are more than change in status; they are change of nature and our state of existence. Salvation is not something that can be lost because it was not accomplished by us. I know it sounds weird, but salvation is kind of a paradox. Those who are born again have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved by Jesus. There is the moment of salvation when the Spirit convicted of sin, and we repented of that sin and confessed Jesus as Lord. He is continually sanctifying us (a Bible word that the Holy Spirit is supernaturally making us more like Jesus in the new self and less like the old self) and saving us in our daily lives. And He will ultimately save us by taking us from this life into His presence!
Second, putting on Christ means that there will be evidence – fruit – of a relationship with Jesus. This is something that we have looked at in earlier sections of Colossians. In Colossians 1:10, Paul spoke to the Colossian church telling them what he had been praying for them, namely that they “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” and bear “fruit in every good work”. Their continual walk with Him grows them, provides them opportunities to serve Him, and produces fruit in their lives. In Colossians 2:6, Paul told them that they are to walk in Christ as they received Him. Again, the walk – the life – bears fruit that proves it. This is like our talking about putting on Christ and taking off the grave clothes. Dead people have no sign of life. They are dead. Think about what we refer to as vital signs: pulse, respiration, etc. They are vital to life because without them we are dead. In that same way, the fruit of Jesus changing our lives is the vital signs of our walking with Him. He took our heart of stone and gave us a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). His works are not written on stone tablets but on and through our hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3). James made this clear by saying that our faith will be proven – not earned – by works (James 2:14-26). There are outward signs of inward change, or we are dead.
This is important, and I do not want you to be able to miss this. Putting on Christ is not putting on a show. As I have already told you, trying to do the things that come from new life in Christ will weigh you down and beat you down if you have not been saved. That is what religion is and can be. Nothing will burn you out and make you want to quit quicker than trying to accomplish what only God’s Spirit can accomplish. If there is no fruit, there is no life. Jesus told His disciples a parable about a fruitless tree in Luke 13:6-9. A man owning a vineyard had a fig tree that was of fruit-bearing age for three years, yet it never produced a single fig. The vineyard owner told the worker in charge of the fig tree to cut it down because it was a waste of space and soil. The worker convinced the owner to give it one more year, a year where he would try all he could to make the tree healthy and produce fruit, but if at the end of that year there was no fruit, the tree would be cut down because it was dead. So, it is with us. Those connected to Christ – connected to the Vine – produce fruit because of the life He gives (John 15:5). But any who profess to be alive in Christ who are altogether fruitless, they are still dead in their sins (John 15:6).
I know this might sound harsh and judgmental. This section in particular is most of what has taken so long for this Bible study to develop because I do not want you to be beat down with a religious argument. I do not want you to think that I am putting qualifications on you that you cannot meet – or thinking that I am able to give you things to do in and of myself. So, if you are looking at your life and do not see any fruit of Jesus saving you, this is not me trying to hurt your feelings; it is a gift from God if you can come to realize that you are dead in your sins. Turn to Jesus and be saved (Isaiah 45:22)! Behold, “now is the favorable time”, “now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2)! Religion can beat you down, but the mighty hand of God can lift you up (1 Peter 5:6). If you see no fruit of Christ in your life – if you see none of His life and only yours, I beg and plead with you to look to Him, repent of your sin, confess Him as Lord, and believe on Him. He will surely save you.
If you look at your life and see fruit, no matter how small, let us look and see what He would have us wear.
What We Put on When We Put on Christ (vv. 12-14)
This is our wardrobe if we put on Christ: compassion, kindness, humility, patience, enduring care, forgiveness, and love. They stem from what we see in Jesus. Each can be clearly associated with Him, just as the sins of Colossians 3:5-9 are clearly associated with us in our sin. So, I want to treat these words – these articles of clothing as they are presented here – similarly to how we walked through the sins. In those verses, and today’s, I used the same lexicon and Greek dictionary for all the words to present their definitions fairly and not whitling the context to fit any agenda. Even when there are not quotations in the definitions, the information comes from Spiros Zodhiates’ The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament[1]. More importantly, I want to show you every verse in the New Testament (and a few from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament from the 3rd century b.c.) that contains these words. As I said in that earlier section, this may seem nerdy and/or boring, but I want you to see what the fruit is supposed to look like. I want you to see what the new life in Christ is supposed to be. I want to show you Him:
“compassionate hearts” οἰκτιρμός (oiktirmós) — This word is “the pity or compassion which one shows for the suffering of others”. It is not as strong as the word usually used to describe God’s mercy, ultimately because we are not capable of such. But it is a result of having received mercy! The word for hearts here is essentially the word for our insides, meaning that this compassion is not just something we show. As above in mentioning compassion because of receiving mercy from Jesus, this compassion comes from inside of us – out of the new life in Jesus. It is fruit.
Romans 12:1 – I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
2 Corinthians 1:3 – Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort….
Philippians 2:1 – So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy….
Hebrews 10:28 – Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
1 Chronicles 21:13 (Septuagint[2]) – Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of a man.”
2 Chronicles 30:9 (Septuagint) – For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away His face from you, if you return to Him.”
Psalm 50:3(Septuagint) – Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Zechariah 7:9 (Septuagint) – “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another….
“kindness” χρηστότης (chrēstótēs) — This word is translated as “good”, “kindness”, and “gentleness”. It is kind of hard to explain this word with a simple definition. This word is a byproduct of having received grace. The grace of God spreads through one’s whole self, softening the sharp edges of our personalities and mellowing out what was once harsh. It is the word used in Luke 5:39 to talk about why the old wine is better – because it has mellowed with age. This word is not really describing actions but is a description of character. It is fruit.
Romans 2:4 – Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
Romans 3:2 – All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Romans 11:22 – Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in His kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
Galatians 5:22 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness….
Ephesians 2:7 – …so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Titus 3:4 – But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared….
“humility” ταπεινοφροσύνη (tapeinophrosúnē) — We all think we understand humility or being humble, but sometimes we are falsely humble. Zodhiates does a good job with this explanation by saying this word is the “esteeming of ourselves small, inasmuch as we are so, the correct estimate of ourselves”. To illustrate, this sort of humility is seen in the sinner who realizes he or she is unworthy of the grace of God, confesses that sin to God, and repents of it. This word is especially important to the Colossian church because a fake religious version of this was already mentioned in Colossians 2:18 and 2:23 with the word “asceticism”. This was a fake humility that was meant to make people look holier than they were. The genuine form of this humility cannot be faked. It is fruit.
Acts 20:19 – …serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews….
Ephesians 4:2 – …with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love….
1 Peter 5:5 – Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
“meekness” πραΰτης (praǘtēs) — There really is not a good translation of this word since “meekness” in English is usually associated with being weak or coming from a position of weakness. This ain’t that. Prautes comes from a position of power. It is a heart and mind that demonstrates gentleness and grace because the person knows who they are – more importantly whose they are. It is a confident action. It is fruit.
1 Corinthians 4:21 – What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?
2 Corinthians 10:1 – I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ – I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!
Galatians 5:23 – …gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Ephesians 4:2 – …with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love….
2 Timothy 2:25 – …correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth….
Titus 3:2 – …to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.
James 1:21 – Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
James 3:13 – Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
1 Peter 3:15 – …but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect….
“patience” μακροθυμία (makrothumía) — This word is different than we might typically think of regarding patience. Or at least it differs from how we mean patience sometimes. It is less about endurance – just getting through something – than it is about faith or respect for others. It is what the KJV translators called long-suffering – a sense of “self-restraint before proceeding to action”. It is the quality one would have if they were able to avenge themselves after being done wrong but instead refraining to do so. It is fruit.
Romans 2:4 – Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
Romans 9:22 – What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction….
Galatians 5:22 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness….
Ephesians 4:2 – …with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love….
Colossians 1:11 – …being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy….
1 Timothy 1:16 – But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life.
2 Timothy 3:10 – You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness….
2 Timothy 4:2 – …preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
Hebrews 6:12 – …so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
James 5:10 – As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
1 Peter 3:20 – …because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.
2 Peter 3:15 – And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him….
Flowing out of these qualities or attributes are some that are written out in phrases or sentences rather than in words we can break down easily and define. The first of those is “bearing with one another” (Colossians 3:13). The compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience are to be shown to others, especially to your brothers and sisters in Christ, and especially in the context of the local church. There are so many factors and factions in this world competing with and antagonizing the local church. May it not be so that we are warring against one another inside the local church (or that we claim Christ and are not a part of a local church). Yes, churches are made up of people – sinners saved by grace, but sometimes we live and act as if we have never received the grace and mercy of Christ ourselves. This is part of what Paul is talking about here. The fruit of receiving grace and mercy is extending it to others. Oh, what our faith families would be like if we showed grace to one another regularly instead of just when there are extraordinary burdens that need bearing!
Part of bearing with one another is the next quality: “if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other” (Colossians 3:13). This one is tough! So often, we want to look at how we are to confront people (biblically or sinfully), but it is clear here that is more fruitful to just forgive. I think about times, especially a few of recent that I find myself suddenly convicted of, when I wanted to confront someone over some slight or hurt against me. How arrogant and selfish I am sometimes! What gives me the right to confront and call folks to the carpet when Jesus has been so forgiving – so merciful to me? That is part of forbearance: passing over sins. But to do that means that we must “in humility count others more significant than” ourselves (Philippians 2:3). Forgiveness is not easy. It is not meant to be. It is meant to be fruit of Jesus forgiving us – “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13). That kind of tears down our selfish and prideful arguments of who deserves better or who needs to know ___. Paul tells the Colossian church, and us today, that we must forgive, not should forgive, or could forgive if ___. This is imperative. This is fruit.
Wrapping Up
The last item of clothing or last part or quality of putting on Christ really brings the whole outfit together. It is kind of like how my school kids pick at me when I am dressed well (which is not very often). They tell me I need to do a “fit check”. It is usually when I wear a sport coat or a vest that draws attention to my clothing – that item takes the clothes and makes an outfit (again, as I am told by knowledgeable and well-meaning sophomores). Love, Paul tells us, should be “put on” above all the others (Colossians 3:14). The Greek word translated “love” here is one you are likely familiar with: agape. This is the love with which God loves. We only know it and can show it if we have received God’s love – that John 3:16 sort of love where God “gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” This is the love that God demonstrated “in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). It is unexplainable. But, then again, isn’t all love too complex to put into words? Thankfully, those who are putting on Christ have His Word to depend on and explain Him to us and others. Just as John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 show us some aspects of God’s agape toward those He saves, it serves us well to look at the Word to see how His love bears fruit in our lives and helps us to love others. I am tempted here, because I have gone longer than originally planned, to snip at some verses, but as Dane Ortlund rightly says, “the safest way to theological fidelity is sticking close to the biblical text.”[3] So, we will take a good-sized chunk of 1 John 4 – not to break apart for more Bible study but to build us up to see why agape “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:14). Look at 1 John 4:7-19:
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.
Love, complex and simple. But in the context of putting on Christ, it is fruit. 1 John 4:19 sums that up aptly. We are capable of agape only if we have received agape. Those who are chosen of God, holy and beloved (Colossians 3:12) can have compassion welling up within them because God has had compassion on them because He loves them. They can be kind because God, in His love, has been kind to them. They can humbly look at themselves for who they are because who they are is loved by God. They can demonstrate grace and mercy appropriately because God in love pours grace and mercy in immeasurable proportions into their lives. They can patiently endure ___ because God has been, is, and will be patient with them because that is what He does for His beloved. We can bear with others and forgive them because Jesus loved us enough to forgive us and continues to do so as we need it.
Putting on Christ, then, is taking the love He gave us and turning it back toward others. Putting on Christ is showing the love and care Christ has for His Bride, the Church, toward our own local churches. Putting on Christ is showing His gospel love to the world by sharing His gospel so that people will come to know Him. Putting on Christ is more of Him and less of us until we get to the point where we see Him face-to-face – the point where we will not need to put on Christ because He will be right there with us!
[2] The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Old Testament in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC by Jewish scholars who understood Hebrew (and Greek) better than anyone who has lived in the last 1,800 years.
[3] Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 14.
9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved….[1]
📖 Revelation 4:1–11In this episode of The King is Coming, Keith Harris and Jamie Harrison move beyond Jesus’s letters to the churches and into the next part of John’s vision. In Revelation 4, John is invited through an open door into heaven—and what he sees is the throne room of God.At the center of everything is a throne, and seated on it is the Lord in all His glory. From this point forward in Revelation, the throne becomes the focal point of the entire book.John describes the scene the best way he can: the brilliance of precious stones, a rainbow surrounding the throne, flashes of lightning and thunder, and a crystal-like sea before it. Surrounding the throne are twenty-four elders and four living creatures who never cease to worship the Lord.Together, Keith and Jamie discuss:✔️ Why Revelation 4 marks a shift from the letters to the churches to John’s heavenly vision✔️ What the throne room reveals about God’s authority and security over all things✔️ Why John uses comparisons (“like” and “as”) to describe the glory he sees✔️ The mystery of the twenty-four elders and what we can—and cannot—know✔️ The constant worship of the living creatures crying “Holy, holy, holy”✔️ Why heaven’s worship centers on God simply because He is worthyIn the throne room, everything points to one truth: God alone is worthy of worship.“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)🔗 If you would like to see a written version of this podcast, complete with footnotes and cross-references, you can find it here.
It’s been a few weeks since we’ve last opened the Word together, and I am excited to continue in this section of Colossians. As I said in our last study together, this section between the what-to-take-off (sin – Colossians 3:5-9) passage and the what-to-put-on (Christ – Colossians 3:12-14) passage helps us to see who we are in Christ – and make sure whose we are.
These past few weeks have really made me look hard at both who and whose I am. You see, as I write these devotions, they affect me as well. Sometimes that’s more enjoyable than others. I remember being a teenager and looking forward to the days when the choices would be easier, and I wouldn’t have to make principled stands or decisions so regularly. I had no idea. The older I get and the longer I walk with Christ the closer I grow to Him (not in perfection but in dependence and worship). The closer I grow to Him the less I can adapt to the world or to others because I just don’t fit in here. My friend Shane Viner tells me that a lot of what causes me anxiety boils down to an incompatibility of my worldview – that is getting more “rooted and built up in [Christ] and established in the faith, just as [I was] taught” (Colossians 2:7) – with the fallen world around me. I am learning that what God has for me is better than what the world offers. I am learning to be satisfied with Him and what He has for me rather than the fleeting pleasures of sin and the world. I am learning that because His is who I am. But notice I said learning.
This takes us back to our last Bible study and an important point I want to make sure I reiterate here today: the Christian life is impossible apart from being in Christ (born again, saved). This is why I am so thankful for this little passage in between the take-off and put-on passages in Colossians 3. It is too tempting sometimes to try and stop certain behaviors under our own strength or to think that stopping behaviors means that we do not need salvation. By the same token, it is also tempting to try and do good things under our own strength and equate that with not needing salvation. The more I study the book of Colossians, the more I realize – the more I am learning that it is God’s Spirit and Word that convict me of sin and where I find the desire to stop sinning at all (John 16:7-8). And it is through the prompting of the Spirit through the Word that gives me the desire to do good, too (Ephesians 2:10).
Our last Bible study’s focus was making sure we know what it is to be a new creation – making sure we understand that it is only by Jesus meeting us where we were, dead in our trespasses and sins, and making us alive in Him by giving us new life that only He can give. Just like Ephesians 2:10 follows Ephesians 2:1-9, good works come out of the new life in Jesus and are accomplished by His strength. Salvation comes by grace through faith so that we cannot boast in ourselves. Good works are fruit of His Spirit working inside of us so that we cannot boast in ourselves. It’s not about us.
That’s why the focus of this particular section is the question “Who are you?” and “Whose are you?” The answer to these questions matters. Just as we stated in the last Bible study’s introduction, who and whose you are is answered clearly in Colossians 3:9-11. Just like a hinge makes the working of a door possible, who we are in Christ and whether we belong to Him matters. We have already looked at Colossians 3:9-10 and how those who are in Christ have a “new self” made “after the image of its creator”. Today, we will screw in the other two hinges by seeing who we are not as a lens for whose we are (Colossians 3:11) and realizing that all those who are in Christ are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” (Colossians 3:12).
I Am Not Who I Was (v. 11)
How do you feel about your past self?
I have talked to many people over the years who struggle with feeling as if they are always judged by what they did in their past – of people remembering and defining them by past sins. Their testimony of Jesus changing their life by saving them and making them a new creation always seems to be minimized by the shadows of their past, or at least it seems that way sometimes or to some people. Praise the Lord, it is not that way in Christ.
In Colossians 3:11, Paul tells the church at Colossae, who if you remember had false teachers convincing them they needed Jesus plus Judaism, that their past selves (essentially, who they were before they came to Christ) are no longer their identity. Those who were dead in their trespasses and sins are now alive in Christ if they have been saved by grace through faith in Him. What could be a more drastic change than that? For the members of the church at Colossae, it did not matter whether their former heritage was Jewish or Gentile – what mattered was whether they had been saved. The focus was whether they were a new creation by Jesus rather than if they had been circumcised.
He was reminding this church that consisted of people from various cultures, regions, or sides and statuses in society regarding their new and lasting reality in Christ. If you think your church is made up of a motley crew, look at the Colossian church. Some of them were considered “barbarians” because they lacked the learning and culture that only true Greeks possessed.[2] Some were Scythians, people who lived along the Black Sea and were known for their uncultured, uneducated, and sometimes unruly ways of life.[3] Some lived lives of slavery – indentured servitude because they had debts they could not pay or were paying the penalty for crimes they had committed. Some were free and had people pay the debt owed them through the slavery and servitude we just mentioned. The whole list, basically their entire membership roll – Greek, Jew, barbarian, Scythian, slave, and free – was made up of people who had been labeled by categories that ostracized rather than welcomed.
Paul makes it clear that no such divisions exist in Christ’s church. That’s good news! You see, the Church is Christ’s bride! No, the divisions come from us, and all such divisions exist to elevate some and insult others. To put this in modern language speaking against the cultural, religious, and ethnic divisions people set up in churches today: Here there is not black and white, mainstream denomination or non-denominational, not raised in church culture, rough around the edges, struggling with clinging sins, or raised in a family that genuinely reads the Bible and prays together; but Christ is all, and in all.
I do not want to be cliché or lax here. This is serious because the true division is whether one is saved or lost, alive in Christ or dead in sin, new creation or not. This is not a means of saying we need to just go along and get along. It is saying that the Church is made up of those saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It is saying that those who once were “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope” have been “brought near by the blood of Christ” which broke down “the dividing wall of hostility” between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians (Ephesians 2:12-14)! It is saying that “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him” (Romans 10:12).
Being in Christ is bigger than that. His blood paid the adoption price by which we were redeemed and adopted as children of God (Galatians 4:4-5). His blood cleanses from sin and presents His Bride – the Church – to Himself without spot or blemish (Ephesians 5:27).
Praise God, we are not who we were if we are in Christ. And there is opportunity to come to Him rather than remaining dead in our sin.
Who are you? Whose are you?
I Am Chosen, Set Apart, and Loved by God (v. 12)
Those who have been saved by grace through faith in Christ alone are made new creations. I know I have said that often, especially as of late, but it needs to be said and said often! The old self and the death that comes with it has been cast aside, behold the new has come through the indwelling and work of the Holy Spirit. But sometimes, we just do not feel that way.
For Israel in the Old Testament, at least from the outside looking in, it seemed easy. They messed up repeatedly, and they repented repeatedly. Through God speaking to them by the mouths of prophets, they were warned ahead of time what the punishment for sin and rebellion against God would be. Through their own life experiences and the stories of what God had done in the lives of their ancestors, they knew that what God warned would actually come to pass. But they knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that when God’s people humbled themselves and repented that God would take them back. They knew this because He had “set His heart in love” on them and “chose…them…above all peoples” (Deuteronomy 10:15). They knew that God had set them apart from all others to be “a people holy to the Lord [their] God” and that they were “His treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6). They knew God was their Father and that He would give them “a heritage most beautiful of all nations” (Jeremiah 3:19).
But what about the Christians, especially those of Greek, barbarian, or Scythian heritage? This language would seem foreign to them. It might even seem to exclude them from being chosen, set apart, or loved by God – which is exactly what the false teachers were trying to get them to believe to add their fruitless religious practices.
This is why it is important to know who you are. This is why it is important to know whose you are.
There is something to be said for knowing that you have a Father who loves you – a God who set His affection on you and set you apart. This is the point of taking off sin – not to keep us from doing things we enjoy but to help us receive all that He has for us. If you are in Christ, He died for you – you specifically – and has known you since before the foundation of the world. He loved you and gave Himself for you despite the sins you would commit – sins He knew you would commit (Romans 5:8). Not only did He set His affections on you and loves you, but He set you apart to be different and live for Him – to excitedly and willingly serve Him and be His hands and feet in the world!
The language in these verses – chosen, set apart, loved by God – are all terms that God used to describe His people in the Old Testament, but they are the exact same terms He uses for His people in the New Testament. These three terms “are transferred from the Old Covenant to the New, from the Israel after the flesh to the Israel after the Spirit”[4] and help us to remember that we are God’s people, that He has set His affection on us, that He has adopted us into His family. The assurance that Israel had in their wanderings and wayward times is the same assurance we can have today. If we are in Christ, we know that we have a good Father who loves us and cares for us. Of course, there is discipline when we sin, but it is through God’s chastening and discipline that we can know we are His children (Hebrews 12:5-8)! He chooses us because He loves us. He sets us apart because He loves us. He. Loves. His. Children.
This is such a beautifully humbling truth. God did not choose, set apart, and love us based on our wisdom or strength – nor is it dependent upon our ethnicity (1 Corinthians 1:26). No – and I speak from personal experience here that is evidence of what the Bible says, God chose me despite my lack of wisdom, strength, and worthy or noble heritage so that people will boast in what Jesus did and does in me (1 Corinthians 1:27-31). This does not bother me. I know I am a sinner. I know that apart from the grace and mercy of Jesus that I would hopelessly continue in the wages of my sin (Romans 6:23). I am humbled that God would choose to love one such as me. But I am much more thankful that I get to know who I am because of whose I am.
It is my prayer that you know that, too.
Wrapping Up
Sometimes, when people act foolishly, they get asked “Who do you think you are?!” It is meant as a call to think about what you are doing and how you think you get to act that way. It is often directed toward people who are showing out in a bad way or placing their own desires above the people around them or those in charge. In the context of today’s passage, I ask you, dear Sojourner, who you think you are considering Christ.
If you claim to be saved, are you living in new life in Christ or are you still walking as dead people in your trespasses and sins? Do you claim Christ and live like Hell? Does your life bear the imprint of His choosing you, loving you, or setting you apart?
These are tough questions and not meant to make you doubt. They are tough questions that we should be asking ourselves because this is something we want to be sure of. Before we get into what aspects of Christ the new life puts on, we need to understand that these are not works that earn salvation but imprints of salvation.
I do not know your heart, but you do – and God does. But I do know this: it changes one’s life to be chosen by God, set apart by Him, and loved by Him. It is a game changer to understand that it is a beautiful thing to be adopted by Him into His family despite whatever sinful past we bring to the table. And there is no greater status change than going from death to life.
All of that comes only from Him. It is my prayer that, if you are in Christ, you are encouraged to live the life He offers – to be different – to have Him seen in you so that you are recognized as little Christs. But, if you are not in Christ, it is my prayer that you are not able to operate as if you were. I do not want to be so clever as to mask the reality that eternal hope lies only in Christ and the Bible makes it clear what being in Christ looks like – and what it does not look like. I pray the same thing for my faith family at Christ Community. I pray the same thing for my family. I pray for the same thing for me. May God make His presence in our lives clear, or may He save us and draw us near if we do not know Him.
9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved….[1]
Colossians 3:9-12
17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.[2]
📖 Revelation 4:1–11In this episode of The King is Coming, Keith Harris and Jamie Harrison move beyond Jesus’s letters to the churches and into the next part of John’s vision. In Revelation 4, John is invited through an open door into heaven—and what he sees is the throne room of God.At the center of everything is a throne, and seated on it is the Lord in all His glory. From this point forward in Revelation, the throne becomes the focal point of the entire book.John describes the scene the best way he can: the brilliance of precious stones, a rainbow surrounding the throne, flashes of lightning and thunder, and a crystal-like sea before it. Surrounding the throne are twenty-four elders and four living creatures who never cease to worship the Lord.Together, Keith and Jamie discuss:✔️ Why Revelation 4 marks a shift from the letters to the churches to John’s heavenly vision✔️ What the throne room reveals about God’s authority and security over all things✔️ Why John uses comparisons (“like” and “as”) to describe the glory he sees✔️ The mystery of the twenty-four elders and what we can—and cannot—know✔️ The constant worship of the living creatures crying “Holy, holy, holy”✔️ Why heaven’s worship centers on God simply because He is worthyIn the throne room, everything points to one truth: God alone is worthy of worship.“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)🔗 If you would like to see a written version of this podcast, complete with footnotes and cross-references, you can find it here.
Y’all, I had a really clever introduction to this week’s Bible study. It was so clever that I was proud and sure that it would be quite convincing. Then, I was convicted. The Bible does not need me to be clever to make it living, active, and sufficient (Hebrews 4:12, 2 Timothy 3:16); it is all those things and more because it is the Word of God. As my pastor says, if you win someone with an argument (or clever in this case), you will have to keep them with an argument, but if you win them with Christ, He will keep them.
Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with cleverness. The issue, as I mentioned a few Bible studies ago, is pride. I like to write. I know God can use these Bible studies to help people. I like being clever, from time to time when I can actually pull it off, but it is inherently foolish for me to think that a quippy well-written introduction is going to convince you to either live the way the Bible teaches if you are saved or, if you do not know Christ, come to Him. His Spirit through the preaching, teaching, writing about His Word does the work. What is inherently wrong with my approach is in how it is similar to the way contemporary churches approach the work of the Word. We believe the Bible has these lists of things we should not do. We are good at telling people that. But our lives simply do not match with what the Bible says life in Christ looks like. That is a problem.
I have also found it very difficult to get this particular Bible study out to you. I toiled over it for a few weeks because I wanted to make sure I was carefully communicating the message. Then, we had to move out of our house for a few weeks while our air conditioning was being repaired, meaning that I was away from my usual means of producing these Bible studies. That led me to look at it more and more and essentially just accept that it was not yet the right time for this Bible study to be published. Thankfully, it is time – the right time – for us to dive into these texts.
So, rather than the song and dance of my clever introduction, I think it wiser to just go for it: Who are you?
Seriously, who are you? Whose are you?
The answer to those questions matters. Who and whose you are is answered in today’s passage which bridges the sinful-things-to-take-off section (Colossians 3:5-9) with the upcoming Christlike-things-to-put-on section (Colossians 3:12-14). Lord willing, today we will see and come to understand that those who are in Christ have a “new self” made “after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:9-10), see who we are not as a lens for whose we are (Colossians 3:11), and realize all those who are in Christ are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” (Colossians 3:12).
I Am a New Creation (vv. 9-10)
When I think of new life in Christ or being a new creation, I am always reminded of Paul’s words to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 5:17:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
Those words, along with “new self” in v. 10 and Ephesians 4:24, give us a picture of what Jesus has done for those who have confessed Him as Lord and believed in Him: they are born again.
This is more than just church-talk, this is how Jesus Himself described what being saved is in John 3:1-21. Unless one has been “born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Because of His great love (Ephesians 2:4), God sent His only Son to be lifted up to die in our place on the cross – taking our sin and bearing the wrath of God due it (Romans 5:8-9), and “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). This is more than vivid imagery or something that preachers use to get people to walk an aisle; it is real and really happens in the lives of those who are saved by grace through faith in Christ.
Some misunderstand this or underestimate God’s power to change people based on the way that some church folks masquerade as Christians. In fact, the word Christian has little to no real meaning in some places because of how it gets linked to the way Christian is used in some cultures or politically. To understand what Christian means and how it came to be used to describe those who had been saved, we need to look at how the Bible uses it. Did you know that the word “Christian” was first used in Antioch as a hateful slur and derogatory term for Christ-followers (Acts 11:26)? And did you know that “Christian” only appears three times in the Bible?
It appears in Acts 11:26 where we learn of its origin when those who were part of the church in Antioch were mocked for believing and called little Christs, which is what the word literally means.
It is next used in Acts 26:28 after Paul had poured out his heart in sharing the gospel to King Agrippa who responded: “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” Paul’s response to the king showed the heart of Christ as he said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am – except for these chains” (Acts 26:29). He wanted them to have all of Christ and none of what he was suffering.
Finally, it appears in 1 Peter 4:16 where Peter tells these exiled Jewish Christians that “if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” Peter was writing to people who had been dispersed across Asia-Minor who, if they genuinely bore fruit of Christ making them a new creation, would stick out from the extremely religious pagan society like sore thumbs and draw attention to the difference between knowing Christ and merely calling oneself a Christian (Ephesians 4:20-21).
In each of those instances, those who were known as Christians – by reputation not identification – had been recognized for being like Christ. Now, their reception by the world was not good or pleasant – but it was the same way they the world treated Jesus (John 15:18-25)! I have shared several times over the past few Bible studies how there is grace despite our sin and not dependent on our perspective, but it needs to be said without any condemnation that there should be some Christ visible in your life. Those who are saved and filled with the Holy Spirit bear fruit of the eternal life that is reminiscent of the life Christ lived on (Galatians 5:22-23, John 15:5). But, as I mentioned above with people masquerading as Christians, there is little Christ to be seen in some who claim to be little Christs. It should not be so.
If one is in Christ, the old is supposed to have passed away (2 Corinthians 5:17). The sin in the lives of Christians is to be put to death (Colossians 3:5) and/or put away (Colossians 3:8). Our testimony should be that we “once walked” in these sins (Colossians 3:7) because we should “no longer walk in them” (Ephesians 4:17) – “that is not the way you learned Christ” (Ephesians 4:20)! This is not judgment, speaking out of a place of negativity, or me trying to bash your life. This is me begging from the depth of my spirit for people who claim Christ to inspect the fruit in their lives. I beg, remind, and plead because it really is eternal life or death. And it is truly a gift to have “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Look at the way Paul described it to the church at Colossae. He told them that there should be a difference in the way that they spoke to one another before and after. He told them in v. 8 that they needed to put the sin of “obscene talk” from their mouths and reminds them in v. 9 that they should not “lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices”. He is communicating to the Colossian church that when they sin, they should recognize it the same as they would if they were wearing disgustingly filthy clothing: take it off (repent) and “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10). Essentially, this looks like searching within ourselves and removing everything that does not resemble Christ and putting on everything we can that does resemble Christ. If this is something you balk at or think is useless, there is a problem. If you have been convinced that Christianity is merely fire insurance and that no change happens, there is a problem. Perfection is a pipe dream, yet we should seek not to sin; the differences is that when those who are in Christ sin, they “have an advocate”: “Jesus Christ the Righteous” (1 John 2:1)! The new life lived comes from Christ. The power and drive to live it comes from His Spirit within those who are saved. That is not perfection or our own righteousness; it is a life that points to Jesus, even when we fail.
Look at the way Paul described it to the church at Ephesus. He told them that their former manner of life was to be in the past with all its ignorance, distance from God, and callous attitude toward others (Ephesians 4:17-19). It almost reads like sarcasm when Paul tells them that continuing to live as they did before Christ is “not the way [they] learned Christ! – assuming that [they had] heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:20-21). Essentially, Paul presents it as either a before picture or an after picture. You are either in Christ, putting off your “old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires” or you are putting on the “new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteous and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24). If you are all former and nothing new is within you, there is a problem.
Who are you? Whose are you?
Wrapping Up
I mentioned in the introduction how the time just was not right for this Bible study to be published over the past few weeks. I am thankful for that time to reflect on my own life in Christ and to prayerfully work through what it is to be a new creation – to plead and encourage people to do the same in their own lives. Then, last Sunday morning, my pastor, John Goldwater, was preaching from Matthew 22:1-14 regarding the parable of the wedding feast and the application and invitation struck me. John paused at the man who showed up to the wedding feast in inappropriate attire – how he should have been properly clothed in wedding garments (that can only come from being in Christ). I was reminded how today’s and next week’s passages fit in between the sin we need to take off and the Christ-likeness we need to put on – how our sin poorly clothes us but Christ covers us.
Check out how John put it:
My point is [Jesus] wasn’t talking about clothes. He used clothes as an illustration. They all understood if he was going [to the wedding feast from] working out in the field and … was dirty, messy – that you would go by the house – you’d clean up – you’d put on different clothes before you came to the wedding feast. Well, this man, he got into the wedding feast, but he didn’t have wedding garments on.
And here’s the difference. This is what he did. He tried to get into God’s party still wearing fig leaves like Adam and Eve because he hadn’t been by God to get the skins of covering (Genesis 3:7, 21).
He tried to come into the wedding feast his own way.
He tried to be like Joshua, the son of Jehozadak (Zechariah 3:1-10) – high priest during the time of Zechariah, who was covered in filthy clothes with the devil at his right hand accusing him of all these things until God said, “Devil, shut up; take those dirty clothes off him and give him clean clothes.”
You know where we get our clean clothes from? We get our clean clothes…. We don’t get them at Stubb’s, although that’s a fine place to get clothes. We don’t get them at Walmart, although that’s a fine place to get clothes. We don’t get them at Goodwill over in Oxford, although that’s a fine place to get good, affordable clothes. We get them when we have our meeting with God and … confess our way is sinful, and He takes off our old clothes and … gives us new.
He tells us in Colossians (ch. 3:5-14) – and we’ve been hearing this … from Keith, we’ve been reading it – that we put off the old man, we put off the old ways, and we put on Christ.
In Romans chapter 13 … [v]erse 14 says this: Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisions for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. That’s what He’s talking about.
You wanna know what He’s talking about with these clothes? He’s talking about 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, He is faithful, He is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse from all unrighteousness.
You don’t get to set at the table before you visit the Savior and He changes your clothes. He changes your heart, changes your mind, saves your soul.
You don’t get there just cause you heard the invitation. You gotta receive the invitation. Come to Him for cleaning and made fit for the Kingdom of God, and nobody can make you fit for the Kingdom of God but Him.
So, here’s what I want to know. Today, have y’all – as a church, have you? as an individual – have you answered the invitation of grace, not taken it lightly, not decided to put it at the back of the line – the … back burner and put it out of your mind at the bottom of everything. Have you answered and taken [it] seriously – the invitation of grace to be saved … – that invitation and be glad about it? Have you come to Jesus and allowed Him to change who you are? To make you born again?
That idea of new clothes, it’s not just about taking one system off and putting a new system on. It’s about a new heart. It’s about a new soul. It’s about a new you. It’s about being born again.
You see, asking yourself who you are or whose you are is not to be taken lightly. It is more than simply stopping certain sins and starting certain acts of righteousness. It is about coming to Christ and Him saving you – Him making you born again – Him making you a new creation.
You might be wondering why this is such a big deal to me or why I am digging into this so much. I do not want you to be able to get the impression that being a Christian is something you can do. It is not humanly possible. I do not want you to get the idea that the works – both sins you quit and righteous ways you live – earn anything. They are proof, fruit, of what He has done inside of you.
If you read this and know you are His, but your life is steeped in dirty laundry, confess your sins to Him, repent of them, and He is “faithful and just to cleanse you of all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Trust that His ways are best and that He can produce His works, His fruit, in your life.
But if you read this and realize that you are not saved – that you have never been born again, that is not necessarily bad news. It means that there is an opportunity to come to Christ, for Him to save you. If you have questions about what it is to be saved or how to be saved, I would love to talk with you or point you to someone in your area who can show you in the Word how to be saved. If you have questions, I would love to help point you to Christ and see what His Word says. Who are you? Whose are you? I pray that the Lord helps you answer these questions today.
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Introduction
Tony Merida calls those 1 Peter was writing to “grieved saints gladdened by the gospel”.
Martin Luther believed 1 Peter contained all a believer needed to know to be a faithful follower of Christ.
Author (v. 1a)
v. 1a — Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ….
Peter is an example of great faithFULness.
He is the only non-Jesus human to walk on liquid water (Matthew 14:29).
He took his eyes off and nearly drowned after standing on liquid water (Matthew 14:30).
He tried to rebuke and correct Jesus after a prophecy by Jesus regarding His soon-to-come death, burial, and resurrection (Matthew 16:22-23).
And, of course, Peter denied Jesus three times while He was being beaten, mocked, and tortured.
Peter’s life is a beautiful example of redemption and repentance.
Jesus restored Peter three times after His resurrection (John 21:15-19).
Peter repented after being confronted regarding sin by the apostle Paul (Galatians 2:11-14).
1 Peter, at least in part, is an answer to what Jesus prayed about for Peter’s life, faith, and ministry (Luke 22:31-32).
Audience (v. 1b)
v. 1b — To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia….
“elect exiles”
This is almost an oxymoron. To be an exile means to have been rejected, but to be elect means to have been selected.
This phrase could be understood as resident aliens and is reminiscent of Philippians 3:20 — our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a Savior!
“of the Dispersion”
Some Jews were already dispersed throughout the Greco-Roman world (John 7:35).
During the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54AD), Christians were expelled from Rome and the areas that these elect exiles lived were where some of those outcasts settled.
Jerusalem Christians were dispersed after the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:1-4).
According to… (v. 2)
v. 2a — …according to the foreknowledge of God the Father….
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.[1]
Greetings Sojourners!
I usually begin with a little banter, but my battling a migraine necessitates jumping right into the meat of today’s study. Please check out last week’s Bible study for the context (because context is key!).
Just like the pain in my head, sin lingers and clings to us. For the past two Bible studies in our Jesus Over All study (June 29 and July 13), we have been diving into the way Paul approaches the subject of sin in his letter to the Colossian church and how they (us, too) were taught the importance of putting it to death and taking it off and out of their lives. It seems like these past two weeks are negatively focused – and they were if you are looking at the dire circumstances and wages of sin, but part of what makes the gospel good news is what Jesus does with the bad news. Sin produces death. Jesus gives life. To a certain extent, knowing the fragility of life and the existence of death can make one’s life precious. Knowing that Jesus has saved us from the wrath of God our sin was due makes eternal life more precious. So, stick with me as we move through the last of what we need to take off (negative) to walk with Christ so that next week, when we look at what we need to put on (positive), our study can lead to worship in our lives!
As we did with verses 5-7, we are going to rely on a single lexicon/dictionary (Spiros Zodhiates’ The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament[2]) and lay out the definition and verses that contain the same word so that we get the full picture and context and avoid the temptation to cherry-pick definitions to suit bias. Also, remember that while this – as with vv. 5-7 – appears to be a list of sins, it is neither exhaustive (meaning these lists are all the sins there are) nor is the inclusion of any of these sins because of Paul’s or my dislike of certain behaviors. Each sin included in these lists needs to be put to death or taken off because God’s Spirit chose for these to be written here, “breathed out” by God through Paul’s writing, and “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). If offended – as I have been in studying Colossians 3:5-11 and writing these Bible studies, ask yourself what God is trying to teach you – or what correction do you need in your beliefs to square them with the Bible – or what training is God’s Spirit applying to your life that you may be righteous – or what course-correction does your lifestyle need in order to be in step with God rather than your own desires?
Now You Must Put Them All Away (v.8)
As in verses 5-7, these lists are specific sins that were plaguing the church at Colossae (and likely its sister church Laodicea), but the list in verse 8 seems to be more focused with sins within oneself, as in one’s heart-set and mind-set, than in specific actions (as in v. 5). This list shows more of what is going on within a person rather than the specific sins that make them visible in one’s life. Also, these are the sins Paul says are sins in which we “too once walked” and lived in but have no place in the new life in Jesus Christ. Think of it like this: we are sin-sick and have gone to the Great Physician to see what treatment needs to occur. Last week’s sins (vv. 5-7) are seen through the physical examination and may even appear on an x-ray. They are symptoms that are observable. But our Physician is thorough and because “no creature is hidden from His sight” and all “must give an account” to Him who is “living and active” and discerns “the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12-13), we have a deeper view, akin to an MRI or PET scan. The sin in verse 8 is malignant within us and festers within our hearts before its symptoms are seen in our lives. These sins can be hidden to all but God and need treatment by God’s Spirit so that those who are in Christ are being and have been brought from dead in their trespasses and sins – again “in which [we] once walked” (Ephesians 2:1-2) – to “made alive…in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
Those who believe in Christ and confess Him as their Lord and Savior (Romans 10:9-10) are saved from their sin and the wrath that accompanies it. But this is not a new or a New Testament phenomenon; it goes all the way back to how God showed it would work back in the Old Testament prophecies (Ezekiel 36:26-27):
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
It was made abundantly clear – and continues to be made clear through God’s Word – that one’s life matches one’s spiritual standing. For those who are dead in their trespasses and sins, that death is eventually apparent – those sins do not stay hidden within one’s nature because one’s nature always exhibits itself. Jesus Himself clarified this in Matthew 15:18 when He said that “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person”. What is inside will come out! In the same way that one’s sin goes from nature to behavior, those who are in Christ and have His Spirit dwelling within them will bear fruit of that relationship. The fruit – “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23) – will be visible – will come out – because the life that comes from believing and learning Jesus (Ephesians 4:20-21) is not a learned set of skills and cannot be faked. It will do what Paul prayed for the Colossian church in chapter 1:10: bear “fruit in every good work” exhibiting that we have increased “in the knowledge of God”! Notice that I did not say those good works earn the life; they are results of the life! Think about how one assesses whether someone is alive or dead. How can you tell the difference? Easy! The living person has life, and there is no life in a corpse. Like Ezekiel wrote in the verse we read earlier: God puts His Spirit in His people, His Spirit causes His people to walk in His ways, and even the desire to do good comes from Him.
Let me repeat some of that to make sure that we do not miss it. Being in Christ is not a learned set of skills and cannot be faked. It is a state of being. We are. Or we ain’t.
So often the world tells us to “fake it ‘till you make it.” Well, dear Sojourner, that just will not cut it with the Christian life because what God does is the genuine article. Just as sure as turkey does not make tasty bacon and tofu will never satisfy like a ribeye, only the divine power of God by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ will produce the genuine article. Christ alone brings the dead to life (Ephesians 2:4-5). And we need to be sure that if we are not taking off these sins Paul shows us here and are content to live in them, we need to understand that, even if we fool the whole world, Jesus will recognize us as either the genuine article or imitation because He will recognize us by our fruits (Matthew 7:20).
Note that the way I illustrated that could be seen as humor above, but it is not. It is heavy – eternally heavy. It is not meant to make something serious a joke but is what is known as satire – to show how ridiculous it would be to believe that one is in Christ all the while wearing every fixture and tapestry of sin. It cannot be so. No one ordering and paying for a steak would be satisfied with a soybean gelatin mold that looks like and smells like beef. One taste will tell the truth. You can fool your congregation, your pastor, or your grandmama, but imitation will not stand the test on the day of judgment but will hear some of the most chilling words found in all of Scripture: “I never knew you; depart from me you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23).
So, taking these sins off is important. We cannot continue to try and be satisfied by the imitation joy and empty pleasure that sin offers, even within our hearts and minds. The world wants us to think that as long as we do not say it or do it there is no danger, but God knows best. He knows what we need (Him) and what we do not need (sin). With that in mind, here are those things that the Holy Spirit (through Paul) is telling us do not belong in our lives – that which needs to be taken off and put away from us.
“anger” ὀργή (orgḗ) — We all know what anger is, just like we know when anger is appropriate or not. In the context of Colossians 3:8, this is an enduring state of mind. Aristotle defined this particular Greek word for anger as “desire with grief”.
For me, this is the type of anger that seems like it is going to produce relief in me by blowing off steam but ends by immediately making me feel horribly guilty.
Mark 3:5 – And He looked at them with anger grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and was restored.
Romans 12:19 – Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord.”
Ephesians 4:31 – Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with malice.
“wrath” θυμός thumós — This was used to describe wind and gave a picture of violent movements or passionate responses. When it was combined with the word translated “anger” above, it communicates something ferocious. Basically, “wrath” here is an outburst of “anger”.
Romans 2:8 – …but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
Ephesians 4:31 – Let all bitterness and wrath and anger clamor and slander be put away from you, along with malice.
Revelation 19:15 – From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
Deuteronomy 6:15 (Septuagint[3]) – …for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God – lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you from off the face of the earth.
“malice” κακία kakía — This word describes a wickedness that occurs simply because it is a habit in the minds of evil people. It is used to describe people who want to do evil and comes from those who are genuinely wicked (and who enjoy doing evil).
Ephesians 4:31 – Let all bitterness and wrath and anger clamor and slander be put away from you, along with malice.
Titus 3:3 – For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
1 Peter 2:1 – So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Proverbs 1:16 (Septuagint) – …for their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood.
“slander” βλασφημία blasphēmía — This word is often grouped together with the sin of false witness (like lying but much more purposeful and pointed). It is damaging someone’s reputation by saying or reporting things that wickedly seek to hurt or wound.
Matthew 15:19 (also Mark 7:22) – For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
1 Timothy 6:4 – …he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions….
Ephesians 4:31 – Let all bitterness and wrath and anger clamor and slander be put away from you, along with malice.
The last in this list is “obscene talk” which essentially goes back to what Jesus said in Matthew 15:18 – what comes out of our mouths evidences what is really in our hearts. And, ultimately, it is the heart that matters. Works do prove faith (James 2:17), but there are those who appear to do good works that fall away.
Wrapping Up
There was a man named Demas whom Paul mentions at the end of Colossians. In Colossians 4:14, he tells the church at Colossae that Demas “greets” them just like Luke did. In Philemon (which was mailed with the letter to the Colossians), Paul calls him one of his “fellow workers” (Philemon 24). Yet in 2 Timothy 4:10 when Paul was in his final years and a prisoner in Rome, he reported that Demas, “in love with this present world”, deserted him and went to Thessalonica.
There is a saying in contemporary America that is used to justify whatever a person wants to do, especially things that someone might call sinful: “The heart wants what the heart wants.” It is the verbal equivalent to shrugged shoulders and communicates that people cannot help what they want to do. This is right and wrong. For those who do not know Christ, it is right. They want what they want and can do what they want. One cannot get more lost. Those who are dead in their sin are dead and cannot get dead-er. But the Bible does not leave room for those who profess Christ to take that path.
Demas was able to act like a Christian convincingly. He even convinced Paul and Luke! But he could not hide his heart – eventually he did not want to hide it anymore. 1 John 2:19 tells us that the enduring mark of faith in Christ is whether we continue in the faith – that those who “went out from us” were not “of us” because those who are in Christ continue in the faith until the end. Pretend does not endure. Acting does not endure. But what Jesus does on the inside is long lasting. So, Sojourner, we have some soul-searching to do.
As you read this, you may be tempted to work or try to earn our way out of any of these sins that are present in our lives because seeing the reality of our sin can be overwhelming. That will not work. Remember, the wages of sin is death. Our hope is not in what we can do – which amounts to our sin, but in the grace given to us in Christ. We need His work.
We need to fix our eyes on Jesus and repent, trusting in His Spirit to give us what He promised back in Ezekiel 36 – to see His fruit bear in our lives.
Let Psalm 139:23-24 be our prayer as we look at our own lives and seek to take off these sins – as we desire to love and follow Jesus and not allow our love for our sins draw us away like Demas:
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
I am praying for you as always and want you to know that you are not alone in the struggle against sin. Sometimes it seems harder to take certain sins off than others but know this: Jesus has paid the penalty for our sin and made a way – the only Way (John 14:6) out of death and into His eternal life. Will you trust Him or continue in sins? Do you love Jesus, or are you in love with this present world? I pray He helps you see which and draws you to Himself.
[3] The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Old Testament in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC by Jewish scholars who understood Hebrew (and Greek) better than anyone who has lived in the last 1,800 years.
The Bible is what it claims to be (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It is God’s Word. It is true. It contains everything that can be known about God and is sufficient to bring us to Him.
There is a difference in the lives of those who know Christ – are saved/born again – and those who are not – lost/dead in their sin (Ephesians 2:1-10, 4:20-24).
God has authority over His creation. What He intended to be right is right, and what He calls sin is sin (Isaiah 5:20). He is the supreme authority of such (John 1:1-5).
Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8), “not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:9).
If one is in Christ, His surpassing worthiness changes one’s life to the point that the things of this world pale in comparison to knowing Him (Philippians 3:7-11) and God’s Spirit produces change – or fruit (Galatians 5:16-26) – that is evident in real life.
Repentance is, per Wayne Grudem, “a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ”.[1]
Repentance Means Seeking God’s Grace and Mercy (vv. 1-2)
God’s forgiveness is fueled by His “steadfast love” and “abundant mercy” (v. 1).
God’s forgiveness cleanses us from our sin and covers it by the blood of Christ (vv. 1b-2).
Repentance Requires Us to Own Up to Our Sin (vv. 3-6)
If we are in Christ and are filled with His Spirit, we know what we have done and are convicted of its wrongness (v. 3).
If we are in Christ, we understand that He is holy and worthy and that sin is against and opposed to Him – and that His righteous judgment is fair/final and His grace is good (v. 4).
If we are in Christ, we recognize that sin is part of our nature and causes consistent struggles (v. 5).
If we are in Christ, we are loved by God despite our failings and can trust that God delights in hearts changed by Him through salvation (v. 6).
Repentance Desires Restoration and Renewal (vv. 7-12)
Sin damages and dirties, requiring us to need purging, cleansing, and restoration (v. 7).
The process of repentance can be painful, but even the scars produce worship in the end (v. 8).
Repentance is a beautiful picture of a restored relationship with God – from death to life, lost to saved, being distant from the Father to drawn into His embrace (vv. 9-10).
Repentance means turning from sin and seeking God even if the consequences of sin never allow things to return to what they once were (v. 11).
By God’s grace and mercy, joy returns and, by the power of His Spirit, He upholds us and carries us through (v. 12).
Repentance Produces Worship and Worshipful Service (vv. 13-17)
Sin stops service to God. Repentance begins the restart. (v. 13)
Worship is the only fitting response to being delivered from sin and is a result of repentance, which is worship (vv. 14-15).
Repentance is not religion. It is a response to God’s Spirit who gives us “a broken and contrite heart” refining our lives to be holy and acceptable to Him. (vv. 16-17).
Repentance Strengthens the Body of Christ (vv. 18-19)
Individual repentance produces lives that impact the part of the world where God has us, meaning the Spirit of God is active in those who follow Christ and produces fruit in the real world (vv. 18-19).
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.[1]
📖 Revelation 4:1–11In this episode of The King is Coming, Keith Harris and Jamie Harrison move beyond Jesus’s letters to the churches and into the next part of John’s vision. In Revelation 4, John is invited through an open door into heaven—and what he sees is the throne room of God.At the center of everything is a throne, and seated on it is the Lord in all His glory. From this point forward in Revelation, the throne becomes the focal point of the entire book.John describes the scene the best way he can: the brilliance of precious stones, a rainbow surrounding the throne, flashes of lightning and thunder, and a crystal-like sea before it. Surrounding the throne are twenty-four elders and four living creatures who never cease to worship the Lord.Together, Keith and Jamie discuss:✔️ Why Revelation 4 marks a shift from the letters to the churches to John’s heavenly vision✔️ What the throne room reveals about God’s authority and security over all things✔️ Why John uses comparisons (“like” and “as”) to describe the glory he sees✔️ The mystery of the twenty-four elders and what we can—and cannot—know✔️ The constant worship of the living creatures crying “Holy, holy, holy”✔️ Why heaven’s worship centers on God simply because He is worthyIn the throne room, everything points to one truth: God alone is worthy of worship.“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)🔗 If you would like to see a written version of this podcast, complete with footnotes and cross-references, you can find it here.
I hope those of you reading this in the US had a good and relaxing 4th last week – and that y’all reading it elsewhere are well, too! As I reflected on the idea of independence and freedom, I found myself thinking of a verse again and again that reminded me of something really beautiful regarding today’s passage. The verse has been Galatians 5:1:
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
This verse reminds me that there is beautiful freedom in Christ that does not come from sin. He is not keeping us from joy or happiness by telling us that the sin we want to commit is sin; He is freeing us from the bondage we do not know accompanies sin.
This comforts me as I ponder my own life and sin (which, if you read or listened to last week’s Bible study was the challenge). I am about to turn 38 at the end of this month, and reflecting is kind of what I do now.
When I was younger, I had plans for where I thought I would be by this point in my life. At 7, I wanted to be a “singing-preacher” (what I thought a minister of music was). At 17, my plans included teaching for a few years, getting my master’s degree, becoming a principal, and having a doctorate by 35 years old. At 27, I wanted to overcome the burnout and depression I was experiencing. I had burned out and quit ministry a few weeks before my 30th birthday in 2015 and moved back home.
If someone had told 2015-me that I would have the contentment and peace I have today in my walk with Christ and in my home life, I would have laughed in their face and probably told them they were full of something. I spent so long wanting to be something that I lost track of who I was. My identity became wrapped up in my job. That is a very modern way of putting the situation. Biblically, workaholism is a form of the sin of pride. Burnout, for me, was when my prideful pursuit of being somebody turned into the realization that work or status could never give me what I was looking for – was never intended to provide the feelings and validation I craved (really, coveted, which is sinful itself).
That sounds really negative (it definitely felt negative), but as I have learned by reflecting, God has blessed me and fulfilled me over the past seven years in ways I never could have imagined. The first blessing was finding Him in His Word and in prayer and realizing that He had never moved. The second blessing is realizing how amazing and beautiful a life God had built me by giving me Candice and the kiddos. There were more blessings than I can possibly list here, but ultimately, finding my identity in Christ helped me see which aspects of my life needed to removed – or put to death. Work had to have its place. Success and recognition had to have theirs, too. Eventually, after a lot of repenting, life rearrangement, correction through the Word, and more than a little training from Candice, I found joy in pastoral ministry that I never had in the years prior to burning out.
I do not want you to miss this: the issue that burned me out was sin. Pride is a dangerous thing. It is like the carbon monoxide of sinfulness – tasteless, odorless, and deadly. It crept in subtly and slyly. It began with a mix of not getting the recognition I felt I deserved. People told me that. Church folks, even. Then, I got a taste of recognition. Humility left quickly. I wanted more. The idea that I could become something quickly overtook my ministerial life. The fulfillment that came from compliments and attaboys was fleeting. The larger my pride became, the smaller my satisfaction. I just wanted to quit – and did! But pride tainted that, too. I faked a sabbatical so I would not have to live with the reality of failure, intending to extend it until I could bear the reality that I was spent.
As I said, there were things in my life that needed to be killed – that needed to be dead to me. There were areas of my life that had to be pruned, cutting away some of the weeds and thorns that were keeping me from growing. And in that is freedom. Christ had set me free from the bondage created by my own sin. Hear that: my own sin. I am not discounting the powers and principalities that are at work in the world – satanic and demonic (Ephesians 6:11-12). I am simply owning how my own sinful desires were leading toward bondage and foolishness I am thankful not to have fully experienced (Jeremiah 17:6, James 1:13-15).
That is what Paul is talking about in this section of Colossians. In the midst of their dealing with false teachers, they had sin of their own that needed to be taken off as well as aspects of being like Christ that they needed to put on. This was not Paul molding the Colossian church in his image but an opportunity to show them what it looks like to set their minds on Christ rather than this world (Colossians 3:1-2). This was, as Paul said in Romans 12:2, an opportunity “not [to] be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of [their] mind”. We, like the Colossian church, need to be active in putting to death the sin in our lives and taking it off so that we can live the life we have in Christ.
Put to Death (vv. 3-7)
There is a famous quote from the puritan pastor John Owen: “Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”[2] Really, the last part of that quote – “be killing sin or it will be killing you” – is the most commonly quoted and most apropos to our study today. In that quote, he describes a daily process of examining one’s life in order to kill – mortify, as he calls it – sin before it kills you. If you compare that to the way we talk about sin today, Owen sounds a bit crazy. How can he take something so seriously that obviously is not taken seriously anymore? Either he is wrong, or the modern view of sin is. Which one lines up with the Bible? Owen, obviously.
We talked last week about how there is a lot of anxiety surrounding calling sin sinful. I have read or heard no fewer than a dozen people – in the last month, mind you – who talked about how things that used to be a sin or actions that people used to consider sin are sins no longer. This is related to the necessary presuppositions we have been talking about. If you believe the Bible really is the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17), then what it calls sin issin. If you believe that those who are saved are different, as taught in the Bible (Ephesians 4:20-24), then what is taught to be sin in the Bible should no longer be a part of our lives. God knows what we need and how we need to live – and not live. The “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), but our God specializes in taking those dead in their trespasses and sins and making them alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:1-5)!
So, before we dive into what appears to be the first of two lists of sins, we need to ask ourselves a question: if sin really is as deadly as the Bible says it is (Romans 6:23, James 1:14-15), why would someone want to convince us otherwise?
Really take a second and consider that question. Why would someone want to convince us that what is deadly is safe, and how evil and hateful would that individual have to be?
It reminds me of the difference in the way people talk about cigarettes now versus how they did thirty years ago. Thirty years ago, the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel were cool (or Kool?) culturally and iconic. Then, the dadgum surgeon general decided to attack the tobacco industry and act like cigarettes could cause lung cancer. I remember seeing commercials in the 90s talking about why “big tobacco” wanted to downplay the cancer risk of smoking: they wanted to sell cigarettes. Who would take advantage of us like that in regarding sin?
Ultimately, Satan! Look at the way he is described in Revelation 12:12: “But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” Satan “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). His agenda is to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). He is dangerous in that since “he knows his time is short” he is like a predator backed into a corner. But understand this: he is not looking for minions to rule over in hell. He is not going to be in charge there. He is going to be an inmate. And he is spitefully evil and wants to see as many people misled as he can.
Now, we need to acknowledge a few things about these lists of sins – only one of which we will cover today, almost like a referee before a big fight, but instead of prohibiting kidney punches, we need to clarify what is and is not a low blow when it comes to discussing sin. First, God’s Spirit gave the list, not Paul. These were not pet peeves that Paul had and wanted to get rid of or to pick on. We need to be careful and guard against calling “evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). Second, we must be careful to present it as it is in the Bible. There is always a temptation to emphasize sins that we hate while making light of sins we either commit ourselves or that we just do not think are a big deal. God alone gets to set the agenda regarding His righteous standard and sin. We must guard against letting our own agendas try to steer the text of Scripture.
I have thought a lot about how to present this information and have decided to list it out in a chart format. I have used the same lexicon and Greek dictionary on all the words to present their definitions fairly and not whitling the context to fit any agenda. Even when there are not quotations in the definitions, the information comes from Spiros Zodhiates’ The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament[3]. More importantly, I looked at every verse in the New Testament and a few from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament, circa 3rd century b.c.) that contained these words. This may seem like a boring way to present the information, but I want to make sure you can see what the information is and keep it as objective and free from bias as I can. Take notice of some of the passages that are used multiple times as it shows that those particular sins were affecting multiple places, people groups, and churches.
These are the sins Paul says we need to put to death – things that are “earthly” rather than godly:
“sexual immorality” πορνεία (porneía) — This is a catch-all term that describes anything sexual that deviates from the intimacy between husband and wife. The WSNTDICT uses “fornication” as a part of the definition, which means any sex outside of marriage, emphasizing that the sin is not merely an issue of timing (like calling it premarital sex) but emphasizing that marriage between a husband and wife is God’s plan for sex. And, for clarity’s sake, every bit of lust or sex outside of that is sin.
1 Corinthians 6:13 – “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” – and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
1 Corinthians 6:18 – Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
1 Corinthians 7:2 – But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
2 Corinthians 12:21 – I fear that when my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.
Galatians 5:19 – Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality….
Ephesians 5:3 – But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 – For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality….
Revelation 9:21 – …nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
“impurity” ἀκαθαρσία akatharsía — This basically means unclean, but it not as clear cut as the idea of being unclean in the OT. This means that something has been tainted by sin and gives a connotation of being rotten. This sort of sin can be by oneself or with others.
Romans 1:24 – Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.
Galatians 5:19 – Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality….
1 Thessalonians 2:3 – For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive….
Matthew 23:27 – “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
“passion” πάθος páthos — This word is only used three times in the NT. Our passage and the one from 1 Thessalonians imply or include lust while the Romans usage is accompanied by “dishonorable”. The understanding is that these particular passions negatively affect those who participate in them.
Romans 1:26 – For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature….
1 Thessalonians 4:5 – …not in the passions of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God….
The word “pathos” does not always reference sin. Note how “dishonorable” and “lust” clarify the context. Passion is good. It can be beautiful. But only in fitting with God’s plan and intent. We must ask the questions of Proverbs 6:27-28: “Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?”
“evil desire” ἐπιθυμία epithumía — This word is stronger than the English portrays. There is a longing – almost lustfully so – that accompanies this desire. It is like an appetite that needs to be satisfied. Think about the context of some of the instances of this word being translated as “passions” and consider the connotation of passionate hunger.
1 Timothy 6:9 – But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction….
2 Timothy 3:6 – For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and lead astray by various passions….
2 Timothy 4:3 – For the time has come when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions….
Titus 3:3 – For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
James 1:14-15 – But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
1 Peter 1:14 – As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance….
1 Peter 4:2-3 – …so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensualities, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.
2 Peter 1:4 – …by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
2 Peter 3:3 – …knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
Jude 16-18 – There are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires, they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.”
“covetousness, which is idolatry” πλεονεξία pleonexía — It means covetousness or greediness, but it has a kind of inherent meaning of being the root of other sins – like greediness that sparks a desire to do other sins. Or wanting something that belongs to another with a twinge of bitter rivalry that believes they don’t deserve to have it as much as we would. It is idolatry because it seeks to forsake God as the object of worship by being filled or satisfied by things of earth.
Romans 1:29 – They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips….
Ephesians 5:3-5 – But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among the saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.
Luke 12:15 – And He said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
Wrapping Up
He follows this list saying that “on account” of these sins “the wrath of God is coming” (v. 6). The wrath of God is not to be taken lightly. It describes the attitude of God toward sin. He hates it (Psalm 5:4). That hatred drives His wrathfulness toward sin. That sounds harsh, doesn’t it? How could a God who is literally love (1 John 4:16) hate? Isn’t that contradictory? If you have a loved one beset by some sickness, do you love it? I want to be careful in my wording here because God does show love toward sinners in salvation, but I also want us to understand what the Bible says. Those He shows love toward in grace and mercy – those who have confessed Him as Lord and believed in their hearts that Jesus has risen from the dead (Romans 10:9) have been, in love, “saved by Him from the wrath of God” (Romans 5:9).
I mentioned earlier how we need to be careful not to over-emphasize or de-emphasize sin but rather to look at it the way it is presented in the Word. There are many preachers who use sin and fear of God’s wrath (which is an appropriate fear) to, in a sense, scare the hell out of people – to motivate them to follow Christ out of a fear of God’s wrath and eternal damnation.
What I want you to see here is that, for those who put their faith in Jesus, He bore the wrath of God our sins deserve on the cross (Colossians 2:13-14, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 9:26, Isaiah 53:10-11). We are all of the things represented – all of the wickedness – in the lists above. Jesus is none of those things. But “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Love is a much better motivator than fear, which brings us full circle to consider the beauty of Galatians 5:1! Christ has set us free for freedom – not in bondage to sin. John Donne was an English poet and pastor from the turn of the late 1500s and early 1600s. He wrote a poem[4] that describes God seeing us in our sin as captives in a labor camp built out of a conquered town. In this poem, we have Stockholm syndrome – we have grown to love our captor and embrace the labor camp as life when it is our death and demise. Donne writes of God coming in and busting down the doors to bring His bride home to Him, essentially saying to Hell with Death because He will never leave or forsake His bride. What a beautiful image! God coming to earth to redeem His Bride from this world of sin. Amen!
So, if you read through those sins and looked at the verses that show them for what they truly are – that show us sinners who we are, you can either decide to ignore what you know about the wrath of God or you can embrace the offer of love and forgiveness. You can choose to sit in the squalor of the labor camp or embrace the conquering King!
I do not sit here and type this in judgment. There is no ulterior motive of condemnation. I am a sinner, too. The difference is that I have put my trust in Jesus – what He has done on the cross, His resurrection, and what He is doing and going to do. I have given my life to Him. And little by little, day by day, year by year, He makes me more like Him. The sin that I clung to so closely becomes distasteful. And He appears more lovely and dear and brings freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17)!
Will you take an honest assessment of your life? I hope that in doing so you realize your need for Him.
If you would like to talk to someone, reach out; I would love to help you. If you realize that you have become distant from Him, repent and turn back; He has not moved. Remember the warning from John Owen: you better be killing the sin in your life because it is surely killing you.
[4]The poem is one of Donne’s “Holy Sonnets”. Here is the text with / marking the end of a line: “Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you / As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; / That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend / Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. / I, like a usurp’d town to another due, / Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; / Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, / But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue. / Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain, / But am betroth’d unto your enemy; / Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, / Take me to you, imprison me, for I, / Except you entrall me, never shall be free, / Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”
The Bible is what it claims to be (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It is God’s Word. It is true. It contains everything that can be known about God and is sufficient to bring us to Him.
There is a difference in the lives of those who know Christ – are saved/born again – and those who are not – lost/dead in their sin (Ephesians 2:1-10, 4:20-24).
God has authority over creation, which He Himself created. What He intended to be right is right, and what He calls sin is sin. He is the supreme Authority of such.
Breakdown of the Text
Sin is not of God (v. 13)
v. 13 – Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts on one.
God is holy and sinless – since before the beginning and forever and ever,
Leviticus 19:2 – Speak to the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.
2 Corinthians 5:21 – For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
To illustrate how sin works from a wholly biblical perspective, our illustrations today are going to come from the life of King David – “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14).
So, for us to understand how sin works, and specifically in this first example how temptation occurs, we are going to look at 2 Samuel 11:1-2: “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened, late one afternoon….
David was not where he was supposed to be.Because of that, he put himself in a position he should have never been.
Then, IT happened. What happened? Temptation – then, sin – then…death.
Our temptation is rooted in our own desire (v. 14)
v. 14 – But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
“lured” – used to describe wild game being baited into a trap meant to capture for the kill
“enticed” – used to describe the moment of being captured (or hooked) by the bait
“by his own desire” – used to describe the reality that our sin is rooted in what we want (that we know is wrong)
The life of King David:
The Bible clearly illustrates David had issues with this sort of sin, illustrated by his pursuit of multiple wives:
Michal (1 Samuel 18:27) – daughter of King Saul; at one point was taken away from him by King Saul and given to another (1 Samuel 25:44), but David never stopped viewing her as his wife (2 Samuel 3:13-14) despite his marrying other women (pl)
Abigail – wife of Nabal and described as “discerning and beautiful” (1 Samuel 25:3); helped keep David from making mistakes due to her husband’s treachery; David’s encounter with her happened to coincide with Saul giving Michal to another, so David married her.
Before we let David off the hook – see what I did there? – he married a woman named Ahinoam at the same time he did Abigail (1 Samuel 25:43).
NOTE: These are descriptive passages, not prescriptive. God’s design for marriage has always been what we see in Genesis 2:24-25 – one man and one woman for life.
If you think that this is putting David in a false context, I want you to also consider that Nathan the prophet reminds David in 2 Samuel 12:8 that he had taken King Saul’s harem of concubines for himself, too….
So, to illustrate James 1:14, David was not where he was supposed to be (2 Samuel 11:1), saw what he should not have seen (2 Samuel 11:2), asked his servants about the woman he should not have been looking at or asking about (2 Samuel 11:3), had this woman brought to him to consummate his desires into reality (2 Samuel 11:4), sent her home after his desire was satiated, thinking he had gotten away with it all scot-free (2 Samuel 11:4), and ultimately found out “desire when it has conceived gives birth” (James 1:13, 2 Samuel 11:5).
The Wages of Sin is Non-Negotiably Death (v. 15).
v. 15 – Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
God has been clear regarding sin and death since the beginning.
Genesis 2:17 – …but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 3:22-23 – Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent Him from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
Genesis 5:5 – Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.
Romans 5:12 – Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned….
Romans 6:23 – For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The life of King David:
Rather than admit his sin, confess it to God, and repent, David set out to cover up his sin (2 Samuel 11:6-13) and ultimately had Bathsheba’s husband Uriah killed (2 Samuel 11:14-25).
David, after the 7-day mourning period was over, took “the wife of Uriah” to be his wife, thinking once the child was born no one would be the wiser (2 Samuel 11:25-27), but God….
God sent the prophet Nathan to tell David a parable to illustrate the heinous and wicked nature of his sin with “the wife of Uriah” (2 Samuel 12:1-4).
David’s response to the parable was right and ended up prophetically responding to his own sin:
2 Samuel 12:5-7 – Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”
David’s response to the terrible results of his sin (2 Samuel 12:7-12)??? “I have sinned against the Lord.” (2 Samuel 12:13)
The Lord’s response: “The Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless….
Conclusion/Application
1 Peter 2:22-24 – He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds we have been healed.
1 John 2:1-2 – My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world.
Romans 10:9-13 – …because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing riches on all who call on Him. For “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.[1]
📖 Revelation 4:1–11In this episode of The King is Coming, Keith Harris and Jamie Harrison move beyond Jesus’s letters to the churches and into the next part of John’s vision. In Revelation 4, John is invited through an open door into heaven—and what he sees is the throne room of God.At the center of everything is a throne, and seated on it is the Lord in all His glory. From this point forward in Revelation, the throne becomes the focal point of the entire book.John describes the scene the best way he can: the brilliance of precious stones, a rainbow surrounding the throne, flashes of lightning and thunder, and a crystal-like sea before it. Surrounding the throne are twenty-four elders and four living creatures who never cease to worship the Lord.Together, Keith and Jamie discuss:✔️ Why Revelation 4 marks a shift from the letters to the churches to John’s heavenly vision✔️ What the throne room reveals about God’s authority and security over all things✔️ Why John uses comparisons (“like” and “as”) to describe the glory he sees✔️ The mystery of the twenty-four elders and what we can—and cannot—know✔️ The constant worship of the living creatures crying “Holy, holy, holy”✔️ Why heaven’s worship centers on God simply because He is worthyIn the throne room, everything points to one truth: God alone is worthy of worship.“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)🔗 If you would like to see a written version of this podcast, complete with footnotes and cross-references, you can find it here.
I love the way that Paul’s letter to the Colossian church builds and builds and builds. I think our overviews of the larger chunks of chapters one and two help us to see how it builds, but also how it fits together as an epistle or letter. Remember, where we see chapters, sections, passages, and verses there was just a letter from the apostle Paul to a church that needed help. Paragraph by paragraph the help he offers them is pointing them to Jesus. And since Paul’s letter to the Colossians was “Scripture…breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16), it is important for us to remember that these words apply to us and the local churches we belong to as well!
Even though we have spent several weeks reviewing the initial chapters of Colossians, it is important that we keep our passage today in correct context:
In chapter 1, we saw Paul presenting Jesus in a beautiful hymn highlighting how Jesus, God incarnate, is preeminent over all and yet cares for them enough to deliver and redeem them (and us) “from the domain of darkness” to His Kingdom (ch 1:13-14).
Chapter 2 saw Paul helping them to understand what it is to be alive in Christ and helped them understand that receiving Christ and walking in Him (ch 2:6-7) is necessary to combat the false teaching attacking their church.
As we begin chapter 3 where Paul lays out for the Colossian church – and again, the church today – what new life in Christ is and is not, the final verse from last week’s passage (ch 2:23) strikes me a bit stronger: “These (human precepts and teaching) have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”
We looked at Colossians 2:23 in the context of last week’s passage, and we need to now see it as the hinge that opens the door between last week’s passage and ours today because, contextually, it fits with both passages. The “human precepts and teaching” (ch 2:22) were spoken of in the context of the false teaching plaguing the Colossian church – that people were trying to tack on additional religious practices to the gospel and distract from it. But, as we are about to begin looking at precepts and teaching given by Paul, it is fitting that we clarify the difference between human precepts and those “breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16). Sins are going to be listed – not Paul’s interpretation of a religion but speaking from God as He was “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). We must be careful to focus on and look at what God is saying to the church – then and now – through Paul. We must be careful to recognize the authority of Scripture to teach us what to believe and correct us when we are wrong – to teach us how to live and correct us when we sin – to give us everything we need to live this new life in Him (2 Timothy 3:17).
There is temptation to blunt what God makes sharp regarding sin – to call good what God called evil (Isaiah 5:20). There is also a temptation to take God’s Word and use it to hurt people rather than to point them to Him. Both are dangerous. Both are trying for “human precepts” instead of the divine. God’s Word says what it says, and it has power. But the former, the man-made or man-twisted have “no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh”. Thankfully, Paul’s answer to both – the answer that has been consistent throughout Colossians and will continue to be through the end is Jesus – is clear in our passage today.
If You Have Been Raised (vv. 1, 3)
The first word of today’s passage is “if”. As a parent and a high school teacher, I understand this word with unique clarity.
Daddy, can I go to __’s house Friday? Yes, if, you clean your room. Mr. Harris, if we all make __ or above on the assessment, you should buy us donuts. I sure will if you hold up your end of the bargain. When Friday comes or the assessment is over both sides play the parts of expert lawyer explaining how I am bound to do this or how I should change my mind because of how close they got to the agreement. Yet if leaves extraordinarily little wiggle room. If is conditional. Any agreement containing if means that its completion is contingent upon whatever in-the-event-that occurs.
In the case of today’s passage – “Ifthen you have been raised with Christ”, the condition is if someone is in Christ, whether or not they have been “raised with Christ”. One either is or is not. Think back to the way that Paul has presented this state of being in Christ throughout the letter: either in “the domain of darkness” or “the kingdom of His beloved Son” (ch 1:13), either reconciled to Him through “the blood of His cross” or “alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds” (ch 1:20-21), either “dead in your trespasses” or “made alive together with Him” (ch 2:13). So, to say “If then you have been raised with Christ” is to say you are either dead in your sins or raised to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4) – in Christ or not knowing Him at all (Matthew 7:21-23[2]).
It is important to the message Paul is communicating because the teachings in Colossians 3-4 are for those who have been “made alive…with Christ”, saved by grace through faith in Jesus (Ephesians 2:5). These are not principles for a good or successful life. They are not suggestions or even a how-to manual for faith or practice. If one is not in Christ – saved, born again, these teachings are of no value and will only end in discouragement and disappointment because they are contingent on the Spirit’s power only available to those who are His.
This is illustrated through the rest of that conditional statement: “seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God”. Basically, if you are in Christ, seek Him. Verse 3 clarifies it even further because, once one is saved, the former pre-salvation life is over and life is “hidden with Christ in God” – eternal life is contingent upon His life, our being brought from death to life is contingent upon His resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:12-16).
This is why the new life that comes from being in Christ is not simply a how-to manual or list of instructions – it is real and lasting transformation, life change that occurs when one goes from the “wages of sin”, which is death, to “the free gift of eternal life” (Romans 6:23). Think back to the time spent earlier on the context of ch. 2:23: only new life in Jesus is of value “in stopping the indulgence of the flesh”! Seeking Christ is more than reading His Word or praying to Him as a religious exercise, it is seeking the One who rescued you and redeemed you – who saved you. If you have been raised with Christ, why would you not seek Him?
Set Your Minds (vv. 2, 4)
There is good news in the command to seek Jesus, namely that He will be found! Look at this beautiful passage in Isaiah 55:6-7:
Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
This is often viewed as an invitation – and it is – for those who do not know Christ but let us look at what it means for those who do know Him. If you have been raised with Christ, He will be found when sought and near when He is called upon. But also, if one’s wicked ways have been forsaken and unrighteous thoughts laid aside, one surely has sought the Lord and received His compassion and forgiveness – received His life – because human beings do not lay aside their wickedness of choice easily. The latter proves the former. The fruit proves the tree[3].
The command here moves from seeking Him, though, to setting one’s mind on Him. That word “set” means be mindful of, to be devoted to”[4]. Think about it like how one would set a thermostat or an alarm. A thermostat ensures that a house stays within the confines of temperatures that will keep us comfortable – that is comfortable to the one who sets the temperature. An alarm ensures that appointments are kept and things that one really does not want to miss. As a resident of Mississippi in June, I am devoted to making sure my thermostat is set correctly as the humidity and heat would quickly overtake my home. Alarms are necessities for things I want to make sure I do not miss and things I must do and are set as needed – as often as needed, as often as I need to be mindful of a time or date. How does this pertain to Jesus?
Paul tells the Colossian church to “set” their minds “on things that are above” – the same thing that he just commanded them to “seek”. The mind of the church, its members, should be set on Jesus “not on things that are on earth”. Set – like a thermostat – to keep one’s mind consistently where it needs to be, on Jesus. Set – like we would an alarm to remind us of where we need to be. Set.
Now, I have heard people say that there is a danger of being so heavenly minded that one is no earthly good, meaning that one can be so focused on “things that are above” that things below are forgotten about. That warning assumes that these heavenly minded people would have a sort of monastery view that would isolate them from the world.
I would argue that I am of no earthly good if my mind is not set on Christ. When we look at the rest of the larger section that today’s passage begins (Colossians 3:1-17), what follows comes from setting one’s mind on Jesus. The sins that are crucified are because of focusing on Jesus and the life He gives. The behaviors that characterize the new life follow in the way that He lived – and lives!
This leads to the ultimate goal: meeting Jesus. If we look at verse 4, this is the goal – the expectation of seeking and setting one’s mind on Christ – “When Christ who is your life appears”.
This is the sort of expectant devotion that reminds me of my son. The first day I spent alone with him was when he was barely a month old on my wife’s first day back at work. He screamed. He cried. He was upset. But everything changed when his mama called to see how everything had gone. He heard her voice over the phone and began to be soothed. For the first time that day (except when a bottle was in his mouth) he was quiet. As soon as he hit her arms when she got home, he was at rest. Now, I know it would be hard to say that as an infant he was thinking this or that. Yet on rare occasions when my wife is gone for a long while, every audible car noise from the street brings questions of whether his mom is back. When my wife and daughter were on a mission trip without us a year ago, every buzz on my phone brought questions whether it was his mama on the other end. And, as hard as he tried to play it cool when we picked them up at the church when they got back, everything was right in his world once his mama was home.
Expectantly setting one’s mind on Christ shows that kind of devotion. While Jesus is away, setting our minds on Him operates on the belief that He really is returning for us and has prepared a place for us (John 14:2). But, more than that, it is a connection between the one you confessed as Lord (Romans 10:9) and the life you actually live (Galatians 2:20). And when He appears – when He returns, He comes to take you with Him. Those who are His will be ready because their minds are set.
Wrapping Up
It is so easy to regiment our lives to fit everything that we want. We can schedule and plan. There are immovable commitments in our lives that will trump anything that comes up. I can be in the middle of something that has everything else in my schedule detouring around it and have it all upended with a single emergency call or text from my wife or kids. In that moment, everything else pales in comparison. The immovable appointment suddenly becomes movable.
But how does God fit in my life? Is time with Him immovable in my schedule? I learned – sadly later than I should have – that there are times that, if I do not schedule time with my wife I will run out of time – the same with my kids. I felt bad when I initially began scheduling this time because it seems so impersonal to schedule things as important as time with my wife and kids. Then, I realized that it is better to schedule than miss something important, which is the reason I had a calendar in the first place: to ensure that important things do not get missed. If I fix my schedule around gathering with my church family so that it is an immovable commitment, why should I be so foolish as to think the precious time I get with my wife and kids should be less of an immovable commitment.
I must do the same with my time with the Lord – in His Word and praying. It has become part of my daily routine (which I know also sounds impersonal). And, if I do not start my day in His Word and in prayer – if I do not set my mind on Him at the very beginning of my day, I will be off. I will be more like the old self than the new.
Important things are set. They are fixed.
And so, it must be for the minds of those who claim to be saved.
If you are reading this and find that you have no desire to set your mind on Christ or that you can make it through days or weeks or months or years without caring about spending time with Him in His Word or praying to Him, there is a problem. If you claim to be a part of His body – the church – and have left it dismembered in your absence, there is a problem. Remember that conditional if. If you are His, you will seek Him. If you are His, you will desire to spend time with Him. If you are His, there will have to come a time when you are set – fixed – on Him. It is conditional. And per His Word, the conditions are set – fixed, immovable.
Maybe there is an issue with repentance that needs to be taken care of so that you can fix your mind on Him. Or maybe, just maybe, you are not in Christ. If you have not truly been born again, it is like I said earlier: these actions are not for you. They will drain you because you do not have the Spirit’s power. They will make you feel empty and dead because those who have not been made alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5) are still dead in their trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). If this is you, then there is hope. The Bible is clear on this:
…because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:9-13
If this is you, I hope you take these words to heart. If there is no fruit of life in Christ, then there is no life. But this does not have to be bad news. The words from Romans 10:9-13 tell us how to be in Christ. To confess Him as Lord is to submit to Him as the Master of your life, trusting that His ways are better than yours. To believe that God raised Him from the dead is more than mere information; it is trusting that only Him who raised from the dead can give life to those who are dead in their sin. If you call out to Him and tell Him these things, then He will save you just as He promised. Know this, whether you are in Christ or out: I am praying for you. I am praying for you to have a desire to meet God in His Word and talk to Him. I am praying for His Spirit to help you set your mind on Him and seek Him while He may be found. And, if you come to realize that you are not in Him, know that I would love to talk with you and pray for you. I would love to introduce you to Jesus.
[2] The context of Matthew 7:21-23 is interesting here because just prior to that paragraph in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:15-20) is a paragraph where Jesus describes the danger of “false prophets” who appear to be part of the sheepfold but are “ravenous wolves”. The context helps us here because Jesus clarifies that one’s fruit defines what type of tree they are. Those who are in Christ bear His fruit – “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). The fruit thrives because those who are in Christ are connected to Him (John 15:5-6). So, based on Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, no fruit means no Christ. This is very frightening and damning illustration – or it is assurance.
Just Keith Harris 