Take No Prisoners

This morning, we resume our ongoing
study of this lengthy section of exhortations here in Colossians
3.1 through 4.6. And so if you would, please take
up your Bibles and begin turning there, Colossians chapter 3. As we’ve mentioned for the last
several weeks, Paul has transitioned here in chapter 3 to a new subject,
or at least a new tack on that subject, that of practical applications
of the teaching that he has set forth in those first two chapters. And I’ve suggested to you that
as far as a general outline of this entire section, there are
10 of these exhortations, practical applications of Paul’s doctrine. And we have really covered only
the first one of the 10, what we called heaven-oriented living,
or as our sermon title had it, grasping for glory. There, in
those opening four verses, we were confronted with a pair of
commands, not only to seek the things that are above, but also
to set our minds on them, to dwell on them. Paul gives a number of strong
explanations in following. First, he says, we’ve been raised
up with Christ. Why would we seek the things
of the earth? Just as we have, as believers
have died with Christ, we have been raised up with him. God
has saved us and brought us to life really through the gospel.
How reasonable then that we should pursue heavenly things. As our
history insists upon a heavenly perspective, we have died and
our life is now hidden with Christ in God. And our future insists
on a heavenly-mindedness that will one day be revealed with
Christ in glory. Now, this is such a fascinating
transition here. from verse four to verse five,
from exhortation to exhortation. The two exhortations are quite
different in tone and content. Paul takes us from really the
highest and most spectacular thought, the thought of heaven
and the things of God, and he snaps us back to earth and drops
us into a veritable battlefield, a battlefield that is this life.
Because we have been raised up with Christ, we are to set our
minds and to continue seeking the things above, cultivating
a heavenly perspective, and yet Paul takes us from heavenly glory
to war. That appropriately captures the
significance of this change. And of all things, Paul insists
that we consider as dead our own physical bodies. There could
not be a more stark contrast. Heavenly glory and earthly flesh. So that you may see this intense
and stunning transition, what I’d like to do is read the first
eight verses of chapter three, the first four verses that we’ve
already considered, and the four that we will begin this morning.
Colossians chapter 3 beginning in verse 1. Therefore, if you
have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above
where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Pardon me. Set your minds on
the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For
you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will
be revealed with him in glory. Therefore, consider the members
of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion,
evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is
because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon
the sons of disobedience. And in them you also once walked
when you were living in them. But now you also put them all
aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from
your mouth. And there you have it. Seeking
and settling our minds on the things above and then yanked
back to reality in verse five, consider the members of your
earthly body as dead. The picture that the apostle
effectively paints here with his words is that of a very violent
and active battlefield. And let’s face it, it speaks
of death, putting to death earthly actions. Think of this. Imagine that we were suddenly
dropped into a literal battlefield. It would take no time at all
to realize exactly where we were, what’s taking place, what the
dangers and consequences are all around us. We can almost
smell the gunpowder and see the flashes. We can hear the fire
of guns and cannons and rockets. We hear the shouts of the soldiers,
whether orders or calls for help, and we would wisely seek a place
to duck into and cringe as we scramble for safety. Now, in
that imaginary battlefield, we have no idea who is fighting
who. We don’t even know what side
we’re on. Have we been dropped behind enemy lines? Is there
a trench or a foxhole into which I can hide? Do we even have a
weapon of our own? That really captures the abruptness
of this change. And we suddenly find ourselves
smack dab in the middle of a firefight. But here in this passage before
us, Paul tells us who our foe is. who it is that’s firing at
us, and who it is that we are fighting. He tells us, as well,
the nature of this battle and its consequences. He says that
our enemy here is immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and greed. And Paul rolls them all into
the sin of idolatry. That is the enemy. And make no
mistake, this is no game. This is not an athletic contest. It’s war. And we’re in it. This is a fight to the finish,
a fight to the death. There will be no truce, no ceasefire,
no diplomatic negotiations for peace. In this war, there will
be one sure winner and one sure loser. One will be victorious,
one will be defeated, one will live, and the other will be killed. It is that simple, cut and dried. Why would Paul resort to such
a dramatic change in subjects? Why, when he had just taken our
thoughts to the things of heaven, the things of God, Eternal things. Why would he
drop us back in, of all places, here in the midst of a battlefield?
And I should say first that these two scenes are not incompatible. To set our minds on the things
above is not only possible in the midst of war, it is crucial. Secondly, though, it would be
entirely unreasonable and unproductive to leave his people to wander
around as if in some little darling cartoon, some kind of Christian
Disneyland, wandering around, muttering to ourselves nice and
pleasant thoughts as the enemy creeps to the top of the hill,
seeking to shoot, to kill. You see, Paul knew the culture
surrounding the Colossian church. It was vile and ungodly, not
unlike the culture in our own city and country and world. It
was a seedy, immoral, hedonistic culture. Their godless motto
was essentially eat, drink, and be merry, a self-centered culture
that sought to extract every ounce of pleasure out of life.
It was an existence built on sensuality, gluttonous indulgence
of even the grossest kind. Homosexuality, sexual perversion
of all sorts was rampant, even unimaginable vice. Again, the pagan world very much
resembled our own. Not only was society in general
immoral, but the religious cults had incorporated sinful acts
into their worship. Some of the so-called art and
symbols that were left behind are inappropriate even to describe.
No wonder the surrounding culture was desensitized to these sins. And so when Paul speaks of these
things, things so prevalent in his day, so prevalent in our
own, he’s identifying the vicious enemy that is seeking to destroy
us. And so I titled this message and next, Take No Prisoners. There’s not going to be a peace
treaty. There’s not going to be a ceasefire. There are not
going to be any prisoners. We need to engage our deadly
enemies. And the first thing that I want
to share with you this morning in the engagement of these deadly
enemies is the front line of our combatants. Next Lord’s Day,
God willing, we will look at not only the front line of our
combatants, but the deadliness of them. These are sworn enemies. They’re not our friends. They
can’t be reasoned with. Not only the deadliness of our
combatants, but the second wave of our combatants. Just when
we think that we’ve gotten through this first round of enemy soldiers,
in comes the second wave. We’ll deal with those next Lord’s
Day, Lord willing. Let’s begin at the verse five,
the front line of our combatants. Where Paul just says again, therefore
consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality,
impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. These are the enemy combatants
with whom we come face to face on the battlefield. These are
those sins that would just as soon kill us if we do not kill
them first. And I would call your attention
to that very first word, therefore. Paul is drawing a conclusion.
He’s basing his thoughts here in verses five through eight
on what he’s already said. He’s building upon what he has
just said in verses one through four, essentially that if we
are to have a heavenly mindset, set our minds on the things above,
we’re going to have to fight to do that. We’re going to have
to do battle. We’re going to have to kill our
enemy, sin. This is not the only time that
Paul addresses this series of deadly vices. seven times in
all in his epistles, and more if you count all the subtle occasions
where he uses different words. But seven times in all, Paul
uses some of these same terms to describe the deadly influences
of society in that day. To be sure, as this was a major
feature of first century culture, it was something that Paul had
to confront again and again and again. So I’d like to take us
on a tour through these various passages, not to do anywhere
near a thorough exposition of them, but to begin to grasp how
prevalent these sins were in Paul’s day. Indeed, they’re prevalent
even in our own. So these are all very relevant
passages. Would you turn first to Paul’s
letter to the Galatians and to chapter five when you get there.
Galatians chapter five. As you’re turning, Paul’s letter
to the Galatians was arguably one of the first epistles that
he wrote. And as everything was new for
these believers, his ministry was new, these churches were
new, these believers were new, Paul pulls no punches in addressing
even the most delicate subjects. After all, this was war. And
in this early letter, perhaps Paul’s very first, to these young
and growing Christians, he speaks to the same exact thing that
he does in his letter to the Colossians, written near the
end of his ministry. And in doing so, he employs four
of the identical terms. Listen carefully, desire, immorality,
impurity, and idolatry. And he does so in his detailed
report on the deeds of the flesh. Glance down, if you would, at
verse 16 and listen for our terms. Here, Paul, as I said, will employ
four of the same exact terms for the sins that he addresses
in our Colossians passage. Verse 16, but I say, walk by
the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. For these
things are in opposition to each other. So that you may not do
the things that you please, but if you are led by the Spirit,
you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are
evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry,
sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes,
dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things
like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I forewarned you,
that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom
of God. Paul says that these sins which
orient from the sinful flesh are contrary, opposed, at war
with the Holy Spirit’s work in the believer. There’s gonna be
a winner and a loser. Someone is going to die and someone
is going to live. These things are not the marks
of a Christian, Paul says. If you would please turn now
to 1 Thessalonians, four books to your right. And once you get
there to chapter four, 1 Thessalonians and chapter four. And in 1 Thessalonians chapter
four, Paul is really addressing just the same things to a church
that was soaking in the same culture, and he uses four of
the same words that he does in the Colossians passage. Sexual immorality, lustful passion,
and impurity. You see, The Thessalonian church
in Thessalonica, it was a port city, and because of that, it
was very immoral. And it was also steeped in hedonistic,
idolatrous culture. And so Paul is seeking to pull
them out of their wandering, foolish carelessness, and really
to put them on the path of righteousness. And so what else does he address? These sins of the flesh. Finally, beginning in verse one,
finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus
Christ, this wasn’t just a suggestion, that as you receive from us instruction
as to how you ought to walk and please God, just as you actually
do walk, that you excel still more. In other words, he calls
them even to a greater standard. This is a godly, growing, humble
church, teachable, But they had not arrived, they were not dead,
so they had not been glorified. They had growing to do. Excel
still more, Paul says, for you know what commandments we gave
you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the way of
God, your sanctification, that is, that you abstain from sexual
immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel
in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion like the
Gentiles who do not know God, and that no man transgress and
defraud his brother in the matter, because the Lord is the avenger
in these things. Just as we also told you before
and solemnly warned you, For God has not called us for the
purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. I would point out that it’s fascinating
here that what our translators do with the word immorality,
they pull out all the stops and tell us what it is. It’s sexual
immorality. The second thing that I would
have you note is how Paul pairs the two terms lustful passion. It begins to clarify what Paul
is even talking about here. And then finally, the third note,
Paul’s contrast of impurity is over against the believers’ sanctification. You can’t have both. So again,
if you would please turn back to your left to Paul’s grand
epistle to the Romans and to chapter one. Here, Paul is once
again addressing the pagan society of the world, especially that
in which the church in Rome found itself. Here in this passage,
Paul, same thing, uses four of the same terms that he does in
Colossians. Lust, impurity, passions. And this time, instead of mentioning
immorality again, He uses the word greed. In the middle of
chapter one, we find that Paul is providing God’s response to
the Gentile culture, which had rejected him so thoroughly. They had suppressed, held down,
tamped down the truth in their unrighteousness. They did not
honor him as God, and they exchanged the glory of God for the creature
instead. And in verse 24, if you scroll
down there, Paul describes God’s response. Therefore, God gave
them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, two of our
words already, that their bodies may be dishonored among them,
for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped
and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed
forever. Amen. I would only have you note
here that What begins as lust in their hearts eventually makes
it to the surface by way of impurity. Look at verse 26. For this reason,
God gave them over to degrading passions. We don’t have time,
as I said, to examine every facet of this, but Paul goes on in
verses 26 and 27, as you know, to detail the degrading passion
of homosexuality, whether between females or between males. scroll down to verse 28. And
just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer,
God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which
are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness,
greed, One of our words, evil, full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, malice, they are gossip, slanders, haters of God, insolent,
arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. Paul proceeds
here to insert a fourth term from our Colossians list, that
of greed. embedded into this very lengthy
list of vices and sins. They sinned greedily. If you
would turn to Ephesians chapter four. I don’t know how many books,
but to the right. Ephesians chapter four. And here in Ephesians four, Paul
will use four of the same terms from the Colossians list. and only the sparsest of comments
here. Go down to verse 17, if you would.
This I say, therefore, and affirm together with the Lord that you
walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of
their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded
from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them,
because of the hardness of their heart. And they, having become
callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice
of every kind of impurity with greediness. Then there at the end of verse
22, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside
the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with
the lusts of deceit. In his letter to the Ephesians,
Paul is writing to one of the cities most given to idolatry. There was this massive temple
of Diana, or Artemis, and it was one of the, at the time,
one of the seven wonders of the world. You couldn’t go anywhere
in town without seeing it. Diana was the so-called goddess
of fertility and night. And so we don’t even have to
use our full imagination here to think of how they incorporated
some of these very sins into their cultic worship. Here Paul just says, do not walk
like these Gentiles any longer. One page this time, turn over
to chapter five and to verse three. And here again, Paul uses
four of the same terms in our Colossians list. Let’s begin
in verse three, but do not let immorality or impurity or greed
even be named among you. As is proper among the saints,
there must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting
which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you
know with certainty that no immoral or impure person or covetous
man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of
God, kingdom of Christ and God. I told you this was warfare. This is one of the stakes. Here in Chapter 5, Paul really
just reinvigorates his concern about the Ephesian culture in
which this church was placed. And he employs, as I said, four
terms from our passage. And then finally, if you would
turn to one more of Paul’s letters to 2 Corinthians and to Chapter
12. 2 Corinthians chapter 12, and here
too, Paul uses two only of the six words in our Colossians passage,
but they are the most common. The word immorality is used in
four of the seven passages, including this one. Impurity is used in
six of the seven. And Paul, it’s a sad thing, really. He’s writing to a church that
he planted, and he doesn’t even, he’s tentative to even go back
to visit them, because he fears that he might go and find some
of these things. Look at verse 20. For I am afraid
that perhaps when I come, I may find you to be not what I wish,
and may be found by you not to be what you wish. that perhaps
there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders,
gossip, arrogance, disturbances. I am afraid that when I come
again, my God may humiliate me before you. and may mourn over
those, over many of those who have sinned in the past and not
repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality which they have
practiced. Paul was reticent to even go
back because he feared when he got there, they would be involved
in these kinds of sin. Well, this is the front line.
These are our enemies. And if we know nothing else at
this point, we know how replete the first century was in their
sinful behavior. It was in Rome and Thessalonica
and Ephesus and Colossae as well. But if we might, and delicately,
I might add, I wanted to consider each of the aspects of this heathen
world, the enemies. These constitute our mortal enemies,
things that would kill and take our soul if we do not fight and
kill them first. Paul features them as individual
sins. But they are really all part,
if you will, they’re part of the same army. They’re part of
the same regiment. They all wear the same uniform.
They all answer to the same general, the devil himself. And as such,
they are all on the same mission, to ruin, maim, kill anyone they
meet. The first enemy that Paul mentions
is that of immorality. And you’ll immediately get a
sense of the nature of this sin because the Greek word is pornea.
You guessed it. It’s the word from which we get
our word pornography. It’s simply referred to sexual
sin in general, translated most often as fornication, or here,
immorality. It’s a broad term covering a
wide range of sins, all forms of forbidden activity in that
realm, anything outside of the pure husband-wife relationship. This would include the immoralities
associated with cultic worship, but it wasn’t limited to that.
Well, if immorality is the very broad sweeping term to refer
to sins in this regard, impurity is the immediate attendant. They’re partners. Partners in
crime. Of the seven passages that we
looked at a moment ago, this word impurity occurs, as I said,
in every one of them, all seven. Of the seven passages that we
looked at, It’s not only one of the deeds of the flesh, Galatians
5, but Paul urges the Thessalonians that God has not called us for
the purpose of impurity. It’s totally out of concert with
our spiritual makeup. It’s not suitable. It’s not proper. It’s wholly incongruent with
a believer’s life. Instead, impurity is a characteristic
of the heathen world. As we read in Romans 1, God gave
them over, the Gentile world, Paul says, in the lusts of their
heart to impurity. In response to their inclination
to vulgar sins, God simply resigned them to live according to their
animal-like desires. It was a downward spiral. And
as a result, Paul says in Ephesians 4, they have given themselves
over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity. But
Paul says categorically that the impure person does not have
an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. There’s a third word, the word
passion. The word passion seems innocuous
enough. After all, people are passionate
about a lot of things that are not immoral. Paul does not use
this word in all of the passages about these sins, but we do get
an idea of what Paul has in mind from a few of them. In 1 Thessalonians
4, 5, as we read, Paul identifies it as lustful passion. a base,
animal-like appetite that is not expressive of love as it
was designed to be at all. So it is illicit, wrong, sinful
passion of which Paul speaks, the empty gratification of immorality. Romans 1, as you may remember,
one of the things to which God gave the heathen world over to
was degrading passions. sins that inherently bring shame
and dishonor upon those who engage in them. And given the context
of Romans 124, he’s speaking there of, as I said, homosexuality,
whether of men or of women. And just as immorality has its
partner in crime, impurity, so also evil desire is the wicked
twin of passion. You may already know this, but
the word desire is used there in the New Testament. It’s used
in an innocent way in scripture many times of good desires. But
even that translation can be seen in a sinful sense. In his
appeal to the Galatians, Paul called it a desire of the flesh,
a condition of the mind that really stirs the heart to sin.
But Paul immediately presents this desire as one of our murderous
enemies when he appends to it the word kakos, bad, evil. Elsewhere in the context, or
pardon me, when the context dictates this darker use of the word,
it’s typically translated as lust. This is how Paul used it,
just as we saw in his description of passion. He called it lustful
passion, a dominating force by which the individual is controlled.
He’s just going along. Likewise, in Romans 1, God gave
them over in the lust of their hearts. And in the passage in
Ephesians 4, Paul calls them the lusts of deceit. These are
not your friends. They don’t tell the truth. There’s
a fifth term and a rather surprising one that we need to consider,
greed. And this seems like a strange
vice for Paul to inject into a discussion of fleshly sins,
but Paul has his reason for doing so. Greed or covetousness is
really just a selfish desire for more, more than what is enough,
It’s been likened to drinking salt water, where one’s thirst
is only increased. To the greedy person, the end
justifies the means, and they will stop at nothing to fulfill
their desires, including the rights and feelings of others.
But this term, too, is a recurring feature in the passages that
we have seen, considering that Paul has it listed in his catalog
of vices in Romans 1 among all kinds of other sin, which is
a reminder to us that any sin is bad. Unrighteousness, wickedness,
evil, envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossip. There he just suggests
that this sin of covetousness, ravenous desire, is among the
worst features of our wretched humanity. What one pastor called
a morbid lust for acquisition. It’s all about you. By associating
this word greed with this host of other sins, he refers to an
insatiable appetite associated with those sins. They can never
be satisfied. It points to a ravenous and selfish
indulgence, a spiritual disease that no matter how much a person
has, there is always an eager desire for more. A desire for
more can point to any one of a number of deeper sins. Listen
to how one writer characterized it. More than he has is a sign
of discontent. More than others have is a sign
of envy. More than he ought to have is
a sign of injustice. In Ephesians 4, as we read, Paul
says that the heathen world had given themselves over to sensuality
for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. So that in the course of their
physical indulgence, there was driving at a heart of greed Completely
self-centered, the godless, heathen world was giving itself over
to an insatiable appetite for their evil desires, and that
is how Paul seems to be using the word here. Well, just as
immorality has an evil partner impurity, and just as passion
has a despicable twin in evil desire, so also greed has a collaborator
in idolatry. Paul says here that the greedy
nature of these sins amounts to idolatry. This serves as an
indictment of many people who would never go near an idol’s
temple. They would never participate
in the so-called worship of an idol. Statues and candles and
chants and sacrifices and such. But all the while, their sinful
behavior, they are very much engaged in the worship of an
idol self. And he uses this image in the
same way in Ephesians 5 when he speaks of the covetous man
who is an idolater. The greedy person crafts out
an idol of his own image. He effectively worships himself.
He is his own God. What a dreadful picture this
description of the heathen world is. No wonder Paul elicits the
image of death. Consider the members of your
earthly body as dead to these things. When Paul speaks of the
members of our earthly bodies, speaking of our physical bodies
here on earth, the instruments that are used for sin, this is
where the body operates and functions, subject to all the earthly temptations. And given the context, it is
an interestingly, pardon me, it is an intentionally interesting
contrast that Paul uses. Our minds are to be on heaven,
though our bodies are on earth. Paul had just urged the Colossian
believers not to set their affection on the things of the earth, and
he includes our physical frame, our bodies. Our earthly body
is not supposed to be the center of attention. Jesus, remember,
uses the same kind of shocking imagery in Matthew 5. If your
right eye makes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it from
you. For it is better to lose one part of your body than for
your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand
makes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For
it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body
than for your whole body to go into hell. He’s not speaking
literally there, removing hands and eyes. He’s framing the treatment
of our bodies, just as Paul is here. Do not yield these instruments
to sin. And since we are of heaven, he
says, kill these earthly liabilities. We should care for our bodies. but we must not cater to their
sinful desires. That’s what Paul is urging. But Paul, he does an interesting
thing here. We might think that he would
urge us to take up arms and to kill these deadly vices, immorality,
evil desire, greed, and so on. That’s not what he does. While
the image there is technically of considering the members of
our earthly body as dead, it is a deadness to these deadly
sins that he is referencing. Kill or be killed is his point. And this word, too, is an imperative.
Deaden them. Consider them as dead. Kill them. In closing, would you turn to
1 Corinthians 6? Because in the midst of a discussion
like this, I want to leave you with hope. I want to leave you with purity. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul addresses
some of these things using different language. And I want you to see this and
be reminded of this. Verse nine, do you not know that
the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be
deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the
kingdom of God. That is just sobering and stunning
and should arrest all of our attention. Those things are not
godly behavior. But I want you to look at verse
11. Thanks be to God, sinners like these are not beyond God’s
saving grace. Jesus Christ’s atonement on the
cross covered these very sins. And we have that definitively
because Paul says in verse 11, such were some of you. We practiced the same things.
We were caught up in the same things. We sinned just in these
very ways. But Paul says you were washed.
You were sanctified, set apart for a holy use. You were justified. Through no works of your own,
purely by faith, you were washed, sanctified, justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.
You know what that tells me? This ugly list of sins. Jesus Christ died for those practicing
those sins. And he seeks to rescue us out
of those very things. Would you humble yourself before
him?