Video Transcript: Killing Ugly Urges

That by the way, isn't one of the problems of the book of Colossians. It talks about the elemental spirits and the dragons that we have to face. But Eustace is not very knowledgeable about dragons. And when he gets into the Dragon's Lair, he finds himself lying on a huge pile of treasure. And in that pile of treasure, he begins to think to himself, you know, April 15 is coming that's Tax Day, but he says himself, they don't have any tax here and you don't have to give any treasure to the government. I wonder how much I can carry? That bracelet now… I'll slip that on my own wrist. Too big, but not if I push it right up here above my elbow. And then he goes to sleep. And when he wakes up, he finds himself in this dreadful position with a dragon limp on one side of him and another one on the other side of him. He's horrified that he's sleeping between two dragons and he races out of that cave and his arm is hurting like crazy and he rushes to a pool. His idea was to get into the water. 

As he bent toward the water. He thought for a second that another dragon was staring at him out of the pool, but in an instant he realized the truth. That dragon facing the pool was his own reflection. He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself. And so at first he's kind of happy about that. His first feeling was one of relief. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore. He was a terror himself. Now he could get even with Caspian and Edmond now. There's a lot of advantages to being a dragon when your skin is thick and you're breathing fire people can't hurt you, and you can get back at them. But the moment he thought this he realized he didn't want to. 

He wanted to be friends. He wanted to get back among humans and talk and laugh and share things. He realized that he was a monster cut off from the whole human race. He began to wonder if he himself had always been such a nice person as he had always supposed. Well, after suffering that way for a while, Eustace tells in the first person what happened to him. He says I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me and told me to follow it. I knew I'd have to do what it told me so I got up and followed it. Many people have heard the words follow me and didn't feel they had much choice in the matter. They follow. 

The lion told me I must undress first. So I started scratching myself and my scales began to come off all over the place and then I scratched a little deeper and then instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully. In a minute or two I stepped out of it. But just as I was going to put my foot into the water, I looked down and saw that was all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as it had been before. He peels his skin off. And he just has that same old same old right back again. So he tries it again. And he takes his skin off and it's lying on the ground and he's got the same old skin back again. He tries it a third time and it doesn't work. I thought to myself Oh dear however many skins I got to take off. 

Then the Lion said you will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws. I can tell you that. But I was pretty nearly desperate now so I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off. Just as I thought I'd done myself the other three times only they hadn't hurt. And there it was laying on the grass only ever so much thicker and darker and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there I was as smooth and soft as a pealed switch and smaller than I had been. 

And then he caught ahold of me – I didn't like that much but I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious. I have turned into a boy again. After that the lion took me and dressed me in new clothes – the same ones I've got on now, as a matter of fact. So he's been undragonned, turned into a boy and received a fresh clothing. Beautiful picture of repentance, conversion and baptism. It would be nice and fairly nearly true to say that from that time forth Eustace was a different boy. To be strictly accurate he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice as the author. The cure had begun. 

We're at a point in the book of Colossians. We're in Paul's train of thought. He's speaking of we have begun to be a different person. The Cure has begun. In a sense, you could say you're a new person. In another sense, if you're really being picky about your words, you've begun to be a new person. And now that you've begun to be a new person with Christ, living in you and Christ having dealt with your sin and Christ having dealt with the elemental spirits and the dragon that tries to destroy you, now what? Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked when you were living in them. But now you must  put them all away : anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to another, seeing that you put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave free; but Christ is all and is in all. This ends the reading of God's Word and God always blesses His Word to those who listen. 

As we look at this passage and see what the Lord has to say to us, the first thing to do is ask what the therefore is there for. When you read Paul's letters, there are therefores. He has change of thought, and therefore he's connecting something that went before with what he's saying now. And if you connect what Paul says now to what he's been saying in Colossians, I'm just gonna highlight a few things. He speaks of Christ in you, the hope of glory. He’s not just saying out of the blue kill those ugly urges and become a better person. There's a therefore. It's because Christ is in you, that you can begin to do this other stuff. If Christ is not in you you might as well not even try to peel off your scales and deal with those things. You've been buried with Christ in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God. You've been buried and raised with Christ. 

And then in the verses that come right before the ones we read today, verses we spent quite a bit of time on the last few weeks about being heavenly minded, about keeping our minds and hearts fixed on Jesus Christ, on his present power and reign and on His coming Kingdom. You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears then you also will appear with Him in glory. Christ is your life. Christ is your future. I spent a lot of time on the verses that came just before these because they are the key to everything that comes after. To just give the instructions on how to live a Christian life is a waste of breath unless you realize that Christ is your life, and Christ is your future. And fix your mind and your heart on him. And once that's in place, therefore, you know that's what the therefore is there for. It's rooting you in Christ and on who you are and who you will becoming and on the future. The fact that you will appear with Him in glory. And now therefore, these things must be done. 

Now in killing ugly urges I want to focus on two main things and then put in perspective some of the particulars that come in under those two main things. The first main thing is facing those ugly urges. Identifying what some of them are. Seeing them as they are. Be aware of various types of sin and be alert to your particular problems, because not everybody has the same problems. I'll just take one example. I've never been drunk in my life. I don't like beer. I mean, I've had occasion to speak with and try to counsel a lot of people who have struggles with alcohol. That's just not a sin for me. And I don't want to go into lists of the ones I do have and the ones I do struggle with. I'm just saying that as we go through this list, some may say, well, that's really not a huge one for me. Focus very much on the ones that are besetting in your life. Be aware of the various types of sins and be alert to your own particulars that are individual struggles for you. And then once you face the ugly urges, be ready to fight those ugly urges and learn from God's Word, the best ways to battle your sins, and to take action against those sins. 

Now, as Paul presents this material it’s kind of interwoven. He'll give some ugly urges and he'll give an insight on how to deal with it. He'll mention some more likely urges and then give a little different insight on how to deal with ugly urges. In this message, I'm going to kind of separate those out, not because I want them just to be totally separated, but I want to highlight what are the ugly urges that he talks about? And then one of the strategies that he's giving to fight those. In facing our ugly urges then one kind of ugly urge is wanting what's not rightly ours. Desire that's misguided. And under that heading, you might put sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry. A second is destruction, just wanting to wipe others out. You get this thing and then you are just and you want to harm, you want to wreck. And  anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene or abusive talk from your mouth is another kind of ugly urge that needs to be dealt with and faced. A third is deception. Lying and misleading others. Do not lie to one another says the apostle. The fourth is discrimination. The pride and prejudice that comes with thinking I'm superior because I happen to be this and not that. And he says there isn't Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free. All these differences that make one feel superior and then look down on others. Those are ugly urges that have to be identified and faced.

We’ll look at those a little bit more detail. Wanting what's not ours, sexual immorality. Well in the original it’s just pornea, the word that we get porn from or pornography, although it's not referring to that specifically. One of the other words would refer more to that desire that goes with pornography. This is simply the the physical acts of being involved in sexual immorality a tremendous and powerful temptation. Relating to that then is impurity and impurity refers more to the contamination of your character that results from those acts with other people's bodies that don't belong to you and don't rightly belong to you. Then a passion is when that gets a hold of you, when you just have these uncontrolled addictive urges. God gives people a desire. He gives us bodily and physical desire. That's not an evil, bad urge that has to be wiped out. But the urge to express that desire with people who are not rightfully ours now that is something. And the more you do it, the more addicted and uncontrolled you become in exercising that.

Evil desire is, is getting a taste for it. Savoring a temptation and wanting more. There's a great difference between temptation and evil desire. It's sometimes hard to identify exactly when one becomes the other. But a temptation is there when it presents itself. When you are driving down the freeway, and you've got these billboards. You know, if you drive from here through Indiana, I don't know you can try counting stuff and there are more billboards for gentlemen's clubs than you can count. Of course they're not for gentlemen or you know, for adults, you know, for people can't behave like adults. You have a lot of those kind of billboards. Now those they're just there. You didn't put them up. But if you're driving here in Michigan to Indiana and you don't even drive past them now, are you going to look at them. Now you'd like to get to that's interesting. Are you gonna maybe pull off some time and drop in on one of the gentleman's clubs? There's the different levels at which you deal with that. Or to take something else you can say, well, I thought I was getting my Sports Illustrated. It was gonna be about March Madness. Here, I've got the annual pornographic swimsuit issue. And that's what it is, of course, it is pornographic. What do you do with it? You have your internet opportunities, what you do with it. So you have evil desire, that is just desiring what isn't rightfully given to us.

And all of those kinds of evil desires, a lot of these have sexual connotations in this passage, and maybe even the word for covetousness has a little bit of that. Remember the 10th commandment. The 10th commandment says, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. But there's a whole lot of other sections about coveting either, because it's not yours. And notice modern advertising, how it brings all that coveting together. Very, very often when they're trying to sell you beer, they have women with very tight fitting clothing nearby. That has nothing to do with the taste of beer. And most people who drink too much of that beer have big guts that don't tend to attract those babes. Why do they do it then if there's no rational connection between women wearing not very much and looking gorgeous and a mug of beer? Well, they want you to covet the woman and in the coveting of her, your coveting gets arrested. Same with selling cars and everything else. You've got to be a nitwit in as an advertising executive if you don't know that sex sells. And why does it sell? Because coveting is all of a piece. And if you can arouse one kind of desire, and then couple it with a different kind of desire, you can sell more product. 

Now, that's a fact of living in our kind of society. You're gonna be bombarded with that all the time. One of the great modern godly inventions is the remote control. You can zap the commercials or watch them later. Well, I don’t want to tell you that it’s entirely the work of God. But there are actually opportunities to tune out quite a bit. The advertising that comes at us and quite a bit of the other stuff too. At any rate, desire is one kind. And this is a very, very powerful and very, very common one. And we need to be aware of it. Men need to be aware of it when it comes to how they look at other women or how they use their computer or what kinds of things we look at. Women need to be a little cautious because there are respectable kinds of pornography. Respectable ways of coveting your neighbor's spouse. I think some romance novels fall into that category. Where men like to look at pictures of naked women. Some women read one story after another but Oh, Mr. Perfect is so handsome. And yeah, he's just as sensitive to his girlfriend too. He just couldn't have somebody better now. And you stir it up that much difference. I mean, one is socially unacceptable among Christians, the other one is still coveting somebody who's not yours and fantasizing about that man who has everything I've ever dreamed of in a man. Well, good luck. You never meet a guy like that. If you do if you met somebody who is as sensitive as your girlfriend, well, he'd have some other issues that you're interested in. So you know, I don't want to be rude about that. But the fact is that there isn't there are different kinds of fantasizing. Some may be more limited to men, some more characteristic of women. Be aware of which ones you're dealing with. 

Well, another kind is this destructive desire: wanting to wipe others out. It's kind of like a volcano. Anger, you know, I don't want to draw too sharp differences between some of these words. But anger is a little bit like a constant state of simmering where you're just upset. There are some people who are just angry all the time. They're not yelling at you all the time. They're not erupting all the time. But it's always there in that volcano waiting to blow up and the wrath is the eruption. The spilling of the rage into the lava. Now again, there are legitimate times to be angry about what's genuinely wrong and genuinely unjust and praying for the Lord to end and destroy what brings disaster and horrors on the earth. But very much of our anger is just this, the sense that we've been wronged and everything that's wrong is somebody else's fault and I wish bad stuff would happen to them. That's the malice part of it. The desire to hurt somebody. A wish that bad things would happen to the person that we're angry with. And we can help make some of the bad things happen. We can blaspheme them. 

Slander is literally just the word blasphemy here. It's probably not talking directly about blaspheming God. It is blaspheming other people but it's verbal attacks on others who are people who bear God's image. That's one of the ways a lot of us vent our anger. When we're mad at our kids, we yell at them and we may say some things about them that are not very kind. If we've got a friend that we're mad at, we may go to somebody else and start talking about that friend and attacking their reputation. And, sometimes we may just resort to talking right straight to them with very obscene or abusive talk. Again, I've seen as the translation in our particular version we're using but it could maybe even be better translated abusive, although sometimes there is not much difference between obscene talk and abusive talk. One kind of abusive talk is if you tell somebody to go to hell, or you say damn you. Those are horrible words. They are wishing God's eternal curse on somebody else. And if you're gonna say that and mean it, that is a terrible thing. If you're gonna say it or not mean it, then shut your mouth. That’s all you can say about it, that kind of abusive talk. 

And sometimes there's talk that's more on the filthy or gross or suggestive kind. Sometimes there's the direct attack, trying to degrade or use insulting words. The F word is kind of both of those. It's a vulgar word, but it's also if you say it directly to somebody, it's a form of verbal rape. It's just if you say that you're trying to do both things, to be obscene and to abuse and the way these words are used are expressive of a desire to destroy. The fact that we're talking about this at all, is in many ways, kind of sad and contradictory. But remember with Eustace it’s only begun. And with us, who are believers do I wish I could say yeah, believers, they never struggle with porn. They don't struggle with blowing up in rage. They don't struggle with going through life just kind of mad at everybody. But it wouldn't be in the Bible, if we didn't struggle with. Of course, you don't need to read the Bible to know all this. You just need to read the Bible recognize and say, hey, it's got to be dealt with, but we know what we're like. Or at least we need to know what we're like. 

Well, a third kind of desire is deception. I'm lying and misleading others and Scripture just says it doesn't get very fancy. It says don't lie to each other. And lying of course is telling what's not the truth, but also trying to mislead people by what you choose not to say in some cases, or by using weasel words to try to get around what you actually mean. And we sometimes get that in the realm of politics. For instance, we've gone to war. We've dropped the bombs in a country destroying property and killing people. And one of the ways that the White House official described that as was kinetic military action. Kinetic military action. Well, the United States Constitution says that a President can't go to war without the authorization of Congress. We haven't fought a war. We haven't declared war since 1941 in this country. Man, it's been a long time of uninterrupted peace for the United States and for its Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Were just sitting around with nothing to do and no wars to be involved in and nobody to attack or kill. It’s so nice. And we haven't done anything to attack anybody or been attacked by anybody in 70 years of uninterrupted bliss. 

Well, actually, of course, we just ignore a statement like that. And the latest example that, you know, is our own president. President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to this nation. Well, that's what our president said before he became president when another president was going into war, they had no authorization for. Now, he's got war, he can do without authorization and the words change. Our president for seventy years have been mealy mouthed liars when it comes to war. Okay, that's not a nice thing to say. But we're not supposed to get into wars, without the authorization of Congress, without all that other stuff. And we allegedly haven't been in the war for 70 years. We just had a lot of kinetic military action. And we just have to, again, I don't want to wade into politics and offer my own opinion on this or that. I'm just giving you an example of very common lying that we just take for granted. And how much do we in our own lives find different words to say for the stuff we do. Oh, it wasn't really this I just I think and pick a few different words to describe exactly the bad thing you were doing. But it sounds better if you describe it in different words. So we have a lot of ways of lying. And one of our main motivations for lying, especially when we're kids is to stay out of trouble. Somebody said lying lips are abomination to the Lord and a very present help in times of trouble. Because, you know, that's why a lot people lie. When you've done something that you don't want people to know about and then you're kind of being found out anyway, you lie about it. And there are a lot of other motivations for lying. But scripture just says, do not lie to one another. Because deception has no place among people of truth who belong to the God of truth. 

And then fourth area that Paul talks about that we need to put away is, is the Pride and Prejudice of discrimination. Says there's not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian. I bet you've spent a lot time worrying about Scythians. But the Scythians were very considered kind of an uncouth and warlike people you know, they were the kind of like that one example of barbarian actually the Greeks called anybody who didn't speak Greek barbarian. You were an uncultured dunce, if you didn't speak Greek. So you know, we all have our thing. And obviously, the difference between slave and free was huge in that society. Few hundred years earlier Aristotle had said that you cannot be a friend with a slave if you're a free man, because you're just not, you're not equal. And so Paul says, All of that's gotta go. Pride in you and your position and prejudice for those who have different positions, all that has to go. So these are some of the ugly urges that we've got to face up to and be willing to deal with in our lives and not pretend that they're okay. I'm not telling racist jokes. I'm not treating people of different ethnic groups differently or people who are maybe poorer than you are differently. Whatever your basis for your pride or for your prejudice, it's got to go. It's an ugly, urge and it's identified that way in the Bible. 

How do you fight these ugly urges? We've talked about facing them. Now how about fighting them? Well, again, Paul talks about a number of different things. One is shoot to kill. Don't cuddle these things or pamper them. Put to death. Old theologians used the word mortify. Put  to death therefore what is earthly in you. A second way to fight is to fear God's wrath. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. The third thing is put the past in the past. Put your past behind you. He says in these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all the way. Regard them as the past and now live from the present into the future in a different way. Be who you are. You've put off the old self and its practices and put on the new self which is been renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator and then make Christ you're all. Here we're getting back to what the therefore was there for. You know, he was referring to focusing on Christ and Christ in you. And now, as we conclude this section, he wants you to make sure that you realize that Christ is all and is in all.

Now, shoot to kill. Some gunho gun lovers have their own little ways of promoting guns. Um, here's one: Seriously, get off my lawn. Well, yeah, if you have three machine guns staring out you might get off the lawn. So again, I'm not a big fan of three machine guns in my possession. You know, our boys have BB guns. That's about as far as I want to get. Because the threat of them shooting each other is far greater than the threat of intruders in our household. You know, here's another one: Loud crash at 3 a.m. which do to  grab? Now again, I'm not recommending all of us have assault rifles in the home. I'm just saying if you thought that a bunch of intruders were coming every night, you probably wouldn't want more than the room. Now, my opinion is that again, shooting yourself is probably a greater threat in most cases than any intruders that are likely to come to you. 

And in the case of sin, we know the intruders are there and you got to deal with a very ruthlessly. Here's another one: Firearms are more useful than a camera. Now, I don't own any major firearm. I'm not commending, and I'm just giving this as an example of when people really take the threat seriously. They do want to eliminate it, and you have to have that kind of ruthlessness when it comes to this matter of sin. Sin is not a cute little kitten to be petted. It is a major bear with wide open jaws coming after you and you want more than a camera when you're dealing with it. Again, please don't go out and buy a whole pile of guns. I prefer that you don’t. But I won’t tell you what to do with guns. I'm just saying that the kind of ruthlessness with regard to sin is very important. Put to death, what his earthly. Jesus recommends not only recommends just commands this kind of ruthlessness. 

Kill what is rotten. Sometimes, if you're in a situation where it's a choice between a part of your body or your whole body, you gotta get rid of the parts as Jesus said. So if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out, throw it away. For it's better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it's better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. I remember seeing a particular program. It was one of these five drama type things and a guy had something clamped to his wrist with titanium and there was some nasty little bomb with some nerve gas or something or other in it and there's no way to get it off and thing was set to go off in less than a minute. So somebody else just comes and takes an axe and lops off his hand and removes that thing and gets rid of the bomb you know in a safer place. Now you don't go around chopping off hands for the fun of it. You do it only if there is a dreadful and terrible threat that is looming. And so it is Paul says you've got to treat sin that way. Jesus says you've got to treat sin that way. You've got to get rid of it. 

Just take one example. We've got to terminate temptations and for example, if you've got problems with pornography, don't wake up every day and say today I'm going to try to resist the availability of pornography on my computer. I'm a person who I think although I can't be sure that but I don't think I would get pornography by buying it from a store or by going to one of those gentleman's clubs. You know why? Not because I'm so godly but because I am easily embarrassed and it cost me my job. You know if anybody ever saw me doing that kind of stuff. So I'm not gonna do that kind of publicly. But with a computer, one click, and you're there. Now, if you want to cut that off, you need to do something besides rely on your own willpower. You make it impossible for yourself to do that. Take whatever you want. I put safeeyes up there. There are a few different kinds of internet filtering software. If you're a man or a boy, get something that won't let you get where you want on your computer, and then have a trusted friend or your wife or your mom with the password. Because most of us are internet and computer savvy and we know how to get where we want to go. You've got to put it in somebody. If you want to cut off I speak of that temptation because it is so widespread. 

It's one that I have to deal with myself ruthlessly on and I come in nothing less than ruthlessness on your part. If you find yourself traveling a lot, just ask that a TV be removed from your room or stay with somebody. I had to travel a lot as a broadcaster, and I almost always tried to stay in somebody's home. And not just because I'm such a friendly guy. I knew that I couldn't handle those stupid motel rooms. Okay. You need to do what you need to do, says Jesus. If something causes you to sin, you find ways to cut it off and destroy it. Sam Storms who has written a book of meditations on Colossians it says Well the point is this eliminate from your life as much as possible anything that will cause you to stumble. If it’s a place don't go there. If it’s an image turn away. If it's a song don’t listen. If it’s a  book, don't read it. If it’s a liquid don't drink it. If it's a person or company, that's hard. There are some friendships you have that are destructive to you. And if the flow in the friendship were you, bringing God's joy and truth and health into somebody else's life, let the friendship continue. But be honest with yourself. If the flow is them tugging you deeper into the sewer, then if it's a person part company. 

A second part of fighting is not simply being ruthless and terminating it and cutting off your opportunity for it but fear God's wrath. John Owen the Puritan theologians said be killing sin, or it will be killing you. Kill or be killed, when it comes to sin. And Paul says on account of these things the wrath of God is coming. He's telling Christians that. On account of these things the wrath of God is coming. God's wrath comes now. And it comes in eternity. When you read Romans one, it says the wrath of God has been revealed. And how is God's wrath been revealed?  Not just by a future in hell, but by people sinking deeper and deeper into sin and stupidity and perversion and abusive behavior toward each other and crushed families and so on. If you want to know what hell looks like on earth, well, I won't advise that. But if you've already seen it anyway, two words – Charlie Sheen. A person who has gone through three marriages, countless live in women, and he claims to say that he's living the dream. The dream of not being able to control his own sexual appetites, not being able to control his own covetousness which is idolatry. He was being paid $1.8 million per episode for the show, that he's been doing for eight years. And he was angry because he's underpaid. And the abusive language that he uses against people of other ethnic groups that you know, I don't pick on Charlie. We better look at our mirror and not at Charlie. My point is that when you see someone he says, and I think rightly so that he's just living the life a lot of people wish they could have. If you could have the live in porn stars and all the money you've ever wanted, and be famous. If you just have all of that it would just be heaven on earth, a lot of people would think. and it's not. 

Ugly urges are a preview of hell and what is hell involved? Well, it involves a burning desire that can't be satisfied. And that's the tragic thing about addiction, and about desires that are wrong. They never satisfy. It’s anger, you’re angry at other people all the time. You're angry at God and in hell you're going to have to the flaming anger of God because God connected holiness with happiness, and he won't make a separation for your sake. He won't say yeah, go ahead and be unholy, I'll make you happy anyway. There is no way to be happy permanently without holiness. And you live with an unending lie without facing the truth. So when Pastor Martin preached last week, he mentioned that rich man in hell and the rich man in hell thinks that if only there was a good enough warning, his brothers wouldn't end up there with him. And by implication, if he had had enough warnings, he wouldn't have ended up in hell. And the answer is come on. They had Moses and the prophets. They didn't listen. But he's lying to himself. He thinks that it's God's problem, that he's there when it was his own fault. And it's an eternal separation from Christ. 

If prejudice is wrong, just think of hell is prejudice. In hell, you don't want to associate with others. You want to be divided from others, and you get your wish. You get to live in the outer darkness without any positive relationships. So God's wrath letting your sin have its way can already be experienced in various ways in this life, and hell is just the final version of that. And God punishes us who have rejected Him in that way. So one way to fight against sin is to realize where it brings you apart from God's grace. You say, Well, I am in God's grace and I'm not headed there and I want to do anything that's a taste of hell now either. 

Then along with fighting through shooting to kill and fearing God's wrath, the third thing is just remember the past is in the past. In these things you once walked, when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Because he said something similar in First Corinthians six, verses nine through 11. He says, You used to be homosexuals, and greedy and adulterers, and slanderers and all of that, but you were washed, you’re cleansed, you’re sanctified. You used to be that and now the cure has begun. And now you are a different person or have begun to be a different person. And so you got to tell yourself, that's the past, and I have a different future. And every morning you wake up, you look at the present and you look at the future. Every morning, you wake up, start it with the Lord, and pray to the Lord, and then preach to yourself. Pray to the Lord and say, Lord, make me who I am in Christ today and preach to yourself and say I’m not who I used to be. I am who God has called me to be. And then relate that to be who you are. Paul is saying seeing that you put off the old self and its practices and put on the new self, which has been renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.

And we'll say more about that next week about what it is involved in putting on this new self and what it is like to have Christ like character and to live the Christ life. But let's just look at a couple of things here. It's using language of undressing. Eustace couldn’t get undressed, and he couldn't get just undress on the surface. He had to be torn right to the heart. And once Christ has undressed you and got new clothes for you, then don't be like a little kid who's addicted to mud. Okay, it's okay if your little kids want to, although not mine, okay? Other people's kids may play in the mud but that's not always a terrible sin unless your parents told you not to. But Paul's telling us how if you've got dirty clothes, you gotta ditch them. You don't say Oh, I wish I could get those muddy clothes back on when you've been given new clothes. You put off that old self with its practices. Of that old self is really literally the old man, the old anthropos or the old person. And, and one way to think of that is it's not just my old past that I'm putting behind me in my old self. But it's old Adam. Scripture, especially Paul talks that way quite a bit, where one man's fall brought everybody down, and just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all been made alive. And so he's talking about putting off the old man or the old self, maybe talking about just putting off your old Adam identity. 

Now remember earlier in Colossians he said Christ is the image of the invisible God. If you’ve been renewed in knowledge after the image of your Creator. He says through Christ, all things were made and Christ is the image of the invisible God. And so your new self has to be remade in the image of Christ who made all things and who is also remaking you. The Apostle says, just as we are born in the image of the man of dust that is Adam, we shall bear the image of the man of heaven. So put off that man of dust. Put on the man of heaven, be who you are. And it's so important to know as believers who you are. Remember, what was said about Eustace strictly speaking, you'd have to say he began to be a new boy, he wasn't quite there yet. But we're gonna overlook a lot of stuff. Because by and large, fundamental change had happened. And if you have become a Christian, this fundamental change has happened. You are a new you in Christ, not the old you in Adam. But every morning, you got to wake up and declare that to yourself, and pray to the Lord to make that a living reality in your life because it's not automatic. If this was just automatic, you wouldn't get these instructions from the Apostle. You have to keep putting these things on and you have to keep putting off that old self. Putting on that new person in Jesus Christ. 

And then finally, this is applied to discrimination and prejudice, but it applies to all sin. Make Christ you're all. Here there's not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, Christ is all and in all. That's bringing you back to the therefore Christ is all and in all. Every other strategy for fighting sin and killing ugly urges will fail. Without Christ being your all and without Christ being in all around you and you seeing Christ in them. To try to fight ugly urges in your own strength is kind of like taking a BB gun against the tank. It's not going to happen. But when Christ is your all, and when he is the dominant reality in your life, then and only then can you kill these ugly urges, including the urge to discriminate. Because many of us were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There's neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free. There is no male and female for you're all one in Christ Jesus. 

The dominance of Christ. The apostle says, Whatever was to my advantage, I considered it rubbish that I might gain Christ. That's what kills pride. That's what also wipes out prejudice. You just say those things don't matter. They're of no value or meaning. What matters is Christ, Christ in me, and Christ in others. And so, remember what therefore is there for. It’s Christ in you, you've been raised with Him. Christ is your life. And all of what I've been talking about his way of expressing the Christ life in you in your battle against sin. Face those ugly urges. Let me just say again. One problem with a message like this or with almost any message with some PowerPoints is you see a lot of points and this and that and words, okay. Now I’ll give you permission to just forget them all. You don't need to know the outline or the this or that. Think about the one or two or three things that really struck you that are ugly urges that you recognize in yourself and be aware of those and maybe make a note to yourself and start fighting against those and praying against those and applying the life of Christ against those. 

I wouldn't advise you to forget the outline or the words of how to fight those ugly urges. remembering God's wrath and putting your past in the past and making Christ your everything those things, keep applying them yourself. Every day say man I died with Christ. I live with Christ. I'm putting on Christ today. I'm putting on Christ victory and his triumph. I’m putting on his humility and all those other things that we're gonna read about next week. So kill him by facing them fighting them. You take your pick from that list, avoid them all. You know, I'm not commending the value of any of these things. But just be very specific what God wants me to fight that he's brought to my attention today. And then be ruthless with those things. And put it behind you, be who you are and make Christ your everything. 

Let's read these verses together as we close. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked when you were living in them. Now you must put them all way. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian,  Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and is in all.  

Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that you are all we praise you we rejoice in you. We thank you that you have died and you’ve rose again and are seated at the right hand of God and we are seated to with you in the heavenly places by faith and in union with you by your Holy Spirit. And we pray that what is true in fact may become more and more true in our living experience from day to day, that you will indeed slay all that is earthly and wicked in us and, make alive all that is of you and your spirit. We pray Father that if there are any here who still need to be just undraggoned in the first place they need to have their cells torn to the very heart in repentance and conversion that will bring that about. And Lord for all of us in whom that beginning has happened, we pray that you will continue your good work in us until the day when we appear before you without spot made pure and perfectly holy. We long for that day. And until that day comes help us each day to turn to you and listen to your scriptures to be a people of prayer and meditation on the word to be putting on the new self each morning and throughout each day as we walk with you and make us Lord a blessing to others. Help us Lord to bring joy to them. In Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.