In Colossians 3 Pauls describes putting off the old self while at the same time putting on the new. Why is this so critical? Repentance that isn’t followed by obedience can easily lead back to the sin from which you repented.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

colossians 3:9-10, ESV

All of the Christian life is putting off and putting on. We put off the old self and put on the new. Putting off the old self is just that, getting rid of anything that isn’t Christlike. Paul has already listed those sins and on Monday we reflected on what those sins are and how to go about repenting of and forsaking them.

In these verses we see both our work and God’s work of putting on. This is how we grow as a follower of Jesus. We put on the new self. We pray instead of complaining. We love instead of hating. We honor, not humiliate. Every sin has a counterpart, a virtue that we can practice instead of the sin that once enslaved us.

The more you know, the more you grow.

While we work at “putting on” God is at work too. We are “being renewed in knowledge after the image of our creator.”

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

Hosea 4:6, ESV

This is an austere warning. Israel’s rejection of knowledge of God led to rejection by God! How do we reject knowledge? By ignoring God’s Word. I call this passive rejection of knowledge. Our busy lives forfeit time with God. Lent is a great time to reconnect with God through his Word, and embrace God through his Word.

Secularism, materialism, and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies.

AW Tozer, knowledge of the holy

We also reject God through outright rejection of God’s Word. We hear his word and disobey it. We hear without doing. This is so dangerous because our hearts become hardened to the voice of God.

Is your heart hard? Confess that. And get into God’s Word every single day. And get God’s word into you.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Colossians 3:9-10

Do not lie to one another. Seems so basic yet it is so important. We all need someone in our lives who gets us, knows us, and is willing to graciously confront us. In order to effectively put off the old self and put on the new self, we need help. In other words, we can’t dress ourselves! That’s right! We’re like newborns who need mom and dad to dress them.

We need each other.

Confession is good for the soul. James wrote:

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

james 5:16 (ESV)

Here’s what I love about this verse. James doesn’t say that we are to confess our sins to someone else who does not also confess his sins to us. Confession is a two-way street. When we confess our sins to one another, we are one struggling child of God helping another struggling child of God to live a godly life. Struggling to keep your Lent commitments? To whom are you confessing that? Who knows your struggle? Prays with you through it and is willing to walk with you no matter what? When is the last time you told that person that you were battling?

The second thing I love about James’ instruction is this: The two confessors are called righteous. That’s right! The prayer of a righteous person James refers to is not a prayer of a third bystander! No, it’s the prayer of a confessor who’s forsaking his sin.

Repentance is a lifestyle, not a one-time exercise.

That’s how we put off the old self…and put on the new.

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 one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Colossians 3:5-10

This is the never ending reality of the Christian life. If we are to take up our cross daily and follow Jesus, then we will constantly mortify (put to death) what is earthly in us. Paul provides a list here. It’s not exhaustive though it covers the major categories. Anytime we see a list like this it calls for self-reflection.

Why are these sins so easy for us to fall back into? Because in these you too once walked. (vs. 3) Before Jesus we were a mess. Without even trying we wrecked our lives. And with trying, we wrecked them even more! So the Christian life becomes a putting to death, called mortifying the flesh by the Puritans, and a putting on (we will discuss that tomorrow).

A prayer to help you process this. Don’t be afraid of what God shows you. He’s waiting with open arms for your confession.

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:23-24

Taken from Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (and I’ve updated it to American English)

O God, may Your Spirit speak in me that I may speak to You. Lord Jesus, great high priest, You have opened a new and living way by which a fallen creature can approach You with acceptance.

Help me to contemplate the dignity of Your Person, the perfectness of Your sacrifice, the effectiveness of Your intercession.

O what blessedness accompanies devotion, when under all the trials that weary me, the cares that corrode me, the fears that disturb me, the infirmities that oppress me, I can come to You in my need and feel peace beyond understanding!

The grace that restores is necessary to preserve, lead, guard, supply, help me.

And here Your saints encourage my hope; they were once poor and are now rich, bound and are now free, tried and now are victorious.

Every new duty calls for more grace than I now possess, but not more than is found in You, the divine treasury in whom all fullness dwells. To You I return for grace upon grace, until every void made by sin be replenished and I am filled with all Your fullness.

May my desires be enlarged and my hopes emboldened, that I may honor You by my entire dependency and the greatness of my expectation.

Do be with me, and prepare me for all the smiles of prosperity, the frowns of adversity, the losses of substance, the death of friends, the days of darkness, the changes of life, and the last great change of all. May I find Your grace sufficient for all my needs.

Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are 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.

Colossians 3:1-3

Keep seeking. The word includes the idea of striving. Seeking isn’t easy. And it isn’t natural. This is why it is commanded here. If we naturally sought after God, God would not have to tell us to do it! We naturally seek after things we want. Money. Power. Prestige. Fame. Earthly things easily grab our attention. Let this season of Lent be a time of refocusing, of seeking the things that are above.

How?

Set your minds. This phrase means to direct your mind. As you fast from something you’ll discover that your mind goes repeatedly to the thing you’re giving up. That’s natural. You’re used to social media. You may even go through withdrawals. You love chocolate. Or your favorite Netflix show. And you’ll miss it. When this happens you have a choice. Grieve the loss of what you gave up, or set your mind on heavenly things.

But how? Don’t overcomplicate this. Here are a few ideas. And it will take some time and practice.

Worship. In your car. At home while you’re cooking. While you’re working out. Great songs set our minds on things above.

Read. God’s Word. A devotional. A blog by a trusted Christian author.

Pray God’s Word. Start with the Psalms and pray them back to God.

Let silence be your friend. Turn off the noise and see what God has to say to you. Go on your favorite hike and hear God’s voice.

Journal. Write down how God speaks to you.

Tomorrow is Sunday. The blog will be short and simple…and hopefully prepare you for worship. Then Monday, we’ll return to Colossians 3…and learn the joy (and challenge) of “putting off and putting on.”

Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are 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.

Colossians 3:1-3, NASB

Paul presents an if/then clause. If you have been raised up with Christ, then keep seeking the things that are above. This raises a couple of questions. What does it mean to be raised up with Christ? How do you keep seeking?

When we are born again, we are raised with Christ. The reason we need to be raised is because we have died (vs. 3). But how? And when? There is a one-time death and a daily dying (see yesterday’s blog). When we trust and receive Jesus as our Savior, we die to ourselves and our sin. Paul writes in Romans:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:3-4

The word baptized in Romans 6 is symbolic. When you and I were born again, we were immersed (baptized) into Jesus’s death. The pain Jesus felt on the cross over our sin, we now feel over our sin. The shame Jesus took to the cross, we now experience ourselves. It is our keen awareness of sin that leads us to our need for a Savior. The joy of the new birth is that we don’t say in the tomb of our sin. Just as Jesus went into the tomb and came out on the third day, we go into the dark, cavernous tomb of our sin but are raised to walk in newness of life.

That’s what it means to be raised with Christ. Did you know that’s what happened to you when God saved you? Spend some time today reflecting on the new man or new woman God has made you in Christ. For the next few days we will walk through Colossians 3, and learn what it practically looks like to keep seeking.

We wear them around our necks, on bracelets, get tattoos of them. Jewelry stores sell them. Crosses. Though they have become fashionable, they were anything but fashionable in Jesus’s day…and in Old Testament times.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”

Galatians 3:13 ESV

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23, ESV) To follow Jesus is to deny yourself. Lent is a season of self-denial. And what you might discover is how self satisfying you have become. The world tells us that self-esteem is our ultimate aim. “If it feels good, do it.” “Follow your heart.” These mantras become mandates for the masses. On the other hand Jesus says to follow him is to deny yourself. But how?

Take up your cross daily. Be clear that a cross is not a heavy burden. The cross was an instrument of death. The cross didn’t exist to inflict pain (the beating with the cat o’ nine tails was more than sufficient in inflicting pain on Jesus). The cross was execution. To take up your cross is to daily die to your self, your sinful desires, your selfish pursuits. And this is to be a daily exercise. Why? Our sinful nature rises to the sinful occasion every chance it gets. Paul wrote.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Romans 7: 21-24, ESV

Have you ever felt that way? Maybe you feel this way on the second day of Lent. You’ve decided to do one thing and you so want to do another. You feel wretched! Don’t miss Paul’s final question. It isn’t “what will set me free” but “who?” We are set free by Jesus, who died in our place so that when we die to self, he lives through us! As we anticipate Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, we do so with a hope that our daily dying is seasoned with eternal life. That saying no to ourselves is saying yes to Jesus.

It’s Day two. Keep dying. You’ll find life. That’s a promise.

I know what some of you are thinking. Lent? Is that what I get out of the dryer before the next load of clothes? We’re not accustomed to it. We celebrate Christmas, Easter, even Thanksgiving. But Lent. Lent is the 40 days leading up to Easter. Catholics religiously practice it. Some protestant churches do, some do not.

A (very) brief history. Lent started soon after the Apostles. One early church father, Irenaeus, who was a spiritual “grandchild” of the Apostles (he lived only two generations after Paul and Peter) referenced to it as having occurred even before his time! But why? Scholars believe it was inspired by the example of Jesus himself, who fasted for 40 days and nights.

Lent is a time of fasting. It is a time to give something up. Traditionally it has always been connected with food. It doesn’t have to be. At Grace we have been focusing on “One Bold Move.” What One Bold Move would God have you make in 2024 that will change the trajectory of your walk with the Lord?

So to help each other carry out our One Bold Move, we are coming together around the cross. We will celebrate Lent together with two questions.

What will you stop doing? In other words, what will your fast be? Food? Video games? Facebook? Instagram? A hobby that’s gotten out of hand. The Lord will make it clear to you what you should stop doing.

What will you start doing? What practice is missing from your walk with God? Daily prayer? Daily time in the Word? A weekly journaling time? A desperately needed family time? A commitment to be in church services every Sunday? Joining a Life Group?

You’ll receive a tiny cross to put in your pocket. It’s not a good luck charm. It’s a reminder of the one who gave up his life to give us ours.

If you choose, you’ll receive a daily devotion. A daily reading, leading up to Easter that will prepare your heart, strengthen your resolve, and point you unceasingly to the cross. As your pastor, I’m excited to see how God is going to transform your lives (and mine too!) from the inside out.