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COLOSSIANS 3:5-11

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Troubling trends in post modern “Christianity”- ignoring boundaries in sexual behaviour, increasingly embracing vulgar and slanderous/hurtful speech (writing), and drawing divisive attention to racial differences and grievances—rather than discarding these old self rags, the more tattered holes in your immoral, vulgar and racist jeans, the cooler Christian you are—what may be a current custom in the NA church world is NOT NT Christianity.

From the indicatives—you are” (3:1-4), the imperatives—you must be”

1. New morals because your old immoral idolatry will kill you or get you killed (3:5-7).

Put to death! Kill sin before it kills you.

NO! to turning natural desires into impure weapons of idolatry

- Sexual immorality—any sexual activity outside of a heterosexual marriage
- Impurity—any unwholesome engagement, active or passive
- Lust—insatiable appetite for fleshly gratification
- Evil desires—thinking about sinful behaviour
- Greed—insatiable selfishness—everyone, everything exists for personal amusement and use, which is idolatry!

Attracts the wrath of God

2. A new image in how you speak because God is renewing your new self, not only in the image of God, but also in His likeness (3:8-10).

Take off! Don’t try to fix dry rot. Anti-social sins

Permanently sideline from your life...things that destroy community

- Anger—chronic feelings of being at odds with everything and everyone
- Rage—anger in outbursts
- Malice—pursuing the ill-will of people
- Slander—belittling, defaming, discrediting
- Abusive speech—intending to harm, abuse, hurt
- Lying—seeks to take and get advantage over one another, destroys unity

The image was marred, the likeness went away—the new is in the image AND likeness of God

3. You have become a part of a new humanity, not based on the difference of kind, but whose unique identity is Christ in all (3:11).

(Make no distinction) So great is what you have in common.

Christianity, that is real, seeks to erase harmful divisions based on segregation of nationalities, and differences of persons.

For people who are believers in Christ as Lord and Saviour,...

Christ is all—He is everything everybody needs regardless of physical, social, national difference.

Christ is in all—His divine life is in redeemed people without distinction.

While our anatomical differences remain, Christians are more the same than different—Christ is the unifying factor of all people who come to Him for salvation. Racial tension within Christianity is sin, old nature, false image/identity and denies our new humanity race, same family status and identity as the nation of Christ.

Now, as we pre-figure the marriage supper of the Lamb, consider who will be there...

Rev. 7:9-10

...who won’t be there...

Rev. 9:20-21; 21:8,27

...who will...

Rev. 21:24-26

This is the correct setup for the Lord’s Table

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