Andrew Fountain - Defeating Temptation with a New Identity and Destiny

• See the whole Colossians Series
• 

Sermon notes - Defeating Temptation with a New Identity and Destiny

0. Intro

• Sins of instant physical gratification
  • An example would be eating too many donuts at Tim Hortons
  • My favourite is a Boston Cream
    • Mmmm, chocolatey outside and yellow sweet creamy middle
    • Best enjoyed with a cup of coffee or tea, to wash the mouth clean between bites, so as to get the full impact of the flavour in the next bite
• Now how could I persuade you against this?
  • I could shout very loudly about them! (as some preachers do)
    • this may have a temporary effect particularly if I was frothing at the mouth, you might get scared
  • I could plead with you and weep, and try and put emotional pressure on you
    • How could you have eaten those 15 donuts Chris, it grieves me so much, after all the time we spent trying to deal with this issue you let me down!
  • I could terrify you with threats of judgement to come
    • I could go on and on trying to play with your imagination till you were scared
  • I could move you with some tragic stories of the effects of sin
    • The terrible tale of Mr. Tim Horton who couldn’t resist his own donuts and exploded in one of his own restaurants
  • I could try and logically reason you out of sin
    • Those donuts actually have very little food value, and each one takes 1 week off your life
• We’ll return to the donuts in a moment…

0. The Story so far

• There are some damaging errors creeping into the churches in this area
• Instead of answering them 1 by 1, Paul’s responds by making sure they understand the truth
• He gives a beautifully compact and exquisitely constructed presentation of Jesus and salvation
• He wrote it for more than just the Colossians —at the end he says “pass the letter on”.

• The first half is the roots
  • Comes together in the trunk
  • and the second half spreads out and brings fruit

• Last week I spoke about Union with Christ

• The section ends with Paul arguing that if you are united with Christ, why do you need any of the physical stuff to make you closer to God
• There were all kinds of superstitions coming into the church, like there are today
  • Prayer shawls with Hebrew words embroidered into them
• The second half of the book spreads out from this truth like ripples in a pond:

1. Overview of the Passage

There’s a useful way of categorizing temptation

• Several places in the Bible divide temptation into three categories:
  1. Desires of our physical bodies (Sometimes translated “lusts of the flesh”)
  2. Desires of the eyes
  3. Pride and Power

1. Desires of our physical bodies: sins connected with the fact we have physical bodies
   • Indulging in food
   • Sexual sins
   • Sensual pleasure & thrills
   • Drunkeness and drug addictions
   • Almost always instant gratification, giving a quick “high”
2. Desires of the eyes: all about posessions, wanting to have things
   • Advertising usually appeals to this (unless it is food)
   • these first two are addressed in this section
3. Pride and Power: (the sin of Satan)
   • Status, recognition and prestige
   • Influence and control in society
   • Respect and praise
   • Mostly to do with our relationships—the outer rings

2. The Passage

• Show the passage:

• In this part of Colossians, Paul is particularly focussing on the first two
  • “Desires of our physical bodies” and “the desire for things”
    • see [3:5]
  • This is because both of these relate closely to our existence in the physical world
  • He will go on to talk about relationships in the next two sections
• So think of the five ways of disuading you from sin I just mentioned
  • Loud shouting
  • Emotional pleading
  • Terrifying detain about hell
  • Tragic stories
  • Logical reasoning about the bad effects
    • Actually, none of them!
• Let us look at the passage
  • The image in this section is the implications of dying and being raised with Christ
  • [3:1] —raised with Christ [3:4] in Glory with Christ
• This is distinct from the next section where the image is of “taking off” the old (like clothes)
  • and “putting on” Christ
• The Structure of the passage
• [3:1–3] Postive motivation to live right
• [3:4–7] Motivation not to sin
• v.6 is not primarily a motivation, but it is a fact
  • This world will be destroyed, and there is only one safe place, and that’s to be hidden in Christ
  • If you are not sure you are united with Christ, then you need to know this is a free gift
    • But you have to trust him with your life. (I would love to talk to you about this/)
• Written with care and artistry – so that when we read it, we’ll say “That has a beauty that grasps my heart”.

3. Application

• Going back to the donut illustration
  • I heard a very interesting contrast between people who are dieting and vegetarians
  • Vegetarians very rarely break their rules because they define themselves at that
    • We always live out of our identity—I’m a vegetarian
    • So a couple of years ago I lost quite a bit of weight simply by defining myself as a low-carb eater.
• So how does it work with our lives?
• Immigrating to Canada
  • How many here?
  • We did, 25 years ago. Buy new things? Car...
  • Define yourself as united with Christ
• I suggest two things from this passage
  • A sense of destiny, who you are and where you are heading
  • Relationship with Jesus, whom you know really hates the sort of evil behaviours described
  • Good mental practices about these two things
• Examples
  • Diet magazine, full of gorgeous pictures of chocolate cake?
    • no, of slim people who have succeeded
  • Cycling magazine
    • Pictures of the world’s most spectacular cycling trails
    • motivation to get fit
• Think about Jesus
  • He loves you....
• Think about your future
  • Try and visualize it—that is what Paul is trying to get us to do
• Everybody stand and we will pray

Updated on 2016-11-01 by Andrew Fountain