Paul has established so beautifully the reality that when one accepts Christ as Lord and experiences death with Him through baptism, that one now has a new life and is in fact a new person, reborn. Does that reality make a difference in the way a person lives everyday life? Absolutely!! And Paul now gets very specific in describing that change.
There are things we must begin to work to rid ourselves of. And it is work! Write down the list of things that must go. Then identify the ones with which you struggle. That gives us so much to talk to God about today. To wear the name of "Christian" requires the believer to do serious business with some of our natural tendencies. First, we must deal with our tendency to feed our lusts - our desires for "more" of all sorts of things - sexual and material. Jesus Himself talked about the seriousness of this in Matthew 5: 29 - 30. He said,
"If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."
Jesus' words are not literal ... they are to impress upon God-followers the absolute necessity of conforming to the character and person of Christ. It matters how we respond, how we choose to live, how we relate to people and things - it matters because we wear the name "Christian" and we are to march to a different drum than the world. Paul calls our continual lust for "more" - our desire to always be "getting" - idolatry. Strong words.
Secondly, there is this anger business. There are two different words used in verse 8 - anger and rage. Rage indicates an explosion. It is likened to a fire in straw - quick to ignite and blaze, and then quick to subside. The other word, anger, indicates a slow burning, long lasting, simmering anger that refuses to be pacified. Some of us tend toward explosion ... and some of us tend toward simmering. Neither is acceptable for the Christ disciple. So, confess, repent, and keep going ... ever toward a greater surrender to the Spirit that lives in you.
Third, Paul includes several specifics that involve our tongues - the way we talk. The malice and slander of course deal with the way we talk about others. How carefully we must guard our tongues to keep from mirroring our world's delight in malicious talk about others. And we "southerners" have to be careful about our attempt at camouflage by using the words, "Oh, bless his/her heart, she is so ______." Also, we cannot lie to each other (or to ourselves). Our Lord is truth personified ... and we must mirror truthfulness, not deception and manipulation. In addition, there is no place for obscenity and foul language among us. This has become so commonplace that we often don't even recognize it. Ask God to show you when your language takes on an obscene flavor. To move past the negative focus, William Barclay lays out 3 laws for Christian speech. He identifies them as:
1. Christian speech must be KIND
2. Christian speech must be PURE
3. Christian speech must be TRUE
The final thing I want us to notice in this passage is in verse 11. Did you see it? The barriers are down in Christ - the things that divide us in this world. T. K. Abbott summarizes these things so beautifully. He said: "Christianity destroyed the barriers which come from birth and from nationality (Greek or Jew). Christianity destroyed the barriers which come from ceremonial and ritual (circumcised or uncircumcised). Christianity destroyed the barriers between the cultured and the uncultured (barbarian and Scythian). Christianity destroyed the barriers between class and class (slave and free)." The distinctions around which our world clusters and wars are to be irrelevant in Christ's Church! My friends - that is why the world so desperately needs the Church! We must model how you live together in love in the midst of all these differences! And how often we have failed at modeling that. We can see barriers and wars within and among congregations of God's people. This must not be. It is worldly ... not of Christ.
Our assignment? As you run your errands - as you are at work - as you walk into your church - as you see people (all kinds of people) - say to yourself Paul's words in verse 11 ...
Christ is all, and is in all
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