Sanctification is Not Passive - Tim Conway

The "put off" is not passive.

But you know what?

We can act like it is.

And this can be one
of the greatest killers

to sanctification that we can encounter,

when we deal with sanctification

as though it is passive.

I want to be clear about something.

Putting off the old man

is something that Paul is telling

the Colossians and the
Ephesians that they do.

Oh, I know it's past tense
with the Colossians,

but it's something they did.

Putting off these old man-ish ways

are something they must do.

It is something he is appealing to them.

It's not something done to us.

It's not something done for us.

It is specifically: you are to put away.

You are to put off.

That's the language of Scripture.

Put off the old man.

Put away falsehood, put away bitterness,

put away wrath, put away anger.

And you know what Paul never says here?

Well, what you really need to do

is pray about it.

What you really need
to do is fast about it

or seek counsel over it.

Now look, you need to hear me right.

You say, he's telling us
not to pray about this,

not to fast about this.

I always knew. I always knew he had error.

There it is.

I knew something was wrong.

Listen, you know as well as I do

Scripture talks about
praying without ceasing.

But you need to listen to me

and you need to hear
not what I'm saying so much

as hear what Paul is saying.

Far too often through the years

as I have been a pastor in this church,

people use prayer as a crutch

in a bad way and in a wrong way.

I can tell you I have seen people

make horrible decisions in their life.

But they say, "Well, I prayed about it."

As though that just certifies

that what they're
doing has God's approval.

"I prayed about it."

As though you can't touch me now.

No counsel that is against
this is going to stand

because I prayed about this.

That's one way I've
seen prayer used wrongly.

But there's another way.

You've got some sin in your life.

There's something wrong.

And you say, well, I know
that I have this thing

in my life that's wrong

and it's dishonoring to God.

And I'm asking God to take it away.

And you see, that sounds very... what?

Christian, noble.

And I'll tell you so often
it is nothing but false piety.

"Well, I'm praying about
this sin in my life."

And you know what Paul would say?

You go ahead and pray about that,

but if you're ever going
to live a sanctified life,

you better come to the place

where you put that off yourself.

(incomplete thought)

You know what happens.

Somebody prays - "I prayed about it."

And now they sit there.

"I prayed about that bitterness."
"I prayed about that lack of forgiveness."

"I prayed about my laziness."

I prayed about this,
that, and the other thing.

And then you sit there.

And I know what you're waiting for.

You're waiting for this feeling of power.

Ahhh...

You know, you wake up and it's like

now you're this spiritual superman

and you feel it coursing
through your veins.

And it's like power's just exuding,

like you're going to see some light

emanating from your face
when you look in the mirror.

But that's how we are.

Oh, I'm going to feel this.

Paul says you might
want to examine v. 17-32.

You'll notice I'm not really
charging the people

that they need to pray more.

Where do you see prayer at all there?

Paul doesn't tell you to
pray about dishonesty

or bitterness or laziness.

Does he?

He doesn't!

You know what? He
goes straight to the point.

And he says, you, Christian,

need to get that out of your life.

Period.

Get on with it, man.

That's what Paul is saying.

Paul doesn't say to the Ephesians:

Well, you have certain
people in your church

with old man-ish tendencies.

Some of you aren't speaking
truth to one another.

Some of you are given to sinful anger.

Some are letting the sun
go down on their anger.

Some are giving advantage to the devil.

Some of you are not laboring
very diligently in giving.

Some of you are grieving the Holy Spirit.

Some are bitter and slanderous.

He doesn't tell them to go start

a special Thursday evening prayer meeting.

You know what he tells them?

You put that off.

Stop it.

Oh! That doesn't sound very spiritual.

Having Thursday night prayer
meeting sounds spiritual.

Yeah, but you come back a year later,

and who are the people
that are running well?

Who are the people that
are the godly examples?

They're the ones that stood up
and looked their sin face-to-face

and said, "You're coming off."

And you go to battle against it.

Versus the guy that has the
prayer meeting every Thursday night.

And a year later, he's just as pathetic

and wrapped up in his sin as ever.

Why? (incomplete thought)

It's like here's God.

God's saying to you: Take it off.

And you say, "Help me take it off."

And He says Paul's under inspiration here.

Take it off.

"Would You please help me to take it off?"

Take it off!

Can you imagine if your
child was doing that?

What would you do?

Most parents would eventually
become frustrated with that

and they'd take the child as
rebelling and spank them.

If you as a parent say to your child,

"Take that shirt off right now."

"Would you help me to take it off?"

You have arms. You can take that off.

You're equipped to take that off.

"Oh, but I need power to take this off."

"I need help to take this off."

Take it off!

But you see, we feel so pious and so holy

and so, oh, you know, I'm a man of prayer.

I pray about that sin all the time.

Yeah, how long have you
been praying for it?

The last twenty years?
Why do you still have it?

Because you never took it off.

You see, that's the way Paul's talking.

We need to come face-to-face with this.

There's something that's
definitely active on your part -

almost aggressive.

There's a violence about this.

And there ought to be.

There's a lot of procrastination.

There's a lot of false piety.

We get people who struggle
with the same thing

over and over and over.

They pray. They ask others to pray.

But Paul comes along
and simply tells them:

Stop.

Are you a thief?

Stop. And work with your hands and give.

Are you grieving the Spirit?

Stop it.

Are you bitter? Are you unforgiving?

Put it off.

Quit doing that.

Stop acting like a baby.

Because the truth is you're not a baby.

You know what the truth is?
You're God's man.

You're God's woman.

And he's telling us to act like it.

And I know you're going to declare to me.

Oh, I'm so weak...

I'm so frail.

I'm too pathetic, too inexperienced,

too newly saved, too dark a season.

My righteousness's are filthy rags.

My heart's deceitful. No one's good.

What's the answer to this?

You're a new creation in Christ.

Old things are passed away.

If by the Spirit, you put to death
the deeds of the body,

you will live.

If you live according to the flesh,

you're going to die.

Let me ask you this:

Are you a Christian? You say yes.

Does Scripture teach that if you're
a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit?

You say yes.

Case closed.

You have the Holy Spirit.

By the Holy Spirit, you put to death

the deeds of the body.

This excerpt was taken
from the full sermon:

What is the "Old Man"?