Living With a Pure Heart #2

Near the end of the message on Sunday, I mentioned three ideas on how to work out your salvation. In the next few posts I would like to unpack those ideas, because frankly, I think they are important.

My first suggestion came for Colossians 3:5-11. If we are going to work out our salvation, one thing the Bible calls us to do is to get serious about sin. Being serious about sin does not mean that we work really hard to sin more. To be serious about sin means that we seek to put sin to death. In Colossians 3:5 Paul tells us to put to death stuff that belongs to our earthly nature. To be direct, the things he then lists are sexual sins. If we are going to work out our salvation, we need to say no to all sin, even sexual sin. We live in a culture that makes a big deal about sex, particularly self-serving sex. Sex in the content of a one woman/one man marriage can be a great thing. But sex outside of that needs to be put to death.

To get practical, we need to take a look at our lives and ask if we are serious about put this kind of sin to death in our lives.  If I am going to put this sin to death in my life I need to watch what I watch and listen to. I probably should take stock of the jokes that I laugh at and the images that I look for. If we are going to live out our salvation, some changes will need to occur in our lives.

There is more to working out our salvation than that though. In Colossians 3:8, Paul tells us to dump a bunch of stuff connected to anger and things that flow out of our mouths because of anger. Destructive attitudes and actions do not help us work out our salvation and live with pure hearts. If anger is an issue in your life, please address it. if any of us allows anger, rage, malice or slander to hang around, marks will be left in our lives and the lives of those around us. And they will not be the kind of marks we would want left.

Dumping anger, malice, slander and rage may not be easy, but we need to do it. Is anger an issue that you are struggling with? Do you get frustrated and snap often? Do you cover those things up, but inside you are seething? If we are going to work out our salvation, we need to address those kinds of things. We cannot afford to play games with anger and malice.

The Bible touches on the kind of theme in a number of other places too. If you want to think through this idea of taking sin seriously, please take some time and read Romans 6, Romans 13:12-14 and Ephesians 4:22-24. Working out our salvation, though empowered by God, will involve effort our part. We need to heed the words of 1 Timothy 4:7

Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.

We need to get serious about sin and becoming godly. That requires disciple and training.