Dressing for Your New Life in Christ

This summary and rewrite draws from excerpts of a sermon by Christine Caine on Colossians 3:1-13, focusing on the biblical instruction to “put off” the old life (the “earthly nature”) and “put on” the new identity in Christ, emphasizing practical spiritual disciplines for flourishing and effectiveness in a chaotic world.

The Importance of Spiritual Dress Codes

The core message uses the metaphor of a wardrobe and a dress code to explain the essential shift required when a person is “in Christ”. Just as wearing the wrong attire can be awkward or embarrassing—like being the only person without a tuxedo at a formal wedding—wearing the wrong spiritual “clothes” does not align with a believer’s new reality.

Paul’s teaching in Colossians 3 provides “fashion advice” and acts as a “personal stylist,” guiding believers on what clothing works and what no longer fits their new identity.

1. Setting Your Mind: The Foundation of Your Spiritual Wardrobe

The process of changing one’s spiritual wardrobe starts with the mindset. Paul instructs believers to “set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”.

The Mindset Determines the Wardrobe

• Mindset and Outcome: The way we set our minds fundamentally determines what we end up wearing spiritually. If we do not intentionally choose to set our minds on eternal things, we will naturally drift toward being obsessed with temporal, earthly things.
• Intentional Choice: Setting the mind on things above is not automatic; it requires a conscious, intentional choice, much like setting an alarm or a calendar reminder.
• Heavenly Minded, Earthly Good: The belief that being “heavenly minded” makes one “no earthly good” is challenged. In fact, the more focused we are on heaven, the more our lives here on earth will count for the glory of God. As C.S. Lewis noted, Christians who historically achieved the most for the present world were those who thought most about the next.
• The Crucial Focus: Paul begins with refocusing the mind because “where you look you will go; what you behold you will become”. What we focus on is crucial.

Citizenship and Ambassadorship

When a person is born again, their citizenship shifts from earth to heaven. Although believers reside on Earth day-to-day, they are ambassadors for Christ. As ambassadors, we are expected to live according to the standards and values of our heavenly place of citizenship. Our behavior matters for our witness to a lost and broken world, as well as for our own freedom, flourishing, and fruitfulness.

2. Putting Off the Old Self: Destructive Habits to Purge

Paul calls believers to “put to death what belongs to your earthly nature”. Since we are connected to the crucified, risen, and enthroned Christ, we should be putting off anything contrary to our new identity.

The Old Wardrobe of Sin

The old clothes, which Christine Caine jokingly refers to as “designer label sin ink,” might have felt good for a season, but they ultimately destroy life, hinder flourishing, and impede fruitfulness. Paul explicitly lists the attitudes and actions that must be discarded, making it harder to “drift into sin which one does not know by name”.

Clothes to Destroy (The Earthly Nature):

• Sexual Immorality and Impurity: This includes sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desire.
• Greed: Greed is explicitly equated with idolatry.
• Anger and Malice: This includes anger and wrath (wroth), and malice.
• Verbal Sins: This covers slander, filthy language, and lying to one another.

The Fight for Freedom

These destructive habits do not simply “drop off” immediately after conversion. They are often comfortable and familiar, and they will “fight to stay alive” because they were worn for most of our lives.

To get rid of them, believers must become vigilant and literally “starve those appetites” and desires until they die. If we want to flourish, we must remember that “the sin we won’t kill will often end up killing us” and harming our relationships, bodies, joy, and peace.