Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter

Colossians 3:1-3

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Get your mind out of the gutter. A gutter is a place where water flows often it’s a channel that directs the flow of water and they tend to collect a lot of dirt, filth, and trash. When we think about the flow of our thoughts a gutter is an appropriate picture. Especially as we consider our sexualized world that we live in today.

People are constantly exposed to sex. Maybe it’s a tabloid covers in the grocery store. Maybe it’s the shows we stream on Netflix. Or it’s that easy access we have to Internet pornography. Oftentimes people tell themselves that “looking isn’t touching” that as long as no one finds out that I’m not causing anyone any harm.

Not only is lust a sin of adultery, but also it does harm our souls. You see as we constantly are immersed in these fantasies, fantasies and pictures that are far above anything we can really naturally experience in this life, these fantasies disillusion us to real life. Our own normal relationships can’t measure up to them. As we live our normal lives more and more we find ourselves getting disappointed more and more we find ourselves running back to the fantasies, to the lies.

And I can promise you one thing: whatever you’re looking for you won’t find. The apostle Paul shares these words with us in Colossians chapter 3. He says:

Therefore, because you were raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1-3)

For people whose minds are often polluted by sin St. Paul invites us to follow Christ with our thoughts. He’s a Savior that came to live in the gutter of this world, to the live among the filth of our sin. Among the prostitutes and the sinners He is the Savior that God brought all the way to the cross for us to die for our sins. And then He went down into the deep gutter of the dark tomb.

Our thoughts flow with Jesus to that tomb where His body was laid for us. All of that dirt, all of the filth, all of the sins, and images that often cling to our minds we leave there in the tomb with Jesus. They are sealed away forever.

When Paul says that you’ve died. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. He’s telling us that the old us is gone, buried with Jesus. You have a new life through the forgiveness of sins. A new life to walk with Jesus. It’s true.

Sometimes relationships in this life will disappoint us but in those moments our eyes need not wander any further than the cross. There we find the God who loves us a God who embraces sinners who died for us. The God who promised us who live in this gutter “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” Amen.