Shadow Missions

Colossians 3:5-11 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Dang it. Can we say “dang it” in church contexts and get away with it? Because I have to be totally transparent and admit that my first knee-jerk reaction when I read this passage is to suck in my left cheek, wrinkle my mouth, lower & then shake my head, and finally say “dang it” under my breath. Busted.

It’s almost like Paul knew human nature. Like he knew our human nature. Like he knew mine. He spent two chapters in his letter to the church at Colossae establishing the fact of reality that Christ is supreme. Christ is the sovereign Creator; He is the One who triumphed over the powers of evil at the cross; He is the One who reset the rulebook of what is appropriate behavior this side of redemption, He is the One on whom I should firmly focus my mind’s attention. He should consume all my planning. I mean, if He really is who He claims to be and who Paul says He is, then He is absolutely the most incredible entity in existence, and I should plan my every waking thought around His reality and glory. Dang it. Because I don’t. And neither do you...so quit with the mental "tsk tsk" thing!

We spend an enormous amount of time and energy planning ways to glorify ourselves, don’t we? Oh, we would never actually verbalize this, because it would sound absolutely preposterous. But, we each have things that we enjoy that are not holy, and our minds instinctively kick into gear trying to figure out ways to accomplish what John Ortberg calls our “shadow mission.” It’s the thing we want to accomplish so intensely that it drives our thought processes. For me, it’s an intense desire to be recognized and acknowledged and appreciated. I would limbo under a 2-foot electrical fence if I thought someone would applaud my efforts. Without even trying, I line up every activity, relationship, scenario and circumstance to make sure that my shadow mission is accomplished. I plan it out meticulously. It’s called a “shadow mission” because if we ever actually said it out loud and exposed it to the “light” it would probably vanish. And deep down, we don’t really want that to happen, so we keep our mission in the shadows.

Sinful plans and vampires have a lot in common. They are deadly. They are technically dead, but still they live and they lurk in the dark places in the world. But, if you expose them to sunlight, they are obliterated. If you expose our plans to the light of the Son, they are obliterated too. Of course, vampires aren’t really real, are they? My plans are much more dangerous, and they gradually suck the very life out of my journey of faith.

Paul essentially asks us the question, “Are you planning to keep on sinning?” Again, most of us would instinctively answer “no!” to that question. But think about it. How much thought and scheming do you spend to do the things that you know you shouldn’t?

So many men will work feverishly all day long and coordinate their kids’ schedules so that their wife and kids are all out of the house at the same time. This gives the man a window of time where he can search through pornographic websites without fear of being interrupted by a family member. Can you imagine what it would actually sound like if he verbalized his plan? “I am going to make sure that my wife is at the grocery store, that little Johnny is at his friend’s house playing video games, that Jenny is at her piano lesson, and that all the doors are locked so that I can sit in front of my computer by myself in the dark and look at the wicked objectification of another image-bearer of God. Yeah, that sounds like a great plan!” So we don’t talk about it out loud. We pretend that it’s not there, or we try to temporarily suspend our redeemed nature. We try to put BACK ON the old self. We plan to keep sinning, and we go to great lengths to do it.

“I think I’m going to call all my friends and tell them about Sally, because I bet she’s having an affair. Then they’ll think that I’m really connected socially, and they’ll appreciate how important I am. Then I’m going to see Sally at the mall and tell her that she’s really been on my heart lately, and that I’m praying for her…and is everything really OK…? Then Sally might just trust me with some more juicy tidbits! Yeah, that sounds like a great plan!”

“I think I’m going to keep taking office supplies from my job home so that I don’t have to pay for them. While I’m at it, I’m going to continue cheating on my taxes and claim bogus deductions…all while not tithing a red cent to my church, but still complain about how the church spends MY money. Yeah, that’s a GREAT plan!”

I think about South Carolina Governor Sanford. Can you imagine his verbalized 5-year plan? “I think I will have an affair, culminating in a trip to Argentina. I will trash my family, embarrass my wife, ruin my legacy for my sons so that they despise me, and chunk my career into the trash bin. Yeah, that sounds great!”

What are we thinking!? Sin makes us stupid. Paul says put that sort of plan to death. It’s a plural imperative to remove the life from it. We used to be driven primarily by those sinful and wicked plans, but now we have been exposed to the light of the Supreme God of the universe. Why would you try to step back into that filthy rotten garment of garbage? Paul makes an interesting statement that our wicked plans will be subject to the coming wrath of God. Let me be clear: If you are a believer, you have already been judged at the cross. However, this wickedness is still practiced by believers, and it still brings consequences. Unbelievers are yet to be judged, but they will be. Horrifically. Those of us who are believers will be measured and all of our efforts in this world will be examined. You’ve only got so much time in this life to invest in eternity. Don’t waste it on selfish fruitless endeavors that will be vaporized as wood, hay, & stubble when He returns. Put on and radiate the new self. I love how Paul summarizes that in his epistle to the church in Rome. Romans 13:14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Because Christ IS all and is IN all.

But, our “shadow mission,” our natural plan, is to glorify and gratify ourselves… Dang it. Light it up!