SPEAKER_00: The sermon text this morning is Colossians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Be reading verses 1 through 17.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find this printed in your bulletin if you'd like to follow along there.
SPEAKER_00: This is the second sermon in a three-week series this month of January on the theme of the year at ABC, which is thinking, praying, and living a missional life.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new to the church, we have uh ask God to give us a new theme we pray over for months.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, what is that theme that you're calling this church to rally around and live and pray through?
SPEAKER_00: This year, that was a theme we started in September.
SPEAKER_00: We come back typically in January to revisit that theme.
SPEAKER_00: Usually we'll come back also in the month of May.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, Pastor Dan Iverson, longtime missionary to Japan, who's a friend of ours, we've supported for many years, preached the first week of this series on missional living.
SPEAKER_00: From 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and I was blessed by Dan's preaching and his focus.
SPEAKER_00: From 2 Corinthians chapter 5, reminding us that as Christians, we are Christ's ambassadors.
SPEAKER_00: You know what an ambassador is.
SPEAKER_00: You ever go through Northwest DC, all the embassies?
SPEAKER_00: A lot of embassies, a lot of ambassadors.
SPEAKER_00: And an ambassador represents the country.
SPEAKER_00: An ambassador represents the leaders of that country.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks for that country.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's the country that the Apostle Paul tells us?
SPEAKER_00: Where is our citizenship?
SPEAKER_00: In heaven, he says in Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: Our citizenship is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's our residency.
SPEAKER_00: We're just, we're here for a while on earth.
SPEAKER_00: A short time.
SPEAKER_00: One of the verses that really grabbed me from passage last week is verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: And he, Christ, died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him.
SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about that a lot this week.
SPEAKER_00: That I, Tom, should no longer live for himself, but live for my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's his theme.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to learn how to think missionally.
SPEAKER_00: We don't naturally do that.
SPEAKER_00: We need to learn to pray missionally.
SPEAKER_00: And then live it out.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this vision theme is for this year.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really good background for the sermon this week.
SPEAKER_00: How do we actually do this?
SPEAKER_00: We're not big on Nike theology at APC.
SPEAKER_00: Just do it.
SPEAKER_00: We're not big on that.
SPEAKER_00: If it was only that easy to just do what God tells you to do.
SPEAKER_00: We can't do it in our flesh.
SPEAKER_00: We just can't.
SPEAKER_00: What I love about this passage that we're looking at today is it shows us how we live this life, that we don't muscle it up.
SPEAKER_00: It's not as easy as just some New Year's resolution.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it.
SPEAKER_00: If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_00: Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
SPEAKER_00: When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
SPEAKER_00: Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
SPEAKER_00: In these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away.
SPEAKER_00: Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Do not lie to one another.
SPEAKER_00: See that you have put off, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
SPEAKER_00: Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free.
SPEAKER_00: But Christ is all and in all.
SPEAKER_00: Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.
SPEAKER_00: As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
SPEAKER_00: And above all of these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
SPEAKER_00: And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you indeed were called in one body.
SPEAKER_00: And be thankful.
SPEAKER_00: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reading of God's holy, powerful word.
SPEAKER_00: Let's ask the Spirit's help.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for this epistle that your servant Paul penned.
SPEAKER_00: Inspired by you, but now, Lord, we need your spirit's work of illuminating our hearts and our minds.
SPEAKER_00: So that we actually understand these truths.
SPEAKER_00: And more than that, that we actually live out these truths.
SPEAKER_00: Spirit of God, would you please do such a work in each of us now, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: For the sake of your Son Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we actually do this?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's great to get a charge to go out and be ambassadors.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: That's exciting.
SPEAKER_00: Go.
SPEAKER_00: But what are we taking?
SPEAKER_00: If we're not beautifying through the work of Jesus in the church, if we're not a beautiful church in Christ, if the gospel is not attractive in us, if we do not adorn the gospel through our lives, we ought to stay home.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: We ought to just stay.
SPEAKER_00: Stay home.
SPEAKER_00: The world doesn't need that.
SPEAKER_00: See, I think this ties in with last week.
SPEAKER_00: It's great to go.
SPEAKER_00: But what are you going to take with you?
SPEAKER_00: Across the street in your neighborhood, at your workplace, at church, with your family.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, sometimes, I mean, it starts right in our own households.
SPEAKER_00: Are our homes beautiful?
SPEAKER_00: Because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The way we treat each other, the way we speak to each other.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this sermon's about.
SPEAKER_00: This passage shows us how to live this life that we've been called to.
SPEAKER_00: Our practice of the Christian life has everything to do with our understanding, our spiritual position in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Theologians call this the doctrine of union with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is the glue that holds all the scriptures together.
SPEAKER_00: Who you are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And a growing understanding of that.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite classes from Covenant Theological Seminary was a class called the Doctrine of Reform Doctrine of Sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: Sanctification is a word that means growing as a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That class kind of was a real game changer for me.
SPEAKER_00: A man that grew up in a Christian home, went to a Christian college, and I had a lot of benefits, and I learned a lot, but I realized my senior year of seminary, something that I really kind of missed was really the doctrine of union with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, how can I miss it?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's all over the pages of Paul's epistles.
SPEAKER_00: And that's it's not just Paul, it's all over Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul, like, just really doubles down on this, like we just see in this text.
SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
SPEAKER_00: You know what Paul does in all of his epistles?
SPEAKER_00: He takes the first half of his letter, an epistle is just a letter to a particular church, usually, and what does he do?
SPEAKER_00: The first half of all of his letters to these churches is all doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: He says it's important, it's essential that you understand who Jesus Christ is, what Jesus Christ has done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Then put it into practice.
SPEAKER_00: In terms of grammar, you could say that it's the indicative language, statements of fact.
SPEAKER_00: All of his epistles.
SPEAKER_00: Really think hard about what the Bible says of what has happened to you because of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Then the second half of all of his epistles are this is now this is the command.
SPEAKER_00: Now go live.
SPEAKER_00: You see that?
SPEAKER_00: This is very important that we understand this.
SPEAKER_00: This is how we actually grow in sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: This is how we put these beautiful truths into our lives so that we actually live beautiful lives.
SPEAKER_00: We don't muscle this up.
SPEAKER_00: We don't will this in.
SPEAKER_00: So there's three verbs that Paul gives us that are really setting the pace for this.
SPEAKER_00: The first verb, seek the things that are above.
SPEAKER_00: It is a command.
SPEAKER_00: Seek.
SPEAKER_00: In the Greek language, for emphasis, it always puts the things that it wants to emphasize the most first in the sentence.
SPEAKER_00: We don't do that in English, usually, but in Greek it does.
SPEAKER_00: The things above, that's what the first thing that appears in the sentence.
SPEAKER_00: The things above.
SPEAKER_00: So don't look down, don't look in.
SPEAKER_00: Look above into the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: What does God's word tell us that God has done for us as His people?
SPEAKER_00: That's where it starts.
SPEAKER_00: The things above be constantly seeking.
SPEAKER_00: That seeking denotes something that takes patience and perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: It's not always easily found when you seek.
SPEAKER_00: Is there something that in your house that you've been seeking, you know, trying to find?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it takes a while to find it.
SPEAKER_00: But you keep looking because you know you need it.
SPEAKER_00: You keep looking until you find it.
SPEAKER_00: What are these things?
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't leave it to our imagination.
SPEAKER_00: Right out of the gate, if then you have been raised with Christ, or since you have been raised with Christ, union with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The prepositional phrase in the New Testament in Christ is used hundreds of times.
SPEAKER_00: This is the doctrine of union with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you are as a Christian is because you now have the life of Christ in you, given to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he starts.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go back to probably maybe Paul's most lengthy, full treatise of this doctrine of union with Christ from Romans chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: And just bear with me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read a little bit of it.
SPEAKER_00: And then we're going to get to an important discovery.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, What shall we then say?
SPEAKER_00: Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
SPEAKER_00: By no means.
SPEAKER_00: How can we who died to sin still live in it?
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
SPEAKER_00: We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_00: For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
SPEAKER_00: We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
SPEAKER_00: For one who has died has been set free from sin.
SPEAKER_00: And if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
SPEAKER_00: We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again.
SPEAKER_00: Death no longer has dominion over him.
SPEAKER_00: For the death he died, he died to sin once for all.
SPEAKER_00: But the life he lives, he lives to God.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you ready?
SPEAKER_00: This is good.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: The first verb in the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: You think, well, wait, there's a lot of words in the first six chapters.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It's all doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul is saying is take a deep breath, take it in, take everything that I've been telling you about the grace of God in the first six chapters.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
SPEAKER_00: He says, so you also must consider, and that's the verb, you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Like this is spiritual TNT, friends.
SPEAKER_00: This is dynamite.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to understand it to be able to take it in.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul is saying in Romans, what Paul is saying in Colossians, what he says in Galatians, what he says in Ephesians, what he says in Thessalonians.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot live the Christian life as intended if you don't understand what Jesus Christ has done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Positionally.
SPEAKER_00: See, the this text, Romans 6 and Colossians 3, he's saying, Do you know who you are in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And you might say, well, of course every Christian knows that.
SPEAKER_00: Not so fast.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther was right.
SPEAKER_00: We forget the gospel every day.
SPEAKER_00: We need to learn how to, he said, we need to learn how to pound it into our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can't do that without the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But you can do it with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul's theology is here, is you need to consider, think hard.
SPEAKER_00: Think often.
SPEAKER_00: Ask the Spirit to let you go deep into the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be a Christian and just say, I'm going to live up here.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to live on the surface.
SPEAKER_00: If some of you guys want to go deep, good for you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you be that person.
SPEAKER_00: You will never find your real rest in Jesus that we sang about.
SPEAKER_00: If that's what you opt for.
SPEAKER_00: You won't.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, this is one of Paul's favorite words.
SPEAKER_00: Consider.
SPEAKER_00: Think it over.
SPEAKER_00: The person that you were in Adam, the sinner that you were when you were born into this world, when you are converted, when you are regenerated by the work of the Holy Spirit, something happens.
SPEAKER_00: Positionally, you died at that moment.
SPEAKER_00: The old Tom no longer lives.
SPEAKER_00: The old Tom died.
SPEAKER_00: The scripture doesn't say he is dying, he's dead.
SPEAKER_00: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: That's a miracle, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it's true.
SPEAKER_00: What did we just read in Romans chapter 6?
SPEAKER_00: The moment you believed, you died with Christ positionally.
SPEAKER_00: You were buried with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You were raised with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You are now seated in the heavenlies, Paul says in Ephesians, with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And you might say, well, what does that mean then?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's true positionally.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean practically in my life?
SPEAKER_00: That's what this sermon's about.
SPEAKER_00: But you have to understand your position first.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul goes to such great lengths to talk about it in his letters.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to become daily, to daily experience what we actually are positionally in Christ, but we can't do that without thinking out the truth, without taking in the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Can't do that without the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Without the Holy Spirit, you know what we do in Bible study?
SPEAKER_00: We read the verse, we read the chapter, whatever we read, and we say, oh, that was interesting.
SPEAKER_00: And we just kind of walk away.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we think, well, I think I feel better about myself.
SPEAKER_00: I read my Bible today.
SPEAKER_00: I feel better about myself.
SPEAKER_00: I read the Bible in 2025.
SPEAKER_00: Now you get zero points for that, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I get zero points for that.
SPEAKER_00: To consider it, to stop and just say, wait a minute, what does this mean, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Do I understand this text?
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, would you please not only help me to understand it mentally, would you help me to actually live out that text in my life?
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: This is this theology.
SPEAKER_00: As we often say around here, it's like tasting the sweetness of the truth is like a sweet mint in your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: A sweet mint.
SPEAKER_00: You just savor.
SPEAKER_00: And you want to extract all the sweetness out of that mint, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but when I get a mint, I missed my mint yesterday with your husband at lunch.
SPEAKER_00: Walked out too fast.
SPEAKER_00: I forgot my mint.
SPEAKER_00: There's a mint there.
SPEAKER_00: I love to take that mint and just savor until it almost dissolves, right?
SPEAKER_00: It just kind of finally dissolves in your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you do that?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's sweet to the senses.
SPEAKER_00: That is how the Holy Spirit grows us in sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: You take the truth that you're studying, the passage of Scripture, and you read it and you say, Lord, help me not only to understand the concepts, but to live out this truth, to live out this sermon.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't set your minds and your hearts on earthly things.
SPEAKER_00: Most scholars believe he's probably referring to chapter two of Colossians.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't read it.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time.
SPEAKER_00: But in chapter two, Paul is taking on the legalists that have kind of infiltrated the church.
SPEAKER_00: You know what a legalist is?
SPEAKER_00: Trying to use the goodness of their life to prove their righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: That's what a legalist is.
SPEAKER_00: Trying to use my goodness to prove my righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: My dear friend Jack Miller used to start off many conferences by introducing himself.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Jack Miller, and I am a recovering Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: And he meant that.
SPEAKER_00: How many times have I believed that about myself?
SPEAKER_00: I I in many ways I still feel like I am a recovering Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: It was just easy for me to grow up, but it was it wasn't hard for me to jump out of bounds and start getting concerned about how people thought of me.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I would catch myself thinking, what's my reputation?
SPEAKER_00: Do they think well of me?
SPEAKER_00: I sure hope so.
SPEAKER_00: You ever have those thoughts?
SPEAKER_00: I know you do.
SPEAKER_00: I know you have.
SPEAKER_00: Where we just get more focused on what's the outside appearance than concerned about what's on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: That's not for us.
SPEAKER_00: There was these people, no doubt some of them, I think some of them were Christians, but they were confused in their theology.
SPEAKER_00: They thought, they really focused on these outward things in Colossians chapter 2, like what you eat, what you don't eat, how you worship on certain days, how you don't.
SPEAKER_00: All these extra things.
SPEAKER_00: That they made these laws by which they proved, they thought they proved their own holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And what made it so deadly is they judged other people by their own standards.
SPEAKER_00: Legalism will kill a church.
SPEAKER_00: Legalism will kill a Christian's witness.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gets to chapter 3, and he said, what he's really saying in that first paragraph, if then you have been raised with Christ, since you have been raised with Christ, he's saying, wash that stuff off.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how you're going to live for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Seek the things that are above.
SPEAKER_00: One New Testament scholar I read years ago put it like it like this, because this really is bringing us to our second point.
SPEAKER_00: Put to death what is earthly in you.
SPEAKER_00: This is an action verb.
SPEAKER_00: Put to death the things in you that are not the things above.
SPEAKER_00: This is what this New Testament scholar, how he put it.
SPEAKER_00: Failure to understand this dynamic truth will lead to legalism.
SPEAKER_00: These behaviors are like putting wild animals of lust, hatred, pride into the cages of our hearts, where they remain alive and dangerous, a constant threat to the captor.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's solution is much more drastic.
SPEAKER_00: These animals need to be killed, not simply locked up.
SPEAKER_00: The old method of holiness legalistically attacked the symptoms.
SPEAKER_00: The true method of grace goes to the root.
SPEAKER_00: It deals with the root, not just the symptoms.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: This is the heart of our sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: This is how we are actually changed and transformed.
SPEAKER_00: Another quote from one of my favorite theologians, G.K.
SPEAKER_00: Birkauer, put it like this.
SPEAKER_00: It's a mistake to ask the question.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we have imputed righteousness from Jesus, but now how do we move on to actual righteousness?
SPEAKER_00: We don't move on.
SPEAKER_00: Every sin in life and practice stems from a corresponding failure to orient ourselves toward our imputed righteousness from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's almost worthy of an amen.
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
SPEAKER_00: What I understand and believe in my mind and my heart who Jesus Christ is and what he has done for me absolutely has to result in the way I live.
SPEAKER_00: So if there's a problem on the outside, there's a bigger problem on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: That's why a friend of mine told me a long time ago, another pastor from Romans chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get lost in this, but you know, if it makes sense, go with it.
SPEAKER_00: Behind the life, behind the face of every anti-nomian, somebody who's not really concerned about keeping the commandments of God, is a hidden agenda.
SPEAKER_00: Behind every legalist is a hidden life.
SPEAKER_00: And the more I've thought about that over the years, I believe it's true.
SPEAKER_00: Professing Christians who don't take seriously the Christian life and living out the Christian life usually have a hidden agenda.
SPEAKER_00: They just don't want.
SPEAKER_00: Let me put it like this.
SPEAKER_00: They more want to live according to their own desires than for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Behind every legalist is a hidden, hidden life.
SPEAKER_00: How many more times are we going to have to hear about fallen preachers?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just comes in waves, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Mega church pastors, small church pastors.
SPEAKER_00: You know, eventually, if you don't really believe what you believe, if you don't believe what you preach, it comes out.
SPEAKER_00: It just does.
SPEAKER_00: The apostle Paul is giving us the antidote to this.
SPEAKER_00: The second command, put to death what is earthly in you.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives us examples.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to leave it to our imagination.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be very practical.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us a list of five.
SPEAKER_00: Sensuality.
SPEAKER_00: This would include sexual immorality, evil desires.
SPEAKER_00: Also covetousness, isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_00: Some people worship sex.
SPEAKER_00: Some people worship money.
SPEAKER_00: Some people worship both.
SPEAKER_00: I read a commentator this week who put it like this.
SPEAKER_00: It really resonates.
SPEAKER_00: He says, It is conceivable that on any given night in your home or mine, that we can sit in front of a TV screen or we can look on a laptop, that on any given night we may see more sensual sights than our grandparents did in a lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone argue with that?
SPEAKER_00: And it's just a click away.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, the temptation.
SPEAKER_00: What makes a person feel alive?
SPEAKER_00: Well, sexual gratification can.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of money can.
SPEAKER_00: We have to learn from Job.
SPEAKER_00: I made a covenant with God that I will not look on anything.
SPEAKER_00: I would not look with my eyes on anything.
SPEAKER_00: That was displeasing to God.
SPEAKER_00: We have to put to death these beasts.
SPEAKER_00: We can't leave these beasts locked up in the cage in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: They have a way of getting out.
SPEAKER_00: The cage has a way of getting opened up.
SPEAKER_00: This whole thing about what's locked up inside.
SPEAKER_00: I believe this is the true story about Jonathan Edwards, the great theologian, one of his daughters.
SPEAKER_00: A young man loved one of his daughters and went to Reverend Edwards with a request to marry her.
SPEAKER_00: He said to the young man, You can't have her.
SPEAKER_00: But the young man said, But I love her.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have her.
SPEAKER_00: But she loves me.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have her.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: asked the young man.
SPEAKER_00: Because she's not worthy of you.
SPEAKER_00: But isn't she a she is a Christian, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I believe that she is a Christian, but the grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else can live.
SPEAKER_00: First service laughed at it.
SPEAKER_00: It is kind of funny, but it's serious, right?
SPEAKER_00: There are some people that are really hard to live with.
SPEAKER_00: Because of stuff that's just locked up inside.
SPEAKER_00: You can't marry my daughter.
SPEAKER_00: You're not ready for her.
SPEAKER_00: She's not ready.
SPEAKER_00: Put to death the things that are earthly in you.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us other categories, evil attitudes, verse eight.
SPEAKER_00: Anger, wrath, malice.
SPEAKER_00: Do you struggle with anger?
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us do.
SPEAKER_00: Does it just seem to erupt?
SPEAKER_00: Does it just kind of flash out?
SPEAKER_00: Paul says you need to put that to death.
SPEAKER_00: That's going to do a lot of damage.
SPEAKER_00: Evil speech, verse aid, another category.
SPEAKER_00: Slander, obscene talk.
SPEAKER_00: Our words can pierce people brutally.
SPEAKER_00: We know that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Our words can just tear people apart.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul says, put that to death.
SPEAKER_00: Obscene talk.
SPEAKER_00: Slander.
SPEAKER_00: How we talk about people.
SPEAKER_00: How we talk about other people matters.
SPEAKER_00: That we don't run them down.
SPEAKER_00: We don't say things behind their backs.
SPEAKER_00: Which is usually probably motivated by trying to prove ourselves, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's a legalist.
SPEAKER_00: You know what a gossiper is?
SPEAKER_00: You know what a slanderer is?
SPEAKER_00: A true blue legalist.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see why I say that?
SPEAKER_00: Trying to prove their goodness by pointing out someone else's weakness.
SPEAKER_00: Basically, for all purposes saying, you see, I'm not like that.
SPEAKER_00: It's evil.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, put it to death.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last category he gives at verse 9 is deception.
SPEAKER_00: Don't lie to each other.
SPEAKER_00: Stop lying to each other.
SPEAKER_00: Tell the truth to each other.
SPEAKER_00: Are you thinking right now, like, this is really hard?
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: You ought to be thinking that.
SPEAKER_00: This is really hard.
SPEAKER_00: Can I really do this?
SPEAKER_00: Can I really be changed from the inside out?
SPEAKER_00: And the apostle Paul would say emphatically, yes.
SPEAKER_00: But it starts with what you think.
SPEAKER_00: Think through the implications of the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Think through the implications of the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: Think through the implications of the fact that you are united with Christ and that old person that you were is dead.
SPEAKER_00: The old Tom is dead, not dying.
SPEAKER_00: But the new Tom still has to deal with the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: How about you?
SPEAKER_00: Flesh shows up every day.
SPEAKER_00: Flesh never takes a day off.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh is always trying to get us to live according to our desires, not God's desires.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, remember who you are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Look to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Don't look to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Don't look to philosophy.
SPEAKER_00: Don't look to anything else but to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Fix your eyes on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Fix your gaze on his beauty, as the Adams read for us.
SPEAKER_00: Fix your eyes, the eyes of your heart, on the only beautiful one, the truly beautiful one.
SPEAKER_00: And you will become more like the beautiful one.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we beautify the church.
SPEAKER_00: Christ working in us through us.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we have no reason to go.
SPEAKER_00: Why would someone want to go in, and this happens, why would someone want to go into missions and go to another country and try to live a life that they didn't live here?
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go anywhere until that truth starts to take hold of us here.
SPEAKER_00: As that truth takes hold of us here, as we see Jesus, what we become like we behold, Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you're really looking at mostly, whatever captures your imagination, that's a good way to think of it.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever really captures your imagination.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about when you can think about something?
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about when you have free time?
SPEAKER_00: That's what William Temple said is your real God.
SPEAKER_00: Where does your heart, where does your mind go?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, would you help me to set my eyes on you?
SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Like now.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what worship is.
SPEAKER_00: Worship is actual spiritual transactions that take place when the people of God are in the presence of God and the word of God is being preached and the Spirit of God is working.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: In your heart right now, you put to death whatever the Holy Spirit would be showing you.
SPEAKER_00: In your heart right now, you say, Jesus, I give this up.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I repent of this.
SPEAKER_00: It may be the mouth.
SPEAKER_00: It may be the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: It may be lust.
SPEAKER_00: It may be covetousness.
SPEAKER_00: It may, it may, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It may just be an indifference to these things.
SPEAKER_00: That would be a terrible sin.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, that was interesting what I heard today.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to worry about it.
SPEAKER_00: That would be a terrible sin.
SPEAKER_00: To say, I'm okay with setting my heart and my mind on earthly things.
SPEAKER_00: I'm okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has something better for us.
SPEAKER_00: He gets the last verb.
SPEAKER_00: Put on God's, as God's chosen ones.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting word picture Paul gives us.
SPEAKER_00: Put on your heavenly wardrobe.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us these graces.
SPEAKER_00: Compassionate hearts.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us five graces to put on.
SPEAKER_00: Compassionate hearts, kindness.
SPEAKER_00: This is a word in Paul's time that was used to describe wine that has grown mellow with age and has lost its harshness.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, put that on.
SPEAKER_00: Kindness.
SPEAKER_00: And don't just poo-poo kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Kindness is a great spiritual trait.
SPEAKER_00: Just to be kind, especially in this day and age, when so many people are just mean to each other.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't agree with my politics, I'm going to let you out.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not going to hold back.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Kindness is a great virtue.
SPEAKER_00: The way we talk to each other.
SPEAKER_00: The way we treat each other.
SPEAKER_00: Meekness.
SPEAKER_00: What is meekness?
SPEAKER_00: Strength under control.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Moses was no pushover.
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't mean wallflower.
SPEAKER_00: It means strength, real strength under control.
SPEAKER_00: You don't use your power to pay back people.
SPEAKER_00: You don't use your power to make people hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Meekness.
SPEAKER_00: This morning before you got dressed to come to church, you looked at your wardrobe, right?
SPEAKER_00: You looked in your closet.
SPEAKER_00: You said, What am I going to wear today?
SPEAKER_00: What about your heavenly wardrobe?
SPEAKER_00: He's not talking about these clothes.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the attitude of my heart on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: Tom, what are you going to put on today?
SPEAKER_00: The way that you treat people?
SPEAKER_00: The way that you think about the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: You need to put these things on.
SPEAKER_00: A compassion at heart, kindness, humility, meekness.
SPEAKER_00: What about patience?
SPEAKER_00: Are you an impatient person?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you want to get things done.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: Do you get impatient when your timetable doesn't match God's timetable?
SPEAKER_00: I've done that.
SPEAKER_00: I know I know what that's like.
SPEAKER_00: Tom, this is not on your timetable.
SPEAKER_00: This is on my timetable.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I can't do this without the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I can't.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do this in the energy of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: I can't muscle this up.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I I could try.
SPEAKER_00: And I think Sharon would see right through it.
SPEAKER_00: I think some of you would just see right through it.
SPEAKER_00: Put on is a verb.
SPEAKER_00: It's a command.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a statement of fact.
SPEAKER_00: This is a command.
SPEAKER_00: Just as you look in your closet in the morning, what am I going to put on?
SPEAKER_00: How about looking in your heart?
SPEAKER_00: What am I going to put on?
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, what would you clothe me with?
SPEAKER_00: Where am I not like these things?
SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: I confess my sin when I'm not kind.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm not patient, when I'm not compassionate.
SPEAKER_00: This is worship.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we're doing this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, would you please locate the would you locate what needs to come out?
SPEAKER_00: Would you cut out what needs to come?
SPEAKER_00: Would you help me to consider and to think through these truths and to savor these truths?
SPEAKER_00: This is worship.
SPEAKER_00: You invite the Holy Spirit in.
SPEAKER_00: Like now.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Search me, O God.
SPEAKER_00: You see what's in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Do the surgery required.
SPEAKER_00: I know you can.
SPEAKER_00: Look, if God raised his own son from the dead on the third day, does this is what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: If he did that, and you are in Christ, that same power that raised his son from the dead is in you.
SPEAKER_00: What's required is that we die to self.
SPEAKER_00: We surrender to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We ask the Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: He finds that request irresistible.
SPEAKER_00: But you need to make the request.
SPEAKER_00: You need to put to death by the Spirit's power.
SPEAKER_00: Those things that are evil in the cages of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Putting on love is like putting it a belt for the wardrobe.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the belt accessory is love.
SPEAKER_00: With love, we can put these on.
SPEAKER_00: Without love, we can't.
SPEAKER_00: Without love, we're just kind of going through the motions outwardly.
SPEAKER_00: And then in the end, he says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: This is my prayer for this congregation and for my own life in 2025.
SPEAKER_00: That the word of Christ will dwell in us richly.
SPEAKER_00: That the word of God will come alive in us in new ways.
SPEAKER_00: That we won't look at our Bible and our time with the Lord and just say, oh, okay, I guess I better put it in my time.
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to study our Bibles just to feel better about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: You get no points for that.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to say, when we open the Word of God, we're going to say, God, would you please do, would you please help me to understand the concepts?
SPEAKER_00: Would you help me to understand the truth?
SPEAKER_00: Would you help me to understand what's going on on these pages?
SPEAKER_00: That's not enough.
SPEAKER_00: Would you help me now to desire to actually live out these truths?
SPEAKER_00: Would you give me the willingness to repent where I'm not?
SPEAKER_00: This is how we grow in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There's no other way to grow in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful thing when the power of Christ flows in you.
SPEAKER_00: In me.
SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_00: Then we're ready to go.
SPEAKER_00: Go across the street.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe go across the hallway in your house.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Go across the street to your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Take it to your office.
SPEAKER_00: Take it to your business.
SPEAKER_00: Take it wherever Jesus sends you.
SPEAKER_00: And you, the beauty of Jesus will shine in you and through you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I need to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Join me.
SPEAKER_00: Father, this is just not what we are naturally like.
SPEAKER_00: You know that.
SPEAKER_00: Or do you know that there's far too many times when we're just content to live by our own earthly desires?
SPEAKER_00: There's too many times when we're just willing to let the beast live.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody suffers.
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, give us the grace to see who we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Give us the grace to put on Christ in us and through these virtues by the work of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Give us the grace to put to death.
SPEAKER_00: Put to death the things that are killing us, the things that are harming others.
SPEAKER_00: We submit to you, Father.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we bow before you.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, we yield to you.
SPEAKER_00: Even now.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.