Finding Life In Christ | Pastor Will Hawk | March 1st, 2026

What if your most disciplined efforts still can’t touch the root of your struggle? We open Colossians 3 and confront two convincing counterfeits: the treadmill of strict rule keeping and the treadmill of frantic escape. Both have an appearance of wisdom. Neither can kill sin. The gospel offers a better way—run to Christ, not away from failure or toward performance.

We walk through Paul’s freeing order: you have died with Christ, your life is hidden with Christ in God, and you will appear with him in glory. That sequence reshapes how we fight sin, moving us from white-knuckle “stop that” to worshipful “seek this.” From there we face the hard list—sexual immorality, impurity, evil desire, covetousness—and the everyday poisons of anger, malice, slander, obscene talk, and lying. Rather than tolerating a “manageable” level, we learn what it means to put sin to death and to put on the new self that is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.

You’ll hear a practical, two-minute framework to retrain your thoughts using Philippians 4:8: name the dominant thought, test it through true-honorable-just-pure-lovely-commendable-excellent-praiseworthy, replace it with Scripture, and take one concrete step of obedience. We apply it to jealousy, anxiety, and lust—with Scripture-shaped sentences and next steps that shift your focus from running from sin to running toward Christ. Along the way, we celebrate the unity of the body where labels fade and “Christ is all and in all,” and we anchor the whole journey in communion, where we receive what we cannot produce: forgiveness, power, and presence.

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Transcript

Reading Colossians And Setting Tone

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Colossians chapter three, verse five. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you two once walked, when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Gree and Juk, Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave free, but Christ is all and in all. This is the word of the Lord.

The Trap Of External Impressiveness

Two Treadmills Of Self-Made Religion

Appearance Of Wisdom Vs Real Change

Raised With Christ: Seek What Is Above

Die To Sin And Unplug The Machine

Put To Death: No Tolerance For Sin

Put Off The Old, Put On The New

One Body: Christ Is All In All

Yes Before No: Power And Motivation

Training The Mind: Philippians 4:8

Practice: Killing Jealousy

Practice: Calming Anxiety

Practice: Fighting Lust With Scripture

Communion: Run To The Cross

Will Hawk 1:34

Amen. Thank you, Claudia. I appreciate it. Hey, for what it's worth, I get tongue-tied on them too. Well, guys, we are walking through the uh book of Colossians. Let me give you a heads up uh for this morning. It is my great desire for us to see gravity and gladness in every scripture. But there's something available. Oh, by the way, I'm supposed to tell you this. If you want today's notes, in case I speak too quickly or I move too quickly, you can grab the QR code and you'll have everything that's gonna appear. And you can cheat and look ahead if you want to. It crushes my soul a little bit, but that's okay. Um so uh a group of us get together, by the way. If you're here, you are welcome to be a part of that group every Wednesday around lunch to do what we call a preach uh preaching primer. We just get together and talk about God's word. And what was unique, there's about eight folks in the room when we were working through this a couple of weeks ago. And one of the activities that we do is we place the scripture on a scale from gravity, like serious, heavy, weighty to glad, gladness, celebratory. And for one of the first times in a year, not one person disagreed. Everybody felt this was a heavy gravity passage. Now, if you are coming in and you had the best day yesterday, it was an awesome Saturday, beautiful outside, and you're just beboping in and you're like, Well, is this gonna be a two by four across the forehead of my soul? I think there's a lot of gladness in here, but I want to let you know we're gonna walk through the mud just a little bit so that we can appreciate what Christ gives us at the cross. Is everybody tracking with me so far? So I'm trying to prepare your hearts sort of emotionally for that. And let me give us this question just to ponder. This is rhetorical. I don't want you to answer it out loud, but I'd like for you to come up with one or two examples just to hold it in your mind and in your heart. Have you seen external impressiveness coexist with internal indulgence? And by the way, you'll see this in yourself pretty clearly. Have you ever seen someone, something, by the way, this isn't just people, this is philosophies as well, as Paul would point to. Have you seen something that looked so clean and so shiny on the outside, only to find that over time you realized what was going on on the inside was not quite as clean and shiny. Now, the more honest you are with yourself, the more you will find this in you. Can I just tell you, without Jesus, without Christ, without the work of the Holy Spirit, without the cross, without redemption, without you asking for the forgiveness of your sins, this is your best hope in life. All right? This is everything that you have to hope for outside of Christ. External impressiveness, but indulgence on the inside. Even if it's an indulgence of pride on how good I look on the outside. And what Paul's gonna do, you're gonna see there are three ways that we can do this. All right, and what I want you to imagine is uh somebody who decides that they want to go on a run, and they're not running because they want to be healthy, they're not running because they want to get their heart rate up, they're running because they're trying to get somewhere. They want to get from point A to point B. And there are two different ways that they want to do that. One reason is they want to run from something. So I want you to imagine uh I'm caught in sin, I'm caught in shame, I'm caught in my brokenness, and I want to run away from this thing. The other person wants to run to show that they can be a person of diligence. What Paul's gonna point to here is there are two really good ways to look good on the outside and not make one inch of progress toward Jesus. What would that look like? Well, here's uh our passage out of Colossians. This is where we ended last week. Colossians 2.20. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, to the ways of life, to the ways of this world, why as if you were still alive in the world do you submit to regulations? Now, I mentioned this last week. The quotes here are my favorite part of this whole verse because Paul is grabbing somebody's sermon notes, pulling them up, and saying, This is a joke and this is hogwash. And I just really like that Paul can be a little salty in his preaching. He says, the guy on the first treadmill next to him is on the wall a sign. And the sign says, Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. And he is going and his heart rate is lifting. He is pouring down sweat. And the whole time, all he's saying is, don't do that thing, don't think that thing, don't watch that thing, don't be that thing. No, no, no, no, no. And from the outside, we would look and we would say, Man, that's pretty impressive. That guy woke up at 5 30 in the morning, hit the treadmill, heart rate's at 155. He's sweating through his clothes, but the whole time, all he's doing, I must be good, I must be better, I can do this, I will do this, I must do this. And Jesus is standing in the front yard saying, Come to me, you who are heavy laden and burdened, I will give you rest. And instead, he just runs. Well, the second man hops on a treadmill and he doesn't have this sign, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. He realizes there is an enemy behind him. Man, he's been trying to fight lust for 20 years. She's been trying to fight anxiety for the past nine months, and is convinced if I just run hard enough, I will outrun it. And the enemy stands behind, looking at the fool on the treadmill, saying, You are exhausting yourself, but you are still one reach of my arm away. Paul would say in verse 23, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism, severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Can I own a moment right now? You guys are so quiet, which is very atypical for you for service and the beginning. Like, usually, right now, usually people are fiddling with gum. They're trying to settle the little one, they're trying to. Can I just tell you, I think what the Holy Spirit has prepared for us is the reality. A number of you have picked a treadmill. That's what I am sensing in this moment. And what I want you to realize is Paul is gonna say, there is a third way. I don't know if you're the one looking at the sign to your left, and I don't know if you're the one that's trying to outrun something to your back, but Paul wants you to realize that both of those ways have, this is my favorite word out of this verse, indeed, an appearance of wisdom. Paul's saying, hey, I'm not gonna lie, it looks good. Indeed, like you can't, he could have just said, these have an appearance of wisdom. He's agreeing with an on-looking world. He's like, I'm with you. This guy looks impressive. Way one looks impressive. Way two, it looks impressive, but it's only gonna promote self-made religion. One of the most impressive religious things I have ever seen came from a Muslim on a plane that I was flying with when we were either going to Kenya or Uganda. I can't I can't remember what the trip was. I only point that out because that is a super long flight. Uh depending on where you go and how many jumps you take, it was at least 12 hours. I'm gonna bet it was a 16-hour flight. All right, so let me paint the picture for you. This guy uh and his wife get on the plane together, but they don't sit together. He sits further forward in a nice seat. His wife comes a number of rows back, sits by herself, and I am one row next to her. Now, I don't know, Christian, I'm talking to Christians here, I don't know how you fly, how how you're like, what am I gonna watch on the plane? Because especially if you're like on a mission trip, you're you can't like go R-rated movie on a mission trip. Just so you know, if you've never been on one, you're gonna feel a pressure you have never felt before. That when you select your movie, you're like, I am on this plane for Jesus. I am not gonna watch Pitch Perfect 2. Like it's just not gonna happen, okay? Like it changes the way you think. And you realize everybody behind you can see everything that you are watching. So if you are like coming up on anything sketchy, you're just like, uh, forward, forward on a horrible screen. You can't fast forward, it doesn't have a double tap for 15. Like, it is a different thought process on a plane. I'm into hour four. I'm two movies deep. I hit hour six. I've done some scribbling on my iPad to get ready for a pastor's conference. I'm into hour eight. Listen to me, I'm I exaggerate in my storytelling. I'm not exaggerating in this. The woman hasn't moved. She hasn't touched her screen once. She hasn't looked to the left, nor has she looked to the right. She has literally sat there, arms not even crossed, and she has watched the icon of a plane move halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. And in that moment, I was like, Jesus, I do not know if I am this dedicated to you. It's supposed to be a joke. Like I wasn't like, I okay, y'all are really okay. I was really wrestling with it. Her dedication to whatever it is, like this is unholy. This is not a good thing. Here I am on this mission trip, just trying to pick a good one, and she has sat down and refused to engage in the entertainment. Guys, I'm telling you, there are a million, million ways to live your life that indeed have an appearance of wisdom. But what you're gonna build is a self-made religion, and it will have not a little, not some. Okay, listen to me. Wisdom is wisdom, and you ought to walk in wisdom, but what you need to understand is wise decisions don't forgive you from your sins. Jesus does. Wise decisions follow being forgiven from your sins. These things have no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Spurgeon would put it this way: morality may keep you out of jail, but it takes the blood of Jesus to keep you out of hell. And you gotta decide, do I wanna be the kind of person who doesn't have to worry about blue lights in my rear view mirror, or do I wanna be the kind of person who hops off a treadmill, runs out the front door, receives the embrace of Christ, and then enjoys eternity with the Heavenly Father who built me to have needs that can't be met by anything but Him. I'm gonna take option three. I'm gonna pull the little red key out of the treadmill. I'm gonna unplug it from the wall because I never am able to be impressive enough. I never am able to outrun that stuff fast enough. And here is my encouragement in a text that is very heavy. Every one of you are being invited to run to Jesus faster than you ever have, to receive from him as much as he has to give you, which by the way, is more than you will ever be able to handle. Here's Paul's point: a religious life can look wise, but it can't kill sin. And if I were to add, I would say this a religious life can look impressive, but it can't kill sin because it will likely build up your pride. And that is an absolute killer. Now, fortunately, the next verse hits like a sunrise. If then you have been raised with Christ, all right, now non-retorical. Is Paul talking to Christians or non-Christians here? Christians, all right. So if you're not a believer, what I'm saying is here is the offer. If you are trusting in Christ, ask for the forgiveness of your sins. I'm saying here are one of the many perks of knowing Christ. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 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. And when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Please take note. You have died. Your life is hidden with Christ. You will appear with him in glory. This is the three-step path of finding the third way. This is how you unplug the treadmill. This is how you stop trying to outrun your sin and your brokenness. This is how you quit trying to be so impressive. You have died. Step one, unplug the machine. Repent of your sins. Lord, I need you. Oh, I need you. Every day. I need you. I have died. Step two, believe. Your life is hidden with Christ. Your whole life is hidden in the wholeness of Christ. On Tuesday, when temptation taps you on the shoulder. On Friday, when laziness threatens, I am hidden with Christ. I am in him, impenetrable from the wall of requirements and from the enemy that would chase me from behind. And better yet, I know that I know that I know that I will appear with him in glory. I will receive far more than I deserve. Now, you may not have noticed it, but if you've been walking through us with us through Corinthians, Paul, you may not believe me because of how instructive Paul has been, but you will not be able to find one thing that Paul has told you to say no to until this passage. Now, for the skeptics, I went ahead and pulled the verses that you're going to come the closest with. Chapter 1, verse 23, chapter 2, 18, and then what we looked at, 216 and 218. But every one of those is actually not looking at the Christian and saying, don't do this. It's looking at the Christian and it's saying, Don't let people take things from you that are yours by Christ. Don't let anyone pass judgment on you in these secondary issues. Don't let anyone disqualify you. Don't get the met the gold medal handed to you on the podium from Christ, and then let your intrusive thoughts, the enemy on the outside or the world around you, try to snatch that thing off of your neck. Once again, Paul is not saying stop something. If he was, click get on the treadmill. Look to your left. Do not taste, do not touch, do not, do not, do not. Except that's not what he's done. He's not telling you to escape something. What he's doing is he is telling you to seek something. Seek something worthy of your effort. Seek something worthy of your own value. Seek Christ. Now here's what I want to do. I want to teach you two things before you leave today. Just two. And this isn't one of them, this is the setup. This is a freebie. Don't count this one. God's word tells us what we should say yes to long before it tells us what we should say no to. You want to find religion? Flip it. That that is the world, uh, a system of belief saying you need to say no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then God will say yes to you. That's religion. The gospel is I've got a million yeses for you. I have so many things that I want you to see and receive. And this is what we find long before we find any no's. In fact, if you look at what we have just read, I want you to say yes to seeking the things that are above. I want you to say yes to setting your mind on things that are above. When Christ calls you to die to yourself, say yes, to be hidden with Christ, say yes. When you recognize that there is a life waiting for you, say yes. God's word tells us what we should say yes to long before telling us what we should say no to. And this matters in two profound ways. Now listen, this may seem small and it may seem semantic, but it is absolutely crucial. You are unable to say no to sin until you have said yes to Christ. The way God's word puts it is it's almost like you're you're driving. I used to have uh a Chevy that I loved. It was in an O2, made it to about 300,000 miles. There came a day where it wouldn't hit gear five. There came a day where it just couldn't. Transmission was shot, it was all kinds of messed up. You are unable to say no to sin. You can get on a treadmill and you can look really good. You can look like you're outrunning your sin, but you will never be able to get it in gear to actually say no to sin until you have said yes to Christ. Notice what Paul says next. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. Now, I'm about to give you a double dog there, all right? And I don't actually want you to do it because the list here is rough. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. How big of a deal are these things? Well, on account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. The Bible is not playing games right now, and I will prove it to you. Look at these words, all right? Couching, sexual immorality. And by the way, here's what's fascinating about the word of God and the spirit of God. All I have to do is put this scripture up, and those of us who are struggling with sexual immorality, feel our chest tighten. Those of us who are struggling with impurity, those of us who are passionate, too passionate, getting angry far too easily, those of us who know that we have desires that are outside of God's. Those of us who want the life someone else has, want the things someone else has, wants the relationships someone else has. All I have to do is put it on the screen. And the Holy Spirit begins to press on you. I want you to look. Now do you see why this is a gravity passage? All right. Look at the book hand, look at the handlebars on this. Put to death. Can I argue Paul uses no stronger words in his entire letter to this people, to this group of people that he loves? Kill this. For this, the wrath of God is coming. You could argue that chapter 3, verses 5 and 6 are the hardest-hitting verses in the entire letter he writes to the Corinthians. Can you word anything any more strongly? And when he says, put to death, here's what I really want you to wrestle with, especially if you've been a Christian for more than two years, okay? Put to death means grab this thing, hold it underwater until the bubbles stop. Let me tell you what you're prone to do. What you're prone to do is you're prone to say, sexual immorality, I used to live like y'all are left or right. I used to live like this. Now I'm living like this. Pause. That is worth celebrating. But this is still a sin. I used to lust like that. I don't do that anymore. I just lust like this. And Paul's like, that will kill you too. There are no sins that are small enough to not completely wreck your soul and your life. If I were to put it differently, I would say this. Whatever sin it is that you are struggling with, I hope that by God's grace, uh, let's just take anxiety. If you used to be a nine on the anxiety scale, and you're like, well, I got great news. By the grace of God, by running to him, by getting off the treadmill, by trusting in Jesus, now my anxiety is here. And I'm gonna do two things at the same time. I'm gonna say, Isn't God good? And then I'm gonna say, Isn't that far from what he wants from you? Paul doesn't say just fight. He doesn't say wrestle, he says, kill this thing. And if I look Lived in a different place. And if I wasn't in the South with a very religious demographic, I probably wouldn't even preach this slide. But I know in my own heart I can be so proud of how I used to lust and now lust, or I used to covet and I now covet that I have become comfortable with this level of sin. So I would just present this to you. Have you become comfortable with your current level of tolerance for sin? If you have, let me just show you this. Put to death. Maybe it's not as strong. Maybe it's not fighting as hard. Jesus is not done with that thing. He is not done with that yet. In these things, let me do this. Pick one off the list. Just pick one off the list. I'm not gonna make you share it with anybody. I'm not gonna ask your spouse to tell you which one they think is yours. I just want you to pick one off the list because if you walk through about three days of life, you're gonna struggle with about two or three of these. I just want you to pick one on the list, and then I want you to see what God's Word says. Hey, Christian, in these things that I just got you to pick off of, you too once walked. Now, as I say this, we're gonna start moving from gravity to gladness. So allow that to happen. These things you once walked when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away. And if that list didn't cut it, let me give you some other ones. Uh, what about anger? Wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying. Maybe you're not interested in murdering somebody, but you don't mind saying something sideways about them when they're not around. What is Paul saying? Not one little sneaky sin should be tolerated in your life if you want to hop off a treadmill and run into the open arms of Jesus. But the good news is this you don't have to. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and you have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. When I showed you this slide, this is one of the two reasons you need to realize God's word tells you to find the yeses before it tells you to find the no's. Reason number one, you are unable, unable to say no to sin until you have said yes to Christ. But if I were to say this after reading the verse I just read, I would switch it to this. You are unable to say no to sin until you have said yes to Christ. You see, the emphasis changes everything. I need you to feel this first. I need you to realize the treadmill is gonna do you no good. Even if you look good on the outside, you're not hopping off that thing. But I also want you to realize there is a world where you can get off. There is a world where you can say yes to Christ and actually be able to say no to sin. It is a very doable thing. Is it easy? Not necessarily, but it is very doable. And Christian, I want you to know this. I don't want you to tolerate little gremlins of sin in your life because you are able to say no to them. Why? Because you have put off the old self, taken it off like a garment. You have put on the new self. And here's the great news it is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Why is it that Christians get baptized once but come to communion week after week after week? That's why. Because once for all time, you need your sins to be forgiven positionally by God. But you are gonna spend the rest of your life being tempted to feel like running to Jesus is not impressive enough. Look at how fast I can run on this treadmill. Look at how much I can say no to these things. Look at how hard I can try to outrun this sin. But what does Paul want us to realize? You are being renewed day after day. You're not given a full charge once when you respond to the gospel and hope that you can make it to the end of the day. Day after day, week after week, receiving from the Spirit of God, from the people of God, from the Word of God, we are being renewed. Which is why the next verse seems out of place until you realize what he's been saying. Here, there's not Greek and Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free. Christ is all in all. Now, our list might look different. Probably not a lot of folks who would identify as a barbarian. Some of the wives may say their husbands are. If you saw the way he brushed his teeth, it is a wonder. That's probably not what our list would be. Here in Christ, there is no rich and there is no poor. Here in Christ, people who are being renewed, we are simply folks who have gotten off the treadmill and run to the arms of Christ. There is no educated or non-educated. Here in the body of Christ, responding to the body that was broken and the blood that was shed, there is no, let's have some fun with this, diet coke drinkers and water drinkers. We just don't separate over it. If I wanted to push a little harder, I would say here there is no homeschool, private school, public school. It doesn't matter here. Here there is no Calvinism, Arminianism. Here, all of the things the world is gonna fight over, all of your little petty identifiers fall away. Conservative, liberal, it falls away. We get off treadmill one, we get off treadmill two, and Paul says, here, in this place, at the foot of the cross, it is simply this. Are you under judgment in sin? Or have you been forgiven of it? That's what matters. Are you children of wrath or are you children of God? Are you people who excuse sin as just my reality? Or are you a person who fights against the reality of sin? You see, God's word is gonna tell you what you need to say yes to long before it tells you what you should say no to. And the first reason is because you're not gonna be able to say no to sin until you have said yes to Christ. Pause pastoral thought. You might just need to do this right now. You don't have to stand up, you don't have to come down to the altar, you don't have to commit verbally in front of an entire congregation. But what I'm telling you is this in a few moments, those of you who are believers are gonna be holding a piece of bread and a cup of juice in your hand. It matters that you realize you can say no to sin because of the broken body of Christ. And maybe more importantly for some of you in this room, you've never done that. You've never actually asked Christ to forgive you of your sins. You've never told him, I am trusting your word and your way over my best attempts, because my best attempts keep failing. And I would just invite you in this moment to realize you're not able until you say yes to Christ, say yes to Christ today. The second profound reason the Bible gives you yeses before it gives you no's is because your heart won't live on stop that. It needs seek this instead. By the way, that is especially true of internal sin. You can sort of live off of a stop that on the outside. If alcoholism is an issue for you, you can for a period of time get in AA, you can uh go get a lot of accountability partners. You may on the outside be able to say stop that, but if you actually want to find all those little gremlins of sin, I'm just telling you, your heart is not going to live on a stop. It is going to live off of a seek. And this is why Paul puts it the way he does. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. Where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. How do we seek? We set our minds on things that are above. Now, let me get incredibly practical with you. I'm going to give you three sins, and I want to show you how to do this. I want to give you a practice to be able to do it. If I'm remembering correctly, without looking at my notes, we're going to look at the sin of anxiety and we'll look at the sin of jealousy. Now, before we do, how do we set our minds on things above? This would be the Philippians 4.8 model. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, if there's anything excellent and worthy of praise, think about these things. Time out. My wife and I uh had dinner last night, both of our kids had spent the night company. We went out to Cerchero's, grabbed a burrito, the kids sat at their own table, we sat at ours. It was a great little moment where I got to catch up with my wife and hear about what's been going on in her life, which nine times out of ten means her telling me what podcast she's been listening to. And nine times out of ten, the podcast she's been listening to is some person getting murdered in suburbia. But this time she was listening to for real. Like, good gracious. Um is it is it true it is true. Well, okay, whatever. Um she was telling me about uh I'll be cautious with this because I know a number of you bring your kids into the service. She was listening to an individual who had been in the sex industry by choice for years in the filmmaking industry, and they were sharing their testimony after spending years in that darkness and then finding the reality of Christ. That individual was a man. He got married to a woman who was a Christian, was a big part of his coming to Jesus journey. And someone walked up to the wife and said, Hey, can I ask you a question? Which, if you're a Christian, you know, oh well, here we go. Here comes the doozy. If you're asking me if you can ask me things, all right, buckle up. And the individual said, How can you be married to someone knowing that your children are going to know and be able to see his previous life? How are you able to be married to this man, knowing all of the experiences he has had and how you are being compared? How can you do it? And this is what she said. She said, I choose not to speak to myself the way Satan does. And it just like arrested me in that. I probably repeated it to my wife like five times. You do not need to be in the sex industry for years. You do not need to have a track record that is about as abysmal as scripture would call it. All you need to do is allow a few little gremlins of sin to run tolerated in your life, and you will begin listening to the words that the enemy would speak to you rather than the words that Christ would say. Son, daughter, what is true? What is true in that situation, and she would say this is I don't even know that guy. The guy I know has been redeemed by the blood of Christ. He is a new creation. He has taken off the old and he has put on the new. What is honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable? Notice, is there anything excellent that you can find in life? Is there anything worthy of praise? Think about these things. Now let me teach you how to do this. It's gonna take you about two minutes to pull it off, so you can do it whatever 24 times 60 divided by two is. That's how many minutes you got. You're gonna sleep for eight of them. But my point is, this isn't complicated. You can do this. You need to name the dominant thought in one sentence. I'm gonna start with jealousy. Then you're gonna run it through the eight filters. What are the eight filters? These things that God's word has said, here is how I want you to think. Then I want you to replace it with scripture and come up with a way to obey. Let's take jealousy for a moment. I am jealous because that guy owns that thing, because she is married to that man, because they have children, or they have children that look like this, because he has that job. Now look, if that's you, own it in this moment. Maybe you're not as jealous as you used to be. Fine, but let's kill this thing. Let's grab this little gremlin and let's kill it. How do we do it? Just a quick yes or no. Is this just this jealousy that I have? I'm not gonna go through all eight. So if you're like, we're gonna miss communion, I'm not. I'm just picking a couple off the list. Is it just for you to be jealous of that individual? Are you judging fairly? Might you be building a biased story? Might you be only seeing the positive in them and the negative in you? Are you excusing your sin or exaggerating theirs? By the way, the way that looks is I'm doing blank and all I have is this. They're doing blank and they have all of that. Is it a just thought for you to be jealous? What about not just just? Is this thought lovely? Where is Christ's beauty showing up right now? Well, it can't look very beautiful because something else looks exceedingly beautiful. You want that thing more than you want to trust that what Christ has given you is not only sufficient, but far better than you deserve. What would love look like? Is it excellent when you are jealous of someone? What virtue might God be calling you to here? Maybe he's calling you to patience, because it isn't time for you to have that blessing yet. Maybe courage that you may not obtain that blessing in this life. Maybe it's just simple self-control. What virtue is God calling you? And what would be the wisest, most Christ-like next step? Well, uh I'll give you one of them. If I was going to come up with one act of obedience, if I'm jealous of somebody, one act might be praying for gratitude for the things I already have. But I would encourage you to take it a step further and pray for that individual and thank God for the goodness that He has shown them. Now let me ask you, which is going to actually deal with your jealousy? You saying, Stop being jealous, stop being jealous, stop being jealous. You don't want to be jealous. This isn't who you want to be. Is that going to work? Because it has never worked for me. But I'll tell you what does. Is that excellent? Is that lovely? Is this calling me to Christ's likeness? I need to pray not only for me, I need to pray for them. That's what it looks like in two minutes to fight jealousy. By the way, I'd grab a scripture. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is pure, it's peaceable, gentle, it's open to reason. By the way, when you look at these things, who is it peaceable to? Probably the individual you're jealous of that you're treating like garbage, whether you're doing it externally or internally. Who is it gentle with? Them. Who are you showing mercy to? Them. Who are you being impartial to? Them. Do you see how all of a sudden the third way calls you to run to Jesus, be hidden in his arms, and love even your enemies. And then I would respond with an act of obedience and I'd pray for them. But maybe jealousy isn't your thing, maybe it's anxiety. Now I'm not gonna go through all eight, but if I'm anxious because I don't know what I'm gonna do with school, if I'm anxious because I don't see how the money's gonna make it to the end of the month, if I'm anxious because my daughter just started dating that boy, if I'm anxious because I have been in an argument with my husband or with my wife for the past three days and it's been really quiet, and now we're beboping into school or into church and going, Lord, I need you. Oh, and I'm thinking next to me, I'm like, you're a fraud. Everything you sing is falsehood, right? Like, if that is where you are, what might I do? I would say, is my anxiety true? Does God really not care? What does God say is real about the thing that I'm afraid of? What's true about Him? Maybe not just truth. Is my anxiety commendable? Would I recommend this thought to another believer? Hey, would you pray for me? Yeah, I've really been struggling with anxiety. I'd love for you to have some too. Isn't it great to just worry about things that are outside of your control? No. Is this building faith? Peace? Repentance? Hope? Is your anxiety worthy of praise? I think it would look like moving from fear to what can I thank God for right now and be specific. Don't just say, God, thank you for your blessings. Fine, pray the prayer if you want. Thank you for this. Thank you that you didn't leave me alone then. Thank you that I have a hope in a future tomorrow. Where do you see his grace at work? And then I would come up with a scripture-shaped sentence. It would probably come from Matthew 6. Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What am I gonna eat? What am I gonna drink? What am I gonna wear? For the Gentiles, unbeliever, people who have not gotten off the treadmill, they seek all these things. Your Heavenly Father knows you need them, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these things will be added to you. I told you I was gonna do two. I wasn't lying to you. I was just holding this because lust is a difficult one. And if I told you I was gonna deal with lust, y'all would have not even listened to the first two. What if you're struggling with sexual sin and lust? What might I do? I might say, is this honorable? Does this thought fit someone who belongs to Jesus? Would I be glad to replay this thought in a year? Lust is such a fleeting reality. And just to bang the drum one more time. Maybe you used to lust like that. Maybe you used to lust like that. Maybe you turn your head and you're fighting the double glance, but you're allowing the thought gremlin to continue put to death. I'm so grateful that you're not an eight or nine anymore. But are you tolerating a two? Are you tolerating a three? Would I be glad to replay this thought in a year? Is my lust pure? Does this clean my heart or is it contaminating it? Am I feeding other lusts? I look at them or I look at that, and then I think I should have more. I become envious, bitter of the life that I have, cynical that anything good will happen. And then I would put it through a scripture-shaped sentence. How can a young man keep his way pure? It's not running from it, it's running to something. It's not a bunch of no's, it's one solitary yes, by guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart, ten out of ten, I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart so that wherever I go, whether I'm driving, billboard, scrolling on my phone, walking into the gym, looking at the car she has, or whatever else it is, I am right next to Christ. Christ is right next to me. His word is here because I have done the work to put it there. How can a young man keep his way pure? By storing up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. The second profound reason you need to realize Christ calls you to yeses before he calls you to no's is because your mind won't live on stop that. You'll get a good 30 seconds. It needs seek this instead. And the good news is what you have to seek in Christ is all satisfying. Stokes, if you want to go ahead and come up, if the band wants to go ahead and come up, I hope you will. It doesn't matter to me if it's jealousy, anxiety, lust, anger, lying. Pick your poison. You're not going to beat it by saying, stop it, stop it, stop it. You must find something to run after. Replace running from with running to, which is exactly what we do in communion. We run to the cross. This is why we're not passing the plates, right? I'm not wanting you necessarily to give your offering to God until you have first received his offering to you. Greg says it all the time we can never out give God. The reason we can never outgive God is because God gave the thing that was most precious. He gave his son. He gave his son on a cross, bruised, beaten, and bleeding, so that you can beat the sin that is just at a two. And if you've walked in today with a sin that is at a ten, he can beat that too. Let us not be a people who run from, but a people who run to. Where does your heart need to seek this instead this week? And let me give you the first way: seek Christ, who is above, who is seated at the right hand of God, who is interceding for you if you respond to him even now. And for the person in the room who needs to respond to Christ for the first time, do it. You can do it in your seat. You can come gather with a number of us who are going to be praying on the porch. But let us be a people who can receive from the Lord and then stand and sing. Because this is not just gravity, this is gladness. We can have every sin forgiven. And regardless of where we are on the scale, you are able to say no and find new life in Christ. Get off the treadmill and run into the open arms of Christ today.