Speaker 1: Well, hey, good morning, good morning, you can go ahead and take your seat.
Speaker 1: Aren't you glad to be in church today?
Speaker 1: All right, all right.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all are like I'm not sure it's been really hot this week.
Speaker 1: Everybody's AC make it through this past week.
Speaker 1: Anybody lose some AC this past week.
Speaker 1: I know my man, brian, did on the front row up here.
Speaker 1: We're gonna lay hands on Brian at the end of the service and pray for their AC unit before we go home today.
Speaker 1: But I hope your AC is hanging in there.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here today.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk today from the subject getting past your past.
Speaker 1: Getting past your past.
Speaker 1: What I know is that we're all human beings in the room, meaning we all have a past.
Speaker 1: We're all from somewhere.
Speaker 1: We've all got a story.
Speaker 1: There's probably areas in our past that we're really glad that we're not gonna roll the tape back today and put it on the big screen right Words that we've said or circumstances where, if we could go back and do it differently, man, we know exactly what we do and it wouldn't be anything like what we did.
Speaker 1: Or maybe, if we could have a moment back, we know exactly what we should have said in the moment, like if I could just go back and say it one more time.
Speaker 1: I gotta fix it right that you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We all have moments from our past that we either wish we could do differently, wish we could do better, or that we wish should never happen.
Speaker 1: So how do we get past our past?
Speaker 1: We're gonna be in Colossians, chapter three.
Speaker 1: This is, I think, part seven of a series through the book of Colossians, and this is Paul's letter to a church that is in danger of turning away from the main focus of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ, and they're in danger of embracing some version of a works-based theology that you've got to earn your salvation in order for Jesus to really approve of you and welcome you.
Speaker 1: And so Paul is making an argument that once you are in Christ, positionally in Jesus, everything changes.
Speaker 1: By grace, through faith and the finished work of Christ on the cross, you're a new creation and everything is different now, and that's where this chapter three begins.
Speaker 1: Paul says if, then everybody say if, then your turn.
Speaker 1: You have been raised with Christ.
Speaker 1: Seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Speaker 1: 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 1: When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Speaker 1: Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you?
Speaker 1: Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Speaker 1: On account of these, the wrath of God is coming In these you once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away.
Speaker 1: Anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth.
Speaker 1: Don't 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 knowledge after the image of its creator.
Speaker 1: Here there is not Greek, in Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.
Speaker 1: Father, we thank you today for your word.
Speaker 1: We pray God.
Speaker 1: By the power of your spirit, your word would do a deep work in our heart.
Speaker 1: God, we confess at the beginning that there are moments in our past that we are not proud of, moments where our life has been characterized by the list of things that Paul says we need to put to death.
Speaker 1: But, father, we are also really grateful this morning that there's a new life available in Jesus by grace, through faith, can be ours and because of that, because of your grace at work in us, father, we're able to actually move past, to get past our past.
Speaker 1: So, god, we pray now that by the power of your spirit, you would work in these moments that we share in Jesus name, and everybody says amen.
Speaker 1: So last Sunday after church, my family and I, we finished loading out that process here.
Speaker 1: Everything was on the trailers, trailers were moving back to the downtown campus and it was lunchtime.
Speaker 1: So we're discussing, debating our kids due to Noah, they're throwing in all kinds of suggestions as far as what we should eat for lunch and we end up as we often do.
Speaker 1: Y'all go through like the process as a family of like debating where you're gonna go, only to go to where you always go.
Speaker 1: We went to El Jalapeño.
Speaker 1: We always go to El Jalapeño.
Speaker 1: I didn't get better than El Jalapeño.
Speaker 1: It's phenomenal.
Speaker 1: We're not sponsored by them, but if they wanna send a bunch of burritos we'll take them.
Speaker 1: You know, like it's amazing.
Speaker 1: And so we went to El Jalapeño and we sat down and we ate lunch and it was delicious, and then we went on with the day and five o'clock I'm downtown at the downtown campus for the five o'clock service.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting on the front row and my wife comes in, sits down to my left and she begins to look at me like there is something that I am unaware of that I should be aware of.
Speaker 1: And some of you men who are married you know that look, and I'm getting that look from my wife and what you know.
Speaker 1: I'm like looking at her, like trying to be inconspicuous on the front row, like why are you looking at me like this?
Speaker 1: And she leans over to me and she says you smell like an enchilada.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, you know there's two ways to look at that.
Speaker 1: There are a lot worse things I could smell like and my lunch was really good.
Speaker 1: Or, and you know, like, maybe, maybe, like who day enchilada is like the scent of the fall, you know like.
Speaker 1: But she just was looking at me like and sometimes, if we're honest, that's kind of how our past is.
Speaker 1: It's just on us and everybody around us knows it and can see it and it's affecting us and maybe it's a good thing, right?
Speaker 1: You ever met anybody that just lives in the old glory days you know they're always telling stories about their high school career and the fish they caught that one time and like it's just like glory day.
Speaker 1: Those are the people you wanna be around at the family reunion, like they're a blast right.
Speaker 1: Good stuff from the past just sticks with you.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's bad stuff from the past, choices again, choices you wish you could have back, or words you wish you had never said, or maybe words that you should have said.
Speaker 1: And you know, maybe it's regret that creeps in.
Speaker 1: I still to this day I'm 31 years old and I still to this day, remember being six years old in the first grade, sitting in class, and I'm talking when I shouldn't have been talking, and my teacher points at me and says, james, were you talking?
Speaker 1: And my response as an honest six year old in the first grade was no, he was and I was the kid in class that didn't normally talk in class.
Speaker 1: And guess what, my teacher believed me and she turned the card of the guy next to me which, in my book, in first grade, six years old, turning your card was like the worst thing that could happen, because it went in your agenda and you had to get that thing signed by your parents and I hadn't yet figured out that I could sign my own agenda and my mom and dad never had to see it.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that yet, I wasn't that type, but some of the kids were like, oh, that's a really good idea.
Speaker 1: You know, like I didn't know that and so I told my teacher no, it wasn't me, it was him.
Speaker 1: And she turned his card and in the moment I'm like woo Right, then get home and it's like I lied to my teacher and y'all like for years that aided me and I finally had to write a letter to my teacher to tell her that I lied to her when I was six years old in the first grade.
Speaker 1: Because that's what shame and guilt and condemnation from the past does right, it just eats at you, it weighs on you.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing we know.
Speaker 1: We know that in Christ we're called to move into the future.
Speaker 1: We're called to go forward.
Speaker 1: We all have a past, but we don't live in the past.
Speaker 1: We all are from somewhere, but we don't stay there.
Speaker 1: We all have a story, but who we were doesn't have to define who we are and who we are becoming.
Speaker 1: Paul writes in his letter to the church at Corinth.
Speaker 1: God always leads us in triumphal procession after Christ, like that's what he does.
Speaker 1: He moves us into the future.
Speaker 1: But how many of us are living our lives, sam?
Speaker 1: Help me out, raphaz, come here.
Speaker 1: Raphaz, by the way, y'all, sam had a birthday yesterday.
Speaker 1: My little brother turned 24 years old.
Speaker 1: How about that?
Speaker 1: Just growing up on the other side, you know, just growing up, man, proud of you, love you All.
Speaker 1: Right, watch this, y'all, watch this.
Speaker 1: So many of us.
Speaker 1: We know God's calling us to go that way.
Speaker 1: Right, we're called to go forward, but so many times this is what we do.
Speaker 1: Sam, I want you to walk forward, but look at me while you walk.
Speaker 1: Okay, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 1: You about to run over, miss Faye, pause, pause, pause, pause.
Speaker 1: Miss Faye's, like I think he might hit me right now.
Speaker 1: We do that.
Speaker 1: Right, I keep come back to the right.
Speaker 1: Just a little bit.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 1: Keep going straight.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's a pause, you good, that's good.
Speaker 1: Come back, come back, come back, come back.
Speaker 1: That was really good.
Speaker 1: He kind of blew up my illustration right there.
Speaker 1: Maybe we shouldn't pick you for illustrations next time, but that's the point though, right, like it's really hard to walk forward.
Speaker 1: How confident were you in that walk?
Speaker 1: Right there You're watching me.
Speaker 1: That's cheating.
Speaker 1: It's cheating it's wisdom.
Speaker 1: You're 24 now, so they go.
Speaker 1: Good job.
Speaker 1: The point, the point If we are constantly facing this way and trying to move that way, we're going to get off course really quickly and God's calling us to move into the future.
Speaker 1: So this question becomes how do we move forward away from what is behind?
Speaker 1: Paul says it like this in another place in his letters.
Speaker 1: He says pressing on towards what is ahead and forgetting what lies behind.
Speaker 1: I press on towards the goal, the prize of the upward call in Christ and what Paul is going to tell us in Colossians.
Speaker 1: Chapter three is going to help us get past our past and I really I believe that for some of us in the room who came in here today with shame and guilt and condemnation from choices we made years ago, or relationships that blew up years ago, or words we wish we had never said years ago, or regret from our past, I really believe this is going to be helpful and encouraging to us today.
Speaker 1: Okay, paul starts chapter three with two words.
Speaker 1: He says if, then, if, then, if then what?
Speaker 1: Well, if then you have been raised with Christ.
Speaker 1: If your position is now in Christ, how do we find our position in Christ?
Speaker 1: This has been the last two weeks message.
Speaker 1: We find our position in Christ by grace, through faith.
Speaker 1: Who does the work?
Speaker 1: Jesus on the cross did everything that we need to be made right with God, and when he finished, what did he say?
Speaker 1: It is finished.
Speaker 1: All that we need to be right with God has been completed for us in Jesus on the cross.
Speaker 1: And Paul says if then you've been raised with Christ, if, by grace, through faith, you've received the gift of salvation through Jesus, you now have a new life.
Speaker 1: Paul says this is what happens next Seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Speaker 1: Set your minds on things that are above, not on things on the earth.
Speaker 1: And so he gives us two really quick pieces of instruction.
Speaker 1: He says hey, set your mind, set your attention, set your thoughts on things above where Christ is and seek after them.
Speaker 1: He actually says it the opposite way Seek after and set your mind on so it's this sense of desire more than anything else on this earth Christ and the things of Christ, and then dwell on those in your thought.
Speaker 1: Let those dominate your thought process throughout your day.
Speaker 1: You know, we have a phrase in the English language get your head out of the clouds, right.
Speaker 1: And what Paul is saying here is no, put your head back in the clouds, like you're thinking.
Speaker 1: On this level, paul says I want you thinking on things that are above, just thinking on things of Christ.
Speaker 1: If I took a poll of the room today, myself included, and said hey, what is it that dominates your desire, what you want, what you chase, what you pursue and your thoughts, what you think about where your mind goes when you have a moment of free time and quiet, if we took a poll and said what is it that you desire and what is it that dominates your mind, I'm willing to bet that for most of us in the room it would be some form of well, you know, I think a lot about my career.
Speaker 1: I desire, maybe, stability and consistency and number in a bank account so I can retire one day.
Speaker 1: I desire for my kids to make good choices and live good lives.
Speaker 1: I, you know, I think a lot about the future.
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about the direction of our world and the choices that we're making.
Speaker 1: As a people Like I'm willing to bet that some form or fashion, those concerns and thoughts and desires would dominate the results of that poll.
Speaker 1: And that's not necessarily bad, is it y'all?
Speaker 1: To think about your kids and your career and to chase, you know, success in, you know the earthly sense Like none of that in and of itself is bad.
Speaker 1: Paul just says it's a bad focus for your mind, it's a bad thought process for your mind to constantly be there and it's an emptiness for your heart.
Speaker 1: So Paul challenges us right off the top and says hey, if you are a new creation in Christ, set your hearts and your minds, your desires and your thoughts on things that are above where Christ is, not on things of the earth.
Speaker 1: And then he explains why.
Speaker 1: In verse three he says for you have died Again.
Speaker 1: You're not who you used to be.
Speaker 1: You're not the old you, the things that you used to pursue, the places you used to look for hope and wholeness.
Speaker 1: That no longer defines you.
Speaker 1: You have died and you, your life now is hidden with Christ in God.
Speaker 1: And when Christ, who is your life, appears, you also will appear with him in glory.
Speaker 1: So he says right now, today, there's been a change.
Speaker 1: You're now hidden with Christ in God and there's a moment coming where Jesus will return and then the process of change will be complete and you'll see Jesus as he is Now.
Speaker 1: Y'all, we got to be honest.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of tension that is introduced in these first four verses of chapter three.
Speaker 1: So again, we've been talking a lot these last couple of weeks about salvation and where salvation comes from, and again I want to reiterate salvation is by grace, through faith, the free gift of God.
Speaker 1: It's not of works so that we can't be proud of ourselves when we get saved, like that's really really clear, right?
Speaker 1: And most of us, when we think about salvation, what we're talking about is the moment where we express faith in Jesus, we turn from our sins and repentance and we confess that we need a savior and we ask Jesus to save us.
Speaker 1: For most of us, that's what we think about when we think of salvation.
Speaker 1: When the New Testament talks about salvation, it actually talks about salvation in three ways and this is really really important.
Speaker 1: And in the New Testament, again, salvation is a process.
Speaker 1: It's a process.
Speaker 1: It starts with what's called justification, the moment we express faith in Jesus, we express our need for a savior and we ask Jesus by grace, through faith, to save us.
Speaker 1: That's justification.
Speaker 1: It's when we're declared right before God, our sins are forgiven, our past is redeemed and we are made new.
Speaker 1: So you could say in that sense, as the New Testament says over and over Romans 10, 10 comes to mind you have been saved, you are saved.
Speaker 1: It's a past tense.
Speaker 1: Salvation has happened to you.
Speaker 1: Justification, the second part of the salvation process, the big word is sanctification.
Speaker 1: It's this process of becoming like Jesus.
Speaker 1: How many of you know, just because you place your faith in Jesus and your sins are forgiven and you're made new, the old is gone, you've been erased with Christ.
Speaker 1: When that happened, did anybody immediately become perfect?
Speaker 1: I didn't, right.
Speaker 1: Like, just because you give your life to Jesus doesn't mean that from that point forward, this journey with God, this path that we walk, we walk in perfection.
Speaker 1: Now, that would be awesome, would it not?
Speaker 1: Like y'all, I would love to be able to get up here on a Sunday morning and say, hey, if you place your faith in Jesus today, you'll be perfect for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: Like, that would preach and people would come and they would get saved.
Speaker 1: And it would be wrong.
Speaker 1: Right, because that's not how it works.
Speaker 1: There's this process called sanctification that the New Testament teaches is a critical component of our salvation.
Speaker 1: We've been justified by grace through faith, and then the process of sanctification, becoming like Christ, begins Again.
Speaker 1: New Testament language Matthew 24,.
Speaker 1: Jesus says this those who persevere to the end will be saved.
Speaker 1: You will be saved.
Speaker 1: It's this future sense.
Speaker 1: In other places in the New Testament the language is you are being saved.
Speaker 1: So you have been saved, you are being saved.
Speaker 1: And then Jesus says you will be saved, which leads us to this third component, this third component that Paul talks about here glorification.
Speaker 1: The moment when Jesus returns and the old is completely gone.
Speaker 1: Aren't you ready for that day when the effects of sin are no more and every wrong is made right and everything is redeemed and creation is recreated and restored, like that's gonna be a great day, the end of this salvation process where by grace, through faith, we come to know Jesus.
Speaker 1: We're in this process, now becoming like Christ, and one day our faith becomes site and the process is brought to its conclusion.
Speaker 1: Philippians says that we know that he who begin a good work in us will see it through to completion.
Speaker 1: That's glorification.
Speaker 1: That's coming.
Speaker 1: God does the justifying, god's gonna do the glorifying.
Speaker 1: But what Paul is telling us here in Colossians, chapter three, is that this middle part, this being saved, sanctification process, you and I get the chance to partner with God in God's work.
Speaker 1: If, then, you've been raised with Christ, who does that?
Speaker 1: God does, it starts with God.
Speaker 1: But then Paul says now, y'all, we've got some work to do, we've got some responsibility in the matter.
Speaker 1: Philippians, chapter two, 12 and 13,.
Speaker 1: Paul says it like this.
Speaker 1: He's telling the church at Philippi hey, because of what God's done on your behalf, you've been given a living hope, a new story, and you're a new creature in Christ.
Speaker 1: Then Paul says now, work out your salvation with fear and with trembling.
Speaker 1: And that's an interesting phrase, right, like work out.
Speaker 1: It's an athletic term.
Speaker 1: It's an athletic term when Paul uses it 2000 years ago.
Speaker 1: It means, hey, y'all have got something to do.
Speaker 1: I've got something to do Because we're not who we used to be.
Speaker 1: But we're not who we're going to be, we're in the process of becoming like Christ.
Speaker 1: Paul says get to work on it, right, like we know that none of us are there yet we know we've got work to do.
Speaker 1: And then he doesn't stop there.
Speaker 1: He says work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his pleasure.
Speaker 1: And so it's like wait a minute, paul, do we work our salvation out?
Speaker 1: Paul would say yes, is it God that's doing the work in us?
Speaker 1: And Paul would say yes.
Speaker 1: And now we're all like Paul, we are confused and see, that's the tension that the Bible is okay with.
Speaker 1: It is finished.
Speaker 1: Jesus has done everything that we need to be justified before God.
Speaker 1: And now, because of what Jesus has done, you and I have a responsibility to respond to God in repentance and obedience for all of our days on this planet, and that's a choice we get to make Today.
Speaker 1: Am I gonna respond to God in repentance and obedience?
Speaker 1: Am I gonna do what God says in repentance and obedience?
Speaker 1: Am I gonna deny my flesh, take up my cross and follow after Jesus in repentance and obedience?
Speaker 1: So Paul in verse five says okay, because now we're in this process of being saved, being sanctified.
Speaker 1: You've been justified by faith in Christ, but we're becoming more like Jesus, waiting on the moment when Jesus returns.
Speaker 1: Paul says, okay, now put to death.
Speaker 1: Therefore, there are some components of the old on the inside.
Speaker 1: Paul says that have to be put to death.
Speaker 1: They can't go with you where you're going, they no longer define who you are.
Speaker 1: So Paul says, part of this working out your salvation means putting to death what is earthly in you.
Speaker 1: And then here's his first list sexual immorality, which is any sexual activity outside the boundaries of God's design for sex.
Speaker 1: Sex is a good gift from a good God, designed in the context of marriage for one man and one woman for life.
Speaker 1: And Paul says anything outside of those boundaries has to be put to death.
Speaker 1: Put to death impurity, which is exactly what it sounds like impurity of motive or heart.
Speaker 1: Passion, which we don't normally think about.
Speaker 1: Passion is something bad or wrong, like if you see somebody who's passionate about their career or their team, like we're, like that's a good thing, passion is a good thing.
Speaker 1: In this context, the original language, it simply means lustful passion or angry passion, people who are desirous of fulfilling their own desires.
Speaker 1: Essentially is what Paul is saying Evil desire there the idea is again and covetousness, which in this context means the constant desire for more sexual pleasure.
Speaker 1: Paul says put that to death because ultimately it's idolatry.
Speaker 1: It's taking a good gift from God and putting it at the center of your life and making it God.
Speaker 1: And then he says on account of these, the wrath of God is coming.
Speaker 1: And I wanna pause right there and ask the question why does Paul say that on account of these, this list of sexual immorality and its associated acts, why does Paul say on account of these, the wrath of God is coming?
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: One Paul lived at a day in time in a culture in which sexuality and sexual expression was the center of people's lives, so much so, in fact, that the worship of many pagan gods, many false gods, centered around sex, and it was actually seen as an act of worship.
Speaker 1: And so Paul's writing to a culture that's full of sexual brokenness, and what he's seeing is that when the wrong expression of sexuality begins to become the center for people, it does something to us on the inside.
Speaker 1: When we use God's gifts outside of God's design and essentially turn something good into a God thing in our lives, it breaks us and it breaks our fellowship with God.
Speaker 1: And y'all.
Speaker 1: Paul could have written this yesterday, could he not have?
Speaker 1: My heart breaks when I look at our culture today, because what we have done is put sexuality at the center of our identity, and what we have said is that this is who you are, this is what defines your life, this is the most critical component of your life.
Speaker 1: And I am not a sociologist, I am not a psychologist, but I would make, I would be willing to offer today to you that this sexual revolution that we're seeing in our world today is not leading to healing and wholeness for people.
Speaker 1: If anything, it's the opposite.
Speaker 1: The more that we find our identity in sexuality and sexual expression, the more broken this we will feel and the more broken this we will pursue, because sex cannot be God and we cannot fill our souls with any expression of our sexuality, especially not outside the bounds of God's design.
Speaker 1: And so y'all, as church people who believe in Jesus as the way, the truth and the life, and who believe in the standard of scripture for our life and practice, who believe that, from Genesis to Revelation, god is clear on his design for sexuality, our heart has to break for the state of our world today, and what we need to do and be as people is hey, if you're married, let's seek with everything we have to be an example of marriage that honors and glorifies Jesus, and if we're single.
Speaker 1: Let's order our lives after the ethics and the truth of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Let's live pure, not in our strength but in the power of Christ to show the world, hey, god's way isn't just a way, it's the only way if we're really looking for life and hope and wholeness and healing.
Speaker 1: So what are worlds trying is not working, and may they not see the church standing in judgment over their brokenness.
Speaker 1: But may we be people who, with open arms say hey, this list may define your past, but it does not have to define your future.
Speaker 1: There's freedom, there's redemption, there's restoration.
Speaker 1: Jesus has the power to rebuild what the enemy has torn down, what our own choices have done to us on the inside, jesus has the power to redeem and to restore.
Speaker 1: And so Paul says hey, in these you two once walked, this is who you used to be, and maybe that's true for you today.
Speaker 1: This list defines your past, but you no longer are living in them because you've been raised with Christ, and isn't that good news?
Speaker 1: Sexual brokenness doesn't have to define your future.
Speaker 1: Your past mistakes do not have to define your future.
Speaker 1: There is forgiveness and freedom in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: God's heart breaks at the sin that breaks his people.
Speaker 1: But Paul says but now you get the chance, you must put them all away.
Speaker 1: And then he gives another list anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth.
Speaker 1: And he says don't lie to one another.
Speaker 1: So he talks about sexuality and says anchor that in the truth of who God is and what God says.
Speaker 1: And then he goes to our words and says hey, anger, you ever met somebody who just is like constantly, they're like, they're right, they're a bad moment away from a switch being flipped and they're just mad all the time.
Speaker 1: That's anger.
Speaker 1: And then he says wrath, or the NIV translation says rage.
Speaker 1: You ever seen somebody who it seems like the switch gets flipped and the outburst just comes?
Speaker 1: You ever been there?
Speaker 1: Right, it's like hey, you just push me one step too far.
Speaker 1: I had a professor at Wofford that always used to say don't poke the old grizzly and what he meant was hey, if the switch flips he might black out for a minute.
Speaker 1: You know, don't poke the old grizzly.
Speaker 1: Anger, wrath, malice, the underlying discontent with everything that leads to anger and rage.
Speaker 1: Paul says slander, talking bad about others, obscene talk put that away, don't lie, but be people of the truth.
Speaker 1: He's given us a list right?
Speaker 1: And how many of you know that our words have the power to break people down and to build people up?
Speaker 1: And Paul says hey, if you're a new creation, your words should be used to build people up, not break people down.
Speaker 1: On Father's Day I preached a message and I told our men in the room that day.
Speaker 1: I said men, feel the power.
Speaker 1: In the room that day I said men, this is Paul in Colossians, chapter three.
Speaker 1: He says it just down in verse 19,.
Speaker 1: He says husbands, love your wives and don't be harsh.
Speaker 1: And then he says fathers, don't provoke your children.
Speaker 1: Last day, become discouraged.
Speaker 1: That was Father's Day.
Speaker 1: The scripture I read that afternoon, my six year old bothered me he's not in the room so I can say that and I fussed at him and he looked at me and he said dad, your words are harsh right now.
Speaker 1: And I was like that wasn't for me, son, that was for somebody else.
Speaker 1: This morning, you know, I didn't say that.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, no, you're right man, my words, my tongue, my speech was harsh and rather than building up, it was discouraging.
Speaker 1: Rather than building up and coaching up and correcting it, it was harsh and I had to apologize to my son for the words that I said, cause that's us right.
Speaker 1: We're new.
Speaker 1: If you're in Christ, you're new, but that doesn't mean you're perfect.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean the old goes away completely in the process.
Speaker 1: We're in this journey of putting off what is old and putting on what is new, and that's what Paul says Put away some things and put on some other things, and the language that he's using to talk about putting off and putting on.
Speaker 1: The best picture is this Imagine that you spend all day outside in your yard and it's like Friday, it's 104.
Speaker 1: The humidity is like unregisterable.
Speaker 1: It's so humid outside.
Speaker 1: It's nasty and you're nasty and you've been weed eating and you've thrown dirt and muck and grime and it's sticking to you and there's grass all over you and your shirt used to be white and now it's brown and you look like you've been in the spray tanner for about three hours because you're like a different color cause you're covered in mud.
Speaker 1: Imagine that you walk back in your house and married man, I'm gonna pick on you guys for a second.
Speaker 1: Imagine that you looked at your wife and you're like whoo, it's hot, I'm nasty.
Speaker 1: And then you walked over and you plopped yourself down or out on the couch.
Speaker 1: My wife would end me right there, be over for me.
Speaker 1: But then imagine you just sit there, you just stay there in your mess and then later you eat dinner.
Speaker 1: And you eat dinner in your mess.
Speaker 1: You're nasty, you're stinky, everybody at the table is like what is wrong with him, Like you just gross.
Speaker 1: Then your iPhone alerts you hey, it's 15 minutes to bedtime.
Speaker 1: Start the wind down routine.
Speaker 1: Like all right, I'm ready for bed.
Speaker 1: Wives.
Speaker 1: Like, hey, you get a shower.
Speaker 1: No, I'm good.
Speaker 1: Bedtime hits jumping the sheets.
Speaker 1: You got the socks still on.
Speaker 1: You took the boots off, but you still got the socks on, soggy, nasty, dirty.
Speaker 1: You just end the sheets.
Speaker 1: Pull the sheets over your head.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine?
Speaker 1: Some of y'all ladies are like that is the like.
Speaker 1: Why don't we get church today?
Speaker 1: This is disgusting.
Speaker 1: Just imagine like what would happen.
Speaker 1: Somebody should step in and be like take a shower, you've got clean clothes.
Speaker 1: Take off the old, dirty, dusty, muck covered clothing that you're wearing.
Speaker 1: Take a shower and put on something new.
Speaker 1: That's what Paul's saying.
Speaker 1: Paul's saying hey, the old is gone, the new has come.
Speaker 1: You don't have to live your life leaving a trail of muck and dust and dirt and grime everywhere you sit, you've been washed, you've been given new clothes.
Speaker 1: Take the old shirt off and burn it.
Speaker 1: Put on something new.
Speaker 1: That's what he's saying.
Speaker 1: And in that good news, the best news y'all, paul says we don't do this by ourselves.
Speaker 1: You've put off the old self with its practices and you've put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Speaker 1: So who's doing the putting off and putting on?
Speaker 1: Is God doing it?
Speaker 1: Yes, are we doing it?
Speaker 1: Yes, it's a partnership and God is at work, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Speaker 1: Philippians two says I love that you can be new, you can move past your past.
Speaker 1: So we got a few minutes left this morning and I wanna give you a couple of three actually practical truths.
Speaker 1: If you are a follower of Jesus, these three things are true for you, cause if we're gonna move past our past, paul says it happens as our mind is renewed in knowledge.
Speaker 1: So what do we need to know in order to move past the shame, the guilt, the regret, the condemnation of our past?
Speaker 1: What do we need to know If you're not a follower of Jesus?
Speaker 1: Let me say really clearly these three truths do not apply to you, but they can.
Speaker 1: The invitation is on the table because of what Jesus has done by grace, through faith in the finished work of Christ, you can receive the free gift of salvation.
Speaker 1: The list doesn't have to define who you are and who you are becoming.
Speaker 1: You can be forgiven.
Speaker 1: You can be set free by grace, through faith.
Speaker 1: Today, number one, truth number one is this you have had an encounter with Almighty God.
Speaker 1: If you are in Christ, you have had an encounter with God, and that changes everything.
Speaker 1: If you think about the story of the Bible, think about a guy like Abraham.
Speaker 1: God shows up and speaks to Abraham, says I've got a plan for you, I've got a calling on your life.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bless you and through you, I'm gonna bless all the peoples of the earth.
Speaker 1: At that point in time, abraham was probably a pagan.
Speaker 1: He probably had multiple gods.
Speaker 1: Just based on where he lived and the culture of the day, he didn't know the one true God.
Speaker 1: But when he had an encounter with God, guess what Abraham did?
Speaker 1: He responded in repentance and obedience.
Speaker 1: He turned away from his old life and he followed after the one true God.
Speaker 1: Think about a guy like Moses.
Speaker 1: Moses thought he was doing the right thing and he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave.
Speaker 1: He thinks he's stepping in, but it ends up leaving Moses in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: He's off on his own.
Speaker 1: He's a person without a purpose, a man without a home, and he has an encounter with God.
Speaker 1: Burning bush.
Speaker 1: Moses, take off your feet.
Speaker 1: Take off your feet, take off your shoes.
Speaker 1: You're standing on holy ground.
Speaker 1: Moses responds repentance, obedience and begins to be used by God in powerful ways.
Speaker 1: King David we talked about David a little bit last week.
Speaker 1: Anointed as king of Israel, a sense to the throne unites the kingdom.
Speaker 1: Was David perfect from there?
Speaker 1: No, because one day David saw another man's wife and he said I want her.
Speaker 1: And he let his desire lead the way.
Speaker 1: Rather than bringing his desires in line with the truth of God, david let his desire lead.
Speaker 1: He committed adultery.
Speaker 1: She gets pregnant and to cover up his sin, what does David do?
Speaker 1: He kicks off this big conspiracy to have Bathsheba's husband placed at the front lines, where he knows that her husband will die, will fall in battle.
Speaker 1: He messes it up big time.
Speaker 1: He's confronted, has an encounter with God through the prophet.
Speaker 1: What's he do?
Speaker 1: Repents and he obeys God.
Speaker 1: Now, the sin in his life.
Speaker 1: It does carry some consequences Anytime we step outside of God's design.
Speaker 1: There are very real consequences in our world.
Speaker 1: But David, when David's remembered, what is David remembered for?
Speaker 1: Oh, david's a man after God's own heart.
Speaker 1: David's the king of Israel, through which the Savior of the world comes to the planet.
Speaker 1: Like David is the man.
Speaker 1: He's not defined by his failure, but rather it's the redemption through the failure that comes to define David's life.
Speaker 1: He had an encounter with God.
Speaker 1: Think about Peter, one of the 12.
Speaker 1: I love what Pastor Randy says about Peter.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was original to Randy or not, but I'm gonna give him credit.
Speaker 1: Today he says that Peter was, was never in doubt but always ready to speak.
Speaker 1: You know, like never in doubt, but like maybe not always right.
Speaker 1: You know that was that was Peter.
Speaker 1: Like he was never without a response, always ready with the word.
Speaker 1: And he crushes it sometimes and there's some moments where he doesn't quite crush it right.
Speaker 1: Last supper, jesus says one of you tonight is gonna deny me Peter's, like it's not gonna be me.
Speaker 1: I will die with you before I deny you.
Speaker 1: I'll die with you before I deny you, to the point where Jesus told his disciples to sell their cloaks and buy swords.
Speaker 1: And apparently Peter did that somewhere between the upper room and the garden, because by the time they get to the garden he's got a sword and he pulls it out and chops the guy's ear off.
Speaker 1: And then, mere hours later, three times Peter denies Jesus Christ to the point where, even when Jesus resurrects from the dead, peter is so ashamed of his past that he goes back to fishing for a career.
Speaker 1: He thinks his past has written himself out of God's story.
Speaker 1: And so Peter's like I'm not going forward, I'm going that way as fast as I can.
Speaker 1: I'm going back to fish.
Speaker 1: And what does Jesus do?
Speaker 1: He shows up on the beach.
Speaker 1: He builds a fire.
Speaker 1: He's got fish on the fire already and he calls to Peter in the boat he recreates the first moment that he called Peter.
Speaker 1: Peter catches 153 fish, swims them to shore to meet Jesus on the beach, and Jesus says to Peter Peter, bring your fish.
Speaker 1: He didn't need Peter's fish, he's already cooking fish.
Speaker 1: But what he's saying to Peter is Peter, your past doesn't define you and it doesn't disqualify you.
Speaker 1: My grace is sufficient for your weakness.
Speaker 1: I've still got a place for you in the story Peter.
Speaker 1: And Peter spends the rest of his life sharing the gospel of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Think about James.
Speaker 1: Jesus is half brother.
Speaker 1: One day, while Jesus is ministering in the city, james goes to Jesus to bring Jesus back home because he feels like Jesus is embarrassing the family.
Speaker 1: Jesus is the embarrassing relative and Peter James is like Jesus.
Speaker 1: If they think you're weird, they're gonna think all of us are weird because you know like somehow that's how we might look at our family.
Speaker 1: Hey, if one of our family's crazy, they don't think we all crazy.
Speaker 1: And that's what James is worried about.
Speaker 1: And so he goes and gets Jesus and is trying to bring Jesus home because he does not believe there is anyway that his brother could be the Messiah until Jesus resurrects from the dead.
Speaker 1: And then James, the half brother of Jesus, who one day tried to bring Jesus home and keep Jesus from doing ministry, says I'm gonna give the rest of my life in service to my half brother because he's the resurrected son of God.
Speaker 1: Y'all, an encounter with God changes everything and if you're in Jesus Christ, you've had an encounter with God.
Speaker 1: You are no longer defined by your past.
Speaker 1: If God can do it for Abraham and Moses and David and Peter and James, don't you think God can do it for you.
Speaker 1: If God can pick them up out of the pit and set them on the rock and send them out on purpose, don't you think God can do it in your life and don't you think God can use your story to say to somebody else who feels like God has abandoned them and God has forgotten them and because of their past, there's no way that God could use them?
Speaker 1: Maybe God wants to use your life as a glimmer of hope for somebody else who right now thinks that God is way too far and that they are too far gone.
Speaker 1: If you've had an encounter with God, that changes everything.
Speaker 1: The second truth you need to know today is that you have been given a new nature.
Speaker 1: You've been given a new nature.
Speaker 1: The old has gone second Corinthians five says and the new has come, and the grace of God that changes you and frees you is both the motivation and the means by which you continue to change.
Speaker 1: Why do we want to change?
Speaker 1: Because Jesus loves us and he gave his life for us and he resurrected from the dead to save us, and because of what he's given me, I will want to do what he says.
Speaker 1: It's the motivation to change and it's the means to change.
Speaker 1: You ever tried to change, only to try really hard and fail.
Speaker 1: Aren't you glad that the same grace that saves you is the grace that keeps you as you follow after Jesus, as you walk in Christ?
Speaker 1: The grace of God is renewing your mind day by day, by day, y'all.
Speaker 1: What this means for us is this so many times we reduce our faith to a half to.
Speaker 1: I have to read my Bible, I have to go to church, I have to share my faith, I have to worship, I have to do ABC and D.
Speaker 1: Grace means that we don't have to, but we get to.
Speaker 1: How many?
Speaker 1: Anybody in the room?
Speaker 1: Somebody tells you have to do something, like watch me, not have to, you know, I mean, it's like the second.
Speaker 1: Somebody says you have to, I'm gonna do anything I can to not have to do what you just said I have to do, right?
Speaker 1: I don't know if y'all do the personality test and all that, but I'm the guy who thinks the personality test don't know anything about my personality, which Tara says is actually a personality that the test will tell you I have.
Speaker 1: But that's not the point.
Speaker 1: The point is to tell me I have to do something.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna prove to you I don't right y'all.
Speaker 1: We get to when it comes to following Jesus and worshiping Jesus and being in the word and praying to Almighty God.
Speaker 1: We don't have to, we get to and that's a game changer.
Speaker 1: It's like you get to go on vacation, right, you have to go to work, you know, I mean, it's the difference there.
Speaker 1: Like you get to worship Jesus, you get to now go to work and carry the gospel with you as you go.
Speaker 1: You get to be in relationship with your family and your friends.
Speaker 1: You get to lift your hands and worship.
Speaker 1: You get to worship Almighty God Because you've had an encounter with God and, by grace, you have been given a new nature.
Speaker 1: And then, number three, you've been placed in a new family.
Speaker 1: And what Paul says about this new family, I love this.
Speaker 1: He says here, in this new family, there's not Greek and Jew.
Speaker 1: It's not a family defined by nationality.
Speaker 1: There's not circumcised and uncircumcised.
Speaker 1: It's not a family defined by religious background.
Speaker 1: There's not barbarian or Scythian, slave or free.
Speaker 1: It's not defined by your cultural affiliation or by your socioeconomic status or where you fall on the political ideology spectrum.
Speaker 1: Like Paul says, what defines this new family is this Christ is all and in all Like.
Speaker 1: That's what defines the family.
Speaker 1: We've been washed by the blood of Jesus, united in the power of the cross.
Speaker 1: We've been given a new name and a new calling and a new mission, and what unites us on this calling and this mission is greater than anything in the world that would divide us.
Speaker 1: How beautiful is that.
Speaker 1: And so the past, the stuff that I've been called out of, is there.
Speaker 1: It's real, but it doesn't define me any longer.
Speaker 1: Rather than being a source of shame and guilt and condemnation, god wants your past to become a foundation from which you tell the story of what Jesus has done in your life, how you've had an encounter with God that changed the game, and how you've been given a new nature and know you're not perfect yet and there are moments of struggle, but you're not who you used to be, because Christ is at work in your heart.
Speaker 1: And now, not only that, you're part of a family of people and we're not a perfect family.
Speaker 1: In fact, some days we're a pretty strange family, but there's a name over the family, and it's the name of Jesus, and there's a unity in the family that comes from the shed blood of Jesus and the purpose of Jesus and in this family we're gonna work together to follow after Jesus.
Speaker 1: And the best part there's room in the family for someone else who doesn't yet know the grace of Jesus.
Speaker 1: So if you're trying to get past your past, can I just say today that's really where it all starts, with an encounter with the grace of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: If you've never given your life to Jesus, you can have an encounter with God.
Speaker 1: Today, you can be given a new nature.
Speaker 1: Today you can be placed in a new family.
Speaker 1: Today it's as simple as saying to God in this moment God, I turn from my sin and place my faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: I believe he rose from the dead and I confess him as Lord of my life, and the promise of God's word is that that begins this process of justification, sanctification, glorification, salvation.
Speaker 1: But if you're here today and you are a follower of God and you are a follower of Christ, I want to close with a passage in Romans, and I'm just going to read a couple of verses, because the reality for all of us is that this process of becoming like Jesus is exactly that.
Speaker 1: It's a process and, if we're honest, there are moments where it feels like the process is really, really slow, are there not?
Speaker 1: And it's like I don't know why I'm still struggling with it.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I can't get beyond that.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that moment, that memory, keeps popping up.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I keep going back there.
Speaker 1: Here's what Paul says.
Speaker 1: Who, by the way, paul, had an encounter with Jesus, did he not?
Speaker 1: Paul had a past.
Speaker 1: He was killing Christians, thinking that he was doing the work of God, when he encountered Jesus in a vision, and Paul's life is transformed.
Speaker 1: And this is what Paul says.
Speaker 1: Paul says there are moments, even though I'm following Christ Romans 7, 19,.
Speaker 1: I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Speaker 1: Now, if I do what I do not want and there's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close in hand.
Speaker 1: Paul says I can't quit doing what I used to do and I'm trying and I'm working and I'm striving.
Speaker 1: Still there.
Speaker 1: You ever felt that?
Speaker 1: Romans 8, 1,.
Speaker 1: Paul says this there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free, in Christ, from the law of sin and death.
Speaker 1: For God has done what the law, weakened by flesh, could not do, by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin.
Speaker 1: God condemned his sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law would be fulfilled in us Listen to this who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.
Speaker 1: For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit.
Speaker 1: For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.
Speaker 1: It's life and peace.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk next week about what we put on in the family of God, and what Paul is going to tell us next week is so beautiful.
Speaker 1: The way we fight old is by putting on the new.
Speaker 1: We replace lesser desires with a greater desire, and Paul says that happens as we walk by the spirit.
Speaker 1: So if you're here today and you're following Jesus, but you're struggling with your past right now, where you're at, we just raise your hand.
Speaker 1: I just want you to be bold.
Speaker 1: I want to pray for you.
Speaker 1: I'm struggling with my past and I want to be prayed over.
Speaker 1: I need to walk by the spirit.
Speaker 1: I need the renewal of my mind.
Speaker 1: Raise your hand right where you're at.
Speaker 1: I admire the boldness, the courage of those phenomenal.
Speaker 1: I'll raise mine, absolutely, father.
Speaker 1: I pray in this moment.
Speaker 1: Father, the first step to healing is admitting that we need to be healed.
Speaker 1: It's admitting that, god, we're not yet where we want to be.
Speaker 1: We're following you.
Speaker 1: We know Jesus is Savior, we have been made new but, father, in a lot of ways, it seems like the old is hanging on.
Speaker 1: And so, father, I pray right now that, by the power of your spirit, that you would renew our minds.
Speaker 1: I thank you for the boldness and the courage of those who raised their hands, and so I need to move past my past.
Speaker 1: And, god, my prayer is that, right now, in this moment, men and women across this room would know that you are at work in their life and, father, that their past no longer defines who they are today or who they will be in the future.
Speaker 1: But, father, we believe by faith, that their past is going to be a foundation from which your story will be told, your glory will be proclaimed, the name of Jesus will be lifted high and praised.
Speaker 1: Father, I pray that you would use the stories of who we used to be to bring glory to the name of Jesus Christ and, father, that people who right now don't know Jesus would have an encounter with you as we learn to move past our past and tell the story of what Jesus has done.
Speaker 1: We love you, we thank you in Jesus' name, and everybody says together amen, y'all, we're going to stand and we're going to sing together as we sing.
Speaker 1: Let's sing like people who get to the altar's open.
Speaker 1: If you need to pray, if you want to join the church, if you want to give your life to Christ, let's pray and respond like people who get to worship King Jesus.
Speaker 1: Let's go.