PKLM Sermons
PKLM Sermons
August 3, 2025 - Keith Boyd - "A New Creation"
Special note: today's message had a few microphone issues. Thank you for your understanding.
August 3, 2025 - Keith Boyd - "A New Creation"
00:00 Introduction
03:07 Reading from Colossians 3:1-17
06:40 Struggling with Sin and Identity
14:09 The Old Self vs. The New Self
22:44 Living in the New Identity
28:20 The Parable of the Prodigal Son
33:37 The Paid Bill Analogy
37:50 Conclusion and Prayer
[00:00:00] Good morning. Good morning. Mark asked me to, to give you a little bit of, um, bio more than what's there. So, um, as Mike said, my wife Deanne is here, uh, her brother, who then makes him my brother-in-law. I guess I, and I will claim him as Paul. And you may have seen Paul here because he was an elder. Um. Uh, at Crosspoint when Mark was the pastor there.
[00:00:31] And so, um, they go way back and, uh, Deanne and I, um, I grew up in Fort Worth. Deanne grew up in, uh, north Austin, and we met at Texas a and m, uh, gig. And so we are, uh. We are Aggies. We, uh, after we left a and m we went to, I went to seminary at Gordon Conwell, which is north of Boston. And then we came back and started Young Life at, in Denton, where I served as the, uh, area director for five years before the Lord did this crazy thing.
[00:01:15] Called two Texans to New York City. And so we took an eight week old, uh, little girl to New York and we didn't know how long that would last, but I served as the, uh, associate pastor at a church on the Upper East side of Manhattan. Um. For a year. And then the, the lead pastor left and, and they asked me to stay on as the interim.
[00:01:41] And, and that lasted 26 years. Um, and so, um, and we then had two kids in, in while we were living in New York. we, we had twins, a boy and a girl. My son is, is married and my daughter's not, but they both live in Brooklyn. Across Prospect Park from each other, if you know the city at all. And so they are New Yorkers and they love being in New York. And my oldest is 33 and she and her husband live in Austin, which is why we are in Austin because they have five.
[00:02:22] Under nine. And they have, um, three are bio and, and two are foster adopted. And so they've got, um, Irish twins that are two months apart. And, uh, so their hands are full. And they asked us a couple of years ago if we would come help and we said yes. So that's why we are in Austin. And so I am a retired pastor.
[00:02:49] Um. And now I just chase after, um, little kids and, and it's fun. So, uh, if you want me to fill out any of that later, you can find me after and, and we can talk, but. What I'd like to do is I'd like for all of you to stand, and I don't know what your routine is here, but I'd like to for us to stand as we read the scriptures and, um, if you wanna follow along, I'm reading from the NIV, which is what you have on your seats.
[00:03:25] Um, and I'm gonna read Colossians chapter three verses one through 17. Amen.
[00:03:35] Since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God when Christ who is your life appears. Then you also will appear with him in glory put to death.
[00:04:07] Therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature. Sexual immorality and purity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways in the life you once lived. Now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge, in the image of its creator here, there is no Gentile or Jew.
[00:04:56] Circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, cian, slave, or free. But Christ is all and is in all. Therefore, as God's chosen people wholly and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone.
[00:05:26] Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Since as members of one body, you are called to peace and be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you ritually as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through Psalms, hymns, and songs from the spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
[00:05:59] And whatever you do, whatever you do, whatever you do, whether in word or deed. Do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Lord, I prayed that, um, today we would not just be hearers of the word, but you would enable us to be doers. Amen. Be seated.
[00:06:33] So it's kind of weird that there's this thing, and so you're gonna have to lean or I'm gonna have to move. Um, over the years I've had this same conversation numerous times and it goes something like this. Keith, I am struggling with, fill in the blank. And I just can't seem to get past it. Now I know I'm a sinner and I have this sin nature, and, and so I, I'm just, you know, I, I'm gonna, I guess because I'm a sinner, I'm just gonna keep struggling with sin the rest of my life and, and I don't know how to get beyond it because I'm a sinner.
[00:07:24] Does that ring any bells? Have you heard that conversation? Have you had that conversation maybe on both sides of the table? Maybe you've had people say that to you. Um, and maybe you've said it to, to others.
[00:07:42] The question that it boils down to is why do I, why do we struggle like this? Well, I would suggest it, it, it's because we tend to live out of a mindset that is perfectly oriented for the results that we receive. Does that make sense? We have this mindset that we're sinners and that we're gonna continue to struggle with sin and keep sinning, and that's our mindset.
[00:08:17] And because we have that mindset, that's the results we, we have. We get, we are convinced that we're gonna sin, thus convinced that we know, have no hope against sin. And because our, it is because our, our basic nature is bent towards sin, and then we wonder why we keep sinning.
[00:08:45] For many of us, this mindset has been driven into us. And sometimes it's in very subtle ways. For instance, the Bible that I have, that I have, um, read for 41 years, uh, that my wife gave me as a wedding, uh, gift in 1984. Tomorrow's our anniversary by the way. Uh, will be 40, 41 years. She put up with me for that long.
[00:09:17] Um. In, in fact, I, I looked in this, and this is also the same version. It, it's published by Zondervan 1984. The heading over Colossians three says, rules for holy Living. What do you do with rules? You keep 'em or you break 'em, right? If you keep them, you are. Good. And if you break them, you are not good. Um, that's the, the message that the, the publishers of my Bible were implicitly giving me was.
[00:10:10] You've got these rules. If you're gonna, if you're gonna be all that God wants you to be, you gotta keep these things. And if you don't, well, you're done. Um, now. To Zondervans credit, they changed the heading in, in 2002 and now it says Living is those made alive in Christ, which is a whole lot more to the point.
[00:10:38] Um, but the subtle message in the earlier publication was, in order to be holy, you've gotta do the right things right.
[00:10:53] I got the same message in the church that I grew up in. I don't know about you, but I grew up in a religious culture where we were told over and over that we weren't reading our Bible enough, or we weren't praying enough, or we weren't witnessing enough, we weren't being spiritual enough and, and we weren't doing it right.
[00:11:19] And if we would just do more of those things, the right things, then God would be happy with us. But when we weren't doing those things, the right things, then God was not happy with us.
[00:11:35] The problem with that message that if you will just do more of the right things, the problem with that message is the more you hear it, the more beaten up you feel. The more disheartened you become. Now, don't misunderstand me. Reading the scriptures more is a good thing. Praying more is a good thing. Um, but if we begin with the premise that we're bad because we've broken the rules of holy living, or we don't do enough, we feel guilty about not doing more and feeling guilty about not doing more is not gonna change your behavior.
[00:12:21] It's just not. What we need to appreciate is that when we read through the gospels. Jesus never tried to lay guilt trips on people, you know, that read through the gospels and find me one place where Jesus tried to lay a guilt trip on somebody. Um, in fact, his strongest rebukes were on those people who did lay guilt trips on people.
[00:12:53] He came down on the religious leaders who weighed people down with guilt and shame. Jesus said they loaded people with burdens. He called them sons of hell. He said they were actually getting in the way of people coming to God and entering into the abundant life that God had for them. Now, we've all heard Christians say, well, I'm just a sinner.
[00:13:20] Heck, we've probably all said it. Yeah, but you know what? I can't find one place in the teachings of Jesus where he said that we are to identify ourselves first and foremost as sinners.
[00:13:37] I haven't seen it. That doesn't mean that we don't sin. Right. Um, in the book of James, it says, explicitly, we all stumble in many ways. We all make choices to live outside of how God created us to live. Paul wrote to the Romans that we all come up short. We don't have to convince ourselves of this. And you say, Keith, okay, where are you going with all this?
[00:14:09] The book of Colossians. Is Paul's letter to this group of people who apparently are struggling with their identity in Jesus in chapter one. Paul wants to make sure that these people know that they, um, well, that Jesus is supreme. And that Jesus has rescued them. He, he has rescued us from darkness and brought us into his, the kingdom of, of his wonderful light.
[00:14:44] He's brought us into this place where there's redemption and forgiveness of sin and reconciliation, and Paul wants the Colossians. He wants us to understand that we have been called to be free. And not just free from stuff, but free for stuff.
[00:15:10] He's called us to live free in who we are in Christ, which is why Paul says several times in this book. So then, or since then, or therefore, what Paul wants his readers to understand. Is that in identifying with Jesus' death on the cross, something dies within us. The early Christians called this person, the, the old man or the old woman there, there was a rebirth that would take place.
[00:15:50] And then after in verse one, uh, chapter one, uh, where Paul lay lays out the supremacy of Jesus, he says in chapter two, verse six. So then just as you received Christ, Jesus' Lord, continue to live your lives in him. And then he goes on in verse 10, and he says, in Christ, in Christ, you have been brought to fullness, past tense.
[00:16:18] You have been brought to fullness. This idea of, of a death and a rebirth was not new. It, it's been around in almost every religion for millennia. But the first Christians believed this idea was, was being lived out in a new way, in a unique way in Jesus' death and resurrection. Paul put it like this in Colossians three.
[00:16:47] Verse three for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. So this old nature of mine, the one that was constantly pulling me down and, and, and causing me to live in ways that I wasn't create, created to live, Paul says that nature, it's dead. It's dead. And no matter how many times that old nature raises its ugly head and pretends to be alive, it's really dead.
[00:17:24] And not only did the the old person die, but I've been given a new nature as Paul told the Colossians in chapter three verse one. Since then, you've been raised with Christ. Since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above. See, I have this new life. I have this new identity. I have the identity of Jesus.
[00:17:54] Paul goes on in verse five. He says, therefore, since we have been raised with Jesus and have new identity in Jesus, we need to put to death the stuff that's part of that old identity that is dead. And then he says in verse seven, you used to walk in these ways and the life you once lived. What tense is that?
[00:18:20] It's past tense.
[00:18:25] That's the life you once lived in. You see what Paul is insisting? Is that something so transformational has happened in the lives of Jesus, followers that they could refer to their old life as the life we once lived. Does that mean that we are perfect now? Anybody? Anybody wanna admit to that? You don't even think about admitting to that?
[00:18:53] Um, no. None of us are perfect. It's not that we will never struggle or that the old person won't come back from time to time. What Paul is saying is that this new way of life involves a constant. Conscious decision to keep dying to the old so that we can live in the new.
[00:19:21] Paul describes it as Christ being our lives. In fact, he goes so far as to insist in his second letter to the Corinthians that we are now a new creation. Do you see the implications of that? I am not who I was. I am a new creation. I am in Christ. When God looks at me, he sees Jesus. God's view of me is Jesus and Christ is perfect.
[00:20:00] That's why Paul goes on to say in verse 12, therefore, so then. As God's chosen people, holy and dearly love. Did you catch that word in the middle? Holy.
[00:20:18] Not gonna be holy someday Not. I wish I wasn't so screwed up, but that I was more holy. No, that's not what he says. He says, you are holy. When? When are you? Holy. Yeah. Right now you are holy right now. Holy means pure. It means without blemish. It means unstained. Paul is telling the Colossians and he's telling us that you are holy.
[00:20:57] Now, I want you to turn to your neighbor and say, you are holy.
[00:21:11] Okay.
[00:21:15] Did you buy it? Why not?
[00:21:22] Why didn't you buy it? Because we have this thing beaten into us that we are not that. But what Paul is insisting is that we are that, and we need to step into that reality.
[00:21:44] The issue isn't. Me beating myself up over the things I'm not doing or the things I'm doing poorly. The issue is me learning who this person is, who God insists I already am.
[00:22:05] Paul had the same message to the Philippians. He said, let us live up to what we have already attained. Philippians three 16. Let us live up to what we have already attained. There is this person who you already are, and I already am. There is this person who we already are in God's eyes.
[00:22:39] We just need to learn to live like it's true. You see, this is an issue of identity. It is letting what God says about us shape what we believe about ourselves. This is why shame has no place in the Christian experience whatsoever. It is simply against all that Jesus is for. As Paul said to the Romans, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
[00:23:15] How much condemnation?
[00:23:19] Zero. No condemnation, no shame, no. No list of what is being held against us. No record of wrongs. It is no longer an issue. Bringing it up is pointless. Beating myself up over it is pointless beating somebody else up over it because they are not who we think they should be is going in the wrong direction.
[00:23:49] It's working against the purposes of God. God is not interested in shaming people.
[00:23:59] He wants people to see who they really are and to live up to what they have already attained. Friends. I am not who I once was, and you are not who you once were. The old person is dead. The new person is here. There is a rebirth. You are reborn. You are remade. You are renewed. Jesus. Put it this way in John 17.
[00:24:31] You are in me and I am in you. How good is that? When the first Christians went all over the Roman Empire telling people the message of Jesus, they spent most of their time explaining who people are from God's perspective, who we already are. They insisted that people can live a new life, counting themselves dead to sin, but alive to God when we stumble.
[00:25:02] And fall back into old patterns, which we do, and which we will. We need to call them what they are, old patterns, old ways of the old person, but something new is happening in us, and Jesus called this something new, eternal life. For Jesus. Eternal life was not some state of being that you enter into somewhere else, down along the way after you die.
[00:25:37] For Jesus, eternal life was a quality of life that you could step into and live in the here and the now. Um, for him it is a quality of life that is open. To all of us. It is a certain kind of life that we can live more and more of now as we grow and more and more connected with the in Christ life, and it will go on forever.
[00:26:04] See, this has huge implications for me. When I do stumble, when I sin and that the old person comes back from the dead for a few moments, I admit it. I confess it. I thank God I'm forgiven of it. I make amends with anyone who has been affected by it. And then guess what? I move on. Not because sin is not serious.
[00:26:36] It is, but it's, it means that I'm taking seriously who God says I am. See the point isn't my failure the point is God's success in remaking me? Is he a failure?
[00:26:58] Is he gonna fail? No,
[00:27:05] it's God's strength, not mine. It's his power, not mine. So what does this mean to the Christian life?
[00:27:15] Well, at its core it means that Christians are people who are learning who they are in Christ. We are learning our new identity. Can you appreciate how, how this new identity mindset would impact a community of of people?
[00:27:40] Stuart Briscoe, the author and and teacher once said that if people were taught more about who they are, they wouldn't have to be told what to do. It would come naturally when we see religious communities spending most of their time trying to convince people not to sin, we are seeing a community that's missed the point.
[00:28:08] You see the point isn't sin management as Dallas Willard calls it. The point is living who we are.
[00:28:20] Uh, we're all familiar with the, with the story that Jesus told. We know it as the, the parable of the prodigal. You know the story, the younger brother. Um. Leaves home, he hits rock bottom and he comes back in shame and the father goes out and he sees his son and he runs, and then he embraces him and he welcomes him home and he announces that he's throwing a party for his son.
[00:28:55] God is the God in the story who stands on the driveway looking for his child to come home. So the party starts and everybody is celebrating and the older brother comes in from the mat, comes in from the field, and he's ticked right. And he's ticked because he wants to know why his brother gets a party and he didn't.
[00:29:24] The parable ends with the father telling his older son, you are always with me and everything I have is yours. The father wants the older son to know that everything he wants, he's already always had.
[00:29:47] There's nothing he could ever do to earn it. You see the elder son's problem isn't that he doesn't have anything. His problem is that he already has everything. He just didn't know how to live with it or believe that it was really his friends. We cannot earn what we have always had. We can. All we can do is trust that what God keeps insisting is true about us is actually true.
[00:30:29] Rescued, redeemed, forgiven, reconciled, no condemnation, no shame, holy in Christ. This isn't something we make true. This isn't something we make true about ourselves by keeping. The rules for holy living. It's not something that we make true by sin management. It is already true. Our choice is to live in this new reality, to live up to what we have already attained.
[00:31:07] Friends, when we choose to live in the reality of God's vision for our lives, we are living as God intended us to live. And you know what that looks like? Well, Paul tells us in Colossians three, starting in verse 11,
[00:31:28] here, there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian ian, slave or free Republican or Democrat.
[00:31:44] I threw that one in there, but that would fit.
[00:31:49] But Christ is all and is in all. In other words, there is unity. There is no division in the real, in Christ's community. He goes on verse 12. Therefore, as God's chosen people. Holy and dearly loved. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another.
[00:32:16] If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Verse 17. And whatever you do, and whatever you do. Whether in word or deed, do it all In the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
[00:32:43] Friends, there is this life of heaven here and now. As we live this life in harmony with God's intentions for us, the life of heaven becomes more and more present in our lives. In the here and now. Heaven comes to earth. This is why Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth even as it is in heaven.
[00:33:14] This, there is this place, this realm, this, this heaven where things are as God desires them to be. And as we live this life that God has given us to live, heaven actually comes to earth.
[00:33:37] When I was, um, pastoring in New York City.
[00:33:45] There was a a, a California pizza kitchen. I did. Are, do those still exist anywhere? Remember this restaurant, California Pizza Kitchen? There was one right around the corner from the church and, and, um. Periodically we would, you know, take the kids and go there after services on Sunday. And, and because it was right around the corner, it was a pretty popular spot for, for people in our congregation to go to lunch.
[00:34:11] And so we walk in one Sunday and, and there's, you know, a table over here and we're greeting people as we're going to our table or we sit down and we, we have this great meal. And it's time for us to go and I, you know, get the attention of the server and, and, you know, ready for our check now. And, and she walks over and, and she said, um, your bill's already been paid.
[00:34:39] You're all set. And I look around and, and everybody that we knew has, has already gone. Um. And I had the strangest feeling sitting there. I felt gratitude to be sure, um, but I also felt helpless. There was nothing I could do. It had been taken care of, and to insist on paying would've been pointless. All I could do.
[00:35:19] Was trust that what she said was true was actually true, that my bill had already been paid. Um, and if that was true, then that meant that my, uh, my only real response could be. Getting up and walking out of the restaurant and not doing anything else, right? My acceptance of what she said gave me a choice.
[00:35:58] I could live like it was true or create my own reality in which the bill had not been paid, and then I could do something to pay that bill.
[00:36:13] Friends, this is our invitation. We sang in the first song this morning, which we hadn't coordinated, but it was right on point. Jesus paid how much he paid it, all
[00:36:32] the bill's paid.
[00:36:36] Now you gotta choose what to do with that.
[00:36:42] We can trust. That something is already true about us, that something has already been done. We can trust that grace has paid the bill and that we are indeed holy and dearly loved, that everything the father has is already ours. That we have been raised with Christ, and that our life is now hidden with Christ.
[00:37:06] We can choose to live in that reality. Because if you have put your trust in Jesus, that is your reality. You can choose to live in that identity and enjoy it, be grateful, and then live out of that reality in that that identity in. Whatever, whatever, whatever we do, let me pray for us.
[00:37:50] Jesus. I admit that, uh, sometimes it's hard for me to buy it because when I look in the mirror, I don't. I often don't see, um, that in Christ Keith,
[00:38:17] but I pray, Lord, that you would help me, that you would help us to recognize that, that you have paid it all. And that we are holy and dearly loved. We are redeemed, we are reconciled, we are forgiven. Those are not things that we need to keep rules to earn. Those are things that you have declared about us because of the cross and the empty tomb.
[00:38:49] And so, Lord, I pray that today. Um. You might help us all to see those places in our lives that we struggle to, to believe this and that when somebody looks at us and says, you are holy. We can say, yeah, I am on. No, not because I earned it, but because of what you did for us. Lord, we pray this for your namesake.
[00:39:23] Amen. Amen.