Putting On The New Self | Episode 13

Thanks for listening to this week's episode! Today, Johnny walks us through Colossians 3:1-17 to show what changes when Christ becomes our life, moving from identity to action by putting off the old self and putting on the new. He calls listeners to forgiveness, peace, gratitude, and a living faith that shows in words and deeds.

• seeking things above and setting the mind on Christ
• putting to death immorality, impurity, evil desire, and covetousness
• rejecting anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, and lies
• being renewed into the image of the Creator
• living beyond labels as one body where Christ is all and in all
• wearing compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience
• bearing with one another and forgiving as the Lord forgave
• letting peace rule and the word dwell richly through worship and wisdom
• doing everything in the name of Jesus with gratitude

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Colossians 3

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey, Johnny Underwood here with the Undivided Podcast. Thank you for tuning in today, and I really hope you're blessed by this episode. Well, good afternoon, Undivided Podcast listeners. Johnny Underwood here with the Undivided Podcast. So excited to engage you today. As I mentioned last week, this is the uh one of my favorite parts of my week, if not the best part of my week, is getting to get into God's Word and engage you. So uh thanks for tuning in, and I'm super excited to to get into our topic today. Today's topic, since I mentioned it, is we're going to talk about what it means now that we're in Christ, you know, uh there is a way that we're to live. Christ has done, Jesus has done what he's said he's going to do and has done what the Old Testament said was coming. We there is a Messiah, Jesus is that Messiah. We're in Christ now if we've accepted him as our savior and our Lord. And so therefore, we then have a way we ought to live. So in Colossians 3, we're going to look into that. Last week we talked out of Colossians 2, and this week we're going to jump into Colossians 3, and we're going to hear what I believe is God speaking. God wrote the word, he wrote it through men. Paul was one of those men. He wrote the book of Colossians. And so we're going to jump into what Paul says here. So today's text is going to be out of Colossians 3, and I'm going to read verses 1 through 17, and then I'm going to back up and walk through these verses and just give some uh give my thoughts on these and break those down, some of these down into what that looks like here in the 21st century, what these might mean for us, how we ought to live based on God's word here. So Colossians 3, verses 1 through 17, here they are. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek 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. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetedness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too 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 been put off, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Syntian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, in which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with gratefulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Man, there's just so many good scriptures in there and so many good things that we're about to uh to unpack. So the first thing that I just see as we uh look into this is if then you have been raised with Christ. So key word there, just right off the cuff, if you have been raised with Christ. If you've not been raised with Christ, this is an impossible, uh impossible um not say list, but uh tutorial on how that you're able to live. Because if you're not in Christ, you're gonna do this in your own strength, or you're gonna try to do this in your own strength, and it can't be done. So just just right out of the gate here, the if is uh

Seek The Things Above

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can be its own stumbling block. So, but assuming that you are in Christ, he says, if then you are, if then you have been raised with Christ, then there's a directive. Seek the things that are above. So to seek, to pursue, to go after things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. So we know according to scripture right here that where is Jesus right now after his ascension? He is seated at the right hand of God. And in the previous episode, I gave I gave this wonderful analogy that I like anyway, is that what we see with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is that we see the Father on his throne, we see Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, and we see the Holy Spirit, right? Jesus said, I'm gonna not leave you as orphans, um, but it's but I'm going to go, and my father has this gift of the Holy Spirit uh to give. And we saw the outpouring of that in Scripture at the day of Pentecost. And so the Holy Spirit is this communicator that God speaks is what I believe. We pray in Jesus' name. We pray. Jesus says, you know, this is what I'm hearing. What says you, Father? He leans in over to the heart of the Father and says, What says you, Father? And whatever the Father says, the Holy Spirit comes and communicates, and it bears witness with our spirit the direction or the response of God to that. So we see the Holy Spirit has numerous roles, but that's one of them. So again, in based on this verse, we just see right here that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. So he says in verse 2, set your minds on things that are above, not things that are on earth. And what is the mind? That's our thought process, that's our thinking, that's what we meditate on. We take every thought captive that's in our mind. So set your minds. That's a decision we make to set our minds. We're giving our mind direction, um, commands, where we're lining out boundaries and direction for it. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things on earth. And here in a few other verses, he's going to kind of give us what's above and what's earthly. So he says here in verse 3, for you died, you that are in Christ, you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. So not just in Christ, but Christ in God. So, because Jesus is part of the Godhead. So your life is hidden in him. So that's a wonderful thing to know that we are in him, our lives are hidden in him, and that hidden means that the world, Satan, can't get to them, right? They're hidden in God, or in Christ, with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Key thing there. When Christ, who is your life, appears, he's going to appear again. He's going to return again. And but not just is he going to appear, but when Christ, who is your life, it's very key that we look at that little statement there, who is your life, right? We're dead. It's Christ who lives in us. It's he is our life, right? When people engage me in community, really the expectation as one who is a disciple of Christ is people are running into little Christ. That's what Christian means, little Christ. That people are engaging, they're running into the little Christ, they're running into him because he is my life. That's what it means to be a Christian. Not to be like we're part of a political party or a part of a uh even an ethnic group or a club, as like that we have these identity things that we're a card carrying this or that. But in Christ, like my life is Christ. He is, I'm I've been baptized, the old me, the flesh me is down, and Christ was raised out of the water. It's Christ's life that life that now rules and reigns in me and through me. So that's the expectation. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. So there's an appearance coming and it's there and in glory. There's we think of glory here, I think of the glory that's due God, that's due Christ, and that we're going to be in that. And then we think about I don't know about you, I think about glory also being in heaven. So we're going to be with him in heaven, but there's a glory that is like I think experiential that we're also going to experience with him when he or we appear. So moving on here, verse five, he's going to give us some directions here. He says, put to death, therefore, anytime you see a therefore, I would encourage

Old Self Off, New Self On

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you to pay attention. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, right? Even though we're in Christ, we we have these battles. And in these battles, we have to make some decisions on like, am I going to walk in the flesh today, or am I going to walk by the by Christ or by the Spirit of God today? So he says, put to put to death, therefore, what is earthly, what is fleshly, what is carnal in you. And he's going to name off some of these sexual immorality, right? That's just living for our sexual pleasure, right? It's not not that um sexuality is wrong. There is a place that we should be able to give full holy expression of that in covenant marriage. But that's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about immorality. This is all the places that that my flesh wants to show up, or just my sin nature wants to show up, and your sin nature, nature, might want to show up to have these carnal expressions and consumptions of our sexuality, and that are not holy. They're not okay with God. So he says, Um, put those desires to death. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion. So even just impurity, this is just things that are not pure, things that are not wholesome, things that are not good, passion. And there's nothing wrong with it when we just we hear the word passion, but he's talking about just passion for consumption. Passion, like we consume or we pursue these things with a passion, with a a hotness, with a fervor, a longing. That passion, and this is that it's a passion here that's in reference to evil or sinful things. It's not necessarily what we do, it's the heart and the motivation and the emotions that we pursue said things. So he says here impurity, passion, evil desire. And evil is different than sexual. It can be because evil can just be just that evil. It's to get revenge, it's to just to get ahead. Who dies with the most toys wins concept, and that we have to have. We have to constantly like evil this, I have to have, I've got to be, um, or murder, you know, the the various Ten Commandments that we break, this where we want to be our own God, where we want to be in control and be the authority of all things us, or even maybe all things other people, right? That we want the power, the power. Yep, that's the word. And that's that I believe that those are evil desires and covetedness. That is when we're wanting what others have that we don't have, right? Maybe I have what I have and I want what my neighbor has. I want what my boss has. I want what just picket what I see on TV, what I see in movies, what I see as I'm scrolling through Amazon and or what I see in ads, I see vacations and go, oh, that's what would make my life um fulfilling or content me for the moment. That would give me some element of happiness. And I began to covet that or want that to the point that I'm I'm not contented with what I have. And he says, um, and covetedness, which is idolatry. Idolatry is the worship of something, right? We are worshiping it, we've made an idol of it. So we can make an idol of pleasure, we can make an idol of consumption, of entertainment. Um, there's a ton of things that we can make uh idols out of, but he says that covetedness is idolatry. And listen to this in verse 6. He says, on account of these, that's the list I just read, the wrath of God is coming. I mean, think about that. The wrath of God. We're talking about the God of the universe, the one who spoke and things that are not or were not appeared. Right? The one who literally speaks and we have air in our lungs. That God, that powerful, all authority, sovereign God, that it says that there's a day coming that every knee is going to bow to him. And it says, because of the the sin that we just talked about, it says that the wrath of God is coming. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. Wow. In these, that's the list he just he just spelt out for us. You too once walked. And here's that's the reality. We all have walked there at some level. Maybe we've not been as sexually immoral as others, maybe we've not been as impure, maybe various passions haven't been named named among us, but we all have some element of these here, and we know this because he says it. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you too once walked when you were living in them. This at one point was our nature. This is what I have said in other podcasts. It wasn't if I was going to sin, but it was when I was gonna sin and which sin was I going to do, because I was a slave to sin. And if you can hear my voice and you're not in Christ, you know that you're

One Body Beyond Labels

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still a slave to sin. And if you're in Christ, you know that there are still places that you may struggle with sin and you can remember the day or days that you were a slave to sin. And I don't know about you, but even as I say that, it makes me want to thank God that that's not my story today. Not, oh, I'm so, I'm all this or you're all that because you're that's not our story today. Because it's due the gift of Christ, right? I didn't save me for me. Jesus saved me for me. And I am so grateful. So not arrogantly or pridefully do I say that, but I say that humbly. Jesus, thank you. So, but let me get back onto this. In these, you two once walked when you were living in them. But again, just like the therefore's, anytime you see this conjunction, you need to take note because there's a change coming. Says, but now you must put them all away. He doesn't say, like, set them aside, come back to them later. He says, You've got you've got to put them away. They've got to go away, right? And here's what he says anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. He says, put them away, get rid of them. Don't let these be named among you. These cannot be in your heart, they cannot be in your life. And again, they're anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. We see in another part of Scripture it says, out of the mouth the heart speaks. So he's saying, these can't even be inside of you. So we need to get rid of them. We've got to put them away. He says, he goes on to say in verse 9, do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. And I don't know about you. I was just talking to my mom the other day on the phone, and I said, Mom, isn't it interesting? You know, even when you go to the doctor's office, they say it's a practice. And here we see that word here. It says, Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. We literally used to practice sin. That's crazy to me to think about. But I look back at my life and go, it's true. Right? I became a better liar the more I did it. I became a better thief. We see this in our news, we see this in our world, right? The more we do these sins, we get better at them, right? So, and I say better as we perfect them, not that we get better like they're good things, but we begin to perfect the process of what we do. And he says, This is not okay. He says, See that you have put off the old self with its practices, have put on the new self, right? So again, it's no longer I that lives, but it's Christ that lives in me. So the old man is put off, and now the new self is going to live different. He says, and he says here in verse 10, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after, excuse me, renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. So a couple key things here, which is being, that's an ongoing process. It's not was and it's not one day will be, it's being, it's ongoing, renewed, right? It's kind of the same to me. I think of the word renewed and redeemed. It's it was deemed for something, and now it's been redeemed back to its original purpose. Nude, the same thing is it's been renewed, it's been brought back to its new state. And the knowledge after the image of its creator, which is God. We are created in the image of God. And now that we're being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator, that's us. This knowledge that we now have, the more I walk with God, the more I begin to uh not just imitate as in I just act like, but literally I begin that the nature of me becomes more and more like the nature of God, right? It's a process of osmosis. You know, I we used to say this, or I still say this in reference to education, that more is caught than taught. And I picked that up in some book. I'd love to give someone credit for that, but I don't know which book I read that in. But the biblical model that we see is that more is caught than taught. We can teach our kids things in word, but we really we teach so much indeed. It's not what we say, but it's how we live that our children pick up on. It's

Compassion, Meekness, And Patience

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because they're around us more than they're just hearing us. And it's the same thing with God. Not just do we want to correspond with him in prayer, but it's in daily fellowship. It's not just prayer fellowship. It's as we walk this out and we fellowship in conversation, in action, and just throughout the day and throughout our life, the more we spend time with him, the more we begin to look like him. People began to look like Christ, right? And again, that's how we came into the word Christian, which means little Christ. Originally in the book of Acts, they were called Christians first because people saw that they began to look like, not physically necessarily in nature, but in behavior like Jesus did. They acted like Jesus did, and then they were called Christians. So that's the same thing for us. It's a really gift to be called a Christian, not because we self-identify, but because people look upon our lives and they say, You must be a Christian because I see the attributes of Christ in you. So that's our expectation. And have put on the new self, which is Christ, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator, which is God. Says, he says here in verse 11, here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, circumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave free, but Christ is all and in all. So these places where we would originally or at different times in our life, we would want to parse out, oh, I'm a Greek or I'm a Jew, I'm circumcised or uncircumcised, I'm slave or I'm free. He says, all that is is moot now. Right? Now everything, because we're in Christ, everything is all that is set aside. That's not how we identify anymore. We identify Christ is all and in all. So when people come into contact with us, the first thing they don't go is they go, oh, he's this or he's that, he's a Texan, or he's a um myriad of things go through my mind. It's ridiculous to make the goofy list. The bottom line is that what ideally they run into first is they may hear what I'm saying, but they go, Man, that man is a Christian. That man, his life emulates is an example of Christ. That's what God wants to be said of us as the sons and daughters of God, that our lives look like the words that come out of our mouth, the meditations of our heart, our behavior, everything says Christ. Christ is all and in all. So we acknowledge that and we walk that out. Verse 12, he says, Paul says here, put on then as God's chosen ones, that's us. Put on then. This is something we put on. It's a decision that we make today. Maybe I don't put that on like I do a shirt, but I'm putting that on. I'm saying, this is the mind. I'm gonna walk with the mind of Christ today. I'm going to, I'm gonna set in this space when people, I make a choice, when people engage me today, they're going to engage Jesus. He says, put on then as God's chosen ones, that's us. If you're in Christ, it's not because you chose Christ, it's because he's chosen you and you responded to that. And that's everyone. Jesus died for all. So if he's knocking on your heart and you've answered that door, you've answered the call, and you've made him, not just as a believer, you've made him Lord of your life and you've chosen him, then you're a chosen one. He says, put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. That's what he calls us, holy and beloved. Wow. Holy, set apart. Now that we're in Christ, we're holy. We've been set apart and we're beloved. I tell you what, there is something just that just resonates and just just jumps up in me. Um growing up in a house where I would say that my stepdad gave me uh as much love as he could, but that there wasn't a lot of that to be able to see me as a stepson, to be able to um to really lean into what I what my heart needed. Um, but to hear that God say that I'm beloved, that he loves me, I'm his beloved. Well, may I just that just does something warm for me? It says, put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. He says, put on this compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. So I want to just that's a great list there, and we could probably do a word study on each of these, but I want to just touch on the word meekness here. I love this word. I just was listening to uh another podcast the other day, and uh I would love to tell you who it was. Um I think it was Josh Howerton, but um, whoever it was, the word meekness, that that power or authority, um, strength under control. It's not, um, I think of I think he was even saying on the podcast, we think it, and I did think this, like meekness kind of goes with weakness. And the reality is that couldn't be further from the truth. This meekness is this power, it's this strength, it's um the ability to be dominant, but to be submitted and controlled, that I could get bigger, but I make me

Forgiveness And The Power To Let Go

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smaller and I make my strength available to be managed, guided, and directed for the benefit of others. To say, God, here's my strength, here's what you've given me, and I yield it to you to say, what do you want to do with it? I mean, that's meekness. That's pretty cool to me, man. That again, that lit me up. Uh, because again, I would go, I don't want to be meek. I don't want to be weak. I don't want to be seen as weak. But when I think of meekness with that definition from that perspective, I go, God, I want to be meek. I want to take the strength that you've given me. I want to take all this dunamous power that's in me and submit it back to you and say, God, what do you want to do with it? So, so he says, put then, put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Here's some tough ones. Not that those others aren't tough, but bearing with one another. It's hard to bear with one another, right? I've I've heard over and over again the statements of God, I love your, I love you, but your people drive me crazy. I've said that, right? But to say he's challenging, not just challenging, like, oh, you ought to try this. It's a command. He says, put this on. Not, hey, would you consider put this putting this on? He says, put it on, bear with one another. Again, walk beside, bear under, work with, be in unity with, right? Travel together. Don't be um difficult, but work together, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against a complaint against another, forgiving each other. Man, that's huge. For a lot of years, I let unforgiveness have a lot of um control or a lot of authority in my life, my refusal to give give up my right to um to hold others accountable for the harm that they they inflicted upon me. And what I saw was that that person had already moved on. They were on doing whatever else was in their life. I was still giving them, and therefore, I was by hanging on to those offenses and refusing to give forgiveness or extend forgiveness. I was leaving me in a prison that I had the keys to. And to be able to say, Hey, Jesus has forgiven me, and I'm willing and able to forgive others to my freedom. And to say, man, he he gives us this as a command, and again, it's for us. He says, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must, must, you have to forgive. And I can tell you this, uh, I just was sharing this with an uh office uh mate here in the in the building, or an office um some other office uh personnel here in the building, of how I try to go to bed every night. That God, is there anyone that I need to forgive? Is there anyone I need to seek forgiveness? That God, I want to keep short accounts. This is something that is uh very important to me. Again, it's one of these things that's one of those little secrets uh of my success in this life is to be able to keep short accounts and to be able to say, God, I want to walk in forgiveness. God, I invite you to come and tend to my heart to give me the um the willingness not just to you give lip service to it, but to really set in that place where I've offended others or I've been offended or I've been legitimately hurt and set in that place and say, God, would you make that right in me that I might extend forgiveness or I may be willing to accept forgiveness? And I mean, it's it's that's a bit a game changer for me. So, which is a wonderful thing. So, and all the more he says we must do it. Again, it's not a suggestion. If we're gonna be his and we're gonna be in him, we have to do this. And he says in verse 14, and above all these, that's a great list, but he says, and above, top it off, above all these, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. I can't sing, but I can tell you this. I love I love hearing people that can sing, where they they sing together and there's this perfect harmony. Man, it's a beautiful thing. And to think in that same vein that when we do all these, that it's love which binds all this together in perfect harmony. We can have all these things, right? It makes me think of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 13 of you know the love chapter. That that's it's love that's that's so wonderful here, and that we're called to walk in this, and it's that love that binds everything together. He says in verse 15, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Again, this is a command, let it's something we have to open our hearts up to. We have to let the peace of Christ rule in

Let Peace Rule And Be Thankful

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your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. So I want to just lean into this here, this let the peace of Christ. You know, there's was a time in my life that I was resistant to peace. That's like, no, I needed some element of whether you want to say turmoil. I don't know, that might be too strong of a word, but there was a time in my life that I needed some element of tension. I kind of built a life on um not having peace. And in that time in my life, I there could never be quiet. I always had to have music on, always had to have some sort of noise, and I did not appreciate, I was really uncomfortable in quietness. I was really uncomfortable. Um, I was really internally dysregulated, and I didn't know how to have peace. But what he's telling us here is that's an invitation he's given us here. He says, and let peace. It's a command, but he's saying, you have control of this. You can let peace. Let peace in. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Not just come in, but let it rule. Let it be the authority, let it be the thing that manages or maintains, that's maintained in our hearts, right? Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to have authority, to be the boss in your hearts, in which you indeed were called in one body. So again, I think when I see in that one body that we're all part of the body of Christ, right? Let's talk about, I believe, in the gathering of of all the saints, that we're in that place. We let peace be the controlling atmosphere, being the controlling thing when the body of Christ is together. And then he says, and be grateful. Reminds me of in Colossians 2, 6, he references um being thankful there. He says, and be thankful. It's a choice that we make, right? We can we can see the cup half empty or half full. He says, be thankful, see it half full, see it for what it is that that God is is the in all this, everything is is in Christ, right? So be thankful. Be thankful for what we've been forgiven, be thankful for this new life that we have in Christ. Verse 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Dwell in, let the word, again, I like the word let. So he's saying, It's there, let it in, invite it in, let it run, let it run in you, let it flow through you. Let the word of the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Teaching, it's good that we have teachings on this, and admonishing and correcting one another in all wisdom. Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. I don't know about you, but again, singing's not my greatest gift, though I do sound incredible in the shower. So I could probably cut a record deal if someone would just record me in the shower, but ain't nobody doing that. But I do love psalms, I do love hymns, I do love uh music. It is uh I don't have that gift, so I appreciate those that do. And it does, it ministers to me. He says, Let me go back. Let the words of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God, so that again all this points back to God, right? Makes me think of our testimony. I think of what I used to be, what used to drive me. What if I were living out the consequences of my traumas, if I was living out the consequences of my choices, my sin, right? All the things that used to to have control over me, the bondages of my life, those things aren't named among me anymore. No one looks at my life and says that the life I'm living and where I've been, that the math just doesn't math. And what's holy and wonderful about that is that God's God's, Jesus is the hero in my story. And he has removed the consequences, so many of those consequences from me. And so people don't look at my life and go, You're living the life that your previous life says you should be living. And that drives me to thankfulness that's in my heart to God. He's the one, right? John

Word, Worship, And Everyday Witness

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3, 16, for God so loved that he gave, because of the gift of Christ that God gave us, my life, my story is different. So he says in verse 17, our last verse for today, and whatever you do, in words, what is spoken, or in deeds, our actions, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father, through him. So as I think about that, it's just kind of a little bit of what I was just touching on there, that Jesus is the hero in my story. He's the hero in your story. And if he's not the hero in your story, he wants to be the hero in your story. I think the saddest thing that we're gonna see when life as we know it is over, is that seeing and coming to that realization that each person is going to have that Jesus, the sacrifice of Christ, the the work of the cross, the empty grave, the gift of the Holy Spirit, that whole holy experience that has happened, that it was available to you. It was available to me. And to think there are some, maybe within the listening ears of my voice, that have not accepted that, have not embraced that gift. And I just think the heart of God, what a heartbreak that is. That that there's turmoil, and there's literally going to be you or others that are that hell is their eternity because they've rejected the gift of Christ. And I think what what a terrible eternity that is. And not just is it, I mean, I think hell's its own place of torment, but I think just even just the absence of God and the goodness of God is its own hell. And I would just offer to you today, thinking on this verse 17 that engage Jesus today. If man, if he's pricking your heart today, why it's today, while it's still today, engage him. Say, Jesus, who are you? Jesus, bring someone into my life that tell me more about this. As I've said before in previous podcasts, man, there's a church almost on every corner in our country. Find a Bible preaching church, ask them, and who is this Jesus? The word says, confess your sins one to another, and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of our unrighteousness. Man, if that's you today, find a man of God or a woman of God, ideally same gender, and unburden your heart and say, I need Jesus. The word says at some point, when this is the when what we know of time is it's at some point it's going to be over, and every knee is going to bow. And they're going to declare Jesus as Lord. But on that day, it may be too late. So if today you're you're feeling that in your internal in your heart, respond to that today. Get on our website, it's theundivided.org. Climb on there. We've got a form. Say, hey, this is who I am. Can someone from your ministry reach out to me? Will someone respond? I promise you, within minutes, hours, by 24 hours at the longest gap there would be, someone will respond to you. They will reach out, they will connect with you. We will help you find someone in your community to connect with a Bible-believing uh church, a man or woman of God in your community that will find you, connect with you, and walk with you towards giving your life to Christ and then helping you get discipled as a son or daughter of God. That's my prayer for you today. That's my desire for you today. And I would tell you that's our Heavenly Father's desire for you today. It is his desire that none are lost. So please engage him today if he's moving upon you. So with that, I'm gonna close. And in my closing, I want to pray. So we're gonna move into that, and then I want to uh I might have one other thing I want to offer to you. So let's pray. Heavenly Father, I just thank you for your word. Father, I thank you for the book of Colossians. I thank you for chapter three in Paul's letter. Father, I thank you for what you've opened up to us today. Father, I ask that you would help us not to be, that we wouldn't just be hearers of your word, but we would be doers of your word. Father, we would we would take what you've given us today and in this generation, in this time, that Father, that we would do something with it. That Father, we would sell out. Father, we wouldn't try to live as just Christians, men or women that just do get in our own strength, that we would submit our lives to you. And we would say, Lord, come live through me. Lord Jesus, come live through me. Come, come, Lord Jesus. Even now, Father, by

Invitation To Surrender To Christ

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your Holy Spirit, would you convict hearts? Would you prick those hearts to say to that man or to that woman, to that son or that daughter, that grandparent, that that grandma, that grandpa, hey, while it's still today, let me reach out, let me respond. Let me do something because I'm not guaranteed, I'm not promised tomorrow. God, would you move by your spirit on those hearts? I thank you, Lord Jesus. I thank you for doing that. And Lord, I'm just reminded, thank you. Thank you. And I'm just going to mention his name because I'm so grateful. Thank you for bringing Scott Robbins all those years back into my life to live Christ in front of me. And to live me, live you, Jesus, in such a way that I and my brother both inquired and wanted, you pricked in us a desire to want what was in Scott, which is you, Jesus. And so I just thank you for Scott and his friend that led us to not just an intellectual knowledge, but led us into a relationship, the starting of a holy, wonderful relationship and an adventure with you, Jesus. And I am grateful. And I just speak your blessings over Scott today. Lord, we just thank you again for your word. Lord, I say it would just seal all this that's been spoken in the name and the gift and the blood of Jesus Christ. I pray that all this in that name, amen. Hey guys, just in closing, uh again, I just want to thank you for tuning in today. Hope this message was a blessing to you. I know it's again, it's a blessing, it's a joy to get to bring this to you. And I want just to encourage you, my friend Christian's going to put his uh his link of his music in our show notes. And I just encourage you to uh to go down, click into those, and let what God's doing through him. He's an incredible musician. He is an absolute lover of Jesus Christ. And I believe that his music, um, these the songs that he's writing that God's given him, I believe if you'll dial in there, I believe that they're going to minister to you. And I think as you engage it, I believe that there will be a fresh stirring of the Holy Spirit in you. And I would encourage you just to sit in that space and let the lyrics of these songs just wash over you and see what God might want to do with your heart as you engage God as you listen to that music. So, uh, Christian, if you'll do that today, I would much appreciate it. I believe that God wants to minister to uh to our listeners through that. So thanks in advance for doing it. And God bless you all, and we'll see you again next week.