October 27th, 2019

Good morning. How are we? Excellent. He got your Bible this morning invite you to turn to the book of Colossians chapter 3 book of Colossians chapter 3 as you're turning to that book. I just a couple things I want to put before you mainly an event that's coming up this coming week. Are we got Trunk or Treat with semi taking place October 31st, which is Thursday. That's from 5:30 to 8 at the Hope every year is that we can do the impossible and actually have an outdoor trucker tree, which I think was the original design of it going to be really honest with you. Probably not going to happen looking at the forecast. So that's kind of the plan. That's the hope but we will update you as soon as possible. So just understand that there is a realistic chance that we will be having it indoors. I'm I'm thankful that we at least have the facilities to be able to to do that. So that will start at 5:30. I recommend you get here around 5 to get things set up whether that's were sitting up in Parking lot over setting things up in the fellowship hall. I remember to bring candy. If you can't come and you want to just help out. We've had a few people bring some candy and donate that. Thank you so much for that. But you bring your own candy several hundreds of people will come through here. So as just a good opportunity to kind of connect with our community in that so just encourage you guys 5:30 to 8, if you can be here around 5, and if you have to come a little bit later than that, that's not a problem at all. So we're just excited for that opportunity want to thank a few people. I had a pretty cool opportunity yesterday. We had a lot of our students and our student Ministry that took place or took part in a a youth retreat that took place Friday and Saturday night and we had a lot of our people that were involved in that from our students. I hope Scott was instrumental in providing the food for that. Sean. Scott was instrumental in providing some wisdom yesterday and that Landon a lettuce and worship myself and Maddie got to take part in that so Woodlawn was really represented well, and it was just a blessed opportunity to just worship with them. And and I mean what else would you want to do on a day when you get like three inches of rain, then then drive out to the middle of nowhere at a church camp and spend some time with students. It was fantastic. It really was a great time. Thank you guys so much for what you guys have done. So here we are. We're going to be in chapter 3 verses 12 through 14. We're back in the series of it go through the book of Colossians the overall series title for this is the sufficiency of Christ that it's Christ plus nothing that there's nothing else Beyond Christ that we could need and honestly ever want in terms of Eternity and salvation. We're going to pick up with that again, but before that I want to start with just a story

how many of you have done this or if it's just me and I'm the weird one, which is probably the case a couple weeks ago church member from a church. I'd formerly Pastor went home to be with the Lord. And so I was going to go to the funeral. So I was in the process of like getting dressed. So I'm looking in the closet and there's clothes everywhere and I'm I'm kind of thinking of my go to close that I would wear to something like that and a lot of those are kind of older clothes. I'm looking and all the sudden I can look in the corner of the closet and I see a shirt that still have the tags on it and then I kid you not to look at her needs some things. We we got some shelves in there and I see you a pair of pants that I kid you not still on it and it immediately I had bought that outfit literally was an outfit outfit. Okay. I know I just lost so much respect from some of you I can see it in your faces. I had knew I should have told it anyways a year before I had bought that outfit. I never seen it and think I'm going to buy that outfit and is stayed in the closet for 1 year. Now. I don't know if anyone else has ever done that like you bought something with the intentions of wearing it be like put it in the closet and then you don't wear again if that's just me. That's fine. I'll own that all day if that's the weirdest thing about me and I'll praise God for that, but I got to thinking about that. So I thought I'm going to wear that. Put it on. When do the visitation even stop by I got to visit with my wife a little bit got the thumbs-up on the the the apparel that I had put on but but I got thinking about that whole story of like buying clothes and dressing ourselves speaks a lot to the Christian Life in this actually started last week with where we were in Colossians because we learned that the Christian Life involves kind of putting off the old taking off the old see something happened last week in the text. It was really instrumental. We talked about this a little bit. The first part of Colossians is Doctrine love the Paul did that we spent a lot of time talking about the doctrine of the sufficiency of Christ and either really deep important things of God chapter 3, it marks a shift from Doctrine to application. We talked about this new life that we have in Jesus and and part of that new life as we fix our minds on him because Our minds are going to affect our Behavior or behaviour is going to follow our minds and we even talked about laying down the things of our old Life Bible when it says putting the the old life to death. I'm going to look at this morning this idea of not just laying down things old like clothes. We're going to talk about putting on the new things of Christ. So couple questions to think about why do we struggle with that? Like, let's think of it this way of the spiritual wardrobe is spiritual closet that we have. Why do so many Believers often times? Why do we struggle to put on like we wouldn't jacket the new things of Jesus instead we tend to put on things from our our old life. Why is that maybe they're comfortable. Everybody here, I can guarantee that everybody here has some article of clothing that you love to wear on a lazy day. It's comfortable. I got a blue hoodie at home. I love that thing. It's falling apart, but it's super comfortable. Is that is that the reason why will it could possibly be that the Christian Life is much like taking off old clothes and putting on new one. So let's pick up or go to be verses 12 through 14. What's Paul has to say to this church that call acai. He says therefore as God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved to put on compassion kindness humility gentleness and patience bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against one another Just as the Lord has forgiven you so you are also to forgive above all put on love which is the perfect Bond of unity now Bible study 101 and we we talked about this before is anytime you see the word therefore you need to focus on what it's there for and to do that you want to look at what was just said so we had just seen from last week that Paul's laying out this new life in Christ. There's a new life in Christ verse 1 and chapter 3 if you have been raised with Christ, so talk about the old person dying in this new person coming to life this new person in Christ. When I when I get back to why that therefore this is especially important. This is like significantly important, but I want to point out. How does here Inverse 12, it's something that would be very easily missed. If we don't drill down just a little bit Begins by reminding them who they are. Okay, the moment we begin to lose sight of who we are we start to listen to other people, especially the world about who we are that's the minute that we get off track. I mean that is the moment that we start to get off course and there's three things that jump out. So what's the first thing that Paul says that they are and that we are as Believers, he's speaking to Believers or the first thing he says is Therefore is God's chosen ones. You are chosen now. Listen, I know right now. That's that's like such an awkward and uncomfortable word to talk about we start talking about being Chosen and and Men I might drop the predestination word and then things like that unless I want to be so super clear with you. I'm not in any way going to avoid this at the same time. We're not going to spend the whole time on this heat. Do you know what this means when Paul says that you are chosen ones. It means that if you're here this morning and you're a Believer, look at me God chose you okay, you have to do something with that. I know that were built in tension inside you and that's okay with a lot of words in the Bible that build this healthy tension within me, but you got to do something with that word. You can't ignore that. He says that God has chosen you. That should do a couple things one. It should give some comfort. The God of all creation shows you but here's what you always have to remember God chose you not because you're awesome. He told you because he's awesome. God doesn't look down and I don't want this guy know what that cuz I got so perfect and I got to have that guy cuz he's a spiritual stuff. I got to have her because all this and that it's his Sovereign when we can't really understand a choice. So there should be some comfort there that the God of all creation. Wow, he chose me is it also challenges though? Because God doesn't just choose us and save us so that we can sit there's a challenge and that's a just know that if your believer your chosen by God next thing he says is that you're holding? Okay that you're holy we will talk about another word that makes a lot of us uncomfortable. Make a lot of us uncomfortable especially within the church has this idea of of Holiness. I think a lot of that is because we know people and maybe we are that people they're kind of self-righteous and holier-than-thou. You've all heard that that expression before where we we kind of think really highly of ourselves and that's not my Paul talking about though and what's interesting about when he says that you're holy understand this that we are seen as holy because of who not because of our self when God looks at the believer that he is say that he has redeemed that he has rescued. He sees Holiness but not because of that person not because of anything that they're producing on their own feces Holiness and us because of Jesus so he sees us as holy in Jesus, but listen to me he is also called us to be holy. Okay, which means we are supposed to be seeking Holiness in our lives. I believe the Bible even says be ye. Holy as I am Holy. My here from time to time. Circles when they're talking about people they're like, oh I can't hang out with that person. They're too holy for me, or I can hang out with that person. I'm not holy enough and I'll listen if you're talkin about someone who literally is. It is spiritual arrogant and their holier-than-thou I get that but listen to me that if you know people in your life that you are literally avoiding because you're not holy enough for them the problem with the issue may not be that that person is mature and holy The problem might be that you are not. Problem might be that you're avoiding those things because Holiness is going to require change in us. A lot of last thing. He says says you chosen does your whole leg and your dearly loved.

If you take any encouragement from who God says you are this morning, let's take some encouragement from that that you are dearly loved. I don't have a whole lot to add to that really don't I don't have an illustration. Either. You're just your dearly loved you say what how do I know? That was just the Life of Christ that was given for you. Proves his love. I mention the whole there for and why it's so important because it's easy. It's going to be easy this morning for us to look at this list this spiritual wardrobe or are our closet. So this week it's going to be easy for us to look at that and say okay if I want this I need to do those things if I want to earn this I need to do those things and what Paul is saying here with that. Therefore is so important. He's not saying in order to receive this new life in Christ. You need to do those things actually the exact opposite he he saying because you have received this New Life 3 verses 1 through 11 because you've received this by trusting and kreiser by turning from your sin and turning and following him there for put these things on. Dress yourself in a Life of Christ. We don't put on the Christian Life to become chosen to become wholly or to become dearly beloved. We put these things on because we already are this is something we've already received in the life of a price. That's why that therefore is so important. This is not a laundry list of things we need to do to try to earn more and doesn't that make sense with what we talked about before especially with legalism. This isn't okay. Well then if I do these things, you know, God is going to give me like extra Stars this week for what I've done know. If this is a result that should be a desire for ours. This is something that we do because it's already been done for us. sew-in verses 13 and 14 Paul begins to come to layout this spiritual wardrobe these clothes that were supposed to put on so we're just going to walk through these this morning the first one compassion. Paul tells us to to put on compassion mobile. What is compassion what compassion is an inward sensing of someone else's hurt or struggle. Do you have compassion for people? Do you sense when someone's hurting do you sense when something's wrong? Not just a feeling. There's a a sensing of it as if something just kind of triggers in your brain and really in your heart that that person is struggling and there's even an element of care that you care about what's going on with that person. We're supposed to put on compassion. Paul Vincent put on kindness and it's interesting what he's doing here because he is listing in word following it with outward as compassion is an inward sensing of someone else's hurt and struggle kindness is the outward overflow of compassion. So we sense when someone's hurting and by the way, in order to do that, you got to get your eyes off your cell for like 2 seconds and get it on to somebody else. Okay, you just you simply have to do that everything. We're about ready to talk here is absolutely critical when it comes to relationships, which is what we're called to wear called not to not not one day a week or even two days that we were called the relationships with one another called the relationship with God. So we we feel compassion we sense when someone else's is struggling we sense when someone else is hurting and then we we take a step and we show kindness it really isn't. Action, so we do something about it. What is it that we do? Well that could you know that that could go all over the place. There's an endless amount of things we could do. It could be serving that person. It could simply be just listening to that person could be smiling if that person saying hello to that person just being a kind person in their lives. So we put on compassion we put on kindness he then goes on to say that we put on Humility, I love what one of the commentary writers said. I love his definition hero humility is how he defined it. It is a deep sense of one's littleness. It's a deep sense of one's littlest. We talked about this a couple weeks ago on humility. Like if you know that your humble and you know that you got a lot of humility. Guess what you're wrong. You don't you can't brag about humility. We talked that you can't gather with your group and say listen guys had a great week. God bless me tremendously woke up 24 hours humble. Everyday is Awesome. Awesome can't you can't do that when we're not called that we're supposed to put on humility, which means we have a deep sense of One's little gnats, which we use have a realistic view of who we are and that is totally countercultural. If I sit really struggle with that when I was still teaching because so much Focus gets put on like encouraging and building especially younger people up which I'm all for that the goodness gracious. Sometimes I think we go way too far away and we we build them up to where they're going to fall when they fall it's going to hurt. So it's like this this perfect balance if we want to encourage we want to build up one another the Bible calls us to that at the same time. We do it from a like a position of humility and that just simply means that we know that we're not that special. Okay, we're just we're just not that special. Now. I know that you have people in your life that you think are special in the end they are and there's people here that think you're special. I'm talking like in the scale of Eternity and compared to God. We're just we're just not that great. In fact, we're pretty ungrate at times. I know that again, that's so countercultural right now and I should be telling you like how great we are and how we can just accomplished so much and all the stuff because we just we've got all this power inside of us, you know, there's that pesky thing called the word of God that just says something completely different and says that our hearts just have this natural sinful tendency to I want to disobey and the only way that we can overcome that is by God intervening coming in and changing our hearts when that happens. We begin to see ourselves for how we By the way, there's a lot of freedom in humility and I'm not talkin false humility, either we can talk about that for a while, but we won't have some freedom in humility because if you're always trying to build yourself up and convince other people are awesome. You are and you're trying to convince yourself. You're tired. You're wore out because deep down, you know, you're not, you know, that's not who you are so knows this and he's telling them compassion kindness put on humility know who you are know who you are in Christ that you are little bit he has great. That's the n-word he follows it with another out or gentleness. Some of your Bibles would say meekness and this is the outward overflow of humor of humility. So just as we we feel compassion towards people in that that that moves us towards kindness towards them when we have a posture of humility, which means we see ourselves for how we really are that's going to put us in a posture to move towards gentleness, which is just a gentleness of spirit. This is again, this is so countercultural especially for males. Okay? Because we live in a time we still living at I would like this there's this false sense of of manhood. I mean you want to talk about an issue that's going on not just within the church, but within the world and it's a it's a road ditch its two of them on this side. You you've got the kind of the dumbing-down and the feminizing of males then on this side you you've got this like Ultra testosterone. Riven angry all the time

and that's not what Biblical manhood it is about. Listen to me part of biblical manner. Did you have a gentleness about you? You you don't think David had that we don't think David was tough to kill tigers and bears with his hands. Then he go any point heart play music by step your game up.

Gentleness, that's all just for males, but be gentle is just means we have a spirit of gentleness means we can maybe say things that people with some softness doesn't mean that what we're saying is not firm, but just so I'm sorry that this means that we're not that person that just I'm a man. I really like that it is a lot of times that you know what you're describing your just describing a jerk is what you're doing because the way that they think it is may not be actually true and even if it is You can be right in the wrong way. You can say right things in the wrong way. Don't hear me saying, you know to avoid truth and and sugarcoat things. That's not what I'm saying at all but I'm saying when we have a posture of humility that should result in some gentleness from us, which means when we see somebody hurting then we're not going to jump and we're not going to Dogpile on those people move on the fifth thing that we see patients. That's a great one admit patients put on patients. He says, patience means long suffering Basically haircut, that means it means you don't have a short fuse. Not going to ask you raise your hands. I'd be interested to see how many of you can honestly say. Like, that's a huge struggle. Mine is patience patience. Like it like some of you are probably you you're struggling so much with that. You're like hurry up and finish the point, you know, it's go no matter who really that is a point patients. It's it's don't be the person that's got this this short fuse where it's like if you have to wait more than one minute and drive-thru, you're going ballistic. I mean, you just completely lost it if you have to wait a few minutes or something, but the problem is we do that with people often and with our patients are impatient gets directed A people problem with that is that's not a characteristic that's on a virtue which is what we're talking about here of Jesus and we're supposed to put on patients, which means we wait. We don't like to do that. Because waiting means that we have to trust that the God knows what he's doing and that's a tough road to walk, but we don't walk it alone. Call Vince s after patients. He says he kind of combine two things. He says bearing with one another and forgiving one another there is a little bit of a difference in those two. OK. It's important to understand bearing you're going to be mean to endure. Just means to to endure so there's an element of endurance in this and here's what that means in church life because that's really who Paul's talking about. That means that there are just going to be certain people. There are things about them that you don't like they're annoying and you just don't care about it. You know what you put up with it. You put up with I know that doesn't sound like crazy spiritual or or like, you know, why doesn't give you like really good feelings, but that's that's what it is. It just means there's there's certain things about certain people that you just don't love. I mean that it's not your favorite thing in the world and you know what you just put up with it and dorit you don't fight back and patiently you you don't show them unkindness. You don't refuse compassion towards that person. They see you you just bear with the new indoor and then he says forgiving Talked about this a little bit last week. Not just forgiving but forgiving the way that Christ forgave and when he talks about forgiving their he's talking about not returning evil for evil and if patience is a tough one to walk in forgiveness. Is right there with it. few things in our lives are as challenging as forgiving people. because we are so good at justifying why not to

I bet you there's there's several in this room this morning you love Jesus. You know, the Bible calls you to forgive you even know that you're forgiven in Jesus, but you have managed to trick yourself and justify yourself into thinking I know I'm supposed to do this, but that person. That person got if you only knew what that person did and let me tell you when we begin to find ourselves in that place. We just took off humility. We took it off and we threw it on the floor. So let's talk a little bit about what forgiveness is. It's not returning evil for evil going to talk about what forgiveness is not this was really helpful for me and I hope it is for you to let me tell you a couple things that forgiveness is not forgiveness is not the absence of a consequence. So let's say someone wrongs us there might be a consequence that they have to go through and that's just that that doesn't mean that there's not a consequence. Let me give you an example. Someone might wrong you in a way to where it changes the relationship part of the consequence might be you don't have a closeness that you used to have that I'm not saying we don't always work towards reconciliation, but I'm saying sometimes when people wrong other people there are consequences it's involved in that. Forgiveness doesn't mean that there's an absence of that. Let me tell you something else forgiveness is not forgiveness is not turning the switch and completely forgetting what was done to you. just not what's the what's the saying forgive and Forget that good luck with that. Good luck. Now. Listen will tell you what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that you forgive somebody on the surface. But under the surface, you're holding it above their head and you're constantly remembering it. Listen, sometimes there's a grievance against us and we can absolutely forgive somebody and we can let go of all the anger and all the hatred and all the bitterness and all these say but that doesn't mean we didn't fall into a place of being naive and allowing these things to continue to happen to us. We want to be wise in those situations. So here's a question. I would ask. Why is Paul putting such an emphasis speaking to the church on forgiveness? Here's why I believe that is because forgiveness is needed in the church as much if not more than anywhere. Forgiveness is needed within the church.

It's needed there as much as it is anywhere to shoot. So straight with you guys when I look back at my life. Especially my life and Ministry and I look at the people who have disappointed me the most who have frustrated me the most who have hurt me the most. It's not the Lost. It's not the unbeliever. I really don't have a big problem when lost people act lost. I don't have a problem when spiritually dead people act spiritually dead. I'm a massive issue when people who would dare claim the name of Christ and claim life in him act. That way. I have no problem standing before you with full transparency and and say when I think of the people who have hurt me frustrated me disappointed me the most it's been people within the church and I'm not talking about baby Christians. I'm talking everybody from baby Christian to the most senior leadership you can ever imagine

Paul knew that within the church there was going to be a lot of Need for forgiveness or he knew the bitterness was going to run rampant while how can we do this? Because even as I say that even as my mind wanders that to some of those people they just start swelling up in your anger starts to swell up in bitterness starts to swell up and then God, where's the Justice in the situation?

I guess why Paul says just as the Lord has forgiven you. So you also are to forgive and here's what he means. They're Jesus is forgiveness him for giving us demands our forgiveness of others.

Listen to the people that have wronged you.

Could be true. Not not arguing that you could have been wrong. Maybe you know, you've been disappointed frustrated. Her could have could have been listen could have been by me. I'm not I'm not above that sadly. I wish I was Unless I pee at the end of the day if we're going to live out this these Christian lives withholding forgiveness from people because we don't think they deserve it. We need to take a look in the mirror and remember. That we don't deserve forgiveness. We deserve absolutely nothing good from God. We deserve nothing of God other than his eternal wrath. That's it. That's that's that's what we burn. That's what we deserve but God and His goodness and Christ and his righteousness in his just unbelievable forgiveness. He has forgiven us because of what Christ has done. The Forgiveness of Jesus demands just demands that we forgive others. Paul does something interesting at the end of above all I mean that's a that's a qualifier right there. I mean

all these things I just talked about. I mean everything here compassion kindness humility gentleness patience bearing for giving all of those things above all those things. Put on love. Put on love the perfect Bond of unity.

Here's what he means by that when he says that love is the perfect Bond of unity. He's seen that in light of what he's just talked about. He means that love connects. If bonds it connects and an exercise has all of the other characteristics all those other virtues. So another way to say that would be you take any one of these virtues any one of these characteristics and you remove love from them and they become distorted. They either don't happen because you're not putting on love. Or they become distorted.

1st Corinthians 13:1 Paul talks about if I have the if I speak like an angel. But I don't have love.

Like a Gong I'm like a clanging cymbal. What do you mean this? I can say things I can I can put on a really good show and if if love is not at the root of those things. then I might as well just be crashing a symbol in front of that person because they're not going to hear it because we see through that kind of stuff all of these other virtues The Compassion the kindness and humility that has the patience to Bear the forgiving all of these things have to be wrapped in love one way to illustrate this would be that all of those things are the outfit Love is the the coat. Wraps everything keeps everything together bonds that United and an exercise has those things. So I said earlier it can be easy to look at these things as a checklist like okay. These are things I I need to do and listen that there's there's a very small level of Truth in that. These are things that you that you need to be doing better understand that these virtues are so much more than a checklist of things to do or things to be we cannot look at them at the checklist. Don't look at him as a checklist. There's a couple things that that is what Paul is trying to do here. The first thing that we see here. Is it all of these thing or a call to be like Jesus? That's that's what Paul is really trying to hammer home into the gloss and this isn't just a list of like random things. This isn't just a list of good thing. This is a call to be like Jesus are not optional in the life of a disciple Okay. This is why I want to try to practice what I've been preaching. I want this this is I promise you this is rooted in love, but I'm going to tell you this if if you're looking at anything on that list and you're thinking that's not me and I don't have any desire to be any of those things or grow into any of those things. You need to check your heart because they're not optional. It's not you can just pick any one of those that you want. We're supposed to put them all on. So if you're looking for this list, you're like, you know what? I'm just I'm not a very patient person just not the way God Made Me. Is that why you made me is not the way you wired me? But I got news for you in your creation. You were created broken you were created sinful.

God requires and cause you to be wholly in that. So we got to stop hiding behind this whole that's just not the way I am. I'm just not a patient person. That's your problem. Did you should be and that's what you should be growing towards you looking at it you're like, you know, I'm not a compassionate person. I'm just not. Listen to me. These are not optional God has called us to all these notice that Paul didn't say put on any one of these that you would like. He didn't say pick one of these and put them on. He said if you really have this new life in Jesus. but the song Put it on. Here's what else it is though. Just a call to be like Jesus. Think about that is such a cool thing. I've talked about this before. This is a gospel issue. Okay, the glory of the Gospel the highest glory of the Gospel is not just forgiveness of sins and I am terrified. There's so many people that's where we've left it at is it the gospel is people are sinners and if they trust in her pet, Jesus will save them and forgive them of all their sins Amen to that that is glorious news with listen to me. That's not the gospel and its totality that's not the gospel in all its Glory. It's not that God Saves and forgive Sinners. It said he then takes that that person that brother that sister did he say to forgive and he begins to transform them into the image of Jesus and here's why So many have completely resisted that because it makes it really easy to claim forgiveness and then do whatever you want the rest of your life. And when you die you go to heaven transformation becomes an optional discipleship meeting a Life. Class A lifestyle of following Jesus becomes optional that's for the super Christian is really top shelf people. Listen to me. The greatest glory of the Gospel is not that God Saves and forgives Sinners. It's that he absolutely does that but then he takes us those wretches. And he begins to shape us and mold us to be like Jesus. Not to be like Paul. Not to be like Moses not to be like that to be like Jesus.

What we see here is something incredible Beyond a list. We see a picture of Jesus himself. Did you ever struggle just real talk give her struggle with Kind of knowing Jesus and what I mean by that is, you know, you're a Believer you love Jesus but there's times when you made me feel a little bit of a distance with Jesus and you like man if he could just like show up and I could see him and I can have a conversation with my feel like I would I would know him better. Listen. That's that's that's a more common than what you would think and guess what I think is so awesome about this text you again. This isn't just a list of things for us to do. It's a picture of Jesus himself. You want to know what Jesus looks like you want to know about the character of Jesus. He's compassionate.

kind

patient

He's bearing he indoors. If you don't think God has endured some things if you don't think God has not been long-suffering. That's one of the big push backs of atheist. And then people that that just simply don't believe is this a wolf God so good. Why is it taking so long? But why is he what is he just come back and fix this thing God's long-suffering. He's giving people the opportunity for him to call them and for them to come to him to Jesus has compassion. He's kind as he's humility. He's gentle and patient with us. He's bearing he's forgiving and his love and listen to me. He's not just these things. He is the source of these things. So if you want to know what like a perfect compassion looks like look at Jesus.

To look deeply into these virtues is to look deeply into the very person of Jesus. He is the source of you want to get to know Jesus more growing compassion If you want to get to know Jesus more.

Deeper a sweeter fellowship with him growing kindness grow in these things that we talked about this morning and listen to me. You don't want to do that.

Please check your heart. Check your heart. I'll talk about a couple takeaways as we begin to close. The first one is this that new life in Christ involves putting on a new way of life. I know that sounds kind of simple and an obvious but a new life in Christ involve putting on a new way of lightning something changes and we don't do things the same way that we did before we don't speak and think and feel the same way that we did before the 2nd takeaway. You must put off the old in order to put on the new. You've got to take off the oil to put on the new there. We are at the Wardrobe. We can't we can't grab everything. We can't put everything on at the same time. You got to take that other stuff off as comfortable as it is as comfortable as it is for you to maybe not be kind as comfortable as it is for you to maybe not be a patient person. You got to trust Jesus take that stuff off and you've got to put on the new you say will man. I really kind of like the way that old felt. 30 take away what you lay down cannot compare to what you put on. I know you may not see that right now. I know it may not feel that way. But what God asks us to lay down will never compare to what we get to pick up and I literally mean what we get to it's not a half due to what we get to put on so I know that I know that maybe not showing Compassion or kindness of humility any of these things. I know it feels really comfortable with you and I know there's this voice inside of you. This is man. I don't want to lay that down. I don't want to feel comfortable just understand even though you can't see it right now and you can't feel it right now trust that Jesus knows what he's talking about. Just trust that God knows what he's talking about when he says lay those things down and put these things on and be more like Jesus.

Put down the old put on the new. No Christ in a deeper sense. And become more like him. I asked a question of the beginning. Why do we struggle with this? Could it possibly be that you struggle to put on the new because you not receive the new life in Christ. Maybe you've done some things. You said some things that in into a lot of Christian Life people mistakenly equate to Salvation. And you said a prayer may have been baptized thinking that's what saved you listen to me. Those those things don't save it's it's only through faith in Christ. And that's us taking everything. We have inside of us and going all-in and laying down our yes, Jesus. Yes. I know. I'm a absolute wretched sinner. I know I cannot save myself. I believe that Jesus died in my place for my sins. Here's my yes laying it all down. All I can do is surrender. Would you consider that this morning? That's not taking place in your life. So taken place your heart. Would you let your yes down a crowd. Would you receive that new life in Christ that you begin to walk in the newness of life? You can experience that new life. Maybe maybe that's happened to you. Okay, but maybe that's that's happen your believer you love Jesus very much. But if you're being honest with yourself, May you haven't been putting on the new. You put it back in the closet. And maybe you've kind of forgot about it a little bit. Maybe it's gotten tucked back in the corner and what an opportunity you have this morning to first off repent. to repent

Talk to God tell him that and you are so sorry for allowing that to happen. You were such a good God for forgiving us this newness of life. And I've not been walking in at the way that I the way that I should go, but you help me or would you help me to pick up those things? Would you help me to to practice patience him to practice kindness and all of these that guy would you help me? I want to be more like you Jesus. Put down the old. put on the new know Jesus more and be more like Jesus pray father.

God I just thank you for the new life God that we have and that people can have in you God while we were lost while we were Sinners God on our worst day.