Two Journeys

In this sermon on John 1:12-13, Pastor Andy Davis preaches how adoption by God in Christ is beautifully mirrored by humans adopting other humans.

Recently, scientists have discovered a vast subterranean lake in the Antarctic at the bottom of the earth called Lake Vostok. It's near a Russian outpost called Vostok Station where, in 1983, was recorded the lowest temperature on the surface of the Earth,  -129°F. You may have thought this morning's weather was difficult; that's -129. But they discovered there, a subterranean lake below two and a half miles of ice. There is a lake down there, 500 feet deep, and they are calling it the coldest, darkest place on Earth. I can't imagine what would motivate a human being to wanna go down and explore it, but there are some getting ready for such an expedition. To go to the bottom of a subterranean lake in the Antarctic is nothing I desire, but I thought about that expression, the coldest, darkest place on earth, probably physically it’s so. But I think that satan, through the power of temptation, the power of sin, is able to bring people psychologically, mentally, emotionally to places darker and colder than that one. And it is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to bring light and life into those dark pits, amen? And to see the gospel of Jesus Christ triumph in the darkest pit of all brings Him the greatest glory of all.  

As I was thinking about Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, thinking, of course, about abortion and why we focus this time of year is because of the Roe vs. Wade decision so many years ago which led to so many deaths in our country and still legal in our country. But I was thinking also because of the example of these three families and others that I know that have given themselves to adoption, thinking about the joy of adoption and the joy that it proclaims into dark pits and to despair, a joy of hope, a joy of happiness of Jesus Christ, of the Gospel. That's what I wanna talk about today. I basically wanna take the physical adoption that has done... has been done in front of us as a witness to faith and to get us to think about our spiritual adoption, Jesus Christ, and then go back to the issue of physical adoption and show how it can shine a light in the dark place of abortion and so many others as well. 

Now, sin does cause dark places. We've already discussed one, and that is the issue of being an orphan in this world. What could be more powerless than a baby without parents? Without someone to look after him or her? I was watching recently in a Discovery Channel program about the glories of this earth, and what they talked about in a secular sense, I just quickly transform over into worship. But up near the Arctic Circle, there are these caribou that just spend their whole lives running, running and running, and running thousands of miles. And the pregnant females stop long enough to give birth and then they expect their newborns to get up and run, and they do. And immediately those new born calves are running and running with the herd, and they do so for their own protection, but not so with human babies. They come into the world completely needy and dependent, and so therefore the tragedy of being an orphan strips that helpless infant of all that it will need. And it's more than just physical provision. It’s all that the soul needs. It’s the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's love and affection and training and wisdom and all of the things that parents are meant to give by God. 

In Kenya, near Nairobi, there's a dark valley called the Mathare Valley, and there you can see in any given day, hundreds of children combing piles of stinking garbage looking for something to eat or something that has some value that they can sell, fighting to survive. We have no idea how many of them are orphans. There can be some questions asked and some statistics taken, but really worldwide statistics about how many orphans there are is unclear just because of situations just like that. UNICEF estimates as many as 210 million orphans worldwide. The United Nations puts a number somewhat lower, 143 million orphans. But you know, I heard one of the couples talking about seeing faces, you see the pictures and immediately realize these are individual human beings with needs. And so the number is overwhelming, whether it's 210 million or 143 million, absolutely overwhelming. 

Then there are specific situations, there are perhaps as many as 15 million orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa because of AIDS. So both mother and father get the infection and die and it leaves the children as orphans. And then, really, whole communities get wiped out, and so aunts and uncles are gone and grandparents, all of them are gone, and what it leaves are young teenagers in charge of a family of four or five little children. And that is such a desperate situation that sometimes those teenagers commit suicide because they cannot face the responsibilities. Just absolutely tragic. Will break your heart, those circumstances. Then there are others that are orphaned by war in Sudan and Uganda and other places. In the US itself, there approximately 118,000 orphans in orphanages just waiting for adoption; 300,000 churches there are in the US, so that'd be one orphan for every three churches. It's a dark place of being an orphan. 

Another dark place related to this is that of a crisis pregnancy. For a young woman, few things in life can be a shocking or scary as an unwanted pregnancy, and satan is especially active in that situation. In many cases, certainly creating the circumstances whereby the baby was conceived to begin with, then also working in the heart of both the father and the mother of that child to not want the child, to despise it, to turn away from responsibility. And for that woman, depression sets in, options all of them seem dark and foreboding. Questions come about the future. How could I possibly raise this child? How will I pay for everything? What about my future? All of my plans? Those kind of dark thoughts come with a crisis pregnancy, and that leads quickly in many cases, sadly to another dark place, and that is abortion. 

The wicked scourge of abortion continues in our own country. There are 46 million abortions performed worldwide, over one million of them in our own country. Ninety-five percent of abortions performed in our country are done for birth control reasons. Twenty percent of all pregnancies in the US end in abortion, one in five. And of the many things that I hate about abortion, it's the despair and hopelessness that surrounds it, the anti-God state that surrounds it, that bothers me, I think, the worst. I used to be involved in a pro-life ministry up in Boston, as we would go down to abortion clinics and try to persuade women not to get abortions, and as they were walking in, I looked at their faces and they looked like they were going to vomit, all of them. They all looked sick, they look scared, they looked like they had been wrestling all night with a brutal decision, which I think they had been, but they looked also hopeless. They look despairing. And if you ever had the opportunity to talk to any of them, for all the rhetoric of pro-choice, they almost inevitably used the expression, “no choice.” They had no choice but to do this. It was an ethic of despair, and that's a dark place. And then there's the dark place of infertility of couples that want to have a child, but they're unable for medical reasons to do so, and they struggle, then they yearn to hold the baby in their arms. And they're broken-hearted as monthly cycle passes, one after the other, and their hopes are dashed, and their hopes are dashed, and their hopes are dashed, and they might get medical tests. And then if a medical problem is found and identified in one of them then there's issues of guilt that can come up and other issues, and it puts tremendous stress on the marriage. It's a dark place. 

But frankly, none of these dark places compares with the ultimate dark place there is in this world, and that is being outside of the family of God. To not be a member of the family of God, to not have Almighty God as your own father. The darkness and terror of a life of sin, knowing that you're en route, in your heart, you know that you're en route to Judgment Day and you cannot survive it, and that nothing waits for you beyond that, but the fear and the expectation of judgment and the wrath of God which comes most certainly on any whose sins are not forgiven through faith in Christ, that is the darkest place of all. And so the Scripture speaks of that darkness again and again. John 3:19 says, “This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil.” 1 John 2:11, “Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. He does not know where he is going, because darkness has blinded him.” 

Now, I say to you, by the grace of God, adoption is God's gracious answer to each of these dark pits. Do not say it's the only answer to every one of them, but I say it is a gracious answer that God brings. What is adoption? Well, adoption is literally to take by free choice in a formal, legal action a child born of other parents and make him or her your own child. Adoption brings joy to the orphan, of course, by giving them a home and a family where before there was total loneliness. By giving them provision when before there was want. By giving them love and acceptance, when before there was rejection. By giving them security when before there was danger and instability. Adoption brings relief to women in crisis pregnancies by teaching them that it is not true that there is no choice, but abortion. But actually, they are able to entrust the care of a child to a loving godly couple that will bring them up in the training in the nurture of the Lord. And it frees the woman from considering abortion, something which sears her conscience, which breaks that natural bond of affection between a mother and child and leaves her damaged for life, brings hope to that situation. Adoption, of course, brings joy to an infertile couple by giving them the hope that they can in fact hold their own child in their arms and raise their own son and their own daughter in the fear and the nurture of the Lord.  But above all, adoption brings joy to every outcast sinner headed for hell, through faith in Jesus Christ, we can be adopted into the family of God.

Look in John 1:12-13. It says there, “But to all who received Christ, to those who believe in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.” Jesus is portrayed in John chapter 1 as “the light shining in the dark place.” Jesus is the light shining in the dark place. Look at verses 1-5, “In the beginning was the Word.” Very familiar verses. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning, through Him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.” This portrays very plainly, Jesus's unique place in the universe. Jesus is God, He is the Word of God.  

And the opening words of John's gospel clearly bring us back to the opening words of the Bible. Genesis chapter 1, when God said, "Let there be light." He spoke in the darkness and said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” By the power of God. So also here, John is saying that Jesus's life speaks into the darkness of human history, a light that cannot be extinguished. It is the light of the glory of God, and Jesus's life captures that light. But more relevant to the question of adoption is Jesus’s utterly unique position in relation to the Father. Look at verse 14. In the New American Standard, it says “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus is the only begotten son of the eternal Father. He's in a position utterly unique in relation to the Father. Whereas all of us can be adopted through faith in Jesus Christ, Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, and He is the light of the world. 

Now look again at verses four and five, and let's focus on that for a moment. It says, speaking of Jesus, “In him was life, and that life was the light of man.” Verse 5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.” The analogy of Jesus and light is used again and again in Scripture and His entry into the world as of a light shining in a dark place, again and again. I love Isaiah 9:2, which says, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned,” and that light is Jesus. Jesus said in John 8:2, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." And so, therefore, the only true pure, perfect light there is in this world for every dark pit, for the orphan, for the woman in a crisis pregnancy, for the one facing abortion, for the dark pit of abortion itself, for infertility, and for the ultimate dark pit of being outside of the family of God, Jesus is the only light there is. He is the light, to the glory of God. 

Now, this light must be revealed, spiritually revealed, to individuals or we cannot see it. We cannot see it unless it's revealed. Verse 5 says, "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it," is one translation. The darkness has not understood it. Later in this passage, John will tell us, that Jesus was in the world, verse 10, and though the world was made through Him, the world didn't know Him. It didn't recognize Him. It didn't understand who He was. Even more pointedly, the Jews didn't know who He was, though they should have. But verse 11, it says, “He came to that which was His own,” the Jews, “but His own did not receive Him,” they didn't accept Him as far as who He was. Now, other Scriptures reveal why this is. Second Corinthians 4:4 says, “The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Satan does a blinding work on our heart, so we can't see Jesus, we can't see the light. But God has the power to remove that blindness. He has the power to give us sight for our souls to see Jesus properly. 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” 

God can say, “Let there be light” in your dark heart, you can speak that light, and there is light, it's the light of Christ, and it cannot be extinguished. The light is eternally victorious. It's so easy to be depressed when you come to the issue of abortion. I say that is an ungodly state of mind. It's not mere triumphalism for me to tell you, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot extinguish it.” Verse 5 teaches it. When Jesus is light and satan is darkness meet, guess who wins? Jesus's light wins every time. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot hold it back or overcome it, this is the most gracious light. 

Now here I wanna focus on the issue of adoption because I believe it's taught in verses 12 and 13. Now I know that the word “adoption” is not mentioned here, but that's what it is. That's what it is. “To all who received Him,” namely Jesus, “to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God.” Anyone who can see in Jesus who He truly is, who can receive Him as He really is, the eternally begotten Son of God, who sees in Him deity, they are children of God. God has done a work in their hearts, a work of adoption within their hearts, He has created a light in there, and on that basis, He adopts us. It says we have the right or the power to become children of God. I love this Greek word it's eksousia, translated right, authority, power, the privilege of becoming a child of God. It's used in other places. In John 5:27, it says Jesus has the right, same Greek word, to judge because he is the Son of Man, so he's the one that's gonna sit on that great white throne and He's gonna judge all human beings, He has that right, that eksousia, He has the authority to do it. 

Pilate spoke of his own authority. He said, "Do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you realize I have the authority to crucify you, and the authority to set you free?” and the will power to do neither one? That was Pontius Pilate, but he's speaking of his authority. He had the right. We are given the right to become children of God. That's what John 1:12 speaks of. But then it clarifies very plainly, and that's why I think it's talking about adoption. It says in the ESV verse 13, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.  

Now when it says, “not of blood” there, it means it's not a genetic relationship here. Jesus in verse 14 is the monogenes, the only begotten. It's related to the word for genetic. He’s the only true in that sense, son of God, the only begotten one. The rest of us are born not of blood, but by God, adopted into his family, so I think this is speaking of adoption. Has this happened to you? Has this happened to you? Forget for a moment that this is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Forget for a moment the issue of physical adoption and whether God wants you to do that. I just wanna ask you, are you ready for judgment day? There is no other way. You can be ready for judgment day, and then to be an adopted child of the living God. You can't be ready. You can't face judgment.  

You're gonna have to give an account on Day of Judgment for every careless word you've spoken. And if you're not an adopted member of the family of God, you will be lost forever. Have you been adopted? Verse 12 tells you how to do it. Believe in His name, believe in Jesus. Believe that He is the only begotten Son of God, that the word became flesh and made his dwelling. That he is God, that He died on the cross, because he was willing to, not because he was under compulsion, but because he was willing to. He laid down his life for our sins. Shed His blood for you. Has this happened to you? Have you been adopted into the family of God? Nothing else is more important than that. Now, concerning adoption, the Bible, the New Testament in specific, has much to say. Ephesians tells us that we were predestined for it before the foundation of the world. Isn't that incredible? It says in Ephesians 1:3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ.”  

We were predestined before the creation of the world to be adopted into his own family. Oh, how sweet a truth is that? How much stability does that give you in your Christian life? That God set his love on you before the foundation of the world. He actually links predestination with adoption twice. He does the same thing in Romans 8:29, he says, “For those God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.” How do we get to be a family member with Jesus? It is by the sovereign work of God and salvation, of working that light in our heart so that we can come to believe that Jesus is the son of God, and then he adopts us, and we become like our brother Jesus. How sweet is that? Before the foundation of the world! And then we are given a love that only a father can give, and we are given a name in his family that happens in adoption, fatherly love given to the child, and a name in the family. 1 John 3:1 says, “Behold, what manner of love the Father has given us that we should be called the sons of God.”  

What a name that is. That we should be called the sons of God. Ever heard that song, “Man of sorrows, what a name, for the Son of God who came.” Well, son of God, what a name for sinners like us, that we should be called sons of the living God. How incredible is that? And what kind of love, what manner of love the Father has given to us that we should be called that? It's an incredible love that's given to us and we are given a permanent place in the family. John 8:35, Jesus said, “A slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.” Oh, what a sweet truth that is. Foster families, however much they do a good service in the life of a child, they are impermanent, and there's much change in those relationships. When it comes to adoption, that's a permanent relationship. You are taken into that family and that becomes your family. Those parents, that becomes your father, your mother. The existing children, those are your brothers and sisters, legally so.  

Russell Moore, who's a good friend of mine, he preached here this summer, he adopted two boys from Russia and was flying back with them, and a woman came and asked, "Are they brothers?" He said, “Yes, they are.” She's like, “Well I know, I know, they are brothers now, but are they brothers?” “Yes, they really are. They really are brothers.” You know what I mean? she said to him. “Yes, I know what you mean. If you're asking if they're genetically related, no, but they are brothers, really brothers.” Do you believe that's true of you, that you're really, really in the family of God? Or is it just kind of a foster relationship, where you're kind of on trial.

I mentioned before, like Anne of Green Gables, where you kind of have to earn your way into the family and then you end up messing up, dying your hair green and smashing your slate over some boy's head and all this kind of thing, and you're really behaving badly and it's not looking too good for being adopted right now. So many Christians live like they're on trial, on probation. If we're adopted in the family of God, it is a permanent place in the family, John 8:35, forever, that we will be there. And it's not based on our performance, a permanent place in the family. And we are given a gift, the indwelling Holy Spirit, called in many places, the spirit of adoption or the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of sonship. 

In Galatians 4, it says, “When the time had fully come, God sent His son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that they might receive the full rights of adoption.” Isn't that sweet? Because you are sons, not you might be sons or will be, but because you are sons through faith in Christ, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out, “Abba! Father!”, so you are no longer a slave, but a son. That means you have a permanent place in the family, and now the Spirit is inside, you're testifying to it. It is the greatest evidence an individual person can have that they are a member of the family of God, the indwelling Holy Spirit. And the Spirit is within your heart, if you're a child of God, crying out, “Daddy!” That's what “Abba” means. It's the same thing that Jesus cried in the Garden of Gethsemane. You remember, when great drops of blood were coming off of his face and he's praying about drinking the cup of God's wrath on the cross for us, for the sins of the world, and he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.” Doesn't that sound so child-like? “Daddy, you can do anything. You can do anything. If it's possible, let this cup be taken from me, yet not as I will, but as you will.” That same Spirit is in us now, the spirit of Jesus crying out, “Abba, Father!” to Almighty God. The one before whom the angels hide their face, that spirit is crying, “Abba, Father!” within us. It's the spirit of Jesus, and it's called in Ephesians 1, “the deposit guaranteeing the full inheritance.” You get the indwelling Spirit crying out, “Abba, Father!” and that means you're gonna get the full inheritance someday. Kinda like a rich person who leaves a monthly stipend for his children until they come to the age of their maturity, they're able to come into their full inheritance. But they live on the monthly checks until then, and so we live on the moment-by-moment experience of the indwelling Spirit. But that's not the full inheritance. The full inheritance is yet to come. When we see God face-to-face and God Himself will dwell with us. And we will see His face, and we will be with Him forever. But until then, we get the deposit, the indwelling Spirit, and the Spirit is at work in us, and because we're now members of the family, adopted in the family, we get to share the joys and the sorrows of that family membership. We get to be involved in the family work. I do not call it the family business to lower it, but it's the family work and the family work is the kingdom that's going around the world. We get to be involved in that and we get to share the family likeness, which is holiness, and the Holy Spirit works all of that in us. Romans chapter 8, it says, “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” 

The Spirit is not passive in us, he leads us to holiness, to put sin to death, to share the nature of our brother Jesus, that we might be conformed to his likeness, he leads us to war. As we already talked about in Colossians 3, to modify the deeds of the flesh, the Spirit leads us in that direction. “For you do not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you receive the Spirit of adoption and by Him, we cry out, ‘Abba Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children. Now, if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.”  

If you're a son of the living God, you must share in the sufferings of Jesus, and the sufferings have to do with personal battle against sin, the suffering of holiness, and then the suffering of advancing the kingdom of Jesus Christ in this world, meeting opposition. The suffering of temptation and the suffering of persecution, if we share those, then you come into the full inheritance. That's part of being a child of God. Now, of course, we're not like Jesus in many ways, He never sinned. When He met every temptation, He overcame it by the power of the holiness within Him. We struggle with the body of flesh, don't we? We struggle with sin, but I just said to you that we are permanently members of the family, isn't that wonderful? So what happens when we yield to sin, what happens when we're tempted and we give in? Well, then He treats us like a father would a sinning child, Hebrews 12. He'll discipline us. They talk about being taken out to the divine woodshed. I don't know if actually any of us have any woodsheds, but you know what I mean. And when you adopt a child into your family, you have the right to train them, not to abuse them. We're not saying that, but to train them as the Bible teaches, to bring them up in the training in the nurture of the Lord. It’s a privilege. 

And if we don't receive that treatment from the father, he's not truly our father. But He is our Father, and so, therefore, He will discipline us. It says in Hebrews 12, “My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Therefore, endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.” So what does the father do? He'll discipline you. Yeah, you might get sick, you might have some financial trial, you might have some other adverse circumstance, some hardship that comes your way, and the Spirit speaks and says, “Oh, by the way, that's linked to this sin, you might wanna stop doing that.” And that's called a spanking, it's called discipline, it's something that Heavenly Father is doing to teach you to be holy so that we may share in His holiness. It's the way he treats us, but he's not gonna evict you from the family. That’s not the way he treats his sons and daughters. 

The consummation, though, of our adoption is yet to come. The best part's yet to come, friends. Romans 8:23 speaks about that. “We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we await eagerly our adoption as sons, the resurrection of our bodies.” Isn't that amazing how Paul links adoption to resurrection? The full display of our standing in the family of God, waits for the final resurrection of the body, when our bodies are conformed to Jesus's glorious body, he's the firstborn from the dead. We will be conformed to Him in every way, and the universe will be transformed and it'll be a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. And we will live there forever and ever in resurrection bodies as sons and daughters of the living God. And therefore, it says in Revelation 21:7, “He who overcomes will inherit all these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.” 

So what application can we take from this meditation on adoption? First of all, if you're a child of God, just give thanks for these things, give thanks that he has given you the right to become a child of God, He gave you that right through faith in Christ. Give thanks that Ephesians and Romans 8 teaches that it happened before the foundation of the world, that God set his choosing love on you and predestined you to be adopted. Give thanks for it. Thank him for the fact that when you believed, he put his adoptive love in you and his spirit within you, crying out, “Abba Father!” Give thanks for that, that the Spirit then leads you in a path of holiness, and that if at any moment you step off, he will discipline you and train you, but he will never forsake you. He will never leave you. He will guide you through this sinful world, and in the end, He will give you your full adoption, your full inheritance, you're an heir of the living God and he will give you a portion and inheritance in the new heaven and the new earth, and he will give you a resurrection body. All those things ought to make you happy, those things ought to bring you great joy, you ought to spend eternity thanking God for it, and you will. So just start there, thank God for all these things. 

But when it comes to physical adoption, I would urge you to consider the richness of our Christian heritage. Early on during the Roman Empire, when Roman fathers were throwing out babies because they had the legal right to do so, and they would just expose them and leave them to the elements or to wild animals or birds. It was Christians that went around along the banks of the Tiber, around the bridges and pick up those babies and raised them up as their own. And Christians came from that. Those little babies were raised up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, that's our heritage. William Carey opposed the throwing of infants into the Ganges River to worship Hindu gods. He stood against it. Over a century later, Amy Carmichael did the same thing for young Indian girls that were trapped in prostitution and ran away. She adopted them and took care of them. George Müller, 10,000 orphans, cared for them. He looked after the orphans and widows, and so also, we can do the same. 

I think we have to do more in the issue of abortion, not just on the legislative side, but bringing light into the dark place of desperation. You have a bulletin insert there for Pregnancy Support Services. There are other crisis pregnancy centers around that need our work. They need our finances. They need our support. You can give counsel to a young woman who says, “I have no choice,” and you can say, “There are choices, the choice of life,” and you can speak the word of adoption at that particular moment. We can support the families, these three and others that have set themselves apart to adopt, support them financially, help them financially, if there are needs.  

Paul and Miranda are leaving and you have five days to fill those boxes down there with specific things, find out. It's gonna take some research to find out what they want. Don't bring a big yellow and red and blue plastic toy. I don't think that's what they're looking for right now, but there are a list of things they are. You've got five days and let's find out what they're asking to bring to the orphanages. You can directly look after orphans and widows in their distress. Find out what they need and fill those boxes sometime this week, so that's something that you can do. Concerning actually adopting, that you would yourself adopt a child? We're reading in our family devotion this morning, the story about Elijah, and he was out there in the desert and he was drinking water by the brook, and then suddenly the brook dried up, and God spoke to Elijah and he said, “Go to Zarephath. There's a widow there that I have commanded to take care of you.” That's a fascinating statement. “I commanded her to take care of you,” so he goes. The thing is, the widow didn't seem to know about it. She really wasn't aware of it, and he said, “Bring me some water,” so she goes to get a little water and "If you wouldn't mind making a little cake for me because I'm kind of hungry." She's like, "Are you kidding me? All we have left is a little flour and a little oil, and I'm gonna make that cake for my son and I. We're each gonna eat half of it and then we're gonna die. That's our plan for the future." 

All right, but think again, what God had said, “Go to the widow at Zarepheth, for I have commanded her to take care of you.” Then Elijah said, “Please go and make me a cake, for thus says the Lord,” and he spoke a promise to her. She believed the promise and then obeyed the command God said he'd given for her life. Now that's kind of strange, isn't it, how God acts in our lives? Could it be that God has commanded some of you to take care of some orphans more directly than you ever have before? You just didn't know it yet?  

I love what Brad Estes said, “Maybe it's a green light until God puts up the red light.” The same thing goes with the cross-cultural missions and other things. Sometimes we're waiting for the fleece and God's saying, what more do you need than the command from Scripture? So maybe God is commanding you in the same way to look after orphan and orphan, and then you step out and you suddenly find that that jar of flour and oil never runs out, that he keeps replenishing it day by day and you see God work in ways you can't even imagine.  

I promised also myself, I would never preach on abortion without finishing with the word of grace to those who have sinned in this issue in the past. It is such a desperate feeling, and that I would think includes all of us, depending on what you're talking about. Do you ever feel like you haven't done enough in pro-life? You haven't done anything, maybe, never spoken up a courageous word, never got involved in any way, then come to the cross for forgiveness. And remember what it says in Colossians 2:11, “He forgave us all our sins.” And if you're a woman who has made that choice to get an abortion, we don't suddenly say, “Because of the magnitude of your pain and your sadness, it's not sin.” It is, but sin is dealt with fully at the cross. There's full forgiveness at the cross. Come to Jesus and find that forgiveness there. Close with me in prayer.

So we come in Colossians to Colossians 3:18-19, Paul's discussion, brief here in Colossians, on marriage, more extended in Ephesians. But I was meditating all week on marriage. I had actually been meditating on marriage a lot since May 14th, 1988, and I continue to meditate on marriage, continue to try to “work out my salvation with fear and trembling,” and to continue to grow as a husband. But I've been thinking much about marriage this week, in preparation for this sermon, and thinking what a magnificent thing must marriage be, and that, in some ways, it is both the Alpha and the Omega of human history. It was the first human institution established in the garden, before any parent-child relationship, before a friend to friend, before a brother to sister, brother to brother, sister to sister, before citizen to government, before even church member to church. There was a marriage at the very, very beginning, a man and a woman together as husband and wife. And what a magnificent thing must marriage be, in that it is said to be, in some mysterious sense, the consummation of all human history as well. When Christ, at last, will be perfectly, mysteriously united to His bride, the Church, described in Revelation 21-22, the perfect union of God and man, a picture of Christ and His bride united, and into a marriage that will last for all eternity. The true nature of which we can only speculate about, we can only wonder about, but we know that oneness will be at the center of it. And so, what a magnificent thing is marriage, and therefore, what a target it must be for Satan, and has been from the beginning.

In between that Alpha and the Omega are all kinds of other letters in the alphabet of human history, and many of them have been letters of woe, and distress, and difficulty. And just because we think, as modern people, we are going through things that no one has gone through before, we should realize that when it comes to marriage, every generation has struggled. Every single one has fought and struggled to understand marriage, and to do it, especially in our sinful context, to do it to the glory of God. But I would say this, that no generation in history has had such confusion about what marriage really is as our present generation. I will not defile this pulpit by describing the varying and ever expanding definitions of marriage that are floating through our culture today. It's really quite shocking. I, myself, shocked by it.

And so, I thought, as we Christians try to face our post-modern culture, and try to explain what marriage is, we cannot do it apart from the Bible. I defy you to try to do it in any way that it will last, apart from the Scripture. We must say, from the Bible, what marriage is, what it's meant to be, and from no other place. But that's too “out there”, that's too “apologetics”, and too “defense-oriented”. Right here in our midst, we need to go back to the Bible ourselves, don't we? And find out what marriage is all about, not just so we can defend it in an ever confused surrounding pagan culture, not just for that reason, but so that we can glorify God in our own marriages, so that our children can glorify God in their marriages, for generations to come, so that God may be honored.

And so, I think we have to go back to the Scriptures, and as I was thinking about that, I was brought to a passage in which Jesus is dealing with the question of divorce, and divorces plagued marriage all along, since sin entered the world. But Jesus crossed into the region of Herod, and His enemies, the Pharisees, came trying to get Him in trouble, as I read between the lines. They figured it worked for John the Baptist, getting him killed. He was beheaded because of this, because Herod had taken his brother's wife. "Maybe we can trap Jesus on this question of divorce and remarriage." And so, they came to Him, and said, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" Jesus wasn't afraid to tell the truth. He wasn't afraid He was going to be beheaded by Herod. He knew very well how He was going to die and He was never afraid to tell the truth.

And so, He answers this query. He says, "Haven't you read, that at the beginning, the Creator made them male and female?" And said, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate." Now, there's a lot of things fascinating in Jesus' answer, but for me, just as a preacher this morning and as a man involved in a marriage, Jesus' methodology is the key for me. He says, "Haven't you read, that at the beginning," in effect, if I were to go to Jesus today and I would say, "Lord, please teach me what it means to be a godly husband. Please show me what marriage really is, what it's meant to be. What am I to be? What am I to do?" And if any one of you, sisters in Christ, were to go to Him, and ask Him, "How can I be a godly wife? What is marriage? What am I to be? What am I to do?" He's going to say the same thing to you, that He said to His enemies, "Haven't you read, that at the beginning,". He's going to bring you back to Genesis, to where it was all established.

God’s Original Purpose for Marriage: His Glory

I would like to actually ask you to turn to Genesis 1, to get the context for Paul's brief statements on marriage here in Colossians 3, and here, we are going to learn some basic things about marriage. These are the kinds of things you would go through, if you went to a marriage seminar, but I am thinking, "We can do it right here in the local church, why not?" Let's go back to the beginning and find out what marriage was meant to be. And in Genesis 1:27-28, to begin, to find out God's original purpose for the marriage. What was His purpose? And it says, "God created man in His own image. In the image of God, male and female, He created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the Earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves on the ground.' " Therefore, what was God's purpose in establishing marriage at the very beginning? I say it was for the propagation of His own image. I would say it's for the spread and display of His own glory. God does all things for His own glory, and He had made a beautiful world filled richly with all of His creative glory, displaying His powers in visible attributes throughout the created realm.

But then He creates a special creation, man in His image, male and female, created in His image, and they were to fill the globe with His image. Therefore, God created marriage for the display of His own glory. But more than that, God's intention was to fill the world, not only with His own glory, but with the knowledge of His glory. In Habakkuk 2:14, the verse that's over that beautiful map right out here, Habakkuk 2:14 says, "For the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." So God didn't only just weave His glory throughout the physical creation, He wanted human beings there to know about it, that we would see His glory and think about Him, the Creator. And that we would give Him the honor, and the praise, and the glory that's due Him for all that He's made. "When I consider the Heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have made." We are going to consider the physical creation and give God the glory. That is why He made marriage. The human race, created in His image, we are to populate the planet, fill the Earth, and subdue it. From marriage, would come the children, who would grow up and do that weighty task of feeling the weight of the glory of God, and creation, and give Him the praise, and the glory, and honor. God ordained it from marriage.

Secondly, we had Adam alone. God established order in marriage. In Genesis 2, we get more detail about the male-female relationship, how they would fill the Earth, how they would subdue it and rule over it. They're not contradictory. It's just more detail, just like you get a big map of a state, let's say, and then a blow-up of a city like Raleigh, or Durham, or Charlotte, a blow-up. You get more detail here in Genesis 2, not contradictory. And so Genesis 2 gives us the detail, that there was a time that Adam was alone, that “God created Adam out of the dust of the Earth, and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living being.” And he was alone, he's the only human being there was. We know that, because later in the chapter, it says, "It is not good for the man to be alone." There was a time that Adam was alone, so God set up an order, and from this, comes the headship that Paul talks about in Ephesians 5, the leadership of Adam over the whole human race, that he talks about in Romans 5, it's that Adam came first, he was alone. He took a primacy in the order of the human race and within the marriage, as well, both.

He is our representative at the garden. He is also the head in the marriage and that's established by the fact that he was created first, there was a time that he was alone. But it's also clear that that could not continue, that God, in His wisdom, was not going to keep creating people out of the dust of the Earth, though He could do it. It was not His plan to do that, to just keep popping up sons of Abraham out of the stones. He could do it, but instead, He had ordained marriage. And so, He said, "It is not good for the man to be alone." But before He creates a wife, He establishes Adam's purpose. Now, one of the most important verses in the whole Bible, I tell you this, I think about this verse, literally, everyday. Any of you who have gone through premarital counseling with me, you've learned about this verse, and it's in chapter 2 verse 15. Now, you may say, "There's nothing in that verse about marriage," and directly, in some sense, there is not. But coupled with the understanding, and the insights that Ephesians 5 have given me, about what I'm supposed to be as a husband and a father, I learn more about Genesis 2:15. Now, what does Genesis 2:15 say? Well, in the NIV, it says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden, to work it and take care of it." Now, you may say, "That has nothing to do with marriage." And I say to you, "You're right, in one sense, directly." But the simple understanding of the verse, is that the Garden of Eden needed Adam's ministrations, needed something from Adam, that the garden was created, in some sense, needy, dependent on Adam and his work.

But the Hebrew verbs are what are compelling for me here. It says in the NIV, "To work it and take care of it." The first Hebrew word, 'work,' is usually translated 'serve.' It's used, again and again, in Genesis, either in its noun or its verb form, for 'serve like a servant,' even a slave. In effect, it means to put your own service, your own labor, at the disposal of another, not that they would rule, but that they would receive benefit. Now, don't misunderstand. It is possible to be a king while serving those that you rule over. Jesus proved that when He washed His disciples’ feet. He said, "You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am, but I have served you, I have washed your feet." And so there's nothing strange about the fact that Adam's called to serve the ground, that he's called to minister to it. Now, in what sense does he serve the ground? Well, we learned from the first few verses of Chapter 2:4-5, that God created a certain species of plants, that had not yet grown up on the ground, because there was no man to work it. In other words, He created certain seeds that needed human cultivation. He had to have a farmer. For example, corn is never found in the wild, you will never find it in the wild, it's a cultivated crop, and there are many other such cultivated crops.

Now, the genetic order for these things, the seeds, have been made back in Genesis 1:11-12, "Then God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants and trees in the land, that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.' And it was so." So here are these seeds, let's say, the seed of corn, to the genetic pattern, have been made by the only who could make it, God. God created it that way, but it needed a man to serve it, to enable that seed to reach its full potential. A full harvest to the glory of God.

Now, what in the world does that have to do with marriage? Well, I think it has everything to do with marriage. A husband is, in the same way, to serve his wife, and enable her to reach her full potential in Christ. This is the kind of language used in Ephesians 5, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself up for her, to make her holy. Cleansing her by the washing, with water through the Word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church without stain, or wrinkle, or any other such blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies." Paul says in Corinthians, about his preaching ministry, 1 Corinthians 11:8-9, he says, speaking of that Corinthian church and his ministry to them in the Word, he said, "I promised you to another husband, to present you as a holy virgin to Him." In effect, every husband, every Christian husband, ought to see his role as getting his wife ready for her true wedding day, the day in which she will be perfectly united with Christ. And that's going to take prayer, it's going to take the ministry of the Word, it's going to take all kinds of servant ministries, like Christ does to the church. To serve, therefore.

What about the second verb in Genesis 2:15? It says, "To take care of the garden." Again, I think a better translation could come from knowing how this word is used in the rest of the Bible. It usually means to guard or protect from danger or harm, to protect. For example, in Psalm 121: 4, and 7-8, it says, "The Lord will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord will keep you," same Hebrew word, "The Lord will keep you from all harm. He will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forever." You get the sense of a guardian standing on the wall, protecting a sleeping city from an encroaching army that could come. He's watching. He's keeping watch over that city, protecting it from an army. Adam was to have been that for the Garden of Eden. He was to stand guard and protect it from encroaching evil. Now, you might say, "What evil? What evil could come? God said everything was good." Well, I think by now, Satan has fallen, his demons have fallen into rebellion. They have been cast to the Earth, and very soon, they're coming. He's coming. Satan is coming, the very next chapter.

And what then was Adam's role? It was to protect the Garden of Eden from the encroaching damage that would come. And how much damage has come? Well, let's just speak about nature, "Nature has been subjected into futility. It's in a cycle of decay and wretchedness, until at last, brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." Romans 8, "The garden was destroyed, because of Adam's sin." But again, you might say, "What does this have to do with marriage?" Well, could it be that God really cares more about the garden, than He cares about Adam's wife? Impossible. And so, he was to have protected his wife, as well. And therefore, I tell you, that I believe the first sin was not Eve eating from the fruit, oh, no. The first sin was not a sin of commission, something that was done. I believe the first sin was something that was not done. He did not do this. He did not protect the garden. He did not protect his wife. Adam stood by, while the serpent messed with his wife, and said nothing. He failed to protect.

Today, you have husbands fitting into two different patterns, simple patterns, generally: The tyrant, dictator type, the abuser type, beat up on his wife physically, emotionally, verbally. We can get that, but more frequent, especially in the churches, "The passive male syndrome," some have called it. The man just stands back, and fails to do all that God wants him to do, or specifically, in the area of Genesis 2:15, he fails to serve her, and he fails to protect her. And the same thing with his children, he fails to serve them, and protect them. He's just passive. He's just like a cork bobbing along on the river and he doesn't do much. He's just passive. That is sin, brothers and sisters. It is sin and I believe it's the first sin, "She gave some of the fruit to her husband, who was with her." Why did Moses tell us that? Why did God say, "He was with her?" 'Cause he wasn't doing anything. He was just there saying nothing. He should have. And so, from Genesis 2:15, I get an idea of what I'm supposed to be, as a husband, a father. I never forget it. From the first day that God showed me that, in doing this Word study, from then on, I say, "My job, every day, as a husband and a father, is to serve and protect my wife and my children, every day."

Adam Alone: The Headship of Adam

But what's the wife to be? Well, that's also in Genesis 2. In Genesis 2:18, I already alluded to it, God said, "It's not good for the man to be alone. I'll make a helper suitable for him." Now, realize Adam's aloneness is more alone than any bachelor has ever been since then, okay? He was alone. He was alone, just like Noah's family was alone when they stepped off the Ark. They were alone. I mean, he was alone. There was no other human being on the face of the Earth. Therefore, it's fine to be single. Some people are called to be single. We are not alone like Adam was alone. I'm not saying it's wrong to quote this at weddings. It's good to quote it, I think. We need to go back to the beginning. But Jesus never had an earthly wife, and many others, godly men and women, will never find an earthly spouse. It's given them to be single and to serve the Lord.

But Adam was alone, alone, completely alone. And therefore, he could not, by himself, fill the Earth, and subdue it, and rule over it. Impossible, he had to have a wife. And so, God says, "I will make a helper suitable for him." The KJV says, famously, "A 'help-meet' for him." Many of us don't know what the 'meet' means there, but it just means suitable or a portion for him, proportional to him. That's what the word means: A helper, someone who's come alongside to help. This is in no way demeaning the help given, because the Lord is said to be the helper of Israel. There's nothing wrong with helping, helping is a good thing, any more than there's something wrong with serving. But she was brought in to help him fulfill his functions on the Earth, "And therefore, God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and made from his rib a woman, his wife, his partner, his helper suitable for him." And thus, a wife finds a role in helping her husband fulfill God's call in his life. First Corinthians 11:8-9, says, "For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." There was a purpose to her, and her purpose was to be, for him, a helper, suitable. In other words, the headship of the husband and the submission of the wife find their roots in the way it was from the beginning. That's why God's given us this account, so we can go back to the beginning, as Jesus would have us do, and read there how we are to be.

Finally, we get the summary statement, the beautiful summary statement of what a marriage is, in Genesis 2:24, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This statement is given four times in the Bible: Once, before sin entered the world, here in Genesis 2, and then three times in the New Testament, after sin entered the world. This is, therefore, a lasting blueprint for marriage, the idea of the two becoming one flesh. Obviously, they become one flesh in the marital union, the sexual union that produces children, that will enable Adam to fulfill his role, to fill the Earth and subdue it, definitely. But I think we sense that the oneness is deeper than that, ultimately, deeper than that. And as Paul says in Ephesians 5, "A profound mystery," talking about Christ and the church, The unity between Christ and the church.

That's a general survey of Genesis 1 and 2. Go back there in your Bibles, if you would, Colossians 3. We come in context. Verses 18-19 are given at the end of 17 verses of instruction about daily Christian living. There's a context here. And frankly, I think we ought to see it in context, "If a husband will set his heart on things above, not on earthly things, if he will put sin to death by the power of the Spirit every day, mortify the deeds of the flesh, if he will clothe himself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, and if he will let the peace of Christ rule in his heart, if he will let the Word of Christ dwell richly in his heart, if he will sing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, and if he will be filled with gratitude to Christ, and if whatever he does, whether in word or deed, he does it all to the glory of God in the name of Christ, then he will be able to love his wife," as Paul commands and as Christ intends here.

"And the wife, if she will set her heart on things above, and if she will put sin to death by the power of the Spirit, and if she will clothe herself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, and if she will let the peace of Christ rule in her heart, and if she will let the Word of Christ dwell richly in her heart, and if she will be filled with psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, and if she will be filled with gratitude, and if whatever she does every day, she does it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through Him, then she will be able, gladly, to submit to her husband." If there's a flow, a context here in Colossians, not just Genesis, of what marriage generally was supposed to be, but specifically now, what marriage is supposed to be in the Lord, in the Lord. And the implication I get, is that Christians should have better marriages than non-Christians. They should have better marriages than non-Christians. Does not that stand to reason? That we are more able to overcome the ravages of sin, we are more able to overcome selfishness and conflicts, we are more able to be truly one, because we have the Spirit in our lives. And so, therefore, we are talking in the Lord. There's a new relationship here with God, and therefore, with each other. Vertically with God, horizontally with each other, marriage in the Lord.

It reminds me of the new command that Jesus gave us the night before He died, "A new command, I give you: Love one another." And you think, "Wait a minute, is that a new command? I thought that was the summary of the Old Testament. Remember, 'Love God and love your neighbors?' Is love a new command?" Well, listen to what He says though, "A new command, I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." Now, that is new. Jesus, the Son of God, entered the world, and He gave us a whole new pattern of love, right up to the cross, to His death on the cross. And He gave us a whole new power for love, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into our newly made hearts. And He gave us a whole new purpose of love, to build His Kingdom, to the glory of God, for all eternity. Love has been made new by Jesus, so also has marriage been made new. There's a whole new pattern here.

Now, we're going to talk, in a moment, about the submission of the wife to the husband, but I say that both of these commands are done in the context of submission, the greater submission of the believer to Christ. Both husband and wife must submit to the lordship of King Jesus, in order to fulfill these commands. We need to not look at the Apostle Paul and say, "He was a chauvinist," or, "He was a Jew bound by a time when... " Look beyond Paul and say, "Jesus is telling me to do something here. Jesus is commanding me." A wife would say, "Jesus is commanding me to submit to my husband." "Jesus is commanding me to love my wife and not be harsh with her." To look beyond, and therefore, the key issue is submission to Christ and to His Word.

“In the Lord”: A New Realm for Order and Blessing

Let's look, specifically, at Verse 18, his command to the wife, "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord." The basic command here is, "Submit." The Greek word is 'hupotasso.' I usually don't pronounce Greek words here, but it's important, because the word has undergone some interesting interpretations in work, recently. I think the best commentary on Colossians 3:18 has got to be Ephesians 5. I'm always asked, "What's a good commentary on Colossians?" I think Ephesians Five is a very good commentary on this. So we just go over to Ephesians 5. You don't have to turn there, but just listen, they're familiar verses, "Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything." An analogy is set up: As the husband is to the wife, so Christ is to the church, or really vice versa, as Christ is to the church, so the husband is to the wife. That gives us some understanding of what the word 'submit' may mean. We'll get back to it in a moment.

But the reason given here is so beautiful, because it's fitting in the Lord, "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord." In other words, "It's appropriate." It's appropriate for a woman who professes to be a follower of Christ, to submit to her own husband. Titus 2 says, "It's in accord with sound doctrine." This is consistent with sound doctrine. Titus 2:1, "The elder must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine." And then in 2:5, he says, "The older women should teach the younger women to submit to their own husbands, so that no one will malign the Word of God," so it's consistent with right doctrine.

Recently, I was reading a book on manners, that my wife had bought. I'm not sure why she bought it. She didn't say, "Here, you need to read this." It wasn't like that. It was just sitting on a shelf, and I was just interested in finding about different manners, like if you meet the Queen of England, or if you get invited to a presidential banquet, or anything like that. I don't know that any of that's going to happen, but I think I could always use to improve my manners. I started thinking about this whole idea of something that is fitting. It means it's consistent with good manners, it fits the occasion, it fits what is right or appropriate. Now, America, more than any culture I've ever seen, is a very informal culture, very informal. I lived in Japan for two years, that's a very formal culture. Americans actually pride themselves on informality, but we still have formal moments. A wedding, for example, is a formal moment. I have presided over lots of weddings in this church and it's been a delight to see it, but I started thinking about what was fitting and what was not. Imagine, if you had the groomsmen coming down, wrestling, and fighting, and racing for who gets the best spot here.

Instead of standing on the pieces of tape that were lined up for them at the rehearsal dinner the night before, instead they are fighting, and the biggest guy gets up here. Now, probably, his tux is torn at this point, but he has got the best spot. And then, imagine, even worse, the bridesmaids doing the same thing. How unseemly would that be? It is just not fitting. It is not appropriate. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but imagine, if at a key moment in the ceremony, some Christian man or woman just wants to bless the couple, and stands up, and says, "Can I say something? Just a minute, would it be alright?" "No," but nobody wants to say that. "I would like to just pray a blessing on this couple. Can I do that?" "No! Sit down." "There will be time for that, but it's not now. It's not fitting. It's not in accord with decorum here. There is an order to things and that order's beautiful. Why would you disrupt it?" Or suppose at the wedding banquet later on, you stirred your coffee with your finger, Or you reached across the table and grabbed some stranger's dessert, because it looked better than the one that was assigned to you. That would not be fitting. It would be out of order. Now, these things are light-hearted, but it is out of order for a woman not to submit to her husband. There's a beautiful order that God has set up. It's an order that is attractive, and sweet, and produces good fruit.

Universal Submission… of Christians to the Lord

Now, a concept has come along recently, 'mutual submission.' I've read about this, interesting. Some people say, "It's right in the Bible. It's in Ephesians 5:21, 'Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.' Well, there it is." Well, the problem is, people don't read it in context and they don't understand what the word means. People who teach that there are no gender-based roles in marriage, or in the church, or whatever, point to this verse as a key verse, and they say it teaches what they call 'mutual submission.' But they have to redefine the word 'hupotasso,' that Greek word, redefine it to mean act in love toward one another. Now, should Christians act in love toward one another? Absolutely. Should Christians serve one another? Absolutely. Should all Christians submit to one another? No, it doesn't make any sense. It's not what the word means.

This is how the word is used in the New Testament; these are all the categories of uses: Jesus was subject to the authority of His parents. Demons were subject to the authority of the disciples. Citizens were subject to the authority of the government. The universe was subject to the authority of Christ. Unseen spiritual powers also subject to the authority of Christ. Christ is subject to the authority of His Heavenly Father. Church members are to be subject to the authority of church leaders. Wives are to be subject to their husbands. The church is to be subject to Christ, servants subject to their masters, children subject to their parents, Christians subject to God. Now, the key thing is those relationships are never reversed, never. There's not a single example of disciples subjected to the authority of demons, not a single example of governments subject to the authority of citizens. They are never reversed. That's because that's not what the word means. It means to accept an order that God set up, God-ordained order. 

The Basic Command: Submit

Now, people who struggle with this, I think struggle, because they don't understand how it's to be lived out, and it's been lived out poorly. Let's talk about what submission does not mean and what it does mean. First of all, it does not, in any way, mean that women are inferior to men. The proof of that, to me, and the strongest, is in Luke 2:51. There it says that, "Jesus was subject to His own parents when He was a boy." Why was He subject to His parents? Because that's the will of God. It's got to do with the Ten Commandments. Children are to honor their parents, their father and mother, and Jesus did that. Therefore, when it comes to marriage, it does not mean, in any way, shape, or form, that husbands are wiser, or better leaders, or more articulate, or better in a crisis, or any other reason that you can give. It's just because that's the order that God set up. Secondly, it does not mean, in any way, that God loves men more than women, any more then it means that He loved Joseph and Mary more than He loved Jesus. That does not follow. And it does not mean that a husband's authority is greater than the Lord's, because it says, "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord," implying that there are some things that would not be fitting in the Lord.

For example, a non-Christian husband might command his Christian wife to not go to church, or to follow Jesus, and she can't follow that, because all authority derives from the throne above, from Christ's throne. And therefore, His authority is over all. It certainly does not mean that men can dominate their wives in tyrannical ways. Absolutely not. And it does not mean that a wife does not have a significant role to play in her husband's decisions, and in the running of the home. A godly husband will actually seek advice from his godly wife first, above any other human source. It says in Proverbs 31:11, "The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain." He trusts in her. He wants good advice. She knows him better than anyone else. She's got a pure motive, namely, to see him succeed in his life calling. He's going to go to her, again and again.

What Submission is Not and What It Is

What is it? What does submission mean? Well, Wayne Mack, in his book, "Strengthening Your Marriage," gives some good insights and guidelines here, I think. Scripture indicates that it is the wife's responsibility to make herself submissive to her husband. It is not the husband's job, however he could do this, I don't know, to compel her to be submissive to him. It's her job to obey this. Scripture also indicates that the wife's submission is to be continuous, a pattern of lifestyle, not an occasional foray into submission. It's, "Wives are to submit in everything," Ephesians 5:24. Wifely submission is mandatory, not optional. As I said, it just has to do with the relationship between you and Christ. You have to believe, is Christ commanding me to do this? Is this a command from Christ? Therefore, her submission is really not based, at any given moment, on the way her husband is treating her. Some will say, "Well, if the husband loves her, as Christ loves the church, then she will have an easier time of submitting." Absolutely true, but she's no less required to do it, if he's not. It's really between her and Christ. She's submitting to the position that's set up.

And it is not conditioned by her husband's abilities, talents, wisdom, education, or spiritual state, even. It's got to do with the role that they took on as husband and wife. "Wifely submission is a spiritual state. It's to be done in the Lord, performed only by the power of the Holy Spirit," just like the husband's love for his wife can only be done, really, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Submission is positive and not a negative concept. Imagine that Satan wants to sell you a bill of goods on this one. But the fact of the matter is, it is positive. Bill Gothard gives this definition, "Submission is the freedom to be creative under divinely appointed authority." "The freedom to be creative under divinely appointed authority." Therefore, the wife puts all of her considerable talents, wisdom, abilities, gifts, and resources, and energy at the husband's disposal. She then, as a team with her husband, are working together, but, he, the leader of the team, as the Lord leads him, she follows his leadership, and that's how it works.

She has ideas, she has opinions, she has requests, desires, and insights, and she lovingly makes them known. She's not an individual going her own separate way, making her own way in the world, but she's a team member with her husband, and he, the leader. Submission also involves the wife's attitudes, as well as her actions. She should be cheerful in her role, not grudging, just as Jesus was cheerfully submitting to His Father's commands. He said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and finish His work." You need to drink in the concept that Jesus' commands are not burdensome, but rather a delight. Proverbs 31:13 says that, "She does her work with delight, as a delight in this." Ephesians 5:33, also speaking to the heart, says that, "She must see to it that she respects her husband." I think, at the end, there's a summary in Ephesians 5 that is so appropriate, "The wife must see to it that she respects her husband and the husband must love his wife."

Practical Advice for Wives

I think each of those commands are given appropriately. Women, generally, wives, generally, tend to be more sacrificial in giving, cheerfully giving to their husbands, than the husband is toward the wife, and that's the essence of love, isn't it? The husband needs to be commanded to love his wife. What a man tends to do, is once he has married a woman, he tends to cease courting her, to cease romancing her, and to cease loving her in some ways. But for the woman, the real struggle is to respect her husband. She sees his flaws, she sees him lead in ways that she would not follow. If she could do it, she would do it better, etcetera. It's a real struggle for her, therefore, to continue to honor and respect her husband. This is not to be done in fear. It is not to be done thinking, "The family will fall apart, if I don't hold on with white knuckles to this thing." It may need to fall apart for a little while, 'til the husband steps up and says, "That's my responsibility. I need to do this."

And it is not to be done in manipulation. My wife and I saw this movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," interesting, and I think the father was leading, perhaps, even maybe, in some ways, dominating. I don't know if it was a Christian home, maybe it was. I don't know, that wasn't the point of the movie, but she needed to ask her father's permission for something, I think, to marry this man, and she goes to her mother, and the mother says, "Yes, he's the head, but I am the neck." "And I can turn the head any way I choose." Well, does a woman have that talent? Oh, yes, and more and more, as time goes on. I bet you think I'm saying this, 'cause Christie's not here today. Actually, Daphne's sick., but she said she would get the tape and listen to it, so I need to be careful what I say.

Let's be praying for Daphne. She's got a fever, have had for four or five days now, but at any rate, yeah, that's manipulation. She knows what levers to flip, what ways to manipulate. She knows what strengths and weaknesses, how he is like after a good meal, and how he's like before the good meal, etcetera. She knows the timing. Look, all that knowledge is a gift of God. Use it as God would have you, not for manipulation. A wife then looks at this and says, "Lord, search me, and know me, and see if there's anything offensive in me. Have I come up short in any way?"

The Basic Command: Love

What about the husband? Well, it says, "Husbands, love your wives and don't be harsh with them." Again, the statement, very brief. Much more extensive statement in Ephesians, but I'm not preaching through Ephesians right now, just let me give you a brief summary, "The husband is to love his wife, as Christ loves the church," that's what Ephesians 5 says. And the principle is one of self-sacrifice, He laid down His life for the church. The practicalities of this are more than I can count. It literally is, every day, you wake up and say, "What can I do to bless my wife? How can I serve her? How can I help her make progress in her pilgrimage toward Christ-like maturity? What can I do for her? How can I pray? How can I teach? How can I lead? How can I serve? How can I be like Jesus for my wife?" It's as simple as coming home when you're tired, and not pursuing your own agenda, but rather saying, "What can I do to serve my wife? What can I do here to be a blessing to her?"

Delight in Sacrifice

But love goes beyond merely sacrifice, it must be cheerful sacrifice. No wife wants to be served by a sacrificial husband, who's gritting his teeth while doing it, miserable. That's no love at all. There needs to be joy in the relationship, there needs to be cherishing in the relationship, there needs to be delight in it. The wife has a precious gift from the Lord. And this love, this special precious love, must be expressed in words and affection that are unique to the relationship. Song of Solomon gives you some insights into this. Listen to this, Song of Solomon 4:1, "How beautiful you are, my darling, oh, how beautiful. Your eyes behind your veil are doves, your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead," try that one, husbands.

Go ahead and try it. I think you may actually get in trouble. Say, "My intention was pure." "You are saying my hair looks like goat hair?" Then, "That's not what I'm saying, it's just... Never mind." But what's the point? The point is you're speaking words to a wife, that only a husband can speak. If any other man were to speak like that to your wife, it would be inappropriate, to say the least, but for you not to say them is inappropriate, it is sinful. Why then do husbands stop courting their wives? Why do they stop loving them? Why do they stop expressing how beautiful they are? Do you know the word 'beautiful' appears 14 times in the book, Song of Solomon? There's no other book in the Bible, in which that word appears so frequently, and every time, it's applied to the wife, every time, most of the time spoken by the husband.

There is a unique love that a husband has for his wife. It's so clear, that an outside observer can tell right away. Remember when Isaac went to the land of the Philistines and said just what his father said, "She's my sister?" Well, in, all of a sudden, Genesis 26:8-9, "Abimelech the king looks down and sees Isaac caressing Rebekah," that's what it says, and he's like, "Okay, something's up here. She is most definitely your wife." Why? Because he was touching her in a way that was only appropriate for a husband with his wife.

And so, therefore, the love between the wife is precious, it's sacred, husband and wife, precious and sacred. It involves physical touch, it involves marital relations, what we call sex, sexual intercourse, it involves all of these things as holy, and beautiful, and good, within the context of marriage. And there is a delight in that relationship, that's what it means, "Husbands, love your wives." Now, negatively, it says, "Don't be harsh with them." The word means bitter; it's used of wormwood in the Book of Revelation, that comes, and poisons a third of the waters, and turns them bitter. And so, also, a marriage can be poisoned by bitterness, and I think there's two aspects to it: There's a heart attitude, and then there's a behavioral aspect. The heart attitude is one of unforgiveness. The wife has disrespected the husband, maybe withheld marital relations at some point, maybe said something that was unkind or cutting, maybe didn't support him in a decision he made, so he becomes bitter toward her. He doesn't forgive her, he doesn't love her the way he should.

Do Not Be Harsh

What ends up happening next then, is he begins to be harsh with her in behavior. He speaks harshly to her, he treats her harshly. It doesn't even have to be physical abuse, it's just mental and verbal psychological abuse. He is just unkind. Or it could be none of the above, but just the man is careless, careless. He said some things that are hurtful. He didn't mean to be hurtful, but he wasn't careful with how he was. Maybe he's very frustrated about some other thing, comes in, and she thinks that he's angry at her, but he's not, but he wasn't careful with her, and she's been damaged. Or in the context of a marital discussion, have you ever had any of those? Marital discussions, also known as conflicts or arguments. In that context, things can happen, and get said, and I guarantee that the husband forgets that stuff quicker than the wife does. It could be several weeks later, she's still dealing with some of the stuff that got communicated there. "Husbands, love your wives and don't be harsh with them." How then can we communicate love to our wives?

Practical Advice for Husbands

I love Gary Smalley's "Love Languages" and I'm not going to go through it in detail. Look on the internet, if you want to know more about this or get his book. He goes into great detail and makes it a whole system of relationship, that maybe, I'm not sure I'd buy everything there, but I think the details or the specifics are good. For example, words of affirmation. You can love your wife by speaking words of affirmation about the meal she cooks, about how she looks, about decisions she made, about the way she is with the children, about anything in her life. Be sure it's not flattery, but genuine praise and encouragement, words of affirmation. Quality time, and that's not while watching the NFL playoff game, "Come on in here and sit here, so I can get some quality time done while I watch the game. I'm going to multi-task." You cannot multitask quality time. You can actually even go out on a date, if you go to one of those places that has TVs all around, it's tough. Seriously, I literally will try to sit in a place where I can't see the TV, because my eye is drawn to the motion, and it's really hard for her to feel loved, if I'm watching the game while talking to her, even on a date. But quality time, where she knows that she is the most important thing to you. Giving gifts, finding something she likes. You're on a business trip, you're away for a day, just out for an afternoon of errands, you bring something back. Acts of service, doing something that will make her life easier. Rubbing her feet, her back, if it's sore, something, some act of service like Jesus would, washing His disciples feet. And physical touch, I don't just mean marital relations, but even just the holding of a hand, or a hug, something physical.

Now, what Smalley does, is he says, "You gotta find her love language and do that." I think, do all five of them, why not? Is there any law against it? Do one of each of them every day. And there's an inherent wisdom to a husband who will treat his wife this way. Now, I say that you can't do any of this, if you are not a Christian. The most important thing that could happen to you, is to come to faith in Christ. Perhaps, you came here today, and you are in a marriage, and neither one you are Christians, and you finally realized what the problem is. The problem is you haven't given your life to Christ. Jesus shed His blood on the cross, not just as a display to husbands how they should be toward their wives, but to forgive us of all of our sins. Come to Christ and trust in Him. And those of you who have already come to Christ, you have everything you need for a happy, healthy, fruitful marriage. Put it into practice. Close with me in prayer.

On April 26th, 1607, after an unusually long voyage of 144 days, three ships carrying 105 men and boys landed at the southern edge of the Chesapeake Bay near the Atlantic Ocean. Their purpose was to establish the first English-speaking colony in the New World, the first permanent colony. The colony that eventually came to be known as Jamestown. And as they waited ashore, it wasn't long after that that their pastor, Robert Hunt, placed a wooden cross in the sand at Cape Henry named for the Prince of Wales, the oldest son of King James. He placed a wooden cross there, and knelt down with the group there and dedicated the New World to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He said, "May this covenant of dedication remain to all generations as long as this earth remains, and may this land along with England be evangelists to the world." Now, whether he dedicated the New World to Christ and to His Gospel or not, God already has. "Ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance." This world is dedicated to Christ. And the church is dedicated to the task of taking the name of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. We have been dedicated to this task, and we have been dedicated to the name of the Lord. Now, what they did there in 1607 had been done again and again from October 1492, when Columbus waited ashore at San Salvador and put the banner there in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella and the name of Jesus Christ.

Hernando Cortes in 1521 did the same for Mexico and the King of Spain. La Salle did it for the Mississippi Delta region for Louis the King of France. Again and again, these stakes were driven down, these banners were driven down in the name of some European monarch usually, and in the name of Christ. Again and again, dedicated to Christ. Well, I see that in Colossians 3:17. We have already been dedicated to Christ, by our faith in Christ. What the Lord through His apostle Paul is urging us to do now is to dedicate every single day of our lives to the name and the glory of Jesus Christ. Look what it says in verse 17, "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." To stick the banner of Christ in everything you say and everything you do. That's the call of this text. The great Dutch statesman and theologian, Abraham Kuyper, once said, "There's not one square inch in all the universe over which Jesus Christ does not say, 'mine'." What this text is calling on us to do is do the same with our own behavior, our own actions, that we would claim it for Christ to do in His name.

 Sam Storms, commenting on this said this, "Some Christians are really good at compartmentalizing their faith. By this, I mean that they pick and choose when and where, and in what ways their Christian values and beliefs are expressed. There are certain sacred arenas, so to speak, in which being a Christian is for them the thing to do. But there are also secular venues in which they check their Christianity at the door, and live almost as if they know nothing of Jesus Christ. Paul won't have it. As far as he's concerned, there's no such thing as a secular space. There's no event, activity, endeavor, or goal that is exempt from the Lordship of Jesus Christ. There is no idea, aspiration, dream, or belief that does not come under His sovereign sway. There is no achievement, accomplishment, work or word that does not exist for the glory of the Son of God."

Now, if you're not sure about this, look again at the all-encompassing command given in verse 17, "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." He said virtually the same thing in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God." Well, that includes the thoughts in our heads, the words on our lips, the steps we take, the books we read, the things on television that we watch, the food we eat, the music we hear, it's all to be placed in submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ done for the glory of His name. Now, the context of Colossians 3:17, Colossians 3:1-17, are beautiful elements of a happy fruitful Christian life.

These are some of the most fantastic, practical, sweet verses for the Christian life you'll ever find. I've challenged you and encouraged you to memorize Colossians 3:1-17, this would be the final verse in that section. We saw that the first section, verses 1-4, talked about having a heavenly mindset. "Since you've been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. A heavenly mindset. We went from there to talk about the necessity of warfare, spiritual warfare, putting sin to death.

Verses 5-9, "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry." We need to be at war against sin or we cannot be happy, we cannot be fruitful or productive in the Christian life. Thirdly, we saw the need to walk together in a new community, each of us new creations in Christ. That, “there is neither circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free but Christ is all and is in all.” And therefore we should clothe ourselves with “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” We should work together for the Gospel. We're in a new community. We're not isolated people anymore. We're in a group. And the essential unity of the group is Jesus Christ.

And then finally, we saw our hearts saturated with Christ. Verses 15-17, first, "the peace of Christ ruling in your hearts." Secondly, “the word of Christ richly dwelling in your hearts.” And today, we're going to talk about the name of Christ as motivation for everything you do in your heart, and thanks to Christ constantly given. Now, the backdrop of these instructions is the Colossian heresy. The Colossian heretics were teaching that the physical world, including our physical bodies, was somehow tainted or evil, and that salvation came from somewhat denying our physical lives, asceticism, and meditation, worship of angels, and they were not realistic at all about the physical world in which we live. 

Apostle Paul is not like that. Clearly, he's cautious concerning the body. We have to put the deeds of the flesh to death. But he's actually in verse 17, urging us to live a very full-blooded physical life in this physical world to the glory of God. And that's the context. Now, let's look at verse 17 and speak about our motivation. A life motivated constantly by the glory of Christ's name. And the key question here as we begin verse 17 is to ask, "Why do you do what you do?" What is your motivation for getting up every day? What is your motivation for going to work? What is your motivation for speaking? What is your motivation, frankly, for everything you do?" This verse is telling you what it should be. Your motivation should be glory for the name of Jesus Christ. 

Now, the backdrop of this in the Old Testament is God's zeal for His own name. God has an immeasurable and infinite zeal for the glory of His own name. It motivates everything He does. Now, God's name sums up who He is as a person, what He has done in history, what He has promised to do for the future. Those three things, I think, sum up the name of God, His character, His attributes, His actions in history, in redemptive history right up to this present time, what He has done, and what He has yet to do, what He has promised that He will do. God's name is on all of those things. And God has an immeasurable zeal for the glory of His own name. He does what is for the honor of His name at all times. Psalm 138:2 says that “God has exalted above all things, His name and His word.” And there's no division between the two. His name and His word, they go together. And He exalts that above everything else in the universe.

 Over and over then, God acts for the glory of His name. He called out a people for Himself in the Old Testament for the glory of His own name. First Samuel 12:22, Samuel says, "For the sake of His great name, the Lord will not reject His people because the Lord was pleased to make you His own." In other words, for the glory of His own name, God chose out the Jews. For the glory of His own name, they were His people. Sinful Israel, rejecting the laws of God, disobeying, but then wanting to come back, and receive forgiveness from God. They found God's greatest security in His concern for His own name.

Remember Moses, how many times Moses prayed like this? God would be about to destroy Israel, about to wipe them out. This happened in Numbers 14, He threatened to destroy Israel, and make of Moses a great nation. Moses was in no way tempted by this. Instead, he was concerned for one thing, and that is the glory of God's name. Moses said to the Lord, "Then the Egyptians will hear about it. And if you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, 'The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land He promised them on oath, so He slaughtered them in the desert.' " Joshua learned this lesson from his mentor, Moses, how to pray for the people of God when they were in trouble. And after their defeat at Ai, he fell on his face before God and cried out in great concern and fear. But ultimately, his concern was for the glory of God's name. In Joshua 7:9, he says this to God, "The Canaanites and the other people of this country will hear about this, and they will surround us, and wipe us out from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?" Do you see how Joshua prays? Concerned about the name of God. So also the psalmists and the prophets, again and again, appeal for mercy to God. In the midst of their sin, they appeal to God for mercy on the basis of the same thing, the glory of God's name.

Psalm 25:11, "For the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity though it is great." Jeremiah 14:21, "For the sake of your name, do not despise us; do not dishonor your glorious throne." Did you hear that? "Don't bring dishonor on your throne. Remember your covenant with us and do not break it." Jeremiah praying in the midst of Israel's sin, praying for the glory of God's name. The great sin of Israel and breaking the covenant. Eventually, God evicted them from the promised land because of it. The greatest sin of all, Paul sums up in Romans 2:24, "As it is written, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." God tied His name to you and you have dragged it in the mud. God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. And at the time of their restoration when God brought them back, a small remnant, back into the promised land, tens of thousands, not millions this time. God explained in Ezekiel why he was doing it. He said, "It is not for your sake, O Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned.” “I'm going to bring you back. I'm going to sprinkle you with clean water and cleanse you. I'm going to take out your heart of stone and I'm going to give you a heart of flesh and I will move you by my Spirit to obey my commands, and I will do all of this for the glory of my name."

And therefore you heard when Eric prayed the Lord's prayer what is the first request? "Our Father who art in Heaven hallowed be thy name." May your name be hallowed. What does that mean? May it be sacred, may your name be set apart as holy in the minds and hearts of people. May people esteem it, may people revere it, may people honor your name. May they tremble before your name. It really is a missionary prayer, isn't it? May the peoples of the earth tremble at your great name. Oh God, please work in the hearts of idolatrous people all over the world, causing them to turn away from empty idols and to fear your holy name and to find salvation in it. Hallowed be your name.

Now, why does God delight in making so much of His own name? Well, first, because it's right. It's just right. He is the central issue in the universe. He is the weighty center of the universe, the glory of God. He is the central reality in the universe. And it is right therefore for Him to make much of His own great name because He is the center of the universe. Therefore, it is right for us to do the same. It's insanity not to, to ignore God, to pretend like He's not the central reality of the universe is insanity. But second, because God has ordained through His mercy and His grace and His kindness that any sinner at any time who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved of their sins. All they have to do is call on His name and God will forgive them of all of their sins. He will redeem them. Joel 2:32, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Therefore, when God makes much of His name, when God does great things in history for the glory of His name, people are attracted irresistibly to it. Proverbs 18:10, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous run to it and are saved." Anything then that makes much of the name of God and makes His name great among the nations has evangelistic power. Do you see?

Sadly, our zeal is to make much of our own name, what a pathetic little topic that is. We'll see it on judgment day and beyond. There'll be no saints in Heaven trying to build a monument to their own name. It will not be done. We'll be cured of that foolishness forever. "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." And so we will do for eternity. But you know how in Genesis 11, at the Tower of Babel, they sought to “build a tower, make a city lest they be scattered over the face of the earth, so that they could make a great name for themselves.” Well, that's running at direct cross purposes with God. God doesn't put up with that. And so he scattered them that day.

Well, then there is King Saul, once his mind had started to turn, once he was small in his own eyes. Hiding behind the baggage, didn't think he was worthy, and he wasn't. But then later on, after a few military victories and all that, he is in some other place, 1 Samuel 15, erecting a monument to his own name. Oh, we do this kind of thing. Making a great name for ourselves. It's the essence of sin. That's the motivation of sinful heart. In the new covenant, however, the greatness of the name of Yahweh, the greatness of the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been totally given over to Jesus Christ.

In John 17, he talks about, "That name you gave me." And so God gave His own great name to His Son. And in the Book of Colossians, we've seen again and again the greatness of Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:15, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." Colossians 1:19, "For God was pleased to have all the fullness of His deity dwell in Him." Colossians 2:9, "For in Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form." The name of God invested in the Son of God, the greatness of the name of God. Even more so after He died on the cross for our sins. Ephesians chapter one says that "God raised Christ up from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms far above every name that can be named," it says in the Greek. Every name that can be named, Jesus is infinitely above every name. I know you hear the echoes of Philippians 2 as well. Therefore, God, because Jesus suffered and died on the cross, because he shed His blood on the cross for sinners like you and me. "Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in Heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Have you knelt before that name and confessed your own sinfulness? Have you sought forgiveness in the name of Jesus Christ? Are you a non-Christian today? Did you come in here as an unbeliever, as a skeptic? I believe that God brought you just for this moment that you would hear the gospel and believe, and that you would flee to Christ, and that you would call on the name of Jesus Christ for the salvation of your soul, that your sins would all be forgiven. Call on the name of Jesus. Paul makes it very clear, that verse in Joel, it's really speaking of Jesus. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved.” So call on His name.

Now, what about us Christians? Well, basically, the purpose of this sermon from here on out is to convince you Christians to in effect wade ashore into the New World of every day and claim it for Christ, every day. And you might need to do it several times a day. I don't mean wade ashore. You know what I mean, it's a metaphor. It's just preaching, alright. But just wade ashore into the New World of your 10:30 in the morning and claim it for Christ. It doesn't matter how it's gone up to that point, claim it for Jesus. There's forgiveness for the past. Claim it for Christ. “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.”

Why is this important? For some reason that becomes more and more incomprehensible to me as time goes on. Jesus is not ashamed to call me His brother. I am of the family of God. He's put His name on me. And so it says in Acts 11 that “the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” Little Christs. He's put His name Christ on us. And so that means how we act in this world is how the world will think of Jesus in part. He's linked His reputation to us. Now, this is what Sam Storms calls, "spectrum language". Please don't be.’.m,.m,m.,m. M   looking for a loophole here. There is none. Say, "Well, I give Him my words and I'll give Him my deeds but I won't give Him my thoughts." Don't try to find wiggle room in here. I think Colossian 3:17 and 1 Corinthians 10:31 kind of cover everything just in that spectrum language. “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” “So then, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Does that cover it all in your mind? It does for me. Everything's covered for the name of Jesus, for the glory of God.

So what do we mean in word? Well, how are your words? Would you love to read a transcript of what you said this past week? Just like a script in a movie, just sit down and read everything you said. We talked about this at men's Bible study on Thursday, how in Revelation 20, the court is seated, the books are opened. What's in the book? Record of your words and other things. How would you like to read your words? So many of your words are chaff, aren't they? Lightweight things to be blown away. And frankly, we'd like them blown away. We don't ever want to see them again. 

A recent study was reflected in Science Magazine in July of this past year seeking to answer the age-old question, "Who talks more in a day, men or women?" Well, the answer wasn't very satisfying in this sense. The sense is that it's unclear who talks more. There are some, both men and women, that talk much and some that talk little. But what was interesting as I looked at all of the studies is the average words per day for both men and women was approximately 16,000. Sixteen thousand words a day. They had these little machines, a voice-activated microphone. Every time someone would say something, they would record it, and then they would connect it to a computer, and they would get the transcript, and they would count the words. And, yes, for some of you who care about these things, women spoke about 200 or 300 words more a day. But out of 16,000, that's not much. That wasn't the point to me. The point was, how many words we say. And that's in one day! Sixteen thousand words.

So then, how are we to speak? Well, Paul tells us how to speak. Speak in the name of Jesus. Sam Storms put it this way. “How often before we speak do we think, ‘What I am about to utter should reflect the fact that I am a Christian, that Christ died for me, that He is worthy of glory and honor.’” How often do we think that? To let that be a filter for our words? There are lots of passages in Scripture that talk about how we should speak. Many. Let me reflect just a few of them. We should speak less. So that might be a goal for you. I would like to speak less than 16,000 words a day. I'd like to cut it by 25%. There are a number of verses that encourage you in this direction.

For example, Proverbs 10:19 says, "Where words are many, sin is inevitable." That's a good translation. "Where words are many, sin is inevitable. But he who restrains his lips is wise." Ecclesiastes 5:2, "God is in Heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few." Speak seriously and truthfully. Let your words be weighty. 1 Peter 4:11, "If anyone speaks, he should speak as one speaking the very words of God." Speak right doctrine. Titus 2:1, "You must teach what is in accord with right doctrine." Speak only to build others up. Ephesians 4:29, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." I have mentioned this verse many times, it is my word filter. I sometimes need to change the cartridge, I think. I'm not sure. But I know this, so many words get by that don't meet that test. If I met that test, James tells me, I would be a perfect man, able to keep my whole body in check as well.

Use encouragement. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you're doing." Speak something to encourage somebody in their Christian walk. Speak quietly. Ecclesiastes 9:17 says, "The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools." You'd like to get to the point where people just strained to hear what you have to say, rather than wish they could find an on-off switch. Speak gently. Proverbs 16:21 says, "The wise of heart is called discerning and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness." Use gentle words and people will be persuaded by what you say. Speak healing words. Proverbs 12:18 says, "Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." Bring healing with your tongue, with your words.

Now, there is no greater healing that can be brought than the words of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Speak those words to those who need to hear it the most. Bring healing to their souls. Bring the stripes of Christ. “By His stripes we are healed.” Bring those healing words to those who need to hear it. So whatever you do whether in word or deed. What about deed? Well, Matthew 5:16, "In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven." 1 Peter 2:12, "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they may accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God in the day He visits us." So put your good deeds on display. Matthew 6 says, "Don't do it to be seen by them so that they can praise you." No, that's not it. But you put them on display as a light shining in a dark place so that people can see your good works and praise God on the day He returns, so that they will be saved.

So whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. And then he says, "Giving thanks to God, the Father through Him." This is a life saturated in thankfulness. Meditating on this a couple of days ago and I thought, "Saturated in thankfulness, what is that like?" Well, imagine a woman who's been waiting for years to have a baby but she's apparently unable to do so. Maybe she's barren, she doesn't have the biological capacity, and every month her hopes are dashed again. She keeps hoping to have a child and finally after years of waiting, after many unanswered prayers, finally God answers her prayers. And in a short amount of time, she's holding her own little baby, her own infant. And as she listens to the baby's cries, there are tears on her face of thankfulness. She's overflowing with thankfulness.

Or take another scenario. Imagine you are out in a small sailing vessel in the middle of a terrible storm, maybe in a hurricane. You might wonder what you're doing there. "How in the world did I get there?" But there you are. And the hold is filling quickly with cold Atlantic water. The radio is out, you're going to die, there's no doubt in your mind. When all of a sudden, you see a coast guard cutter coming your way, and you see some men risking their lives, diving into the water, swimming over to pluck you from that ship just as it goes under the surface. And they swim you back, and as you're sitting in the wardroom drinking a hot cup of coffee, you'll be overflowing with thankfulness. What will you say to those men who risked their lives to save you from certain death?

Or imagine that you are an orphan at 12 years old, and you have some kind of disfigurement in your face, and it's made you surly and mean. And you just know, you know the way of things, that you're going to probably spend the rest of your childhood in that institution. You've been passed over, again and again, no one wants you. But then one day, an elderly couple comes and they look at you, they look in your face, pretty soon you're up in the office, some forms are being signed and you have been adopted. And now you belong to that godly couple and they begin to pour their lives into you, and they begin to pray for you and support you financially, and educate you, and get you ready for life. And you become heir to their family business, and better than that, heir to their Christian life, and character, and all that they had to invest. And as you think years later, after they're dead and gone, tears come to your eyes and you think, "They changed my life. They loved me when I was unlovable. They chose me, gave me a picture of God's adoptive love."

But I tell you, none of these scenarios are anything compared to what Jesus has done for you. None of them. He shed His blood for you. He covered all of your sins. He adopted you into the family of God, and He promises you a future brighter than I can describe, brighter than I can imagine, immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine. He's given that to you and He paid for it all Himself. You ought to be overflowing with thankfulness every moment of your life. Richly “overflowing with thankfulness,” Colossians 2:7.

Now naturally, we are ungrateful. The natural ingratitude of man is one of the great blights on the human race. Romans 1:21 says, "Although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him.” Why would it be mentioned so prominently at the beginning of Romans? Because it's a big deal. When the Israelites refused to trust God in the promised land, and taking the promised land, and God turned them away at the Jordan River and they were forced to wander for 40 years until that generation died out. But God sustained them day after day with manna from Heaven. And they started to complain about the manna, sick to death of it, what they could've eaten for just weeks until they ate from the land of milk and honey. Instead, they're eating for years, and they started to complain. God sent poisonous serpents to teach them the poison of their own lips as they bitterly complained about things in life. And so the Puritan pastor, 17th-century Puritan pastor, Jeremy Taylor said, "God threatens terrible things if you will not be happy." What a striking quote that is. I could just make a short connection. I don't think Jeremy Taylor would mind if I say, God threatens terrible things if you will not be thankful.

This is taught, I think, a little bit from the side. If you meditate on it, you get it. In Hebrews chapter 12, Hebrews 12:28 and 29 says, "Therefore, since we're receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. And so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." And so we are to be thankful, we are to be thankful. Seven times by my count in Colossians, 'thankfulness' is brought up as the norm for the Christian life. Colossians 1:3, "We always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you." Colossians 1:11 and 12, "Joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light." Colossians 2:7, we are to be, “overflowing with thankfulness." Colossians 3:15, "And be thankful." Colossians 3:16, "Sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God." Colossians 3:17, "Giving thanks to God the Father through Him," and then Colossians 4:2, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful."

This is at the center of our life of worship to Almighty God. Because we are receiving, Hebrews 12, “a kingdom that can never be shaken.” You're being given an infinite gift that cannot be taken from you, “where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal”, He is giving you an inheritance in Heaven. The best of all, He's giving you Himself in Heaven. Since you're receiving this kingdom that cannot be shaken, you ought to be thankful and in this way, worship God acceptably. Do you see that? That is the essence of acceptable worship, being thankful to God for the kingdom He's given you, for our God is a consuming fire. So there's the threat. If you're not thankful for the kingdom He's given you, then there's the consuming fire. And so, we ought to be thankful, richly thankful. How thankful should we be? Well, be thankful for His person, He never changes. Be thankful for His mighty actions in redemptive history right up until the present time and be thankful for what He has promised for the future, never changes.

I want to close by talking about just how to live practically in everyday life. How do we do that? How do we put this verse into practice? Verse 17, "So 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." We've been given a new way to live, to live in the name of Jesus giving thanks. Well, when I was growing up, I read a lot of Grimms' Fairy Tales. Some of them actually kind of are grim, a little bit, odd, but fascinating to the mind of a child. And there was one in particular that interested me. I remember it was the tale of Rumpelstiltskin. Do you remember that story? A miller goes to have an audience with the king, ordinarily he doesn't go, and he wants to make much of himself, wants to boast about himself, trying to impress the king. He said, "My daughter's actually able to spin straw into gold." She had no such ability, but he's boasting. That's a bad idea in front of a king. Kings are usually interested in gold. So he's like, "Fine. Prove it." He brings in the daughter, the miller's daughter, she's locked up in a room there in the castle with a room full of straw and a spinning wheel. Go to it, and if she's not able to do it, her life is forfeit in the morning.

Well, she's obviously sitting there having a good cry. She didn't know what she was going to do, when suddenly a strange dwarf of a man appears and offers to spin the straw into gold. Strangely he will do it for a necklace. I don't know what he needs with a necklace. If he has that kind of talent, he can have anything he wants, but so the story goes. When you're a child, you don't think about these kinds of things. But at any rate, he's willing to do it for a necklace. And you know the rest of the story. If you don't, just go and get one of the copies and you can read it. This is not about that. You're saying, "Well, what is it about?" Well, it's about this. I believe that God's calling on us to do that with the days of our lives, to spin straw into gold, to turn what seems worthless, of little value into something of eternal consequence, something that'll be waiting for you on the other side. Every moment of every day of your life, you can spin straw into gold by the power of the Gospel, by the power of the Holy Spirit of God, by simply obeying what God calls you to do at that moment, doesn't matter what it is. Anything you do whether in word or deed, by faith in Christ, can be done for the glory of God.

Now time, I believe, must be redeemed. Look at verse five of chapter four, Colossians 4:5. Says there, "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time," NKJV gives us "redeeming the time". Most of the other translations give us, "Making the most of the opportunity," but the Greek word is actually exagorazo. It has to do with buying out from the marketplace, something like that. It really has to do with slavery, and the idea is that time, the day, stands in bondage, in chains. And you come to the marketplace and you pay the price to get it out of the chains. And you're thinking, "How did today get into chains?" Well, it has to do with the general curse on the universe in sin. Because of Adam's sin, there's a general curse in the universe. It says in Romans 8 that the creation is yearning to be liberated from its bondage to decay. Ecclesiastes says "Vanity of vanities, everything's vanity." “The sun rises, the sun also sets.” “It hurries around, rises again, the rivers keep flowing. Nothing ever comes of it. It's just a cycle of decay and vanity and emptiness.”

And so the day is bound up in chains and you have to go rescue it. If you don't seize the day, it will be wasted. You'll never see it again. But if you can spin the straw into gold, if you can by faithful obedience to the commands of God do the good works He has ordained for you to do, you will spin that day into gold and you'll see it again on Judgment Day. It won't be straw on Judgment Day, it will survive the fire, it will be purified. 'Cause nothing we do is perfect, but it will be purified for eternity and it will be there for you for all eternity.

This is daily life transformed. I have more to say about this, but I'll say it when I talk about slaves and serving their masters, not just when their eye is on them, I want to talk more about work. I want to talk more about the Middle Ages and the separation of sacred and profane labor. We'll talk about that in due time. But I say there is no such separation. There's no hierarchy of holiness so that the priests and the nuns and the monks are higher than the common people. Everybody's on an equal playing field. All you need to do is just obey Jesus. That's all. Do what He has commanded you to do. I mean, that includes washing dishes, that includes caring for children, that includes going to your secular job, that includes getting the oil changed in your car and raking your lawn. That includes all of the above if the Lord wants you to do them.

If you are surrounded by the command of God, if by faith you obey that command, it's gold. It will last for all eternity. And there's no better action than doing what God wants you to do at a given moment. If God wants you to wash those dishes, then wash the dishes to the glory of God, it's better than preaching a sermon or preparing a Sunday School lesson or any of the above if that's what God wants you to do.

Now one final word. Yes, you can wash all the dishes of your life, the rest of your life to the glory of God and so you should, but there is a higher calling that God's put over all of our lives and that higher calling is taking the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. And if all you do is do your home improvement chores to the glory of God the rest of your life, you may be missing some of the good works God has for you to do.

So, yes, it's true that you can mow the lawn to the glory of God. Yes, it's true you can wash the car to the glory of God. It's true that you can do all of these menial tasks to the glory of God, but isn't the Gospel calling us to a higher level so that we are also doing by our spiritual gifts and by our prayers and by our giving and by our evangelizing the higher work that Jesus came to do, “to seek and to save the lost,” to be involved in the advancing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Assess your lives. It's a good time to do it. And so you'll go from here this afternoon and you'll have a bunch of menial tasks, you can do them to the glory of God. They'll be waiting for you on the other side of Judgment Day if you do them to God's glory. But ask some hard questions, say "Lord, is my career, is the direction of my life maximally for the glory of Christ? Am I living for the glory of the kingdom in every way that I should?" Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Psalm 90:1-17. The main subject of the sermon is that we should know our days are limited and we must serve God according to that truth.

Almost exactly 300 years ago, the year was 1707, and a British fleet was crawling its way home slowly, because it was caught in the midst of a deep fog, and they didn't really know where they were. That particular British fleet was under the command of an able man, Sir Cloudesley Shovell. He was a capable sailor, but like most sailors of his generation, he really had no idea how far he was from home. He got all of his navigators together and they guessed where they were in the fog. One particular seaman who was afraid that they were underestimating how close they were to land, gave a warning to the captain, was promptly hanged for being insubordinate. That's the way it was back then. I would guess anybody else that wanted to give advice kept it to themselves at that point. Within a short time, great tragedy struck that fleet, and all of the ships ran aground just off land's end in the Scilly Islands and sank, hundreds and hundreds of sailors and all of the possessions on board the ship were lost.

It was a national disgrace for a seafaring nation like Great Britain was, and it underscored the need for a solution to a scientific problem that plagued them all, the problem of longitude. They didn't know how far East or West they were at any given time. It's precisely why Columbus thought he had discovered the way to India. He thought the world was a lot smaller than it really was. He had no way of knowing how many miles even beyond the new world that he discovered in India really was. And so it was whenever sailors left the sight of land and they were out in the middle of the ocean, they could readily find latitude, it wasn't really that hard, but longitude is a whole different problem. And over the next 54 years, many quacks and scientists and sailors tried to solve the problem of longitude. As a matter of fact, Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientific geniuses of all time, who invented calculus, invented physics, invented optics, (that's a busy life) said it was the only problem he ever faced that made his head hurt. He could not solve it. 

And 54 years after that fleet sank, a simple carpenter, a mechanic named John Harrison solved the problem, and he solved it with a clock. It was a pocket watch about this size, a little bit bigger than a pocket watch we've had, but it was a special clock in that it was not dependent on a pendulum, which would not work on the heaving deck of a ship. It had bimetallic strips inside it, so it could handle different kinds of temperatures no matter what climate they’re in. It could handle the humidity, and it kept accurate time to one second across a year. And with that clock, they had a clock set to London time and a clock set to the local time whenever they would look up and it was high noon and they could set the clock and be sure where they were at, they knew how far east or west they were. Problem solved.

Now, as I thought about that problem of longitude, I thought about how much it's like our own lives. As I thought about that British fleet that sank, I thought about us kind of crawling to the end of our lives in a fog, not really sure where the rocks are and not sure how much time we have left. And that would include all of us. No one knows the future. And as we come to the end of this year, 2007, as we consider the passing of time again, as we look ahead to 2008, if the Lord grants it to us, it's a good time for us to stop and take stock, isn't it, about our lives. 

And I thought, what better Psalm to do that, than Psalm 90, the prayer of Moses, the man of God. It says in Hebrews 9:27, It is appointed to every one of us to die once and after that to face the judgement. The problem is, we don't know when that's coming. We don't know when it will arrive. And so, how can we measure time? Now, we're better at measuring time than during the 18th century, even after Harrison invented his clock, it continued to be developed, or we're way past the time of the sundial or the water clock, or the candle clock, or any of those things that people used to use. We're down to the accuracy of one 9 billionth of a second and more, and actually researches in Tokyo have found a way to make a clock even a thousand times more accurate than the atomic caesium clock, which is more accurate than you'll ever need or I. So we can tell the time with regularity, but you know in the Christian life, that's not really what matters, is it? 

From the beginning, God ordained the cycle of seasons, ordained the rising and the setting of the sun to mark time in things called days. There was evening and there was morning, the first day. There was evening and there was morning, the second day. And so Moses gives us some wisdom. He says,” So teach us to number our days [properly] that we may get a heart of wisdom.” How many more days do we have? We really don't know. Now, God knows. He knows precisely. It says in Psalm 139:16, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” So God knows exactly how many days he's allotted for our lives. Jesus said, “Who of you by worrying can add a single cubit to his span?” I don't think he's talking about height, but he's talking about the finish line. The finish line is set. God knows it, and your worrying is not gonna push it back at all. Not at all. In Daniel Chapter 5, the wicked king Belshazzar brought in the articles of gold and silver, and he and his nobles, his wives and his noble’s wives, they drank from them and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand, and suddenly a finger, a hand with fingers on it appeared and wrote in the plaster of the wall, and instantly the party stopped for terror at this ghostly hand writing, this incomprehensible phrase up on the wall. And from this biblical passage came the expression, “He saw the writing on the wall”. He saw the inevitable. That's what it means.

And it was only Daniel, God's man who was able to interpret what it said. He said that the writing was clear to Daniel because God had given him the wisdom. It said,” MENE MENE TEKEL PARSIN”. And he interpreted each of these phrases. The first one repeated, interestingly stated twice, “MENE”. God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. He said it twice. If you wanna know what “TEKEL” and “PARSIN” means you will have to read Daniel 5. I'll leave that to you. But “MENE” is, God has numbered your days, and in his good time, he will bring them to an end. The writing is on the wall for all of us, friends. For all of us. We are not going to be here forever. And so this brings us to Psalm 90. It brings me specifically to verse 12. “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

The context, Moses, the man of God, in the midst of leading Israel, the people of God into the promised land. Some interpreters put the time of the composition of this Psalm, which I think is probably the oldest in this altar, probably the oldest Psalm, gives you a glimpse into just an ancient era, a time, perhaps as much as 35 centuries ago, Moses, the man of God. And interpreters perhaps put it at Numbers 20, and three events were on Moses' mind, perhaps when he wrote this, the death of his sister Miriam, his own sin in striking the rock that God had commanded him only to speak to it, and God told him, “Because of this, because you did not honor me in the sight of all Israel, you will be forbidden to enter the promised land. You will die in the desert.” And the third event was the death of Aaron, his brother. These three things, I think forced this man of God to think about time and death and to write this. And you know the tone is not morose. It's somber. It's serious, but it's not morose. It's not bitter. It's just realistic. To paraphrase a couple of famous sayings, he is no fool who prepares for the inevitable. Let's put those two together. It is not foolish to prepare for the inevitable, and so I think Psalm 90 can prepare us for the inevitable. We will die. So Teach us to number our days. To be prepared for that.

John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, wrote a classic meditation on Luke 16. You remember Luke 16, verses 27-28, in there the rich man, and Lazarus, the rich man is in Hell, and he's begging that he might be sent back or that Lazarus might be sent back to his brothers to warn them, unless that they should come to this place of torment. He's concerned to warn them, and I think Moses has that same spirit. Concerned now, as an aged man as an elderly man, to warn the young that are following to not waste your life, to not waste your days. Bunyan in that classic, “A few Sighs from Hell” is an overwhelming theme that united those that were suffering in Hell,” I always thought I'd have more time. I always thought that I would have more time.” Well, you may have more time if God grants it to you, but it is wise for you to prepare for the inevitable, and the inevitable is the end of your time here on earth. And so Psalm 90 helps us.

Psalm 90 begins in verse one and two with the eternal greatness of God. And if I can just say directly, the way you prepare for eternity is to focus on God, to trust on God, to rest yourselves on the eternal God through his Son Jesus Christ. That's how you do it. Look what it says right at the beginning, verse one and two, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” God alone is our eternal dwelling place. Moses, I think, was reflecting on all of his wanderings for he had been a great wanderer. He'd come to this realization; God is my home. God is my dwelling place. Everything else is temporary. Everything else is movable. Even the ground beneath our very feet is movable. He saw it happen twice. You remember at Mount Sinai when there was a great earthquake and the ground beneath their feet was shaken with the glory and the greatness of God and at the giving of the Ten Commandments. He saw it again during the rebellion of Korah and Dathan and Abiram when the earth split and people, whole families, fell down into the crevice and the earth covered them up. So even the very ground under our feet is temporary and movable.

Moses' ancient ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they were strangers in the Promised Land. They lived in tents. They moved around from place to place. Moses' immediate ancestors had been slaves in a country, not their own. Nothing was theirs. They didn't possess anything. Moses himself had fled from Egypt after murdering an Egyptian, and he had come to live in his father-in-law's house. And at age 80, when God called him to his service, he was tending his father-in-law's sheep. Would you read a book on success, “How to tend your father in-law's sheep at age 80.” This is not a great leader, a great man to be emulated at that point, it seems, so what a wasted life. He doesn't even own his own sheep. He's tending his father-in-law's sheep. He doesn't have any possessions. “Lord, you have been our dwelling place, from generation to generation.” He is in a position to meditate on these things. And he meditates on the eternality of God.

Short time ago, I went down to Miami for the funeral of my father's sister, my aunt. She had no husband, no children, and with her death ended that whole family line, my father's family line down there in Miami. And it was a strange thing for me to go with my mother and my brother into my aunt's house, that had been my grandparent's house before, and I had some memories. We didn't go down there frequently, but to look at that small collection of possessions, what was left behind, some photos, some other things, it's a sobering thing. You know what I'm talking about, in a sense of the end of a life. There was a time that that was her home, and now that time is gone.

You see, “Lord, You have been our dwelling place, from generation to generation.” The eternality of God. Moses compares the transience of life spent wandering on the earth with the eternality of God, that God alone is eternal. He alone is timeless. He alone is permanent, unchanging, an immovable rock on which you can build your life for all eternity. Verse 2, look at it, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” The mountains are old. God is older. The earth is ancient. God is more ancient. Implied here, I think, is the immutability of God, that God never changes. You get the sense, you could say, from eternity past to eternity future, “I Am”. He never changes. He is the eternal God. The experiences of our lives leaves us with this one sense of that which never changes and that's God alone.

So you begin your meditation on the fleetingness of your own life with this, the externality of God. He never changes, but he goes from there to the temporary frailty of man. Look at verses three through six, “You turn men back to dust, saying, ‘Return to dust, O sons of men.’ for a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning-- though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.”

We are like dust in the wind. The dust of death. The winds of time, and its place remembers it no more, so Isaiah tells us. The dust of death. Man, originally was created from the dust of the earth. God through his infinite skill was able to make a human being, Adam out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. But after Adam sinned, the death penalty came down, because God told him it would, and God is faithful to his word. And in the curse on Adam, it says in Genesis 3:19, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” That's the curse. It's on the whole human race. All of us stand under it because we're all descended from Adam. He is our first father, and when he sinned, we all sinned in him.

I remember well, when I was a boy growing up in the Catholic church, I was an altar boy, and I remember Ash Wednesday when the priest would take a little bit of ash and make the sign of the cross on our forehead. And he would say these words, “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust, thou shalt return”. It's a sobering message. But it's true. However, it is not a mere accident, a freak of nature or of luck, bad luck that we return to the dust. That's not what the text says. Look what it says. Moses writes this, “You turn men back to dust, saying, ‘Return to dust, O sons of men.’” God is directly active in the death of human beings. He is the one that ordains it. It is his decree that brings it about. It's his actions. It's not an accident. “You turn men back to dust, saying, ‘Return to dust, O sons of men.’” No one on the face of the earth dies accidentally in the sight of God. It's not possible. Rather, it is God who gives life to begin with, and it is God who takes it back again, when he so chooses, and so the dust of death.

But we also have the winds of time. Not only do our bodies return to dust, but also the dust is scattered by the wind, and its place remembers it no more. Even if you're very famous, and a wind swept plain in ancient Persia, modern Iran, there's a memorial in Pasargadae in modern Iran. It's a simple monument, it's a little stone house, and it's built on six stone steps, and you can go in it, but there's nothing there. It's been looted. And there's nothing on the walls either, although the ancient historians tell us that there was at one time an inscription on the walls. The tomb, it seems belong to Cyrus the Great of Persian, and the inscription read this, “O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore grudge me this little earth that covers my body.”

However, you can't read those words anymore, because apparently the wind of time has effaced it, erased it. It's gone. But the historians tell us it is what it said. Cyrus the Great, at one point, at the height of his power ruled over an empire of 127 provinces, it went into modern Greece and it went as far as India, the Indus River. Almost 3,000 miles east to west, almost as big as the United States, the largest empire the world had ever seen up to that point. And he's reduced to this little stone house, and now we're not even sure whether it was his or not. Were not a 100% sure. Life therefore is brief, and after it's over the place remembers it no more.

Later in the Psalm, Moses will comment just on how brief human life is. Look at verse 10, "The length of our days is seventy years-- or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away." This is directly contrasted in verse four with God's eternity. "For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night." Time is nothing to God. A thousand years are like nothing, like a watch in the night. Another verse says it plainly. “Do not forget this one thing, dear friend…” It says in 2 Peter 3:8,” With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."

But for us, humans, time is brief. Death stands over us at every moment, and it reminds us of our frailty. Look at verse five. "You sweep men away in the sleep of death." As I mentioned, Moses is almost certainly thinking about his sister Miriam. When Moses was just a little baby, his mother placed him in a basket covered with pitch and sent it floating down the Nile River. You know the circumstances. Pharaoh was hunting down all the boy babies. And his sister, Miriam, traipsed along the edge of the Nile to see what would happen to the basket, and it was she that made the connection that enabled Pharaoh's sister, who plucked Moses out of the river, to bring the baby back to the baby's own mother. And so, the mother got to raise Moses. It was Miriam that did that, his big sister. Now she's dead. She's gone.

And then, there's Aaron, his brother, his mouthpiece. Remember, he said, "I'm not good at speaking, O Lord." And He said, "Well, here's your brother Aaron. Go back with him. He'll be your mouthpiece." And so, the two of them stood together and they faced Pharaoh, and they said, "Let my people go." And Aaron was his mouthpiece, and now he's gone. He's dead. And then, there's Moses’ own sin, and how bitterly he regretted that. Just a flash of anger, and he disobeyed God. And you think, "You know, I've done far worse things than that." But Moses was in a position of leadership, and he had seen the back portions of God's glory and he was put in a position of honor, and he couldn't afford that kind of error. And so, he struck the rock, instead of speaking to it. And the water flowed. God was gracious and he gave the people what they needed, but he punished Moses. And he said, "You will not enter the promised land." And how bitterly he regretted that, and how much he prayed and asked that God would relent, but God would not. And Moses did in fact die on the other side of the Jordan. He never entered. And so, I'm sure that Moses was thinking about these things.

Therefore, the wisdom of God, for us who live our lives under the death sentence, is very plain in James Chapter 4. It says, "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.’" Do you say that? Is it in your heart? If it is the Lord's will, I will live. You oughta say it to yourself. So, our life is brief. But you know something? Our strength is even more brief. Our strength is briefer than our life. Our life flies by quickly. Our strength flies by even more quickly. Look at verse five and six, "…they are like the new grass of the morning-- though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered."

We reach our peak, physically, in our teens and 20’s, develop it, reached physical prowess, perhaps, mihttp://www.thefieldschurch.org/mediafiles/uploaded/0/0e1840389_050904.mp3’s. And I have discovered, it's all downhill from there. Oh, there are some that are older than me that say, "You're not done discovering that, dear brother. It's even further downhill then you're at right now." Oh, don't discourage me. I can already see it coming. I'm looking down into the valley. I can't avoid it. I'm heading that way. And those of you that haven't reached the hill, you know, over the hill, you haven't reached the top yet, it's coming for you, too. You don't think it's going to. It will.

So, we reach our peak physically early on. We reach our peak intellectually and mentally further on than that. Our peak professionally, maybe, further on. But our time of strength and capability is very brief. It does not last long. What is the application? Make the most of every moment. You don't know how long you have before the evil days come, Ecclesiastes 12. And you have no strength anymore to do the things that you wanted to do.

The time is flying by quickly. And behind all of this struggle and strife and difficulty is the sinfulness of man and the wrath of God. In verses seven through 11, it says, "We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is seventy years-- or eighty, if we have the strength; yet, their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you."

There are no secret sins in the sight of God. God sees our secret acts. He knows our secret thoughts. He sets our secret acts before him in the light of his presence, it says. Hebrews 4:13 says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." There's nothing secret before God. Connected with that is God's just wrath and the humiliation of death. God's wrath is the just punishment for human sin. It is his emotional and passionate response to the virus that has ripped apart his universe. We cannot expect him to have no feeling about it, he does. He has a passionate feeling. It's called wrath. And God, the Bible says, expresses his wrath every day.

Now, the lost person, the person who is not yet come to faith in Christ, it says very plainly in John's Gospel, God's wrath remains on him. He lives under the wrath of God every day. It says it right here in verse nine, "All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan." God's wrath also causes the difficulties that sinners have on earth. Verse 10, "Their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away." It's difficult here on earth. We were talking before the service about a pastor that talks about having your best life now. My friends, it's not possible for you to have your best life now. I don't want my best life now. I want my best life eternally then. But we have misunderstandings about what kinds of joys and happiness and successes we can have in this life. The span is trouble and sorrow. But I say to you this, no matter how much difficulty you have in this life, this is nothing compared to the wrath that awaits the sinner who has not repented and trusted in Christ. I don't care where they spent their life, even in a concentration camp or dying of AIDS in a bed. There is no suffering here on earth that compares with the eternity of suffering in Hell.

Verse 11, "Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you." Revelation 14, "…he too will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night." That's what awaits every single person who has not repented and trusted in Christ. That's where every single one of us would be going if Jesus hadn't shed his blood for us. Who knows the power of God's wrath and his anger?

And this leads us immediately to verses 12 through 17, and that's our total and complete dependence on the grace of God. And thanks be to God that there is such grace available, amen, that there is a river of grace flowing from the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus Christ. Amen? But if you don't walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will not rightly prize what Jesus did for you on the cross. And you may think, "What a dreary way to end 2007." It's not dreary it all. It is reality. We will die, and thanks be to God for it. For Jesus has removed the stinger, that's later in the sermon. I'll get to that in a minute, but I just couldn't help but say it. Jesus has removed the stinger from death, but we beg God for his grace.

Verses 12 through 17 is just a series of prayers that Moses the man of God makes based on the grace of God. Look at verse 17, "May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us." Do you see it? We must have grace. We must have his favor. If we do not, we will perish. “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us." Verse 17. And so, it's just a series of requests that he, as a spiritual beggar before the throne of grace with nothing in his hand to bring, comes and asks God for first, grace to number our days properly. Amen? Number your days with wisdom. Look at verse 12, "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Naturally, we are foolish about the passage of time. Naturally, we assume it will always go on like this forever. That's just the way we are. We're built that way. We think little of the day of our death until perhaps we get the illness that may take us out of the world. If we have time to think about it, then we will consider, “It is very possible I may die from this.” And then, you might have time to think.

But Moses knows that the proper numbering of our days comes as a gift from God, does it not? This heart of wisdom, it comes from God. To properly number your days comes from God. And so, he asks for it. Now, we don't know how many days we have, and God's not gonna give us the information. Would you want it? Would you wanna know that you had another 10,463 days left, if you had that many? Would you wanna know you had four days left? God has hidden that in the counsel of his own decrees. We don't know. But Moses does give us a very practical guideline here, doesn't he? 70 years or 80, if we have the strength. That's pretty practical and it holds pretty well, doesn't it? So, you have a sense of that.

Now, don't misunderstand, that is not guaranteed to you. You'll not be able to say to God, "You owed me 75 years, at least." That he does not owe. He doesn't promise you that. He's just giving you a general guideline. We'll not go on forever. And so, therefore, from God alone comes the wisdom to number your days, and from God alone comes the proper heart attitude, the humbling that death is. It's a humbling, friends. It's humble to die. It's a humbling. And so, therefore, we're humbled under the hand of God that he may lift us up in due time.

Secondly, grace to limit God's disciplines for sin. Look at verse 13, "Relent, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants." Moses spent much of his prayer life before God, once he was leading the Israelites out, praying this kind of prayer, "God, please don't do it! Don't destroy them! Don't wipe them out!" He would pray these kinds of prayers. And so, he's asking God, "Hold back the discipline and the wrath that we deserve. Give us a space where we may flourish. Do not treat us, O Lord, as our sins deserve." Grace to limit God's disciplines for sin.

Thirdly, grace to satisfy us richly with God's love. Look at Verses 14 and 15. "Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble." Living constantly as we do in the valley of the shadow of death, how can we have any joy at all in this place, this place of death? Well, there is a way. In his presence is always the fullness of joy. And if he will walk through the valley of the shadow of death with us, then we can be joyful. "Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love."

I think John Piper, who's one of my mentors, one of his greatest insights, perhaps his greatest insight, in Desiring God is, "God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in him." This is a prayer. "God satisfy me with you. Please weed all of the idols out of my heart. Get them out. Your gifts are good, but you are better, infinitely so." And it's only by the grace of God that Job, having everything stripped from his life, can worship the Almighty God, satisfied with God, and intensely satisfied with God at the end of his encounter with God, none of it being restored yet, and he's deeply, richly satisfied with the infinitude of God, with his presence. That's enough. I don't need anything else. Or Paul and Silas, beaten for preaching the Gospel of Christ. Satisfied with Christ alone. Satisfied. But look how practical he is here, "Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love." There was evening, and there was morning, the first day. "Teach us to number our... " What? "…days." The day begins with what? It begins with morning. Okay, this is basic. Have a quiet time in the morning. Get up in the morning, and say, "God satisfy me now with your unfailing love, so that I can serve you happily, so I can sacrifice for you cheerfully, so I get my compass set properly on you. Satisfy me in the morning with your unfailing love." 

Fourthly, grace to see God's mighty works. “May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children.” Moses had seen, up to that point, more miracles than any man in history. He had seen his staff turned into a serpent and back into a staff again. He'd seen his hand turned leprous, white as snow, and then perfectly healed again. He had seen the 10 dreadful plagues in Egypt, one after the other, a great display of the power of Almighty God. He'd seen all that, including the plague on the first born in the Passover. He had seen the Red Sea crossing with the water walling up on the right and the left, and then Pharaoh's huge army swept away. He'd seen that. He'd seen water from a rock. He had seen manna from heaven. He had seen God himself descend on Mount Sinai, and speak to the people. He had seen the glory of God, the hindquarters of the glory of God, as God hid him in the cleft of the rock. He had seen the Glory of God fill the tabernacle. He had seen miracle after miracle, and yet, look what he prays. "May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children."

God's not gonna keep doing miracle after miracle after miracle. It's enough that he did it and it's been recorded now by Moses. Can I say to you, you won't see the deeds of God apart from faith? The Israelites, they saw the deeds of God. They didn't believe God. Pharaoh saw the deeds of God. They didn't believe God. He's actually praying here for the faith to see the deeds of God, to see them for what they are, acts of Almighty God. You can see them yourself, you just pick up the Bible and with eyes of faith, you can see the deeds of God, his greatness.

Fifth, and finally, grace to establish our works. Our own works. Verse 17, "May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us-- yes, establish the work of our hands." If our lives really are dust in the wind, can we really achieve anything of eternal consequence? Moses actually here is praying that our own deeds would be established and not swept away with the dust of time, that our actions in this world would actually count for eternity. Is it possible that our actions in this world could count for eternity? I've said this before, and it bears saying again. The greatest loss a human being can ever experience is the loss of their own eternal soul. For what would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Your soul is worth more than all the world and all of its deeds and accomplishments within it. But the second greatest loss a human being can experience is the loss of the time of their life, and of the good works that God had ordained for you to do, that you should walk in them, that you wasted them through selfishness and faithlessness. That's the second greatest loss. And that's spoken of in first Corinthians three, when all of your works, the gold, the silver, and the costly stones, the wood, the hay, and the straw are tested by fire, and what remains will last for eternity. And so, he prays boldly that God would establish the work of our hands.

Now, Christ alone is our true dwelling place. Lord, Jesus Christ, you have been our dwelling place from generation to generation. There is only one rock that is unshakable on which a human being can build his or her life, only one, and that's Jesus Christ. Look to the cross of Jesus Christ. Look to the empty tomb for the remedy to all of the sadness and the distress that this Psalm accurately reflects. Our sin, the wrath of God dealt with completely at the cross of Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, our substitute, he died under the wrath of Almighty God. He shed his blood that God's wrath might be completely satisfied. Look to Christ. Perhaps you have never trusted in him before. This is the time. This is the day. Before 2007 ends, before this day ends, look to Christ and trust in him for the salvation of your soul. 

But you know the cross didn't end it. You also have the empty tomb. Oh, you believers, look to both the cross and to the empty tomb, for Jesus has taken away the sting of death. And for us, the tomb is just a gateway into eternal joy. It's a little bit of a trick in your outline here. Look at the second point here. The eternal greatness of God. Do you see that? Number two, the temporary frailty of man. Is our frailty temporary? Yes, it is, in Christ. In Christ our frailty is temporary. Listen to what it says, in first Corinthians 15, "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power." There it is. There goes frailty. Gone forever. Sown in weakness. Raised in power. “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” Look to Christ. Trust in him. He is your eternal dwelling place and he will give you a body just like his, a resurrection body, and the frailty will be gone forever.

The future is bright, friends, and it's coming soon. Revelation 22:12-14, Jesus said, “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city." That is the eternal city, our eternal dwelling place with God.

Alright, practical application. How do you number your days? Well, I don't think you need to go to the insurance company and get an actuarial chart and figure out how many days you'd have left, statistically. Just know that there's a finite number of them. And you really don't know how many more you really have, because accidents can take you out. You might not make it home today. You might make it home another 1,000 or 10,000 times. I don't know. But live your life daily in light of eternity and understand there are special dangers for us here in 21st century America. We are a very distracted people. There's lots of ways to waste your time more than ever before. And do you know what? There's some really smart people working today, on Sunday, thinking of new ways for you to waste your time. They'll come out with it in time for Christmas next year. They will come up with new ways for you to waste your time. Can I urge you not to waste your time? For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may give an account for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. You will give an account for how you spend this afternoon; you'll give an account for how you spend the rest of your life. And we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God ordained in advance that we should walk in them. 

So, it's New Years. I bet you're saying, "This is what the pastor does every year. This is the New Year's Resolution sermon.” Okay look, you don't have to set New Year's Resolutions. I think the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands. That's in Isaiah. So, make noble plans. If you don't wanna write them down, that's fine. You probably won't do them. But it's okay, write them down anyway. Set goals. Say, "Where do I wanna be spiritually a year from now? How do I want to mature? What character flaws do I see in myself that I'd like to not see?" If you're married, you have a great advantage in answering that question. Just ask your spouse. He or she will be delighted to tell you what ways you could improve. I'll say it graciously though, because you ought to answer with this question, "How can I improve too?" And there might be some information coming back. Help each other. Grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ. Hebrews three seven and eight says, stop procrastinating. Stop putting it off. If God has laid something on your heart, do it today. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. 

Perhaps you have never heard a Christmas sermon from Micah, chapter five, before. Well, today, that's all going to change. You heard in my prayer, and I meditate much on the fact that God told ahead of time what he would do, that Jesus came in fulfillment of the scriptures; he came in fulfillment of prophecies. Prophecy, a supernatural phenomenon that no one can explain. A very few of us know exactly what's going to happen on Tuesday, never mind what will happen in 750 years. But God has the power to see the end from the beginning and to see it in such minute detail as leaves no doubt as to the origin, the divine origin of this book. Neither does it leave any doubt as to the divine focus of this book. The spirit of prophecy, it says in the book of Revelation, the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus Christ. Amen.

And when we read the prophets, it's Christ we're reading about. And so we look today, at the eternal origin of Christmas. Now, when I speak of the origin of Christmas, I'm venturing into a very popular topic. It seems, every year, somebody writes some interesting article about some feature or aspect of our cultural celebration in December, December 25th, we celebrate. Now, I think most of us that were at the Michael Card concert, were not shocked to hear, that it's not very likely that Jesus was actually born on December 25th. Michael Card set the date at April 11th, and so I'm not sure if he's right or not, we'll find out, now, won't be. But we're not going to change the December 25th observation. The Puritans tried to do it and they failed. And so it's still here with us, and I think we ought to just use it spiritually. Amen.

To focus on the doctrine of the incarnation. We know, if you do a little painful research and find that December 25th was a pagan holiday in the Roman calendar, in which they celebrated Sol Invictus, the unconquerable Sun, it was the time of the winter Solstice, and they were afraid, I guess, that the sun was going to lose out entirely and never be seen again. And yet here it peeks, it reaches the bottom of the trough and starts to get strong again, and they're excited and, "Come, let's eat, drink and be merry." Look, any excuse to eat, drink and be merry, in the pagan world. And so it was the celebration of the unconquerable sun, as they looked up at the sky. Well, that's what they did.

At some point, I guess, after Constantine and Christianity became the legal religion of the Roman Empire, I guess at that point, December 25th crept in. I hope I'm not popping any bubbles. I may actually be doing that later, with Santa Claus. I'm not going to try to do any of that. I'm not here to do that. I'm just saying, that kind of research is popular, people like to look into, "What was the first Christmas tree?" or, "The first time that Christmas wrapping paper was used, or the first time that greeting cards were sent out. The first Christmas caroling." As people went from door to door and sang Christmas carols. All of this historical research you can do. The origin of the certain Christmas hymns, of knowing that it was Isaac Watts together with Handel. Eric, how can you have a better combination than Isaac Watts and George Frideric Handel, Joy to the world? You can read about this, or Good King Wenceslas. Who is he? And what is the feast of Stephen? And what was he doing, looking out over the feast of Stephen, and what does it mean? You can do this kind of research and that is fascinating to do.

But here, I want to speak about the origin of Christmas itself, or really, the origin of the doctrine of the incarnation of the coming of Christ, the eternal origins, or the goings forth of Christ. In some of your translations, it speaks of the goings forth of Christ, the going forth of Christ, or the origin, the NIV gives it, in the Micah 5:2. Our text mysteriously states that Christ “…went forth.” Now, that's what the Hebrew word means. He went forth, he went forth from Heaven to Earth, he left his rightful throne, a throne of glory, a place of power, and he came and was born in the squalor, as we sing, of a stable. The poverty, the humility, he stood from that throne and took off in some sense, his robes of glory, never his deity, for that is impossible. He is always God, he always has been God, he always will be God. But he took off the outward trappings of his glory, and he laid them by, and he came to earth. His going forth. And so we're going to look back at the origins of that. What was the origin of Christmas? And I think Christmas naturally does that to us, doesn't it? It makes us think about time.

Many, many Christmas celebrations and movies and books take people back in time, to think of what it used to be like. You can do that personally for yourself. Think about what it was like, when you were a child. Your favorite Christmas, when you were a little boy or a little girl. A specific gift that you received or perhaps didn't receive, or maybe a sibling got it and you didn't, and you're still hurting over it, all these many years later. Or a time that you got something completely unexpected, or a time that you went and took a trip and went to a relative. Maybe they lived out in the country, they had a barn and a horse and you got to smell the straw, the stable. Or maybe a time when you were in college and you're finishing up your exams and you did your Christmas shopping in unfamiliar urban setting, and then brought your gifts home, and everybody was so glad to see you after having been away for so many months. Or as parents, young parents, when you got to celebrate Christmas for the first time with your first born child and you got one of those babies first Christmas ornaments and put it on there and still look at it years later. It has the power to transport you back in your own history, doesn't it? To look back across those special occasions.

Or perhaps, for me - I like history - church history. You can look back at Christmases past. I don't just mean the ghost of Christmas past, it does that in Christmas Carol, but that we can actually look and see. It's a Wonderful Life, gives you a little time capsule glimpse of what Christmas was like, in December of 1945, when Harry Bailey comes back and he's clearly just at the end of… or perhaps 1946, when just at the end of his service, there at the end of World War II, he won the Congressional Medal of Honor. You get little snapshot of what – a black and white snapshot - of what Christmas was like, in America, in 1945. Or you go further back, like I mentioned, to Christmas Carol and what Christmas was like in London, in the 1850s, let's say, and some of those movies that portray it with the horse-drawn carriages and the gas lanterns, and there's Ebenezer Scrooge, walking through the city of London, muttering to himself, humbug about Christmas and all that. Some of you have those tendencies; I've had those tendencies a little bit, from time to time, as the overwhelming busyness of the month can come along. But there's a glimpse of what Christmas was like, back in the 1840s. Or you can go further back, to the colonial era, to Williamsburg, come to find out they didn't do much for Christmas at all. They put a candle in the window and had a meal. New Years was actually a bigger celebration back then, than Christmas. It was seen to be more of a Roman Catholic holiday and wasn't generally observed very much in the colonial time. Or you can go back to Bohemia, as I mentioned, with King Wenceslas and the feast of Stephen, December 26, and learn some things about that.

Biblically, Christmas has the power to transport you back 2000 years, doesn't it? And you can picture yourself as if you are one of the shepherds and you're kneeling down and you're looking at the baby Jesus, and we see movies about the birth of Christ, as was out a year ago, or Jesus of Nazareth, or you just read the Scriptures. And in your mind's eye, you can travel back in time, and our text does that for us, as we think about Bethlehem and the fulfillment of the prophecy that was made. But we're still moving in time because actually it was a prophecy, wasn't it? And so we go even further back in time, to the time of Micah. And Micah lived in the seventh century BC. Seventh and eighth century, so somewhere around 725 to 715 BC, around the time of Isaiah, the time of Hezekiah, and Jotham and Ahaz, the kings of Judah, that's when Micah prophesied, and he gave a prediction about the birth of Christ, that would happen over seven centuries later. And how did he do that?

Because God alone knows the future, it's a glory that he holds to himself, because he is the sovereign King of history. And he knows what's going to happen tomorrow, and he knows what's going to happen in 750 years, from the time of Micah. He knows the end from the beginning. Because we have to go - our text, I believe, takes us even further back. It takes us back to the days of eternity. And if you want to know the origin of the incarnation of Christ, you have to go back to this phrase, "The days of eternity."

That's the origin of Christmas, the days of eternity. Now, what's that? So this morning, I want to look at five questions that come out of Micah 5. First of all, who sent Christ? Second of all, where was he sent? Third of all, why was he sent? Fourth, when was he sent? And fifth, what are the final effects of his being sent? We're going to get all of that, or try to, from just three or four verses from Micah. Can it be done? I think it can.

First of all, who sent the Christ? Look at Verse 2, "But you Bethlehem Ephratah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me, one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." For me, it's just one little Hebrew word, 'Li', in the Hebrew, 'for me', that's what it means. Now, it'd be easy to say that it's for me, Jesus came from me. Don't do that so simply and so quickly. Just because it says 'me' and you read it aloud, doesn't mean me is you. You could do this. When it says, "Today, in the city of David, a savior has been born for you." I think you should find yourself there. Or in John 17, when Jesus prays for those who will believe through the apostles word, find yourself there. But don't find yourself in the me, here in Micah 5:2. The me is the one who's speaking, the one who's issuing a decree, frankly, over Bethlehem Ephrathah, a kingly decree. He's making a statement about Bethlehem. "But you. Bethlehem," he's speaking to Bethlehem, and he's making a pronouncement. And who has the right to do that but Almighty God? And so Almighty God is saying, "For me, will this king come. He will come for me, for my purposes, he will come for my glory, he will come to do what I tell him to do."

And so who sent the Christ? It was the eternal Father, it was the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It was Almighty God, who sent the Messiah. Now, what we get just in one Hebrew word here, we get openly taught in the Gospel of John and in many other places. But it's openly taught that the Father sent the Son into the world. John 5:23, Jesus said this, "He who does not honor the Son, does not honor the Father who sent him." John 6:57, "As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me." "The living Father sent me," he says there. John 8:16, "I stand with the Father who sent me," said Jesus. John 8:18, just two verses later, "I am one who testifies for myself. My other witness is the Father who sent me." John 8:42, Jesus said to them, "If God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God. And now I'm here, I have not come on my own, but he sent me." John 10:36, "What about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world."  So there's the picture of the father, setting apart his only begotten Son and sending him into the world. John 12:49, "I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. Out of Bethlehem will come for me, one who will be ruler." So the king, Almighty God is saying, "There will be a king of Israel who will be there for me and for my glory." And Jesus says, "I don't even speak a word, except what the Father has told me to say." The father sent Jesus. John 14:24, he said, "These words you hear, are not my own. They belong to the Father who sent me." And then in his prayer, "Righteous Father," John 17:25, "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you and they, the disciples know that you sent me." You want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, this is foundational. You must know that Jesus is not just an ordinary man, he's not just a great leader or a great prophet or a great teacher of Israel, a great moral figure. He is Almighty God, sent by the Father into the world.

And God chose Bethlehem to be his gateway of entry, his port of entry into the world. But it was the Father who sent him. John 20, verse 21, again, Jesus said, "Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so, I am sending you." That's our Great Commission in John's Gospel, the Father sent the Son into the world, and now he sent us into the world as well. And so the entrance of Christ into the world was at the bidding of the father, he saw that the world was choking in its sin, drowning in its sin, that no one could work salvation, and so his own arm worked it, by sending his only begotten Son into the world. Who sent the Christ? It was the father who did it.

Secondly, where was he sent? "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come from me, one who will be ruler over Israel. Whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Where was the Christ sent? He was sent to Bethlehem Ephrathah. Now, Bethlehem is a small town, five miles south of Jerusalem, located on the edge of the Judean desert, 2500 feet above sea level, a rather nondescript place, called by a double name, Bethlehem Ephrathah, to identify it from another Bethlehem in Galilee.

Now, Bethlehem is noteworthy for its history, even at the time of Micah of Moresheth, it was noteworthy for its history. It had a fascinating history, beginning with the death of Rachel. Rachel, of course, was the one that Jacob had set his heart on, and he worked for seven years to gain. You remember. You remember the story of his wedding night, and how Laban tricked him and switched out Leah. It was Rachel that he wanted, but it was Leah that he got, and then he had to work another seven years to gain his beloved Rachel. Rachel had a lot of trouble, giving birth, she had a lot of trouble conceiving. Finally, she was able to conceive and give birth to Joseph, but now she's pregnant again, and she was having great difficulties, using great pain and suffering. As a matter of fact, she was dying and she gave birth to his son, and the midwife handed the son to Rachel. As she was breathing, her last breath, said, "Do not be afraid, you have a son, another son." “And with her last breath, she named him Ben-Oni, which means 'son of my sorrow',” and then died.

And she died there in Bethlehem. Her husband, Jacob, filled with grief, renamed that boy, Benjamin, son of my right hand. Isn't it amazing, how Jesus is both? Isn't it amazing, how he is both the son of sorrows and a son of the Almighty God's right hand? He is the son of sorrows, because he was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. No one ever suffered or was filled with sorrow like Jesus. When Jesus was on the cross, God poured out on him, all of our sins and all of the wrath that we deserve, and he suffered and he died. He was the son of suffering, on the cross. But now, raised from the dead on the third day, by the power of Almighty God, he sits at the right hand of God, and from that place, he will come to judge the living and the dead. He is the son of God's right hand. It says in Hebrews 1:3, "After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven." And so that's the beginning of the history of Bethlehem. Joshua's cohort, Caleb, had a son, and Caleb's son built the City of Bethlehem and established a city there. There wasn't a city there. When Rachel died, it was just a place on the map, but it was Caleb's son that built it, and it became the home of - a center place - of the tribe of Judah, but not a major place.

And there it was, that Naomi and Ruth returned to live, in the Book of Ruth. In Ruth 1:22, it says, "So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law arriving in Bethlehem, as the barley harvest was beginning." It was a famine that caused Elimelech, Naomi's husband, and her two sons, Mahlon and Killian, to leave and go to Moab. And they went to moved the two sons found wives there, one of whom was Ruth, a Moabitess. In due time, there came an ending to the famine, and Elimelech and Mahlon and Killian had all died. Naomi was in great distress, so she went back to her home area, Bethlehem, went back there to live, because there was now food. And there it was, that Ruth met Boaz, and the two of them were married and they gave birth to Obed, and Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse, of course, the father of David.

And so it was also in the course of time that David was born in Bethlehem, and around the vicinity of Bethlehem, he learned how to tend sheep and to be a shepherd, and it was there that he fought the lion and the bear, and to learn how to use a sling. And it was with those tools that he went out and met Goliath. In 1 Samuel, 17:12, it says, "Now, David was the son of an Ephathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem, in Judah." So David, the greatest king in Israel's history, came from this tiny insignificant place.

But by the time Micah came and was making his prophecy, he wasn't looking back at this interesting history, he wasn't looking back to the death of Rachel, he wasn't looking back to Ruth and Boaz and how they got together, he wasn't even looking back to the origin of David. No, he was looking ahead. In effect, he was saying, "You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, your best days are yet to come. Your greatest glory is yet to come, all of these interesting features of your history is nothing, compared to what is yet to come. You will be elevated. This little town of Bethlehem, you'll be elevated. For out of you, will come a ruler."

Bethlehem was also noteworthy for its name, the name literally means house of bread, Bethlehem is house of bread. It was known as a bread basket area for Jerusalem, 5 miles south of Jerusalem, and of course, it was that barley harvest that brought Naomi and Ruth back to live there. Wasn't always a place of aplenty, of course, because it was a famine that caused them to go, but there it was, a house of bread, and then Ephrathah means abundance.

So it's really a sense of a house of abundant bread, a place where you can go and be fed forever. Could it be, that Jesus fulfills that as well? Oh, I think he does. After he fed the 5000, with five loaves and two fish, you had the feeling that without breaking a sweat, he could have done that forever, he could have fed them forever, no more toil out in the fields and the vineyards. Just come to Jesus and he'll feed you. The greatest chef in history, the freshest bread and the best fish, and he would feed you forever, and they came back the next day, looking for the next meal. Isn't it funny, how we cyclically get hungry? More so this time of year, I don't know what it is. So there's plenty to eat. When you come to hear Jesus, all you have to do is just come and just like that, he can feed thousands without any effort. You remember how Jesus changed their whole way of thinking. He said, "I tell you the truth, you're looking for me not because you ate the loaves and had your fill or because I did the miracle, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill." He said, "Do not labor for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to the eternal life." “Set your eyes off of your stomach. I'm not here to give you that kind of bread. I'm going to give you a different kind of bread.” John 6:35. Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." Jesus has the power to satisfy you to the depths of your being for ever and ever. He is the feast. He won't just spread a feast, he is the feast. And he will satisfy you deeply and richly. He says later in John 6, "I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died, but here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Jesus is the Bethlehem. He is the house of bread. He is the one we come to and feed on forever and ever. And in his name, we will live.

Bethlehem is also noteworthy for its lowliness. But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are least among the thousands of the clans of Judah. Not a noteworthy place. A small place. An insignificant place. God delights to do this. He chooses Gideon, the warrior. And he says, "I am the smallest in my family, the least of my family, our clan is the smallest. Why do you do this?" He did the same thing with Saul. You know, he chose him and he immediately was small in his own eyes. God could have chosen Rome, which was the center of the world, at that point. He could have chosen Athens, the center of the philosophers of the world. He could have chosen Alexandria or some other rich city, a center of wealth.

If he just wanted to stay within Judea, he would have gone to Jerusalem, the capital city, the palace of the great king. But instead he goes to a tiny place, an insignificant place, Bethlehem. God delights in elevating the lowly. It says in James 4:6, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." And concerning the way that the church in Corinth was made up, Paul takes this principle and elevates it up to be the way that God assembles his church. 1 Corinthians 1:26 through 29, it says, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him." God delights in elevating the humble.

Choosing the small and lifting it up. Bethlehem, finally, was noteworthy for its fulfillment. Why was the Christ born there? Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem? Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, the other end of the country. Now, don't imagine that the prophecy wasn't well known. The prophecy was well known. It's quoted in Matthew 2:“When [King Herod] had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. ‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘For this is what the prophet has written. ‘But you Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people, Israel.’’" Well, they knew the prophecy. Quoted again in John 7:41 and 42. The others asked, "How can the Christ come from Galilee?" Does not the scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" So everybody knew this prophecy. They knew that he would come from Bethlehem.

So Joseph would have been, I think, apart from a direct command of God presumptuous to make sure that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It would have been manipulative. "My son is going to be the Messiah. I'm going to see to it." That's not the way prophecy works. He would have just gone about his business in a normal way, unless external circumstances conspired to make him go to Bethlehem. He wouldn't have taken upon himself in a direct way to fulfill a prophecy. But something did force him to go, didn't it? Far away from Bethlehem, far away from Nazareth, far away from Judea, in the halls of power in Rome, there was Caesar Augustus looking over a map of the entire Roman world. And two things motivated him, I think, to have a census. The two things were taxes, money, and distribution of power, troops. So where were the population centers? How many people lived in a certain area, and where did the legions need to go? Power and pleasure, that's what rules the halls of power here in this world. That's what motivated Caesar Augustus. He's not sitting there saying, "You know, but you Bethlehem Ephrathah." Oh, she's pregnant. Okay, Mary is pregnant. We need to be sure. We get her down there. He's not thinking that at all. He's not aware of Micah. He's not thinking of the prophecy of Micah. He's thinking about his own coffers. He's thinking about his own power. And so he issues a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And this census, “This was the first census that took place when Quirinius, was Governor of Syria.”And so Joseph, it says in Luke 2, went with his pregnant wife Mary and traveled that long and very uncomfortable journey to go down to Bethlehem to the city and town of David, because he was of the house and lineage of David. That's what made him go. So Bethlehem was noteworthy for its fulfillment.

Thirdly, why was he sent? It was God the Father who sent him. It was Bethlehem, that would be his portal of entry into the world. His gateway of entry into the physical world. Why was he sent? Well, look what it says in verse 2. "Out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel." He was sent to be a ruler. God establishes a throne over Israel. He yearns to establish a throne based on righteousness and holiness. A throne of power, and of purity, of compassion. A throne that will last forever. That's what he wants to establish.

Israel's kings were for the most part, corrupt and self-serving. They had no sense of the glory of God. But God wanted to establish a ruler over Israel who would rule in righteousness. Isaiah 9, verse 6, and 7. "For to us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this." He wants to establish David's throne, and he wants to put his only begotten son on it. He was sent into the world to be a ruler, to be a king.

 Hebrews 1, it says, "But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, oh God will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, and therefore God, your God has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.’" He wants a throne based on righteousness established forever. And so Jesus was born a king. I was reading a sermon by Charles Spurgeon recently, and he said, no one else in history has ever been born a king. You're usually born a prince, and in due time, you become a king. Jesus was born a king. And so the Magi said, "Where is the one who has been born King over Israel?" he was born the rightful king. He was sent to be a ruler.

But he was also, according to verse 4, sent to be a shepherd. He will be a shepherd. The kings of Israel, were called to be shepherds of the people. And David was the best fulfillment of this. As I mentioned, when he went out to fight, Goliath, he went out with the tools of a shepherd boy. 1 Samuel 17:40, "He took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, and he put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag." No wonder Goliath said, "Am I a dog?" - that I'm here to harass the flock? Yes, you are, you're a wild dog spiritually, and I'm here to be sure you don't harass the flock. He had a shepherd's heart. Those are his father's sheep. He was responsible for them. And he went out and fought. And so when the time came for David to take the throne, 2 Samuel 5:2, "The Lord said to David, 'You will shepherd my people, Israel, and you will become their ruler.'" He is there to be a shepherd to the people.

Now, not all of the descendants of David were good shepherds. As a matter of fact, most of them weren't. And so the prophets were sent to speak out against these false shepherds, these kings, and the way they shepherded Israel. Ezekiel 34, "The word of the Lord came to me. 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says. Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves. Should not shepherd, take care of the flock? You eat the curds. You clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals. But you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak. You've not healed the sick. You've not bound up the injured. You've not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd. And when they were scattered, they became food for all the wild animals.' This is what the Sovereign Lord says, 'I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so I will look after my sheep.'"

And so Jesus was sent into Bethlehem to be a shepherd of God's sheep. To be God's shepherd. To look after his people. So God raised up a righteous shepherd. Look at verse 4. "He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the Majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth." This is in direct fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah 23: 5 and 6. "The days are coming declares the Lord, when I'll raise up to David a righteous branch. A King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called the Lord, our righteousness." This is the one, the branch of David who would shepherd the people and stand and they would be secure.

Jesus is this Good Shepherd. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who is sent into the world in Bethlehem to be the shepherd of the people. Listen to this in John chapter 10. "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep."

So therefore, he was sent also to be a savior. He was sent to lay down his life for us. Because we were threatened with infinite loss. We were threatened with eternal death. And so Jesus came to pay the death penalty on the cross. He came to suffer and die on the cross, a cross of wood, to be our savior. A body was prepared for him, it says in Hebrews, that he might be the servant of God to have his body broken on the cross. To have his blood shed for the forgiveness of sins, to be a savior.

It says in verse 4, “He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the Majesty of the name of the Lord his God.” Do you see a picture of strength? Your Good Shepherd standing on your behalf. I was reading recently about David's mighty men. I love reading the stories about these mighty men and all the things they achieved. And there's this one guy in particular that I'm interested in. His name is Shammah. "And he took a stand," it says, "in a field of lentils, when all Israel forsook him and ran away." So there he is fighting the Philistines alone. He took a stand in a field of lentils and he kept fighting until the battle was won. Now it says that they came back and found him there, but only to strip the dead. So he gave his life for his nation, at that point. He took a stand in a field and he wouldn't be deterred. Everybody else was running away, but he took a stand. That's a picture of Jesus, isn't it? He will stand and shepherd his flock. He's not running. You can't make him run. He has taken a stand on our behalf and he will not run. He will take on all of our enemies until every one of them is defeated, until every one of them lie dead at his feet, he will be victorious. He will save us from our sins. He will save us from Satan's accusations. He will save us from the grave, from death. He will save us from hell. He will take his stand as our Shepherd, as our king and he will be victorious. He has come to be our savior.

Well, when was he sent? When was he sent? Well, in the New American Standard, in Verse 2, it says, "His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity." Now, we come at last to this mysterious phrase, the days of eternity. Now, the Hebrew phrase could simply just refer to ancient days. Way back then. The times back then. And so Micah could be looking back to David. And so he will be of the house and lineage of David. But do you think that's what Micah's saying? I don't. The Hebrew actually does mean eternity. From timeless history past. Way, way back. The days of eternity.

I think this is speaking in before the foundation of the world. What is the origin of Christmas? It is in the mind of God the Father and God the Son, before the world began. Before God said, "Let there be light," this plan was worked out in detail. And thus it is said in Revelation 13:8, that Jesus is "…the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world." In what sense was Jesus slain from the foundation of the world? Well, he knew that it was by his blood that the people of God would be forgiven of their sins throughout all of human history. Before even Adam and Eve were created from the dust of the earth and from the rib of Adam. Before any of that happened. Any that would be forgiven would be forgiven by the shedding of the blood of the lamb. He was the lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. It says also in Ephesians that the people of God, the sheep, were chosen in Christ from the creation of the foundation of the world. It says in Ephesians 1, "He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will." That's before he said, "Let there be light." Before there was a sun or moon or stars. Before anything was arranged on the surface of the earth. Before any oceans or mountains or rivers. Before any of that, the plan, the salvation plan of God was crafted in the mind of God. And it included Bethlehem Ephrathah. It included this little town of Bethlehem that he would enter there. This is the origin of Christmas. When also? "When in the fullness of time…", according to Galatians. You see God isn't just a God of eternity past, ancient days of eternity. He's a God of right here and right now. He's as practical as it gets. Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. He knows exactly what's going on in your lives. He knows where the rubber meets the road. And he knows that there had to be a specific time in history that Jesus entered the world. And that was planned out too.

What was going on at that time in Israel's history? What was happening around Bethlehem. God knew exactly what was happening in the fullness of time. It says in Galatians 4: 4 and 5. "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son. Born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." Christianity is more a history - a religion of history - than any other religion in the world. If the history isn't true, then neither is Christianity. And if Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem, then Christianity is false. If Jesus wasn't physically bodily raised from the dead on the third day, our faith is worthless. It's a religion of history. And so God worked out in the fullness of time... When the Roman Empire was at its peak, when the Jews had been scattered, when Moses was being read in synagogues all over the Roman world, when there was a system, an economic system of trade and all of that... At that time when the whole world was at peace under the Pax Romana. When Caesar would be sitting on that throne... That's when Jesus was born. In the fullness of time God sent his Son.

And finally, what are the final effects of his being sent? Look at Verse 4 and 5. "He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord. In the Majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth and he will be their peace." Well, first of all, the effect of his coming is the world-wide fame of his name. That his name would be great to the ends of the earth. For the glory of the name of God, he was sent. That people might think, great thoughts of God. Jesus does everything for the glory of his Father's name. And so it says, "He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord and in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God." It's for the majesty of the name, that he comes. For the greatness of his name. And his own name will be great because they're one and the same. Aren't they? Make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name. The one name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. And notice how missionary success is guaranteed by this passage as well. Verse 4. "And they will live securely for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth." His greatness will reach to the ends of the earth, and the missionaries will go out. And they will proclaim a Gospel in his name. They will proclaim peace in the name of Jesus and the shed blood of Christ. And his name will be held great to the distant islands to the far shores of the earth.

Secondly, the final effect of his being sent is peace and security. It says in verse 5, "And he will be their peace." Naturally, we are God's enemies. I spoke about this from Colossians last week. We're at war with God. We were alienated. We were enemies in our minds because of our evil behavior. It says in Colossians. Naturally, we await condemnation on Judgment Day. But now that Christ has gone forth from Bethlehem, now that he has drunk the cup of God's wrath on our behalf, God is at peace with us. And on the basis of that, we can feel at peace with God too. It says in Romans 5:1, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." He will be our peace. He will be our peace. Not our own achievements. Not on the basis of our own works. Not on the basis of coming to some peaceful frame of mind. Not on any of that. But on the basis of Christ and his finished work on the cross. He will be our peace.

And from that we get protection and security, because Jesus stands powerfully as our Shepherd. And no enemy can touch us. He will stand between you and every temptation you'll face the rest of your life. And “He will let pass,” according to 1 Corinthians 10, “only those temptations that he permits to come your way and he will make a way of escape with each one that comes.” He is filtering the things that come to your life because he is your good shepherd. He's not going to let anything touch you that will destroy you. He will not let Satan have at you. He is more than just a hedge of protection. He is an almighty wall of protection around you. He is your good shepherd. And from that comes your peace, your security and your safety.

And you will have finally a dwelling place. Look what it says, "And they will live securely." The Jews were a harassed and helpless people. Always, throughout their history coming over the hill was the next band of Gentile raiders. It might be the Amorites, it might be the Hittites, it might be the Assyrians or the Egyptians. It might be the Babylonians or the Greeks, or the Romans. They were harassed. And they had no security at all. They lived in un-walled villages for the most part. And they would be swept away by these Gentile marauding hordes. They had no peace and no security. And even in their walled cities, God would give them up because of their sins. But Jesus comes to dwell over a place where we will have security. We will live securely there forever. It's a future home of peace and rest. It says in Micah 4:3 and 4, "He will judge between many peoples and settle disputes for strong nations fare in wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore." Listen to this. "Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid." Are you looking forward to that? Sitting under your own vine and fig tree. Well, I think that that's a metaphor for a peaceful, rich life of security. And maybe you will get your own vine and your own fig tree and just reach up and pluck those grapes and those figs, and eat them as much as you want. It's a picture of security and rest, and Jesus alone works it. Revelation 21:3 and 4, "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God at last is with men.' And he will be their God. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe every tear from their eyes. And there will be no more death or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Before the foundation of the world, the Father and the Son agreed that Jesus would shed his blood for sins. Before the foundation of the world, they agreed that he would enter the world in Bethlehem Ephrathah, and that he would live a sinless life, and that he would do miracles, and that he would speak great teachings and parables, and that he would be arrested, and that he would be crucified, that his blood would be shed for the forgiveness of our sins, and on the third day that he will be raised in a resurrection body. And that he would ascend to heaven and sit at the right hand of God. And he would save a huge quantity of people from every tribe and language and people and nation. And they would live with him in security forever and ever.

My friends, that is the Gospel. And that's why Jesus came. Do you know him? Have you come to trust in him? The reason for the prophecy is simple. So that you might trust him. That you might trust him completely. That you might trust him for the salvation of your sins. Do you know him? I assume today... I've prayed about it. I assume that I'm speaking to someone. Maybe a large group of people who do not yet know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Oh, I trust and I pray that you will look to Jesus on the basis of this prophecy and all of the Scriptures that we've covered today. And call on the name of the Lord for the salvation of your soul. Look to him. This will be the greatest Christmas of your life. You'll look back and say, "I remember that sermon." Micah chapter 5. What got you? It was that God had the ability to predict the exact place where a baby would be born. It's not easy to do, by the way. Some women come early. Some come late. You're never quite sure if that donkey ride is going to be what does it. Halfway between Nazareth and Bethlehem, she gives birth. Oh my goodness, it cannot be. And so God rules over Caesar Augustus, and he rules over Mary and her womb, and the exact time and brings it together. And why? So that you can trust him and you can believe in him and know that he has the power to save your souls.

I will never forget, and it's interesting this morning as we sang this song, Come Let Us Worship and Bow Down. I'll never forget this time, it was January of 1983, I'd been a Christian for just a few months, and I was being discipled by a man, Tim Schuman, who was working with the Ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ there at MIT. And he had taken me under his wing and he was training me in the Word, he was teaching me the Word of God. Teaching me the implications of what I'd done, of giving my life to Christ, and he was developing in me the habits of discipline, the spiritual disciplines of witnessing and all kinds of things. And I was just learning so much from him. He was an engaged man at that point, he wasn't married, he was going to get married later that year, that summer. So he had all kinds of time to give to me. And I remember, we were there in his apartment, and I think it may have been January of 1983 and it was snowing. And I was living at home with my parents at the time and it just got worse and worse. It does snow this time of year in some places in the country, it doesn't snow here. We have a sled we bought for the kids, we still haven't used it, so we're waiting. But up there it snows and it was getting worse and worse, and I realized I really couldn't safely make it home at that hour, so I called my parents, told them that I was going to stay over with Tim and they were fine with that.

And we just spent the evening in the Word of God. And he had a little fireplace and I remember it was burning with a little fire that he'd made, it was warm in that apartment. And time came to go to bed and he went into his room and I lay down on the couch there in a sleeping bag, and he put on this music by the Maranatha Singers. And their voices sounded so silky and smooth like they floated down from heaven, I'd never heard it before. It was perfect singing. And they were singing that song that we sang, Come Let Us Worship and Bow Down, and I felt a presence in the room. 

As I looked at the snow floating down and I looked at the fire and as I was thinking about the things we'd learned in the Word of God, and the presence was peace. A peace that I had never known before. It was the peace of Christ. His name was Jesus, and He was ministering to me in a way I have seldom experienced it since then. I just knew that I was at peace with God and God at peace with me. And all of those elements come together in the text we're looking at today, the Word of God dwelling richly in our hearts. The peace of Christ ruling over our hearts. Singing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, the worship, all of that coming together for me that night, and I'll never hear that song again without thinking of that night.

It was so powerful, such an experience for me that I got rid of my introduction that I was planning to use this morning. I'll use it another time. But I thought to myself, "The peace of Christ is a gift of God, is it not?" A rich, full experience of knowing that God is at peace with you and not only that He is at peace with you now, He will be for all the eternity. Isn't that a beautiful thing? And that's what this season is all about. That's what Christmas is all about, God ministering peace to a world at war. And that's what our text is talking about. Let's get it in context, Colossians 3:1-17 give us four major elements of a happy, healthy, productive Christian life, and you can't give up on any of these things if you want to be fruitful and happy as a Christian.

We already saw in verses 1-4, a heavenly mindset, we need to set our hearts on things above where Christ is seated. We need to set our minds on things to come when Christ who is our life returns, and we will live with Him forever. Heavenly mindset, we saw that. We also saw in Verses 5-9, the need for vigorous warfare against sin. You cannot feel peace, you cannot experience peace if you don't put sin to death by the power of the Spirit. You can't be fruitful in the Christian life if you're not at war every moment with indwelling sin. And so we talked about that as well, vigorous warfare against sin. Last time, we talked about the new community that God is working around the world called the church. And how He takes individuals and radically transforms them, makes them new creations and then puts them together in community in ways that are remarkable, really miraculous. And, “here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all.” And there's a unity, a union together. And we can walk together in Christian community, in Christian love, because we are new creations in Christ, verses 9-14. And we talked about that last time. Now, this time and the next time that I'll preach on Colossians, not next week but the week following, we're going to talk about hearts saturated by Christ. The Christian heart saturated. We're going to look at two elements this morning, the peace of Christ ruling our hearts and the Word of Christ richly dwelling in our hearts. And the next time that I preach on Colossians, we'll talk about the name of Christ motivating our hearts. What is our motivation for everything that we do? And finally gratitude or thanks to Christ given constantly by our hearts.

Denied to All Unbelievers

So let's look at the first of these four elements, and that is, the peace of Christ ruling in your heart. Look at verse 15, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful." We live in a turbulent world. We live in a world at war, constantly churning. It says in Isaiah 57:20-21, "The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire. ‘There is no peace’, says my God, ‘for the wicked’." There is a sense of turbulence, of churning, when people are not at peace with God and God not at peace with them. That's the vertical aspect. Therefore, horizontally, we've got all kinds of broken relationships, all kinds of issues, because an individual's heart is not at peace with God. He's not at peace with himself, and therefore he's not going to be at peace with those immediately around him, there's going to be strife and conflict in the family.

There's going to be problems in the marriage. There's going to be problems in the parenting relationship. There's going to be problems brother to sister, brother to brother, sister to sister, there's going be problems in the family. And then because of that there's going to be problems in the church and in the community, there's going to be strife, there's going to be conflict, there's going to be issues all the time. And because there's strife in the community, there's going to be problems in the nation, and because nations are not at peace with each other, there's going to be warfare. That's just the history of the world. And it all stems from individual people who are not right with God, they're not at peace with God. And this peace which is spoken of so sweetly and richly in this verse, Colossians 3:15, is a gift of Christ to His people.

Impossible to Counterfeit

It is impossible for Satan to counterfeit it. He can't counterfeit it. People try to counterfeit, they try to get at a place of peace because their conscience is afflicting them. They do not feel at peace with God, they're not at rest within themselves. And so they turn to things to try to find an artificial place of peace, a refuge, an oasis.

They might turn to alcohol, and they might make themselves numb for a time. But they wake up with their head on fire, and they wake up with bigger problems than before they drank. As a matter of fact, it can get to the point where that alcohol becomes the biggest problem in their lives, so big that it dwarfs everything else. It's not just that, people also turn to medications, they medicate themselves to try to find artificial peace. This is a growing problem in our country. Psychotropic drugs or mood-altering drugs, more and more the answer for psychiatrists. As a matter of fact, a lot of psychiatry begins and ends with a pill. As people try to find peace, they're not at peace in their own hearts, they're not at peace with God, and so they take medications. The numbers are staggering, the numbers of those that are using psychoactive drugs has gone from 131 million in 1988 to 233 million in 1998, I believe those are worldwide statistics. Here in the States, maybe 20 or 30 million people are on these kind of drugs. And the annual take is about $6.3 billion, on these kinds of medications.

People also resort to other things, to mood music, aromatherapy, I've never tried that one. I've smelled some good smells in my life, but I never thought of it as aromatherapy. Especially this time of the year with the potpourri and the candles and all, it's wonderful but I don't find my peace from that, I hope you don't either. Or a good hot bath, yoga, meditation, breathing techniques. Some people get addicted to physical exercise, the proverbial runner's high, and so they'll exercise. I saw people up in Massachusetts in January and February, running across the Harvard Bridge, and the wind chill was like 30 below and they're running. I think that must be an addiction, there's something going on there that's not right. Do some calisthenics at home, do some exercises, this is strange, but the runner's high. Or others resort even to materialism. There's a new phrase called "shopping therapy," and people kind of indulge in it this time of year. It's true, the first reference to shopping therapy was in the Chicago tribune on Christmas Eve 1986, this is a quote, "We've become a nation measuring out our lives in shopping bags, and nursing our psychic ills through retail therapy."

None of these things, however, is going to bring the kind of peace that's mentioned in our verse today, none of them are. All of them are counterfeits. If your conscience is accusing you of sin, if you're afraid to die and face God on Judgment Day, none of these flimsy techniques can bring you peace, none of them. Your hearts will be restless until you find at last your rest in God. And the reason for that is sin. "’There is no peace’, says my God, ‘For the wicked.’ "

A Gift Given by Christ Alone

This is a gift given by Christ alone. Look at verse 15, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." Christ is the peace-giver, He alone can give peace to troubled consciences and to troubled hearts. Jesus said in John 14:27, "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." Jesus in John 14, verse 27 is promising a peace the world cannot give. Those other avenues and other type of things like that can produce a temporary feeling of peace or tranquility, but it's like the morning mist that disappears as soon as the heat of trouble comes in life. Jesus gives a peace that will last forever and ever. He is the prince of peace, and He means to bring a peace to this world that will last for all eternity.

And so it says in Isaiah 9:6-7, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end." That's the kind of peace that Christ comes to bring. The government will be on His shoulders, He will reign on David's throne, and He will bring in in the New Heavens and the New Earth a peace we can scarcely even imagine. Isaiah 2:4 it says, "He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore." Isaiah 11:6, "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them." Those are expressions of perfect peace, and Jesus alone can give it.

Now, there are two different ways to understand this command, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. The first is objective, the peace of Christ is objective peace. And the second is subjective, the peace of Christ is an experience or a sense of peace. The first is a status of peace between us and God, and the second is a feeling or an experience of peace. Now, as we look at the first, the objective peace, it's somewhat like the status of peace between our nation and Great Britain. Twice, we were at war with England, but the most recent of those is almost 200 years ago. That's over. There's been a status of peace, we're at peace with England. We're at peace with Great Britain, a status of peace. At one point, we were enemies of God and God was our enemy too. We were at war with God. Look back in Colossians 1, in verse 21. It says there in Colossians 1:21, it says, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior." We were alienated from God. We were enemies of God. God was at war with us too, and what a terrifying thing it is to have God as your enemy. The God who created heaven and earth. The God who spoke, and the universe came into existence, planets, the cosmos, the stars, all of that just by the word of His power.

Imagine having that kind of power, that kind of creativity, focused like a laser beam on your destruction. That's the way I think of Hell, a terrifying thing to have God as your enemy, and Colossians 1:21 says, "At one point, all of us were alienated from God and we were enemies of God." God was at war with us, whether we knew it or not. We could not necessarily feel it. We might have felt the kind of unease in our souls, unable to be at rest and at peace, as I've mentioned a sense of that, but the real issue is that our status with God, was that He was at war with us and we with Him, that was the status of the relationship. How we felt moment by moment didn't change that at all, but now it lasts because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, because of His blood shed on the cross, God is at peace with us and we with Him through faith in Christ. And that is the meaning of the season. That is the reason that we celebrate the gift of Christ, is it not?

If I can just say, if you were brought here today by a friend or you've just come to church, you haven't been in in years and you're not at peace with God, you know it. You can just sense it as I'm preaching. You know that God is not at peace with you because of sin. Can I urge you to come to Christ? Can I urge you to be justified, to have all of your sins forgiven through simple faith in Christ? Your works will not do you any good, and you know it. You may have tried some of those things I was mentioning earlier before. You may have turned to drugs or alcohol. You may have turned to other things to try to bring you temporary peace, and you know they don't work and your heart is restless. You haven't found peace, come to Christ, be reconciled to God, be reconciled to Him through faith in Christ.

Look at what it says in Colossians 1:22, "But now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight without blemish and free from accusation." Oh, how sweet is that? To be able to stand before God, free from any accusation. Christ Jesus who died is at the right hand of God, is interceding for us, and He is our righteousness. He is our peace and He is speaking to the Father on our behalf, and we are free from any accusation, how sweet is that? And as the foundation of our experiences of peace is that objective peace we have, where it says in Romans 5:1, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And that doesn't change like the stock market or NASDAQ. It doesn't go up and down. It is or it isn't. And if you are in Christ, my friends, it is. God is at peace with you and He will be forever more. It has nothing to do with your behavior. It has nothing to do with your attitude or your circumstances. It is an objective peace you have with Christ.

Subjective Peace: An Experience of Peace Like Christ

However, I do not think that that is what Paul is talking about here. I do think it is the basis of it, but I don't think it's what he's talking about, because he's saying, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." And there I think we're talking about a subjective peace. A sense of peace, a feeling of peacefulness that comes over your heart. Now, the basis of it is knowing that God is at peace with you. Amen. Just knowing that God is at peace with you, you can have feelings and experiences of peace, and so we should, just like Jesus. How would you like to be like Jesus? Asleep in the midst of a storm in a boat. You got your cushion under your head and you're sleeping like a baby. The disciples are all thinking that they're going to drown and Jesus is asleep in the center of His Father's will, knowing very well He wasn't going to drown that day. What did He have to be worried about? And so He was asleep.

And that peace of Christ is just put on display, especially at the end of His life, wasn't it? After He worked it all out with His Father in Gethsemane, He knew He was going to die. He had accepted that, He stood up from His prayer time and He went out and the display of peace is supernatural. He steps out to this band of soldiers, 600-plus soldiers, perhaps. They were out there to arrest Him. And He takes charge of that situation. "Who is it you're looking for?" He crafts a place of security and rest for His disciples so they can escape. "Let them go." He's in charge of His own arrest. That's incredible. And He goes from there to Ananias's house and they're questioning Him, and some man strikes Him, and He turns serenely to this man and said, "If I have spoken wrong, then bear witness of it, but if I told the truth, then why did you strike me?"

Now, there's a question that man could think about for days and weeks to come, maybe he eventually came to Christ. Who knows? I hope so. But Jesus is at peace even when getting struck. He's at peace in front of Pontius Pilate. Pilate's the one all churned up. Pilate doesn't know what to do. He's an innocent man but he doesn't want to let him go, and back and forth. He goes out, he goes back in. He's not at peace. Jesus knows what's going to happen. He's going to die. And He knows that out of that death, there's going to be a countless multitude from every tribe and language and people and nation believing in Christ, and coming to full forgiveness. And so, He's ready to die and so He's just talking to Pilate. "Are you a king?" That's a threatening question. "You're right in saying I'm a king. Absolutely, it's the truth. “For this reason I came into the world and for this I was born to testify to the truth. And everyone on the side of truth, listens to me." Oh, the peace of Christ. And then while nailed to the cross, His life blood flowing out, He is quoting scripture. He is saying to the thief on the cross, he's saying, "Today you'll be with me in paradise." He's taking care of His mother and setting up a relationship with John. He's at peace.

Would you like to know that? Would you like to walk in the peace of Christ? Well, you are commanded to actually. Here in verse 15, if you're a Christian, you have the power to do the same. Let the peace of Christ dominate you. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Some day, when Christ's work is finished in us and in all that countless multitude of the elect, from every tribe and language and people and nation, when He's done with all of His saving work, and we have moved over into the new heaven and new earth, some day you're going to sit on some beautiful, new earth mountaintop, and you're going to look down on a world reborn, the beauty of which I cannot describe right now. It's going to be a perfect world. And Jesus will be there and so will some of the brothers and sisters in Christ and this is some time with Jesus, there's plenty of time with Christ. We've got eternity. And you could see a beautiful river, maybe the river of life, flowing clear as crystal, like silver thread down at the bottom of a beautiful valley.

And perhaps you'll be able to see some new earth eagles, if there will be that, kind of soaring. And you feel the wind on your face and you know that you will never again feel pain, there's no regrets, there's no bad memories, there's nothing but peace. And you will sit there at peace and there's no threat of war, that's over forever. And you will be in community there and you will see the handiwork of God and you will feel the peace of Christ perfected then. Set your heart on it. And let that peace of Christ rule. Let it dominate.

Practically: Bible Intake and Bible Contemplation

Now, how? You say, "Practically, how do I do that? I can do it alright here at church, or I can do it in my quiet time but once the day starts and things start getting busy, and things start getting difficult... " It's amazing the curveballs that Satan throws at you. It's amazing the different things that come. "How can I let the peace of Christ rule in my heart?" Now, first of all, what does that mean? Rule. Well, the word was used of a referee or an umpire at one of the games, like the Corinthian or the Isthmian games and the Olympic games and he was the judge that would sit and preside over the games, and he would decide who was disqualified or make rulings or judgements, etcetera. So you could almost see Christ, in His peace, sitting in the throne of your heart just judging the things that come in, the thoughts that come into your heart, the events of your life, for the purpose of peace. Just ruling over your heart for the purpose of peace. That's what it means. Let the peace of Christ dominate, let it rule in your heart. Well, how do we do it practically? Well, I think we start with the Word.

We'll get to the Word in a moment. But meditate richly on the Word. Let your mind be transformed by the renewing that the Word alone can give. Romans 12:2 says, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind and then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is-His good, pleasing and perfect will." But what is His will for you? What is He doing? Is He not saving you from sin? Isn't that what He's doing? And doesn't He still have some work to do in that? Absolutely. And do you suppose that that work is going to be painless? I tell you it isn't, it's going to be difficult. Therefore you should “count it all joy because God is doing some work in you, when there are difficulties and circumstances.” And so you can know that “God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and have been called according” “to His saving purpose”. And His saving purpose is that you and a great multitude from all over the world be conformed to the image of Christ. And now you're in it. You're in sanctification. It's going on, trouble's coming. And you say, "I expected it, I knew it was going to come, I'm ready for it, you're working on me, Lord. Thank you." Let the peace of Christ rule just by saturating your mind in the Word of God, understanding right doctrine.

And this one I got from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, I've mentioned it before, but it's so powerful. You need to preach to yourself. Get Lloyd-Jones' book, entitled Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures. Do you ever struggle with depression? Do you ever struggle with discouragement? You need to fight. And one of the number one ways Lloyd-Jones says that you fight is by preaching to yourself. What does he mean by that? Well, he picks up on Psalm 42 in verse 5 which says, "Why are you downcast, oh my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." This is what Lloyd-Jones says. He says, "The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us, instead of talking to ourselves." This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of the unhappiness in your life is due to the fact that you were listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You've not originated them, but they start talking to you. They bring up that problem from yesterday that was unsolved. It's taking over. It's coming to you.

Your self is talking to you. Now, the Psalmist's approach here, in Psalm 42 was this. Instead of allowing the self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. "Why are you cast down, oh my soul? Why so disturbed within me?" He takes the bull by the horns, you see. And he begins to talk to himself. Do you do this? Do you do it out loud? Now, that's a different matter, but you need to preach to yourself. Maybe you need to start by preaching out loud. And just remind yourself, why are you thinking these dark thoughts? Why are you so troubled, why are you so anxious? Isn't there a God in heaven? Doesn't He rule over all things? Doesn't He love you? Isn't He taking you to heaven to be with Christ? Why are you disturbed about this? Aren't you going to see God's power at work in this situation? You have to talk to yourself. Take what you know is true about God and His sovereignty and His providence and all that, and apply it to your circumstance.

Then you can let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. And put your hope in God. Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled." There's so much I could say about this, but it really is a conscious choice on your part to let your heart be troubled, to let your heart be tormented by circumstances. Jesus said don't do it. "Do not let your heart be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." It's a matter of faith. Isaiah 26:3-4 says, "You will keep in perfect peace Him whose mind is steadfast, because He trusts in you." I love that. That's NIV. Perfect peace. The Hebrew is "shalom shalom." You'll keep him in shalom shalom, a full, rich experience of peace, if your mind is stayed on Christ. It's mental discipline. I'm not going to let the problems get me down. I'm not going to dominate my thoughts with those issues, those problems. I'm going to just trust Christ.

 Your thought life. Psalm 131, verse 1 and 2. "My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too difficult for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me." Is that your experience? It's a matter of thought control. It's a matter of quieting yourself, as though you were John laying your head on Jesus' breast at that Last Supper, and just say, "I don't need to worry about it. I don't need to worry about these things. I don't need to be troubled by it. Jesus is in control." And prayer, above all things. Philippians 4:6 and 7, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. You're setting peace as a guard over the door of your brain, and you're not letting anything in that's going to disturb your soul. But you're going to trust Him with everything.

Then it says, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly," verse 16. "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing songs, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God." The principle here is that the Word of God is essential to your ongoing life as a Christian. The Word of God is the Alpha and the Omega of faith, and it's every letter in between. Faith operates based on the Word of God. You hear a promise of God, and faith springs up and believes. And those promises, those words from God carry you all the way through to the Omega day of your life. And so therefore, you must feed your faith on the Word of God constantly. It troubles me when Evangelicals, when Baptists, take and wrap up into one thing the beginning of the Christian life, say, "You need repentance at the beginning of the Christian life. You need faith at the beginning of the Christian life. You need to hear the Gospel at the beginning of the Christian life." All those things are true. You just need to do it the rest of your life, and that was just the first day you really repented, the first day you really believed, the first day you really trusted. But that goes on the rest of your life.

So you've got to feed your faith. You've got to make it rich. You've got to put rich soil around the root system of your faith, and that is the Word of God. Now, what does it mean to have Christ's Word dwell in you? The word "dwell" means live. You can imagine like an apartment set up in your heart for the Word of God. I think about that rich woman who knew the prophet Elisha, remember? And Elisha would come from time to time and they'd have a meal, and she says to her husband, "I tell you what, why don't we set up an apartment, a home for this man of God? He is a man of God. Let's put a bed in there and a table and some furniture, and let's just... So whenever he's in the area he can stay." And so it was. She set up an apartment up on the roof of her home, and Elisha came and lived there. And you know the story, 2 Kings, chapter 4. Can I urge you to do that for the Word of God? Make room in your heart for the Word of God. Set up a place for the Word of God to come and live with you.

Now, this time of year there's a lot of traveling that goes along and a lot of house guests. And there are some good house guests and then there's some bad house guests, you know what I'm saying? I know I can touch some raw nerves here because there's family involved. The general rule of thumb is three days, wasn't it? And then it starts to turn a little bit bad. But if it's a long journey they're coming from we can extend that a bit. Why should they come such a long distance for just a few days? But there are house guests and then there are house guests. Like the ones that come and eat up all your food and leave you with, get this, I read this on the Internet, a $500 phone bill to Europe. Okay, that is not a good house guest. Don't do that, friends. That's not Christian. That's not loving, okay? But she left a $500 phone bill. It was a college roommate, and then years later she came to visit and she stayed for four weeks. Ate a lot of food and made a lot of phone calls. That's a bad house guest.

The Word of God will make you rich. The Word of God's not going to eat your food and take all your possessions. The Word of God is going to make you rich. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. You can imagine the Word of God coming, and then you go to see the room that you've opened up for it and there on the wall is a Rembrandt painting and in the corner is a Michelangelo statue and on the floor is an expensive Persian silk rug. That's what the Word of God does to your life, it enriches you. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Well, how do you do that practically? Well, you take the Bible in and you think about it. That's it. You take the Bible in by reading it and by hearing good preaching and teaching, and then you think about it. Read through the Bible daily, every single day, and meditate on and memorize the Scripture. Martin Luther said that he studied the Bible as he gathered apples. First he shook the whole tree that the ripest might fall. Then he climbed the tree and shook each limb, and then when he had shaken each limb he shook every branch, and after that he examined every twig, and then he looked under every leaf. In other words, search the Bible whole through and through, and find blessing in every word, take it seriously.

Not like water running through a pipe, "There, I've done my reading." How quickly can you do your daily reading? That's not it. Time yourself and try to save time every day, read it faster and faster, that is not it. You take the Word of God in and you let it marinate, you let your mind be transformed by it, meditate on it, you dwell on it richly. It's not a dry, boring forced march through the pages of the Bible. But the Word of God is living and active and able to produce richness in you. Most of the best stories that I read when I was a kid had to do with treasure. Hidden treasure, pirate treasure, galleons sunk in the Spanish Main, that kind of thing. I loved reading those kind of adventure stories and even to this day I read a book on treasures found in attics, like the Declaration of Independence and all that kind of thing. I just get excited about that kind of thing, maybe that's materialism in my heart, I don't know, I just love those adventures.

The Word of God is the rich treasure of life, the rich treasure of life. Look at Colossians 1:27, Paul loves to talk about wealth, he loves to talk about richness. Colossians 1:27, it says, "To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you the hope of glory." The riches of this glory. Look over at Colossians 2, verse 2 and 3, "My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." He loves that word "riches" or "treasure". Just as Jesus likened the Kingdom of Heaven to treasure hidden in a field. Or the Psalmist said that, "The Word of God is better than fine gold, yea, than much fine gold." Psalm 19. Whereas Paul, as he gets to the end of all this incredible doctrine, Romans 11:33, "Oh, the depths of the riches, of the wisdom, the knowledge of God. How unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out."

Wisdom

Now, what are the rich effects of the Word of God on an individual Christian and on the Body of Christ? Well, there's a lot of things, but it starts with wisdom. It says, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom." The Word of Christ brings you rich wisdom, it makes you wise. We are surrounded by foolishness in this world, aren't we? But that's not the foolishness that bothers me, it's the foolishness in here that bothers me. The foolishness of my own heart. The Word of Christ has been given to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And so I love Proverbs, how it begins, the first five verses, it says, "The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel. For attaining wisdom and discipline, for understanding words of insight, for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life doing what is right and just and fair, for giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young, let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance." And so the Word of Christ gives you wisdom. Wisdom identifies the best destination and the best journey to get to that destination, both of them, wisdom covers all of that, and the Word of God gives that to you.

Teaching

Secondly, it's teaching. It says, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish with all wisdom." As you teach. Now, what is teaching? It's the imparting of spiritual truth, spiritual data, of information. And it is in this way that the body of Christ is edified or built up. The body of Christ is a work in progress, some of you may have even seen posters or have them up, "Be patient with me. God is not finished with me yet." Or, "I'm a work in progress." The Church is a work in progress, we are people who are works in progress. But how does the work progress? It progresses by the Word of God. And teaching is the imparting of building-blocks for your soul, so that the city of truth can be built up inside you. It is intrinsic to the Great Commission. Jesus said, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Teaching's at the center of the Great Commission. Building up the Body of Christ, in the knowledge of God and of His Word, for practical obedience to all of His commands, that is what the Word of Christ is for.

The ministry of the Word of God was at the center of the work of the apostles, from the very beginning. You remember that first day in Pentecost, 3000 were added to the number that day, and it says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer, the Word of God." And then, when the Reformation came, those great leaders, all of them, one after the other, were great teachers of the Word of God. Martin Luther was, he said, "At core, a teacher of the Word of God. The Word of God did all the work," he said. "While I spent time with my friends, while I enjoyed time with my friends, the Word of God was running all over Germany, and reforming the Church." All he did, he said, was simply teach and preach the Word of God. All of them, John Calvin was a great teacher of the Word of God. So, teaching.

I love what Charles Spurgeon said about this, he was teaching pastors about their sermons. He said, "You need to let your sermons be rich with teaching, fill your sermons with teaching." This is what Spurgeon said to his students. He said, "Sermons should have real teaching in them, and their doctrine should be solid, substantial and abundant. Put plenty into your sermons, gentlemen. After hearing some discourses I've been reminded of the request of the farmer's boy to his missus, when eating his broth. 'Missus,' he said, 'I wish you'd let that chicken run through the broth a little bit longer.' " Have you ever heard a sermon like that? You wished that the chicken had run through the broth just a little bit longer; it's watery, there's nothing substantial. It may have titillated your ears but it didn't change your heart. You didn't learn anything. So my desire is kinda of let the chicken kind of cook in the broth, just let it be rich and full. And you're just eating a full-bodied stew when you hear the Word of God preached here. And so also the Bible for Life teaches.

 We need to teach the Word of God fully. And it says also admonishing. Admonishing is the negative ministry of the Word of God. Teaching and admonishing everyone, that's warning somebody. It's basically like one of those Old Westerns where they get on their horses and they ride out and they head out sin at the pass. You don't want a sin to come and destroy the village and so you're going to go out there and head it off at the pass. You see what's coming. With the wisdom that God's given, you say, "Brother, you're in trouble. Sister, you need to stop doing that, this is dangerous." This is at the core of counseling. This is noutheteo, the Greek word for admonishment. It's at the core of counseling, warning each other based on the Word of God. That's what the Word of God does. And then finally there is worship, rich, full worship. As you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. The pattern for godly worship is revelation response.

God reveals. We respond. God unfolds Himself to us in His Word and we are blown away by it. We are moved emotionally and we break out in song. Some of us do. We break out in song and we sing and celebrate because of what God has done. I was talking last Friday to Michael Card, I had some wonderful time with him and he's just a modern hymn writer. He's a godly man who loves to sing. But he says he's troubled by what he sees is the role of music in local church life. He said when he was growing up in a Baptist church, Baptist churches were, for the most part, stationary revival meetings. And basically all they did was preach the same simple Gospel week after week to get people saved. And there wasn't any depth to the preaching. There wasn't any discipleship going on. It was just saving people week after week, so they thought. He said, "Now, many churches are like a stationary concert." And he said, "I would rather go and just have us read the Word and sing, and I'm a musician." He actually said this. He said, "I want to know." He said, "Some of those churches have abandoned teaching and preaching. They just don't do it anymore and all they do is sing." And he wants to stand up and say, "Wait, wait, wait, what are you worshipping? What are you so excited about? What's moving your heart? You don't seem to know anything about Christ."

No, it's gotta be revelation and then response. God reveals and we respond. Probably one of most profound times of a personal worship I have ever had in my life. I will never forget this. It came the Sunday that I preached my final sermon on Romans in this pulpit. I'll never forget it. And I had to do something that's difficult for me, and that is to take a whole book and boil it down to one sermon. I love the details. I love the truth of the Word of God. But I did, I put all 16 chapters into one sermon. And then I went over that sermon that morning just to prepare for preaching and I was blown away by the goodness of God in loving a sinner like me. I was moved to tears. It was bad. I couldn't keep preaching as I was practicing that morning. And I said, "This is not good because I have to conquer this before I get up in front of hundreds of people and preach." At the end of that time I said, "You know what song we need to finish this all off? How Deep The Father's Love For Us." I just love that song. And I had a sense of the depth, of the scope of God's love for me and Christ that morning.

And I went to Eric and I said, "Eric," 'cause he had chosen a good closing hymn, but I said, "Is there anyway we can move over and sing How Deep The Father's Love For Us?" And Eric's got the sweetest spirit and that involved putting in inserts that very morning and he said, "I'd love to do it." And we got done with prayer here in the parlor and I walked through and they were practicing it. I almost couldn't make it to the back. I almost couldn't make it. I was with one of my children and we walked to the back, I came around and sat down on that little stairway back there that brings us down to the children hall and I just sat down and wept. And I wept for probably 90 seconds without explaining myself to that child, they were troubled. "You alright, Dad?" "I'm fine. It's happy, not... " I could barely speak. "It's happy not sad." What was going on in me that moment? You know what it was? It was truth brought out by music. It was the two of them, together, it was the truth and then the spiritual aspect of music, which is a powerful medium, which brought out true worship in me and I was moved. Now, that's what worship's all about, isn't it? Good hymns have good doctrine in them and they're skillfully written in ways that we normal people can't do, but composers can do it and they can just reach to our heart and bring out emotions based on truth. That is worshipping in spirit and truth and I love to see it.

So how do we apply these things? Well, the whole sermon has been application, Because we're in that section of Colossians. Let me speak some practical words to you. Start with my practical advice on peace. Is it important whether you're at peace today? Whether you feel peaceful today? I tell you, it is. The fruit of the spirit is peace. Let the spirit administer peace to you today but follow the instructions here. Renew your mind with the promises of God. Figure out what God is doing in your life. He is sanctifying you and making you holy, that's not going to be an easy process, so expect difficulties. When those difficulties come, remind yourself what God is doing in you. "In this world, you will have trouble," Jesus said. "But take heart, I have overcome the world." Guard your peace in Christ. Secondly, know the Word of God. Make a resolution that in 2008, you're going to read through the Bible in a year. There are 15, 20 different good programs you could follow, but find one and follow it. Take in the Word of God in breadth. Just get a sense of the whole scope of the Word of God.

 But along with that, I urge you to choose a portion of scripture and memorize it. Memorize it in depth and study it in depth, maybe Ephesians or a book of the Bible like Philippians, or maybe a passage of scripture, Romans 8, some Psalms. Memorize them and study it in depth. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Know the Word of God, and study it carefully, and teach it to one another. In the halls, encourage one another, build each other up. Say, "You know, there's something I just learned in my quiet time this morning. I want to share it with you."

Admonishing

And admonish one another. Don't just let a brother or a sister slip off, slip away from Christ, but bring them back. Let's be the Body of Christ to admonish one another. Pray for the developing of a counseling ministry here. It's a goal for 2008, that we would have a stronger Biblical counseling ministry in our church.

Worship: Both Private and Corporate

And, finally, enrich your life with worship. Sing. Do you realize you're commanded in this verse to sing? And you may think that you're excluded because of a lack of talent. You're not. Sing and make music in your heart to God. I think the corporate worship setting is the best place for bad singers to sing. I can speak from personal experience. I offer a special apology to those who sit right around me every week. Alright, you guys hear me. I don't have a terrible voice but I don't have a great voice.

When we have our morning devotions, we're at our worst singing, we laughed about it this morning. We are not making a family recording like the Von Trapp family singers, we're not doing that. But sing, sing. It troubles me when I think about it, and Eric and I have talked about people that come all the way here to worship and they don't sing. I don't understand that. Sing. You're commanded to do it. Stand up and sing. If you don't know the song, probably by the second go around, you'll know it. So sing the second verse at least. But sing and make music in your heart to God. Close with me in prayer.

As the Sun makes its incredible 24-hour journey around the Earth, one time zone after another, as people are gathering to celebrate the Lord's Day, to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead which is never far from our thoughts and never should be. Even as we celebrate the birth of Christ we always think about the empty tomb and the victory that He won. And so this is the Lord's Day and as the Sun makes its 24-hour circuit, and shines its light on one timezone after another, a miracle is taking place. Now I'm not saying that healings are taking place, or people are being raised from the dead, and that may be happening, it may not, all kinds of discussions go on over those kind of things, the sign gifts. I'm talking about something far more significant than that. I'm talking about the miracle of Christian Fellowship, genuine Christian Fellowship. And I'm even highlighting this morning the miracle of surprising Christian Fellowship. Something that cannot be explained any other way.

I think we saw a little of it in the interview today as you have Ron and Genara, standing side by side. So very different, and yet I know them both and in their hearts a love for Jesus Christ characterizes them, and how sweet is that. If you don't know either one of them or both, you're missing a treat, get to know them. They are your brother and your sister in Christ. But how could it be that they would be in such close fellowship with each other? Now these gatherings that happen around the world fly in the face of all human logic. They supersede any efforts at diplomacy, any economic care packages, any political solutions. There are trouble spots all over the world that will actually only get worse and worse, but in the center of it, there are these gatherings, house churches, small groups of people gathering together defying all logic, transcending all human hatred, be it ever so deeply rooted in that surrounding culture. And they love each other, and they're gathering to worship.

I've met missionaries that are working in Central and Eastern Europe, and they testify to this. They talked about pockets of peace in the Balkans, where Serbs and Croats get together. They've already met because the sun's already passed them by in terms of Sunday morning worship, but they'll be gathering again later today. And they'll be worshipping together and they defy all human reason. They love each other deeply from the heart. There's not a lot of them, but they're there. So also in Palestine there are Lebanese Muslims and former Jews who had rejected up to that point the gospel, who have come to faith in Christ and are actually worshipping together. There's your Middle East solution. I don't know what the American government's planning. I don't know what Condoleezza Rice is going to do. I'm not here to talk about politics, but I tell you there is your Middle East solution, right there.

The peace that only Jesus can bring. And it's happening all over the world. I've talked to people in the Czech Republic and in Romania and they testify to this, that guards that were working under the communist regime that beat them and tortured them, now worship with them in house church places and other small church gatherings. And it was hard to forgive, but they were enabled to forgive, you know how the Lord takes our arm and twists it behind our back with the parable of the 10,000 talents, and says in effect, how dare you not forgive the 100 Denari when I have forgiven you so much. And so the hatred just melts away. The antipathy just melts away, and true genuine fellowship occurs. It's going on all over the world, and even here in America. When former racists can get together and worship in the true peace that only Jesus can bring, black racists and white racists, they can actually get together and drop that aside, and there can be an open visible display of the unity that only Jesus can bring.

Racial, National, Religious, and Socio-Economic Divisions

Brothers and sisters, I yearn to see it more here than we see it now. So you want to know where I'm going with this sermon? I want to see an open clear display of how Jesus melts human divisions, and I find it right in the text we're looking at this morning, Colossians 3. Amen? Pray for it. Yearn for it. Yearn to see more and more Kazakhs and international students, people from India, people from China coming to embrace Christ as a result of our international student ministry. Yearn to see more and more African Americans coming and worshipping here as a result of our growing urban ministry, yearn for it, pray for it, that's the application today. And where do I get it? You look at Colossians 3:11 it speaks there of “Greek or Jews, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free”, we live in a world torn by divisions, and it's amazing how in these few names here, Paul covers four of the major ways that people have tended to have divided, one from another. For example there are racial distinctions. Greek or Jew. America is a nation with a history of racial division, segregation and racial hatred. But it's not just here in America, it's all over. It's in South Africa, even beyond apartheid it's still there. It's in India, in Pakistan it's there, it's in Malaysia.

Racism is a problem all over the world. And then there's nationalism which is just kind of racism organized along political lines, and so people tend to see themselves as proud to be whatever country they're from and to speak of their nation as the greatest nation on earth and to forget that our citizenship is in Heaven, Philippians 3 teaches. But we saw rabid nationalism right before World War II when the National Socialist Party in Germany, the Nazis, organized that whole nation around nationalism, and they took it to invading other countries and dominating and liquidating the local populations in the name of Germany.

And then there's religious divisions, you see it as well, circumcised or uncircumcised, that has to do with religious regulations. Some of the bitterest divides in the world are over religion, certainly the Palestinian Israeli conflict, that's got ethnic and nationalistic overtones, but it's at heart a religious division. So also during the time of the partition, the Indian subcontinent mingled Muslims and Hindus. I can't imagine two religions more different and they were living in very close quarters and horrible riots broke out, and thousands of people were killed, and they were religious discrepancies at the core, and it's not just out there, but the Christian Church has been rent by these kinds of wars. The 100 Years War and all the religious wars that followed the Reformation. Protestants and Catholics killing each other. And then there's socio-economic divisions, slave or free which plagues it as well, the division between classes of people, rich and poor, nobility and the peasantry, and the middling sort and all of that, the whole class structure, and it's still there and it's there all over the world. 

But in our hearts I think human beings yearn for peace and unity. We don't live for strife, most of us don't, and we want it and we see secular efforts guided by human wisdom at trying to bring about solutions and peace to areas. And I don't know what the motives are, maybe they want to win the Nobel Peace Prize, or be established as political leaders, who knows what their motives are but there's a bent in that direction, a bent toward peace and toward unity but I tell you it will fail. History has proven it will fail. There's only one true Concord between nations, between people, and that's through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's what this text testifies to.

Now the context of Colossians 3, as we're looking at here, was a heresy that was rife in the Colossian area. I don't know that it had taken root yet in the Colossian church but it was coming, and so I think it was Epaphroditus that came and spoke to Paul of a church he'd never visited, a local church, and of the problems that were going on there, and of the threat of this heresy. And so that's the context, but in the midst of it we have some transferable truths, some things that are true no matter what kind of issues we're facing.

The Glory of Christ

They're always true and they have to do with the glory of Jesus Christ, and the glory of the gospel that He came to purchase by His own blood. You see the glory of Christ in Colossians 1, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for by Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things are created by Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together." The glory and the majesty of the person of Jesus Christ. This is the one we celebrate at Christmas time and year-round. He is the center of the gospel, the center of the universe, the glory of Christ. But we also see the glory of the gospel, look at Colossians 1:19-22, these verses are very relevant for what we're looking at today. The glory of the gospel. Colossians 1:19-22, it says, "For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death." Look at those relational words, look at how intensely relational the gospel is. Reconcile, peace, alienated, enemies, reconciled again, these things have to do with relationships, and so there was a significant problem vertically between us and God, whether you felt it or not. At one time, Colossians 1 says, you were enemies, all of us were enemies because of our evil behavior, in our minds, our hearts, because of our evil behavior. But now we've been reconciled through the blood shed on the cross, once enemies vertically alienated, needed to be reconciled, then Jesus did that.

All of the horizontal problems come from that. All of them. We have problems one with another because we have problems with God. Therefore once we have been reconciled to God, then we have firm ground under our feet that we might be reconciled one with another, and that's what these verses is talking about, the power of the gospel to bring about reconciliation with God, Almighty God first, and then with one another, secondly. Now the Colossian heresy gave a different gospel which is no gospel at all quoting Galatians, it's no gospel at all. But in Colossians they were offering a religious concoction, a kind of a bubbling mess in some kind of cauldron of human philosophy, and Jewish legalism, and mysticism with the worship of angels, and with the harsh treatment of the body, asceticism. If you do these things then you can get beyond where Jesus left us, He only brings you so far, but He's insufficient, you have to go beyond. Oh, what a heresy. Christ is sufficient for us, He's sufficient for full reconciliation with God and sufficient for full reconciliation with one another. And so it’s a false gospel and it was a false teaching and it could not bring about what Colossians 2 discusses, true holiness.

The Glory of the Gospel

But then he goes, Paul goes in Colossians 3:1-17 to describe elements of a truly healthy Christian life. And as I said before these are verses well worthy of your memorization and meditation. Colossians 3:1-17, and first he gives us a heavenly mindset, verses 1-4, “set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated”. That is your heavenly home. I just love that song that Michael Card sang on Friday and that Eric sang a few weeks before that, the New Jerusalem. I can't listen to it without crying, because I want to be there! I mean it's not bad here, and you folks make it better, but I want to be there. I want to be there with you too. We're going to be there. I'm yearning, I just have that yearning, set your hearts and things above. Secondly, as we talked about for two weeks. Battling indwelling sin. We've gotta fight sin and put sin to death, mortification of sin.

Do get that John Owen book. If you don't have your free copy, please pick it up at the back of the church, and if they run out, which they probably will, then call the office, we'll get some more. Today we're talking about walking together in the new self and a new community, and then the fourth step is saturating your hearts with Christ. “Letting the peace of Christ rule in your heart”, “letting the word of Christ richly dwell” “in your heart”. Letting the name of Christ be the sole motivator for everything you do, the name and the glory of Christ. And thanks to Christ constantly given by our hearts. That's the four part outline of next week's sermon. What do you think are the odds I'll finish that in one week? You're shaking your heads, probably not, alright but that's where we're heading. But you do all of these things in Colossians 3:1-17, you will be healthy as a Christian, you will be fruitful as a Christian, you will be happy, your household will be well ordered and so will the Church. These are good things, so let's zero in on that third major category, and that's walking together in the new self and a new community.

Moral Commands Based on New Status

And so we come to the doctrine of the old self and the new self. Moral commands in the New Testament are based on a new status. Look at verse one of Colossians 3, "Since then you have been raised with Christ," “you have been raised, it's a settled status if you're a Christian, you have been raised with Christ.” Verse three, "For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God,"  it's a status, dead and now alive. Again verse four, "When Christ, who is your life, appears," “Christ is your life, that's a new status.” And then verse five, "Put to death therefore", because of this new status then you're going to mortify sin, that's how New Testament ethics is taught. On the basis of what God has done for you, on the basis of the change in your life, on that basis then you move out, and you do some things differently. Put to death therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, we have a new status. Through union with Christ, in His death and in His resurrection. At one time we were an old person in Adam, now we are new in Christ. And I tell you, we talk about people being black or white, they see everything as black or white and all that, see everything binary, yes-no etcetera. God sees the human race that way, He either sees you in Adam or you're in Christ and that's it. There's no third option. You're either in Adam or you are in Christ. 

The Puritan, Thomas Goodwin put it this way, there are but two men that are seen standing before God, Adam and Jesus Christ and these two men have all other men hanging from their belts. So you're either seen in Adam or you're seen in Christ. Now if you've come to faith in Christ, that old person you were in Adam is dead, forever. And now you have a new identity in Christ, it's a decisive act in history, Jesus talks about being born again. “I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he has been born again” or “born from above, born by the Spirit.” Has this happened to you? Has it happened to you? We're going to talk about harmony, we're going to talk about unity, we're going to talk about racism, we're going to talk about ministries and different things like that but put all that aside, how does God see you? Are you in Adam, or are you in Christ?

Oh, please hear me, you're going to die, I don't know when but someday you're going to die, and when you die you will stand before Almighty God and as you heard in my prayer, nothing is hidden before Almighty God, He sees everything, “everything's uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.” Are you ready for that day? Are you ready to die? It might be today, are you ready? Are you in Christ? Have you been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought over into the kingdom of the beloved Son? Has that happened? Are you born again? You may say "I don't know how to know. I don't know if I'm born again." There can be no more significant question for you to resolve today than that. Please don't walk out of this place without having it resolved. If you're hearing His voice in your heart and you don't know whether you're following Him, and you don't know whether He's your good shepherd, then come talk to me or just find a brother or sister in Christ and say "I need to know if I am born again".

Christians Called to be a Holy, New Creation

All the other things were interesting, harmony, unity, Scythians. Boy, it's interesting to learn who the Scythians were, that's all interesting. It's not going to save your soul. Whether you're in Adam or Christ, now that's the issue. Come to Christ, look to Him, look to His blood shed on the cross, as sufficient for all your sins, trust in Him, now. Call on Him, even in the quietness of your heart. But if that's happened to you, if you have been rescued and brought over into the kingdom, you are a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "If anyone's in Christ, he is a new creation, the old is gone, behold everything is become new." And that new creation God has committed to “upholding by the word of His power” for the rest of your existence, and do you know how long that is? It's eternal. That new creation self inside you will survive all of the temptations you will face the rest of your life.

Satan can't touch it, he can't kill it, he can't extinguish the light that was kindled inside your heart. He can assault you, he can make you miserable, he can reduce the number of good works you have to show at the end of your life, he can do those things, but he cannot touch the new creation. Because Almighty God upholds it by the word of His power and it will survive all illnesses, it will survive all the twists and turns of providence, it will survive your final trip to the hospital, your two weeks in the ICU when with labored breath, you make your way out of this world, it will survive your physical death, the new creation, and it will survive when God has you stand before Him spiritually and give Him an “account of everything done in the body, whether good or bad”. It will survive the torching of your works, “the gold and silver and costly stones and the wood and the hay and the straw”, your new creation self will survive all of that. And it will go on into eternity, and your new creation self, which is inside you now, predates a new heaven and new earth which will come someday, and the “old heaven and the old earth will be wrapped up like a garment and thrown away.”

So I believe your new creation self will survive the Grand Canyon, it'll survive the Pacific Ocean, it'll survive the constellations as they presently are arrayed, it will survive every natural thing that surrounds us. That's how powerful is the work that God's done in your soul. And He will make a new earth and I don't know if there'll be a new Grand Canyon, I don't know what, that's up to God and He is creative and it's going to be beautiful and spectacular. I know it says there'll no longer be any sea but Randy Alcorn says there will. I don't know who you're going to go with on that, Apostle John or Randy Alcorn? But I have no idea whether there's going to be a sea or not, whether there's going to be mountains or not. I know it's going to be beautiful.

Only Put On Deeds Fitting of the New Creation in You

It's the new creation that's coming. But you have a new creation self inside you and because that's true, then you're commanded to be sanctified, and the essence of sanctification is "Put off the old and put on the new." That's what he's teaching you here. Put off the old and put on the new. Negatively, you are to “put off these sins of perverted love”, “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed which is idolatry,” put them off. It's like putting on a dead carcass of a human being. I mean covered with maggots, I want you to be grossed out by sexual immorality and lust and greed, they're filthy. Put it off, it's part of an old way of life, it's not part of who you are. It will not be part of who you are in heaven. So put it off and put off those sins of broken relationships, anger and rage and malice and slander and filthy language from your lips and put off lying. Stop lying to each other. That's all part of the old self. That's negative, that's what you put off. But now you're also commanded to put on some beautiful things. Oh! How sweet is this? Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and love. These things shine with radiance. They characterized Christ, they characterize Him still. And it's part of your new nature.

Old Self Crucified, New Self Constantly Renewed and Put On

And so verse 9 says, "Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self." It's permanent, it's done. You have a new identity now, it's gone forever. Galatians 2:20, "I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me,” “I died”. Well you've taken off the old self but the practices still remain, in the body of sin, the body of death, it's still the habits are built, it’s a momentum, an unholy momentum. Put those practices off too, that's what he's saying.

But then you've got this new self which is constantly renewed and you are to put it on. You have put on the new self. Now, what does it mean to put on Christ, or to put on the new self? I think there's just some practical thing, it's got to do with a mindset. Self-talk, preach to yourself, okay? "I am a Christian, I am to be like Christ, I am to imitate Jesus in everything I do, I want to be like Christ," you're talking to yourself, it's a matter of prayer, "Lord, I praise You that I'm a new creation, I praise You that I can imitate You in every way. I trust in You now, please live through me by Your Spirit." Moment by moment, pray without ceasing for these kinds of prayers. Put on Christ. And it's a matter of learning. It says it's “being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

Don't stop listening to good preaching. Don't stop listening to the Word, don't forsake your quiet time. Saturate your mind in the Word of God, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly so that this new self can be renewed in knowledge. Renewed means it's like a constant new creation work going on inside you to sustain what God began. There's a renewing, it means we're constantly dependent on the Father, constantly. And He will uphold it for all eternity. So it's renewed in knowledge, in the image of its Creator, and how sweet is this. It goes back to Genesis 1:27 it says, "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female, He created them” “in the image of God.” But how is that marred through sin? How filthy has it become? Jesus means to have it clean again. And so it is renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator, the new self, that's what you put on. An imitation of God. This is the essence of sanctification, put off and put on. And the result is heaven on display. Heaven on display! Wouldn't it be sweet to say to a non-Christian friend, come to a church where you can see heaven on display. "Oh, I'd love to see that, where's that?" "Well, it's at First Baptist Church in Durham." "In Durham? Can anything good come out of Durham?" they might say. And you'll say, "Absolutely, lots of good things come out of Durham. 400 Christians come out of the doors of a church in Durham and go out and change their world, and then they come back and they get renewed in knowledge and they go back out and change the world. All kinds of good things come out of Durham. Absolutely, heaven on display."

Sin’s Fragmenting Effect: The Human Race Divided

Now sin has fragmented the world. As I've mentioned, racism, I think all of it is a form of self worship. You get down to it, it's self worship, racism, nationalism, religious fanaticism, these kinds of things, a form of self worship. In the image of its creator, I might say, because Satan is the ultimate self-worshipper. And the result is the human race is likened in Daniel's vision to this huge statue with a head of gold and a chest and arms of silver, and a belly and thighs of bronze, and legs of iron. And then there are those feet, remember? Feet of clay. We talked about that. Partly iron, partly baked clay. And you know what? They don't adhere together. They don't mix well. They don't stay together. They just fragment and the whole thing comes crumbling down as the rock cut out of a mountain strikes the feet of clay and the whole thing, human history, empires and all, it just smashed because of our weakness that we cannot stay together because we hate each other. Because of racism, because of nationalism, because of socio-economic divisions, because of religions divides, because of the work of Satan.

So Paul mentioned these groups in verse 11, ”Greek or Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, Barbarians, Scythians, slave or free”. The Greeks and Jews hated each other. Hated! It was a hatred and animosity there. The Jews, when they would return from a Gentile country, would shake the dust off as they entered in and would give themselves ritual baths, to just get all the Gentile-ness off themselves. And they would never go in a Gentile home. Big problem in Acts 10 when Peter went to preach the gospel to Cornelius, that he would step across the threshold into a Gentile home. They hated the Gentiles.

And the Gentiles for their part thought the Jews were pretty odd too. And there was some hatred there. And there was a division because of the law of Moses and circumcision and all kinds of things, and Jesus has destroyed it all. He's taken down the barrier. He's taken down “the dividing wall of hostility”. Ephesians 2:13, I'm following, read it, "By abolishing in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body, to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which He put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away,” “Gentiles,” “and peace to you who are near,” “Jews,” and brought the two together sweetly into one new person. Jesus can do that. The cross has the power to kill hostility. And so it has. And then there's the barbarians. The word in the Greek kind of like the word in English, is a kind of an imitation that the elite cultured Greeks had of the languages of those unwashed pagans out there. "Barbarbarbarbar". That's how they talk. Mocking their language and their culture.

That haughty arrogance is removed forever in Christ. And then there are the Scythians. I told you a moment ago, you'd learn about the Scythians. I didn't know who the Scythians were. They were nasty apart from Christ. Scythian Christians, wonderful. But Scythians were dreaded and hated among all barbarians by the Greeks. They were nomadic, war-like people dwelling in the Caspian region. And they would frequently invade the Fertile Crescent, and they would come down there and Herodotus said this, "They ruled Asia for 28 years, and the land was wasted by reason of their violence and their arrogance. They drank the blood of the first enemy killed in a battle. Made napkins of the scalps and drinking bowls of the skulls of the slain. They had the most filthy habits and never washed with water." That's Herodotus. They smelled, Scythians. Josephus put it this way, "The Scythians delight in murdering people. And are little better than wild beasts." Alright, so a fellowship between Jew, Greek and Scythian. Come and see it at the church near you. How could it be? How could such divisions be melted away, except by Jesus Christ? Except by the work of the gospel. It's a picture of Heaven.

Equality and Unity Celebrated in Christ

And so it says, "Here is heaven." And that includes slave and free. According to Aristotle, the slave was little more than a living tool. But in Christ, both slave and freemen became brothers forever. I love the story of Perpetua and Felicitas, two women. During the time of the Roman persecution of the church, around 202 AD, Perpetua was a young woman from a noble family, and Felicitas was a slave girl and they faced martyrdom together for their faith in Christ. And as they faced the wild beasts, whose ravening ways would end their lives, cruelly, they held hands and prayed together and worshipped Christ as they died. Very different socioeconomic backgrounds, holding hands together and dying together for Christ. Those distinctions are all destroyed. Here, there is no Greek or Jew. Here, there is no barbarian. Here, there is no circumcised or uncircumcised. Here, there is no slave. Here, there is no free. Where? Where do I go for that? Here is heaven. Here is the gospel. Here is, it should be, the local church. Here is where you find it, a picture of heaven. And what is heaven going to be like? Well, let me engage in a little speculation with you. You may come afterwards and you may say, "I don't agree."

Christ’s Prayer for Unity

But you know very well in Revelation 7, it says that, "There's going to be a multitude greater than anyone can count, from every tribe and language and people and nation, standing around the throne and they'll be dressed in white, and they'll be singing praise to Jesus." We all know that. But I believe that they'll maintain their amoral distinctiveness from one another. They will maintain the emblems of their racial distinctiveness. They will maintain the stamp of who God made them to be but not immorally, I mean. They will be different from one another. So I believe that there will be astonishing diversity in heaven. But perfect unity. Astonishing diversity in perfect unity in Heaven. And it is a unity, I believe, the Scripture teaches that is based on the Trinity. Jesus said in John 10:30, "I and the Father are one." So you maintain the person of the Father, the person of the Son but they are mystically, mysteriously one. We don't even have the first idea how one that one is. Perfectly one. But then Jesus prays in John 17, will you turn there in your Bible, John 17, look with me. In John 17:11, I've alloted 20 seconds for page turning. I'm just kidding. John 17:11, "Jesus prayed, “Holy Father... '", this is His highly priestly prayer the night before He died and He's praying for the church, He's praying for the believers, for the elect, and He says, "Holy Father, protect them by the power of Your name, the name You gave Me so that they may be one as we are one." He's praying for unity. Friends, do not misunderstand. I believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. I believe that everything that Jesus, the Son of God asks of His Father, He gets. We don't need to pity poor Jesus in His prayer for unity. Like poor Jesus' prayer isn't going well, we need to help Him out. Do not think that way. Everything the Son ask His Father for, He gets. And He's praying for a unity that is absolutely perfect. Do you see it? "That they may be one as we are one."

Look at verse 20 and 21, "My prayer is not for them alone, I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message." Who's that? That's you and me as believers in Christ. "That all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us." My first insight that I have in reading this, is this is talking about a perfect heavenly unity. 1 Corinthians 1:10, "Perfectly united in mind and thought," absolute conformity one to another. We think every thought alike, we agree about everything, like that. Alright, heavenly unity, we're going there. But that's not the end of the prayer. Look what He says beyond that.

In John 17:23 He says, "I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me." That is process language, friends. It's perfecting language. May this unity be ever more clear to the watching world, so that they can believe the gospel. What's my application on that? If a local church is segregated, and racist, and people are not welcome, and all that and etcetera, it is not a testimony to the gospel. But if there is a surprising unity worked in that local congregation, the gospel is greatly enhanced, and more people get saved. And that's what Jesus is praying for. "May there be an open visible display of unity among My people so that those who are watching may believe the gospel, may believe that You sent Me. And that that You have loved them even as You have loved Me." Oh, how sweet is that?

So how do we do it? Well, can I start by urging you to be dressed for the occasion. You may wonder what that means. We've become increasingly informal. We're a very informal culture. I always love reading about encounters between the Queen of England and Americans. We're very informal. Just like Jim Thorpe who was a native American who won some gold medals at the Olympics and the King of Sweden gave him the medals and he said, "Thanks, King", you know that kind of thing. That's just so American. But we need to learn how to be dressed for the occasion in this sense at least. It says in verse 12, "As God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with", so we're talking about clothing. First of all we have to show our status.

Dressed for the Occasion

In Roman society, only the Emperor could wear a purple toga. Only the Senate could wear a toga with a broad purple stripe along the arm. Only the Equestrian class could wear a thin stripe of purple around. It all had to do with purple, purple was a sense of royalty, and so you could kind of tell where someone was at in a class by the clothes they wear. But brothers and sisters in Christ, we are children of the King, we need to dress like it. And it has nothing to do with the clothes you wear. It has to do with these virtues as “God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Now, it starts with God's election as God's chosen people.

This is the doctrine of election, it's the doctrine that God before the foundation of the world, chose His children. And it has a tremendous leveling effect on the human race. The more you study it, the more you realize just how level we are in the doctrine of election, we're just as level in the election as we are at the foot of the cross. We are leveled by election. Because you learn very plainly, first of all, it happened before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1, it says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Jesus Christ who has blessed us from the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ for He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight". And then Romans 9 teaches us that the election is not based on merits or works, "Before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose in election might stand, not by works but by Him who calls. She was told the older will serve the younger."

Just as said later in Romans 9, "I'll have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." By God's sovereignty, He chooses. And that has a tremendous leveling effect. How can you boast in the face of that? We are chosen in opposition to what we deserve, not because of our deserts. And that levels it. It says we are holy, that's set apart from the world, purified from evil, and dearly loved, we are “written on the palms of His hand”, all of us, every Christian. We have been loved, it says in Jeremiah 31:3, "With an everlasting love, holy and dearly loved", alright, then clothe yourself properly. Be dressed for the occasion.

Now I want to give you a little parable. Suppose one of your best friends, or your best friend got elected President of the United States. "Never going to happen", You say, "You don't know my friends." You're right, I don't. Probably won't happen, but suppose it did. And that friend invited you to be his guest for all of the inauguration and the inaugural ball, the whole day. And you're going to sleep in the White House. He's getting re-elected so he's got the freedom to do that, and he gives you a room in the White House and you walk in there, and there laying out on the bed is the most exquisite set of clothing you've ever seen in your life. Spectacular. Beautiful. You've never seen anything like it and you put it on, and it fits perfectly. It's literally tailor made, and expensive. You can tell and it's just looks beautiful. And a little note from your friend says, "These are to wear at the inaugural ball. Enjoy". And it's signed. So you spend the night in the White House, you wake up the next morning, you put on the clothes you walked in with. Oh come on, it's your best suit from Walmart, that polyester thing you wore in there. 

Or maybe it's what you were wearing the last time you went hiking or did some work out in the yard. You chose to wear that that day. And you show up at the inaugural ball and the Secret Service just won't let you in. You're not dressed for the occasion. By the way, Jesus told a parable like this, where the master of the banquet found somebody who wasn't dressed for the wedding feast and threw him out, because he wasn't dressed. And that parable I think, refers to the righteousness of Christ. If you're not clothed with the righteousness of Christ, you get thrown out. You have to have imputed righteousness. But here, this verse is talking about an imparted righteousness where we're actually acting like Jesus. And so you wear those clothes and the Secret Service will not let you in. And your friend that night calls you and says, "Where were you? I was looking. I wanted to introduce you to people. Where were you?" And you tell him the story. How much pity do you think he's going to have on you? I tell you none. He has laid out for you everything you need to be well dressed for that occasion.

 And so also Jesus has laid these things out on the bed and He does so every morning and says, "Put them on. Wear them. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." Compassion means you actually genuinely care what's going on in the life of someone else. You care as though it were happening to you. Kindness. You find ways that you can use your body, your money, your time to bless someone else. And you do it with a sweet disposition, kindness. Humility. You actually think of someone else as better than yourself. I mean, genuinely think of them as better than yourself. You're not just playing a game. You actually think they are. If they knew you, and they are better, and their needs are more important than yours. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, like a gentle spring breeze that barely lifts the leaf of a new flower. Something like that, gentleness. A gentle answer turns away wrath. Jesus says, "I am gentle. And you'll find rest for your souls." The gentleness of a true Christian. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

 Forgiveness is Essential

Patience. Long suffering. We do make each other suffer, you know. I know you probably don't make your loved ones suffer, but you know very well that they make you suffer, and so you need to bear with them. And He says, "Bear with one another and forgive." There's forbearance and there's forgiveness, alright? What is forbearance? It's an amoral issue. It's not a sin, but you go to the men's retreat, and your bunkmate snores like you have never heard before. It's terrible. It's not a moral issue. Put up with it. Or maybe there's a physical problem. Maybe he stutters. Maybe she has a laugh that stops a party, you know one of those shrieking weird kind of gulping laughs. There's nothing that can be done about it. It's not a moral issue, bear with it, put up with each other.

And then concerning those moral issues, they have spoken harshly to you. They have broken some law of love. They have violated some Christian commandment. You need to forgive. And this is where as I said, Jesus takes your arm and twists it behind your back and says, "Don't come and tell Me about the 100 dinari. I'll talk to you about the 10,000 talents. You owed Me everything, and I forgave it all, and I did it freely and richly. And you would ask, it says, "Forgive as the Lord forgave you." How did Jesus forgive you? Fully, freely, gladly forgave you! Completely forgiven! Oh, let that run in this church. Let there be genuine forgiveness in this church and over all of these things “put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity”. Love really encapsulates them all. Alright, what application do we take from this? There are tons of applications, but not time. Just read them.

The whole sermon's an application, very practical. We're in a practical part of a Pauline epistle. Application's easy, do these things. Want a good marriage? Do this. As a matter of fact, if you're a married person I would challenge you. Memorize Colossians 3:12 and do it, every day and you'll have a good marriage. 3:12. "So you keep shrinking it, Pastor. It was 3:1-17, now we're down to just one verse." I'm just saying, if you're not doing anything, please memorize Colossians 3:12. It will sweeten your relationships. Alright, but can I urge you concerning this corporate witness in this community. We are really close to some incredibly needy people and they're not here right now. They're not worshiping with us. Haven't been for decades. I'm talking about the urban community that surrounds us, and they're not well represented here, and I think they should be. And I don't think that it's a journey that's easy to make, but I'm talking about urban ministry. And so we have the beginnings I think, of an urban ministry. When I say beginnings, please don't misunderstand me. I know that there's some saints here that have labored on urban ministry before, and they have done good works and those things are stored up in Heaven, and they're kept there and nothing can take them. There are some people that have been brought to faith. But all I'm saying is that it got reduced to a very low level a few years ago, and now it's starting to grow again. We've got Jobs for Life. We've begun to touch the lives of some people and get to know just how much they need Christ and how much they need the gospel.

It's not an easy ministry and there's some that really, really labor to make it happen and in effect, we're walking through a garden and you can see a tiny, little green thing shooting up into the ground, shiny little green leaves. Can I ask first and foremost that you not step on it? Please, can we start there? Don't say, "Well, we don't really want that kind of ministry we're not called to do that kind of thing," etcetera. We are right here, friends, where we have to give an account, I believe, for this neighborhood because they're right here. Well, but maybe you could do more than that. Maybe you can enrich and fertilize the soil around it. Maybe you could pray for it. Say, "God, give us a healthy urban ministry here, so that when people walk in on Sunday morning, they can see a surprising unity and the gospel might be advanced, like it says in John 17.

But it could be more than that, maybe you can actually tend the soil and do some work. Maybe God might be calling you. I don't believe everyone who's listening to me is called to Urban Ministry, I'm not saying that. And it's not just Urban Ministry, there's also International Ministry. We have international students that come here, and it's growing and it's strong, getting stronger all the time. You may be called to do that. At least don't step on that plant either, talking against it, "Why do those folks come?" and all that kind of thing. Don't talk against it, but could I urge that you fertilize the soil around it with prayer, and with tears, and care about it at least. Even if you're not called to it, can you pray for it? But it could be maybe you are called to do it. International Wives, Conversation Corners, ESL, reaching out. I think that this church could be a spectacular display of the Gospel of Christ. Let's see if God will do it here in our midst. Close with me in prayer.

On October 31, 1517, history was changed forever when Martin Luther took the Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg Castle. He saw a problem in the way the medieval Catholic church was addressing salvation. He was incensed by the preaching of a friar named Tetzel who was preaching indulgences and misleading people, concerning what it is that saves our souls from sins. He was moved by it, by zeal for the glory of God and by concern for souls. And so, being an academic, he wanted to debate about it. So he wrote out these Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg Castle and thus began the Reformation.

Very important beginning, but I'm interested in how the Ninety-Five Theses themselves begin. The first thesis said this: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when he said ‘repent,’ he willed that the whole life of believers should be one of repentance.” What kind of revivals would come in this church or even in evangelical churches across America if we read and understood the import of those words? That you, as a child of God, should spend your whole life in repentance.

Now, the beginning of the Reformation was important, but even more important was the beginning of Jesus' preaching ministry. Jesus began his preaching ministry with the exact same conviction. Matthew 4:17, “From that time on, Jesus began to preach ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” He called on the people of God to repent from their sins. The very thing that John the Baptist had been doing, same message.

My yearning today is that this sermon would be a call from almighty God to you, the people of God, to repent. And me too. To repent earnestly, to turn away from sin, hating it as we have never hated it before. Motivated as never before to be conformed to the image of Christ, in purity and holiness. To fight against the influences of the devil and the world, as they call to our indwelling sin to commit acts of sin, to yield to temptation that we would fight as never before, and grow in holiness. I'm calling on you and on me, the Spirit is calling on us to repent from sin. To be serious about sin, to take it seriously and to mortify it, to put it to death. Now last time I began by looking at a parallel passage, Romans 7.

In Romans 7, these ideas that are in just seed form here in Colossians 3 are more fully developed. There Paul said, “I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do.” What does that mean? He wants to be holy, he wants to have a good quiet time, he wants to share his faith, he wants to say no to wickedness and ungodliness, he wants to be a Christlike, kind loving person in all circumstances, he wants to put a guard over his mouth, and never say anything that would defile his soul or hurt others. He wants all of this, he has great ambitions for holiness, but he says, “What I want to do, I do not do.” Conversely, what I hate, now that's what I do. I don't understand myself. The very thing I hate, I do. Why? Well he says, as it is, “It is no longer I who do it but it is sin living in me that does it.” So we began with this despicable enemy. This vile thing. How do we picture it within us? Sin living in me, in my body. How much do I yearn to have it out? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” There's my hope. This is a hopeful sermon. We will be filled with righteousness if we're in Christ. But right now is a time of hungering and thirsting for that filling. Of yearning for it, and repentance.

Therefore, Paul calls on us in verse five, Colossians 3 to warfare. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature,” put it to death. “Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry,” put it to death. “Anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips and lying,” put them to death, all of them, and all the others besides. Now the context here in Colossians 3 is the full flowering of what Christ has done for us. We have been made complete in Christ. We have been given gospel completeness. Jesus came. He who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. He came and entered the world, he took on a human body.

So therefore the physical universe is not evil as the Colossian heretics were teaching. It's not evil, or else Jesus would never have taken it on. He took on a human body. In human flesh, there was the fullness of deity. He suffered on a cross and died that we might have full freedom from sin but the Colossian heretics are saying that's not enough, that's not enough. You've got to have human philosophy. Gotta understand things, a kind of secret wisdom coming from man. You've gotta have that secret philosophy. And you've got to have Jewish legalism, coupled with that asceticism, the harsh treatment of the body. All the Jewish rules and regulations, leading to a harsh treatment of the body. And to kind of lift it up into the spiritual realms, you can have the worship of angels, mysticism, this concoction of heresy, is what was afflicting the Colossian church. Paul says these things lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence, they don't work, they don't sanctify us and they sure don't save us from our sins.

Instead, the work of Christ does, and he gives us a different vision of life in Colossians 3:1-17, a vision of a happy, healthy, fruitful Christian life. You wanna be happy, you wanna be healthy, you wanna be fruitful as a Christian, then immerse yourself in the practical wisdom of Colossians 3:1-17. It begins with a heavenly mindset, Colossians 3:1-4, “Set your minds on things above, set your hearts 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.” And because of that, put sin to death. Because of where you're going. Because of how glorious it's gonna be, because of the fact there'll be no sin there. You'll be stripped of it forever and how delighted will you be at that time, because of that, because Christ is your life, because he's coming back to judge the earth, because of all of these things that put it to death, put sin to death, that's the context.

And so I said last time that you're to be a steely-eyed killer of sin, show it no pity, hunt it down and assassinate it, show it no mercy. And John Owen, in his classic On the Mortification, or the killing, of Sin, he said, “You need to be killing sin or sin will be killing you,” it's that simple. And I said last time that happiness and fruitfulness is impossible without warfare. You can't go to heaven on a flowery bed of ease, it's impossible. If you're on a flowery bed of ease right now you are deceived, you need to wake up and you need to fight sin. It's impossible to go to heaven that way, it's through much difficulty that we enter heaven.

And this is part of the difficulty. Part of it is persecution through faithfulness and witness, the part of it is this internal battle that we must fight, a part of our salvation. And so I said we have to understand who we're fighting, we have to understand Satan, how clever he is, how relentless, how powerful, how vicious, and we have to understand the world system that he has crafted. A masterpiece of wickedness crafted to entice us and to lure us constantly, lure us toward sin. The pull, like a magnet, like an overpowering magnetic attraction pulled all the way, away from God, away from holiness, away from purity toward defiling things and wickedness, like a magnetic attraction.

Well, you don't have to be a physicist, you don't have to be an engineer, to know magnets don't attract wood, they attract iron, they attract something and there's something inside us that is attracted to all that. Isn't that disgusting? There's something in me that likes it, that's attracted to it. So I've likened it to having like chunks of iron or iron filings that I kind of eat and take into myself, and then the pull gets stronger and it's harder to resist, and they come out, like one at a time with a tweezer. And so, it's so important that we not immerse ourselves in evil things, the enemy outside calls to the enemy within and the two of them do business at moments of temptation and we sin, and that's the battle.

And therefore we have to understand our body, our body created originally in the image of God, nothing wrong with any biological function, sexual, digestive, any of the functions God created, these things are good. God made them that way, there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with the human body, per se. But there's something wrong with the body of sin. There's something wrong with the body of death, and that's what these bodies are called: body of sin, body of death. That's what we have and why? Because of history.

First of all, Adam's history. He sinned for us and we got from him a position before God and a nature. We were born with a nature of bent towards sin and as soon as we understand the law, we sin. As soon as we understand it, it happens. You parents know what I'm talking about, you've seen it happen. You were there at that moment, you were there twice because it happened to you when you were a child. And we understand sin, and look at verse 7, Colossians 3:7, “In these sins, sexual immorality, lusts, impurity, evil desires, greed. In these things you used to walk in the life you once lived.” That's how you used to live, you have a history with this. You programmed your body how to sin, you programmed your brain.

So we have to understand this, we have to understand the body, and I said we also have to understand salvation. If you don't understand salvation, you won't know where mortification or putting sin to death fits in, you'll get it wrong, you'll make a mistake.

And so there are three main parts to salvation: Justification, sanctification, glorification. Justification, at that moment by simple faith in Christ, by looking to Jesus crucified for you, His blood shed on the cross for you, trusting in that as your only righteousness. The exchange there: he taking your defilement on himself and suffering under the wrath of God, and him giving to you a gift, an immeasurable gift, an infinite gift of perfect righteousness, that is justification. And if you're a Christian today, that's already happened for you and nothing can reverse it. And God sees you today holy and blameless in Christ, perfect in position, nothing can change that. Nothing can move you from your secure position in justification, but that's not the end of the story now, is it?

What you are in position, you need to become in practice, you need to start acting like Jesus more and more and more, and he was perfect. And you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. You must be like Jesus in every area. And the battle is a cooperative effort between the believer and the Holy Spirit. You work together. “If you,” Romans 8:13, “by the Spirit put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” You have to do it by the Spirit. Cooperation. And in that lies a struggle because some of you aren't cooperating very well. And neither am I from time to time. And this is a call on us to step up and put sin to death. It's our responsibility as justified Christians to be sanctified and to grow. Progressively grow more and more to be like Jesus. 

Then the third step: glorification. God takes over again. Just as he did in justification, he'll do it again in glorification. And instantaneously, all sin will be removed from you. Completely. And you will end up holy and blameless. Physically, mentally, morally, emotionally, spiritually, your body and your soul, or your heart, will be pure as Christ. And you will dwell in that state forever. That's the whole salvation plan. By the way, we are calling “Come, Oh, Come Emmanuel.” That's what he came to do. And he will not stop until it's done for all of his children.

Now, we have to get specific. Last time, we named the battlefield sins of perverted love, lust, sexual immorality. Sins of broken relationships, anger, rage, malice, slander. We talked about those in detail last time. This is what's besetting us. And friends, this is an immensely truncated list. There's far more sins than just these. They're just suggestive of the kind of things we fight.

And what's at stake? Colossians 3:6, “Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming.” The wrath of God. I heard a sermon this past week. Don Whitney preached an incredible sermon, wrote a book on spiritual disciplines, and I heard him preach on hell. Very few of us actually hear sermons, expositions, on hell. And it left me so grateful, so grateful for Jesus that I had been rescued from what I deserved. He focused on one verse, Matthew 25:41, what the judge of all the earth will say to the goats, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” One verse tells you what you need to know about hell. I'm tempted to just preach that sermon because it was so good.

But hell is real. Hell is terrifying. It's eternal. It's powerful. And Jesus warned us, more than any person in history, Jesus warned us from hell. No other prophet or apostle spoke as much about hell as Jesus did. But Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath. Praise God. Praise God. 1 Thessalonians 1:10, “Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath.” He is doing it right now through this sermon. He is rescuing you from the coming wrath. And he'll keep on rescuing you until he will finally rescue you on the Day of Judgment from the coming wrath. The rescue is present and the wrath is future. And the rescue is going on right now, and it will continue until the day you die. And then He will finally rescue you, and there'll be no more threat. Forever. That's what's at stake.

How do we do it? This is where we get practical. And here I just lean on a brother in Christ who's been dead for centuries. His name is John Owen. And he wrote a book called Mortification of Sin. And you may have noticed, when you came in, these books. God wants you, I think, to have this book and to read it. And so I've made 200 of them available for free. The price is right, okay? They're at the entrance, or I guess, now exits of the sanctuary. Back there, side tables, inside there's 200 of them. There's more than 200 people here. So there's a little psychology going on here. A little competition, alright? But I'll say this. If you want one at the end of this day, and didn't get one, I'll see to it you get one, alright? So I bought 200 of them. They're available.

Along with that is a paper I wrote when I was in seminary. Now, I'm not saying this is any great thing, but this is like the CliffsNotes version, okay. To this, it's basically a summary of his arguments. Don't do this instead of this, okay. Do this to help you with this. But you can get all these pages down, and you can skip if you want to all the introductory stuff about Owen, the history and all that, and just go to the summary of what he wrote. And from this, I got what you're about to hear in my sermon. So this is a thin stream of this, and this is a thin extract of this.

So I would just urge you to go to this, and be convicted, and to be strengthened. Get it. You're all gonna be out of here quickly, and go grab them. But as I said, if you don't, if you want one and didn't get one, let me know. Call the office. Talk to me. Well, don't talk to me at the end, I won't remember. I won't know what you said to me. But email or whatever, and say, “I wanted to get one, didn't get one.” We'll order some more. But it would be a tragedy for this book to sit in stacks on the table as you guys are walking by it. That makes no sense. Even if you have a copy at home, take another one so you can give it to somebody who might need it.

Practical advice. First step. This is where I ended last time. Come to Christ. Come to Christ. You have no business fighting sin if you're not a Christian. You know why? You can't put sin to death because sin's already put you to death. You're dead spiritually. Dead in your transgressions and sins, Ephesians 2, in which you used to live. So you can't fight it. You're already killed. And only Jesus can give you life. Come to Christ. And he will give you life. And part of that life will be mortification.

So if you're here today, and you don't know whether you're saved, you have never trusted in Christ, then the rest you can get to by and by, but you come and look to Jesus. Look to him dead on the cross. His blood shed for you. Think, “He is my righteousness. He's my only hope for escape from hell. I must have Christ,” and look to him and then the mortification can begin. Come to Christ. We talked about that last time. 

Secondly, to you Christians, determine to fight this vicious battle every day. Make it your business every day to get up and mortify the deeds of the flesh. John Owen put it this way, “There's not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed upon and it will be whilst we live in this world.”

In another place he likened it, as I've said many times, to a wrestling match with a poisonous viper. Imagine you've got this snake by the head and it's hissing and it's strong and all that. And it's a battle to the death. You can't get halfway through and just, “I'm tired,” just put it down and try to walk away. It's not gonna let you go. You don't take a poisonous viper to bed with you. You don't coddle it like a pet. You don't feed it. You kill it. Be killing sin or sin will be killing you. You gotta get up every day and determine to fight this vicious battle. You don't get any days off. Sin's not gonna take any days off. By the way, the day you think you're taking a day off from sin, sin's winning. It's already deceived you.

Next, rely on the Holy Spirit, not on fleshly means. We already saw in Colossians 2 that harsh treatment of the body and all kinds of stuff lacks any value in restraining sensual indulgence. That will not work. And all of our steps in mortification, all they do is set the stage for the Spirit to kill the sin. He has the power to do it.

And so all of these things are somewhat like Elijah in his battle with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. And they're up there and all of the sacrifice, all is ready, but the fire's gotta fall from heaven and so it is with mortification. Get everything ready and the Spirit will put the sin to death when you have done all the things he's commanded you to do. “If you, by the Spirit, put to death the misdeeds of the body.” So the Spirit acts somewhat like a weapon there. If you, by the Spirit, kill. And that's how it works. You must fight by the Holy Spirit. 

Next, you must be cross-centered. Isaac Watts said, “When I survey the wondrous cross.” Every Sunday I look up at this big wooden cross up here over my head. I just look at it. I remind myself that Jesus died there. I think about it. I think about Jesus bleeding to death. Really that practically, that his blood was falling out of the wounds of his body, he was bleeding to death on the cross. I think about that.

And I say to you that Christ's blood shed on the cross has sin-killing power in the minds and hearts of believers. Galatians 6:14, very important verse, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” You come to the cross and the world's allure and temptations and enticements look to be the filthy things they are. It was those things that put Jesus to death. So be cross-centered, be much in meditation on Christ's death on the cross and sin will shrivel as the nasty thing that it is.

There's another sense in being cross-centered, and that is that you must crucify sin. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, sin is not going to die while you live, it isn't. Sins can die. But sin is gonna be with you until the Lord glorifies you. And so the image I have is lust up on the cross, slowly bleeding to death, and begging me to take it down off the cross every day. And woe to me if I get those tongs and pull the nails out and let lust down and feed it and give it a break and give it some... So it regains its strength a little, give it a little water and wipe it... That's lust! It wants to kill me. So I have to put it on the cross. I have to crucify it. It's a slow lingering death. Remember how Pilate was surprised that Jesus had died so quickly. It's not a quick death, it's a slow one. So be cross-centered.

Next, understand what mortification is not and what it is. I've already touched on this briefly, but first of all, it is not to kill any particular sin completely for that cannot be in this life. There are other schools of thought on sanctification that say you can have that sin removed from you like a bad tooth. And so if you could find a pastor who'll do that kind of dental work on you and remove that bad tooth of lust or covetousness or anger or unforgiveness, you could just have all those bad teeth removed one after the other. It's not like that. And the reason you know is, can you imagine, what would you think if you met a man or a woman who said, “You know, I used to struggle with such and such. But I never need to worry about that again.” What would you say to that person? “If any man or woman thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.” It's not over yet.

So it's not killing one particular sin completely for that cannot be. Nor is it to allow sin to conceal itself and then to appear in a different costume. Oh, sin is tricky! You think you got lust down, but it's popping up in other areas. You don't do that anymore, but you do this instead. That's what it does.

Nor is it to develop a quiet, thoughtful, peace-loving nature. Kind of like a monk in meditation. That's not mortification. And nor is it to divert a particularly annoying and troubling sin so that that sin pattern isn't so prevalent anymore. That's not it. Non-Christians can stop drinking, for example. They go to AA, they can stop drinking. They can divert certain things, but that's not mortification.

And nor is it to conquer certain sins occasionally. Like, what's your batting average? That's not mortification. How are you doing? Three-quarters of the time, it used to be just two-thirds of the time, I say, no, but now I'm up to three quarters. Well, good brother, keep it going. That's not mortification.

Well, what is it? It is a habitual weakening of sin's root as how a victim dies on the cross. Gradually, slowly losing power and influence over your soul. It is a constant fighting and contending against all indwelling sin, on all fronts. It involves both attack and defense. You go out after sin and cut off the things that it feeds on. You make no equipment or provision for providing for the lusts of the flesh. You don't have the equipment of it, it's out. You just go on attack, you go on a commando raid and get rid of things in your life. They're out.

And also it's defensive. You're ready, you're ready, you're ready for the attack. Ready. It's coming. You know you're ready and your stand is both offensive and defensive. And it results in consistent success over individual temptations. Now, temptations you can kill. Individual occasions, you can kill. It comes to you, you see it, you know what's going on and you can say, “No! I won't. Not today. I will not do this.” You can do that.

It is a resolve to fight sin on all fronts. You're not gonna put the white flag up over any sin in your life. You're not gonna surrender, never, on any front. You're gonna fight all sin everywhere that it's found. Now, I say to you the Holy Spirit hasn't shown you everything. You can't handle the truth. It's not possible. Imagine if your eyes were open, you were to see how far you are from Jesus. It's overwhelming. You'd wanna die immediately. But if he has revealed some things to you, you must fight them on all fronts. Sin is evil, it is wicked. And God's work consists in universal obedience not just partial. Some people say, “I know this isn't right, but I'm really working on this right now.” It doesn't work. That's not mortification.

Next, study the lusts that are attacking you. Owen does a great job here on when a lust is particularly dangerous. And I can't go into the details but, basically, if it's survived lots of work on your part, lots of conviction, lots of occasion, times of weeping, people praying for you and all that and it's still around, be afraid. Be very afraid, it's a serious lust problem for you, whatever it may be. Serious habit. Take it seriously.

Study also what the sin does to defeat you. I think too often, we just quickly confess and - No, no, no, break it down. What happened? You had a conflict with your spouse. You said you didn't wanna do that anymore, but here you did it again. Now, what happened? You walked in, he said this, she said that, this happened. What happened? What were you feeling? What was your motive? Where did pride creep in? Look for pride 'cause it's there. And just try to find out how sin got you. Study it. Don't just go on too quickly.

Labor on your heart next. What do I mean by this? Work on yourself to feel what you ought to feel about sin. Seriously, I think we go on too quickly. You've heard of easy believism? I think there's easy confessionalism. “Oh Lord, I confess in Jesus' name, amen. Thank You, Lord. I'm forgiven.” Don't do that. You've gotta slow down. James says, “Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” That is not a heaven verse is it? 'Cause there will be no more mourning in Heaven. That's a here and now verse.

Why do you need to change your laughter to mourning? Because of sin. And so when you are convicted of sin take the time to mourn over it. Take the time to feel what the Holy Spirit felt when He was grieved over what you did. We go on too quickly.

Labor on your heart and get a constant yearning and breathing after righteousness. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” If you don't hunger for it enough, then stimulate your hunger. Say, “Oh God, I yearn to be free in this area. I want it, oh Lord. Please.” And just turn up the knobs on it. It's like, “Woah, we're getting serious.” It is serious. It is very serious. And you just get hungry and thirsty for righteousness and God will give it to you. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

Labor on your heart and crush sin early in the battle. You talk about the camel getting its nose in the tent. Pretty soon you have the whole camel family with you inside the tent. How did that happen?  Well, you didn't get it early. You know, you talk about the root of bitterness that can defile a whole community, we didn't get it early, didn't nip it in the root before it had a chance to develop and now broken relationships. There's unforgiveness, there's all kinds of stuff going on. You've gotta get it early.

So it is also with lust. Get it early in the battle. I think often of that classic movie, The Longest Day, and it begins with a quote by the German commander of the beaches there in Normandy, General Field Marshal Rommel. And what Rommel said is, “The world will be won or lost on the beaches.” Once the allies get a beachhead established in Normandy, they would break out and sweep across France and the world would be lost. And he said this, “The first 24 hours will be critical for both the allies and us. It will be the longest day.”

Well, we've been in the longest day since we were justified. We're still fighting. And I think the principle is true, get it on the beaches before it has a chance to establish a beachhead. You know why? Beause sin doesn't establish boundaries. It doesn't stay put and once it comes into your life it just grows and grows and grows. It doubles and doubles again. It just keeps metastasizing. That's what it does.

Deal thoroughly with sin and confession and repentance. Yes, 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and he will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But don't go too quickly. Don't go too quickly. Confess your sin and deal thoroughly with it.

And be filled with the Spirit and all of His graces. The best way to not eat illicit food is to be filled with legal and good food, alright? Fill yourselves with the Spirit. Fill yourselves with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Fill yourself with Christ, and sin will lose its power over you. Be filled with the Spirit. Later in this same section we're gonna learn how to do that through the word of God. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, but just be filled with Christ.

And finally, be optimistic. Be optimistic. Romans 16, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Isn't that sweet? There will come a day when all of your lusts and all of your angers and all of your malice and all the filthy language and the lying and all of the complaining and all of that sin will drop away from you forever. And therefore, any effort you make now will be effective through the Spirit. I love what John Owens says, “Christ's blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this and you will die a conqueror; yes, you will through the good providence of God live to see your lust dead at your feet.” 

Now I have given you practical advice on how to kill sin. I'm going to end where I began. I'm gonna call on you to repent. Because I don't sense that I or anyone I know in this church is doing this kind of stuff like they should, taking it seriously, fighting sin at this level.

Now you might say, “Well, how would you know?” I don't know for sure, and I praise God for brothers and sisters that are, do it all the more. 'Cause those that are doing it, know they need to do it all the more anyway.

But for all of us, let's repent. Let's get serious. Let's look at that list: Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, lying. That's just suggestive. Find the other lists and say, “Lord, am I doing these things? And if so, I'm ashamed. These are the very things that put you, Lord Jesus, on the cross. I hate them and I want them to be dead in my life too.” Repent and you will know the forgiveness and the joy and the freedom that comes through Christ.

Summer of 1986, I was on a mission trip, my first time out of the country. It was the first for many things for me. But I was on a mission trip to Kenya, and we were going around, another student from one of the local universities here and I, and a Kenyan pastor, a man named Moses Chepkwony, a godly man who had six different congregations that he looked after, small congregations in that district of Kenya. And he was going on visitation, going from place to place, seeking to preach the Gospel, to minister to both Christians and non-Christians alike. We came to a house, and there on a blanket, laying out under a tree in the shade, was a 16-year-old girl who was dying of malaria. Now, I've never encountered malaria before. I didn't know that much about it. In order to go to Kenya, I had to take malaria medicine. I didn't know, really, what the disease was like, but she was suffering all the classic symptoms, cyclical fevers and anemia. Her blood was being destroyed by a parasite.

That same summer, a little bit curious about what it was, I saw an article in a National Geographic magazine about the body's immune system, and they actually showed a scanning electron microscope photo, an enhanced color picture, of the malaria parasite. It's carried by mosquitoes and it's very devious, a treacherous foe. It somehow finds a way into the liver, and it hides itself in dead liver cells, so that the body's immune system won't destroy it, and then it multiplies. And it spreads throughout the body's blood, and it destroys the blood cells, the red blood cells, popping them like balloons, resulting in all kinds of problems, and for a million people a year, resulting in death.

And as I was thinking about the sermon today, my mind went to this disgusting image of a parasite within, an enemy inside your own body. If you could see a picture of it, it would turn your stomach. The enemy I'm speaking of is not the malaria parasite, it's sin. The enemy within. Romans 7:15-17, Paul says this, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I, myself, who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” Yuck! “Sin living in me.” That's disgusting. How do you picture it? Some disgusting, vile, green, tiny monster swimming in your bloodstream or something, making you do the things you don't wanna do. “Sin living in me.”

Paul went on to say in Romans 7, “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Say Amen! There is a savior, and his name is Jesus, and he's come to rescue us from this inner enemy, this sin that dwells in the members of our body.

Now, as we come to Colossians 3, we don't have that kind of graphic language, but it's the same teaching. Colossians 3 and Romans 7 just completely intersect. The enemy there is indwelling sin, sin actually residing in the members of our body. Paul is arguing here that without putting sin to death, without warfare, we cannot be happy, healthy, productive, fruitful Christians. We must go to war. And we must go to war everyday.

Now, let's get some context here. Colossians was written because of a heresy that was threatening the Colossian church. The heresy taught that the physical world, the physical creation, the universe, was evil, and that salvation came from recognizing this through some special teaching, and having some special insights, and wisdom, and knowledge, given by emanation spirit beings like angels, of which Christ was one. Christ's death on the cross was not what it appeared to be and is not sufficient for our salvation. We must have human philosophy. We must have Jewish legalism. We must have mysticism, in the form of worship of angels. And we must have asceticism, the harsh treatment of the body, and in this way, we will be saved from sin.

Well, that's all false and Paul rectifies it by pure, clean, right doctrine, right teaching. First, on the person of Christ, in Colossians 1, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him, all things were created.” So the creation is good, Jesus made it, and he himself, by his own physical body, and he is deity in bodily form, took our sins on himself, and died on the cross, that we might have eternal life.

Salvation does not come by human philosophy. It doesn't come by Jewish legalism. It doesn't come by mysticism, the worship of angels, and it doesn't come by harsh treatment of the body, apart from understanding right doctrine. It doesn't come from any of these things. But what does it come from? What is the Christian life like? Colossians 3 is describing it and it's a beautiful passage of Scripture. Colossians 3:1-17, I just think if you could just memorize 17 verses in the Bible, do these. Well, don't just memorize them, though, do these, okay? Live it, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, a heavenly mindset.

The second section of it, is the one we're looking at today, and that is warfare, putting sin to death. The third section talks about living in a new community with people who are new people. You are a new person in Christ, live like it, and that looks like a certain thing in community with one another. It has to do with love, it has to do with compassion and kindness, it has to do with forgiveness, it has to do with the community, where it doesn't matter where you came from racially, ethnically, none of that matters. Barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, none of that matters. What matters is a new creation in Christ, and we're in a new community together, and how sweet is that?

And then, finally, the final step is just letting Christ richly dwell in your hearts, letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, letting a piece of Christ dominate your life, letting your heart be overflowing with thankfulness. You wanna be happy, do those 17 verses.

But the core of it is this battle, this warfare. And the connection, just in context, last time I preached on Colossians, we talked about setting our hearts on things above, developing a heavenly mindset.

What is the connection then? Well, there is a connection to warfare, because there's the word ‘therefore.’ Look at verse 5, Colossians 3:5 says, “Put to death, whatever belongs to your earthly nature." Well, ‘therefore’ causes you to look backward, what we were just talking about. Let's just go back one verse. Verse 4, “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, your sin.” You see the connection? Because Christ is your life, put sin to death. Because someday he's going to appear and judge the world, put sin to death. Because someday you will appear with him in glory and sin will not be there anymore. God has deemed it unworthy of his eternal state. It's evil, it's nasty, it's disgusting. He wants it out. Therefore, it is to be destroyed now, as much as you can. Therefore, because of all of these things, put sin to death, that's the connection. Now, we have a context.

What is he telling us to do? Well, he's telling us to go to war, friends. That's what he's telling us to do. Verse 5, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.” You look, for the most part, like sweet people. You're gonna ask me later about the “for the most part” part, but...

I don't always look sweet, but you look sweet, nice people, church people and all that, but you know the scripture's calling on you to become a steely-eyed killer. Nothing less. Or you could picture a medieval executioner, one of these vicious looking guys with big chests, and big arms, and a black hood with narrow slits, and a curved axe. And sin's head is down on the chopping block, and no mercy is shown, none. Or a contract assassin, hunting down your prey, getting that one in the crosshairs, and pulling the trigger, until the person you're seeking is dead. You think, “That's not Christian.” Well, when it comes to another human being, no, but when it comes to sin, when it comes to sin, that's exactly what you're called to do here. Show it no mercy.

Or perhaps, you could take the role of Eisenhower, in charge of all of the Allied forces in Europe, and your job is to crush the life out of Nazi Germany, until it is done. Nazi Germany, over. And you're gonna advance on all fronts, until they surrender unconditionally, and there's no mercy gonna be shown. You're not gonna leave some Nazism there, it's going to be eradicated, nothing left. Whatever image helps you, but you're called on to be a steely-eyed killer of sin. We must put it to death, we must kill it.

John Owen, his classic “Mortification of Sin” - ‘Mortification’ is just an old word for putting it to death - Has been my guide, as I prepared this sermon. And you oughta read it, what a work. And he's gonna say far more than I can say in the short time we have together, but he said this, very simply: “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”

Richard Baxter, similarly, another Puritan, put it this way, “Deal with sin, as it would deal with you; spare it not, for it will not spare you; it is your murderer, and the murderer of the world: deal with it, therefore, as a murderer should be dealt with. Kill it before it kills you; and though it bring you to the grave, as it did Christ, your Head, it shall not be able to keep you there forever.” Amen. Grace wins, resurrection wins. We're gonna be free someday, but that someday isn't here yet. And so we are called on to fight, to put it to death.

And so, I say to you, that happiness and fruitfulness is impossible without warfare. “You can't make any progress in the Christian life,” John Owen said, “unless you walk across the bellies of your dead lusts.” You gotta put them to death. You will make no progress without this kind of fight. We are not living in a peaceful country, we're living in a war zone. It doesn't matter what it looks like around you. We are living in a war zone and you are living in a war zone, spiritually, wherever you live on the face of the earth, it does not matter.

And so Owen said, “When sin leaves us alone, we may leave sin alone.” Will sin ever leave us alone? Yes. When we're glorified, it will. And then we can forget it. We will move on, but that's not yet, and therefore, we may not leave sin alone. And so Owen said, “The vigor, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depend on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.” You wanna be strong, you wanna be healthy, you wanna be happy, and productive, and fruitful in the Christian life? You must go to war against sin. There's no other way, you must. You must fight.

Alright, well, let's understand our enemy. Let's start without the walls. Picture your soul like a walled fortress, just like Bunyan did in “Holy War,” and he imagines the city of man's soul, like one of those medieval fortresses, and so you're standing there on the walls. Let's understand the enemy outside the walls.

First of all, there's Satan. He's clever, he's relentless, he's vicious, he's way out of your league and mine. Far more powerful than any of us can imagine. Perhaps, I guess, theoretically, we could say the most powerful created being there is. I don't know that for sure, but quite possible. He's likened to a roaring lion, prowling around, seeking someone to devour. He will show you no mercy, but he's clever. He's compared to an angel of light, masquerading as something enticing and beautiful. He's prideful, he's tricky, he crafts schemes all the time. That's what's outside the walls. That's what he's doing out there.

Also outside the wall, so to speak, is the world, the world system. It's his greatest invention. It's an alluring, enticing, entrapping thing that operates on your soul, like gravity does on your body, pulling you, all the time, away from God, constantly. Lust toward sexual pleasure, greed toward material possession, ambition toward powerful positions, and gluttony to feed your carnal appetites. I know, it just been a few days from Thanksgiving, and perhaps you didn't do that. But there's always an enticing to go beyond the boundaries that God has set, gluttony or greed, it's there. 

Well, that's the enemy outside the walls, and fearsome are those enemies, Satan and all of his demonic cohort, and the world system, so clever, so alluring, so enticing. But what I wanna talk to you about today, is the enemy within the walls, the part inside that likes what's outside the walls, would open the gate, let him in. And here we get to the doctrine of the physical body, the Christian's body. And it's confusing, it's not easy to understand what's going on with our bodies, our physical bodies. Now, originally, not like the Colossian heretics, we're gonna say that the body was, originally completely good, very good. Created in the image of God, including the body, nothing inherently evil in the body, and that includes, friends, all of the body's natural functions, whether sexual, or digestive, or any of the functions of the body that God made, they are all good, there's nothing inherently or intrinsically wrong. We know that on many levels, Genesis 1 teaches it to us, but the incarnation teaches it as well.

God took on a human body, but a Christian's body is different than Christ's body, there's a key difference, and it has to do with sin. You see, Jesus was protected from original sin, by the virgin birth, and he was protected from habits of sin, by never having sinned. And so, therefore, he didn't train his mind and his body in sin, the way all of us have. He never did. He didn't have indwelling sin. But we do, our bodies have a history of sin. Look at verse 7. After listing sexual immorality, lust, evil desires, greed, and going on to mention malice, and rage, and filthy language, and all of these nasty things, in verse 7, it says, “In these, you too once walked, when you were living in them.” None of us clean, friends. We used to walk in this. It's who we are.

You can listen to the music how you like. I don't wanna put my own convictions over any, but when Chris was singing “Lord, Have Mercy,” I hope there was something stirring inside you, that said, “Oh, I need your mercy. I need your mercy, oh, God. I'm a sinner. I need your covering grace everyday. I'm not fit for Heaven as I am. Intrinsically, I have sinned.” Oh, did you sense that need for mercy? And thanks be to God, it's available in Christ. How sweet is that? “But it's right,” says James, “To grieve, and mourn, and wail, and change your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom, and face your sin, and confess, and humble yourselves under God's mighty hand, and let him lift you up in due time.” In these, we once walked, when we used to live like that.

And in that, sin was at work in our bodies, it's very bodily. In Romans 7, listen, Romans 7:5, “For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.” Romans 6:19 says, “You used to offer the parts or the members of your body in slavery to impurity, and to ever-increasing wickedness.” Your body was involved. Now, sin, trained through years of habit, has taken root in your body. Again, Romans 7:23, “I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner, the law of sin at work within my members.”

The same word is over in Colossians 3, “The members of the body.” Now, what are these? Wouldn't it be nice, in one sense, if all the sin were collected in “the right hand,” as Jesus said? If your right hand causes you to sin, we could just cut it off and throw it away. But it's not, it's primarily in the brain. Let's be honest. It's in the way we think, but it's also connected to the bodily drives, what the body wants, whether sexual desire, or desire for comfort and ease, or desire for food or drink. The things the body craves, the brain takes and sins with it, out of habit.

And thus, does Paul call this body, a “body of sin” and a “body of death.” Roman 6:6, “We know that our old self was crucified with him.” We're no longer the old person. That person died. It's better than the witness protection program. We're in a whole new identity now. God upholds you. We are a new man, a new woman. That person's dead. We don't need to crucify the old man, the old woman. That person's dead. But we take along, from the history, a body of sin that has to be progressively done away with. That's what Romans 6:6 says, “We know that the old self was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, rendered null over time, that we should no longer be slaves to sin,” or again, Romans 7:24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

So you have a body of sin, body of death, that's what you have. Say, “Oh, get me out of the body.” Well, if you're out of the body, you are what? Somebody tell me. You're dead, that's right. Absent from the body, present with the Lord, that means your life here is over. So while you live, you're living in a body of sin/body of death. You are. And in that body, you will serve the Lord. And therein lies the difficulty. We are Christ's hands, we are his feet, we are his mouth, we are here to serve him. We have to use the body to do it. And therefore Paul says, “I beat my body,” 1 Corinthians 9, “and make it my slave, lest after I've preached to others, I myself might not be disqualified for the prize,” 1 Corinthians 9:27.

So we have to understand the need for constant vigilance. And oh, do we have to understand our salvation. Salvation comes to us in stages, it comes to us in parts. I've said it before, I'll say it again, it starts with justification. By simple faith in Christ, you, as a sinner, look to Jesus, whose blood was shed on the cross for sinners. You look to him and you say, “He is my righteousness. I am united with him by faith. He died the death I deserved to die and his righteousness is mine.” That's justification. The judge, by simple faith, God the judge, looks on you as holy and pure as Jesus, positionally, the moment you come to Christ. He sees you as pure, positionally.

And if you die, you go to Heaven, because of Christ's perfect righteousness, but you didn't die and go to Heaven now, did you?  It was years ago, when you were justified, and from that point to this, you've been in the process of sanctification, and that's a whole different thing. That was a single moment, a single instant, you received the indwelling Spirit, you received the gift of justification, a single instant. But there's been many hours and years, even, since then, progressively growing in godliness and Christ-like in sanctification.

And in the end, there is glorification, another instant, or really, two instances: An instant of death and the instant of the general resurrection. The soul perfected at the instant of death, the body perfected at the resurrection. In the end, we are as perfect as Jesus. By the power of God, made like him. And how sweet is that?

But that's in the future. Now, we are in the process of sanctification, and the essence of it is warfare, friends. It is warfare, every moment of your life here on earth. It couldn't be more serious. And that's where we are. So we understand our salvation. We understand Romans 8:1 says, “There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” and then Romans 8:13, Paul says, “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” There's no condemnation for the Christian who is at war by the Spirit, against the deeds of the flesh. That's the person for whom there's no condemnation.

I say to you, every single day, if you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit gets you up out of bed, dresses you, and sends you to battle, sends you to war. That's what he's doing. And frankly, if he's not doing that, you are dead in your transgressions and sins, you are not saved. This is what it means to be a child of God. He leads you into war. He leads you into war with indwelling sin. Therefore, we have a universal duty to kill sin. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature," not 60% of what belongs to it, and not 60% of the Christians. This is a universal command from Christ, through the Apostle Paul, to all Christians. No Christian is exempt. No sin pattern is exempt.

There's no Christian who's arrived and said, “I don't need to be mortified anymore. I have arrived. I'm perfect.” No one's like that. While you live, you're at war. And there's no sin pattern, that God's ever gonna wave the white flag over, and say, “Look, I'm gonna just give you a pass on that one. You just keep doing that. I don't like it, but you just keep doing it.” He will not do that. You know why he will not do that? Because sin, first of all, is evil, and second of all, it doesn't ever stay put. It doesn't just stay there, it just keeps multiplying, and growing, and growing. He will never do that.

And so, therefore, John Owen put it this way, “The choicest believers, who are assuredly free from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin.” So even if you're the most mature, I think the more mature you are, the more you recognize how much you need to fight this battle, that's what it is. 

Now, let's name the battlefields. Paul gets quite specific here, doesn't he? This is where Paul, as they say, begins to meddle. He gets involved, he starts to tell us what we must not do, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”

We have to study the enemy's tactics, the key elements. A key element in the American Civil War is how much one general would know the tendencies of the other general, and be able to take advantage of it. Sixth century BC, a Chinese military expert, Sun Tzu, wrote a book called “The Art of War,” and this is what he said, “If you know both yourself and your enemy, you'll come out of 100 battles with 100 victories.” That sounds good to me, doesn't it sound to you? Know yourself and your enemy, you're gonna win every time. Well, I'm not sure that's true on the battlefield, but I think it's important that we know ourselves and we know our enemy.

Now, what is Satan gonna try to do? What has he used to try to trip us up? Well, first of all, sin always aims at the utmost in any one category. It always wants to take you right to the end, that's what sin wants. It just doesn't tell you that, initially. Therefore, it's deceitful, it's tricky. It doesn't come and say, “I want to ruin your world. I wanna destroy and take away from you everything you value, that's what I wanna do.” It doesn't do that.

John Owen said, “Sin always aims at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, if allowed to have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism. ... It is like the grave, that is never satisfied. And herein lies no small share of the deceitfulness of sin.” It doesn't tell you what it's aiming at; it's aiming at your ruin. It wants to ruin your soul. It wants to discredit the gospel. It wants to make you fruitless. It wants to put you on the sideline. It wants to do all of that and more, that's what sin wants to do. Am I wrong to personify sin? No, Paul does it, “Sin living in me.” “Sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me and put me to death.” It's a living active thing.

And so, we listen, there are two different categories here, in Colossians: Sins of perverted love and sins of broken relationships. That's what I call it. You can give it a different title. But the first just has to do with the fact that our hearts were built to love, to yearn, to desire. And that's good, but this is perverted love, this is out of boundaries love. You're loving in ways that it's not love. And so he starts with sexual immorality. The Greek word is ‘porneia,’ ‘sexual sin,’ from which we get, of course, the word ‘pornography.’ We're specifically commanded to flee this. In 1 Corinthians 6:18, it says, “Flee from porneia, flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” This is such a weak spot for us human beings. It really is. We should not underestimate. We should notice that he begins here with sex. He starts here.

1453, the city of Constantinople fell, finally, to the Muslims. It was the last vestige holding out of the Eastern Roman Empire. It held out for centuries, almost a thousand years beyond the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the fall of Rome, almost a thousand years. And why? Well, it was strong, very strong. It had triple walls to defend it. They used Greek fire, all kinds of things. They were able to defend one attack after another, until gunpowder was invented.

And the Ottoman Turks hired a guy to make a huge cannon that fired 800 pound balls a mile in distance. It was so unwieldy, it could only fire three times a day. But there were other cannons that could fire more rapidly, and they concentrated on a section of the wall, and just beat on it, beat on it, beat on it, beat on it, until they opened up a breach. And that's where they focused their attack, on the breach in the wall. It just so happens, that as they're focusing their attack there, someone in Constantinople left open a gate over on the other side, and they come flooding in through the gate. The image is the same. 

You see, sex, marital relations, as we would think about it properly, is a breach in the wall of our souls. It's a weak spot, and therefore, Satan focuses so much of his activity and his effort there. But it didn't start with the actions of porneia, that's not it. He goes back a step to impurity. It's called uncleanness, evil thoughts and intentions of a defiled mind. You get the picture of a dirty pipe, clean water running through is fouled at the end, dirty things. A step back from that is passion or lust, a sense of heat, of emotions getting stirred up. It's so tragic, when you hear the man say, after committing adultery with his secretary, “I don't know what happened. It just took over, like a freight train,” and all that. What a fool. What did you think? Can a man scoop fire into his lap and hope not to get burned? It's not possible. But that's heat, it's a sense of heat.

Hosea 7, it says, verse 4 and following, “They are all adulterers, burning like an oven, whose fire the baker need not stir, from the kneading of the dough 'til it rises. Their passion smolders all night. In the morning, it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven.” It's like heat, it's passion. And evil desire. God created us to yearn to want things. Well, this is perverse desire, wanting something you ought not to want. It's a good gift to want. It's bad to apply it to the evil things that evil desire applies it to.

And then, ultimately, greed/idolatry. Greed, which is idolatry, there's a root, taking the created thing and putting it above your relationship with the Creator. Saying in effect, “I wanted that more than I wanted Jesus.” How could we be idolaters? But that's what greed is, it's not just money, it's anything, even in the area of sexual immorality. Remember what Nathan said to David? “This is what the Lord says to you: ‘I gave you all of this, I gave you a Kingdom. I gave you everything. If it had been too little, I would've given you more. Why did you want more? Why did you want what wasn't given to you? She was Uriah's wife. She wasn't yours.’” It's greed, wanting something, but he put value on her more than on God. That's sins of perverted love.

And then there's sins of broken relationships. “Now, you must rid yourselves,” it says, “Of all such things as these: Anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” It's amazing how three of them just have to do with anger: Anger, rage, and malice. We're just angry. We're commanded to put them aside like a dirty shirt. Oh, wouldn't it be sweet, if it were that easy? Just take it off, and throw it away, and never see it again.

But you have to put it off constantly. How many times do you get angry a day? Think about it. How many times of the times you get angry, is your central core motive, “The glory of God! The coming Kingdom of Christ! Tears flow down my eyes, because God's law is violated.” That's not what it is. You've been violated in some way. Someone crept in your space, took your cookie. You had your designs on it. That was yours, and someone came, and took it. That's why you get angry.

And anger is to rage - I was talking to my kids about this - Anger is to rage, as a nudge is to a shove. How many people are sitting in prison, do you think, today, never having intended to kill the person they killed? They just don't know how it got out of hand. They did want to hurt; they didn't want to kill. It just went beyond what they thought.

And then there's malice, as Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural, “With malice toward none.” What that means is, “I will never forgive them for what they did, never. I cannot forgive them.” It's a settled, cold, long-term rage, because of sin that's been done to you.

And then there's filthy language, foul speech. There's lying. The Bible's just about a manual on lying. Cain was the first, “Am I my brother's keeper? I don't know where he is.” He said, “It's not my day to watch him.” He knew exactly where he was. And it goes right on through there. Abraham's lie. Sarah lied about laughing, remember? “Oh, yes, but you did laugh.” End of discussion. When the judge says you laughed, you laughed. “No, I didn't laugh.” Abraham lied about her being his sister. Isaac did the same thing. Jacob lied. “Who are you?” “I am your son, Esau.” What a lie. Joseph's brothers lied, “Check this out. Is this your son's coat? It's covered with blood. Could it be a wild animal has eaten him?” What a lie. And we're not even out of the Book of Genesis yet. There's 65 more books of human lies. God cannot lie. But we almost can't help but lie, it seems. Sins of broken relationships.

Now, what's at stake? By the way, that's not a complete list. I hope you know that. The Bible has a lot more to say about sin than just these. These are suggestive, but this is who we are, friends. But what's at stake? Well, “Because of these,” verse 6, “The wrath of God is coming.” It's a terrifying warning. Wrath is God's passionate reaction to sin. He's not like Plato's god, a dispassionate thinking machine who doesn't care. He actually cares greatly and wrath is his passionate reaction to sin. And God's wrath is reasonable. “Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming.” It's coming on those who disobey.

Now, Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone came down. There's the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, that's a picture of God's wrath. Greatest of all in the Old Testament was Noah's flood. Every living thing that breathed air in its nostrils died, except those that were on the ark, terrible picture of God's wrath.

But none of those compare to the wrath that is yet to come on the Earth. Read about it in the Book of Revelation, when seven seals are broken, and seven trumpets sound, and seven bowls are poured out on the earth, and the earth is left a smoldering ruin. There's nothing left, and the sea is turned to blood, and there's no drinking water, and everything, by the billions, die. But that is nothing compared to the final expression of God's wrath, which is eternity in hell.

Revelation 20, “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged, according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it. And death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them. And each person was judged, according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. And if anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” And it's described also in Revelation 14:10-11, “He, too, will drink the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur, in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb, and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest, day or night.”

It is real, friends. Jesus came to save us from it. And I fear that some people are, like during the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, going out, and digging a hole six feet into the ground, and covering it with corrugated tin, and putting some cans of food and some water in there for the coming nuclear attack. It will not survive. Everyone in there will be incinerated.

There is only one refuge from the coming wrath and that is the blood of Jesus Christ. He is our lightning rod, he drank the cup of God's wrath, and if we stand under his shadow, we will be protected from the wrath of God. Have you trusted in Him? Have you come to Christ? It says in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, “Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath.” By the way, note the verb tense, you Christians, “Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath.” Do you still need to be rescued from it? Yes. You need to be rescued right now, from the coming wrath. We need to be continually saved, by Jesus, continually protected and kept in the faith from indwelling sin. “He rescues us from the coming wrath.” Thanks be to God.

Now, how do we fight sin? You have 12 steps there and I'm not gonna go through them. I don't know what to do with this list. God will speak to me over this next week. I may preach it to you next week, but I do wanna begin this way. 

I do wanna begin this way: You can't fight sin if you're dead already. If you are dead in your transgressions and sins, this battle is not for you, because you can't fight it. Come to Christ. Don't just come to church, come to Christ. Trust in him. You cannot survive judgment day, you cannot fight sin. If you try to fight sin without Jesus, everything you do will be repugnant to God. He will look on it as a selfish, prideful display of your own morality and it will be wretched to him. But if you humble yourself and say, “I need Jesus. I need a Savior. Lord, you came to save sinners like me. I do these things. I lust. I've committed immorality. I've looked at internet pornography. I've lied. I've been angry, selfishly angry, and more besides, I must have Jesus.” Then he'll save you. Trust in him.

Now, if you're a Christian, there's a lot of things you can do and I wanna talk about that. I'd said, “I'm gonna preach this in 30 minutes,” it's impossible. It can't be done. At least get this out of this sermon: You must fight sin. You can just read the list and say... Use your imagination... “What would the pastor have said about that cross-centered fighting and all that?” 

We'll talk about that next week. I didn't wanna do it, but I'm gonna do it. You need to know how to fight sin, but get this outta this: You must get up from the Lord's table that we're about to go to and you must go off into warfare. Not against your spouse… No, on behalf of your spouse, fight your sin, so that you become the sweet, loving husband or wife they thought they were getting on that wonderful day.

Fight sin, and you will be joyful, and fruitful, and you will see what God will do through you. God willing, we'll talk about it next week. You can't fit 40 pounds of stuff in a 10-pound bag, I've learned that.

But listen, we're going to a time now of the Lord's Supper. What I want you to do is, I want you to prepare your hearts. Has the Lord spoken to you today? Are you convicted? Do you need to come to the cross again? Can you bow before Him, and like Chris was singing so powerfully, say, “Lord, have mercy on me. Because of these things that I've done, your wrath is coming. Thankfully, you've created a space for me, that I can be protected from what I've done, but God, I did it. Please forgive me.”

Can you bow before him? And don't leave anything undone. While you're waiting to receive the Lord's Supper, confess, so that you don't take the elements unworthily, and eat and drink judgment on yourself. I may say to you, if God brought you here today, and you're not a Christian, and you've never trusted in him, don't take the Lord's Supper. It's for Christians who have testified to their faith by baptism, so don't take the Lord's Supper. As I've said before, be prepared that you can take it next time. Come to faith in Christ, trust in him, be baptized, then you take the Lord's Supper. But if you are a Christian, I ask you to make use of this time, as the elements are being passed out, to confess your sin and be ready to receive.

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm just excited to preach on this text today. I said that to someone this morning and they said, "Well, you were excited last week." I was. That is true. But I'm excited this week too. Because I think there are few texts in the Bible that have the power to make us happy like this one does today. And I think there is great value in being happy in Jesus. That we would rejoice in what God is giving us, and that we would look forward to with great anticipation. That there would be delight in our hearts today as a result of the promises of One who cannot lie and who cannot break his promise and there is no power in heaven or on earth or under the earth great enough to cause God to forget us or to break His promises. And so this has tremendous power to give us strength and energy and, yes, happiness and joy in Christ. 

It was at the end of the first century, on the Lord's Day, the apostle John, exiled on the Isle of Patmos, was worshiping the Lord in the Spirit and he heard behind him a voice, and he turned around and saw a vision of the resurrected Christ in heavenly glory, unlike he had ever seen Him in His days on earth. There was radiance, a heavenly glory, shining all around the Son of Man. And His eyes were like flaming fire and His feet like burnished bronze. And He just moved through these seven golden lampstands, ministering to the local churches, the seven churches of Asia. And later on, after the messages to those seven churches, the apostle John heard Jesus, the same One that he saw, give him a heavenly invitation. John saw a door standing open in heaven, and Jesus commanded him, "Come up here, and I will show you what must soon take place."

I think that the Lord is giving us the same invitation today, in a different way, but the same invitation today as we look at Colossians 3:1-4. I believe that in the Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ is inviting His people, in their hearts by faith, by trusting in the promises of God to, "Come up here." And to have a vision in our minds of a heavenly throne and the One who sits on it, One who rules over heaven and earth, One whose purposes cannot be thwarted. “All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him, ‘What have you done?’” And this is the One who is inviting us to come up into the heavenly realms and spend eternity with Him. What could be better than that?

 So my desire today is to just help you obey the text, to help you set your hearts on things above, to make you heavenly minded. If you have a tendency toward a dour face today, I am just urging that your faith would identify with your face and I would be able to see it. I could see some happiness and some joy, because God is going to be promising you some things today, He has already promised them. He is most certainly going to fulfill them. We have before us, joy in the text. I want to take you on a, basically a journey in heaven through the preaching and through faith and through the Word of God. My desire is that you would be happy in Jesus so that you can be holy in Jesus and so that you can be fruitful in Jesus. 

Blaise Pascal said, "All men seek happiness, this is without exception." You here today, you have in common with every other person sitting in this room today, and in fact with people all over the world, if Blaise Pascal is right, and I think he is, you want to be happy. You want to be joyful. It unites the human race. The problem is, we do not really know how to get there. We do not know how to be happy. We do not know what is going to make us happy. I think the Scripture testifies in Colossians 3 some very clear pathways, a clear pathway, to true, lasting happiness and health and fruitfulness in Christ, and it begins with heavenly mindedness.

Let me ask you a question. If this afternoon, the Lord gave you the blessing of one hour walking in the heavenly Jerusalem, looking around and seeing the beauty and perfection of that place, and seeing a vision of God sitting on His throne and seeing those that are already there, and you spent one hour in heaven, when you came back, do you think you would be any different? Do you think you will really care who won the national championship? Do you think it will really matter to you who gets the promotion or who gets the credit for a ministry in church? Do you think any of those things would matter? Would not those things just slip away from your consciousness as though they were the nothings they really are? Heavenly mindedness is the key to happiness and fruitfulness in the Christian life. Now I want to set this thing in context. Colossians 3 just gives a pathway I have mentioned to health, happiness, and fruitfulness in the Christian life.

We just finished in Colossians 2, looking at the heresy and false teaching that was occurring. The false teachers were giving them the idea that Jesus' death on the cross was insufficient for them; Jesus' ministry then was not enough. They had to add human philosophy, they had to add Jewish legalism, and they had to add worship of angels, mysticism, that kind of thing. And they had to add asceticism, the harsh treatment of the body. He ends up Colossians 2 by basically saying this: All of that, not just the asceticism but all of it, lacks any value in restraining sensual indulgence; it is not going to lead to holiness. But then we go into chapter three, and in effect, he is saying, "But I'll show you something that does not lack value in restraining sensual indulgence. I will show you the power for true holiness and fruitfulness." And so we get these 17 verses, Colossians 3:1-17. And I'm just going to give you an overview of the section. We are only looking today at four verses, but I want to give you a sense of where we are going over the next number of weeks.

The first element of a happy, fruitful, Christian life, verses one through four, is a heavenly mindset. That's today. We are going to talk about a heavenly mindset, seeking things above, thinking about things to come, understanding our past- dead with Christ, raised with Christ. Understanding our present, that Christ is our life and He is at the right hand of God. Understanding our future that someday Jesus is coming back and He will appear as He is, a radiant and glorious King, and He will reign for ever and ever, and at that point we will appear with Him in glory. Think about those things, seek them. Have a heavenly mindset. Secondly, in verses five through nine, he gives us vigorous warfare against sin. We are to put to death all earthly sins, sexual immorality, and idolatries, and relational sins like anger and pride and selfishness and lying. We are to put all those things to death. If you want to be happy and fruitful in the Christian life, you have to go to war. There is no other way, you have to put on your spiritual armor every day and you have to go to war. And so, you have to have a vigorous warfare against sin, you have to break hold of the old habits that you have built up over years, habits of sin.

Thirdly, that we are going to walk together in a new kind of community. You are going to walk in the new self that we have in Christ, and you are not the only person who has a new self, there are other people with a new self. And we are going be in a whole new different kind of way of relating with other people in a Christian community called the church. We are going to understand what that means concerning the old self versus the new self in Christ. We are going to talk about the new community that there is here, a place where distinctions like Jew and Gentile, circumcised, “uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave” and free, none of those things mean anything, ultimately. Those distinctions don't mean anything. We're in a community of people who love Jesus, and we are going learn to walk together in newness of life, in compassion and kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. We are going to learn how to forgive each other completely, from the heart, walking together in community with other Christians.

And fourth, for our own personal hearts, we are going to have our hearts saturated with Christ, verses 15 through 17. The peace of Christ ruling in our hearts, the Word of Christ, richly dwelling in our hearts, the name of Christ, motivating everything we do in our hearts and with our bodies. And then we will give thanks to Christ, constantly, from the heart. You want to know how to be healthy and holy and happy in the Christian life? Do this. I would suggest you memorize Colossians 3:1-17, because herein lay the keys to the rest of your life. This is a happy and fruitful Christian life and, brothers and sisters, it begins with a heavenly mindset, verses one through four. I hope you don't mind if I go ahead and read these verses again. These are some of my favorite verses in all of Scripture. Colossians 3:1-4, "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."

 II.  Heavenly Mindset

So we have, friends, a present duty. It is a sweet duty, it is a delicious duty, it is delightful, but it is a duty, a responsibility. And that is, we are to seek heaven, we are to think heaven every single day. These are two key verbs, NIV has, "Set your hearts on things above," but the Greek is really just "seek", "Seek the things that are above." And it also gives us, "set our minds on things above or things to come."

So the question here before you is, "What are you seeking in life? What do you want? What are you yearning for?" The heart is a desire factory, so we're told. What do you desire? This tells you that you should be seeking the things above. And what do you think about? What do you set your mind on? What do you meditate on every day? What's dominating your thoughts? The happy, healthy, holy Christian life begins with mind control. That sounds a little scary, doesn't it, a little ominous- mind control. But it's something you're doing, by the power of the Spirit. You're learning to control how you think. No, this is not a cult. If we have any visitors here, don't worry, this is not a strange, bizarre cult. We are not into electrodes coming from the brain and all that, we are not trying to dominate or control people's minds. You are supposed to do that by the power of the Spirit.

Set your hearts on it, set you minds on it. It says in Romans 8: "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." Just as in Romans 8, so also here in Colossians 3, the key is controlling your thought life. And so Paul gives us two positive things and one thing negatively. Positively, we are to focus on things above and things to come. The present heavenly realities of a spiritual world that surrounds us and a future world that is yet to come in the promises of God and the plans of God. So that's our positive duty. That is the now and the not yet of our meditation. There are certain things that are going on right now, think about them. There are certain things that are yet to come in the promises of God, think about them, seek them positively. So we are to set our minds on those things.

Negatively, we are not to be thinking about earthly things. So there is the command, positively think about things above and things to come, negatively, not earthly things. Now, let's talk about the first, things above. Look at verse one, "Set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." This is Christ's present kingly rule. Christ has ascended to heaven and He sits at the right hand of Almighty God. He sits enthroned there. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He rules over all things for His own glory. He is a King. And God the Father, having seated Jesus at his right hand, it says in Psalm 110:1, is determined to crush all of Christ's enemies. It says in Psalm 110:1, "The Lord says to my lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."

And so that's going on- the throne of God, the seat of power, the very thing that John saw when he came through that heavenly door. He goes through the heavenly door and there is a throne with someone seated on it, and there is God Almighty and Jesus at the right hand of God. And so we see the kingly rule, His sovereignty. Set your minds on it, seek it. Think about it, about the reign of Christ as king. But also we have His priestly ministry as well. He is not just a king up there on the throne, but He also carries on constantly a priestly ministry for His people. He is our great high priest and that ministry is going on constantly. And you need it constantly and so do I. We need His constant priestly ministry and it is going on. It says in Hebrews 1:3, "After Christ had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven." And it says in Hebrews 8:1 and 2, "We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves, [present tense] serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man." The earthly temple, the earthly tabernacle, was a shadow and an image of a heavenly reality. The heavenly reality is the place where Jesus, the true high priest, carries on His priestly ministry. And it's going on right now, and it is a perfect ministry. He is ministering His own blood, shed once for all, for His people. One time He offered His body as a sacrifice, but forever He ministers the effects of His blood, and so He is a priest offering up His own blood as a sacrifice. He also is interceding for us. He's constantly praying for you and me. Now I think it's important for pastors to pray for the church. I think it's vital for us to pray for each other. We're commanded to do that, to lift up prayers in intercessory ministry for each other.

Samuel said, "Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you." And so it's a vital ministry that pastors have and that we have for each other, to pray for each other. Let me tell you something, you have 100% prayer coverage all the time, whether somebody's praying for you or not. Because Jesus, it says, is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us. It says in Hebrews 7:24 and 25, "Because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. And therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them." He is able to save you to the uttermost and not one of you listening to me this morning is done being saved. You may be justified, but you are not done being saved. And so Jesus is praying for you, like He does for Simon Peter, that your faith may not fail. And He continues to pray for you and He upholds you constantly at the right hand of God. Set your mind on that. Say, "I am well loved. My sins are completely covered by the blood of Jesus. My life is completely covered by the intercessory ministry of Christ." Set your heart on it. Jesus is King, sovereignly ruling over the world for your benefit and for mine.

He is also a great high priest at the right hand of God and is interceding for us constantly. Set your thoughts on that, Christ ruling over all things. Ephesians 1 says that God raised Christ “from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the age to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way”. Set your heart on things above. They are going on right now. Jesus rules sovereignly right now. He is a priest for you right now.

But there is another aspect of things you are to seek, and that is the things to come. It's not just the present heavenly reality that you cannot see with your eyes or sense, but there is also the future world yet to come, and oh, is it glorious. If I could just have a gift, if it weren't me you were listening to today but maybe Charles Spurgeon, or maybe Martin Lloyd Jones or one of those great preachers of the past, but you have me instead, so you'll have to do with me. And it's my job this morning to depict just how glorious is the world yet to come, and how attractive, and how much you should want to be there, and how excited you should be that every single day brings you closer and closer to it.

Oh, that's my precious responsibility today, things to come, Christ's future rule. Christ's second coming in the clouds. He will come again, and He will reign forever and ever. And He will destroy the anti-Christ. And He will destroy Satan and all of his power. And He will destroy all of His enemies. And He will rule. And Christ will sit on the throne, and on Judgment Day, He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

All of that's yet to come, but best of all after that comes the new heaven and the new earth, a home of righteousness, the eternal state is yet to come. And so you should set your minds on these things, the present spiritual world that surrounds us, the future world to come depicted in the promises of God, not on earthly things. And how much do they crowd in every day? How much do they press in and seek to dominate your thoughts and clamor for your attention, the things of this earth tied to this present earthly system?

Certainly, this would include wickedness and lust and sin. We should not be setting our minds on those things, certainly not. It says in 1 John 2, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world, the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life, comes not from the Father, but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but he who does the will of God lasts forever."

So we are not to be putting our minds on the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and pride of life, but I think it actually goes beyond that. We shouldn't have an over preoccupation even with the good gifts of God in this life. The good things that He's given us, food and clothing and shelter, and even a godly spouse and children of our heart that we love, that we should not be overly preoccupied on our earthly relationships with them. Earthly hobbies, like sports and entertainment and travel, political events, elections, the rise and fall of the world. Current events, CNN, New York Times, whatever has pushed its way to be the number one lead story on tonight's news. Don't be overly preoccupied with these things.

I'm not saying we have our head in the sand that we don't know what's going on, I'm just saying, don't set your heart on it. Don't let it dominate your mind. Even the good things of a godly family, the apostle Paul says in a very interesting way, 1 Corinthians 7:29-32, he says, "What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on... " By the way, if the time was short then, it's shorter now. [chuckle] I mean, that was 2000 years ago, so it's really short now what was short then. So the time is short, friends. "From now on, those who had wives should live as if they had none."

Now, husbands, don't misunderstand. [laughter] Please, still buy something for your wife on your anniversary. Please still be kind to her and love her, don't ignore her. If she starts showing the wedding ring, “remember we're married here,” you've gone too far. But there's an aspect here of what he is saying, "Those who have wives should live as if they had none, and those who mourn, as if they did not, and those who are happy, as if they were not, and those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep, and those who use the things of this world, as if not engrossed by them. For this world in its present form is passing away." The very thing John said about the lust of the world, Paul says here about the good gifts of the world. They're passing away in their present form.

So don't build your life on them. They are temporary, all of them. Set your hearts on things above, set your hearts on things to come, not on earthly things. We have a rich inheritance, the new heaven and the new earth. Fill your mind with biblical data, biblical text, one after the other of what that world is going to be like, what kind of existence we will have, feed your faith and your hope and the promises of God, and this greatly glorifies God when you live for it, when you yearn for it every day.

Hebrews 11 talks about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who had strong faith in the promises of God, and it celebrates that in Hebrews 11:13-16.  It says, "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were aliens and strangers in the world." That's what you are. This is not your home. You don't have any permanent dwelling here. We're just passing through. You may be walking through a corridor that is well decorated with a plush carpet under your feet, or you may be walking through a corridor that looks like a bomb hit it, but either way you're walking through a corridor and the next world is the one that will last forever. It's not your home, and these folks, they were aliens and strangers on earth.

“People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they have been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return, instead they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one, and therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a place for them.” Are you longing for a better country? Are you longing for a heavenly one? Well, then God's not ashamed to be called your God. He's prepared a place for you. 

And Jesus openly commanded this heavenly mindedness. He said in Matthew 6 in The Sermon on the Mount, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. But store for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." What is Jesus getting at? He wants your heart on things to come. He wants your heart on heaven, not on anything you can store up or accumulate in this life.

How do we do it? Well, think about your past, our past. We died. We died, and we rose with Christ spiritually. We are united with Him by faith. Look at verse three. It says, "For you died." Look back at verse one, "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ.” “So you died,” verse three. "You have been raised with Christ," verse one. This is speaking of our spiritual union with Christ through faith. Once for all eternity through faith, we heard and believe the gospel of our salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. We were one with Him. His death became our death, His resurrection, our resurrection. This is our position in Christ and nothing can change it, friends. Forever, we are united with Christ. We died, we rose. That is our past position and our present position by faith in Christ. Through Christ's death, we have been united with Him.

What about present? Well, Christ, therefore, is our life. Look at verse three. "Your life," it says, "is now hidden with Christ in God." Look at verse four, "When Christ who is your life appears." Your life is hidden with Christ. He is your life. My friends, preaching is not my life. Engineering in the past wasn't my life. My family, as much as I love them, they're not my life. Money is not my life. My hobbies and interests are not my life. Christ is my life, and yours too if you have been raised with Christ. He is your life and that is a present reality. And where Christ is seated, therefore, is our true home. And to some degree, we are away from home right now.

We yearn to be with Him because He is our true Home. He is in heaven at the right hand of God and so, in some sense, are we. And notice the word "hidden". Our life is “hidden with Christ in God.” It doesn't appear the way it really is. We do not appear like what we really are. We really are children of God, but we don't appear that way. We appear rather homely, no offense. We appear like age is taking its toll on some of us, some more than others. Again, no offense. We appear mixed because that's what we are, but we really are the children of God and our appearance is deceiving.

And it says in 1 John 3, "Behold what manner of love the father has given us that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we will be like him for we shall see him as he is.” Our life is hidden with Christ and so therefore we do not appear as what we really are.

But what is our future? Well, in verse four it says "Christ will appear and we will appear with him in glory." Our future is glory. And so therefore, our present life hidden with Christ and by the way, please don't misunderstand about that hidden life. I'm not talking to you, friends, about a double life. I'm not talking about a shameful, hidden, secret life of sin that you would be ashamed to have projected up on these screens here before the Family of God. I'm not talking about skeletons in the closet and dark habits that you don't want anyone to know about. I'm not talking about that kind of hidden life. I'm talking about a hidden life with Christ of absolute purity, which will not be fully revealed until Christ comes back. That's the hidden life I'm talking about, the hidden life of a Christian.

So look at verse four, "When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." You are coming back with Jesus. We are coming back with Jesus. We are going to be there, friends. Revelation 19, there's a clear depiction of the Second Coming of Christ. And Jesus is on a white horse and He has a name written on Him known only to He Himself. And He has written on His thigh and on the hem of His garment, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And He is riding back, I think, at the pinnacle of the anti-Christ's attack on the earth. And He is coming back to destroy the anti-Christ with the breath of His mouth, and to slay him with the splendor of His coming. And it says that He rides in front of the armies of heaven dressed in pure white. That is us and the angels.

Now, if that isn't overkill, I don't know what is. The Son of God is coming with all the angels of heaven against the anti-Christ and his little army. We are going to be there though. And it says in 1 Thessalonians 4, don't be dismayed about those who die in the faith and grieve like those who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep with Him. They're coming back, “according to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left to the coming of the Lord will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet call of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them.”

We will all be there and we are coming back to set up an eternal kingdom on earth. We will be there and so therefore “when Christ, who is your life [finally] appears” as He really is, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, not riding on a little donkey this time coming into Jerusalem. He's riding back on a charger for war. He's coming back to establish a Kingdom and to finish the cleansing of the earth. We will be there. And so therefore, “when Christ who is our life appears, then we will appear with him in glory.” We will finally look like what we really are spiritually. We will be glorious. We are not just going to see glory, friends, we are going to be glory. Our bodies are going to be transformed. Philippians 3:21, "They will be made like his glorious body." Not corrupt anymore, not diseased, not fatigued. “They will be made like his glorious body.” And Jesus said then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. That's our future. That's our future.

Now, heaven, I believe, is greatly misunderstood. Since heaven does not appear to us, heaven must be revealed to us. And the only place it is going to be revealed to us in this present world order is in the Scriptures. So we have to go to the Scriptures and find out what heaven is going to be like. Randy Alcorn wrote a whole book called "Heaven", specifically for the purpose of teaching the church what heaven is going to be like. And he relates a conversation that he had with a pastor who confessed to him, "Whenever I think about heaven, it makes me depressed. I'd rather just cease to exist when I die." Alcorn said, "Why?" The pastor answered, "I can't stand the thought of that endless tedium to float around in the clouds with nothing to do, but strum a harp. It's all so terribly boring. Heaven doesn't sound much better than hell. I'd rather be annihilated than spend eternity in a place like that."

Now, at least he vocalizes it, but some Christians actually feel that. They think, "You know, I'm kind of iffy about what that's going to be like. I mean I like the song, ‘Amazing Grace’ and all, but I don't want to be there 10,000 years, bright shiny as the sun and sing nothing but ‘Amazing Grace’. Can we at least have some different songs?" Oh, but things will be different then. We will love “Amazing Grace” so much that when we have been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, it won't matter to us that we have no less days. “That sounds like a lobotomy to me. It sounds like something different. I don't know that I want to do that forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.” And so some people get discouraged about heaven of all things. Do you not see the hand of Satan in all that? Whoever talked about floating around ethereally in some cloud, as you're some out-of-body person, strumming on a harp and singing a song that you never really liked that much here, but you're going to be singing it, and you are going to like it in heaven? That is not what the Bible says.

First of all, let's get rid of that out-of-body thing. We will have bodies, friends. Made like him, like him we will rise and we will be in a glorious resurrection body and a body must be in a place. So there's going to be a place called the New Heaven and the New Earth. We are going to live there. That's the future so we need some true teaching about heaven. Alcorn relates in his book Mark Twain's poor view of heaven, no surprise there. In his book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he said the Christian spinster Miss Watson was taking a dim view of Huck's fun loving spirit. "That's not how you get to heaven.’ And according to Huck, she went on and told me all about the good place. She said, ‘All the body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing forever and ever.’ So I didn't think much of it.” [chuckle] “I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there and she said, ‘Not by a considerable sight.’ I was glad about that because I wanted him and me to be together.” [chuckle] Well, that's a way a lot of non-Christians think about the afterlife. This is not a sermon about hell, but it is a sermon about heaven. And clearly, Mark Twain doesn't have the first idea what God has prepared for those who love Him. Too many people have a gross misunderstanding of our heavenly future, and I think it's because they haven't had good teaching on it.

John Calvin, for some reason in all of his careful Bible study, never did a commentary on the Book of Revelation, which has the clearest depictions of heaven. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, he wrote an in-depth two volume study entitled, The Nature and Destiny of Man, and never mentioned heaven. How do you do that? William Shedd's three volume Dogmatic Theology has 87 pages on eternal punishment and two pages on heaven. In his 900 page theological work, Great Doctrines of the Bible, even Martin Lloyd Jones devoted less than two pages to the eternal state and a new earth. Louis Berkhof's classic Systematic Theology, listen to this, devotes 38 pages to creation, 40 pages to baptism and communion, 15 pages to the intermediate state, which is what happens after you die but before the resurrection, 15 pages on it, two pages on hell and one on heaven.

Now you might think all these godly men, these great teachers of the Bible, they must be onto something. They must not be very much in the Bible about heaven. Nothing can be further from the truth. There is a river of information from the prophets and from the apostles. Some people quote a verse taken out of context and they quote it too short, you know how it happens. They take the verse out of context and they quote it too short, they stop short. And the verse I have in mind is 1 Corinthians 2:9, it says, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard. Neither has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him." Well, that shuts it right there. There is nothing more to talk about, is there? We can't know anything about heaven, is that what the verse says? Let's put it in context. 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 are talking about the limitations of human philosophy to discern what God is doing in the world. There is a limit to what the human brain can come up with, and for the most part, we're wrong, we're off. So that's the context, and they stop too short. Let me read the full verse, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, neither has it entered the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him, but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit." Oh, that flips the verse, doesn't it? [chuckle]

Maybe we ought to study then what God has revealed. Has He told us everything about heaven that there is to know? Absolutely not. The secret things belong to the Lord, but Deuteronomy 29:29, "The things revealed belong to us and to our children." And so let's study them. And I can't in the next three minutes [chuckle], plumb the depths of all the things that we are going to enjoy and celebrate in heaven. But you ought to study it. You ought to try to find out what God has told us about the new heaven and new earth.

So what will it be like? Well, the new heaven and new earth will be a place. It will be a dwelling place. You will live there. It will be more beautiful than the star-studded sky at night, imagine the Milky Way and all that. "We will shine like the stars," Jesus said. The new earth is going to be radiant. It's going to be luscious. It's going to be remade, free forever from bondage to decay. It's going to be a world more pristine and certainly with more promise and future than Eden ever had. It's going to be more exciting to explore the new earth than in the days of Lewis and Clark and the explorations of the Great Northwest. More exciting than any of those explorers like Columbus got on the boat and went over there to find the New World. It's going to be far better, we're going to venture out and find what God has made in the new earth and we're going to be together exploring it.

We're going to see God face to face. We're going to see His face and we're not going to be incinerated. We're going to survive the experience. As a matter of fact, we're going to thrive in the experience. This is the very same thing that Moses could not have when God hid him in the cleft of the rock. The same thing that is told, no man has ever seen the face of God, we will see His face and we will do it constantly. And like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we're going to walk with Jesus and we'll be able to see His wounds. And we'll be able to sit at a table with Him and listen to Him and see His face. He has a resurrection body. And as He said in Luke 24, "A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have." He still has His resurrection body, and we will get to see it. But we will have glorious bodies like His. There's going to be an incredible city, and even if you're not much on cities today, just realize you haven't seen a city like the new Jerusalem.

Human cities have been defaced and destroyed by sin. This city is going to be pure and perfect. It is the New Jerusalem. And it's going to come down, it says, out of heaven like a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. It's going to shimmer with the glory of Christ. It is going to be incredible. It defies description really, but there are descriptions, 12 gates, three in the north, three in the west, three in the south, and three in the east. And the names of the 12 tribes of Israel will be there. And the foundations of the city will be like precious stones giving off different hues and colors. And the names of the apostles will be on the foundations of the city.

It's going to be beautiful. And right down the center of the street of the city is the river of life flowing clear as crystal and the tree of life is on both sides of the river. I can't picture that, it must be a big tree with big roots or something, Banyan trees or whatever, the big roots going across each side, I don't know. But it's on both sides and flows down, and 12 months a year it gives out its crop for the healing of the nations. And its gates are going to stand open. They will never be closed day or night. There will be no night there, frankly. And the wealth of the nations is going to be brought into it and there's going to be a river of commerce and of beauty and glory.

And, yes, you will have things to do there. Boredom? How can you be bored in the presence of God? Is that even possible? Satan is the god of boredom. Follow his ways, you'll be bored. But he's not even going to be there, he'll be in the lake of fire. God is a God of stimulation and of beauty, and of variety, and creativeness. And we're going to see all of these beautiful things in heaven. And we will dine with Him. We will sit down at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. And multitudes will come, greater than anyone could count, as I already mentioned, from every tribe and language and people and nation. The work of the missionaries will be done.

There will be representatives from all of those places and we will get to know them, the brothers and sisters in Christ. And I don't just mean the ones from your generation but the ones from back in the Middle Ages and back in the Patristic Era. You didn't study Patristics now, back at third, fourth century. You will get to know them, just ask them, talk to them, they'll be there. He is not the God of the dead but of the living. They're still alive, they are in the presence of God and you will know them. And they will be your brothers and sisters. And “there will be no more death or mourning, or crying, or pain.” So you will have a resurrection body, and you will never stub your toe.

I was thinking about that. I was making my son's bed, about a year ago and the thing pulled off and I jammed my thumb on the wall and I was like, "Ahh." And I said, "Alright, there's not going to be any pain in heaven. That will never happen in heaven." And I thought, "How is the Lord going to prevent that kind of stuff from happening?" I guess He's just going to be so sovereign and over all of our actions, that we won't do any dumb things like bumping into things or standing up into things, or if we do, we won't feel any pain. I don't know. I just know there's not going to be any pain, no physical pain. And that includes asthma, emphysema, cancer, diabetes, food poisoning, none of it. No pain, but that's just physical.

There's not going to be any psychological pain, friends. Some of the worst pain is not physical but psychological, emotional, mental pain. As a matter of fact, some have said, "The pain of that is so great I would have taken a good, clean amputation over this." That's all gone. There's not going to be any jealousy. You're not going to be slighted by anybody, left out, snubbed, all that's gone. There'll be no pain in that place. Meditate on it fully. You are going to be infinitely wealthy and you're going to be given positions of responsibility. You will be given property of your own, quoting the Book of Luke. And you'll manage it, and you'll look after it.

And, no, it's not all going to be equal. Some will have greater glory than others but all of us will be filled to the brim with the glory of God. By the way, if you want a bigger stake of heaven, then serve Him more faithfully here on earth. The way up is the way down. You want to be great? Then be a servant. If you want to be even greater, be a slave. He's already told us that. If you want a bigger position and bigger situation for the glory of God in heaven, then serve now. Because the things we do here on earth now are translated over into eternity. And so it matters how we serve. Now I was going to read all these verses but you'll have to read them when you get home. Revelation 21 and 22, the concepts flow from there. I want to finish with some benefits of heavenly mindedness, and we will be done.

What are the benefits of heavenly mindedness? Well, first of all, it gives power to resist temptation. Temptations lose their power when you meditate on heaven. Illicit sex, power, money, it doesn't matter. Secondly, heavenly mindedness gives energy to advance the kingdom. When you're meditating on heaven and the future, you can do great things for God. Living moment by moment in the power and the presence of God, you'll have energy to advance to His Kingdom. Thirdly, Heavenly mindedness keeps perspective in trials and suffering. All of your suffering, friends, is temporary, and all of it has a purpose. All of it does. It's temporary and someday it's going to end, and praise God for that. Fourthly, Heavenly mindedness enables us to love each other better, see your brother and sister as your partner in glory. You're going to spend eternity with them. And yes I know, you want to tell me, "Well, they'll be a lot different then." Well that's true, they will, but so will you, and your relationship is going to be perfect, so why not live accordingly now? It enables you to love others better, enables you to love the poor and needy better now too. See them with eternal eyes.

The things you give now to them will be rewarded in eternity. You can spread out, Jesus said, a banquet for the poor and needy and not worry about being repaid in this life. It will be repaid, Jesus said, at the resurrection of the righteous, and so you can be generous with your material possessions. Heavenly mindedness frees us from fear of man. What can man do to you? No one can take your reward from you. This frees you from the tyrant, concern about the tyrant, the non-Christian boss, so you can lose your fear of man in evangelism and be very bold in witnessing. Heavenly mindedness frees us from discouragement. Why be discouraged? Every second is bringing you closer and closer to the things I've talked about today. Don't buy Satan's discouragement.

Our labor in the Lord is not in vain. We're going to get there, and so we're free from discouragement through heavenly mindedness. Heavenly mindedness enables us to be excellent counselors to those who are discouraged. Point them to heaven. Point them to Christ. Point them to the power of the Cross over sin and to the fact that all of these things bring us closer and closer to Christ. Heavenly mindedness sweetens public and private worship. Many of the songs that we sing, not just this morning, but in the Hymnal, many of them are meditations on the future heavenly life. It sweetens public worship and it sweetens private worship to think of heaven. And Heavenly mindedness frees us from fear of aging and death. I'm not saying, ladies, don't go buy Oil of Olay, okay. Go ahead and do that. That's fine. But don't set your heart on Oil of Olay. Or set your heart on cosmetic surgery or any Botox or any of those things. Don't worry about it. You are going to age. [chuckle] And so am I.

We're aging, but you know what? It doesn't matter because we're going to get resurrection bodies that are freed from corruption, and we need not fear these things. Now I've been speaking to the brothers and sisters in Christ about heaven. But I don't necessarily know that everybody who is listening to me today is fit for heaven. I don't know for sure that you're going to heaven right now. I don't know for sure that if we all died right now that all of us would go to heaven. I actually think not, not because of anything I can see, but just... I believe with all my heart that God brought somebody here today who needs to hear the gospel.

And so can I ask, if you have never trusted in Christ, that you disregard all the things I've just said, in terms of your own destiny, until you do this one thing. Come to faith in Christ and trust in Him. Put all of your sins on Him as your substitute, let Him take you to heaven, and then all of these things become your inheritance. Don't think that you have any right to sit at that table without trusting in Christ. But if you trust in Christ, if you roll all of your sins onto Him, He will save you and bring you to this glorious place. Close with me in prayer please.