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Foundations: Colossians 3
Many people drift through daily life weighed down by distractions, never realizing they are called to live from an entirely different reality. Colossians 3 tells us clearly: focus your thoughts, feelings, and actions on higher things, while practicing your faith in a world that draws you down.
Walking through the practical foundations of Colossians 3, this message reveals how being “dead” in Christ should reshape not just belief, but every priority, habit, and reaction. Ancient language and ideas become real as the command to “remove” old habits and “adopt” the character of Christ turns into a strong spiritual duty. True worship is not isolated to moments of music or emotion, but is meant to saturate every word and deed.
Scriptures Referenced
Colossians 3:1-17 (ESV), 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (ESV), Psalm 141:2, 1 Corinthians 13, 2 Chronicles 5, Romans 12:1-2, Philippians 4:8-9
Key Insights
- The Command to Seek and Set: Why “keep seeking” and “set your mind on things above” require ongoing, intentional focus—regardless of intelligence, personality, or circumstance.
- Your True Identity and Citizenship: Exploring how Paul’s “you have died” is decisive and how seeing yourself as hidden with Christ in God changes everything about your story.
- Active Participation in Sanctification: How “putting to death” old ways and “putting on” Christ’s character demands daily, communal choice—not passive hope for change.
https://springhousemidweek.captivate.fm/episode/foundations-colossians-3
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Gathering Times
- Sundays, 9:00 AM
- Sundays, 11:00 AM
- Wednesdays, 6:00 PM
Contact Info
Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
CCLI License 2070006
Transcript
About 3 or 4 weeks ago—
Speaker:no, I don't want to do that yet. No, no,
Speaker:no, because what Johnny G just
Speaker:did when he asked us to lift our hands, this went off in my
Speaker:spirit. So is this on now? Yeah, good. Okay.
Speaker:This midweek service series is all about
Speaker:foundations. That's what was on Pastor Johnny's heart.
Speaker:And so what we're trying to do as we're working through the scriptures
Speaker:that we have been assigned is we're trying
Speaker:to ground in foundational
Speaker:principles and precepts from the Word to help us all grow up
Speaker:and grow into maturity and have a better hold on
Speaker:what our roots are. So I'm going to give you a small one
Speaker:because of something you just did that
Speaker:you may or may not know. It's in Psalm
Speaker:141, I think, where David
Speaker:says, may my prayer be to
Speaker:you as incense, the
Speaker:lifting of my hands as the
Speaker:evening sacrifice. Amen.
Speaker:That passage is a place in Scripture where
Speaker:David breaks biblical protocol
Speaker:because he didn't have a right to do that because he wasn't a
Speaker:priest. So it's an interesting passage
Speaker:that doesn't really get talked about a lot because if I said right now,
Speaker:let's all just lift our hands before the Lord, generally speaking,
Speaker:most of us would do that. And basically, you would
Speaker:probably do it because I ask you to do it. And some of
Speaker:you might go, well, it's in Scripture. Lifting
Speaker:hands is in Scripture. And it is in Scripture.
Speaker:That's what I'm addressing. May my prayers be to you as
Speaker:incense, the lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Now,
Speaker:David wasn't a priest, so he didn't have a right to
Speaker:sacrifice in the evening or in the morning. Right. That's
Speaker:part of the history that makes this so profound
Speaker:in terms of how it works into the church over the
Speaker:centuries. He asked permission. He says, may
Speaker:my— depending on what translation you read,
Speaker:may my prayer be to you as incense, the lifting
Speaker:of my hands as the evening sacrifice. I know I'm
Speaker:being redundant. That's 3 times I've said it.
Speaker:I'm making a point. We're dealing with
Speaker:foundations. So when he says that, what the
Speaker:priests did when they offered their prayer
Speaker:sacrifices in the temple is they had incense
Speaker:bowls that had incense in them that wasn't
Speaker:flaming, but it was smoking. So the incense was
Speaker:arising from the bowls. And when they would pray for the
Speaker:people, on behalf of the people as priests, they
Speaker:would pick the bowl up. They would turn— where would an altar
Speaker:be? Let's do this. They would
Speaker:turn— the congregation is back here.
Speaker:This works perfect. And they would
Speaker:pray and lift the bowl of incense
Speaker:up. That's what they did. They stood
Speaker:there and prayed with the incense rising up
Speaker:metaphorically to the throne room.
Speaker:So when we lift our hands,
Speaker:whether we lift our hands in prayer or not, praise
Speaker:or worship, whatever the song might be or whatever the prayer might be,
Speaker:what we're actually doing is we're not usurping
Speaker:the role of being a priest, because in the New Testament, we're
Speaker:all priests before the Lord. I know that. Most of you
Speaker:know that as well. But when David said what he said,
Speaker:he broke protocol because there's nothing in
Speaker:Scripture that gave him the right to go, well, you know what I'm going to
Speaker:do? I'm just going to lift this incense up. He really
Speaker:wasn't even supposed to touch it. So he asked permission.
Speaker:That's, that's a phenomenal thing to connect up in
Speaker:our lives when we lift our hands. Amen.
Speaker:What I'm encouraging you not to do is don't think
Speaker:because we're priests under the New Covenant, we all are,
Speaker:don't go there. Right. Go where David was
Speaker:because David asked permission to do that and now we do it
Speaker:matter-of-factly. That's huge. It can
Speaker:be. It can be huge in your spirit because if it catches inside
Speaker:you, More likely than not, over time,
Speaker:it'll change how you feel when you lift your hands.
Speaker:So don't stand up. I
Speaker:need to pray over what we're doing, but would you lift your hands?
Speaker:Heavenly Father,
Speaker:Renew our minds, soften our hearts,
Speaker:free our spirits, comfort our
Speaker:souls, and grow us up into you.
Speaker:In Jesus' name, through the presence, power, and purpose
Speaker:of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Amen. Okay, that
Speaker:was free. So as I was saying,
Speaker:about 3 or 4 weeks ago, Pastor Justin in here in
Speaker:Sunday school brought a message that he'll tell you where
Speaker:it was. Come on up, please.
Speaker:Yes. And I knew where I was
Speaker:going. I knew I would be— you have
Speaker:the sheet in front of you. And it's a take-home because I want you to
Speaker:take it home.
Speaker:Because retaining stuff that you see on a slide, and you may be great at
Speaker:it, or you may be a hotshot with your phone and go, I got it.
Speaker:But you may not be. And I'm not, so I'm just asking you to join
Speaker:my world. Okay? What Pastor
Speaker:Justin did is in the process of sharing what he
Speaker:shared, he actually opened the door for where we're going in
Speaker:Colossians 3. He didn't know it at the time. But when he
Speaker:shared that, I went, there's not a better
Speaker:avenue into Colossians 3 than what he said.
Speaker:So this is going to be a show-and-tell session.
Speaker:He's going to show you briefly, briefly. I
Speaker:got it. He's going to show you
Speaker:a specific thing that Scripture encourages
Speaker:us to do. And when he finishes that, I'm
Speaker:going to use Scripture to tell you how to do it.
Speaker:Thank you. You're welcome. So
Speaker:we've been working through Paul's letters in chronological
Speaker:order, and we were in 2 Corinthians chapter
Speaker:10, and Paul is defending his ministry. And
Speaker:in verses 3 through 5, he says this. For though we
Speaker:walk in the flesh, we are not waging war
Speaker:according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare
Speaker:are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy
Speaker:strongholds. We destroy arguments and
Speaker:every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of
Speaker:God and take every thought captive
Speaker:to obey Christ. I'll finish with verse 6. Being ready to
Speaker:punish every disobedience When your obedience
Speaker:is complete. When I was sharing this,
Speaker:I, um, I said that basically thoughts can originate
Speaker:from one of 3 places. And I asked this question: have
Speaker:you ever, as a, as a believer, had a thought and went,
Speaker:dear God, where did that come from? Right, right. Not
Speaker:like your, your BC life, but as a saved, sanctified,
Speaker:filled with the Holy Spirit, and you're like, dear God,
Speaker:there's no way. Am I that type of person that that came into my head?
Speaker:Right? Can't be just me. But thoughts
Speaker:originate from one of 3 places typically. It's your
Speaker:voice, it's the voice of the Lord, or it's the voice of the enemy.
Speaker:And when I read what Paul's saying about taking thoughts captive, this
Speaker:mental imagery comes of a, a,
Speaker:a POW or a prisoner. When, when
Speaker:someone is taken captive, the, the thing that usually
Speaker:happens after that is they are interrogated. Where did
Speaker:you come from? Who sent you? What mission do you have
Speaker:here? What authority do you have here? Why did you end up
Speaker:in this place? So when Paul says take
Speaker:every thought captive as a way to
Speaker:war in the spirit, then that is a mandate to
Speaker:interrogate my thoughts to determine where they
Speaker:arrive from, what is the purpose, and what do I do with it.
Speaker:Oh, keep going. Oh, keep going. That's too brief.
Speaker:It's too brief. Yeah, you can do it. You're on the fly, go. That's all
Speaker:I got, really. I mean, all you got, that's where you're going. I mean, you
Speaker:said brief. Yeah, yeah, all right, stop there then if that's
Speaker:all you've got. Okay. Some of
Speaker:us know better, but that's all right. Yeah.
Speaker:So what he's effectively doing— I'm not
Speaker:interpreting, I'm not even translating, I'm just being myself— what
Speaker:he's doing is he's showing us
Speaker:Scripture that indicates there's a
Speaker:charge on our lives to do that.
Speaker:And Colossians 3, coming to
Speaker:our text for today— tonight, Colossians 3
Speaker:gets more specific than what Justin was just alluding
Speaker:to. Where is that? Colossians or Corinthians?
Speaker:2 Corinthians 10. 2 Corinthians 10. Okay. Since you have a sheet you
Speaker:can take home, just jot that somewhere. So you've got—
Speaker:because we're coming— we're here because of what he just
Speaker:said. That was a setup for where we're going next. So What
Speaker:I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you, I'm going to let the
Speaker:Word tell you as I share the Word with you, and you've got
Speaker:basically what I'm sharing in front of you. I'm going to
Speaker:tell you how to implement what Justin just said so that you
Speaker:have a take-home that's not only Yeshua, you have a
Speaker:take-home that on some level will find its way maybe into
Speaker:how you flesh out or walk out your relationship to the
Speaker:kingdom. Which gets us back to foundations, which is the
Speaker:reason we're in this midweek series. Okay? What we're
Speaker:trying to do is reinforce how we got to where we are so we can
Speaker:move from where we are to where we're not yet.
Speaker:Because matter of factly, since we all have Scripture and on some
Speaker:level we all read Scripture,
Speaker:we already should be doing both these things. what he
Speaker:said about taking thoughts captive and what Paul—
Speaker:what he said according to Paul and what Paul says here in
Speaker:Colossians 3, it sort of should be a given,
Speaker:but it's not, which is why I'm here tonight.
Speaker:So starting at
Speaker:verse 1, I'm gonna— as we read through this,
Speaker:I'm not gonna read rapidly, but as we read through it, I'm gonna
Speaker:give you some places to either circle or put a star by. Really about
Speaker:a dozen, but they'll go by pretty quick. And I
Speaker:want you to see them because they
Speaker:have a bearing on how I do
Speaker:what I'm doing. Remember like a couple of months ago, 2 and
Speaker:a half months ago, when Pastor Barbie got up and sat
Speaker:down with all her stuff and went, this is basically how I study or how
Speaker:I read the Word, and used her time to just
Speaker:basically— Go come into my study and let's show you that.
Speaker:Well, I'm spinning off of that. You're in my study now.
Speaker:You just didn't know it. You think you're at church, but no. Okay, so
Speaker:verse 1. If then you were raised
Speaker:with Christ, seek the things that are
Speaker:above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Speaker:Set your minds on things that are above, Not on things of the earth.
Speaker:The first thing I want you to notice, and it's on your sheet, is the
Speaker:word if. It's a conditional word. Paul is
Speaker:writing, at least in principle, he's
Speaker:writing to believers, but
Speaker:he's making a proviso. And the proviso he's making is this:
Speaker:if you are in Christ— He's not challenging
Speaker:the people he's writing. He's not going, you think you're in
Speaker:Christ, but you're really not. But he
Speaker:nonetheless, he is putting a proviso there. He's not
Speaker:taking for granted that the people that
Speaker:receive this letter will all be in the house.
Speaker:He's allowing for the fact there may be not spies, not
Speaker:enemies. He's allowing for the fact there may be people in
Speaker:in the room are not where they think they are spiritually.
Speaker:Are we having fun yet? Yes. Okey-doke.
Speaker:If then you were raised with Christ, seek— okay,
Speaker:what you don't have right after seek is you don't have
Speaker:keep seeking. But if you put an arrow or an asterisk or
Speaker:something over seek, maybe you'll remember that I said this, or you can put
Speaker:keep seeking. Keep seeking is basically the way
Speaker:language works. It's start seeking,
Speaker:continue to seek, and seek after that. Okay?
Speaker:It's, it's a 3-step process. I used to seek. That's how I got
Speaker:in. I'm seeking now because I'm trying to grow. And later on, when I
Speaker:think I've grown far enough, I need to continue to seek. So his
Speaker:directive is, if you're in Christ
Speaker:and you've been raised with Christ, don't give up
Speaker:seeking the kingdom. That's right. Now that could be
Speaker:sort of ironic. I'm already in the kingdom because I've been
Speaker:saved. But he's saying as
Speaker:a given, if you're in the kingdom, you're not in the
Speaker:kingdom as far as you can be.
Speaker:So his directive is stay at it. Keep seeking
Speaker:the things above. Where Christ is seated at
Speaker:the right hand of God, set your mind— minds, plural,
Speaker:that's collective— on things above, not on earthly things. Now,
Speaker:I'm gonna camp here for just a few minutes 'cause this is pivotal
Speaker:to everything else I'm gonna share. And it's pivotal to me,
Speaker:think about Pastor Barbie, right? So I've been plowing this
Speaker:chapter for a long time. This is one of the
Speaker:most important chapters in the Bible in my life.
Speaker:One of the verses which we'll get to, Lord willing, in this
Speaker:chapter is
Speaker:essential to my spiritual walk,
Speaker:and it has been for decades. So
Speaker:the passion in me to share that with you is like, do
Speaker:y'all really have to go home tonight?
Speaker:But since I can't do that, I'm showing you some
Speaker:things along the way. And what I'm addressing here, it's on your sheet.
Speaker:In the King James, the word mind is
Speaker:affection. King James says, set your affections on things above.
Speaker:I'm not gonna get into the Greek. I'm not gonna parse
Speaker:all that through. But I wanna read this to you even though it's on your
Speaker:sheet. Because this is a liability. This is an
Speaker:obligation spiritually. that we're charged
Speaker:with doing. It's not read and forget.
Speaker:It's not read and go, well, yeah, it's sort of— I think it's in the
Speaker:Bible. That's not what kind of charge it is.
Speaker:It's a directive, not a command, but it's a
Speaker:spiritual directive. It's not a suggestion.
Speaker:Affection in the King James, mind
Speaker:in the RSV and most other
Speaker:translations. Set your minds on
Speaker:things above. It means to exercise
Speaker:the mind, to be mentally disposed
Speaker:in a certain direction, to
Speaker:interest oneself in with concern
Speaker:or obedience. Oh my goodness. To
Speaker:care for or about, from a word
Speaker:meaning cognitive
Speaker:understanding. Look at me. It's
Speaker:right here. It's not IQ.
Speaker:It's not intellect. It's not how many grades did you
Speaker:cover in school. It's none of that. It's none
Speaker:of those categories. It's the mind that you have.
Speaker:Because you can't set your mind in
Speaker:areas that your mind can't get to. So if you
Speaker:don't— if you're not a brainiac, you can relax.
Speaker:But if you have a brain, you can't relax as much as you might.
Speaker:I've given you the definition.
Speaker:Exercise the mind to be mentally disposed— I'm headed there again— in a
Speaker:certain direction, to interest oneself in
Speaker:with concern or obedience.
Speaker:That's what it means to set our mind on— minds,
Speaker:collective minds, mind on things above. That's what it
Speaker:means. And then I made another subnote,
Speaker:says, regarding the idea of being mentally disposed in a certain
Speaker:direction with concern or obedience, read Romans 12:1-2
Speaker:in The Message Bible and Philippians 4:8-9. You can do that on
Speaker:your own dime. Okay? But those
Speaker:definitions, starting with what we just read, set your
Speaker:mind— minds on things above.
Speaker:Look, look, look, look. It's not
Speaker:passive. It's
Speaker:aggressive. It's not I'm cramming for
Speaker:exam. Those of us that whatever
Speaker:educational level we went through, somewhere in our past,
Speaker:Most of us, I can raise my hand, most of us went, oh wait, the
Speaker:test is like day after tomorrow. I haven't cracked a book.
Speaker:So I started finding back in my day, what was it called? Cliff Notes?
Speaker:Right? Judge's Digest. Now it's called a— no, no,
Speaker:no, no, joke, Wayne, joke. Now it's called a
Speaker:cell phone. And what you would do is you'd
Speaker:stay up all night cramming for a test that you
Speaker:should have been preparing for for 6 weeks.
Speaker:This is not that. If this is that, you have a
Speaker:problem or we have a problem. 'Cause that's
Speaker:not what that's saying. That's saying what
Speaker:you need to do to set your— to set your mind on
Speaker:things above, you need to purpose to learn to
Speaker:start thinking that way with intention of
Speaker:obeying or following what the Holy Ghost is
Speaker:showing you. I didn't say this stuff is easy,
Speaker:but I didn't write it.
Speaker:Don't shoot the messenger.
Speaker:It's critical to finding a way
Speaker:to think beyond the planet we're living on.
Speaker:And I'm including myself with the word we. And
Speaker:we, and we, and we in the
Speaker:house, not this, in the collective house, we're
Speaker:not doing a good job of that. It's so
Speaker:quiet. We're not doing a good job of it
Speaker:because we're either squirrel, for those of you, we're either
Speaker:distracted or overloaded. Overloaded. or too busy, or too
Speaker:complacent. And what Paul is addressing is get
Speaker:over that. You need to get to a place,
Speaker:not where you've memorized the book of Isaiah, although
Speaker:that, you know, might be an interesting challenge.
Speaker:It's saying, remember it said seek, you sought the
Speaker:kingdom and you got in salvation. You're seeking the kingdom on a daily
Speaker:basis now, hopefully, and you'll continue to do it later. So the
Speaker:seeking process is connected to the set your mind up.
Speaker:Set your mind up. That's not in the text. That's me. I just heard it
Speaker:go by. Set your mind up. Not here.
Speaker:Up. It's not saying dismiss here. It's not saying, oh, I'm
Speaker:not— the trivial stuff doesn't matter to me. 'Cause we all gotta eat. We all
Speaker:got jobs. We got mortgages. We've got kids to raise. We got governments to pray
Speaker:for. Oh my goodness.
Speaker:But in the process of doing that in the natural on the earth,
Speaker:We have an eternal call on our lives that's not bound by earth time.
Speaker:But we live like we're bound by earth time as
Speaker:citizens of the kingdom. Watch, watch.
Speaker:This is a loaded question. You can shout it out if you want to. You
Speaker:can raise your hand if you want to. It's just coming by, okay? If I
Speaker:ask you where your citizenship is and you don't answer
Speaker:in eternity, For the kingdom, with the kingdom, you have a
Speaker:problem. You have a
Speaker:problem.
Speaker:You were born here, so you are
Speaker:a U.S. citizen, but our citizenship is
Speaker:in heaven. Where we're going is where
Speaker:we're already at. We're just not there yet. Amen.
Speaker:And we don't think that way because we're not setting our
Speaker:sights above.
Speaker:Okay. Verse 3, for you have
Speaker:died. Note somewhere, you can either write it or just draw a thing down
Speaker:toward died. This is past tense.
Speaker:Past tense, present tense, future tense. Past tense.
Speaker:I sought the Lord. I'm seeking the Lord. I will seek the Lord. The
Speaker:dynamic is the same. It's stages, okay?
Speaker:For you have died isn't when you die, you'll
Speaker:go to heaven. That's not what it's saying.
Speaker:That's not what it's saying. There's no— in these first
Speaker:3 verses, heaven is not mentioned.
Speaker:The closest it gets to being mentioned is that he says, set your sights above.
Speaker:So in our head, we go, well, that must be heaven. That must be across
Speaker:Jordan. That must be in the presence of the Lord.
Speaker:Yeah. And that would be right. But he doesn't address heaven 'cause
Speaker:that's not what he's addressing. He's saying you need to function like your
Speaker:home is up there even though you're living down here. That's what he's saying.
Speaker:So when he says you have died, the obvious
Speaker:thing that Paul is saying is you're dead and you're not
Speaker:acting like you are.
Speaker:What's up with that? Paul, you're problematic, man.
Speaker:He's writing a letter to real people on the earth
Speaker:with a heart, with a pulse and a heartbeat and breath in their
Speaker:lungs, just like us. And he's saying to them,
Speaker:you're dead. Read it.
Speaker:You have died And your
Speaker:life is hidden, past tense.
Speaker:We're dealing with foundations.
Speaker:You have died and your life is hidden,
Speaker:past tense. When I said, where—
Speaker:when I said, if your answer to where is your citizenship
Speaker:isn't heaven or eternity or the kingdom, And I said, you have a
Speaker:problem? That's what I'm— I'm saying that because of this,
Speaker:because he says, you're dead and your lives are
Speaker:already hidden with Christ in
Speaker:God. What really should happen there is we should all
Speaker:just go,
Speaker:hallelujah! But we don't think it through that way. We
Speaker:don't think it through that way. That's right. So we just read
Speaker:it. We have died and our life is hidden with
Speaker:Christ in God. That's cool. Well, wow,
Speaker:what a good thing. No, no, no, no. That is—
Speaker:how do I say this? That is
Speaker:so juvenile compared to what he's saying.
Speaker:He's saying, get a clue. Get a
Speaker:clue. Where do you live?
Speaker:Huh? Not what's your mailing address. Where
Speaker:do you live in the Spirit realm? Where do you
Speaker:live? So his encouragement,
Speaker:encouragement, which I'm picking up from
Speaker:him, this is encouragement. We have died and
Speaker:our lives Are hidden with Christ in God.
Speaker:Verse 4, when Christ, who is our life, who is
Speaker:our life, who is our life appears— Wayne,
Speaker:come on. When Christ, who is our life,
Speaker:appears, then you also will appear with him
Speaker:in glory. Now make a little side note right
Speaker:next to the word glory and put 2 Chronicles
Speaker:chapter 5, please. And you can either maybe
Speaker:at the bottom of the page or just commit this
Speaker:in your head, sort of, okay? Where it says,
Speaker:you will also appear with him in glory. Glory
Speaker:is not a place. Uh-oh.
Speaker:Uh-oh. There are so many
Speaker:songs in my life and his life.
Speaker:I'm doing that because we're elders. Chronologically. Well,
Speaker:both. Elder, elders,
Speaker:there are so many songs in our life just over in glory
Speaker:land. Oh my. Will the circle be
Speaker:unbroken? There are so many songs about getting to
Speaker:glory. Okay.
Speaker:Yeah. Glory is not a place.
Speaker:It's a condition. It's a state of
Speaker:being. The 2 Chronicles 5 that I ask
Speaker:you to note, the Old Testament and
Speaker:Hebrew identifies glory as kavod.
Speaker:You don't need to write this down.
Speaker:It's kavod in Hebrew, and it means
Speaker:heaviness. It means weight. It
Speaker:means— It means power.
Speaker:Presence, it means like if gravity as we know
Speaker:it while we're here together right now
Speaker:shifted and gravity became like 5 times
Speaker:heavier than it is, you understand? If
Speaker:gravity shifted, our ability to stand up
Speaker:would be pushing against gravity that's
Speaker:beyond what we're used to. In the Old
Speaker:Testament, that's what glory meant when it
Speaker:showed up. When glory happened, they didn't
Speaker:go, we've crossed over Jordan, Ronnie. In
Speaker:fact, they didn't say anything. They just
Speaker:fell. They just fell under the weight, under
Speaker:the kavod of glory. That's Old Testament. New
Speaker:Testament moved this over. When Paul
Speaker:says, I need to read it. Somebody— wait, no, I'll do it. Hold on.
Speaker:When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will
Speaker:appear with him in glory. What you do in your head before
Speaker:I just started this little rant, what you do in your head is somehow
Speaker:or other you envision glory as when we get there. Rub it out.
Speaker:Rub it out. When
Speaker:glory shows up,
Speaker:you don't have to talk about it.
Speaker:Well, you might not know what is happening,
Speaker:like, like if gravity shifted, like while I'm talking
Speaker:to you, all of us, it gets like 5 times heavier. Think
Speaker:astronauts when they, you know, when they— You know what I mean, when they're floating
Speaker:around in the capsules and stuff. When grace reverts, when
Speaker:gravity's gone, you just— it's sort of part of the way I
Speaker:live, right, Jean? But if gravity
Speaker:shifts and gets heavier than we're
Speaker:conditioned to, we will literally, depending upon how heavy
Speaker:it is, we will literally go down. Watch, watch, watch.
Speaker:Don't think Pentecostal.
Speaker:Don't think show and display. Don't, don't, don't go
Speaker:there. Okay? But some of us,
Speaker:some, not many, not many now,
Speaker:some of us have been in places where almost
Speaker:everybody in the room is on their face and they couldn't get
Speaker:up. Could I see a show of hands? I know 2. Yeah,
Speaker:yeah. Right, right, right, right, right. But there's more than 2. Sure. Of course.
Speaker:Now, how that got— how
Speaker:that got bent or shifted or overamped
Speaker:is another conversation. That's not where I'm going. What I'm saying is
Speaker:glory is a condition. It's a state of
Speaker:being. It's what happens when the
Speaker:manifold presence of God shows up.
Speaker:And it's not artificial and it's not— It's not a feeling. based on which tunes
Speaker:we pick for the worship team to sing. Right.
Speaker:Decades ago,
Speaker:at Belmont Church, we came out of Belmont years ago.
Speaker:Belmont, the history of Belmont Church, Jesus,
Speaker:was based on the Church of Christ. So the Church of Christ
Speaker:has a belief system about singing and music in the church.
Speaker:that music in the church doesn't happen. It's changed. But the
Speaker:roots of that— this is free, but it connects—
Speaker:at the roots of that, what happened is people that grew up in the Church
Speaker:of Christ became great singers congregationally
Speaker:because they all learned like 5-part, 6-part harmony.
Speaker:That's how they grew up because they
Speaker:didn't wait for the guitar player to play. They just sang.
Speaker:Help us, Jesus. People
Speaker:used to walk into Belmont to
Speaker:visit and not get down to where they
Speaker:wanted to sit, not because they fell over, but because they started
Speaker:crying. And they just stood there and listened and looked
Speaker:around because the only, the only
Speaker:thing that was happening during the Dare I do it,
Speaker:worship service was people
Speaker:were worshiping. And there was—
Speaker:don't hear this wrong— there was no distraction. It was just
Speaker:a collective choir. The congregation became the choir.
Speaker:And people that had not had that experience— this is why I'm saying that— they
Speaker:had not had that experience, they walked in and went, What?
Speaker:What is— what is— I'm not talking about— it wasn't necessarily
Speaker:a ballad. Jesus, we love. It could have
Speaker:been rock and roll. It wasn't. But— Yes.
Speaker:No, that happened here later.
Speaker:The experience of what they walked into—
Speaker:don't get lost. What they walked into was a touch
Speaker:of glory. But the
Speaker:people in the congregation weren't going, that's— can you— the
Speaker:glory's in— the glory's in this room.
Speaker:Yeah. They weren't doing that. They were singing.
Speaker:But the Holy Ghost showed up and it changed the dynamic of that
Speaker:church. That church exploded. It
Speaker:exploded. It became a nationally known church,
Speaker:not because they were trying to drive for numbers, but because people went, there's something
Speaker:going on at that church. We should go, maybe
Speaker:it's the pastor. And then you'd go to the church and the pastor wouldn't preach.
Speaker:Pastor and I would go, I'm not touching this.
Speaker:Okay. No, we're still— I got almost 15 minutes. We're good.
Speaker:Trust me. 2 Chronicles. Okay.
Speaker:Now watch. This is part of the directive. It's—
Speaker:the whole thing is a directive. Verse 5, put to death. Who?
Speaker:Who is supposed to put to death? Is the Holy
Speaker:Ghost supposed to do this? Is the pastor
Speaker:supposed to do it for us? Is the worship team
Speaker:supposed to lead us to the here? It's not
Speaker:what it says. It doesn't say any of those
Speaker:things. It says— let me interpret this. It
Speaker:says, you put to death, therefore, what is
Speaker:earthly in you. He's writing to believers.
Speaker:He's writing to believers. Put to death in
Speaker:you— hold on, take a deep breath—
Speaker:fornication, impurity, passion, evil
Speaker:desire, and covetousness, which is
Speaker:idolatry. So he's going— he's saying, as I
Speaker:read the text, those things still exist in
Speaker:your dead life where you're hidden with
Speaker:Christ in God. What? No, that's— that
Speaker:can't be right theology. Read it.
Speaker:He's saying lovingly, maybe a little more lovingly than
Speaker:I'm being right now, he's saying, you've got work to do.
Speaker:To believers, put
Speaker:these things to death. Now go to verse 6. On
Speaker:account of these things. What things? The things we just read that Paul
Speaker:just wrote wrote down. On account of
Speaker:these, the wrath of God is coming. I'm not going to touch it.
Speaker:I'm not going to touch it. We don't have enough time. Just
Speaker:note that that's what it says. I'm not going to unpack
Speaker:that verse. And now I've got your attention.
Speaker:Okay. In these, he's still
Speaker:referring to those things. In these you once walked
Speaker:when you lived Past tense.
Speaker:When you lived in them. Okay. Verse 8.
Speaker:But now, present tense,
Speaker:put them all away.
Speaker:Anger. Oh, take it. Everybody take a deep breath.
Speaker:Anger, wrath, malice, slander, foul
Speaker:talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another,
Speaker:seeing that you have put off the old nature with
Speaker:its practices and have put on the new
Speaker:nature which is being renewed. Next to
Speaker:renewed, write the word sanctified.
Speaker:Renewed or sanctified in knowledge after the image of its
Speaker:Creator. Now verse 11, here.
Speaker:Where? Here. Where is here? Right now tonight? Right
Speaker:now, tonight, this is here. We're in—
Speaker:we are in a here moment right now.
Speaker:Focus. Here
Speaker:there cannot— Oh, Jesus.
Speaker:Here there cannot be Greek or Jew, circumcised or
Speaker:uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave,
Speaker:free man, but Christ is in all— is all and in
Speaker:all. Verse 12, again, put on. Who
Speaker:is supposed to put it on? We are. It does
Speaker:not mention the Holy Spirit. I'm not excluding the Holy Spirit.
Speaker:I'm not dumb enough to say the Holy Spirit won't
Speaker:help us. But don't start there. Don't start, well, I
Speaker:can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I have the same Bible y'all
Speaker:do. Amen.
Speaker:The man that wrote that verse, I can do
Speaker:all things, is the same man that said,
Speaker:put these things to death. And he
Speaker:didn't mention the Trinity. It's
Speaker:written to us. The death putting— not
Speaker:pudding. Where is— Not pudding.
Speaker:Not pudding. No, no, no.
Speaker:The putting to death is our liability.
Speaker:Verse 12,
Speaker:put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and
Speaker:beloved. Oh, here we go again. Put— take all that other stuff
Speaker:we just— those 2 lists, those 2 lists that went ouch, ouch,
Speaker:oh, ouch, ouch, and put these on. What?
Speaker:Compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and
Speaker:patience, forbearing one another. Oh.
Speaker:If you have a complaint against another, forgiving each
Speaker:other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you
Speaker:also must forgive. And above all these things, I
Speaker:believe this happened last Wednesday night, put on love.
Speaker:Now, out beside love, just so we're sort of on the same page,
Speaker:write 1 Corinthians 13.
Speaker:Rather than have a debate or a dialogue, or let's work through
Speaker:language or hold this up to the light and figure out what it means, rather
Speaker:than go, let me tell you what love means. Me. Let me
Speaker:tell you what love is. Don't do that.
Speaker:Just read 2nd— 1 Corinthians 13.
Speaker:Just read it. And when you've read it once, Not in the
Speaker:same sitting. Read it more than once and read
Speaker:what Paul says love is. So however it's
Speaker:interpreted in today's church, how it's— however it's interpreted in
Speaker:your head and in your heart, your failsafe,
Speaker:your touchstone, your Ebenezer should be
Speaker:1 Corinthians 13. There really
Speaker:shouldn't be— I mean, you can unpack it. Of course you can unpack it,
Speaker:but there really shouldn't be any need to try and figure out
Speaker:scripturally what love means if you just
Speaker:memorized 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
Speaker:It's there. I'm smiling.
Speaker:Okay, I got 8 minutes. I can do this. Where am I?
Speaker:1 Corinthians 13. Put on love, which binds everything together
Speaker:in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which
Speaker:indeed you were called, past tense, called, -ed,
Speaker:past tense, in one body. In one body.
Speaker:Not the— he's not talking about my body. He's talking about the body of
Speaker:Christ, the bride of Christ. He's saying, he's saying
Speaker:we're all in this together.
Speaker:Somebody should say amen. Doesn't have to be loud. Somebody
Speaker:should realize That the Scripture is saying
Speaker:we're doing this together.
Speaker:And if we're not doing it together, part of what would
Speaker:break doing it together, we've just covered from verse 3
Speaker:to verse 15. We've just covered that. We've had 2
Speaker:lists, long lists of stuff that makes doing stuff
Speaker:together functionally impossible.
Speaker:Get over yourselves. I'll try and get over
Speaker:myself. Help me. That's
Speaker:a big job.
Speaker:Verse 16, bottom of the page. Let— I put a
Speaker:let— let the Word of Christ— I put allow.
Speaker:Give the Holy Ghost permission. Give the Word permission into your life.
Speaker:Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and
Speaker:admonishing one another in all wisdom, and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs
Speaker:songs with thankfulness in your heart to God. We do that almost every
Speaker:time we come together. We did it tonight. Now, the verse I was talking about
Speaker:that was so critical in my life is verse 17. Hello.
Speaker:Verse 17 says, whatever you do in word or
Speaker:deed, do everything in the name of the
Speaker:Lord, giving thanks to God the Father
Speaker:through him. That verse The words in that
Speaker:verse, that verse encapsulates worship.
Speaker:There are no songs. There's no musical
Speaker:instruments. There's no hand clapping.
Speaker:There's no hands raised. There's no
Speaker:prostrate— prostrate. There's no
Speaker:prostrate before the Lord.
Speaker:Prostrate.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Find a way with that verse to
Speaker:get around that verse so that it means something other than worship. Just
Speaker:try. You won't be able to do it.
Speaker:Everything you say and do.
Speaker:That's not— it's not saying be squeaky clean, walk around and go, oh,
Speaker:if I open my mouth, I'm going to mess up. If I try to help
Speaker:him, it'll be right. It's not saying,
Speaker:yeah, I love Jesus. Hallelujah.
Speaker:It's not saying that. It's saying in
Speaker:here and in here, realize that your
Speaker:words and your deeds are acts of
Speaker:worship. Which words and which deeds?
Speaker:All of them. Oh, goodness. You made my night. I heard
Speaker:several ahs. It is a
Speaker:dynamic charge to watch what
Speaker:comes out of your mouth and what actions you take.
Speaker:So having said that, we're going to close. Are you
Speaker:there? Are you with me? Thank you. We're going to close with this,
Speaker:and you're just— I'm not going to— I'm with you. You'll hear this, we'll go
Speaker:home. Okay. But we want to understand sin, for
Speaker:example, is not just a matter of thought.
Speaker:That's important. In our process of growth,
Speaker:we want to understand the different levels the will
Speaker:works. And to merely have a thought is not necessarily to
Speaker:will something. A thought is not even
Speaker:temptation. A temptation is thought plus inclination.
Speaker:Because that is not sin. Sin is where I
Speaker:consent. I consent.
Speaker:That's my will. It has now moved. And if I'm not able to
Speaker:translate it into overt action, it really doesn't much matter.
Speaker:Yeah. I tell my students in ethics classes often that the thief is not
Speaker:someone who steals, but someone who would steal. If they
Speaker:had the opportunity.
Speaker:You're just— you're dismissed.
