(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Colossians chapter 3, beginning in verse number 1 there, of course this morning we talked about the resurrection of Christ and how it is the central tenet of the Christian faith and it says in verse number 1 here of Colossians chapter 3, if ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. And that s what I want to preach on this morning. Seek those things which are above. This evening is what I want to preach on that. Set your affection on things above. Seek those things which are above. And we talked about this morning how the important thing about 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is that Christ s resurrection is connected to our resurrection. And of course there s the spiritual resurrection that took place the moment that we got saved and believed on Christ. Our dead spirit was resurrected, it was quickened. We who were dead and trespasses and sins. But in the future of course, unless you re a damnable heretic and don t believe this, there s going to be a bodily resurrection of the saved, right? When Christ returns and the trumpet sounds, then the dead in Christ will rise first. That s a bodily resurrection of the saved that have died before. And then those who are alive and remain will also be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. And so when the Bible says here in verse number 1, If ye then be risen with Christ, another way of saying that would be if you re saved. If you re saved. Because he s talking about the fact that our spirit that was dead and trespasses and sins has been resurrected just as Christ was resurrected. So if you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. So Jesus Christ rose from the dead and he showed himself alive, as we talked about this morning, to his disciples, to over 500 brethren at once. And then after that period of 40 days of being seen of them, he ended up ascending up to heaven and right now he s seated at the right hand of the Father. And so what the Bible is saying is if you re resurrected with Christ, then set your affection on heavenly things. Seek those things which are above where Christ is seated right now at the right hand of God. You see, our life is just a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. But we re going to be in heaven and we re going to be with Christ and we re going to be, you know, living that phase for all of eternity. And so this life is all temporary. We shouldn t get too attached to the things of this world and have all of our affections on current, temporary, worldly things. We should seek the things that are above. And it says in verse 3, For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth. So what s the Bible saying? It s saying, look, you know, the big thing that s coming for us is the fact that we are going to be glorified with Christ at his coming. It says when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, that s talking about his second coming in the clouds. When he returns, you re also going to appear with him in glory because the Bible said that we d be caught up together with him in the air. And so in that case, mortify your members which are upon the earth because this time that we re spending on earth, even though it feels long to us as we live this life, in the scheme of things, overall, is going to seem like it was just a quick thing and the really big thing is what comes after. And so we need to mortify our members upon the earth because we re dead and our life is hid with Christ in God. Now here s what s important to understand because a lot of people get mixed up on stuff like this. A lot of people, they have this attitude that when you get saved, that the old man is just kind of gone and all of the old nature and the old desires and all that was carnal about us is just kind of gone and now that we re a new creature in Christ, it s just we re just a totally different person and I m just a new man and all the sins are gone and I don t even want to do those things anymore. And that just simply isn t true because the true story is that when we got saved, only part of us got saved in a sense because there s still that other part that s the old man that s not saved, right? And again, we talked about this morning how, yeah, our spirit is saved but we re still waiting for the redemption of our body. Nothing changed about my body the moment that I got saved. When I got saved as a little six-year-old boy, I wasn t looking at my hand like, Whoa, what s happening to me? Because nothing physically happened to me. What happened was spiritual and so part of me is saved, the new man, the spirit and so in one sense, I am perfect, I m without sin, I m saved, I m a new man, old things are passed away, all things have become new but then there s another part of me that s the old man that s the same old sinful flesh from before I got saved, that same rotten six-year-old, you know, still there and so there s both coexisting and so when the Bible says ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ and God, what we re talking about there is in a sense of being saved positionally, we re with Christ, we are dead to sin, we re dead to the old life and all things have been made new but then there s this other sort of daily reality of the fact that we are still in a sinful body, we re still in a sinful flesh and so there s this dichotomy where the Bible says the flesh lesteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. So that s why the Bible because here s why I m emphasizing this. Verse 3 says ye are dead but then verse 5 turns around and says, mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth. Now, if I m already dead, why would I need to mortify anything? Because what does mortify mean? It basically means to render it dead or to make it dead. Why would I need to mortify anything if I m already dead? Because of the fact that there s this dichotomy that s going on, okay? So if you re risen with Christ, well hey, you re automatically seeking the things that are above. You re automatically in heavenly places with Christ. I don t even need to write this letter to you. In fact, instead of an epistle to the Colossians, I m just going to make it to the postcard to the Colossians. You re saved so you don t need any advice because you re just automatically doing it all right because you don t even sin anymore, you know, see you in heaven, God bless Apostle Paul. It could have just been the Apostle Paul s postcard to the Colossians. But the reason why he has to tell you mortify your members which are upon the earth is that this isn t automatic because of the fact that you still have the old man. And so every single day, we have to mortify the old man, right? We have to kill the old man every single day and we have to mortify the members of our uncleanness. Now members literally means body parts, okay? But what it means in this case is just our physical bodies, you know, and what it really means is our flesh. And what it s saying is that we need to deny self and we need to take up the cross and follow Jesus. It s like when the Apostle Paul said, I die daily, okay? We have to mortify the members of our uncleanness which are upon the earth. Now look at what these things are that need to be mortified in our lives. It says fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry. And stop and think for a second. Christians must be capable of doing all these things or we wouldn t need to mortify them. If we re risen with Christ, if we re saved, which he just finished telling us that that s his audience, he s talking to people that are saved and when Christ appears, we re going to be appearing with him in glory, so therefore let s mortify what? Fornication. So let me ask this, is it possible for a saved Christian to commit fornication? Otherwise what would be the point in telling a saved Christian don t commit fornication? Uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry. You see, we as Christians could still be sucked into everything that this world has to offer and all the allures that are out there of fornication, adultery, and just the love of money because it says covetousness which is idolatry. So we could get caught up in the pursuit of material wealth and just wanting to party and live a hedonistic life if we re controlled by the flesh. So we have to mortify those members which are upon the earth. Our physical bodies that are here with us now are going to lead us into sin if we don t restrain them. And it says to mortify these specific things, and then in verse 6 it says, For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. So why are unsaved people going to hell? You know, unsaved people are going to hell because of their sins, right? The Bible is clear, it says, All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. Why are people going to hell? Because they ve lied, because they ve stolen, because they ve lusted, and because they ve committed fornication, because they ve committed adultery, because they ve done all manner of sins. That s why they re going to hell. They re going to hell to be punished for the sins that they ve committed. The Bible is telling saved people don t do these sins that are the type of things that make God angry and that he brings down his wrath upon the children of disobedience. Now thankfully we re not appointed unto wrath. Thankfully God s wrath is not abiding on us because we ve been forgiven for these things, because the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed us from all sin, and so we are saved, but the unsaved are the objects of God s wrath for precisely these type of things. And so we don t want to live like unsaved people, is what the Bible is saying. And the Bible says in verse 7, In the which ye also walked sometime when ye lived in them. He s saying, Look, you know, a lot of you in the past have also maybe indulged in these things even maybe before you were saved, and I m sure there are a lot of people here tonight that before you got saved lived a very sinful life. Some people, you know, who may have even committed a lot of big sins even after they were saved. But especially if we were to go back before you were saved, if you got saved as an adult, there d be a lot of things that of course you re not proud of. And he says, In the which ye walked sometime when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these. But he s saying, Look, now that you re saved, now that you re living for God, get this junk out of your life and live a heavenly-minded life where you re seeking the things that are above, not the things on this earth. People on this earth, what do they live for? I mean, they just live for indulging the flesh, indulging their eyes, and the pride of life. We talked about it in first John. But he s saying, Look, you ve got something bigger than that to look forward to. Your big thing is coming when Christ returns. Your destiny is in heaven. Your destiny is ruling and reigning with Christ. Don t get caught up in all of the pleasures of sin for a season that are available right now in this earth. Set your affection on things above. Seek things that are above. Put off all these. Now, the first list wasn t really very conclusive because it really just mentioned stuff like fornication and inordinate affection, evil concupiscence. Those things kind of all go together, in a sense. Concupiscence is kind of a big word that we might not know right away, but of course we can kind of see Cupid in there, right? The little fat little angel guy that shoots arrows at people and makes hearts appear around them on cartoons. Obviously also a false god of ancient Roman pagan religion. You can see Cupid in there. Concupiscence, right? This is obviously just from like a Latin word concupiscencia or something about lust. It s in that same category with things like fornication, adultery, uncleanness. It has to do with lust, desire that s wrong. So it pretty much brings up fornication and things that are related to fornication and then covetousness, which is also of course an evil desire or desiring something that doesn t belong to you. But now he brings up more things in verse number eight. He kind of continues on the same list here. He says anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. So it s not just the fornication and the covetousness, but it s also anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Now is anger always wrong? Of course not because we know that even Jesus Christ was angry. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul and he was filled with anger in the Old Testament. And so we know that anger isn t always wrong. The Bible says be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. But I would say that the vast majority of the time our anger is sinful because typically we re angry for the wrong reasons. And so if we re angry for an illegitimate reason or if we re just going through life from day to day angry, it is a sin. Don t be known as an angry person. In fact, not only do you not want to be an angry person, the Bible says don t even be friends with an angry person. Make no friends with an angry man, right? Make no friendship with an angry man. Do not even go with him because you ll learn his ways. People that re angry in the morning and angry throughout the day and then angry the next day, you know, these people are in sin. You say, Well, just life isn t going their way. Well, you know what? Life isn t always going to go any of our way. All of us have problems in our life. All of us have things go wrong. All of us have things that we d like to change about our life. All of us have things that are missing from our lives or things that we wish would be added to our lives or taken out of our lives. But at the end of the day, you need to be like the Bible says, In whatsoever state I am, I ve learned therewith to be content. You need to learn to be content and not to be angry at the world. Because let me tell you something. I don t care how bad you have it. There are lots of people who have it way worse than you. And the reason I know that is because I m speaking to you in Arizona. All right? And just the fact that you live in Arizona means that you re way better off than like 99% of people in this world. Like just that alone. I mean, tonight s sermon could have been written on a postcard. You live in Arizona, so quit whining about anything. Okay? I mean, we live in the land of opportunity. I mean, we live in a beautiful place. We live in a prosperous place. We live in a safe place. I mean, the safety and the peace and the prosperity and the abundance of wonderful food and drink. You know, I mean, there are people right now taking a beating in an alley somewhere, and you re complaining about your life here in sunny, beautiful Arizona. You need to realize there are people burning in hell right now. There are people that are just in all kinds of messed up places all over this world, and here we are. We re blessed. We re in church tonight. We ve got the Word of God in our laps. We re learning the truth from the Bible. We re surrounded by other Christians who love the Lord. I mean, there s so much to be thankful for. And so don t get all angry. Don t get all frustrated. You say, Well, you don t understand what I m going through in my life, but everybody s going through stuff in their life as well. Everybody s going through similar things, and if they re not going through it now, they used to be going through it, or they re going to go through it in the future. You ve got to learn to be content, right? And you say, Well, you don t know what so-and-so did to me, but you know what? Just let it go. Just move on. This life s a vapor. Everything s temporary. Let things go. Put off anger. Wrath. What s wrath? It s just basically anger that s up one notch. And again, not always a sin, because, you know, if you had a righteous wrath towards sin or something, then that would be legitimate, but even that is something that you don t want to just carry with you 24 hours a day and be this angry person. I m just righteously angry all the time. You know, that s not a virtue either. Malice. Malice is basically having ill will toward other people, you know, wanting to harm other people, wanting to do other people ill. Blasphemy. Now, here s what s interesting is that Christians can commit blasphemy. This is not something that only unsaved people can do, because you kind of would associate this with unsaved people, wouldn t you? Because you think blasphemy and you think of people saying like, you know, Oh, you know, if that s how God is, if God s this mean, big meanie, then, you know, I would just rather go to hell then. And you hear people say things like that all the time. Wouldn t you say that that s super blasphemous? People who make a mockery of Jesus Christ or make a mockery of the Bible, make a mockery of things like that, it s blasphemous. Because blasphemy is when you re basically talking down on God, dragging God down to a lower level, not treating God with proper respect. And so you could think of different ways that people use God s name in some kind of an imprecation or something, some kind of an expletive where they, you know, they ll, you know, hurt themselves and they ll say, you know, Jesus s name combined with other profanities. And that s blasphemy, right? But, you know, the Bible says here that Christians could be blasphemous as well, right? Because we re talking to Christians here, these are the things that we need to put off. These are the things that we need to avoid as Christians. So we should avoid saying things that are blasphemous. So, you know, sometimes Christians who feel down on themselves could maybe say negative things about God and say that God isn t fair. Why is God doing this to me? God s got it in for me. It isn t, you know, and just kind of just talking bad about God in that sense instead of just being thankful for everything that God has done for you. Remember, you live in Arizona, et cetera. So because Arizona s better than all the other states too, okay, let me just put that out there. But the point is that we as Christians could be liable to commit blasphemy. So we need to be careful that when we use the name of God, we re either talking about God or to God and not just throwing God s name around and just making light or maybe we need to be careful also the kind of jokes that we would make that involve God or that involve Christ because we don t want to be caught being blasphemous or saying that, you know, God is unfair or God is unjust. If you say God isn t fair, that s a blasphemous statement right there because God is the very definition of justice. He is all that is righteous. He is the embodiment of fairness and righteousness and justice. And so to say that God isn t fair, I just can t understand why God would allow, blah, blah, blah, it s like why don t you just shut up and worship the God that created this universe that has shown you so much mercy and grace and quit talking smack about his decisions just because your pea brain can t understand the decisions that God s making that are so much bigger than all of us. And you know what, I ve gone through some stuff that I didn t want to go through in my life. And let me tell you something, as a human being, I ve felt that way before. I ve felt like, man, why does God treat me this way? Or why is God allowing me to go through this nightmare, you know, I love God, I serve God, why am I being put through this? What have I done to deserve this? I ve had those kind of thoughts. I think everyone has probably had those kind of thoughts, but here s the difference, though, is that I understand that they re foolish thoughts and I don t go around saying those things. So if I have a stupid thought, if I have a wicked thought, if I have a blasphemous thought of, man, this stinks and why is God just playing this cruel joke on me, my life is a cruel joke or something, you know what, going around saying that is blasphemous. It s one thing to feel that way. You know, we re all going to have stupid things enter our minds, right? We re all going to have dumb thoughts or be in a weird mood or whatever, but the difference is that you need to control what comes out of your mouth because you don t want to be guilty of blaspheming God by just, you know, because you re so angry and wrathful that then you start getting blasphemous and mouthing off about how God isn t fair or God is unjust or whatever. God is just and, you know, if we really got what was coming to us, we d all be going to hell when we die and so we should just be thankful for all the grace and the mercy we ve been extended. And even on this earth, we live a pretty good life compared to a lot of people anyway. And then he says anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Filthy communication. This is the dirty jokes and talking about things that go on in the bedroom that shouldn t be talked of outside of that context and just all the filthy jokes and dirty jokes and the dirty humor and things that people do. Again, these kind of all involve controlling your mouth. You know, people get angry, they say stupid things, blasphemous things come out of their mouth, filthy communication. Again, a lot of this just has to do with controlling your mouth and doing right in that regard. He says, Lie not one to another, seeing that you ve put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Again, don t read this as if it s automatic. Like, Oh, you re saved, so you ve put off the old man. That s not what the Bible s saying. This is prescriptive, not descriptive. This is telling you what you should do. You should not lie to one another because you should have put off the old man with his deeds and you should have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge. That s what he s actually saying. This is basically telling you the way things are supposed to be. It s not describing a state that already exists. If so, it would make no sense to even write this. Why would I write to you to do something that you re already doing automatically and that you re going to do no matter what? It doesn t make any sense. The whole point is that a lot of Christians are not setting their affection on things above, they re not seeking what s above, and they are living in the flesh and they are guilty of these types of sins. They are committing fornication or being blasphemous or walking around angry or whatever. They need to put on the new man. And then if they put on the new man, then they will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And the Bible says, And if put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. So just as originally when God created Adam in the Garden of Eden, he created man in the image of God, right? And what does that mean that man is created in the image of God? I mean, you know, that s a big subject, right? I mean, we could talk about that all night, all the different ways in which man is created in God s image because you could say, you know, physically Jesus Christ is God. And so, you know, what does God look like? Well, obviously when we talk about God the Father, no man has seen God at any time, and God is a spirit and so forth. But the Son of God obviously is a man, right? There s one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And so there s a physical appearance issue of obviously man being made in the image of God in that most literal sense. But obviously man is made in God s image in so many other ways because of the fact that just as God created the entire universe ex nihilo and dreamed up everything in this universe, one of the most amazing things about human beings is that we are creators as well. We are made in God s image because we are not robots. Sorry Calvinists, but we actually are creators ourselves, and we make decisions ourselves, and we make choices ourselves. And so God didn t just create automatons, and this makes God s creation so much greater than, say, someone who just makes a robot or a computer or something because if I make a robot or a computer it can really only do what I program it to do. But we don t just do what God programmed us to do. Oh no. God has actually created us with the ability to create and with our own free will. And think about one of the first things that God does with man after he creates him in the Garden of Eden is he tells him to name all the animals. And I love that. And he parades the animals before Adam, and Adam comes up with names out of his own heart. He invents the names for the animals in this world. You say, you know, where does human language come from? You know, it came from the heart of man. And all the languages that we have today that exist in this world, were they created by God? Well, here s the thing about that is that obviously God ultimately is the creator of language in general, and he created the idea or the concept of language. But think about this, is any language that s being spoken today the same as it was, say, 4,000 years ago? No, because languages are it s humans that are inventing and reinventing language all the time. And even that first language, all the animals names were invented by a human being. Adam looked at those animals and he said, Giraffe, Elephant. Of course, he didn t say those things, but he was like, ha ha, you know, whatever. Who knows what kind of a weird language he was speaking. But the point is, Adam spoke English, but King James English, he s like, Thou art a giraffe. But anyway, but think about how cool that is that man named the animals. And then, and then you know what, this is the part I love. And whatsoever Adam called him, you know, that was the name thereof. So God allows man to pick the names and then he just says, Okay, whatever you say, Adam. So he s giving Adam that free will and that agency. And man has the power to create. And today, human beings every day are creating all kinds of music, art, stories, right? We re created, and we re creating things out of nothing, out of thin air, just with our creative minds. And so in that sense, we re made in the image of God. Also, you could talk about the fact that man is a trichotomy in the sense that man has a body, a soul and a spirit. And then God is a trichotomy in the sense that he consists of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And so you know, you could go on and on with all the different ways that man is in the image of God. As far as just the original creation of Adam in the Garden of Eden. And of course, God s original creation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. Now, here's the thing about that, though, God created Adam and Eve. And he actually formed and fashioned them with his own hands in the Garden of Eden. But God did not actually create us in this room from nothing, in the sense that we're obviously just a product of our parents, you know, our parents, they reproduced and all those genes from our parents and cells that were, you know, given to us and all the food that they ate, you know, built our bodies and so forth. So God didn't have to show up and do a unique creative act like he did in the Garden of Eden. And that's not to say he's not supervising the whole universe. I get that he is, of course, and that he does obviously know every baby that's being developed in his mother's womb. But there's no miracle involved in the sense of suspending the laws of nature. God has put this system in place and people are reproducing. And so we were born more than created, like Adam and Eve are created, whereas we were born to our parents. And so we weren't the products of like a unique act of creation by God. But when it comes to the new man, though, the new man was actually created by God in that sense, because what does the Bible say? It says, and I've put on the new man, verse 10, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. So the Bible is saying that the new man was created by God when we got saved. You know, God actually created a new person. So so in that sense, we are like Adam, where we are a direct creation of God in the spiritual sense. And obviously, there's going to be another miraculous act of creation that takes place at the second coming of Christ when we're bodily resurrected. That's going to be a miraculous change in us. And the Bible also says, you don't have to turn there. But the Bible says in verse number, let's see, second Corinthians seven one, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And so we as Christians, we've been created as a new man. And so we need to put off the old man and walk in the the new way of life that God has set for us, which is a heavenly minded view. It's not about all the nasty here and now of this world, trying to get your hands on more money and seeing how much fornication you can do and all the the things that this world has to offer. So it says in verse 11, it says, renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew. This is talking about when it comes to the new creature, the new man that's been created. There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. So the new man isn't divided up into Jews and Greeks. You know, people on this earth can be classified like that. But when it comes to the new man, there is no classification of, well, you know, you're circumcised, you're not, you're a barbarian, you're Scythian, none of those things matter. It's all just you're in Christ. We're all one in Christ Jesus. He says in verse 12, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering. So he talked about the things that we need to get out of our life, right? In order to seek the things that are above or be heavenly minded, what do we need to get out of our life? Fornication, covetousness, anger, blasphemy, filthy communication, lying, stealing, things of that nature. And then what do we need to get into our life? If we put on the new man, what does that look like to walk in the spirit and put on the new man? Well, it says bowels of mercies, right? So that means that we start caring about other people. Now, what does that mean? Bowels are talking about our emotions, okay? And we don't really use this term in 2023 in our modern vernacular. We don't talk about just how my bowels are really yearning for my beloved because that sounds super weird because when we hear bowels, we just think it's something about going to the bathroom or something, right? We think it's a Metamucil commercial or something when we hear the word bowels. But if you think about it, you know, your bowels are like your intestines or we could call it your guts if you want. And so the bowels are considered the seed of emotion because if you get really emotional, you don't really feel anything in your head typically, right? Because our brains are in our head. This is where all the processing is happening, the thoughts and so forth. But you don't really feel anything in your head. You kind of feel stuff in your abdomen. If you're in love, you have feelings in your abdomen, okay? If you are scared, you feel it in your abdomen, right? If you're nervous, if you're excited, if you're happy, you feel it in your reins. You feel it in your kidneys, in your bowels. So that's why the Bible uses that terminology. And so when it says bowels of mercies, it's saying, you know, caring about other people, loving other people, being merciful unto others, but not just in an intellectual way of like, well, this is what I'm supposed to do. I guess I'm a Christian. I'm supposed to be nice to people. You know, it's about actually feeling it, feeling love for others, having merciful and kind feelings toward others, really loving other people from the heart, from the gut. And that's what the Bible is saying. Why? Because when we're out there committing fornication and coveting and being all angry and blasphemous, guess what? That's not love. That's hateful toward the people around us. We want to be loving and kind and helpful to the people around us, not malicious. And so the opposite of malice is these bowels of mercies. And then that translates into what? Kindness. Bowels of mercies and kindness, being nice to people, right? Loving people from the heart and from the gut. And then he says, humbleness of mind, the exact opposite of the pride of life, the exact opposite of the person who's so caught up in themselves and they're angry and they're blasphemous because the universe isn't treating them right. But in reality, we need to be humble in our mind and realize that the world doesn't revolve around us and that we need to love and help and be a blessing to other people. You know, the most miserable people in this world are people who live for themselves. And I don't care if everything's going their way or if everything's not going their way. If you are a selfish person, you're going to be miserable. Period. Rich people who have everything that they could want, who are selfish, are miserable. People who don't have anything they want and everything's working against them, they're miserable too. But if all of a sudden those people's luck were to change and they were to get everything handed to them, yeah, they'd be happy for a little bit. But ultimately they would revert back to that self-pitying, feeling sorry for themselves attitude because selfishness ultimately leads to being depressed. The way to get rid of that feeling is by living for other people, helping other people, focusing on other people. Getting too much focus on yourself will make you depressed. Kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering, right? Not just being on a hair trigger to blow up at people and to just fly off the handle because you're so filled with anger and wrath. And look, I've blown up at people before. I've just flown off the handle before. And I'll tell you what, the reason that I blew up at people, the reason that I flew off the handle is because I was already mad before that even happened. I'm not just going through life like, you know, it doesn't really work that way. You know, it's, it's when you're going through life and you're already filled with anger and wrath, then the smallest little thing sets you off and then you just blow up and whatever. But the Bible says we should be slow to anger. And that means we can't abide in a state of anger where we're ready to just blow up at any moment. That's why the Bible says we should be long suffering, right? We should have a long fuse. We should be patient. We should be kind. We should let things go. We should be forbearing one another. What does it mean to forbear one another in verse 13? Put up with one another. Forbear with one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. All right, so the opposite of living a life that's characterized by just living for yourself, fornicating, trying to get as much money and, and, and, and things as you can possess and just being all angry and filled with malice, blasphemy, filthy communication, and just being a jerk to people in general, lying to people. You know, the opposite of that is being kind, loving, humble, meek, long suffering, gentle, forbearing one another. This is what it's like to be a heavenly minded person. You know, if you want to know how you're doing when it comes to setting your affection on things above and seeking things that are above and mortifying your members that are upon this earth, you know, look at your life and ask yourself, am I characterized by anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, and filthy communication? Or am I characterized by bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness and long suffering? How about this? What would the people around you say? What would the people at work say? If it was just a, if it was just a binary choice, like, like what would the people at work say? You only have two boxes to check. Is your coworker, okay, just, you know, insert your name here. Is your coworker, is he A, filled with anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication? Or is he B, characterized by bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering? Now obviously nobody's going to be a hundred percent in one column or the other, but hopefully this would be a really easy choice to say, yeah, he's a real nice guy. And so yeah, kindness, humbleness, meekness, long suffering. Or is it going to be the anger, malice, wrath? Because he shows up every day and he's blowing off his mouth, he's pissed, and he's knocking things over and whatever. And look, I've known people that just, you go to work and it's just like, look out because so-and-so is coming. I remember there's this one guy that I worked with, man, and he was such an angry person. And I just remember thinking like, why do they keep this guy around? Because he's just so, he's so toxic and he just poisons the atmosphere. But it was just, he was so good at his job and he was just better at a lot of things than anyone else. And so they kind of just had to keep this guy around just because he was good at the work. But man, everybody thought this guy was a total pain. People didn't like working with him. You don't want to be that guy. Well, at least I'm so valuable to the company that, you know, they're not going to fire me. Yeah, but do you really want all your co-workers to think that you're a jerk? But even if all your co-workers don't think that, the most important thing is what the Lord thinks. And he's looking down and saying, you know what? You're living like the old man. You're living like the people upon whom cometh the wrath of God. You know, these things that you're engaging in, this attitude that you have, that's the reason why the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience. Thankfully, you're saved. And so you've been forgiven by Christ. But you know what? If you've been forgiven by Christ, then why don't you extend that forgiveness to other people? Because the Bible says in verse 13, forgiving one another, even as Christ forgave you. So you're just lucky that God doesn't hold you accountable the way you hold other people accountable, the way you despise other people for their faults and their sins and their flaws. How would you like it if God looked at you that way? Because you've got some problems too, don't you? We all do. And above all these things, verse 14, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. So the final level of excellence in our lives is charity, love for one another. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also you're called in one body, instead of being filled with anger and wrath and malice, be ye thankful. Be content, be thankful for what you have, because you know what? It could always be worse. No matter what you're going through, it could always be worse. And so many people live such worse lives. And you know what? I'm human too. Sometimes I find myself feeling sorry for myself in a given situation. But then I often stop and think about how other people are going through things that are so much worse and how I'm actually just being a big baby, whining about my situation when some people don't even have food to eat and they're scared because they're living in some war zone or they're living in some horrible country where there's all this crime and all this violence everywhere. I mean, think about these people that are living in those townships, say, near Cape Town, South Africa. How would you like to live there? How would you like to live in a shack in some ghetto that's filled with violent people that are committing scores of murders on a daily basis? I mean, thank God that we live in a safe, prosperous, healthy place. And then you're whining and complaining that you don't have enough money to do whatever you think you need to do. But some people are living hand to mouth in some pretty violent, dangerous, filthy places, let alone all the people that, you know, that are in even worse situations than that that are in prison or in prison camps. And, you know, not every single person that's in prison is guilty in this world. There are innocent people that are imprisoned in many cases. And so the Bible says, let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also you're called in one body and be ye thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord, and whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. You know, go through life constantly thinking about the fact that you're a Christian and thinking about the fact that, hey, I'm on this earth for whatever short time God gives me, if that's 70 years, 80 years, or maybe even a little bit longer than that. Whatever time that you have on this earth is temporary. Think about the fact that you're a Christian, that you're going to spend eternity in heaven someday, that you're here on this earth as an ambassador for Christ. Whatever bad things are going on in your life, whatever's missing from your life, whatever you wish you could get rid of out of your life, these things are all temporary. Have peace knowing that God loves you, you're saved, you're going to heaven. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. Be thankful for your situation. Live your life about other people. Be kind, be gentle, be loving, be merciful to the people around you. Quit being angry, quit being negative and blasphemous and saying filthy things. You know, dwell on the word of God. Meditate on the word of God. Read your Bible every day. Sing praises to God. Pray unto the Lord. Go to church. Go out soul winning and share the gospel with other people. Live a life that is reflecting the change that has taken place inside your spirit, not a life where you're just manifesting the same old man that was there before you were saved. Walk in the new man. Let the salvation that you have in your heart, let Christ in you shine forth in your actions and in your deeds and in your attitude and your way of life. Live a Christian life from day to day and set your affection, have your mentality, have your mind be on heavenly things, not just you're just fixated on, say if you're a young dude and you're just fixated on women, that's all you can think about. Or just fixated on making money. That's all you can think about. Or you're a young lady and it's just boys, you know, whatever that you, whatever, whatever girls fixate on. I've never been one, so I don't know, you know, whatever you guys are fixated on, get fixated on spiritual things. All right. You know, obviously there are things that we enjoy in this world. We enjoy a good meal. We enjoy to go out and have some fun. But at the end of the day, if that's your main thing is just the fun that you can have in this life, you're living an empty life. Your real heart and affections and what, what really drives you should be something greater than that. Something spiritual, something about reaching people for Christ or, or, or discipling others or, or being a godly influence on the people around you. And, and, and, you know, winning lost people to Christ and, and, and raising godly children or, or passing on godly wisdom onto others, making a real difference in this world for Christ. Right. That's what really is going to matter in the long run. Because before, you know, you know, we could talk to the old people among us and they'll tell you, man, if my life just blew by, you know, it just seems like just yesterday I was a teenager. I was a kid and it's just here I am, you know? Well, guess what? Someday that's going to be you. And you're going to want to have spent your life living for Christ. That's all that's going to matter in the end. And so let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, right? When you read Colossians chapter three, don't just let it be words unto you. Let Colossians three become your new mentality about how to live your life. When we read the Bible, it should be like, we should be like a, like a computer that needs to be programmed. And then like, we're bringing, this is the software coming in. This is the operating system. Okay. Some of you have got some, some malware and stuff, you know, and some viruses and things that need to be purged from that hard drive. All right. And we need to be defragmented spiritually. We need to defragment that hard drive. We need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. We need to be bringing in the software. You know, it's sort of like in the old days with computers, when you'd buy software, you didn't get it on a CD-ROM or a download or a flash drive. It used to come on floppy disks and there were like multiple disks. So you'd want to install some really basic rudimentary software and it'd be like a stack of six floppy disks. And they were like so fragile if you looked at them wrong, they'd break. And then if one of them breaks the whole, you know, you don't have it because you, all six of them have to work. So basically like if you want to install software in those days, it'd be like, okay, insert disk one and you stick the floppy disk in and it'll run a little bit and then it'll pop it out and be like, all right, insert disk two. And you know, you're putting in that information that's going to be necessary to make this program run because each thing could only hold what, 1.4 megabytes? Am I right about that? Can I get a witness? 1.4 megabytes. I mean, you know, that's not even a photograph. You know, I mean, that's very little information. And so it was like, you know, 1.3, 1.4 megabytes per floppy or whatever it was. But you know, every day when you're reading the Bible, basically it's like you're just kind of inserting the next floppy disk and you just keep inserting these floppy and you're programming your computer of your mind of how you operate. This is the geekiest, nerdiest part of the sermon ever. But some people are like, yeah, I know. I understand now. I get it now. This is amazing. You know, some people are really connecting for the first, people are like perking up and they're like, what did he say? Somebody say, floppy disk? The point is like, you know, our brains are like a computer. Well, a computer is like our brains because obviously the computer is trying to recreate what our brains do. And our brains are better. But the thing is that, you know, we got to make sure that we're putting in the right software, okay? Because you could have a great computer, but if you're just loading it up with a bunch of junky bloatware, you know, all the nerds know what I'm talking about with bloatware, then yeah, it's going to run like garbage even if it is a good computer. You know, God has given us a mega ram upgrade when we got saved. You know, it's like, it's like he put that ram in there. He put that solid state drive in there. So we've got all kinds of storage space. We got all kind of random access memory. I mean, he gave us the new chip that's the, you know, the Pentium whatever. I don't know. What's the fast chip now these days? I don't know anything about it. I just make it sound like I do. Come on. What's the fast? Is it the quad core? That was like 15 years ago. The Apple M2 chip. All right. Anybody want to represent the other side? Nobody, nobody wants to represent the PC side. It's too embarrassing. Okay. You know, so basically, you know, when you got saved, you got that M2 processor. Okay. You got the ram doubler. You got the SSD upgrade. You've got the specs. As far as the hardware is concerned, the hardware is there. Meaning that you have the ability to be a great man or woman of God. The hardware is there. But what you got to do now is you've got to bring in the software that's going to actually use that chip to its full potential. I mean, imagine having the Apple M2 chip on your computer and having all these upgrades. Imagine going down and buying like the most souped up Apple. They don't even carry it in the store. They have to order it because it's every upgrade, every add on. And you throw down like 10 grand on the big Mac Pro with all the bells and whistles. And then imagine you're just running like a word processor. What's the point? Am I right? Like you got this big gaming PC and, you know, got all these bells and whistles. The thing's water cooled or whatever and you're running a word processor. Right. So here's the thing. It's really all about what is the software. You know, well, guess what? When you got saved, the hardware is there. The question is, have you inserted floppy number five? Okay. You have to every day be putting in the word of God and making that your operating system so that what determines how I live my life on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? I mean, I'm gonna have all kinds of decisions. What do I do on Monday? What do I do on Tuesday? What do I do when I'm faced with this choice or that choice? Hey, the software is going to determine how I operate. Okay. And I want to make sure that my mentality is not a mentality that says, oh, you know, that guy cut me off in traffic. Flip him off. You know, oh, this person did something I don't like at work. Take revenge. Right. Oh, things aren't going my way. Be angry. You know, oh, you know, uh, this, uh, you know, casinos here, let's go there and party or whatever. You know, these are all the wrong decisions. We want to make sure that our decisions are guided by the word of God, that God's word, that the word of Christ verse 16 dwells in us richly in all wisdom so that basically all that software is installed so that our operating system is operating according to the principles of God's word and that we are making our decisions based on what we're reading in the Bible on a daily basis. We're bringing in God's word to have a Godly mentality. You know, there are, there's so many other influences out there coming from this world through things like movies, TV, magazines, radio, whatever, where we're getting all these other influences and all this other junk coming in telling us to live our life a certain way. And we need the word of Christ to dwell in us richly in all wisdom. We need to have the wisdom of God through the word of God in forming our decisions and guiding our lives so that we are heavenly minded and so that we're living our life according to God's word. You say, well, this is just how I am. This is just my mentality. You know, I'm just kind of an angry person. I'm just kind of a, uh, a loud mouth or I'm, I'm just kind of a, uh, you know, whatever. Well, you know what? Change, right? You need to just delete some files. You need to bring in God's word, bring in some new software, get rid of some of that old software and you need to live your life in a way that pleases God. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts of the Lord and whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. What does that mean? That means on Monday and Tuesday I'm living for Christ. If I'm cutting grass, I'm living for Christ. If I'm plumbing or doing electrical work or, or programming computers or, uh, cleaning or whatever I'm doing, I'm living for Christ. Every day, whatever I do, I'm doing it for the honor and glory of God. And you know what? What does that look like? That means that when I go to my electrical job, I'm kind to the people around me. I'm a witness for Christ. I'm an ambassador for Christ and I'm doing whatever menial job in a godly way. If I'm the mailman, I'm going to deliver the mail in a godly way. I'm going to give it my best. Not like my mailman. But anyway, um, my old mailman was great, but the new mailman, I hope he's not listening to this sermon. Actually, I hope he is listening to this sermon and you need to get right with God, buddy, and start taking your job a little more seriously and do it heartily as unto the Lord. Anyway, all right, let's just close on that. Let's pray. Let's let that, let him stew on that for a while. All right, dear Lord, thank you so much for the fact that we are saved, Lord, and that we're risen with Christ. Thank you so much that because of Jesus' resurrection, we've been spiritually resurrected and someday we'll even be bodily resurrected. But Lord, help us in this intermediate phase where we've already been spiritually resurrected, but we've not yet been bodily resurrected. Lord, help us in this intermediate stage to choose a godly path and to choose to run on the new software and not to fall back on the old software. Lord, help us to walk in the spirit and not walk in the flesh and help us to seek the things that are above, not to seek after whatever this world has to offer. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.