Morning church. Okay, we are starting today a new series in the book of Colossians. And I love this book.

This is a wonderful picture. It's a portrait of Jesus Christ applied to the Christian life. Very powerful book and I love it. So, we'll be exploring over the next 10 weeks or so what it means to truly know Christ. What it truly means to know Jesus. So, let's dig in. I wanna read the text. And then we will move through it a verse at a time.

And we're going to go through 14 verses today. So, let's just read the text and then we'll work our way through it. Paul and apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae grace to you and peace from God, our father. We always thank God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ, Jesus, and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this, you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you as indeed in the whole world that is bearing fruit and increasing as it also does among you since the day you heard it.

And understood the grace of God and truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the spirit. And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

As to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption. the forgiveness of sins. This is God's word. This text is like a buffet. There's so many items on the menu that you could just take and chew on. And it's so many words and so many themes, and it's a big, broad overview of the Christian life.

And to, we're not going to be able to just exhaustively cover everything, but what I want us to focus on is the description of the Christian life from beginning to end, as Paul describes it here. To begin with this, I want to start by moving and getting some context from the book of Matthew.

Thank you. Because Jesus tells a parable and there are some similar themes in the parable of the sower that are reflected to here in this text. So, I want to turn over to Matthew chapter 13 and I want to read verses 3 through 9 and then 18 through 23. So, let's hear this parable. And he, meaning Jesus, told them many things in parables, saying, A sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.

Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil and immediately, they sprang up since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among the thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil, and produced grain, some a hundred-fold, some 60 and some 30.

He who has ears, let him hear. That's the parable. And then a few verses later, Jesus does something he rarely does on the gospels. He explains the meaning of that parable. So, let's hear the meaning here. Then the parable of the sower, when anyone, and I want to point out a few words here, that'll be relevant when we get back into Colossians, when anyone hears the word.

of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word immediately and receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself but endures for a while.

A tribulation or persecution arises on the account of the word. Immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the word and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it.

He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case, a hundred-fold and another 60 and then another 30. So, what we see in the parable is the gospel message. The truth of the gospel is like a seed. And then you have a sower who is, it could be an evangelist, could be a preacher, could be somebody just a neighbor, somebody who shares the gospel and they're scattering the seed around and they're sharing the gospel and people are hearing it.

And so, the gospel is like a seed, but when that seed is sown it is sown in fertile soil and then when that happens, when it's sown in fertile soil, then it grows, and it bears fruit, and it multiplies. That's what happens when the seed of the gospel is sown, and it is sown into fertile soil. So, think of it we've had over the last month or so, we've done a few of these hot dog outreaches where we have folks that are standing out and they give away free hot dogs.

And the, there's a sign that says, if you would want to ask a question of a Christian, we'll give you a free hot dog. And surprisingly, lots of people are willing to do that. I guess unsurprisingly, because people want free food, but they take the hot dog, and they ask a question. And whenever they ask the question, then many times it's a sincere question about Christianity.

And that opens a door for us to share the gospel with somebody. And that is sowing the seed. And for those of you that have done this, you've seen that there's different kinds of soil. Some people are like, nah, I don't want that. Or no, I'm not interested. Some people are like, I'm curious, I'll think about it.

And then once in a while you will encounter somebody that they're fertile, they're hungry and they receive it. And they, you could tell that something has happened within them, and they want that message. They want the truth. Colossians one describes a very similar thing, but in theological terms.

So, Jesus gave it to us in parable form, story form. Paul gives it to us in theological form, and that's what our text is today. When the gospel or Paul tells us what happens when the gospel seed is buried in fertile soil. So, we've got 14 verses here, I'm going to skip over the greeting, and we'll look here in verses, we'll just look at verses 3 through 8, and then we'll do 9 through 14.

So, let's look at verses 3 through 8 again, and I want you to notice some of the parallel language that Paul uses from the parable of the soil. Paul says, we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus. And of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

I underline those because you might know from first Corinthians 13. Now abide these three faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love, but faith, hope, and love is a triad of themes that you see in various places in the New Testament. And here's one of them. Let's keep going of this, meaning this refers to your love and faith and hope, or excuse me yeah, faith, hope, and love.

So, of this, you have heard before. So, you hear something, or excuse me, you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which is a seed according to Jesus, which has come to you as indeed in the whole world. It is bearing fruit and increasing. So, it's something that's happened in you whenever you receive this word, but also, it's bearing fruit 30, 60, a hundred-fold.

It's out there and it's continuing to do the work in other places as it does also among you since the day. Here we are again. You heard it. And understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Eris, our beloved fellow servant. He's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has mean to us, known to us your love in the spirit.

Okay. How does somebody become a genuine Christian? That's the first question I want us to look at here. So, we're talking about how that seed of the gospel is received and implanted genuinely in the heart of an unbeliever, such that they're converted. How does somebody become a genuine Christian? Four things.

One, somebody proclaims it. So, somebody proclaims the gospel. In this case, Epaphras, he proclaimed it. Our beloved fellow servant brought you the gospel. So Epaphras evidently was the one who planted this church and Paul is giving his seal of approval of Epaphras messages, of Epaphras message, saying this is the true gospel.

But Epaphras was the one who planted this church and preached the gospel to them. So, number one, a Christian proclaims the gospel, either verbally or it could be that you read it, but you hear the gospel somehow. Second, a hearer hears it. So, somebody speaks it, number one. Number two, the unbeliever hears it.

Verse five, there's a couple of references to hearing. Of this, I'm right here. Of this, you have heard before in the word of the truth. So, somebody heard it. Verse six as the gospel does among you since the day you heard it. So, it's like you're hearing a message. Now, all it is right at this point is just something it's data that you perceive.

According to Jesus, all of the four soils that I pointed out are people that will hear the word. They'll hear the word, so there's some receiving of the message, but it's what happens to that message that is at issue here. There's only one that is fertile soil, and the fertile soil is one who does, who hears it, and they do another thing.

They hear it and they understand it, and that's the third thing. The hearer understands it. So, Christian proclaims it, the hearer hears it, and then the hearer understands it. So, we have here, they understood the grace of God and truth. It's there's not just information in their head, but it's making sense to them.

It computes, it translates, they, they know what it's about. Number four, a hearer believes it by faith. So, they've heard a message. They understand what that message is about, and then in their heart, they believe it by faith. So, you see, that message is true. He says here, the grace of God in truth. They say that message is true.

What you just told me about a God that I can't see with my eyes, you just told me something and I believe that is true. Verse four says, when we I'm right here. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus. And of the love that you have for all the saints. So, Paul has heard a report about what happened when the gospel went to Colossae.

And the report that he heard is hey, they heard it, they understood it, and they had faith in Jesus Christ. So, they received it in a way that is, has made it personal. And that's the difference here. There are a lot of people who will hear the word and who might even understand the word. And they might even believe that it is true, but not in a way that makes it personal.

So, what makes it personal is the faith part. Faith is a commitment, but there's a lot of people that will be cultural Christians, we might say, to where they have a respect for the Bible. They have a respect for Christianity, Christian teaching, but it isn't personal to them. So faith is when the content of the gospel is applied to an individual in their heart in a very legitimate way So the person that receives it will say this applies to me This story you told me about a man that lived 2,000 years ago that I can't see with my eyes about a God that you Say created me that I can't see with my eyes Even still you told me a message and something about that message It resonates, it makes sense and it meets a need.

It tells me something that I know is true deep down. I know that is true and I know I need that message and it is applied to their life. So, hearing and understanding by itself doesn't make you a Christian. You don't become a Christian until it becomes personal. Now let's talk about the faith part.

We'll talk about faith. Faith is a very precious thing to God, and we are saved by grace through faith. So, I want us to understand what the Bible is talking about when we hear faith. So, Hebrews 1:1, I won't read it to you, but it the text is that faith is a conviction about something you can't see.

A lot of times when people use the word faith, it'll, they use it as though it's something irrational. It's I don't believe I can actually jump across this room; I'll just take it on faith. It's, they think it's a faith is just something that makes an irrational, illogical thing all of a sudden logical or rational.

That's not what faith is. Faith is not something irrational. Faith is something invisible. Faith is something that you cannot see. We cannot see God because God is spirit, and we are material. So, God gave us eyes to see, he made us material beings. He gave us ears to hear so we can understand and live in the world that we have.

So just driving here and seeing people and hearing things and getting through this life, we do the, we do so in a material world of atoms and matter because God made us that way. God did not equip us to see things in the spirit realm, which is no less real. It is just not material. So, there is another realm of the spirit that is invisible to our physical eyes, but is no less real than our material world, right?

So, we can't see it, but that doesn't mean it's fake. It just means that it exists in places that God did not give us faculties to perceive them physically. However, in the spirit, we can perceive things, but we perceive them by faith, meaning I believe that thing is true, even though I can't prove it, even though I can't see it with my eyes.

So, saving faith must be and is always faith in a certain object. And that is Jesus Christ. We saw here in verse four, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, there are people that might say things. It's what's important that we have faith. We're going to have in the White House this faith initiative.

Faith in what? It could be faith in Hinduism, faith in Buddhism, faith in whatever you want it to be. But no, that's not saving faith. When Christians use the word faith, we're always talking about a faith in a particular person of Jesus Christ because he is the one who saves. So, we don't see, we cannot see Jesus with our eyes, but we believe that he is real and the stories that we've heard because God testifies to us about himself through Jesus.

Chiefly, God became one of us. God, who is spirit, became flesh and blood, and we know him as Jesus Christ, and they call it the incarnation, so God became flesh. So that is who Jesus is. And we are saved by faith, not just faith in something, but faith in Christ Jesus, their specific content. So, Jesus himself said this in John 20:29, and he's speaking to Doubting Thomas.

You might know the story of Doubting Thomas, who he said, I won't believe Jesus rose from the dead unless I can see the scars in his body and I can put, put my hand on him. And so, Jesus appeared to Thomas. And he said, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Who's he talking about there? He's talking about you. He's talking about us. People who did not see Jesus and yet still believe in Jesus. So, you have something better than what Thomas had because you have received something by faith and faith is better than proof. And that's something that our modern western scientific oriented minds have a hard time grappling with.

But the scriptures testify to us. Hey, it's better. Faith is better than proof. Faith is precious to God. So, a hard-hearted person will demand proof. You tell me that God is real. No, he ain't never proved himself to me. He never showed up and given me nothing. How do I know God is real? You just say some invisible sky daddy God that you believe in.

That's what they say. But we're like we believe him, and we are blessed because we believe in one, we have not seen. And that is called faith. And the thing is the people who would criticize us, they operate by faith too. I love my wife. Prove it. I gave her something. How does that mean it's fake? Or how does that mean it's love?

You can't, can you prove it? You can't see love. I know because it's something that you can't see, but that doesn't mean it isn't real. And in the same way we believe in God, even though we can't see him, we know that he is real. So, a hard-hearted person will demand proof as a precondition of faith because their heart is hard.

They want to resist God. They don't want to receive the testimony that, that God has spoken. What we are looking for is not something human eyes can see. So, John 1:18 says this, no one has ever seen God. Meaning, you don't just go out there and see God himself because God is spirit.

He is not a material reality. However, the only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. So, what that text is saying there is that. Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, the incarnation, Jesus Christ is God. And Jesus makes God known. So, Jesus makes the invisible God visible, and he was seen by the apostles, but now that he has gone and ascended back to the father, now we believe in Jesus Christ by faith.

So, the point is this, if you're looking for God, you're not going to find him by looking with your eyes. You only find him by faith. And Jesus Christ is the one who shows us who God is. And that's why our faith must always be ultimately in Christ Jesus. We believe in Jesus. That's the only way. We see him by faith.

We see God in, in the spirit where we believe a truth that we cannot see with our eyes. So ultimately, we're saying trust the one who gave you those eyes, trust the one who gave you those ears, trust the one who holds this universe in his hands, and he is more reliable than your eyes and your ears. He is the one who made all these things, and he has testified to us this is what is true.

So, whenever this gospel seed then is implanted in fertile soil, somebody hears that gospel message and they understand it, it makes sense to them, and they believe it. They say, yes, this is true. I can't see it. I can't prove it. And yet within them, they know that is true. And so, they receive it by faith.

They are converted. They are a Christian. They are saved by grace through faith. Now what happens? That's the question that we want to look at next. What happens after that? Verses nine through fourteen. And so, from the day we heard, we've not ceased to pray for you asking that you; now that “you” here are Christians.

That you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Here's more understanding So as here's the purpose so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord fully pleasing to him bearing fruit in every good work and Increasing in the knowledge of God being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the Saints in light.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son and in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Praise God. That's great news for somebody who has done this for, and that's anybody. If you are a legitimate Christian, you are saved, converted.

There are four things that are true of you that don't want to show you from this text. Number one, you are a citizen of God's kingdom. That's it. There's a positional change. You have a change of status. You used to belong to a different kingdom, and that is called the domain of darkness here. Verse 13, he's delivered us from the domain of darkness.

You used to belong to the devil, used to belong to the world, and that is the domain of darkness. But however, you are now transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son. That's the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. And of course, the son is Jesus Christ. So, you are no longer a citizen of darkness, a citizen of hell.

You are no longer in the domain of the devil. You have been transferred to this new realm where you are a citizen of God's kingdom. You belong to the kingdom of the sun. There's a new allegiance. There's a new reality, a truth that applies to you. And so, this is a positional change. As far as God is concerned.

Hear this. As far as God is concerned, when he looks at a believer, what he sees is sheer perfection. Not because you are literally perfect, but because his son is literally perfect. And he sees you through the lens of his son, Jesus Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ has given you redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He does not regard you according to your sin. He regards you according to the righteousness of Christ. Everything else that I have to say this morning flows out of that truth. Because that is the positional reality. And notice you haven't done anything yet. You haven't done any, anything perfect. You've not acted in any certain way.

You have not earned anything. All of this is a free gift of God's grace that has been lavished upon us by his love because of the blood of Jesus Christ that is applied to us. That is the truth of you. All right. Number two, you think differently. You think differently. So, verse nine says we are filled with knowledge.

Right here. Filled with knowledge. And then there's a there's more knowledge. Where is that? It's down here over for increasing. Here we go. Increasing in the knowledge of God. There is a change in your mindset. So, there's data.

Whenever you become a Christian that means that you are now in God's kingdom. And so, you now, you have what we would call a personal relationship with God. That means you know God. There are people that I know that I've never met. And I know them because I know facts about them. I know the president.

I know, who my senators are. And I know, who, I know famous people. But I don't know them in a relational way. There are a lot of people who know God the way they know Joe Biden, even though they never met him, and they don't know anything about him. And so, they know things about God and a lot of what they know about him is wrong, but that, but they think they know him.

But as a Christian, God because you are part of his kingdom. You are now brought into his, a relationship, a personal relationship with God. That doesn't mean that you always feel a particular way, but positionally you're there. Positionally, you're there. So, like an infant child doesn't, may not be able to cognitively think or feel any particular way about his or her parents.

But positionally, that's his parents. And it's the same way with God. Like we, we know God, God knows you and there is a relationship. And as you grow as a Christian, you know him more, and it becomes more personal as you get to know things about him. So, it's not just book knowledge. It's a part of it.

You want to gain, Bible knowledge about God, but the knowledge that ultimately is here is more of an intimate personal knowledge of God. And that knowledge does change you over the course of your life. It changes the way you think in that it changes, you think more and more the thoughts of God.

Your mindset becomes more like the mindset of God. Your priorities are oriented and shaped more by the priorities of God. And that's something that happens because you'll notice there in verse nine, you're filled with the knowledge of God and that there's, that's related to spiritual wisdom.

Wisdom is about how you live. So, this knowledge of God changes your actions. And in fact, that's the next point. The third thing that changes that you act differently. So, you become a citizen of God's kingdom and then you think differently and then you act differently, right? So, the seed of the gospel is planted in the fertile soil of your heart, meaning that it, it was buried in, and you heard it, you understood it, you received it by faith.

And now you're transferred into God's kingdom, and you think differently. And now you're starting to act differently. And this is the metaphor of fruit in the parable of the sower. Jesus talked about how that's how you knew when there's fruit, that's how you know that it's legitimate. So, we walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, you're pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work.

I pointed this out earlier, bearing fruit in every good work. Let's camp out on that for a second. Fruit is how you distinguish between genuine and counterfeit Christians. You may not know this, but there are a lot of people who claim to be Christians and they're counterfeit. And so how do you know? How do you know?

We can't see the heart. Only God sees the heart. God, only God knows for sure. But there's a tell, if you're playing poker, and somebody's got a good hand and they're like, and then they try to, it's you could tell. I was like, I can tell you got a good hand there. People have a tell.

And spiritually Jesus tells us that there is a tell that gives us an insight into the genuineness of somebody's faith. So let me read you this text. This is from Matthew seven. Jesus said every healthy tree bears good fruit. That's every healthy tree. That means a genuine Christian. They will bear good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree here, this every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

So, it doesn't matter what the tree says about itself. The tree might say, Hey, I'm a healthy tree. I'm a Christian. Jesus says, it's not what they say. It's what they do. You can read this in the book of James. Don't be just hearers of the word, be doers of the word. And it is what they do. It is the fruit of their life.

It is what you see that gives you the best indicator of the condition of the tree. So, you, how do you know that tree is healthy? There are things in their life that give you indicators that it's a healthy tree. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. Jesus ain't talking about trees. He's talking about people, right?

He's using the metaphor of a tree to tell you about people.

This does not mean that we're saved by doing good works. We've already covered that, right? We're not saved by the good things you do. We're saying that those who are saved will do certain things. So, we got to get this in the right order. Salvation comes first because we just hear a message and we understand it, we receive it, and then we're transferred into God's kingdom.

And then our thoughts change and then our actions change all of these things happen because of what God did in us and it's we don't do all of those things in order to get saved. So, you don't take a berry bush. And the berry bush tries to bear apples to become an apple tree. It doesn't work that way.

No, what kind of treat is by the fruit that it produces. If it produces berries, it's not an apple tree, but you can't try to, we don't try to bear fruit in order to become an apple tree. No, the, who we are is who we are. And so, we were changed by faith. That's a work of God within us.

And then comes the fruit after that last one. Number four, you receive power of the Holy Spirit. So, four things. You're a citizen of God's kingdom. You're transferred. Number two, you think differently. Number three, you act differently. Number four, you receive power of the Holy Spirit. Let me go back to this verse 11.

You are strengthened with all power. According to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, that strengthened with all power is a reference to the Holy Spirit within us that strengthens us and gives us power to do the things that we're talking about. So, whenever you bear good fruit, it is not something that you just end the flesh muster up.

There are other scriptures that we could refer to prove that. But the point is that power is something that God has given you because you're now his son, you're now his daughter, you now belong to his kingdom. He has given you his Holy Spirit and that spirit is what produces the fruit in you.

Every true Christian is in dwelt by the spirit, which also means every Christian is empowered by the spirit. In this room right now, hear this, if you are truly saved, and I have no reason to believe all of you in here are not, that would claim to be Christian. I'm just saying, I'm not calling anybody's salvation into question.

I just want you to hear the truth here. If you're a true Christian, that means that God's Holy Spirit is within you and he's there forever. And then God, by that Spirit, has given you power that you did not have before.

Now, that doesn't mean you feel different. That doesn't mean that, you can, it's not magic. It is something within you and you apply the power of the spirit by faith the same way you received it. It's not something that's like you just wake up in the morning Spider Man it's Whoa, I can climb up walls.

It's that doesn't, it doesn't work that way. It's like you, you can act knowing that there's a power within you. You can attempt things that you might not thought before that you could. Accomplish, but you know that there's power within you to change. We'll apply that a little bit more in a minute, but I'll show you a text here.

Acts 1:8. This is Jesus's final words recorded in the book of Acts. He says, you will receive power when the Holy spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Jesus was talking about when you receive because the Holy Spirit had not come yet to fill the disciples.

But once the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, now the Holy Spirit is active in the world and regeneration and salvation, it's immediate. There's not a delay as there was here. But for now, every Christian who is converted, this is you. You have received that power. What kind of power? The first one they mentioned here is you can be witnesses.

So, you have a power to tell people about the gospel, to be a sower, just as the parable said. You can tell other people about Jesus, and now whenever you share the gospel, there's a power at work within you whenever you testify to the gospel. But it's not the only thing. That's power to grow in your knowledge of God.

That's power in the fruit that you bear and in the repentance and growth that you experience in the Christian life. Power to do good works. That's power for the gospel to grow and multiply and increase in your life and in other people's lives. That power is now at work in the world. So, this power will continue to shape who you are for the rest of your life because the power is in you and he's going to continue to bear fruit because that's what the seed does.

You're a gospel tree, and so you're going to bear gospel fruit for the rest of your life. And the power is at work within you to do that. One other comment here on verse 11, he mentions patience you're strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience.

Those two words indicate time, right? So, anybody can, run for 10 seconds, but if you're an endurance runner, you can run for maybe a couple hours. And patience is also a reference to time meaning that things don't happen immediately. Just as in the parable of the sower, the fruit doesn't just pop up the moment you become a Christian and all of a sudden, you're completely mature and sanctified in your faith.

It takes a long time. Christians, I think, are, can be impatient. Because we can see a standard and we think everybody should meet that standard and everybody should be there. I'm like God talks a lot about being patient. The Lord is gracious and compassionate. He's slow to anger, meaning God allows time for growth to develop and take place.

That doesn't give us an excuse to be lazy about our growth, but it does tell us that in our slowness to grow, God is patient in his grace with us as we grow. Okay. Okay. That's the text. I want to take just a few minutes here and make it more practical. I want to apply it and just tell you what are some things that you can do.

And this is especially for anybody who, if you feel yourself to be a newer Christian, this applies to everybody, but new Christians in particular, let's talk about this gospel seed is planted in your heart. And there's things that are happening. You're a genuine Christian, but let's suppose that you're on the front end of this journey.

There are three things you can do to make this practical. This is what we'll finish with this. Here's the first one. Repent of the big sins first. Repent of the big sins first. So, repentance of sin is non-negotiable, right? That's just repentance is a built-in feature of the Christian life.

However, there are lots of sins in our lives that you might have these little fine-tuning type of sins, and you might have these big, ugly, gross sins that are destroying our lives, destroying our families and people we care about. And so, you want to start with the big sins that are doing the most damage.

So, 1 John 3:9 says, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning. So, if you're a Christian. Nobody makes a practice of sinning. So, sin is no longer your habit. Sin might, you might commit sin. You might get, you might commit big sins, but sin should not be the habit that you embody.

So, Christians, sin is something that, that happens that should be a deviation from the typical direction of your life. Why does he say this? What's because God's seed abides in him. Meaning that, that gospel seed is now buried in your heart. There's a change in your heart. You're converted. You're regenerated.

God's power is within you. You're thinking differently. You're acting differently. And so, because of that, God's seed is within you. You don't make a habit out of sinning. You don't just be like I can send however I want because I'm under grace. No, that's stupid. That is completely antithetical to everything the scripture teaches.

It says, God's seed is within you. So, you cannot keep sinning because you've been born of God. Now you've got pride, let's say, and you've got these major sins that's destroying your life. So where do you begin? What where do you start? God is patient with us and that grace of God, his patience that does buy time for these things to work out, but it is a lifelong process.

So, you probably have some big-ticket sin items in your life. Maybe not, but maybe you do. There may be some glaring issue in your life that needs to be addressed. And you might know already what I'm talking about. You might already have one. If you can't think of any, you probably have A husband or a wife or a roommate or a friend or a family member that can help you.

They could tell you, yeah, I'm glad you asked because you're saving me the opportunity that I would have to bring it up. So, since you asked, yeah, here's this thing that you do. Probably every Christian has something, and even for people who have been Christians for a long time, there's something in your life that's vexing you, is causing problems in your life or in your relationships.

So, you want to you want to take intentional action to repent of those things. So let me give you an example. Let's say that if you're involved in sexual immorality, if you're a, if you're a porn user or if you have, if you're sleeping with your boyfriend or girlfriend and you're not married to him, like that's a big-ticket sin.

That's a big deal because you are in case of sexual sin, scripture tells us you're sending against your own body and you're also violating that other person or you're objectifying that other person on a screen. Either way, that's a major sin issue and the scripture consistently testifies to the harmfulness of sexual sin.

That's a big-ticket sin item. So that's your number one priority right now. If you have sexual sin in your life, that's priority one right now. So, you need to focus on that. Let's say maybe you have an alcohol problem, then you've been, you're a functional alcoholic. Maybe you've been covering it up somehow and you've, or you've, you're covering up some lie or maybe you're, perhaps you're stealing from somebody.

You're just you're just being you're a thief and you just take things from people. If these are big ticket items, and these are on the, in the 10 Commandments so they're clearly emblematic of major problems. And that's where you want to begin the work of repentance and letting God sanctify you.

So, remember the earlier points, you're a citizen of the kingdom of God, which means your highest loyalty is to Christ and his kingdom. And then you're also thinking differently. So, God's word tells you what sin and righteousness looks like. And God's word tells you that this is egregious sin you're acting differently.

So, there's a God's powers at work. So, it's going to change the way you behave. He saved you. So, you want to line up your actions with your status in Christ and you have power. So, you might, maybe you've allowed the sin to continue for a while because you didn't feel like you had the power to overcome it.

I promise you; you have the power to overcome sin. You're no longer a slave to sin. You're a slave to righteousness. So, you don't have to let sin have dominion over you. You have power from God. That doesn't mean it's easy. That doesn't mean you can just snap your fingers and make it go away. It might mean plan, accountability.

That might mean a lot of hard work. That might mean surrounding yourself with a system of people that can help you. But whatever it would take, there is the power within you by the spirit to apply the tools of the gospel to repent and to be cleansed, sanctified. I can give you. Story after story of people who have overcome very significant sins in the power of the gospel.

And so, you don't want to be 10, 15 years down the road as a Christian and you still have this very major sin still operative in your life and you've never dealt with it. That will destroy your life. It'll destroy your family. So that's number one, repent of the big sins first. The second one, start doing good works beginning with where God has gifted you.

A couple of references in the text we've looked at this morning. There's obedience, there's bearing fruit, and then Paul links that to good works. So, bearing fruit is more of the symbolic way of saying it. Doing good works is more the practical way of saying, but they're all in the, referring to the same thing.

And you may have noticed in the parable of the sower, we don't all bear the same fruit. There's some 30, some 60, some a hundred-fold. But we don't, we're not all going to be identical in the kinds of good works that we do. And that is part of the beauty of the interdependence that God has designed the church to have.

Some people are going to be strong in areas where you're weak and you are going to be strong in areas where they're weak. And then collectively, as we are knit together in unity of a church body. Our strengths are amplified, and our weaknesses and flaws and sins are accounted for and progressively mortified.

That's a good thing. But these are whenever we talk about spiritual gifts, a spiritual gift is most, mostly a natural aptitude that you already have, that God gave you at birth, but it's now empowered by the spirit. They're not magic powers. Now, if you want to, maybe you want to pull me aside and talk about speaking in tongues or something like that later, we can have that conversation, but that's not the, that's not the emphasis of what the scriptures normally and have the loudest texts about spiritual gifts is about very normal, ordinary things that God has naturally gifted you with.

But now, because you're a Christian, they're fueled, rocket fueled by the spirit for you to now take those natural abilities and use them for Christian service. It says what you're already good at. Take what you're already good at and put it to use and the power of the spirit for others. Here's a, here's what Romans 12 says.

For as in one body, we have many members. So, we are talking about a church. We are a church body, but he likes it to a human body. So, you have one body, but there's lots of different members, fingers, toes ear, lobes, eyes, ears, mouth, whatever. One Body, many members, and the members do not all have the same function.

So, we though many are one body in Christ and individually members of members one of another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them if prophecy and proportion to our faith if service and in our serving to the one who teaches and is teaching to the one who exhorts and is exhortation, the one who contributes and generosity.

The one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. Now, let's say you take a couple hundred people. You got some teachers, you got some exhorters, you got some people with prophetic gifting, you have some servants, you got some generosity contributors, people that are generous.

You have leaders, you have people that, that love to do active mercy. Sounds like you're on your way to a pretty healthy church. Because you have lots of functionality in that body. You don't have a; you don't have a malformed body. You have a body that is able to do a whole lot of different things because there is mutual appreciation for what one another does.

And there's an understanding that I can't do what she does. She does that much better than me. God has given her an ability that I don't have. And then somebody else like he's I'm better than him in that thing. I'm better than her in that thing. So, I want to use my gift in ways that God has enabled me.

And then by the spirit at work within our body, we have this nice balance, this nice unity because we are ultimately one body, even though we're comprised of different members. You put a label on that. It's good works. What do you do personally? That means there's good works. And good works normally most often are directed towards one another.

 You might have a mindset that good works is like, passing out water bottles at a marathon race out in town or something. That's fine. You can do that. But the best that you have to offer is typically directed towards one another. And what will that do that will build up and encourage those in your body that are really exceptional at evangelism and that might enable them to have more freedom to do what they do best. And you might find that the more you're caring for one another in the body, the evangelists are going to be more freed up and they're going to be more effective in doing what they do. And the church will grow and the church on the whole will be more effective in evangelism while the individual members are caring for one another.

That's how a healthy body would work. Your faith, empowered by the Spirit, infused with your love for God and others, will transform your ordinary service into good works. Here's an example of my dad and my stepmother. They are servants. They love to serve and just, when there is a need, especially if somebody's hurting, they are there.

It's they you couldn't drag them away. Because they're just so eager to go and serve and help people and it is an inspiration to me. They'll do home repairs. They'll cook meals. They'll travel. There have been times, there's one time a few years ago we had a sick kid, and we went to the hospital.

I think it was when Isaiah was in the, yeah, I think he had a thing. It was an ICU for a night. So, we just told him like, hey, I want to let you know Isaiah is an ICU for the night. And then within an hour, they called him like, all right we're headed up. We're bringing a car full of meals that we prepared.

We're going to take the other kid. It's like they, they just took over serving because they have a spiritual gift. They have a gift of helping of serving. And it was wonderful because it enabled us to be able to attend to our son who was sick at the moment. by them just caring for people in need.

That's a spiritual gift. That's bearing fruit 30, 60, a hundred-fold. Last one, focus on consistency rather than perfection. Focus on consistency rather than perfection. This side of eternity, you're not going to be perfect. I think you already know that. So don't be discouraged if your growth is slow. We talked about time, endurance, patience.

That's time. God is gracious over time. God's patience is his grace just applied over, over a period of time. So, God's power is at work in you, and you want to apply it, with strength and with vigor, but it's not going to happen all at once. And we can't, Christians can be impatient with our sanctification and then we get discouraged and give up.

And that's what I'm trying to prevent. You can be better tomorrow than you are today, little by little. So, trust God's grace. To be to work in whatever area of your life you need to grow in. So, the old adage, how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. So, every day there's going to be some bite of that elephant.

That's going to be small and incremental. So, if you're 42 years old and you're quietly embarrassed that you've never read the Bible that, how are you going to get there? It's going to be a little bit at a time. So, what step can you take? You might okay, I want to read a chapter a day.

You could start somewhere and just make a little incremental change until it becomes habit and then let it develop. Let's say God has convicted you about your giving. You've been, maybe you've been greedy, and you want to be a more generous giver to give to the church. Then you're not going to go from giving nothing to giving 30 percent of your income overnight.

That would be foolish. Okay. I tell people this whenever we talk about fundraising or giving, it's start small, start something that you can commit to consistently and then have checkpoints where you increase once a quarter, whatever, and try to find ways to look to increase, but do it consistently.

So that way you're building a habit. I've got other examples about taking care of your body or prayer, but. You get the idea. It's something that you give yourself time and you're focusing on consistency because you're not going to get perfection this side of eternity. So that's it. That's the broad scope of the Christian life.

I know it's a lot. It's a lot to take in. It's everything from hearing the gospel for the first time to growing throughout a lifetime onto maturity. Now, as we work through the rest of the book it's not going to be quite so massive in its scope, but I wanted to give you just this big picture view of what the Christian life is like because it's positional.

What God has done is if you're a Christian, the seed has been planted in your heart and these changes are happening. You have a new position, you think different, you start to act different, and over the course of your life, God will change you because of the power that is at work by the gospel. So, one last word.

If you're not a Christian, I want to just end with an invitation for you to consider the claims of Christ. It, you have to accept it by faith. The gospel invitation is Jesus Christ accomplished for you the perfection that God requires to be with him, to be in heaven. And so, if you're, everybody's a sinner, everybody's fallen short.

And so, if you have not explicitly committed your life to Christ, let today be the day that you do that. Don't leave without settling that today. And there's any number of people here that can explain to you more fully what that would be like. And I would be more than happy to talk to you about that if you would be willing to give me the opportunity.

Let's pray and then we will move on to communion. Our father, thank you that you've written so many just incredible truths into a compact space here in the first few verses of Colossians. And God, I thank you for the way that you've inspired Paul to write these words that are of great benefit to us.

And I thank you, Lord, for the truth of the gospel, the seed of the gospel that is planted in our hearts by faith and is bearing fruit and increasing. And we are all of us are at different stages of our sanctification and growth. And Lord, I pray that you will transform us, that you will make us more like Christ, that for the next 70 years, however long we live, that there will just be this steady onward and upward growth trajectory of just enjoying you more, of being more delighted in the truth of the gospel, more, more passionately a follower and lover of Christ.

Help us to do that, God. And you can and will do that. I pray by your spirit that you will bring that about in us. Lord, I pray for those of us that have big sins to repent of. Help them. Lord, I pray that you will encourage them, give them confidence that they are forgiven, that they have been counted righteous in Christ, even though they have a significant sin to repent of.

And may that truth and that hope be with you. Be the thing that propels them and gives them the confidence to, to really go to battle against that sin, surround them with the resources they need and the friends and support so that they can overcome whatever sin or temptation is there. Lord, I pray as we move through this book of Colossians, use it to encourage and convict and build up your people.

We thank you for the opportunity now to come to your table to celebrate the bread and the wine, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Meet us here now at the table, we pray, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.