Amen. Thank you, Josh. Thank you to our musicians as well. Tonight, I'm going to be in the book of Colossians chapter 3. And we're taking a break from our series, Dealing with Doubt. And we're talking about walking in newness of life. Colossians chapter 3, starting in verse 12. All of us need reminders about living the Christian life, and that's what this is designed to do for us tonight. We're going through a set of eight qualities that God would have us to put on by the power of Christ. The Bible says in Colossians 3 and verse 12, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity or love, which is the bond of perfectness, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body, and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly and 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 ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Let's pray. Lord, we seek you tonight as we read and study your word. And we pray that you would change us more and more into the image of your dear son as we look into his word. And I pray that we would be submissive to it And I pray that we would be doers of it and not hearers only. We pray that your spirit would teach and illuminate us during this time. In Jesus name we pray, amen. I'm sure all of us have found ourselves stuck and trying to troubleshoot a problem on technology, whether it be computers or smartphones or other electronic devices. According to multiple studies, and by the way, I don't need studies to know this, but one of the biggest time wasters in the workplace are computer-related malfunctions. One study found that the average person spends 22 to 25 minutes a day trying to fix a computer-related issue. The estimated cost to larger companies in the US is somewhere in the ballpark of $4,000 a minute. Now, one easy solution for many of these issues is as simple as turning your computer off. Over half of computer problems that technicians deal with can be fixed with a simple reboot. My wife is the technical mind in our household, and this is what she usually tells me. If I'm having a problem with the computer, well, honey, just turn it off and turn it back on. And usually this works. And the reason why computers often fail like this is because they have systems processes continually running behind the scenes. So this is computer 101 for a lot of you, but these processes leave an electronic footprint that takes up memory. And when you turn off your computer, Where a smartphone, these programs and processes end and that allows you to start on a clean slate with a faster and more efficient working device. I believe that spiritually all of us need to do something similar. And this is a large part of what this day is all about. It comes once a week. at the first day of the week. Sunday is not vacation time. It's not me time. But it is a time when we rest. That is true. Our bodies need rest. We do need to recharge. But I believe it's a time for us to cleanse out the distractions of the week, to reboot so to speak, and to say, what is my duty to God for the next week? How can I please Him by His grace? And it's more than just a duty if you're truly saved, if you have a relationship with Him, it is a delight. God, how can I please you in this next week? I think that all of us need that. And that's what these kinds of passages do for me. I go to these verses in God's word and they remind me that I am to put on Christ. And this is what it looks like with other people in my life. This is how I should treat other people. This is how I should respond to God and so forth. So at conversion, we put on Christ in a judicial sense. In other words, in the mind of God, when I was converted, in the mind of God, when he sees me, he sees Christ. Aren't you glad of that? What a wonderful thing that is. He sees the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the only righteousness that God will ever accept, because God accepts nothing less than sinless perfection. And I am not that. I would be in a lot of trouble if I had to stand before God in my own righteousness, which is as filthy rags in His sight. And that's what justification is all about. In fact, that's how God justifies us. That's how He declares us righteous. He does that because He has given to us or He has imputed to us the righteousness of Christ. So with God, it is a judicial decree that He has pronounced upon us. Practically speaking though, we put on Christ daily. It is something that we must do all the time. Paul said, I die daily. And practically speaking, I must be reminded that I must act as Christ wants me to act by his power. I must allow him to live because I still have the sin nature. Judicially, I have His righteousness, and that will never change. And by the way, that's where my assurance comes from. My assurance is not based upon my conduct from day to day. If it is, then you're not going to have assurance a lot of times, because you're not going to measure up to God's standard. There are people such as Martin Luther who tried. And remember what we said before, he tried to out-monk everyone else. He was just one of those people. He had to outdo everybody. And so he decided that he was gonna outdo all the other monks in righteousness, and he came to the conclusion that he couldn't. He felt more and more miserable. He felt more and more the weight of God's demands. You see, sinless perfection is something you will never approach. It's like trying to get to the nearest star by walking. Doesn't matter how far you walk on this earth, you're nowhere close to the perfection of God. And that's what Luther understood. But to know that we have the righteousness of Christ credited to our account. But beyond that, he gives us the power to live righteously every day as we put our trust in him, as we put our faith in him. When I get up in the morning, I say, Christ, live through me. This is not something I can do on my own. And so this is why Paul says in Colossians 3, 12, that we are the elect of God, that we are holy, that we are beloved. We have been chosen by him. We have been set apart for salvation and service by him. We are dearly loved by him. And on that basis, we need to live out the grace that God has shown to us. We are to put on the new clothes of our new life in Christ. Last time, we looked at number one, compassion, compassion, and then number two, kindness. And now number three, I wanna go on to this quality, and that is humility. Humility, Colossians 3.12. The pagan world of Paul's day did not admire humility. Instead, they were drawn to pride, domination, winning at all costs. But Jesus Christ is the greatest example of humbleness of mind. And friends, humility is not thinking poorly of oneself. And by the way, if you say you have humility, you don't have it. You see, humility is having the proper estimate of oneself in the will of God, Romans chapter 12 and verse three. And someone has even called it self-forgetfulness. What it is, though, is that you think of God and others before yourself. That is not natural. It does not come natural to me, and it does not come natural to you to put God first. Because most of us, when we get up in the morning, what's our first thought? How do I feel? What do I have to do today? Or how can someone pat me on the back for what I'm doing? We have all kinds of questions that we may ask, and usually it all centers around ourselves. That's our default setting. We think about ourselves. We put ourselves first. But when we put on Christ, something happens, and that is we think of God and others before ourselves. We're willing to put them first. And Christ did this in Philippians 2 and verse 8. The Bible says, and being found in fashion as a man, he did what? He humbled himself. Now we're gonna talk about this in just a moment because really all of these qualities flow into one another. but he humbled himself and became obedient unto death. He gave up his rights, his prerogatives. He did not give up his deity. That would have been impossible. He was just as much God as he had ever been when he was on this earth. He did not give up his deity, but he gave up the rights and he gave up the prerogatives of deity. For a king to be born in a stable, can you imagine that? How many of us would have put up with such a thing? Why at least warrant a Holiday Inn or the Hyatt Regency, the best hotels of the day, but to think that I would be born in a stable? You know, I guess you could call it one of the hotels that you see that nobody wants to go to, where the roaches run everything. They're behind the counter, basically. And there are places like this. But to think that the Son of God would come to this earth, would be born in a stable, to be born in a manger. He gave up his rights. And what a rebuke that is to us. And that takes us to number four, where we put on not only compassion, kindness, and humility, but also meekness. Humility and meekness go together. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus opens with a series of statements known as the Beatitudes. And the third one is this, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Anybody know where this comes from? Well, it comes from Psalm 37 and verse 11, if you wanna turn there. Psalm 37 and verse 11. And in this passage, the psalmist says this. Psalm 37 and verse 11. But the meek shall inherit the earth. That's what Jesus is quoting. and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. Now we know that doesn't happen all the time in this life, but there is coming a day when the Bible says that the meek will enjoy the peace, and the idea there is that they will enjoy the prosperity of the land that God has given them. They will have all that they want, all the abundance, things that they don't have in this life, things that other people would take away from them. But one day there is coming a day when the meek will have those things. The Greek word translated meek refers to mildness or gentleness of spirit or humility. It is the quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of oneself importance. Did you get that? We need to take God very seriously and his word. We don't need to take ourselves that seriously. We don't need to see ourselves in a self-important way. You say, what do you mean by that? I don't mean you have to act like a clown. But what I mean is, is that when you have the right or the power to do something, instead you refrain for the benefit of doing something else. I found that in families, this can often happen. Families can be torn apart by certain conflicts. Because for certain people in the family, winning the argument becomes more important than preserving the relationship. I've got to win. Husbands and wives, is it this way with you? I've got to have the last word in the argument. I've got to win, I've got to let my voice be known. This is the opposite of meekness. And you know, maybe you could, maybe you've got the power to do that, but instead you have the Christ-like quality of refraining from it. And I have seen so many families destroyed by this. It was an ancient warrior named Pyrrhus and he gave the Roman Empire quite a time. He defeated their armies on multiple occasions. And when you defeated the Romans, that was a big deal. So they took notice. Now, the Romans would do, you know, their strategy was, we're just gonna keep on coming. So if you defeat one army, we'll just raise another and another and another. And that's exactly what happened. Meanwhile, Pyrrhus was putting men in the field that he could not replace. And so he would win these spectacular victories, but he would also have tremendous casualties. And it was said that after one battle, Pyrrhus said, You know, one more victory is going to ruin me. Yes, he won, but he didn't have any men left afterward. And that's where the phrase comes into our parlance, a pyrrhic victory. Oh yeah, you won the battle. You got the last word. You were determined to be right. Because you know, everybody is right in his own eyes. But you destroyed the relationship. By the time you were finished, there is nothing left. You have embittered people, you have made people angry, because you always have to win. And this is the opposite of what Christ is telling us here. I think as you grow older, you start to realize this more and more, I really do, that it's not all about winning. Sometimes it's about preserving that relationship that you have with a loved one. I'm not talking about overlooking sin or sweeping sin under the rug. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a selfish desire to always come out on top. And you know, even when it is a moral struggle, there's still a way to do things in a Christ-like manner. Even when you are right, there's a way to do it without totally burning up all of the ground around you and ruining things for the next generation. And a lot of this has to do with meekness. It's how Christ is. That's one thing, that's one reason why we ought to put on meekness. But there's another reason as well, and that is if you don't put on this quality, then you're gonna do a lot of destruction. You're gonna be an agent of destruction in your life if all you're concerned about is coming out on top and winning the argument. Sometimes there is something that is much more important. Paul urged meekness when he told us in Ephesians 4 to live a life worthy of our calling. If you'll go back there to Ephesians 4, verses 1 and 2, this is what he said. I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. And he gives these same qualities with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. The Lord Jesus in Philippians 2 verse 6 was in the form of God, but he thought it not robbery to be equal with God." In other words, he was God in his very nature. What greater right can you have than that? What greater prerogative? But he did not consider his equality with the Father as something to be used to his own advantage. Yes, he had the power. He had the right, but he gave that up for us. That's what the Lord Jesus did for us. And believers are called to do this when sharing the gospel message. 1 Peter 3 and verse 15 says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. In other words, in our hearts, Jesus needs to be Lord. It's not just something that we say. but it is a reality in our heart and in our life. And then be ready always to give an answer or a defense to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you. With what? Meekness and fear. Yes, even when we give our defense of the faith, there is a way to do it. There is a recognition that we are sinners saved by the grace of God, that we're not going to argue anyone into the kingdom, that it's not about my winning the argument. What it's about is the Holy Spirit taking His word and opening the heart of that individual. It is a spiritual matter, not just an intellectual matter. It's not just a matter of my convincing this person with intellectual arguments. It is a spiritual battle. God must convict the heart of this person. God must do the transforming work in them, as I witnessed to them. Now, doesn't that take the burden off of us? Friends, it's not up to you to change anybody. Now, yes, we do use, as the Bible just says, we use defenses, we use arguments, and there's a sense in which we do try to persuade, but in the end, we're not the ones doing it, if it happens. It is Christ who is doing the work through us, the Holy Spirit of God convicting. And that leads us to these other qualities, put on, and I'm gonna just look at these just very briefly as a group, but ask yourselves, do you have this long-suffering? The word here means long of temper. The short-tempered person speaks, he acts impulsively, he lacks self-control. But when a person is long-suffering, he can put up with provoking people or circumstances without retaliating. Yes, there's a time to be angry. Ephesians 426 says, be angry and what? Sin not. We can only do that by God's grace. There are things in this world that ought to make you angry. If you have any Christian character at all, it's going to make you angry to see things. You know, the sin in our own lives ought to make us angry. It's one thing to look out there at the sin of others, and that certainly makes us angry. When you think of all the wickedness that goes on, how this world is in the lap of the wicked one. But I ought to be angry at the sin that is in myself, at the choices that I make that are made in rebellion against God. Sin is something that ought to be hateful to us. Aren't you glad we're gonna get rid of it one day? You know, it's one thing to judge all the sins out there. That's kind of how we're made, right? We like to judge others. But what about the sin in here? What about in ourselves? You see, this has to be judged as well. So we're angry at these things, but we don't sin. We don't let the sun go down upon our wrath. We don't give place to the devil. Don't give him a stronghold in your life. Don't give him a fortification from which he can work. Yes, be angry at unrighteousness and sin, but do not sin yourself. then put on forbearance, the word literally means to hold up or to hold back. Who was the greatest example of this? God himself, isn't he? To think of how forbearing God is. I think of my own life. The things that I did when I was a youth, It just makes me shudder and tremble. And listen, I don't talk about these things a whole lot, and there's a good reason for that, because I'm not proud of them. I'm ashamed of them. And it makes me fearful when I think of what God could have done to me with all the light that I had, and yet God is so forbearing. And he is so forgiving. That's the next one on the list, forgiveness. And that's the logical result of all that Paul has written so far. You see, we as Christians must endure grief and provocation. We must refuse to retaliate. That's the negative. Don't strike back. But God does something even more for us. You see, it's one thing to go through life with clenched teeth, you know, and just, okay, I'm going to hold back here. I'm going to hold it in, and then I'm going to go outside in the backyard and yell, you know, for five minutes or ten minutes. But that's not the biblical model here. You see, there's a positive to it where we just forgive and we give it to God. And that is supernatural. That is a power that we do not have. But that's what God does for us. And he is the one who forgives. He is our ultimate example. As Christ has forgiven us, so we forgive others. No one has done anything to you so heinous as what you have done to God, as what I have done to God. There is no debt that anyone owes me that is greater than what I owe to God, and yet he forgave me that debt in full. And it was because of the death of his son that I was forgiven. God doesn't forgive by sweeping things under the rug. He is a just God. He poured out his wrath, his just wrath upon his son so that I could be forgiven. The debt was paid in full. Well, this brings us then to the love that we put on, the most important of the Christian virtues. And one person has said that it acts like a belt that ties all the other virtues together. All the spiritual qualities that have been named here are aspects of true Christian love. And if you go to 1 Corinthians 13, you find in verse four, Love suffers long and is kind. In verse seven, beareth all things. This is 1 Corinthians 13 and verse seven. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endeareth all things. These very same characteristics are characteristics of love, and may I say that they are characteristics of Christ. What does this lead us to? Well, when this is true in our lives, the Bible says in Colossians 3 15, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts. We should have peace and unity in our assembly. How are we going to have that? Because all of us are different. And we have different personalities, but we have the same Savior. We unite around Him and around His truth. The Bible says we let peace rule in our hearts, to which we are called in one body. There's the unity. And then be ye what? Be ye thankful. We let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, We teach and admonish one another in song. This is how God's people should live out their lives. Are we putting on the Lord Jesus Christ? Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you tell us those things that please you, but not only that, you give us the power by your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So we pray that we would let Christ live through us. That as we go to work this week, that Christ would live through us at work. As we interact with our family, that Christ would be the one in charge. We pray that your spirit would bind us together in love and unity and peace. As we come here together each week to gather around your word, to sing songs of praise to you. We pray that we would be spiritually recharged and ready for the week that is to come, that we might demonstrate the new life that you give, that only you can give to a lost and dying world. We thank you, Lord, for your great gifts. In Jesus' name, amen.