Hi, I'm Marty McKenzie with His Love Ministries. Welcome to the Least of These Podcasts. We reach out to those the world has forgotten. If you'd like to know more about us and how you can donate to help us fulfill our mission, go to hisloveministries.net. Thank you very much and God bless you. All my heart to Him I give, every to Him I pray. In His blessed presence live, ever His praises sing. Love so mighty and so true, merits my soul's best song. Faithful love in service to, to Him belong. Love lifted me, love lifted me. When nothing else could help, love lifted me. Love lifted me. Love lifted me. When nothing else could help, love lifted me. Amen. Love lifted me. When nothing else would help, love lifted me. All right, well, we're gonna be back in Colossians today. We're gonna start in verse 14 of chapter three. But remember the book of Colossians, Paul writes it, because a man named Epaphras, he comes and... And he tells them there's a problem there, and he comes and he goes all these miles to see Paul. And Paul's under house arrest, right? And he says, Paul, we got a problem. We got these false teachers. They're teaching worship of angels and mysticism and philosophy. And legalism, you know, celebrating new moons and festivals and all kinds of things. And Paul writes this letter. And he writes this letter to tell us that Christ is the head of the church. but he writes and he uses a lot of the terms it's kind of like Paul you know it's kind of like when Jesus when he makes clay and he and he puts it on the man's eyes that people thought that you know making clay was on the Sabbath was work So he was basically kind of saying, well, take that. This is what I think of your stupid rules and regulations and kind of like spitting in their face, saying this is what your rules and regulations are worth, right? And Paul uses their terms, fullness and perfectness and completeness and all these terms that these people are using because they're saying Christ is not enough, you need to do but yes, you need to worship angels and you need to be circumcised and you need to celebrate new moons and festivals and Sabbaths and you need to have all this philosophy and all these other things. But Paul writes in chapter one and he tells us really the theme of the whole book. He tells us that it pleased the father in verse 19, that in him, all the fullness should dwell. all of God's fullness is in Jesus Christ. And by him will reconcile all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of the cross. And that he's the firstborn from the dead, that in all things, he might have the preempts. So Paul tells us in the first two chapters that basically that, what we are to believe that Christ is enough, right? We don't need anything else. Not that we don't need food and clothing and people in a church and all kinds of things like that. But what he's saying is when you have Christ, That's all it takes to get to heaven But when you have christ you have everything because peter says in second peter chapter one verse three and four That you've been given everything you need for life and godliness and through the word through the holy spirit through prayer and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We have everything we need to live the Christian life, to live life, period. And far as what we ought to do, how we ought to do it, and all of these things, and when we ought to do it. And so God gives us the ability to overcome sin and suffering and temptation, the ability to become the people he wants us to be. And so that's what it's all about. And so those first two chapters, he tells us who we are. And in chapter three, he says, now that you, you're know that you're a Christian, guess what? You gotta seek those things which are above and you gotta set your mind on things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Your life is hidden with Christ and then he goes on to tell them, but you gotta put off these things and put on some things. So like in the morning, before you go out of the room, hopefully you remember to put your clothes on At night you take them off before you crawl into bed if you're not too tired, right? But you pull them off and then you put them on and that's what he's talking about. He's talking about pulling off the old man and putting on the new man. Pulling off the old way of living and putting on the new way of living. And it's been said, I've said it several times here, that the Christian life is becoming who you are. Paul said it this way in Philippians 2, he says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in me to will and to do of his good pleasure. In other words, Paul wasn't saying work for your salvation, But he said, what God's put in you, you bring it out. It's a picture of a coal mine or a diamond mine. You go down into the mine to do what? You don't go put coal in it and then bring it back out, right? You go with the coal mine and you bring out what's already there. And God's put the ability, the power, the strength to be like Him inside of us through the power of the Holy Spirit. And He says, now you go and you do your part. You put off the old things and you put on the new things. You become like me because now you have the power. You have the ability. You have the want to. But the question is, is how much want to do we have? A lot of people have remained baby Christians all their life. But then some people, they get saved and they, within a year or two, they're just very, very super mature because they've applied themselves to reading the word, studying the word, praying, and doing the things they need to do, obeying the word, right? That's how you get stronger in your faith is you, You grow through doing and hearing and applying what you've heard, right? And so that's what Paul's talking about. He told us to put off all these things. Put off anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you put off the old man with his deeds. That's verse nine. They have put on the new man. who is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him. And so the last time we were here, we were talking about verses 12 to 14, that we were holy, that we were chosen by God. We had this special love that he has for us. He tells us to put on a heart of compassion. He tells us to put on kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering. And then he tells us to bear long with one another, verse 13, and forgive one another. And if anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you must also do. He's talking about those within the church, right? that we're to forgive each other, love each other, and care for each other. Not that we don't do it for people outside of the church, but his particular context here is within the church, right? To forgive others as Christ has forgiven us, even though I heard Adrian Rogers yesterday said, you know, the Bible tells us to forgive others. How many times, seven times seven is what he told Peter, keep on forgiving and keep on forgiving. But he says, somebody has to ask for that forgiveness first before you can forgive them, right? But you put it in the bank and say, well, they asked for forgiveness, you know what? It's in the bank for me to forgive them, because I've already in my heart forgiven them. Because I need to set myself free from that pain and that anger and that hatred that can build up in our life, right? We can not forgive other people. What's that thing? I can't remember all of it. I think I said it a couple of weeks ago that he said that when you forgive, you set a prisoner free and the prisoner you set free is me. So if you hold bitterness, anger, and madness and all these things in your heart, most of the time the people that you're mad with, angry and bitter, most of the time they don't care. They don't even know a lot of times. But we're sitting there holding all this stuff against them. And who's it eating up? Us. Not them, right? But we've got to forgive them just as God and Christ forgave us. So let's move on to verse 14. I'm gonna read verses 14 to 17, and we'll see how far we get here. He says, but above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which you were also called in one body, and be 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 whatever you do in word and deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. So what does Paul say to us here? He said, above all these things, put on love, which is divine perfection. One man said it like this, I think it was John MacArthur, and I don't know who it's original with, but he said that Love is like the belt that holds everything together. Like when he tells us to put on the whole armor of God, he says put on the belt of truth. That belt of truth is the thing that holds all the rest of the armor together, right? But he says love is the thing that holds all these other things together, this kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, bearing one another, forgiving one another. And if we have a complaint against another, forgiving them, right? That's what he says. He said it holds all these things together. And then what he says, by this, all people will know who you are, that you're Christians because you have what? Love one for another. Remember what the Old Testament said? It had 10 commandments, right? And what did Jesus do? He summed them all up by saying what? It's fulfilled in what? Love God. and love your fellow brother and sister, right? So if you love God, you'll keep the first four commandments. And if you love your brothers and sisters, you'll keep the last six, right? You won't lie against them, you won't steal, you won't commit adultery, you won't covet what they have, you won't murder them. But if you love God, you'll have no other idols, you'll keep the Sabbath holy, and you won't take his name in vain and all these things, right? Make no graven images. And so that's what he's talking about. But then 1 Corinthians 13 also says what? that love is the greatest of all these things, the gifts, right? And it talks about that, that love doesn't hold accounts, keep accounts, and that love forgives wrongs and does all these things. And so really what he's saying here, when he says, put on love, what's he saying? I just told you to do, put on kindness, humility, meekness, long suffer, bear one another, forgive one another. Guess what? Love is the fulfillment of that, right? Because what's the fruit of the Spirit? Love. Joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, right? And so that love is the thing that holds it all together. And if we can remember that Christ loved us and We're to love others just like He loved us, right? And one man said it like this, that Christian love is above all these other important and beautiful graces because it's self-sacrificing, self-giving, and the fulfillment of both the law and the gospel. And this is the most important of Christian virtues. And it ties everything together. When love rules in our lives, then we can forgive and we can move on. But what is Paul doing here? He's given us the responsibility to make these changes in our lives, right? He's given us the responsibility. I think I talked about this last week. and I keep talking about it, that God is sovereign, that God chose us for the foundation of the world, but the Bible also says, whoever believes. So man's responsible. And the Bible puts those two things side by side by side, all the way through the Bible. In other words, it says, you're forgiven and saved and you're going to heaven, but guess what? Through the power of Christ, you do what? You put off the old man. You put on the new man, you do this and you don't do that, but how do you do that? By the power of Christ, right? And so, so Paul here is saying that love unites all the other qualities and using this clothing metaphor, he says that love makes the outfit perfect, that it completes it. And so love is above all these things. These false teachers said philosophy was the greatest thing, but the Bible says that the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us, right? And it's a cement and it's a belt that holds it all together in harmony. And so one man said, if there's no love, then the other graces are only duty, cold morality at the best, good manners, but love makes them all acceptable to God. And love, we're supposed to love people. We don't have to like what they do, but we're to love them anyway, right? And that's what the Bible said. A lot of times people have, I guess as Christians, a lot of times people, I mean, when we see what people do, and maybe we came out of that lifestyle of being Sinners, you know, I know that my life wasn't great before I got saved but but you know now I hate that stuff and sometimes it's hard to differentiate between hating that stuff and hating the people that are doing it right and that's what God's saying that we love these people we hate what they're doing and but we're to love them and bring them into the family of Christ if we can get a chance to talk to them about the Lord, right? But sometimes we get so focused on the behaviors that we don't wanna do that. We just think, oh, this person is so-and-so and so-and-so, and they're not worthy of anything. Well, guess what? We weren't either in the eyes of God. We might not have been as bad as that person, but the Bible says we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God, right? So in the eyes of God, Sin is sin is sin. And yeah, there are sins that are worse than others, but in the eyes of God, that person that's done a lot of sin and is very wicked, guess what? He, and I say, I didn't do a whole lot. But I was just as lost as that man that did a whole lot, right? We were both lost. We were both unsaved. We both needed a savior. And it's the same thing. And so God wants to forgive us and save us. That's what Paul said. He was the chief of sinners, the least of the saints, but God in his mercy forgave him. And so verse 15, let's move on to verse 15. And he says, I'm in the wrong verse. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which you were also called in one body and be thankful. So the second thing here, there's some several things he tells us to do. First of all, he says, put on love. He tells us to, to let the peace of God rule in your hearts and let the word of Christ dwell in you. And then everything we do, let it go through the lens of what Christ would want us to do. Remember that we do it all in the name of Christ, right? So the second thing we're looking at here is that we're to let the peace of God rule in your hearts. And this word, let, it originally meant to bind together that which was broken. And it means when we do that, we're trying to bring peace and we're trying to bring people into the right relationship with God, but we're also trying to be at peace in our lives, in our hearts, because guess what? Before we knew the Lord was the Bible say that we were enemies and sinners, but God, who was rich in mercy forgave us and saved us. And so really, the Bible tells us a lot of times I see these people, I saw it actually up here one day on the way home on the church sign, one of these church signs, and I don't know what that church stands for, but it says, Don't let anybody tell you any different. If you're a sinner, God loves you. But the Bible says God hates the sinner and he hates his deeds every day, right? But he wants us all to be forgiven. He wants us all to be saved, right? He doesn't want us to be sinners anymore. And so people say, well, I'm all right with God. No, you're not. If you don't know the Lord, you're an enemy of God. But if you know the Lord, you're at peace with God. The war is over. That's what, that's what Romans chapter five, verse one says. Therefore, having been justified by faith. In other words, we've been saved. By faith, we have peace with God. He's not talking about peace in here that we're talking about partially. We're gonna talk more about that peace, but we have peace with God. And because we have peace with God, we have to let the peace of God rule in our hearts. We have to let that peace that he gave us rule in our hearts so that we're not warm with other people, but we also have to let that peace that's in our hearts guide us and lead us, you know, as we make decisions. Sometimes we try to make these decisions, and this word rule is an athletic term, And it spoke of someone presiding at the games, the one that distributed the prize. We know what an umpire is. Let the peace of God rule, umpire, in your hearts. And the umpire is the one that says this is right and this is wrong. And what he's saying here is sometimes things come into our life and We don't know whether they're right or wrong, but we give them to God, and we pray, and we seek the Lord, and we read the word, and he gives us this peace about the decision, right? Not like that peace that Job had. He felt peaceful enough to go to sleep in the hold of the ship, but he was totally out of the will of God, right? He had a false peace. But we can have a true peace with God because we let Him rule in our hearts and let Him guide us and lead us and direct us in what we need to do and how we need to do it and when we need to do it, right? So when we love people and we do these things, God wants to work in our hearts and help us to have this peace that not only keeps us from fighting with other people, but it also gives us the peace that we can make the right decisions when we're trying to do the things that God wants us to do. Sometimes it's hard to make a decision, isn't it? And you don't know which way to go. I'm kind of still in the midst of one right now. So if y'all pray for me, I feel okay about it. I feel at peace about it. But my wife, she gets nervous about everything, about these kind of things. And so she's real nervous about it. And sometimes when I'm half awake or something like that, I think about it, I get a little blue about it. But it's like you get a little anxious about it, but It's a good decision, but we have to let God lead us and guide us and direct us, right? And so when there's peace in our hearts, there's gonna be praise on our lips because he says, to which you are also called in one body and be thankful. Just remember, as Christians, we're part of one body. And that first Corinthians chapter one, Verse 12 to about 14, it talks about there's many members in one body. And I don't have to tell y'all and all of us know that if one part of the body's not working right, guess what? The rest of the body ain't happy, is it? And it's the same way in the church, right? I had a guy the other day was trying to work on my house and take that tree off my house. And he had a cracked tooth and I guess he had an abscess in it, an infection. And toothache is one of the worst things you can have, I think, one of them. But he was so bad off because of that one tooth that he could not even function. And that's the way it is, the body of Christ. We need everybody in the body of Christ. And without everybody doing their part, with everybody being at peace. without everybody not being kind and meek and humble and forgiving one another and bearing one another, then we have a problem. In God's body, the church can't function like it's supposed to. We can't function like we're supposed to. And so we have to remember that that's what it's all about. But then he also says that we're to be thankful, right? Why are we to be thankful? because that's part of who we are and knowing that God's on the throne and he's leading us and guiding us and no matter what happens, it's gonna be okay, right? So we're thankful because of that, because we're in that one body. The Bible doesn't teach the priesthood of the believer, but it teaches the priesthood of the believers. In other words, we're all part of the body of Christ and each one of us has, a job as part of that one body, if you know what your spiritual gift is, then you use that spiritual gift for the church, right? Or you have in the past as you were able to, right? But still sometimes, you know, you can use it wherever you're at. My wife has the gift of mercy. People will stop her in the middle of a store and tell her their whole life story. And usually it's something bad or sad, you know, that's happened to them, but they'll just like, out of the blue, a total stranger. She said, why do these people do that? I said, because you got the gift of mercy. You know, people just open up and tell you all this stuff, right? And so he tells us that it's the responsibility of our believers to make the body work well together. And like I said, we're not functionally a church, like an official church, but we can still, minister to each other, love each other, and care for each other. And sometimes if somebody's acting up and not doing right, maybe we can say, you know what? You need to tighten up a little bit over here. If you're a Christian, you're not supposed to be acting like that. You're not supposed to be walking around here like Eeyore. Oh, it's my birthday, I'll cry if I want to, I'll cry if I want to, you know, and just get all depressed and all this kind of stuff. But this word thankful, just as letting this peace of God is a command, this be thankful, it means to keep on always being thankful. That's hard sometimes, isn't it? That we don't always have to be thankful for all the circumstances, but we're thankful that whatever God allows in our life, that he's using those circumstances, he's using those things to do what? To work in our lives, to grow us, to strengthen us. And so we're part of a body, and we need to help each other and be there for each other, Now that y'all are in a facility like this and you're not able to go to your regular church most of the time, y'all need to love on each other and be there for each other, right? Cuz not everybody's a believer, but as believers, we need to care for each other, take care of each other. And I'm gonna start this section, but we're not gonna get very far with it, because the time's just about out. But the third thing is in verse 16. He says, 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. So this is the third piece of this. And he says, let the word of God dwell in you richly. That word dwell means to be at home, to be at home in your heart. In other words, it's like Paul says in, what is it, Ephesians chapter three, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. He said he bows on his knees to the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in your man, that Christ might dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend what all the saints, what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who was able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask according to his glory, according to his power that works in us, to him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever, amen. What does he say? That Christ might dwell in your hearts, right? That he would be at home, right? And the word of Christ should be at home too. That's like saying Christ is at home in my heart. That really this whole section is talking about being filled with the spirit. And we're gonna talk about that more the next time because we don't have the time to deal with all that. But really what it means is that word of God can sit in our hearts and tell us the things that we need to know and the things we need to hear. And we're willing to listen. You know that old saying, what's that old saying about my house is your house, mi casa su casa, however it goes. But my home's your home, right? Christ and the Word of God should be able to be at home in our life wherever we're at because we shouldn't be in places we shouldn't be, right? We don't need to be in places doing things we ought not to be doing and saying things we ought not to do and acting like we ought not to. And that's what he's talking about, that the Word of God will be at home in your heart, that it can dwell and you will feel comfortable because that word is leading, it's guiding, it's helping you to be the person you need to be. But when we're out of the will of God or we're living in sin, what happens? That word, we don't want to read it, right? But as somebody said it this way, the word will either, how's it go? Sin will either, I can't remember. He says, sin will keep you from this book, is what it says. But if you're, the word will either grow you or sin will keep you from this book. But it's kind of like if you don't let the word take over your life, you let sin. It's gonna keep you from reading the book, right? If you've ever been in that place where you knew you were doing something wrong, You don't want to talk to people about the Lord. You don't want to read the Word. You don't want to pray. You don't want to do those things because you know the Lord's going to convict you that you're not doing right. And so that's the way it is. But when the Word of God dwells richly within us, then there's this filling of the Spirit, this peace and all the things that come from that. And like I said, we'll talk more about that next time. But this is really one of these things that tells us that this is an ongoing process. We don't do it once and then we're done. But every day we have to let the word of God dwell in this richly, right? Because that's what helps us to live the life every day. What do you say, give us this day our daily bread? And part of that daily bread is what? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, right? And so every day we need the word. Every day we need to dwell on the word. Every day we need to let that word lead us and guide us and tell us where to go and what to do and how to do it and when to do it. Cuz you know what? God can do that. I've seen him do it too many times. I'm sure y'all have too, right? That if you've been a believer any amount of time and you've stepped out for God, you've seen God speak to you and you've stepped out and you've watched him work. You've watched him do things that only God can do. And you look back and you go, you know what? Those things don't just happen by accident. God had to have done that. God had to lead. God had to guide. Rule those circumstances for that to happen the way it happened, right? And even in the bad things. I mean, it says God causes all things to work together for good to them that love God and call it according to his purposes. I can go say all these bad things that I thought were bad and some way they were bad. Yes, they were bad. Some of them were pretty bad. But you know what? I look back and I see how God used those things in my life, and how God made me the person that I am today. Because of my response to those things, instead of letting them make me bitter, they made me better. They made me a better person, right? Well, they say trials can either make you bitter or better. What you gonna let it do? All right, well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you for your word. We thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. And I pray, Lord, that this would be us, that we'd be put on love. And we would just be at peace in our hearts because we know you and we can be at peace with other people and have that peace of God that rules when we make decisions because you're leading and guiding and we're allowing you to tell us what to do and what not to do, that Lord, that we would let your word dwell richly in us. That we might have your wisdom, your strength, your power to do the things you want us to do in the way you want us to do them. In Jesus' name, amen. Hi, I'm Marty McKenzie with His Love Ministries. Please help us reach out to those the world has forgotten. Everyone we minister to is locked up in some way, shape, or form. Some are locked up in bodies that don't work and in the nursing home facility, in the wheelchair, the bed they cannot get out of. We minister to children and youth who are locked up because of behavioral problems or their parents. They aren't doing right and they're crying as we want to have a real family. Other kids are locked up because they've committed crimes. We also minister to those locked up in the jail and the prison, to those locked up in addictions, to drugs, alcohol, depression, and suicidal thoughts, and a variety of other things that keep them from becoming who Jesus wants them to be. He came to give us life and to set us free, and these folks are not free, but we can set them free through Christ Jesus, at least in their minds and their spirits. We do about 2,000 services every year. We hope and pray that you'll support us in some way so we can continue our mission, go to Hisloveministries.net and click on the donate now button and we hope and pray that you will do that. Thank you and God bless you.