Welcome to the preaching ministry of Tri-City Baptist Church in Chandler, Arizona. Our desire is that God would be magnified through the preaching of His Word, and that Christians would be challenged, strengthened, and edified in their personal walk with Christ. An amazing reminder and encouragement that really was to my heart, and I hope it was an encouragement to your heart as well, that God had that amazing love that He would send His Son to die for me. Well, it's so good to be back with you again this week to continue the two-part series on Real Change for Real Christians. I'm very excited to share God's Word with you all tonight. I would like to ask for your prayers for one thing that's going on this next week and it's called Valley Reach. This is going to be something that we're doing with some of the teens in the youth group. We're partnering with multiple other churches in the valley and it's really a focus on giving a vision for the need in Phoenix for the gospel and for churches. And so we're going to be taking day trips to go to these different churches. We're going to hear great preaching from several good pastors. We're going to be doing some community outreach activities, sharing tracks, doing community surveys. And it's also a great opportunity for the teens to build relationships with other teens and different youth groups. So I would just really appreciate your prayers that that would go smoothly and that God would work in the lives of the teens that are going to be going. Before I begin with a word of prayer, I'd like you to think for a moment just about one thing that you would like to change spiritually. I think that everyone in this room, all of us can think of something that we would like to change, whether it is an area of sin that we know that we need to get rid of, whether it's something that we know that we should be doing but we're not doing it consistently, or it's not something that we're living out the way that we would like to, just think for a moment about one thing that you would like to change spiritually. And then as we go to God and prayer, I would like you to just bring that before Him. And then as we look at God's Word tonight, that He would show you from His Word how we can experience true transformation in that area. So hopefully you've thought of something. Let's go ahead and look to the Lord in prayer and ask for His help tonight. Dear Lord, I thank you so much for this opportunity that we have to worship you, that we have to look at your word and the truth that you have for us tonight. Lord, we all need to change. We all have areas that we need to grow in, and I pray that you would help us experience real and lasting change in our lives. whether it's sin that we need to put away, whether it's your righteousness and fruits of the Spirit that we need to apply to our life. Lord, I pray that you would enable us to do that. Lord, I pray that you would give me the words to say tonight, that you'd fill me with your Spirit and empty me of myself. Lord, we ask all of this in your name, amen. Last week we talked about the first part, Christ who is our life from Colossians 3, 1 through 4. So if you want to go ahead and turn to Colossians chapter 3 right now, we're going to do a little bit of review from last week and then we're going to jump into the next section tonight. But Colossians chapter 3, 1 through 4 is what we looked at last week and We focused on how Christ is our foundation and motivation for spiritual transformation. And I pointed out that oftentimes we think or we know of things that we need to change and we jump right to the putting off and the putting on. We say, oh, I know that I'm not supposed to be doing this, so I've got to stop. And we just try by our willpower. Or we try to put on first. But we need to understand our identity in Christ and how that motivates us and how that really serves as the foundation for spiritual transformation in our lives. And in Colossians 3, 1 through 4, we saw multiple spiritual realities. Things that are done in Christ or things that will happen in Christ in the future. And so a few of these, they're up here on the screen, we looked at the past. The fact that Christ died and we died with him at the moment of salvation. We were united with him in his death and in his resurrection as we can see in the next point. And that means that we are now, in Christ, dead to sin. Sin no longer has power or control in our lives. We do not have to give in to sin. We actually have the freedom to say no to temptation and to do what's right. And the fact that we are raised with him, we are a new creation. We are a new person in Christ. We have already been transformed. And that transformation is important for us not to overlook. And then the present realities, the fact that Christ is our life. He's our life because He's forgiven us of all of our sin. He's our life because He's our sustainer. We looked at John 15 and the fact that we are connected to Him, just like branches are connected to the vine. And without Him, we can do nothing. our life is now hidden with him as well. While it might seem like the world, or even sometimes us, we don't really understand the culmination of who we are in Christ, because that's hidden, it's concealed right now, we know these future realities, the fact that one day Christ will appear, and we will appear with him. And when we appear with Christ, when he returns, what was hidden is now going to be made manifest to everybody. The world is gonna see that we were living our lives in the correct way for Christ, and it's gonna make sense, and we're going to be glorified. Those are realities that are, they are true, they are done in Christ, or they will be accomplished in Christ, and that is the foundation for change. So, building this pyramid, and last week we saw that Christ and his work and our identity in Christ is the very foundation. And tonight, we're going to look at the next layers as well. But because of that foundation, we also saw that in verses 1 through 4, because of who you are in Christ, you must seek those things which are above. That means that we must pursue it with our whole being. That that should be what we seek first. And then we also need to set our minds on things above and not on the earth. I gave a challenge and this is really a challenge to me as well. What are we setting our minds on? What are things that are dominating our thinking? Could be a lot of different things that this world has to offer. Things that we want. It could be sports, it could be politics, it could be our family. There's so many things that we could set our mind on, but instead we need to be meditating on Christ and His pursuits, His values. And that is how we need to focus on Him based on the reality of our identity in Christ. And tonight, we're going to continue looking at verses 5 through 17. I titled it, The Key to a Transformed Life. Because in this passage, we're going to see how we can experience transformation throughout our life after we've been transformed in Christ as believers. So, if you could look in your Bibles at Colossians 3, 5 through 17, I would like to just go ahead and read the passage, and then we're going to dive in a little bit deeper. Let's go ahead and look at verse 5. It says, therefore put to death your members which are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against one another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 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 also you were 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 or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Now, as we're talking about transformation, the very first thing that pops into my mind when I think of a transformation is the metamorphosis that a butterfly goes through, or a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly. That's why I had that first screen up there. That's what comes into my mind. And I think it's a really, really amazing thing that God created them to do. It's not that the caterpillar goes into the cocoon, and once it comes out of the cocoon, it just puts on some wings. That's not what happens. It's a complete transformation. It looks completely different. It acts completely different. It's a new creature. And just like that transformation from a butterfly to a, or a caterpillar to a butterfly, in Christ, as believers, we have already been transformed. We talked about that last week. We can't overlook that fact. But sometimes, as butterflies, as new creatures, we like to live like our old selves. It's like a butterfly with new wings, completely new, transformation, decides to live its life like a caterpillar. That would be ridiculous. But that's sometimes how we live our lives. Even though we've been transformed, we like going back to our former lives. And so we've experienced this great transformation in Christ. And therefore, we need to continually be transformed in our life of putting off the old self and putting on the new self. So that's what we're going to look at first in this passage. We see starting in verse 5. If you want to experience spiritual change in your life, you must first put off the old man. Now let's go ahead and look at starting in verse 5 a little bit closer. It says, And I just want to pause there for a moment. The members on the earth, it gives us a list of things that we need to be putting to death. It's sin, but I want to focus on that phrase for a moment. This is a really, really strong phrase. It's not saying that occasionally we should avoid these things. It's saying that we need to take decisive action against this sin. We need to mortify it. We need to kill this sin. And we need to do it immediately. And even as we talked about our identity in Christ, we're already dead to sin, so why is it that we need to put it to death? Now, because Christ has already conquered sin, sin no longer has power over us, But again, like I said, we are a new creation and sometimes we like going back to our old sin. In order to get a better picture of this, I just wanna give you an illustration real quick about spiders. Now, I absolutely hate spiders. I think that they are disgusting, they're pretty gross, they're creepy. I have a slight fear that when I go to sleep, there's gonna be a spider that crawls in my mouth. I know that's probably not gonna happen, but it's just something, you know, I just hate spiders. They're gross. Not only that, though, we actually found some black widow spiders outside of our home. Like right outside the door on spider webs, right outside there, we found multiple black widows. It doesn't take me, I don't have to take time to decide what I'm gonna do when I see a black widow. Not only are they spiders and they're gross and creepy, black widows are also dangerous. They can hurt you, they can hurt my wife, they can hurt my now baby if they got in the house or if we didn't see them and we stepped on them. So I hate black widows. Now when I saw those black widows, like I said, I didn't have to think about what I was gonna do. And I did not go up to that black widow and say, aw, what a cute little black widow. Come inside, buddy. Come inside the house. Let's be friends. No. And I also didn't say, ooh, gross, a black widow. Shoo, go away. I don't want you here. I didn't try to shoo it out of there. I took decisive action against those black widows because I hate them. I would take my shoe and I would very decisively stomp on it, and that wasn't good enough. I would look at it, make sure that it was dead, but I would give another stomp to make sure that it was completely dead, and then I'd really squish it into the ground. I would take decisive action. I would kill that thing because I hate it. And that's the thing about the things that we hate. It's really not hard to put to death things that we hate. I think when it comes to sin, lots of times why we struggle to get rid of our sin, we struggle to take decisive action against our sin is the fact that we don't actually hate it the way that God does. We actually love our sin a little bit too much. And so we need to treat our sin like I treated those black widows. We need to understand that sin is disgusting to God. And we need to understand that sin is dangerous in our lives if we don't take action against it. But then that begs the question, how do I learn to hate the things that God hates? Because that really is the problem. Sometimes we say that we hate sin, but we actually enjoy it. So how do we learn to hate our sin the way that God hates it? Well, in Proverbs 8, 13, it says, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate. I think that one of the keys to hating what God hates is getting to know God better and having a proper fear of Him. That word fear, it's not talking about being scared of God, but it really is a reverence, respect, and awe for who He is that drives us to love God and obey God and to align our thinking with Him. If we truly fear the Lord, then we will love what he loves and hate what he hates. If we want to put to death our sin, then we need to learn, we need to get to know God better. And we do that by renewing our minds with the word. Now let's go ahead and take a look at the things that we are to take decisive action against. The things that we need to put to death. It says fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Now these things are actually, I believe, a progression. I believe that the final one where it talks about idolatry is the root issue that the other ones stem from. But let's go ahead and talk about these a little bit more closely. Fornication comes from the word porneia. That's where we get our word pornography. That's talking about sexual immorality. And it's not just the physical act, but it could even be the things that we look at It could be far more than just the act, but fornication is sexual immorality. Uncleanness is a little bit wider. It refers to impurity or perversion. That word passion is synonymous with the word lust. So it's a very, very strong desire, sometimes an uncontrollable desire for those things. Evil desire is talking about these cravings that we get, which then leads to lust. And then covetousness, in a broader sense, refers to wanting something that is not ours. Wanting something that doesn't belong to us. And it says covetousness is idolatry, but I also think that all of these sins listed are a form of idolatry. Because idolatry is putting anything before the one and only true God. I think that when we commit these sins, we're actually putting ourself first. So we're idolizing ourself in a sense, and we're also idolizing our satisfaction and pleasure. We put our own satisfaction above what God wants, and that's idolatry. These are the things that we need to put to death, and I think we could also include all of other sin, but these specific ones in this list. It says, because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. talking about in our former lives, this is characteristic of the unbeliever, but we should not be living in this way. I want to show you another sort of progression, found in James 1, talking about sin, verses 14 and 15. It says, but each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. This progression is not the progression from our desires to, or from idolatry to the actual act. This is a progression that sin takes place in our life. When we let these evil desires turn into sin, and then it becomes a habit, and it becomes something that we continually live in, sin is destructive. It has the power to bring us down. And we know that the true believer cannot live in habitual sin like this. So when thinking about these things that we need to put to death, there's also the aspect that, or the idea of kill or be killed. taking decisive action, recognizing that the sin is dangerous in our lives. We need to deal with it. We need to get rid of it before it destroys us. There's this story called A Jungle Doctor Fable that is one of my favorite stories to tell children. I'm not gonna be able to share the whole story, because I don't have the time. But essentially, it's called Little Leopards Become Big Leopards, and Big Leopards Kill. And it's the story of a hunter who finds a little baby leopard. It's very, very cute. He brings it back to his village, and he thinks that it's going to be perfectly okay for him to raise this leopard. And so he feeds it porridge, not meat, and he takes care of this leopard like it's his own pet. But the chief keeps coming back and says, Perembe, you need to get rid of that leopard, because little leopards become big leopards, and big leopards kill. And every single time, Perembe decides to ignore the chief and say, nope, I'm going to keep taking care of this leopard. It's cute, it's cuddly, it's not gonna hurt anyone. But eventually it got bigger and bigger and bigger, and one day it turned on Perembe. That little leopard became a big leopard, and that big leopard killed. And it wasn't until the chief went into a battle against the leopard and was able to decisively take it out. But it reminds us of what sin does. If we let sin fester in our hearts and we continually give into it, it grows and grows and grows until it destroys. And I believe that that story is really from this passage. So I want to ask you, how are you doing with that list? Do you seek satisfaction and pleasure above the things of God? Is satisfaction an idol in your life, that you would do anything to get what you want and what makes you happy? What about those other words that revolve around sexual immorality? We cannot mess around with sin, just like I would not mess around with those black widows. If you're watching something that you know is incorrect, that's impure, do you say, oh, it's okay, I'll just let a little bit slide? Or do we take decisive action and say, no, I'm not going to watch that? Or the things that we listen to, or the things that we fill our mind with, How are we engaging that sin? Are we putting it to death or is it growing and eventually gonna destroy us? Let's look at the next list that it gives us in Colossians chapter three. And Colossians 3, eight and nine says, but now you yourselves are to put off all these. And I do wanna pause there again and talk about what it means to put off. these things. And I'm going to use another illustration here about pulling weeds. I think that this is helpful in my mind in taking care of sin. Now, in pulling weeds, there's two ways that you can go about it. There's a very clearly incorrect way where you can grab the leaves, grab the stem, and just try to yank it, and then the stem snaps, and you leave the roots right there. Or you can do it properly, and you can do what, it takes more work, but you can dig around it, pull the roots out. When we're approaching sin, it's important that we would not try to just look at this surface level issue and try to snap it off. Because if we do that, we're leaving the root issue. And we all know that when we do that with weeds, it continues to pop back up. That's why we pull it out by the roots. So when we're engaging sin, it's not enough to just look at the fruit issue, the surface level, and say, hmm, I'm really struggling with lashing out at other people, so I should stop that. Or I really struggle with lying, so I'm gonna stop doing that. We need to look and trace back what would be the root issue in our hearts. Because if we don't address the root issue, those sins are gonna keep popping back up. So let's go ahead and look at that list and talk about how we can put off, get rid of those things from the root. It says, put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds. Now, anger is talking not specifically about the outburst of wrath. We're gonna see that later. Anger is talking about a deep-seated attitude of hatred. It's in our heart. So you might be, if you struggle with anger, it might not show to everybody on the outside, but you struggle with it in your heart. When you look at that person that you're angry towards, you can't help but have bad thoughts towards them. Then that next word, wrath, that's talking about the outburst. That's talking about rage. That's talking about the fact that if you get so angry that you actually blow up and you yell or you take physical action, that is wrath. Malice is even more deep-seated than anger. It's talking about ill will towards other people. If you want to do harm to somebody, or if you're hoping for somebody else to fail, or you're hoping for evil to happen to them, that is malice. Blasphemy in this context refers to slander, or talking bad about somebody else. Filthy language is a little bit more broad, talking about shameful or hurtful speech. And lying, lying is not just these big elaborate lies. Sometimes it could just be exaggerating to other people to make yourself look better. It could be sharing part of the truth, but leaving a little bit of it out. These are all very, very important things that we need to uproot out of our lives. So I want to ask you, how are you doing in these areas? Do you struggle? with anger towards somebody else? Do you struggle with blowing up and getting angry, yelling? Or do you have somebody in mind that you wish that something bad would happen to them? Do you struggle with gossiping about other people or talking bad about them to their face even? These are all things that we need to uproot out of our life. And I think that a root issue from these things, it could be several things. But one thing could be pride when we don't get what we want, when we think that we're more important, and we say, no, I'm going to be angry at that person because they did wrong to me. Address whatever is the root issue in your heart. And remember that we are dead to sin. We no longer have to give in to any of these. We have the power in Christ to get victory over that sin. And secondly, put on the new man. We'll go a little bit quicker through these, but putting on, what comes to my mind is clothing, putting off and putting on as well. And I think of in sports, when you're out playing and you get really, really, really dirty, okay, muddy for that, or like when I was playing basketball and I get all hot and sweaty and it's a filthy jersey, But I've got clean shirts at home. I've got clean ones for the next day. How ridiculous would it be if I went to practice the very next day and I wore that disgusting shirt when I had a very clean shirt that I could put on the next day? In Christ, we have all that it takes to put on the new man, to put on these new things, And we need to do that rather than putting on the old man, the disgusting clothes. In Colossians 3, 12 through 13, what are these things that we need to put on? It says, tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. Tender mercies is talking about compassion toward other people. Kindness is talking about putting other people first, showing that you have a genuine concern for them. Humility in this verse is really talking about our attitude towards God, and meekness is our attitude towards others. How are we going to interact with them? Do we think of ourselves as more highly than them? Or do we think of ourselves in our proper place? Long-suffering, that's patience. Sometimes we think about patience as just, you know, being patient enough to wait in line at the grocery store or at Disneyland. But I think it's a lot more than that. It's being patient in trials when there's circumstances that come our way that are hurting us or that are bothering us. Can we be patient in that? Patience also even in the next one, bearing with one another. Do we put up with other people that annoy us? And that are mean to us? Or that say something that we don't like? Do we bear with them? Forgiving one another. Do we choose to let go of bitterness and anger towards people who have wronged us? Or do we let that fester in our heart? The next verse is, Love is not just a feeling. Love is a choice to sacrifice yourself. It is complete sacrifice. It's always giving. That is true love. And it really ties together all of these other fruits that we need to put on. And it says, Peace is not just an absence of conflict, although I think that that is there, but it's really talking about wholeness with God and with others. Do you have peace? And be thankful. We have so much to be thankful for as believers. Even just in the fact of our identity in Christ, we could forever be thankful and we will forever be thankful in heaven for Christ and what he did for us. Are we thankful or are we complainers? We need to put on these new things because we are a new creature and put off the old man. But then I want to ask the question, how do I successfully put off the old man and put on the new man? Because if we just try to jump right to this again and just say, oh, I'm going to put off and put on, we might fail. Romans 8.13 says, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. We see it's by the Spirit. The Spirit is the one who transforms us from the inside out. Galatians 5, 16 and 17 says, I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish. Galatians 5, 22 and 23, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now in that Galatians 5 passage, those lusts of the flesh, there's a lot of similarities to the things that we just saw that we need to put to death. And the fruits of the Spirit, those are the things that we need to put on. But that's the thing, is that they are fruits of the Spirit. The Spirit is the one that produces them in our life. So if you want to successfully put off the old man and put on the new man, you must walk in the Spirit. But then it begs the question, how do I walk in the Spirit? How does that even work? Ephesians 5, 18 and 20, it says, through 20, and do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation. but be filled with the Spirit." Now, I think that Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, uses this, don't be drunk with wine, to tell us what being filled with the Spirit is like. When you are drunk, you are under the influence of something else. But when you are filled with the Spirit, you are under the influence of the Spirit. It is the Spirit taking control of our thoughts, and our words, and our actions, our entire lives. And so in order to be filled with the Spirit, in order to walk in the Spirit, we need to ask Him to take control. We need to pray, we need to yield to Him. But really quickly, I also wanna show you one other key thing that's in Colossians chapter three, and I wanna show you a parallel. If you could keep your fingers in Colossians three, but also go to Ephesians four. In Ephesians chapter four, there's a parallel passage to the put off and put on. Paul says a number of the exact same things that we need to put off and that we need to put on. And then I want you to go to chapter six. Chapter six of Ephesians, it says, children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother. Bond servants and masters. So he's addressing these external relationships that we have. Bond servants, masters, children, fathers, husbands and wives. And then I want you to go ahead and scan up to Ephesians 5 and verse 20. We see some ING words, giving thanks always for all things, singing and making melody in your heart, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And then right in the middle of that, we have be filled with the Spirit. Now I want you to go back to Colossians chapter three And again, we saw the parallel between the put off and the put on. And then I want you to look at Colossians chapter four, verse one. Who's he addressing? He's addressing masters and bond servants. And then go up a little bit further. Who is he addressing? He's addressing children and fathers. And then verse 18 and 19, wives and husbands. And then go up to verse 17. It has that same phrase, giving thanks to God the Father through Lord Jesus. And then in verse 16, we have those more ING words. We have singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So, all of that is the same. They're direct parallels. But there's something that's different. Instead of saying, be filled with the Spirit, it says in verse 16, Now I think that there's a very important reason why Paul has these parallel passages, but one is, let the word of Christ one you richly, the other one is, be filled with the Spirit. And I think that it's because your relationship with the Holy Spirit is directly proportional to your relationship with God's Word. If you want to walk in the Spirit, if you want to be able to put off and put on and have the power to do so, you have to be in God's Word. Now, what does it mean to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly? It means to let God's Word saturate our life. We need to be reading God's Word, studying it, meditating on it, memorizing it. Let God's Word shape our lives, our thinking, our actions. The key to a transformed life is to let the Holy Spirit use the Word of God to renew your mind and change you from the inside out. Not just looking at these surface issues, That we need to try to stop or start, put off and put on, but letting the Holy Spirit use God's Word to renew us each and every day and change us from the inside out. So we saw that Christ and his work is the foundation. Our identity in Christ is the motivation and then renewal of the mind through God's Word. And in order to walk in the Spirit, we need to be continually renewing our mind. God's Word is the key to walking in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit allows us to put off and put on properly, and that leads us to a transformed life. So if there is something that you thought of that you were like, yes, I want to get rid of that sin, or I want to start doing this the way that God wants me to, I want you to think, Are you renewing your mind with God's Word? Are you seeking to walk in the Spirit each day, cultivating that relationship? Are you decisively putting off the old man and putting on the new man? That is the progression. That's the key. Now I want to close with some questions. Do you love what God loves and hate what he hates? Because if we want to get rid of sin and put it to death, we're not going to do that unless we truly hate that sin. We're not going to put on the new man unless we truly love those things. Are you willing to swiftly put to death your sin? Just like that black widow that I wanted to kill and it didn't take me any time to think about it, will you swiftly take action against your sin? How are you going to uproot your sin starting with the heart issue? Do you try to remove it on the surface level or do you think about what's going on in your heart? Is your life characterized by the fruits of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, all of those things listed, is that what characterizes your life or is it the list of things we need to put off? Are you seeking to walk in the Spirit each day? One thing that I try to do, I don't do it every day, but I try to start with prayer, asking the Holy Spirit to take control of my thoughts, my words, and my actions. Because I know that if I'm in control each day, I will give in to temptation. I need to be walking in the Spirit. How are you intentionally saturating your heart and mind with God's Word? Are you studying it? Are you meditating on it? Are you allowing it to influence your life by applying it? And lastly, what changes will you make this week? I don't want it to just be some things you're like, oh, that's great, and then so often I forget. but we need to take time to think and change so that we can actually be transformed, that we can listen to God's Word. So I want you to think about these things and how you can change this week. Let's go to God in prayer and I want you to just talk to Him, ask for His help to walk in the Spirit, to be saturated with His Word, and to put to death our sin and put on the new man. Let's pray.