I trust you got your belly full of wonderful food over in the fellowship area. If you didn't, I blame you for that, because I saw them packing out leftovers by the arm loads. It's such a blessing. I do appreciate the opportunity to speak. But neglecting the opportunity for physical food is our fault, because we have it in abundance in our country. We do. Other places don't necessarily have that. Same thing's true, I believe, of the Word of God. We have it abundantly available to us here in our country. And so neglecting to get that would also be our fault. I'm going to read Colossians 3, 16, down through chapter 4, verse 1. I am long-winded. I'm not ashamed of that. I feel like you got your belly full over there, and we'll try to get your soul filled over here. So that's where we're going to go. We will not cover all of this in depth. We will not. I studied through this book several months ago. I can't remember how long it's been. It took us several weeks to get through this portion of scripture. But the Lord laid this on my heart, so this is where we're going to go this evening. Colossians 3, 16 through 4. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. And whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done. And there is no respect of persons, masters, given to your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven. Let's pray this morning. Father, again, we thank you for an opportunity to be in your house. Thank you for the blessing of health. Thank you so much for the word of God that's so abundantly available to us. in our country. Thank you for that freedom that we enjoy even right now to be able to gather and to fellowship and to study together. I pray that you would be honored and glorified. I ask that you open up our hearts to your word. I pray that you fill me with your Holy Spirit. Protect my lips that I wouldn't say anything amiss and that you'd teach us this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Paul has written this letter to the church at Colossae. He's a prisoner in Rome while that happens, by the way. Many of you may be familiar with that. But Colossians is fairly unique because it's a church that Paul wrote to. As far as we can tell, he did not visit them prior to that. If you've got a map, you don't have to turn there in the back of your Bible, but you can look this up for yourself later on. If you've got some maps in the back of your Bible, it's probably got Paul's missionary journeys in there scattered somewhere. You can see he comes close on his third missionary journey, but doesn't actually go into Colossae as far as we can tell. And so, how does Paul write to a congregation of people to deliver a message from God that he doesn't even know? Now, if you back up to Colossians chapter 1, you'll get a little insight into this. Colossians 1 verse 7 and 8. He writes this way, as ye also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ, who also declared unto us your love in the spirit. Now, Epaphras is a faithful minister there, likely the pastor of the church there at Colossae, and so we believe that he traveled nearly 1,000 miles from Colossae to Rome, where Paul's in prison, to get some help with the ministry there, and all preachers need that. You show me a preacher that says, I don't need any help from anybody else, I'll show you a foolish preacher. I will, but he does that, and so Paul writes this letter back for this purpose. Several faces have changed since we left here and accepted the call in the ministry about six years ago. Some are familiar, some are new. So faces have changed, but God is still working in the ministry. God is adding some new. Some have gone on, maybe gone on to be with the Lord, but So you see, when Tim asked me to preach this morning, it's different preaching as a pastor, because you get to know your people. You really know them, and they know you, which is sometimes not so good, but no, it's all good. But when you're preaching as a pastor, it's a little bit different. When you're sharing with a congregation that's strange to you, that you're not familiar with, it's kind of a unique situation. So, you know, you wonder, well, what did they need? What did they need from God? And so Tim wrote me a list, and I've got some things here. No, no, that's not true. That is not true. But we're going to allow the Holy Spirit to lead. If the Holy Spirit convicts you today, you mind the Holy Spirit. I don't have any inside knowledge about you. I don't have any details about your personal life or your ministry or whether you're faithful to God, whether you're not faithful to God. Tim hasn't given me that information. The Holy Spirit hasn't given me that information. So we'll know if God speaks to you today, He's speaking to you. So you you mind the Lord this morning Colossians 3 16 again. He says let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all Wisdom now, of course, we know we're talking about the Word of Christ. We are talking about the Word of God I heard brother Bruce Lauderdale. I don't know how much of the book of John He had memorized at one time, but I heard him quote a lot of it But I'm not going to quote it. I don't know it that well. But John 1.1 says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Down in verse 14 of that same chapter, And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. We know Christ is the living Word of God. When we're talking about the Word of God, we're talking about how Christ lived, how the Word of God points to Christ, the plan of salvation from the foundation of the world there. And so God's plan to redeem man back to Himself. And so if we study the Word of God and we don't see Jesus in there somewhere, go back. Go back, dig a little deeper, find something. He's in there from beginning to end, all the way, all the way through. But how does the Word of God dwell in us richly in all wisdom? Now anybody in here like me, you don't cook. Is that, I'm the only one that doesn't cook? Everybody else in here cooks. Oh, okay, well, thanks for making me feel at home. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. No, no, I'm teasing. I don't cook. I don't, you know, something like a bowl of cereal, I do that. I used to cook. I used to cook when I was in college. I did that for survival. I got tired of TV dinners and pot pies and that kind of stuff. I learned to cook some. I'm okay at it. I just don't like it. I just don't like it. God blessed me with a wonderful wife. She's a wonderful cook. And so I just take advantage of what God has given me and enjoy that blessing. But she fixes nearly everything I eat. When I get up in the morning, I have a smoothie for breakfast. She fixes that. I can work a smoothie machine, I think. But she does it. My grandmother actually, she packs a snack for me. I take a snack with me to the post office. My grandmother actually feeds me on the mail route, but she feeds me dinner nearly every evening. And so, you know, I only know where three things are in our refrigerator. I'm not lying. You can ask my wife. Pop. I know where my pop is. Orange juice that I drink every day. I know where that is. And ice cream. That's the three things that I know where they're at in my refrigerator. Now, if I'm looking for something else in my refrigerator, rather than comb through the refrigerator, it's always faster for me to go and ask her. If I have to walk all the way to the back of the house and say, Sheila, where's the butter? Where's the something? It's faster for me to just go ahead and walk back to her, ask her, usually she'll come, Let me get you know it's easier for her to get it than to tell me most of the time right but You know and most of you maybe that do cook you also understand you like to eat out once in a while Don't you anybody not like to eat out? anybody alive awake Yes, right even if you cook you like to eat out once in a while because I It's not necessarily as good a food as you can get at home. I've eaten homecomings all over the place, and I never get any better food out than I can get at a homecoming meal where a bunch of people pull that. I mean, it's just really good food, but it may not be as good as what you can get at home. But there is a benefit to you going there And you sit down, you tell them what you want, you chit-chat a little bit, somebody else is doing all the work. Somebody's slaving over a hot stove or oven or doing all those kind of things and, you know, presto, bingo, in a few minutes they bring it out to you, it's popping hot, they keep filling up your soda drink or tea or whatever you want. So there's a great benefit to having somebody else prepare that for you. There is a great benefit to having spiritual food prepared for you. There really is great benefit of having somebody, and you've got a wonderful pastor. I've known Tim for a long time. I get his CDs, so I enjoy those all the time. But it's a blessing. I know Bruce teaches Sunday school. I'm not sure who teaches all the other classes now at this point in time. But I know God has blessed you with people who study. They prepare. They make it easy. All you have to do is show up and take it in. It's like eating out. It's like the easy version of it. And so, here in this verse of Colossians 3, 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. The word for dwell is the Greek word anoikeo, which means to inhabit, to dwell in. Where we dwell is where we live. Not some place that we go a few times a week. I go to the post office five days a week most weeks. I don't live there. I don't have any desire to live there. I don't. I know where my house is. But we have a desire to have the Word of God in us, living in us. I know the people that live at my house. We have visitors from time to time. The boys have people that stay over and those kind of things and they play video games and that kind of stuff. But I know the people that live there because they're there all the time. I know the people that dwell in the house of God at my church, too, because guess what? They're there all the time. They're like the light fixtures of the pews. When the doors open, you see them there. That's how it works. Right. And so, you know, Hebrews 10, 25, very familiar verse to us, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. Some people do that. but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. If we're forsaken the easy spiritual food that we get that somebody else has prepared for us here at the house of God, I can assure you we're probably not getting the hard version. We're probably not getting the one you got to study to show thyself approved and rightly dividing the word of truth. You're probably not doing that at home. Faithfulness to God's house is the beginning of those things. You can do the same thing with giving. Malachi 3.10, if a person's not following that verse, bringing all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing. that there shall not be room enough to receive him." If a person's not giving in that way faithfully to God's house, the portion that God says to give back, I can almost assure you they're not following Deuteronomy 15, 11. That verse says, for the poor shall never cease out of the land. Therefore I command thee, saying, thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, to thy needy in thy land. If you're not willing to give the part that God expects back, how are you going to open your hands up wide to give to those in need, to show Christ in that kind of witness? We're probably not, right? Anybody ever have a job? I just want to see if you're awake. Okay, if you've got to do the same amount of work, same amount of work, now not a different amount of work, same amount of work. If you've got to do the same amount of work, you've got two jobs to choose from, one pays $10 an hour, one pays $40 an hour, same work, which one do you pick? You don't know, do you? We'd pick 40 most times, wouldn't we? You'd pick that because you get, for the time that you have to invest, you get four times as much out of that. The same thing could be said of coming to God's house. I don't know how many hours Tim spends studying. I don't know how many hours I spend studying for one message. It's several, several. You're going to get it condensed into two hours today. No, Tim said that. I didn't say that. You get it condensed down for you. Somebody else has done that work, and you get the benefits in abundance there. So the foundation's always in the Word of God. I hear Tim say that all the time on his CDs. I say that to our people. The same thing, the most important thing of the house of God's not the songs. The testimonies, it's none of that. It's the Word of God, always. That's always the foundation for everything. And so, here, we're gonna see, I have the blessing of getting Tim's CDs. I take advantage of that from other places, too. Tim's not the only preacher I listen to. There's several good preachers besides Tim, right? He's probably your favorite, but there are good preachers, and you can seek those out. I spend several hours listening to preachers, and then I spend several hours studying. But then I've got that foundation from somebody else that's helped me. It's already built up there. And then I can build upon it, or God can build upon it. I'm not doing anything in that there, but it's stronger. You look through these verses here, and we're just gonna skim through them to begin with. Look there back again in verse 16. You see this God dwelling in us, richly in all wisdom. Then where does Paul go from there? There in verse 16, you read through that verses, there you'll see psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. The song in our hearts the song in our hearts. Verse 17, everything in our life, whether that's word or deed, we do in the name of the Lord Jesus. There, in the name of the Lord Jesus means in line with the will of God, following the example that Christ gave for us and for His purposes. Every detail of our life, our work time, our recreational time, our socialization, whatever that is, has Christ in mind. That's the idea of doing everything in the name of the Lord. It has Him in mind. What God wants, He comes to the front. It's not about us. I'm guilty of that. I'm guilty. I get involved in just everyday life, and next thing you know, it's about me. I forgot. Who was I looking for? I'm looking for somebody to witness to. I want to talk to somebody. I want to invite somebody to church. And sometimes I just go along, I'm cramming the mail in the box, and somebody says, how are you doing? How are you doing? Nothing. Nothing. You can still talk about God and put mail in mailboxes. I've done that too. We can. Verse 17 there in Colossians 3 says, giving thanks to God Right? That's thanks for all that happens, even if it seems bad at the time. It is for our good. Romans 8.28 is very true there. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purposes. Even those bad things are working for our good. Verse 18 and 19 there, that's knowing how to live in a proper relationship with our spouses. The marriage relationship is a picture of Christ. It is a picture of us, the bride of Christ, the church in this age, to Christ there, and not honoring that relationship. gives the world a distorted picture of Christ. It gives our children a distorted picture of what Christ is and what He's done for us. There in verse 20 and 21, this is talking about the parent-child relationship, also a picture of our relationship with our Heavenly Father. We're adopted into His family when we get saved. Verse 23 is about the proper work relationships. In this instance, master-slave relationships. We've had some horrible corruptions of the master-slave relationship in our country and places around the world. That is not the picture that God gives of us to Him. Us to Him is a slave-master relationship. It's not about people forced into slavery against their will. Look at Deuteronomy 15, verse 15 real quick. When a person incurred a debt in Bible times that they couldn't pay, a master would settle that debt for them. And that slave would agree to serve. for a period of time. The slave was not treated like a hired servant, not treated like a day laborer, anything like that. They became to be treated like a part of the family. That's how they were treated. Many of them so much loved that relationship, they would refuse to leave after their service was paid for. It's a wonderful picture. Look at verse 15 through 17 in Deuteronomy 15. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee. Therefore I command thee this thing today. And it shall be if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee, because he loved thee in thine house, because he is well with thee. Then thou shalt take an all. and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant forever, and also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise." That's a perfect picture of the master-slave relationship with God and man. We have a debt that we can never pay. It's our sin debt. We can never pay it off. Doesn't matter how long a person would suffer in a place called hell, it'd never get paid off. That's why a person goes there, they never get out. Never. I don't care what the Catholics say, I don't care what anybody else says, there's no purgatory, there's no paying it off, nobody praying you out, nothing like that. You go to hell, you're there for good, and then the lake of fire will be your next place. There. There's no out of that. But this picture here, when you see that debt, they have a debt that they couldn't pay. And Christ was willing to settle that debt for us. Pay that penalty for us. And in return, we agree to serve Him for the rest of our lives. Now, the moment you are saved, what happens to your debt? It's paid. It's settled. As soon as it's settled, you're paid. You see some people, they're like runaway slaves. Right, oh, I've got my debt settled, I'm a Christian, I'll go to church for a little bit, and then pfft. It's like I don't have to serve God anymore. Because I know my debt's paid. You know, that's not the picture from scripture that we get. We agree to serve him for the rest of our lives. Even though our debt's paid, we do it continually because we love him. Now we looked over that brief overview of these points there, and so we say, you know, that this is something special that Paul was sharing with the church at Colossae, but he said the same thing to multiple places, multiple churches there. When Paul wrote this letter, this specific letter, he wrote to churches like Ephesus also, Philippi, Thessalonica, those were written to specific churches in specific locations, right? This letter's the same, Colossians 4, 16, and when this epistle is read among you, cause it to be read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea there. And you go on through, you'll see three cities mentioned there. They're all in the same area there in the Lycus River Valley, if you care to know where that is, L-Y-C-U-S, you can go back and look it up. It's about 100 miles east of Ephesus there, and there's three cities right there in that river valley there, and they share that letter. Right? In multiple congregations, we have that same blessing today. Paul wrote these letters, about half the New Testament he wrote, we share those same letters today. Passed right on down to us. We see the same principles that are foundations from the richness of the Word of God in our lives. And Paul, of course, wrote multiple other letters there. If you've got a bookmark, hold your place right here. If you've got two bookmarks, it'll come in real handy. Hold your place right here and go back to Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 19. Colossians 3 and 4, a portion of 4, Ephesians 5 and 6, these are identical principles, identical. Paul writes one to the church at Ephesus, one to the church at Colossae. In Ephesians 5 verse 19 he says, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. That was the first principle from Colossians 3.16, wasn't it? The song in our heart? That's supposed to be there for a child of God. Some people say, well, I can't sing. Anybody admit to that? I can't sing. You're not excluded. You're not excluded. You're not even close. The gifts and talents to sing come from whom? God. They come from God. Remember Moses tried to use that excuse. I'm not an eloquent speaker. I can't talk good. I'm not that kind of person. When he was in the land of Midian, God was calling him to deliver his people out of Egypt. And God wrote this, Exodus 4.11, And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? And who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? God says, no, I control the tongue. I've given you gifts or haven't given you gifts, whatever the case may be. The song is offered back to God as an act of praise. The command, Psalm 98, 4, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth. Make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise. Just shout it out. Just let it go. And you say, well, my noise is not joyful noise. It's not even close to joyful noise. Let me tell you this, it may not sound good to anybody else, but if it's from the heart, it sounds good to God. If it's an act of praise, it sounds good to God. I enjoy the choir up here. I appreciate Tim talking about laughing in the choir, because we do that in our choir practice all the time. We don't have a very big church, but I can tell you how many people are in the choir, 20. I had to order more books this past time. Twenty people in the choir. I had this same excuse from about six of them. Oh, I can't sing. I'm not a good singer. I kept going back to the same thing. Some of them even used this excuse. Well, if everybody's, I mean, we've got a small church, so they say, well, if everybody's going to be in the choir, who are we going to sing to? Don't ask a preacher that kind of question. You're not singing to the congregation. Your songs are supposed to be to who? God, hymns, special songs, anything. You're not singing to the congregation. That's what professional musicians and performers do. They sing to a congregation. God's people sing to God. Everybody else just gets blessed right along with it. It's not for each other. But the main goal, Ephesians 5.19, you see in that verse there, the original word is speaking. Speaking, the singing comes at the end of the verse, there, at the end of the verse in the heart. The words from Colossians 3, 16 are the same, teaching and admonishing. I don't know if Bruce, when he was teaching Sunday school up here, he didn't get up here and say, sing all through his message, right? He taught it, he admonished it, he did those kind of things. It's not that type of thing. And so you say, well I can't sing, can you speak? Can you speak? It says speaking those things there. Even if you can't, you can speak the Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. We can still say the words as an act of praise to God. Singing in that verse there is just exactly what we know. Singing just like the choir did, just like hymns, those kind of things. Making melody is the word psalo. which means to rub or to touch the surface or to twitch or to twang. It's like a musical instrument, a percussion instrument, stringed instrument, whatever that is. So that's music, that's part of our singing sometimes also. So with music, without music, either way. Let me ask you, is there a song in your heart? Does the praise through Christian music? Does it have a message to God, about God? Those are important. Does it come pouring out from within? I can assure you, if you're not listening to Christian music that has the appropriate message, it ain't gonna come out of your heart. It's not gonna come pouring out. It is not. Right? You know, what goes in is what comes out. That applies to TV, music, internet, whatever it is. Whatever you pour into your life, that's what's going to come pouring out eventually. We know that. So, you know, we need to listen to the appropriate kind of music. There in verse 20 of Ephesians 5, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the other two principles from Colossians 3.17, doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. And the giving of thanks for all things. I want to focus on the giving of thanks here because there are some signs that we know that this is being done properly. Now answer these questions in your own mind. Just in your own mind. Don't raise your hand. Don't shout out loud. Are we thankful for death? Now I'm not talking about the death of your enemy or the death of that neighbor that gives you all kinds of grief all the time. I'm talking about somebody close to you. Somebody close to you. Somebody dear to you. Close friend. Close relative. Spouse. What about this? Are we thankful for sickness? Once again, our own or somebody close to us. What about situations at work that try our patience? People try us, don't they? They do, they try us. What about thankful for our spouses? Not when they're sugar and spice and everything nice, but when they're the other part, when they're the human part. When they're not exactly everything we hoped they would be. Anybody can be thankful for things when somebody's delivered from death, or delivered from sickness, or you get a raise at work and everybody lauds you and praises what a wonderful job you are. Your wife fixes your favorite meal and treats you like a king. Anybody can be thankful for those kind of things. This is thankful for all things. What about when God has a purpose that we don't understand yet? Exodus 15. Read a couple of verses over in Exodus 15. Exodus 15, God has delivered his people from Egypt. I know you're studying through Exodus. I'm enjoying that. Is that Sunday? I don't know if it's Sunday morning or Sunday night. Sunday night. Okay. I don't check them close enough. There you go. They're in Exodus 15. God has delivered His people from Egypt. They've crossed the Red Sea. The Egyptian army has just been drowned there. God has wrought a great salvation for His people, and they're thankful. They really are. Exodus 15, 1 and 2, it says this, Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and the rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare him in habitation. My Father is God, and I will exalt him. They sing glory to God there because what? The trial's passed. They've already got the victory. That's already happened. Anybody can give thanks at that time when the trial's already passed. That's not giving thanks always for all things necessarily. Unsafe people can do that. Look over in 2 Chronicles chapter 20 and verse 20. I'll give you another example. This gets a little closer. 2 Chronicles 20 and verse 20, in this example Judah's preparing for war with the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites is the other group there, that's where Mount Seir is, that's Edomite territory. King Jehoshaphat prays and then he does something really strange. They're marching their army to meet the other three armies. That's what they're doing in those verses. He does something, I mean it's absurd when you look at it from a worldly view. In verse 20 and 21, And they rose up early in the morning and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa. And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God. so shall ye be established. Believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord that should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out." What's that next word? before the army and to say, praise the Lord for His mercy endureth forever. They send the singers out before the army. They're going to meet the other armies, right? What do singers carry with them in this time? Instruments or something. They're not prepared for battle. They're the singers there. That's different. They send them out before the army to praise God because they believe what's God gonna do. deliver. They believe they're going to win. They're giving the praise up front. Now that's closer. That's closer to always at all times giving thanks. One last example though, Daniel 6 verse 10. What about when it looks like we're certainly going to lose? You know, it's okay after we've already won to give the thanks, give the praise, right? You know, Jehoshaphat was pretty close, but he gave it before it happened, but he believed it was going to happen. What about Daniel's case? Daniel 6 there, Daniel knew they had signed a decree into law prohibiting anyone from making a petition to God or man for 30 days and anybody other than the king. And he knew that punishment was to be cast into the lion's den. That was the punishment for that. Which would mean, ideally, certain death. That was the point of it there. Right? Not only does he continue to pray, notice this prayer in Daniel 6.10. Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime. The law of the Medes and the Persians, that law had been put in a decree, is irreversible. The king can't even reverse that law. It is irreversible. So Daniel is going to go in the lion's den. He says, I'm not even going to shut the windows. I don't care. I'm not going to stop praying to my God. I'm going to give thanks at all times. That's what he does there in that verse. He says he prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime. Knowing in his, Daniel's mind, I'm going in the lines then. That's what's coming next. They're going to catch me because I've got my windows open. Everybody's going to see. They've set this trap there. You know, we've seen the song in our heart. We've seen the doing things in the name of the Lord Jesus there. We've seen Thanksgiving at all times. We're going to skip through the remainder of these verses for the sake of time, but I just want you to look at them very briefly. Ephesians 5, 22, and you'll see that the same principles that he gave in Colossians. Ephesians 5.22, wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. We saw that in Colossians 3.18. Husbands, verse 25, husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. That was in Colossians 3.19. Ephesians 6.1, children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. We saw that in Colossians 3.20. Verse Ephesians 6.4, and ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We saw that from Colossians 3.21. Ephesians 6.5, servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart as unto Christ. We saw that from Colossians 3.22. Ephesians 6.6, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will, doing service as to the Lord and not to men, we saw that from Colossians 3.23. Ephesians 6.8, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. We saw that in Colossians 3.24. And the last one, Ephesians 6.9, and ye masters do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him. We saw that from Colossians 4.1. Everything from the songs in our heart, to living a life that's in line with Jesus Christ, to giving thanks and everything all the time, to representing Christ well in our marriages when we train our children on our jobs, knowing that God will reward us for faithfulness. How do we get to that point? I know very few people that are at this place that they can do all of these things well. I know very few. If you read Colossians 3, you see the key there in verse 16. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. Get absolutely as much of the Word of God as you possibly can in your life. Be at church absolutely as much as you can. Study it as much as you can at home, wherever you can get it. If you read over in Ephesians 5, you've still got your finger over there. He gives the Ephesian church a little different key. He doesn't say, let the word of God dwell and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. He says something different. You back up one verse in Ephesians 5, 18. Those are all the same list. The Psalms, the giving thanks, all those exact same list from Colossians and Ephesians. The only thing he changes is right here at the beginning. Verse 18, he says, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. You know, the world allows things like alcohol to take control of their life. To be the major influence at different times. We as Christians have something far better. We surrender our life to the control of the Holy Spirit. If we're filled with it. If we're filled with it. You know, those scriptures from Colossians 3 and 4 and Ephesians 5 and 6 have the same results because they're talking about the same thing. You can't be filled with the Spirit if you're not filled with the Word of God. You can't live what you don't know to live. You can't do those things. They don't go together. In John 14, 26, he says, But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. The Holy Spirit gives us understanding, reminds us of those things later on. When we need those, we can use those things. Are we filled with the Holy Spirit? Is the Word of God dwelling in us richly in all wisdom? Salvation's the first priority. If you're not saved, I can assure you, neither of those things are happening if you're not saved. If you haven't surrendered your life to God, if you haven't admitted that you don't deserve to go to heaven because of sin, And if you don't have a desire to repent, you're not going to be saved either. You don't have a desire to turn from sin. Of course, we have to know that Jesus came, lived a perfect life. He was God in the flesh, lived a perfect life, died, shed His blood for our sins, arose again on the third day. We believe that. We ask God to save us, forgive us of our sin, and we surrender the rest of our life to Him. That's what salvation is about. If that hasn't happened, none of the rest of this matters. You're not going to have a song in your heart. You're not going to give thanks for everything. None of those things are actually going to happen. What about for those of us who are saved? You know you're saved. Are we filled with the Holy Spirit? Is the Word of God dwelling in us richly? Let me give you some questions. You ask these for yourselves. Can we stand or sit through a congregational hymn and not even mouth the words? Not even mouth the words. You say, well, I can't sing. You know better than that now. You know better than that. God's not expecting that. But if you sit there or you stand there and we go through the hymns and those songs and everybody's supposed to be singing praise to God and you're going, I'm going to guess it's not the feeling of the Spirit. I'm going to guess it's not that. You know, if we don't even know the words, to a Christian song, whether they're accurate to scripture or not. We've got one or two in our hymn book that they're not accurate. They're just out there somewhere. They don't match the word of God. You can find a lot of Christian music anywhere. The message is not true to the word of God. It's just not. If we don't know whether it is or not, you can assure yourself you're not filled with the word of God, or you can tell whether it matches up or not. If we're not, if we don't bring all the things of life somehow back to Jesus, and that's easy to do, especially, I'm a big laugher. I cut up what Tim knows, and I cut up, and some of you know me, I cut up all the time. I just like to laugh, and I just have a joy of life, but if you can't bring it back to God somehow, If you can't include God in it, you can't. There's something missing. It's not filled with the Spirit. If we only give thanks when we have the victory or we know we're going to get the victory, not when it looks like we lose. We're not filled with the Spirit. If we mistreat or take advantage of our wives or husbands or demean them in some way, we don't train our children properly in God's house, in God's Word. That's a sign we're not filled. If you don't have good relationships at work, I don't care how bad your boss is. I don't care how bad your employees are. If we can't have a good working relationship, you may not like them. They may be a horrible, ungodly person, but if you can't have a good relationship with them, at least a working relationship, how can you ever witness to them? How can you ever share the word of God? So, you know, if we have no's to those kind of questions there, God's word has cured. Joshua 1.8 will close with this. He says, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Get in the Word of God. If you're not already faithful to church, if you're not faithful to study at home on your own, I hear people all the time, they say, well, I read the Bible. Sometimes I try to read the Bible. I just don't understand the Bible. You haven't given the Holy Spirit a chance to let you understand it. You know, you're not going to read everything that you read. You're not going to understand. If Tim tells me he reads everything he reads in this Bible, he understands word for word cover to cover without any questions, any flaws, I'm going to say, wow, you've become Jesus. No, that's not true. We all have portions that we don't understand. The more we study, the more we come to church and hear it and have sound doctrine, the more it will become good food for us, something to sustain us. Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you for another opportunity to be in your house. Thank you so much for your word that you've given us. Pray that you'll help us. That it would dwell in us richly. Not just be once in a while. That it's an everyday part of our lives. That we take it in as much as we can. That we'll meditate on it day and night. That it'll be with us. It'll become a part of our lives. It'll dwell in us. That's what we want. Pray that you'll help us. Everything brings us back to you. that we can somehow, regardless of what's going on in our life, we can point people to you through that situation. Help us to be thankful, even when things don't look good. Help us to show the world we're not focused on now. Our hope is in eternity. Our treasures are in heaven. Help us to have that joy. Help us to share it with somebody else. Pray if there's a need this evening for salvation, that's the most important thing. A person doesn't know for sure that they're on their way to heaven. Pray that this would be the time for that. If there's some that know that it's not a feeling of the Spirit, they've got the Holy Spirit because they're saved. But if they don't have that full joy, they don't have these signs of a person who's filled with the Word of God, full of the Holy Spirit, pray that you'll help them to search their own lives, to do business with you. We'll rejoice with all that repent, as all heaven does. Pray that you'll bless in your invitation time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.