these things. But as it is now,
as it is now, we're just going to focus on this idea of being
clothed in gratitude. And in doing so, we will live
the fullness of Christ. Verses 12 and 13. Put on then
as God's chosen ones, holy, beloved, put on compassionate hearts,
kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one
another. And if one has a complaint, forgiving one another as the
Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Now think
about this for a second. There's a lot sort of chopped
into that, a lot of these things. The theological essence of this
text is that we have an identity. We as beings who are in Christ
are what? We are chosen. We are set apart,
holy. We are loved. We are the beloved. the beloved, that means that
we are the ones who are loved. And in being this, this is rooted
in the gospel, this is rooted in the work of Christ. We are
not, what, holy, beloved, and chosen apart from Christ. So when we begin to think about
the instruction that Paul gives here to this church, that we
are to embrace, to receive, and then to apply to our own lives,
Not identically, but the instructions are clear. We can take it and
say that's written to me. Well, it's not written to me,
but it's written for me. We need to not disconnect the
fact that because we are in Christ, we now have this command because
we have been found by God and his love. We now have this instruction. It also should make it clear
in our minds that those who do not profess to be in Christ should
not be hammered into being like this. There's something weird
in the evangelical world in my lifetime. It's anecdotal, I know,
but there's something weird about how sometimes Christian groups
can get all excited about trying to transform certain things in
regard to the culture. And in doing so, they try to
enforce biblical commands and ideologies on people who are
like, I'm not even in the church. Now, while it might be fueled
from a very good motivation, it might be somewhere in the
heart of these groups to try to really help. What does it
do? Paul is talking to the chosen
ones. He's talking to the holy ones.
He's talking and instructing the beloved of Christ. So we
as Christians need to receive this personally, not to sit and
think, oh, he's talking to someone else. No, he's talking to me.
He's talking to you. He's instructing us. Put on these
things. So what are we to put on? Well, first, we're to put
on the lens to know that we are in Christ. The gospel message
of grace, sovereign and free. We see this in other places.
Paul tells the church of Ephesus in chapter 4 verse 32, he says
what? Be kind to one another, be tender hearted, forgive one
another as God and Christ forgave you. So the essence of everything
that we live out as believers is in response to the love of
God who forgave us by condemning Jesus Christ in our place. Sometimes
I lose the word I'm looking for. And we all know Galatians 5,
22 and 23, where the fruit of the spirit is what? Love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And what does Paul say? Against
these things, there is no law. So how do these virtues transform
our lives? How is it that we are supposed
to have compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness,
and patience, bearing with one another? I mean, if I were to
be honest, many times in my life, and you too, I'm bearing all
the time. I'm tired of bearing. I'm ready
to be free a little bit. So there's that conundrum, that
being free in Christ But we're to have a burden? You see, the
difference is we forget what the Scripture teaches us. Come
unto me, all who labor and are weary, who are heavy laden. That
means heavy stuff they're carrying around. I will give you rest,
for my yoke is easy and my burden is life. So we need to think about how
to cultivate these things. How do we put on these things? Well, I think Paul prescribes
the reality of how in these first two verses. We're going to put
on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, et cetera,
and forgiveness because we have been forgiven. Because God in
his infinite wisdom, outside the very realm of reason and
logic, has not just chosen to love us, to put on compassion,
to have kindness, to humble himself, to show meekness, and to have
patience and bear with us. He did so at the cost of himself.
Because keep in mind, beloved, that the gospel, the good report
of Jesus Christ, is all about a judicial transaction, an issue
of justice in the courts of righteousness. And that grace, forgiveness,
can't come just because the judge was having a good day and felt
kind. If you're guilty and the judge just feels kind and says
you're not guilty, that's unjust. That is wicked. That is wrong.
Now, it is OK to have a reprieve or to have mercy and the sentencing
be reduced. But even then, if you think about
our Constitution, if you steal a pack of gum, they can't kill
you for it. It's excessive, but if you take
a life, they can surely take yours. Thank God we don't live in some
other places in the world. I know there are some states,
but we'll leave that there, because I don't want to get into that
rabbit chase. But for God, justice has to be
satisfied. So His kindness, His compassion,
his humility, his meekness. When has God ever been humble? He left glory and took on flesh. He lowered himself to be lower
than the angels, that Paul would say. He gave himself up. He became nothing. He became
a slave, obedient unto death on a cross. The God of the cosmos
took on flesh, created a body for himself, and suffered in
the place of his people. That is the centerpiece. That
is the motivation. That is the point. We can have
compassion when we remind ourselves of the compassion of Christ. How? What is it? What holds it
all together? Verse 14 shows us this. This
is what holds it all together. Above all these things, and I'm
going to spend some time here. Above all these things, put on
love. I'm going to stop. You have to
think about this for a moment. Love, according to the Bible,
is considered the greatest Christian virtue that can exist in a person.
Now, what's a virtue? a practice, a discipline, something
that's obvious, a label, a moniker, things that you're known for,
things that you put into practice, things that you exhibit. What
are you known for? Theological fervor? Okay, good. If you don't have love, you're
nothing. This is the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. These
people were heady, haughty, happy, all kind of crazy stuff. They
had a lot of things going on in Corinth. Some of them were
very gifted. Some of them could speak languages.
Some of them had all sorts of spiritual gifts and they were
doing all sorts of things. But Paul says, listen, it doesn't
matter if you have all knowledge. If you don't have love, you're
worthless. It doesn't matter if you have
all skills and all gifts and all administration and all wisdom
and all everything that you can build the world with your word
and you can save a multitude with your hand. You are nothing
if you have not love. It is better to perish together
in the fires of persecution with love than to survive forever
without it. It helps me. This is really good. We want boundaries. We want simplistic
teaching. We want to know what we're really
supposed to be about in this world as Christ followers. This
is it. And until we get love, we should
not go anywhere else and do anything else. Because anything else we
do that is not fueled by the all supreme reality of our love,
it is absolutely not of God, nor is it to his glory, nor is
it to his name, nor can we thank God for it, for it is vain. Now, that is hard. That's really
hard. James Tippins doesn't like to
hear that because there's a lot of stuff I've done and there's
a lot of stuff that I like to do and there's a lot of things
that I'd love to accomplish. And I can't lie to myself and
think, well, that would be loving. It wouldn't be loving, it'd be
self-serving. Let's be honest. Love isn't self-serving. by definition. The binding force of all these
things is love. You cannot be kind if you are
not loving. You cannot have compassion. Empathy. See last week and the week before,
one of these weeks, we really emphasized empathy. Fulfillment,
contentment. Remember these things that we've
been learning, beloved. These things cannot exist without love
because first, We must know the love of God and embrace and receive
and just let it drown us and be reminded of these things,
the renewal of our mind, being present, being embodied, being
here in this world. Led by the Spirit. As beloved, chosen, holy ones
who are not of this world. It's crazy, right? Love. It binds it all together. Why? Because it is the motivating
force behind God. Now, I said this for the first
time in public somewhere around 2009. It was a pivotal year for
me. But God does love himself, but not in a way that loving
ourselves feels, in the sense that he loves himself in the
fact that he is worthy of love. And that in the love for his
own glory and his own name, which is not hedonistic, because it's
right, he chooses to display himself. That's his glory. His
glory is revealed in his love for us. And he reveals the love
and the word for his son, whom he gives for us. Nancy, that knocks away hundreds
of years of. Of theology of unwritten, well,
it's been written, but it's not let me put it this way, it knocks
out hundreds of years. Of a mindset that tells us that
we're nothing. You want to find your identity?
Find your identity in knowing that God loves you and He gave
Christ for you. So if He loves Himself and He
loves His Son beyond measure, and He gave Himself and His Son
for us, His beloved, there's something to embrace there. We have to go there. Paul doesn't start any letter
with you knuckle-headed scoundrels, waste of breath. I mean, it's
close. He gets there, but he never starts
the letter. He never starts the letter there.
To the saints, to the beloved, to the tolerated, loving, adopted. Sometimes he says adopted just
to remind them. You know you're adopted, right?
We can sell you off. No, just kidding. You can't,
because he then says nothing can separate us from the love
of God. Nothing can separate us from the adoption. Nothing
can make us not children ever. Not even us. We can't emancipate
ourselves. That's great. 1 Corinthians 13, I've already
said this, but to hear the text verbatim in the English. If I
speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I have not love,
I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Jesus in John chapter 13, which
is just two verses summarized in this way. Jesus says a new
commandment I give you. And the new commandment is that
you love one another. Just as I've loved you, you are
also to love one another. And when Jesus is confronted
by the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all the other seeds, They
always press him about what's right, what theology is more
pressing in the context of application. How would you handle this, Jesus?
We're going to get him here. He thinks he's compassionate.
Watch. If he does it right, according to our standards, the people
are going to see he's just like us. If he does it wrong, we're
going to stone him or arrest him because he's a blasphemer. And I don't know if in law school
you studied the words of Christ or the writings of Paul, but
sometimes those things are lost out. I would love to see a great
mind squeak out of those arguments that Jesus gives. You can't. Sure, law says kill her. So whoever
is innocent of any sin, chuck it. Go ahead, execute justice. Though the greatest of all the
laws is this, to love the Lord your God with all your heart,
mind and strength. But equally of importance on
the same ground in which you love the Lord your God is this
law, to love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the laws
of the prophets, all the laws of God rest on these two. And if that's the case, then
what in the world are we doing trying to massage out all these
other tertiary and whatnot ideas? Not even primary, not secondary,
tertiary, third. Third or lower in the scale.
Musical term for me. Why are we spending so much time
there? Why are we worried about whether it's godly to celebrate
Thanksgiving? It is absolutely godly to be
thankful in any form, any way. If you want to stand on your
head with a hula hoop on your feet and twirl around and say,
thank you, Jesus, I love you. Do it. Just film it, please. Church can start a little tick
tock. We monetize that thing. The binding force of all these
virtues is love. Our ability to love is a direct
result of understanding and accepting the love of Christ in the gospel.
The gospel meaning what He's done. So I urge you, brothers and sisters,
to love, not in the way the world's taught us, not in the way we've
taught ourselves, but to love according to the gospel. To mature
in a way that we begin to see the simplicity of grace, the
simplicity of hope, simplicity of love, And we just live it
out. And when we feel pressed to become so complex with it
and try to put together disciplines and all these things, just rest
for a minute. Come to the assembly and confess the fact that, hey,
you know what? I'm really struggling right now. You know what? Me
too. Let's just walk in love. See, love is greater than knowledge.
Love is greater than clarity. Love is greater than distinction.
And I have to say this, we don't get to say what is love
when the Bible says what is love. And you can, we can, some can,
I don't even want to put it on me or you, some people can say,
well, I'm just being loving when I keep it real. No, you're being
nasty. That's not love. Paul has not said, You maggot! You know. No. Don't compassion. Christ has
compassion for you. Forgive one another because you've
been forgiven everything. How? Christ died in your place. What does this bring? What does
this type of thankfulness do? It brings thankfulness. It embodies
us in a place where we live presently, right now, in love. Not in this
ethereal place in our brains or this philosopher's realm. But in a real tangible, simple,
ABC 123 life. And God is glorified in that
type of life. But yet it's the hardest thing
to do. I don't know why. I know why, but I'm not going
to get in it. I don't know why it can't be overcome. Why didn't
God just do that? Because he receives the glory
when we simply quit. And rest. Verse 15, and let the peace of
God. Peace of Christ rule in your
hearts. To which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. To the peace of Christ is a central
theme of the gospel. I mean, even the cults got it
right, right? Even the cults that knock on your door, send
you letters in the mail, that call, put stuff in your hands,
handbills and whatnot, when you're out in public. I mean, their catch, their approach
is always, man, the world's a mess, we need some peace. You got that
right. I need some peace in my own house, I need some peace
in my own head, right? Sometimes we mistake peace with
a lack of stress, a lack of anxiety, a lack of problems, a lack of
chaos. In the midst of chaos, there
is order. In the midst of pain, there is
hope. I think I read, yeah, 2 Corinthians
chapter 4 last week. Struck down, perplexed. In order to be thankful, we have
to be at peace. In order to be at peace, we must recognize we
have a reason to be thankful. Do not be anxious about anything,
Paul tells the church of Philippi, chapter 4, verse 6. But in everything,
by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known to God. In Romans 14, Paul says, so then
let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. foundation in my mind of true
thankfulness is peace. Because it is only there that
we have the moment to take the breath in to go, thank you. I mean, I don't know what kind
of catastrophes you've been. I don't know how, you know, if you've been in a
car accident or if you've been around trauma or you've been
in a situation where someone was hurt. And in that moment,
you're not like, well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So
glad this is happening. No, you're just dealing with it. I fell
off the stage today, passed out. I mean, well, thank God. Pastor
just broke his leg. Let's just go out there and check
on him. Thank God for it. Thank God. Let me try. That's
silly. Nobody does that. It's ridiculous. But when the matter is over,
we can be thankful that God has a hand in it, even if it comes
to a terrible end. Because we know and we can rest.
We are not guaranteed a positive outcome of things in this life,
but we are guaranteed an absolutely positive position for the life
ever after. To share in the glory of God.
To be thankful. We need to find peace in the
gospel. And when we do that, we will nurture gratitude. Let me think about it. In the chaotic sense in which
we live emotionally, physically, et cetera, to sit down and just verbalize
gratitude requires a time of resolve. Even if it's just a
small fleeting moment, just a tiny little spot, just a little pause
to go, even if it's, thank you God, that you have this. It's a big sigh, it's just a
sigh and then all heck breaks loose the next second. But imagine when that is nurtured
because of the gospel, because of the focused attention that
we can give to the peace of God that surpasses all understanding,
all logical sense, all academic pursuit. all cognitive function. Let the peace of God rule in
your hearts. That's what it's about. That means when we find everything
else unruly ruling our hearts, We have to what? Remind ourselves
of the binding force of Christ, which is the love of God for
us. We have to get into the habit and the discipline of being honest
with ourselves. We are not pretending. Well, we are pretending. We are
not... What am I trying to say? We're not tricking God. I was
looking for a more polished way to say that. We're not pulling
one over on Him. He knows us. He knows when we
posture and go, yeah, I'm just so glad. Thank you, Father, for
that peace, that we're not at peace. He knows our innermost being.
He knows our subconscious and our unconscious thoughts. God knows everything about us
and has known everything about us with all knowledge for eternity. At the same time, all the time,
everywhere. Let the peace of Christ rule
in your hearts. What's that look like? It's different every moment,
isn't it? The source never changes. The
source never changes. And that verse 15, look at that
for a minute. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts
to which you were indeed called in one body. So we go back to
this idea that there is a mandatory element of God's promises or
the means of grace, as we like to say here as a people. Where God exercises his mercy
through natural means like prayer, like meditation, like reading
the Bible, like being in the assembly. And that reminder that
we are one body with many parts. And I am so, so sorry that I
didn't get the full function of this picture 20 years ago
before you all, well, most of you knew me. But by the mercy of the Lord
in the years to come, we will parse this stuff out biblically
rather than culturally. We're not alone. We are the body
of Christ. See, when I said one body, most
of us are like, yeah, we're the church family. Church family,
spiritual family, yeah! Okay, that's true, but that's
temporal in this earth. Marriage is temporal, as a reflective
picture of that eternal state. We're one body, and it's got
nothing to do with us. We're one with Christ. It's not the church and Christ. We're one with Christ as husband
and wife become one. It's a picture. It's only a picture. So we can't scoff at being one
body. Because when we do, we're scoffing at Christ himself. We can't say, well, I don't have
to love these people because they're not me. They're not my
people. They are us. And they are our
people because they are Christ's body. Love your wives as Christ loved
the church and gave Himself up for her that she might be without
blemish or spot or wrinkle to be presented holy, beloved, chosen,
blameless. Why and how? Through His compassion,
through His kindness, through His humility, through His meekness,
through His patience, through His bearing of her sin on the
cross in His innocence. Husbands, love your wives as
in that way, in every way. Give yourself up for her that
you might show the picture of Christ. That's headship. Crickets even stopped on that. And remember, it's just a picture.
No one ever hated his own body. And there's a caveat there. There's psychological conditions
that cause us to hate our bodies. And psychological conditions. And there are rare occasions
where people are self-deprecating to the point that they deprive
themselves from the natural means of life. But normally, We eat
when we're hungry. We sleep when we're sleepy. And
barring something psychological or physiological or biological,
we take care of ourselves to some degree. Because we love
to live. But it's not about our body.
Our body is just a little temporary picture of it. It's not about
us as a body of believers. It's about Christ and his body
that was broken for us, that we may partake in the divine
nature, sharing the glory of Christ, glorified to see. What
does that mean? That means we are going to be
prepared to be presented to the cosmos as God is revealed, we
also shall be revealed. He will be seen in us, our great
Father. It's so simple, but so crazy,
so mysterious. What does that do? We're one body. And the latter
part of that, and be thankful for that. Gosh, there's a sermon
there. Verse 16, let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly. And that's obvious, right? Worship and wisdom here in these
verses, verse 16. The wisdom of God, the knowledge
of God, the Word of God, the teaching of God. The word doctrine
literally means something tall, okay? If I teach you a French
phrase, that's doctrine. We've made the word doctrine
become some spiritual term. It's just teaching. A list of teachings. Let the Word of Christ, let the
teaching of Christ, let the Word of Christ, and there's so much
more there. There's a spiritual sense in this. There's this mysterious
reality that we see in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
God, and the Word was with God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us. And all that there is that exists came from the
Word. Jesus Christ is the living Word. There's so much there,
but in the simplistic way of learning what Christ is and who
Christ is and what Christ did, Let the Word of Christ dwell
in you richly. Yes, and it starts with the hearing of the Word.
It starts with the learning of the Word. It starts in the living
of the Word. But more importantly, it's a constant reminder of the
love of God. God is love and loving us through
giving of His Son so that we might be a people to partake
in His righteousness. Not of our own doing and not
of our own cognition, but He gives us the resting faith to
hope in Him. And then we can learn. We can
grow, we can be deceived, or we can be confused, or we can
philosophize, and then all of a sudden we're all way back to heresy.
But God never fails, and His Word will be true. And the means of knowledge, the
means of understanding is the truth. If you understand something
wrongly, it is a lie. But I'm not propagating the idea
that we can just go out there and willy-nilly say anything,
and anybody who says the name Jesus is a believer. Most of
the time when the name is said, it's because somebody stubbed
their toe or got pulled out in front of traffic. Let the word of God dwell in
you richly. And here simply is the word as the written word,
which in a funny way was not even complete then when this
letter was written. But it was complete. It wasn't
finished, but it was complete. The prophets attest to the gospel. Moses attest to the gospel. Jesus
makes that clear. There is no way, in any way, that any generation has been
without the gospel of grace. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly, teaching, admonishing and all wisdom, as well as singing
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts
to God. So we come right back to that thankfulness, to the
gratitude, worship and wisdom and thankfulness, the centrality
of the teachings of Jesus in the gospel. is the fuel, is the
richness, is the power in our lives to be reminded of the love
of God, to be reminded of the grace of God, to be reminded
of this gospel, of our place and position. Psalm 119.11 says, I've stored
up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Paul, writing to the Ephesians, tells them to address one another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
to the Lord with their hearts. See, engaging the gospel through
the scripture, and listen to this church, engaging the gospel
through singing songs, whether we like them or not, or whether
it's our style or not, or whether the words we rightly understand
or not, when we engage the gospel in singing, we engage the gospel
in hearing, we together do this in a way that establishes a more
concrete presence, a more concrete resolve to be reminded of the
grace and the love of God. And that, in turn, allows us
to be thankful. One of the hymns that we sang
this morning, there was a line in there, and I'm going, praise
God, thank you, God, for that. Thank you, God, for that truth. And
it wouldn't be a song. I mean, you know, some hymns,
they're just not good writing music. You want some Shane and
Shane, or you want, you know, something. But the truth is powerful. I mean, I don't know too many
people with a mighty fortress when they're going on a trip
on repeat with a pipe organ. It might be fun to start out
with the kids. Here's the playlist, this nine hours. But it's an awesome truth. Our
God is a mighty fortress against which nothing can come. And when we focus on Him, when
we listen, when we're in the assembly, when we're together
as the body of Christ, we grow in our understanding of the gospel
in small ways by the Spirit. In verse 17, he refocuses this again
as he closes it out. And he says, whatever you do, whatever you
do in word, whatever you do in deed, Do it in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Do it in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And give thanks to God the Father through Him. Now, this in and of itself is
complex. Why? Because I've never met anyone
in the faith who disagreed with this sentiment. But at the same time, I've never
met anyone in the faith who did it. So ask ourselves, we should ask
ourselves, do I do everything and everything I do, do I do
it in the name of Christ with thanksgiving to God through him? See, when we ask that question
and we impose upon ourselves a really culturally based or
culturally informed answer to that. It causes extremes, right? It causes extremes. It causes
some of us to go, I'm done. I give up. I'm leaving the church. I'm leaving the faith. It's me
and Jesus and a juicy juice. I'm not doing this anymore. They
still make those anyway. Or the other extreme. I'm cutting
off my hair. I'm cutting off my arms. I'm
going to beat myself in the morning and burn myself at night for
the sake of Christ. I'm going to isolate myself and
going to do everything. Matter of fact, I'm going to
be homeless for Jesus. You know, and those extremes
go in so many places. I'm going to destroy everything,
every idol, you know. Thank Calvin for that sentiment. The heart is just a manufacturer
of idols. He's not wrong, he's right. The
Bible teaches us that. We're not in the business of
living in freedom by trying to turn off the idle machine. So what is this? How do we get
to the place where we're doing everything in Word, everything
we say? And some people think that means
that everything we say has got to be theological. Nope. Most
theological discussion is not to the glory of God. Depends on the context and the
people saying it and what's being said. Some people say, well, that means
we got to do, we got to constantly read just the verbatim Bible.
Don't say another word, no commentary, no application, no vernacular
changes, no nothing. Just read the Bible. Okay, but that's not how the
Bible was read and applied in the first century when the people
received the letters. They worked through them. They talked about
them for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. You know, there
was no verse by verse preaching in the New Testament church.
It was letter by letter teaching. It was let's talk about this.
Let's read this letter and then let's spend the next three to
four hours together. Y'all hungry. We'll eat in a minute talking
about it. How do we apply this? What difference
does it make? And let's discuss it. Let's sing. Let's praise God. Let's hear
some of the Old Testament scripture that we've been able to obtain. This journey of faith. Beloved,
we're never going to be in a place where we wake up one day and
that entire day has been all for the glory of God. However,
by faith it is. What does that mean? That means when we're resting
in the sufficiency of Christ's humility, love, compassion, kindness,
and peace. Everything we do in word and
deed is for the glory of God. And it's also a reminder to keep
in check that we're not being fleshly. And when we find ourselves
fleshly, what is the response in our hearts? What is the response
in our hearts when we find sin in our lives, blatant, outright
wickedness in our lives, hate, hatefulness in our lives? Arrogance. What are we supposed to think?
What are we supposed to say? We're supposed to say, I am so
glad that you're merciful, Father, and that your love for me endures
forever. And God's love for us is seen
perfectly and revealed only in the love and the death of Christ. Think about that for a second. I mean, Paul tells the people
of Corinth, whatever you eat or drink. And we know what, we know how
that changed, right? Whatever you eat or drink, whatever
you do, do it all for the glory of God, in the name of Christ,
with Thanksgiving. Just merge those two together. Whatever
I say and do, whatever I think and want, that's 1 John. Whatever I eat and drink, come
on! Got to do it all for the Lord.
Yeah, it's a state of mindfulness. It's a state of constant awareness. We are not our own, but we're
not shackled under the bonds of law and rigidity and fear. Those have been broken by the
blood of Christ, those have been torn away by the flesh of Christ.
We are free. And when our freedom carries
us into things that are not glorifying to the Lord. We come back to
thankfulness, we come back to the peace of Christ, we come
back to the resting place and we shouldn't make silly resolutions. Oh, Father, I will never lie
again. You just did. Father, I will never say those
things again. Now you're a liar. Father, I want you to take away
all this stuff. I mean, how many times have you ever prayed for
God to take away things? I've done that. Take away this,
take away that. He takes the other stuff away. The things
that I don't want to lose. This is not Christian living.
Christian living is to stay in a place of peace, of hope. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul says,
to give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus for you. Now think about that. What is
God's will for my life? To be thankful for His love and
mercy. Not to be thankful that you've
escaped judgment, though that's okay too. See, that is another
problem, that is another extreme. Be thankful for His love and
mercy, for His kindness, for His meekness. Be thankful for
His Perfect love. It's okay to be thankful for
what we have escaped. But the Bible doesn't give that
emphasis. That's a negative emphasis. That's
a negative place that puts us in a constant state of either
going to extremes or giving up. So living a life of thankfulness,
living a life of gratitude is a response. of the transformative
power of the gospel. What is the transformative power
of the gospel? It changes our minds. It renews our minds. And in doing
so, it changes our outlook. It changes our perception. It
changes our reality. And when the reality is changed,
then it changes our affections and it changes our intentions. But we are never far from our
real disposition in the flesh that battles against the spiritual
disposition given to us by God. And so then, what do we do? We
see the Word of God and we see, is there anybody else in the
Bible who had these issues? And the answer is yes, David
had these issues. Moses had these issues. Jonah had these issues. Peter had these issues. Paul
had these issues. Paul wrote about these issues.
Romans 6, 7. He's riding this tidal wave,
typhoon, hurricane, tornado, twister, fire, sinkhole of this
turmoil. You know the text. Why do I do
what I don't want to do? I want to do what I want to do.
Why do I want to do what I don't want to do? It's like a rap song. How am I going to escape this
body of death? He answers it. And I'm going to impose the essence
and the sentiment. It is God. It is God. It is God alone. It is merciful, righteous, just
love. I said a few weeks ago about
how hard it is sometimes when we see Paul write to the Thessalonians,
keep yourself in the love of God. Keep yourself in the love of
God. How do we do such a thing? By resting in the love of God. Knowing that nothing can separate
us from Him. Knowing that it is the power
of God unto salvation. The love of God is the power
of God unto salvation. Because the good report is the
love of God manifested in justice. The gospel. The gospel is not
a list of theological things. The gospel is a story of God
himself saving his people. So beloved. James chapter 1. What do I do
now? How do I deal with this? You pray. You pray that God would
help us understand the love of God. That's one day Trey will get
to in Ephesians over and over and over and over
again. This love that all the saints
know. That every name in heaven and
earth is named that according to the riches
of His glory, God may grant you to be strengthened with power
through His Spirit inside your heart, mind, and soul, so that Christ may dwell in your
hearts, the Word of Christ, the joy of Christ, the peace of Christ,
through faith, that you who are being rooted and grounded in
love may have the strength to comprehend with all the other
bodies who make the body of Christ, with all the other saints, the
breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to
know the love of God that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be
filled with all the fullness of God. Isn't that a wonderful
place to be? How do we do that? We have to
wear. This gospel. Gratitude. We have to be thankful. We have to focus. And we have to be real. When we take inventory, beloved,
just be real. Tell yourself what is. But that
includes telling yourself whose you are. Speaking in your own heart and
mind and with your voice. the gospel of grace. So as we
take this table today, let's remember this. Let's remember
the love of God and the death of Christ. Let's pray. I thank
you, Father, for the great gift of your love. Teach us to be
thankful. Teach us to be mindful. Teach
us to be focused on who we are in Christ, to be satisfied, to
be fulfilled in Him. And I pray, Lord, that as we
look at the season of holidays and festivals, that we would
take full advantage of the opportunity to celebrate and be thankful,
and most importantly, to speak into the lives of others the
peace that we have and the hope that we have, which is in the
love of God alone. And we know your love through
Christ Jesus, and in His name we stand before you and pray
all these things. Amen.