For our scripture reading this morning, turn with me to Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. I'd like to bring a message one day on all the ifs in the scriptures. And maybe some on the but. But God. He begins this chapter with an if. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things of the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness which is idolatry, for which things sake The wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience, in which ye also walked some time when ye lived in them. But now ye put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communications out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Whether it's neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all in all. Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness, and let the peace of God, this will be my text, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you are called in one body, and be ye thankful. I invite you to come back with me to Colossians chapter 3. Ryan read this chapter to us a few weeks ago, and then Yvonne and I listened to a message by Bruce Crabtree on a similar subject out of Romans. And as I listened, I was reminded of the difficulty that we have concerning an understanding of the believer's walk. Some men believe that there's nothing to this walk, that you can walk any way you want to and live any way you want to, but that's not true. We know that from the Scriptures. He said, not to do these things, for these things sake cometh the wrath of God upon the disobedient. We know better than that. And then others say, well, you're saved by grace. You're saved by hearing redemption that's in Christ, and you're justified in Him, and now you have a walk, and you have to be led, and God leads you by the law. You look to the law, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, so on, so on, so on. And you're led by the law. But my friend, that's not it either. That's not it. It's a difficult thing to try to preach the believer's rule of walk, and here Paul gives it to you plainly, as he does most things in this book of Colossians. He states it so clear. I'm talking about the tenor of a man's life. His overall conduct, attitude, and spirit. Years ago down in Ball, Louisiana, I had Henry down to preach a three-day meeting for me. And Henry, I introduced him to our folks. And two of our members drove trailway buses. And Henry went over with them. one day to see where they worked. He was interested in it, so he went over there, and as he walked around and back, he looked at this bus, and on the front of it, above the windshield, was a screen going all the way across, like a television screen. And in that little window, it said New Orleans. And he asked one of my members, he said, well, what's that mean, up there? And he said, well, that's the destination. That's where this bus is going. And so Henry said, so you just, when the people get on the bus, you get in there, find the closest route and drive to New Orleans. He said, no, no, that's not what we do. He said, we have a route fixed. And he said, on the way to New Orleans, he said, we'll drive east for a ways, and then we'll go south for a little bit, and then we go back west for a ways. And he said, one particular place, we turn around and even go north for a little bit. But he said, generally speaking, we're going to New Orleans. Now that's the way it is when I'm talking about your walk of life. I'm not talking about one individual instance. Wouldn't you hate to go back and read about David and his sin, looking on this woman and doing all the things that he did and premeditating the murder of her husband so he could have her and so on in Scripture. Wouldn't you hate to form your opinion of David based on that alone? Even so, we don't want to pick out anybody and pick out a certain instance in their life and say, this man's not saved. He wouldn't do that if he was saved. Well, I can show you in the Scripture where most of these men that God called dear to His heart did exactly those things. Or worse. And so when I'm talking about this, I'm talking about the tenor of your life. You know, Henry came back that evening and he brought a message on predestination. And he used those buses as an illustration of predestination. And there's a... God has a route fixed. And it's fixed for various reasons. And we're not going to have this smooth little ride all the way to glory. You've got persecutions to face. You have trials to face. And I tell you what, sometimes you're going north and not south. But the general direction is to be conformed to the image of Christ. In Romans 8, verse 29, Paul gives us the first of four things that God is working together for our good and His glory. He said, For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. God our Father is making. has made provision for his children through predestination, and he's predestined them to be conformed, changed into the likeness of his son. And that's what they're going to do. That's what they're going to be in the end. And this working of predestination is defined in Ephesians 1.5 as being predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. And then in Galatians 4, 5, and 6, he talks about this adoption of Christ, saying that Christ came to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of children. And because we're sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father, we're led by the Spirit. Those that are led by the Spirit, these are the sons of God, not led by the law, led by the Spirit. And there is in the calling and regeneration of God's people a work done in us enabling us to be partaker of this inheritance. And this conforming begins in us and continues in us until we die. This is the Christian walk of faith. Paul wrote a letter to the saints at Ephesus and listen to what he said. He said, I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. We know why we walked the way we walked before God came into our life, don't we? We know exactly what it is. I don't have to define it to you or show it to you. You know what it is. That's what we did. Well, he said, don't do that anymore. That's not hard to understand, is it? Quit doing what you were doing and do this. Don't walk like other Gentiles walk. They walk in the vanity of their mind. They walk in ignorance and darkness. He goes on to explain it in detail. Being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that's in them because of the blindness of the heart. And that's where God found me, what about you? Living what I thought was a life. I had a wife, I had three children, I had a good job, I had a promising future. My wife and I had joined a small church near where we lived, trying to live a so-called Christian life, trying to work and labor in that, what we called a church. We didn't know then the church was people, we thought it was a building. And my friend, I know it's hard to believe, but this is exactly what Antichrist religion is and how it works. Freewill works religion is Antichrist religion, and we were both ended up to our eyeballs trying to do this and trying to do that. We walked according to the course of this world, this doomed and depraved world, this fallen, sinful world. And we walked according to the prince of the power of the air. We did his bidding. Didn't know it, thought we were serving God. You know that rich young ruler, I thank him so often because I've been greeted that way by people in Armenian churches. Good brother, isn't that what they say? And I picture this man coming up. I mean, there was no hesitation in him. Wouldn't you think a man would hesitate before he walked right up into the face of Christ? Here he comes and he just walks right up to him and he said, good master. And Christ stopped him in his tracks, didn't he? He said, why callest thou me good? There's none good but God. You calling me God? Is that what you're saying? I tell you, we're so ignorant in religion, we don't realize how evil and wicked it is. Because it all sounds good. Looks good. And man looks on the outward countenance. That's how he looks. When the Apostle Paul preached the sinfulness of men, he wasn't describing the drunks and the dope addicts in the world. He was describing the average citizen. of any city, anywhere, at any time in this world. That's what he's describing. I'm going to read you just a couple of scriptures because this is the foundation part of this message. Listen to this. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Huh? Think about that. That's about everything you do, isn't it? It's sin. Any obedience that's not motivated by love is sin, because faith worketh by love. In fact, the Scripture says, he that loveth not knoweth not God. And then he talks to believers these regenerated sinners, and he said, you, hath he quickened who were dead. You were judged, and so on death row and in that respect dead, but you're dead spiritually. Don't have a clue who God is or what you're doing. I tell you, religious folks just going about. Boy, Paul was active and didn't know God. That's what he tells you. You had the quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. God comes into the life of chosen sinners and he arrests them. He puts an end of life as they knew it. It's over. It's over. He convinces that man of sin. He tells him what sin is. He shows him what it is. He gives him a taste of it. And boy, I tell you what, until he convinces you of sin, you have no idea what the word is. It's just a bunch of words. When God convinces a man of sin, he's ashamed. He's not proud anymore. You talk to men and they sound so proud of what they've done. We'd have testimony nights, and I'd hear people testify of what they've done for God. Boy, I look back on that, and myself included, look back on that, and my goodness. And in that work of grace, when God comes to a man and saves a man, in that work of grace, He shows us how that this peace of God was accomplished, and it sits in our conversion, these principles that will govern us till the day we die. It's all set up in the experience of grace. But there's still some who want to look to the laws of God. And my goal this morning is to show you something better. I told you about that restaurant they had down in one of the members of Marvin Stoniker's dad had a restaurant. And they had these, you've had them in restaurants before. They got a little half ear corn with a stick in it. And boy, they put some kind of a seafood spice in that butter. I don't know what it was, but that was the best buttered corn I ever put in my mouth. And you could smell it the minute you walked in the restaurant. And we were sitting next to a table, Kathy and I, They had this little boy, he was about three or four years old, he wasn't very old. And he ate his dinner and he was still gnawing on that corn cob. He done ate all the corn off of it and he's still holding it. And they wanted to get his coat on and he had this buttered corn all over him, you know. They tried to bribe him, they tried to sweet talk him, and boy he'd hang on that corn and had to. Get rid of the corn and put his jacket on. He wouldn't do it. He held on to that corn and they tried to correct him and he'd just squall and hold on to that piece of corn. And finally old man Stoniker came over and he said, I see you're having some trouble here. He said, would you mind if I help? And they said, well, we tried everything. He pulled out a Hershey bar. And boy, he dropped that corn. Something better. That's what it takes. That's what I want to do this morning. I'd like to show you something better than the law. What could be better than the law? Him who is the word. He's better. Why would I want to look to a law when God himself has come into the flesh and set before me a perfect life? And now I want to go back to the law who describes it in pictures and shadows. Why would I want to do that? Here's the man. Here's the perfection of it. And then I had another fellow, I told you about this. He told me, he said, I love the preaching of the gospel. He said, I really do. And he said, I understand how important it is. But he said, we need a little law. Well, let me tell you something. There is no little law. It's all or nothing. If you're going to go under that law in any respect, even as a guide, you better get a priest, a lamb, an altar, a tabernacle, you better get the whole nine yards. It's all or nothing. He tells us in Galatians, if you so much as be circumcised, you're under obligation to keep the whole law. You can't have a piece of it. And I'm going to tell you something. People pick and choose little pieces of the law because they think they can obey it. You can't even obey a piece of the law, let alone the whole thing. Everything that law demands of you has to be done with perfect love. Huh? Is everything you do by perfect love? But it was by Him. It was by Him. In Galatians 6.15, Paul writes, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything or uncircumcision. Will you obey the law or you didn't obey the law? But a new creation, a new creature, that's what matters. If God hasn't made you a new creature, you're not going to be able to do what I'm preaching this morning. You can't do it. Listen to this, verse 16. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God, or God's elect, His chosen, His bride, His church, wherever you choose to call it. Then he tells us again in Ephesians 2.10 that we're His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before ordained that we should walk in them. What's so good works? Love. faith, repentance. He said, you of the quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, you think you'd know the difference from being dead and being alive? Believers know the difference. But God intervened. Old Bruce said, God butted in. That's what he did. He'd leave this sinner to himself. Do you know what it is to be left to yourself? Oh, my soul, if you know something about sin, you know what that is, because you're the sinner. Our hearts are nothing but a cesspool of iniquity. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, And Christ said these are the things that defile a man, man's potential, what's in him. And the potential of man to sin is nearly limitless. These were men, religious men, that took our Lord, tortured Him, without a cause now, tortured Him, nailed Him to a cross, lied on Him, gambled over His clothes while He hung there in pain, laughed at Him while He hung there nailed to a cross, suffering for sinners. And this suffering Savior looked down on these same men, and He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. His elect were down there doing this. None good, the Scripture says, know not one. And yet, like a trained monkey, a man will get up and do this and do that because somebody told him he needed to do it to be holy, and so he does it. And then he considers himself holy because he did what the man told him to do. The truth of it is the Lord finds the sinner. He arranges His providence for this man to hear, because that's the means that He ordained to save him. And He arranges His providence. Faith don't just drop out of the air into a man's head and heart. Faith is the gift of God, His workmanship. It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And then I think on that, and I think about this. Oh, forgive this sinner for his lack of thanksgiving. Huh? I can't believe that I know these things, and I'm not 24-7 thankful. I need to be thankful, Russell, all the time. It needs to be foremost in my heart. When asked of a man to define the gospel, I couldn't do it. Could not give a reason for the hope that I thought I had. But God sent me a preacher and he told me about God's eternal purpose of grace. About appointing His Son to make full provision for His people. How God appointed His Son as the one mediator between God and man. Nobody else can make this peace, just Christ. Christ alone, He's the mediator. He told me about when the fullness of the time was come, how he sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive this inheritance of God. He told me how God ordained his son to be a representative and substitute and that his Obedience is my righteousness, and His death my atonement. He paid for my sins, paid for them in full. He told me that this man Jesus of Nazareth was God come into the flesh to save chosen sinners for the glory of His Father's name. And He was not willing that any of them should perish, though they were bent on it. Tried every day to do it. But he wasn't willing for any of those given him by his father, that they should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And so he called and gifted a preacher, arranged a meeting between him and that sinner, and then gave that man a hearing. Oh, how many have sat and listened to me and walked out that back door. Couldn't wait. Couldn't wait for the hymn to be sung. As soon as I finished and sat down, out the door, in the car and down the road. Not only did that man tell me the truth, but by the Spirit of the living God convinced me of it. Allowed me to see how God can be just and justifier of all that believe. How God can be righteous in his remission of sin. He allowed me, as Peter puts it, to taste that the Lord is gracious. That's what it takes. You want to walk a godly life, you have to taste of the grace of God. You have to taste it. It's not something you can just learn. You know, we used to, being taught, I was pretty fast at putting on shingles. And a guy said, how in the world did you get to where you could put them on that fast? And I said, it's not something you can learn. I said, you have to be born with it. Well, that's the way it is with this. You have to be born with it. Born again. Taste that the Lord is gracious. And then listen to this. He said, in you... Boy, I picture myself when he says that, don't you? In you. Picture Apostle Paul looking at you this morning, Walter, and saying, in you. Pointing his finger right at you. that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. How? In the body of his flesh through death to present you holy. You can't look yourself in the mirror and say, boy, there's a holy man. You can't do it. But in Christ you can. He presents us holy. And then listen to this, unblameable. Huh? Isn't that what God says about his children there in Romans chapter 8? Who is he condemneth? It's God that justifies. Unblameable. And what's this? Unreprovable. Can't find a flaw. Can't find anything in me to make it any better. That's how we stand in Christ. There's nothing in there to get... I get so sick of people talking about progressive sanctification. My son, he presented me unapprovable. That means you can't get no better than this. Perfect. But that's not all he did. On the third day, he raised his son from the dead. Sent an angelic escort. received Him up into glory and seated Him at the right hand of God. Imagine this innumerable company of angels up in glory all bowing down as He sat on the throne. Nobody sits on that throne but God. And Jesus Christ is God. He's the God-man. He's seated at the right hand of God. That's my representative. That's my righteousness. That's my hope. And why in the world would I want to go back to a law written in stone to find out how to live? And that's what they say. Well, how are you going to know what to do if you don't look at the law? Oh, my soul, it's almost innumerable, the exhortations in the New Testament, telling you how to live and how to walk and how to think and how to act. about any kind of a relationship that you might encounter in this world. Doesn't he talk there about husbands and wives? Children and parents? You want to know what to do? Read the Bible. My soul, the whole New Testament, every epistle is full of it. We went through them word by word, verse by verse. Well, I don't know what it says about marriage. You need to read the Bible. It'll tell you all about it. Oh, by one offering, he fulfilled the eternal will of God in redemption and sanctified a people once for all. Set them apart. Oh, but that's not all then. It raised him up into glory. He's sitting up there expecting to all of his enemies to be made his footstool. And that preacher told me God's preserving all of his elect until the day of Jesus Christ. Preserving them through trials and temptations and persecutions. Keeps them through the power of faith unto salvation. He told me that he ever liveth, Christ ever liveth to make intercession for the saints. He not only reconciled us to God, but reconciled us to his reconciliation. He made a peace, the scripture said, that passeth understanding. Oh, what a peace. He told me that if I sin, I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Basically, he told me what Paul told these Colossians, that Christ is all and in all. That preacher told me that his grace is sufficient. I don't need the law for redemption, and I don't need the law for a guide. His people are led by the Spirit who takes the things of Christ and shows it unto them. He told these Colossian saints that in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in Him. What's that mean? That means you don't need anything. You're complete in Him. Peace and provision. Now watch this. He said, now let the peace of God, not yours, His. Has God made peace in your soul? Through His mediator, has He made peace? Has that peace been established in you? Well, those principles are established in you too, if He did. His love and His grace. is at the end of our calling to see this experience of peace. And not ourselves only, but all those who make up the body of Christ were called into one body. Everything He did for me, He did for everybody in the church. No big I's and little U's in that church. They're all the same. And oh, thank God He called me into His body. I'd probably still be playing religion with the superstitious and the heathens where I was. Did He call you to this body? Here's what the Lord said, Come ye out from amongst them. Be ye separate, saith the Lord. But here's the end of it all. This peace of God is going to rule in our hearts. That's our rule of walk. That's our rule of faith. And here's the end of it all. Be ye thankful. Oh, be ye thankful. Listen to this verse over in Psalm 100. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, He is God. It is He that made us and not we ourselves. were his people and the sheep of his pasture. Now listen. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise. Be ye thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good, and his truth endureth to all generations. Let this poor sinner be thankful for every breath I take, and every step I walk, and every word I speak. Not only did the Lord save me and call me, but he also made me a preacher. Gave to me who least deserves it. An open door of utterance, ears to hear, eyes to see, a message to bring. What message? Christ is all. Hasn't changed a bit. From the first message I preached to now, Christ is all. Look to Him, trust in Him, lean on Him, stand in Him. And I think about it, how thankful I am, I could still be trying to get sinners to walk down an aisle and kneel down at some old beat up bitch. Still trying to get folks to join a church. Get folks to make a profession of faith. But like Paul, the Lord was pleased to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him. That's the only way you can. So here's my message to you and to me. Be ye thankful. And then Paul said this. He was thankful that God made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of enlightened saints. Now we can enter into worship and prayer. Now we can enter into his rest. And we're to put off the old man with his deeds. Put him off and put on the new man. I brought up in a poor family. It really was. My mother bought all my school clothes at a second-hand store. There's nothing wrong with the clothes. I mean, they weren't rags or anything. They were very clean and nice, but they were always a step behind as far as fashion went. It was last year's stuff, you know. Put it on kids' last and point at you. Just a step behind in style. And then when I was 16 years old, my grandfather died. We moved from Ohio back to Kentucky to take care of my dad's dad and mother. And she died first, and then when I was about 16 years old, my grandfather died. And I got up the next morning after he died, and my dad says, come with me. He never said, come with me. But he did that morning. I said, where are we going? He said, we're going to town. So I climbed in the car. We went down there, and he drove around town, turned here, turned there. Finally, he pulled up and parked. And we was right in front of a haberdashery, sold men's fine clothing. And I thought, what in the world's going on? And so we got out, went in there, and he said, son, he said, I want to get you a suit. I didn't have a clue. I never wore a suit in my life. You know, put on my best blue jeans I had and a shirt to go to church. That was it. I never had a suit. He said, I won't get you a suit. I didn't know what to do, what to look, what to do. He said, just look around here and find something you like. And I did, and didn't really see anything I liked. Finally, I looked way back in the back, and hanging back there on the rack was a suit that caught my eye. And naturally, it was the most expensive suit in the whole place. You know, back in the 60s, $500 was a lot of money. A lot of money. And that's what that suit cost. And he told that salesman, he said, well, bring it out here. They brought it out, tried it on me, did all that measuring. I'd never been measured for anything. He'd measure my arm length, you know, my leg length, my pants and all this, waist. And daddy paid him for it. And he said, come on, son, we're gonna go home. I said, well, what about the suit? He said, well, they'll call you when it's ready. I said, OK. I went, got in the car, got home. And when we left, we didn't tell Mom where we were going. And she was wondering, you know, what was going on. So I come home, and she come over to me, and she said, what have you two been up to? And I said, well, Dad took me to town and bought me a suit. And she got all excited, and she said, well, where is it? And I said, well, it's still up town. I said, it's not finished yet. But I said, he paid for it. It belongs to me. They said they'd call me when it was ready. And boy, they did. They called me. And I put that thing on. He thought I was a banker. Boy, I had that suit on. And I tell you, when I put it on, I didn't feel the same as I did before I put it on. It felt different. And I don't know why he this particular occasion he did that unless he just want in honor to his father who died. I guess he wanted me to look the best I could. But our father has purchased at a great price with food. It's not woven from common cloth. It's woven by the very nature of God. And he doesn't say To put on something that's not real. He said, put on the new man. The new man. Oh, my soul. What's that? Well, he tells us in another place, Paul said, put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put him on. Not what he did. Not going to put on what he did. We're going to put on him. Put Him, He's in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Not the law in you. He honored the law, He exalted the law. And you can't exalt it anymore or honor it anymore than you do when you look to Christ. Oh, when you look to Christ, now that suit, now look at Him. Boy, He ain't the same. He stands out now in the righteousness of Christ. clothed me from head to toe, fits me to a T. Somebody in Christ, nobody in myself. Isn't it amazing how what you put on changes how you look? And my father would have me to honor Christ who died for me. by putting on that new man. That's what's required. And that's what he's talking about when he said, let the peace of God rule in your hearts. That's what he's talking about. Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put Him on. Try walking that way. We're complete in Him. Everything you need for this walk is in Him. Oh, I hope the Lord will convince you of what I said this morning. Ask him a question.