Go with me, if you would, back
to Colossians chapter three. Colossians three. We will, Lord willing, be celebrating
Thanksgiving this coming Thursday. So that was on my mind and on
my heart when I started looking for this message. And I came
across these verses here in Colossians 3, and they blessed me so much. So they're gonna be our text
tonight. Colossians 3, let's read from
verse 14 to verse 17. Colossians 3 14, it says, and above all these things put
on charity. That means love, which is the
bond of perfectness and let the peace of God rule in your hearts
to the, which also you are called in one body. and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord. And 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. He said, let love be your bond. Let love be your bond. Love for Christ, love for each
other. That's our love. That's the root
of our love. Love for the Lord Jesus Christ,
love for each other. That is the tie that binds. And he said, let peace, The peace
that is of God, the peace that only God can give. I love this. He said, let that peace rule
in your hearts. If we can just really enter into
that, let that peace rule in your heart, whatever's going
on in your heart, let peace, the peace of God rule over it. He said, let the word of Christ
Christ, who is the word and the word that Christ has given. Like
we heard this morning, you can't separate the two Kenya, whether
it's the written word of the Holy scriptures or whether it's
set to music in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Let the
word of the Lord Jesus Christ dwell in you richly. That means live in you. And he said, whatever you do in word
or deed, be thankful in it. Whatever you do in word, whatever you do in deed, Be thankful
in it. Give thanks to God and the father
by Christ Jesus, our savior. He said in the name of Christ,
Jesus, our savior, love, peace, and thankfulness, love, peace,
and thankfulness. Love is of God. It truly is. Love truly is of God. Just listen
to these. Okay. For God so loved. He gave the gift of his son. He gave the gift of salvation
to his people for God. So loved greater love had no
man. He laid down his life for his
friends. God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Who can separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord, the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation. That means the bloody victim
for our sins. Love is of God. Peace is of God. It truly is. Peace is of God. In Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes
were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ for he is
our peace. Do you ever have your peace ruined? Do you ever have your peace upset?
We know this so well, everything can be fine. It can be fine. And then all of a sudden it is
shattered just in a moment. Everything that was happy and
good and peaceful is just. Every time that happens, remember
he is our peace. Do you want to go back to peace?
Go back to him. He is our peace. He is our peace. That scripture
I was quoting went on to say, having broken down the middle
wall of partition and having abolished our enmity in his flesh,
he made both one and he reconciled us to God in his body on the
cross. So making peace, peace with God, Glory to God in the highest and
on earth, peace. Goodwill toward men. The song
says, heart the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King,
peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. I love that line. Therefore being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He is called the God of all peace. I love that. Solomon represents
the Lord Jesus Christ. And in his reign, he had peace
on all sides. Everybody had their own vine,
their own fig tree, and it was total peace. And that's Christ. Love is of God. Peace is of God. And I said both of those to say
this, thankfulness is of God. We're about to celebrate Thanksgiving. Thankfulness is of God. Rather than quoting it like I've
been doing here, let me show it to you. Let's go to a few
scriptures here. Go with me to second Corinthians
nine. Second Corinthians nine. Verse eight, it says, and God is able to make
all grace abound toward you that you always having all sufficiency
in all things may abound to every good work as it is written. He hath dispersed abroad. He hath given to the poor. His righteousness remaineth forever. Now he that ministereth seed
to the sower, both minister bread for your food and multiply your
seed sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness. Verse
11 says, being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, which causeth. Through us, thanksgiving to God. He creates that in the hearts
of his people. He causes that when he creates
it in his people, it's there. When he puts it there, it's there.
And his people respond to his work with great thankfulness.
They truly do have thankfulness. They cry out to him with great
thankfulness in joy and gladness. They cry out to him. Turn with
me over to Isaiah 51. Isaiah 51 verse 3 says, for the Lord shall comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste
places and he will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like
the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found
therein. Thanksgiving and the voice of
melody. He'll put it there. He'll create
it there for all of his people. Joy, gladness, singing, the voice
of melody. He'll put that in their hearts
and they will rejoice in thankfulness to God for it. So he creates
that response. Love is of him. Peace is of Him,
thankfulness is of Him. It's of Him, and I'm so glad
for that because if He did not create it in me, I would not
be thankful. You ever feel like the most unthankful
thing? You just think about all the
Lord does, all the Lord gives, and you realize, I'm not thankful. This is a pitiful illustration,
but you know how somebody will do something for you, give you
something. Have you ever thought, well, I need to send them a thank
you note. And then you forget. It's like, I got to send them
a thank you note. And then it's like a burden to
you. Well, I got to get that thank you note written. I have
to. Well, doesn't that show just
the nature of man to God? but in His people, in His goodness,
He will put thankfulness in us to Him. Turn with me to a few
more here. Go to Psalm 147. Psalm 147, verse
seven, it says, Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving. Sing praise upon the harp unto
our God. Sing to Him with thanksgiving.
As I was writing this out, just thinking about the coming week
and just the title of the holiday, and I enjoyed this so much. It is such a good thing to give
thanks unto the Lord. So simple, just so simply to
give thanks unto the Lord. It says, sing unto the Lord with
thanksgiving. That's how we are to sing. And
that's how God's people want to sing. We want to sing with
thanksgiving. Turn with me to Psalm 116. Psalm 116 verse 17, it says,
I will offer to thee the sacrifice
of thanksgiving and we'll call upon the name of the Lord. That's
all that we have to offer him. The sacrifice of thanksgiving.
That's the only sacrifice we have to offer him. The sacrifice
of blood was made by Christ. The sacrifice for sin was made
by the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot offer him anything
acceptable to him. All we can offer him is the sacrifice
of thank you. Thanksgiving. Thank you. Go to
Psalm 107. Psalm 107 verse one says, Oh,
give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth
forever. And I love verse two. It says,
let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Whom he hath redeemed
from the hand of the enemy. Let the redeemed of the Lord
say so. Oh, give thanks to him for that. He's good, His mercy
endures forever. One more, go to Psalm 100. Psalm
100, verse 4, it says, Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him, and bless
His name. For the Lord is good, His mercy
is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations. That's what God produces in the
hearts of his people. Thanksgiving, thanksgiving, love,
peace, and thanksgiving. All right, now go with me back
to our text, Colossians chapter three. There are so many things that
we could declare our thanks for. I was thinking about listing
things and we have already declared so many of them. We just did
in the verses we just read, but we have reasons to give thanks
on every page of this book. We have reasons to give thanks
to our God. Just turn any page and we will
find great reason to give thanks to Him. What God has done for
us, eternity is not long enough to give Him thanks for it. We
will give Him thanks for all eternity. Thanks be unto God
for His unspeakable gift, all eternity. So for this message,
we're not gonna try to think of everything that we can give
thanks to Him for. We're just gonna give thanks for the things
that are written down in Colossians chapter three. All right, there
are some things, I wanna look at the verses leading up to this
text that we just read. And we're just gonna give thanks
for Colossians three. All right, thanks for what he's
written from verse one to verse 17. So verse one says, And I
ask the Lord to let you enter into this, okay? Colossians 3,
verse 1 says, if ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things
which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God. Now think about this. We are risen with Christ. Is that not glorious? We are,
how amazing is it that he arose from the grave? We are risen with Christ. He died to put our sin away and
he did indeed put our sin away. And the proof of that is he arose
from the dead. Had he not put sin away, the
wages of sin is death. And had he not put it away, he
would have stayed there, but because it's gone and dealt with
and done, he arose from the grave. And all of his people who had
their sin taken away from them in him have risen with him. That makes me want to be thankful.
We are risen with him and verse one says he is seated on the
throne. This thought has just grabbed
me so many times since the first time I thought of it. What if
somebody else was seated on the throne? What if it was the adversary? Thank God he's the one seated
on the throne. He's good. His mercy endures
forever. He told John, whenever John saw
him on the Isle of Patmos, John fell down like a dead man. The
Lord put his hand on him and said, fear not. I'm the one who
sits on the throne. It is I. I'm the one who holds
the keys of hell and death. Fear not. So he is the one seated on the
throne. That one verse is worth a lifetime
of pondering. Thank God we are risen with Him. And thank God He's the one who's
seated on the throne. We give thanks for that. Verse
two says, set your affection on things above, not on things
on the earth, for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ
in God. Our life is hid with Christ in
God, right in the absolute center of God, father, son, and spirit. He said, you don't have to worry
about the things of this world. You don't have to worry about
the things of this world. You don't have to dwell on, you don't
have to give your emotions to, you don't have to give the thoughts
of your mind to anything in this world because you're not of the
world. If you're risen with Christ,
your life is hid with him in God. That's that's good reason
to give thanks. You can spend all your time just
dwelling on and giving your emotions to and giving your thoughts to
glory with him. That'll make a child of God thankful,
make you want to set aside some time to be thankful. Make cause
me to just set aside a minute of time to be thankful, just
to say thank you. Verse four. When Christ who is
our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. Does that make you thankful? Christ who is our life shall
appear. Thank God. We can't wait. We
cannot wait. Thank God. Why can't we wait?
Why are we looking so forward to it? Why do we thank God for
that? Here's the reason why. When He
appears, we're going to appear with Him. In the clouds to meet Him in
the air, so shall we ever be with the Lord. You can't get
your mind around that. But when it happens, we're gonna
be thankful. I'm telling you, when gravity
lets go of us, And we rise to meet him in the air. There is
going to be a heart and an attitude of thankfulness. Thank God. Verse five says mortified. Therefore your members, which
are upon the earth fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection,
evil concupiscence. That means lust. and covetousness,
which is idolatry for which things sake the wrath of God cometh
on the children of disobedience in the, which you also walk sometime
when you lived in them, he said, kill the sinful deeds of the
flesh, fornication, wicked thoughts, lust, kill those things. Put an end to those things in
your body. Should we just move on? The same man who said that to
the Colossians said to the Romans, I would love to do that. I just
can't figure out how. I just cannot find a way to do
that. Even if I can stop those things
from entering into my deeds, and we should, fornication should
not be. If you want to bring a spanking,
continue in it. You know, he's about to mention
anger and all those things. If you want a spanking, continue
in it. From God, we don't. But how do I stop these things?
Even if I stop it from my deeds, how do I stop it from entering
into my mind? How can I kill these things?
All that I see in myself is a wretched, sinful, wicked man. How could
I possibly kill all those deeds from my body? To that, this is
what the gospel answers. You can't, but Christ can. And He did on the cross of Calvary. Look at verse three again. It
says, you are dead. He said, kill those things. Kill
those members of your body. You're dead. Your life is hid
with Christ in God. Everything that needs to be killed
in us, it died with Him when He paid the price of our judgment
for us. Everything. Thank God. Does that make me want to continue
in sin and these things willingly? And God forbid. But thank God
He took care of it. We praise Thee, O God, for the
Son of Thy love, for our Lord Jesus who died and is now gone
above. Hallelujah, Thine the glory.
Hallelujah, amen. Knowing that, knowing that Christ
did that for us, that will make us want to try as hard as we
can to put off our old wicked man of the flesh. That doesn't
make us want to dive into it. That makes us want to try to
put him off. and put on the new man of the spirit of God. Look
at verse eight. He said, but now ye also put off all these
anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your
mouth. Don't you want to put those things
off? Lie not one to another. Verse
nine says, I don't want to lie to you. I don't want you to lie
to me. Seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds,
Love, peace, and thanksgiving in the heart will make a child
of God want to do that. Even though he failed so miserably,
it'll make him want to do that. That love and peace and thanksgiving
of God constrains us. It gives us a, we grieve over
what we are. We grieve over what we feel when
God puts a new heart in his people and he creates this new man in
his people. That new heart and that new man
makes them want to be like Christ. We do. We want to be like the
Lord Jesus Christ. The reason is because that new
heart and that new man is Christ. in His people, and they desire
to be like Him because the Father is conforming them to the image
of Christ. And every time they realize that,
they cry, thank God. One of these days, we're gonna
look just like Jesus Christ. I don't look like Him now, but
we will be conformed to His very image. So thankful. Verse nine
says, Lie not one to another, seeing
that you 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, where there's neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian bond nor
free, but Christ is all and in all." Christ is all and in all. Thank God. Thank God. He is everything and He's in
everything. He's behind everything. He's
doing everything. Thank God. Verse 12 says, put
on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels
of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering,
put on therefore as the elect of God. God chose us. Thank God. Thank God. Why us? Why us? I see no good reason in this
flesh for Him to choose us. The only good reason that there
is is in the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we want to see
the good reason, we're going to have to look to Him. But God chose us. And how do
we know that? He revealed Christ to us. Like Manoah's wife said, she
said, if he intended to kill us, he would have never revealed
all these things to us. He would have never revealed
Christ to us. So thank God for his election.
Thank God that he chose centers like us. What did he choose us
to, what did he elect us to? Holiness, holiness. mercy, grace, humility, meekness,
patience. That's what we've been given
in Christ. That's what we get to put on in him. When we put
on these things, we put on verse 12 says, therefore, as the elect
of God, holy and beloved bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, long suffering for bearing one another and forgiving
one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Christ forgave
us. He forgave us by shedding his
own blood for us. Thank God. Now unto him that
loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. He said,
that's all the reason we need to be humble and patient and
forgiving with each other. And what the apostle Paul is
telling the Colossians here is, and this is what I want us to,
I want to end on this note and leave us with this. He's saying
here, if we will think on these things and dwell on these things,
and if we will do that, if we will think on these things and
dwell on these things as we go through this week and go through
this holiday, it'll produce something wonderful in our hearts. If we will dwell on what Christ
has done for us, what God has done for us through Christ, it
will produce love. It will produce peace. It will
produce thanksgiving. So verse 14 says, above all these
things. Put on love. Which is the bond
of perfectness. We have been given it. He said,
put it on, put on love. Verse 15 and let the peace of
God rule in your hearts to the which also you are called in
one body. and be thankful. We've been given
peace. We've been given thankfulness.
Put it on. He said, verse 16, 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. He's saying, encourage
each other in these things. Encourage each other, admonish
each other. Verse 17 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. And we do, we do, we
give thanks to God and the father by him, through him, in him,
because of him, he is all and he is in all. May that be the
tenor of our heart and mind. May that rule our attitude as
we celebrate, spend time with our
families this week. May that truly, truly rule our
heart and rule our mind, that love, that peace and thanksgiving. Lord, put it there, put it there.
All right. Let's all stand together. Brother
Dwight, you come.