The Gospel to All Creation - Preaching the Gospel to Yourself

If you would please turn with me to the Book

of Calautions, And while you turn there, I'm gonna let

you know. We're gonna read God's Word today, pray, and

then get into it. But a couple of nights ago,

I had a dream that I lost half my notes

and realized that halfway through preaching. So part of my

prayer today is that I don't that doesn't happen. I

checked already there over here, and we're all good to go.

So we're gonna be looking at Colossians if you would

turn there with me, Colossians chapter three. If you do

not have a Bible, we actually have ones that are

for free for you to take and keep. They're super nice.

They're out in the lobby. Please go grab one, keep

one for yourself. Here at the Reads, we regularly go

through books of the Bible, and even if we're doing

a more topical series, it's still very heavy and rooted

in the Gospel in our Bibles, and so it's very

important that you actually have a Bible in your hand

and so we can hear God's word and go through

it together. But Calautions chapter three, we're going to read it,

pray and get into it.

Sound good. Let's do it.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the

things that are above, where Christ is seated at the

right hand of God. Set your minds on things that

are above, not on the things that are on earth.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with

Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears,

then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death.

Therefore, what is earthly in you sexual morality, impurity, passion, evil, desire,

and coveteousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the

wrath of God is coming. And these you too once

walked when you were living in them. But now you

must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and

obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another,

seeing that you have put off the old self with

its practices, and have put on the new self, which

is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of

its creator. Here there is not Greek and jew circumcised

and uncircumcised, Barbarian Scythian slave free, but Christ is all

and in all. Put on then as God's chosen ones,

holly and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint

against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you,

so you also must forgive. And above all these, put

on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And let the.

Peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed

you were in one body, and be thankful. Let the

word of Christ Christ dwell in you, richly, teaching and

admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns

and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything

in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to

God the Father through him, this is God's word. Let

us pray, Lord, we thank you for your gospel. We

thank you for your good news that trance forms our life,

that enables us to put off the old self and

put on the new self that is being transformed and

conformed into the image of Christ. And only because of

the power of your spirit, by the truth of your

gospel and your word. So Lord, we just asked that

you've already been working on our hearts, preparing our hearts

throughout the things that we've gone through this week, the

Lord that this is the place that we needed to

be to hear your eternal, truthful, never perishing word. So Lord,

please help us hear this word, remove our blindness and

our deafness, that we would hear the truth and we

would respond to you. We thank you, Lord, We give

you this time in Jesus name. Everyone said, Amen.

Jesus died for me.

Those last four words were the last four words that

Charles Spurgeon spoke on his deathbed to his wife.

Right before he died.

The last four words on his lips were Jesus died.

From me.

And Charles Spurge, if you're not familiar with him, is

one of the most He's highly regarded in all of

church history as one of the greatest preachers, known for

his powerful gospel proclamation to others, and even when it

came time for him to die, the last four words

on his lips where Jesus died for me. Now, this

last week, my wife and I watched a kind of

interesting movie. It was a movie about missionaries several hundred

years ago in Japan, and it was during a time

of great persecution.

Everyone While this persecution is going on.

These Christians are being rounded up, and they're given the

option to renounce Christ publicly by stepping on an image

of Christ. And if they were to do that, they'd

be set free, they'd be spared suffering, and and they

would get to keep their life.

And some.

The ones who refused to deny Christ suffered horrific consequences,

ultimately leading to their death.

Those who chose to suffer.

And die had their minds uh, And it's played out

through the movie that they keep saying like, but when

we die, there's paradise, right, talking to to the missionaries,

but when we die, we get to go to paradise, right,

Those who who who chose to suffer and die had

their minds set on a paradise to come. But in

this in this movie, all of those people who who

chose to deny Christ or renounce Christ was because they

their minds and and their their focus was set on

ending the suffering. Now, so those who chose the suffering

die rather than deny Christ were preaching the truth of

the Gospel to themselves.

Jesus died from me, and I know what's on the

other side.

Those who denied Christ were just trying to put an

end to the suffering that they were currently enduring. Why

this is important, why I'm even bringing this up is

we started a brand new series last week called The

Gospel to All Creation, and last week we simply looked

at what the good news is the fact that the

Gospel is good news. And now this week We're gonna

turn our attention to something that I believe is actually

one of the most important yet neglected practices of Christians today,

that is of preaching the Gospel to yourself.

Preaching the Gospel to yourself.

Many Christians treat the Gospel kind of like a one

time use type of thing, like Okay, I got my

I got my fix today. A lot of people treat

it like okay, I just I can fill up my

gas tank and I'll be able to run on it forever.

The Gospel is much like gas and that you need

gas in the tank to even start the car. That

would be salvation, but you also need to keep gas

in the car to sustain you until you actually make

it to your final destination. But many Christians put the

Gospel in their tank and then basically try and see

how long they can run and what ends up happening

is they start off relying on the gospel, trusting in

the truth of the gospel, but somewhere along the line,

they start up relying on it, and they start trusting

in their own strength and their own works. They initially

had the truth, they initially believed the gospel, but at

some point, at some point, they stopped and they started

trying to trust that they can make it on their own.

Because of that, a lot of people are.

On their journey or on the way, and then all

of a sudden they run out, They have some kind

of breakdown along the side of the road, and they

need other believers to come alongside them and preach the gospel,

refeel them once again, remind them of the truths of

the gospel, to get them going again. Some of us

might do all right because we regularly come to church

where the Gospel is preached. But the reality is, for

the Christian you need the Gospel every day to make

it all the way.

And it can sound a little cheesy, but it is

the truth.

You need the Gospel every day to make it all

the way. Now I need to clarify, because the God

Gospel is sufficient to save you completely from the moment

you believe. But the reason we need to continue to

preach the Gospel to ourselves is because until Christ comes

back or we go to him, we're going to constantly

be tempted, tempted to resort to salvation by works, tempted

to resort to trying to save ourselves by our own strength,

will be tempted to compromise on our faith, tempted, or

maybe we'd just become distracted and choked out or start

to just despair because of the suffering that we encounter

in this life. But the answer to all of those

problems and every problem you face in this life can

be answered by preaching the Gospel to yourself and believing it.

The gospel message preached regularly to ourselves is how we persevere.

Until the end.

Now, how many have you ever heard the populace saying

life's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

Very worldly thinking, Now here's the deal.

It's fair if you're earthly and you think that there's

nothing really better on the side or on the other side,

that we go into nothingness, or who knows what's on

the other side, so I better hedge my bets, get

it all now enjoy it while I can.

Stop and smell the roses.

But a lot of us realize that, yes, there are

things to stop and enjoy, but also.

Sometimes there's not a lot of roses to be smelling.

Sometimes it's life is.

Most of the time, this life is hard and they're

suffering and frustration. And that doesn't all the time come

from the outside. Sometimes that's coming from our own hearts.

Are the disappointment. We disappoint ourselves, we let ourselves down,

We can't even measure up to our own standard. So

really this advice is not great advice to keep you going,

to get you through this life full of woes and suffering.

But as we saw last week, the god man Jesus

Christ rose from the dead, proving that death is not

the end and in fact, for those who put their

faith in Christ, there is a glorious destination awaiting them.

Because of that truth.

For the believer, it's actually the destination that gets you

through the journey. The only way you are going to

get through life is by having your mind and focus

set on the destination to come. It's preaching the truth

of the Gospel to ourselves in every situation that helps

us to endure until the end where Christ comes or

before then when we go to him. And in our

text today, we're going to be looking at a great

example of kind of what it looks like to preach

the Gospel to yourself. In this text, the apostle Paul

is writing to a church and he is going to

remind them of the truths of the Gospel and how

that should shape their minds, shape their focus, and ultimately

shape their lives. Now today, I believe it's going to

be very practical and Lord Willing impactful and very helpful

for our life as we not only look at what

the Gospel is, but actually how it's meant to impact

our life. So in our text, we're gonna see kind

of three big things. Preaching the Gospel to yourself means

prioritizing the gospel. It means putting off the old self

by the gospel and putting on the new self by

the gospel. So we're gonna start with the first thing

we see, and that is prioritizing the gospel. Prioritizing the gospel.

Let's look at the first couple of verses. If then

you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that

are above where Christ is seated at the right hand

of God. Set your minds on things that are above,

not on things that are on earth. For you have

died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also

will appear with him in glory. So Paul starts with

the Gospel. He reminds them of the life that these

believers have in Christ. If you've put your faith in

the finished work of Christ by believing that He died

and was raised on your behalf, Paul says, your life

isn't over. In fact, it's just begun. Your old life

might be over, but your new one is just starting.

It's the beginning of your new life in Christ, your.

New life that has its priorities set and shaped by

the things above, not by earthly things. That is a

life that is prioritized by the truths of the Gospel.

Paul tells them to set their mind on things above

and to seek the things that are above, not on

things of the earth. And those Christians that we talked

about earlier, those who endured to the end and endured

the suffering, could do so because their minds were set

on things above.

It was a beautiful picture.

They're like, no matter what we're about to go through,

we got paradise waiting us.

Right.

The Christians who buckled under the pressure had their minds

set on things of this world and just ending the

suffering that was going on now and this week, I

was actually trying to process and think through, like how

how could I deal with the fear that comes with

sharing the Gospel with others.

That's a very present, that's a very real thing.

Many of us struggle to get over the fear of

sharing our faith, sharing our hope, sharing our gospel. And

many times you don't want to share the gospel really

because it just might be uncomfortable. We don't want to

share the gospel because it might be uncomfortable. But I

realized even then that the answer right then is what

I needed, which which was to preach the Gospel to

myself in that moment I needed to be reminded of

is the Gospel that I am going to spend and

eternity being comforted, So I think I can afford a

couple minutes of being uncomfortable. Preaching the Gospel to ourselves

reminds us of reality. It reminds us of the truth

in Christ. And I heard a pastor say a long

time ago, Christians spend too much time listening to themselves

instead of talking to or preaching to themselves.

Think about that.

Christians spend too much time listening to themselves rather than

preaching or or talking to themselves. We let our feelings,

our problems, and maybe even our own logic rule and

control us, rather than letting the truth of the Gospel

found in God's Word shape, rule and inform our lives.

Look there's Romans twelve to two says, do not be

conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal

of your mind, that by testing you may discern what

is the will of God, what is good and acceptable

and perfect. Now, the reality is that many of us

conform to this world by conforming to the things or

thoughts around us, rather than being transformed by renewing our

mind with the truth of the Gospel. God's word is,

especially in scripture, is oftentimes described as a sword. And

that's because the truth of God's Word isn't there just

to block attacks, but to strike down lies and to

kill sin. God's word is meant to go on the

offensive to our old self. And because of that many

cases it is offensive to our old self. Think about it,

your old self selfish. And so what does God's word say,

Come die? Our old self wants to be in control,

and so we're anxious and we worry. But what is

God's words say. It says God is in control, So

do not worry. Our old self loves our sin, and

God's word pulls no punches and says kill it.

When you seek.

First His kingdom and righteousness, when you seek the things above.

When you set your minds on things above, we begin

to live in light of the truth. We preached the

Gospel to ourselves to remind ourselves of the truth in Christ,

that our sins are forgiven, that we've been made holy,

that we've been brought near to God. A practical example

of this is I, probably like many of you, have

wrestled and struggled in my own Christian walk with the

feeling of condemnation and shame and guilt for things very

in the past to present. I'll be driving down the

road and one day it just hits me, It's like

remember that, and I'm like I do, and then I'm

stuck once again feeling condemned. But if I'm a believer.

That was not from my Lord, that was from the accuser.

That was from Satan.

Trying to tempt me to despair and tell me of

the guilt within.

The only remedy that I have found.

Is to preach the gospel to myself. It's what God's

word prescribes. Look at this Romans eight one. There is

therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

I have clung to this verse. I don't have another option.

I have two options, feel condemned or believe this verse.

I'm going to tell you I choose to believe this verse.

I may feel condemnation, but God's Gospel tells me in Christ,

that is no longer the case. No longer the case.

I need the good news. So once I've preached that

to myself, I gotta believe it. Choose to believe it

more than any of the other voices or circumstances of

my life and what they might be saying. And I

actually think this is it's kind of funny I was

seeing about I didn't put in my notes, But this

is literally the example that Paul gives us of faith.

As God comes to Abraham says, Hey, I know you're

like super old, but you're gonna have a baby.

And it says even though.

Abraham looked at his own life and was like, I'm

old and it might as well be dead, and my

wife is just as old, I don't see how any

of this is possible.

Are gonna happen?

All the circumstances of his life said not possible. The

alternative was God had spoken, and Abraham believed that, and

that was his faith on display. So really, when we

come down to it, when we come down to these

competing voices, God's word, my own of the world.

Who will I believe myself, the world or God?

We need to take our own thoughts and conform them

to Christ. Capture every single one of your thoughts and

bring them into alignment with Christ. Now, as a Christian,

this is not something you can expect to happen by

being passive.

Man, I wish that was the case. It would be

so much easier, wouldn't it the case?

There is an intentional, spirit empowered, gospel freed mind shift

that's going on here. You're choosing to seek and set

your mind on things above versus your default of seeking

and setting your minds on earthly things. This entire passage

that we're looking at is not one of passivity, but

of intentional action. We already read it and we'll see them.

But we're to be setting our mind on and seeking,

and putting on, and putting off, and putting to death

and putting away.

It's a lot of language of action and intentionality. And

here's the deal.

Before Christ, you were stuck in these ways. You could

not help but be earthly. But here's the good news you.

If you've put your faith in Christ, you have been

raised with Christ. The old you is dead and gone.

Your life is with Him now, and so now you're

called to live according to the life that you have

been given. The Gospel can truly change everything in your life, everything,

And this is why we can't forget it. The old

you will try to pull pull you into the same

old lies, same old ways. But when you preach the

Gospel to yourself regularly or in those moments, you refute

those lies and instead remember that you were set free

because of the Gospel. How many of you are living

in bondage still and you ought not be. You've been

set free, and you're still believing the lie that you're

enslaved to that sin, that addiction, that former passion, whatever

you want to call it.

If you put your faith in Christ, you have been set.

Free because of what he did. This is why we

need a daily This is why we need to preach

the Gospel to ourselves first thing in the morning, at

every opportunity that every problem we face, we should ask

how does.

The Gospel deal with this?

And just for a side note, You're going to grow

in your understanding of what God's word says if you

do that, to start asking questions and go searching, go

seeking on the things above. What's helpful is if we've

already been said our minds on things above, if we

make this a regular practice of our life, how much

faster will this happen? How much faster will this come? Sometimes,

like I think, by God's grace, he lets us just

continue to go on the same cycle over and over

and over and over again until we finally go like,

I give up, I'm tired of doing this my way

it's not working. How can we change it? Keep resorting

to my old ways? Lord, I need you to step

in and I'm gonna trust you. I'm gonna obey you

and I'm done with my old self. I heard of

another preacher who before he became a preacher, he was

actually a medical doctor who successful of it.

And when he.

Decided to go into ministry instead of being a doctor,

his wife asked him, what makes you think you can

preach to others? And I heard it this week and

I love it, he told his wife, because I preach

to myself, and I love that. Because we were to

be just regularly already preaching the Gospel to ourselves, which

we already need so badly, how much more ready would

we be to share the Gospel with those around us?

Oh hey, I was dealing with that problem too. Oh hey,

I've been wrestling with that lately too. Oh yeah, I

read that same thing, and man, it was messing me

up inside. But how much greater, how much easier an

opportunity if we were already in the practice of opening

our mouths to ourselves to then turn around and open

our mouths to other people, which were going to get

to that a couple.

Of weeks within the next couple of weeks.

But that's why it's just it's so helpful to see

some of these foundational things because they set us up

in the right course, in the right direction from the

very beginning. When you think about it, also, we'd just

maybe be less bothered by the things of this world.

When we remember that our.

Hope isn't even in this world, our life isn't really

even in this life. It is with Christ, who's up there,

who's above, when he appears, that our life will then

really be real. It's like the famous hymn says, turn

your eyes upon Jesus. First step, turn your eyes upon Jesus.

They've been on something else.

So step one, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full

in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will

go or grow strangely dim in the.

Light of His glory and grace.

That's what it means to preach the Gospel to ourselves.

That means to prioritize and keep our minds on the

very thing that brought us life in the first place.

That is, our mind and life is set on the

good News of Jesus Christ. If you really think about it,

really quickly, if you were to actually have your mind

focused and set on things above, on the Gospel regularly,

how much would immediately change in your life? How much

would that immediately change your focuses what you spend your

time on. We worry about what you complain about, maybe

even what you love. We had our minds set on

things above. How much would that affect how you live now?

And actually, that's kind of where Paul goes next, as

you're told that the reality of this good news should

and does impact our life. Each time we're told to

do something here, it's not by our own striving to

accomplish these things. It's by looking to and believing that

this is what the Gospel actually has accomplished. And now

I'm going to walk in it. Now, I'm going to

live it out. I'm free to walk out of my

sinful life and into my new life in Christ because

we've been raised with Christ, because we died with Him,

and now our life is with Him while we wait.

For his return. What does it look like for us

to live today?

That's where he goes next, which is putting off the

old self by the gospel. And I put to buy

the gospel in there because we just don't think about it.

We're like, oh, I'll just stop being me, I'll just

stop being the old me.

I was like, no, no, no.

The only reason you're not gonna be the oldie. Is

because of what he did, is because of the Gospel.

So it's by the gospel that you're gonna put off

and buy the gospel you're going to put on. That's

me summarizing the next twenty minutes. Look at this verse

five and six.

Put to death?

Therefore, what is earthly in you? Sexual morality, impurity, passion?

And you'd be like, oh, man, that's sad. We're not

allowed to be passionate. And I looked it up, and.

What it is is it's really getting as wrongly ordered affections.

Wrongly order affections, evil, desire, coveteousness, which is idolatry. On

account of these, the wrath of God is coming. So

mindset on earthly things is also a mind that is

set on putting to death what is earthly in us?

When your mind is set on the gospel, your tolerance

for the sins that put Jesus on the cross will change.

How can you continue to live in the sins for

which Christ suffered and died for? Like when we actually

meditate on that, that should change us.

That should do something in us.

These are the sins in which God is going to

come and judge on the day of judgment, and it's

what Jesus saved us from. So we are to put

them to death in us to no longer have those

things in us as believers.

Until Jesus returns.

We are yet to be completely perfected because of our

new life in Christ.

We've been set free from sin. And while we're.

Waiting for him, we're to be sanctified, and we're sanctified

by the Holy Spirit, which is just to be made

into his image, more and more made to look more

like Jesus. As we're putting the old us to death.

Here we preach the Gospel to ourselves, reminding ourselves that

it isn't who we are anymore, that sinful behavior no

longer has any power and is no longer welcome in

my life.

But again, this isn't passive.

Paul says, to put to death what is earthly in

you put it to death.

But how many of us still cling to and are

comfortable with the earthly things? Many? And it hurts. It's unfortunate.

We're comfortable with all kinds of sins and idolatry. But

Paul says, because of the Gospel, it's time to put

those things to death. Look at this verse seven and eight.

In these you two once walked when you were living

in them, but now you must put them all away.

Look at this list anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene

talk from your mouth.

I think it's helpful that we slow down.

When we read those normally read We read those lists

and we want to zip right by them, like no, no, no, no, no

no no.

That's for you Christian. So what does this mean. It

means for the Christian you are no longer to walk

in these ways. You're a believer. That is not you anymore.

So stop this was the old.

The new you and Christ should look nothing like these things.

God will give you grace to grow out of them,

not stay in them, not stay comfortable in them. You

should be bothered if that looks like you, and if

it does, repent, turn to Christ and be saved.

Your old self.

Is why we gotta preach to ourselves, is because if

we stop relying on the Gospel for any second, that

old me is also just waiting.

He's waiting around.

The corner, and he's like, I'm gonna get my opportunity

to jump in again.

Take the reins of my life again.

The way to preach the gospel and say, because what

Christ has done, that old me is dead to me.

He does not have any power over me. That's no

longer who I am.

I need to repent of the sins and trust in

Christ to continue to purge these sins from my life.

And part of our preaching to ourselves isn't just telling

ourselves to stop doing something, but instead preaching to ourselves

how the Gospel has freed us and how we are

supposed to live.

Now.

It's not just saying I need to stop having those affections.

It's going I need my affections to be changed. I

need to have affections for something different. I need to

replace those affections Verse nine to ten. Do not lie

to one another, seeing that you've put off the old

self with its practices, and put on the new self,

which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of

its creator. So we're to put off the old self

and instead put on the new. How many of us

spend so much time just trying not to sin? Now,

that is some of us first, some of us just

need to, like stop sinning. If you call yourself a believer,

stop stop sinning. Stop if you've been raised with Christ,

stop yelling at your wife, stop being angry with her,

Stop disrespecting your husband, Start honoring your parents, stop gossiping,

stop having a filthy mouth.

And I didn't say that.

I'm not coming up with those lists. It's in here

of what the new man looks like. You look like

the old man, who look like the new man?

So stop.

Because of what Christ has done, now some of us

focus and spend a lot of time at just trying

to stop.

I'm just trying to stop. I'm just trying to stop,

just trying to stop.

But what we should be doing is focusing on how

we should be living, replacing the old us with the new.

All right, I'm not gonna just stop this and now

I'm doing nothing right right, I'm gonna stop doing this

because now I'm head of this direction. For example, a

lot of people who are really successful at dieting, there's

some people and and and they just try and not

eat the bad stuff. But a lot of the really

successful people would say, no, clean up your eating. No,

it's still about what you're eating. You just got to

focus on being the good stuff that's going in. If

that's what you're spending your time and focus on and

then you're actually full and you're not hungry for that

other stuff because you're full of the good stuff.

The Gospel is the same.

We're called to put on the new self, which is being,

which in nature is in contrast with our old self.

It's one or the other. So we focus on living

and looking more like Christ. It will start to transform us.

What does Christ look like? How do I live like him?

How do I look like him?

So here, once again it shows us the necessity of

preaching the Gospel to ourselves, because we're told that we

are being renewed in the image of our creator, and

it's one of the reasons that we're saved Roman's eight

twenty nine. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined

to be conformed to the image of a son in

order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

That is our purpose of being made new in Christ

is also to look like Christ. So we're being made

into his image. But many of us we're not careful.

What we try and do really in our life is

we go like, all right, I believe this is Jesus guy,

And then we try and conform Christ as much as

possible into our image. What can I get away with?

What do I think Jesus would be cool with? I

think Jesus would understand? We want to define how we

are to look, rather than looking to Christ and having

him be the image that we're to be conformed by.

It's when we look to who Christ is and what

he did.

It's when we preach the Gospel to ourselves that we

understand truly who we've been called to be. Many of

us have probably heard the phrase that tries to capture

this idea, which is what would Jesus do?

Right?

But that's honestly, I'm not a big fan of it personally.

It's too subjective, too prone to error on my own

part to think through how Jesus would respond in this

exact instance. So instead, we need our mind renewed after

the image of Christ that we are sure of. That is,

we need to look to what Jesus did and let

that shape who are how we are to live and think.

Preaching the Gospel to yourself is we need to ask

what did Jesus do?

That's the starting place. What did Jesus do?

Is this anything like that? Does his word speak to

this in any kind of way. What did Jesus command?

What did Jesus say? What did Jesus do? A lot

more solid someone I can point to, Well, I'm just

doing what he said. When Christ suffered for doing good,

he didn't freak out. God's word says that he entrusted

himself to God. Is that the gospel that we're pre

to ourself.

And trust yourself to God. I know you're suffering and

trust yourself to God. That's what Jesus did. He left

us an example.

Or have we been believing a false gospel that says

we should never have to suffer anyway?

To peace?

That I get peace? Is God's gonna be totally okay

with We should never have to give anything up. You

read your Bible very quickly, You're like, well, oh, I'm

told to give something. So we need to know what

Christ truly looks like so we can truly be conformed

to his image. We must be studying and reading our

word to truly understand the Gospel, truly understand Christ in

such a way that we can conform our life to

that revealed truth. The Christ is the standard for what

all believers are to look like. That Christ is the

standard and great unifier of all believers.

Verse eleven.

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised,

Barbarian Scythian slave free, but.

Christ is all and in all.

So we are to preach the gospel to ourselves, so

we can put off the old self. And we're to

preach the gospel to ourself, so we can put on

the new And can I get the bandic come up?

Please?

So putting on the new self by the Gospel. Look

at this verse twelve. Put on then, as God's chosen ones,

holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint

against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you,

so you also must forgive. And above all these, put

on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. That

because of the Gospel, we are to put to death

those sins in us, and now we are to put

on these new qualities. He doesn't leave us guessing. He

tells us, look at this patience, what does that mean?

Patience with your wife, Patience with your kids, patience with

your boss, patience with your neighbors. Patience with God. It

means patience in every area of your life. It means

humility and love towards your wife, towards your husband, every

area that should saturate and soak your life and show through.

These are the new qualities to put on to put

into practice. I love how even hear the Gospel is

still in view. When we're called to do these things,

we should do so empowered by the truth of the Gospel.

If we were told of just forgiving our own strength,

we would fail every single time. And that's why a

lot of us do. When I look to the forgiveness

found in Christ, when I look at the love that

I did not deserve given in Christ, how could I

withhold forgiveness or love to another? And the answer is

you can't. As a believer, you don't get to why

because if you're withholding those things that God has called

you to do, you call yourself a believer that you're sinning.

And He's already told us what to do with the sin.

Kill it, put it off, throw it away, be done

with it, and put on the new. There's many things

to put off and many things to put on, and

it's going to take all of our life, relying and

trusting the Gospel in every area of our life.

To have that transfer occur bit by bit.

The reason this message is so important for us today

is because we need to realize just how sufficient God's

Word and God's Gospel is for all of our life.

So when we say we want to be a church

that's all about Jesus, we're not just saying like with

certain parts of our life. We're saying, no, we want everything,

all of it to be about Jesus. Because it is.

Many of us live like cool. I have the Gospel,

and now I have my sins paid for. But now

I'm gonna start turning to all these other things to

find fulfillment, to find answers, to find resolution for all

these other things. But the Gospel doesn't just solve your

sin problem. It's meant to change every aspect of your life.

And honestly, you might not realize how many of your

issues are actually at their root a sin problem.

Well, I'm just worrying about this stuff. No, no, no, no,

there's you have.

You're not trusting God, And a lot of people want

to blow off the simplicity of and the power of

God's word and the sufficiency of his word, the sufficiency

of the Gospel and the power to transform your life.

A lot of people want to blow that off, be like,

you can't be that simple. Well, last week, it's funny

we looked at just how simple the Gospel is, and

we're told in scripture many times that the simplicity of

the Gospel is one of the reasons is offensive to

the world.

Like, really, trust him to save me and I'll be saved.

There's got it. What's the catch?

Many people blow that off, And unfortunately, I've seen a

couple different groups of people. I've I have friends who

mock this idea of the Gospel, in God's Word actually

being able to to impact these areas of your life,

and ultimately that lack of belief led them out in

a way from the faith, from total belief in Christ.

And there's other Christians who will be like, yeah, yeah, yeah,

I know he saved me from my sin, but I'm

not gonna let him touch like my worry and my

anxiety and my shame. I'm not gonna let him touch

those things. I'm gonna go find something else that will

solve that problem for me. And then they live the

rest of their life, warring and intention they don't believe that.

God's word is sufficient to answer that too.

Now there's other people who have mocked it at first,

like that's ridiculous, Oh you're one of those Bible people.

And then after a while they're like, no, no, no, wait,

this is the answer. God's word does speak to this.

God's word does answer this, and I'm gonna believe him

over what anyone else says. So we need to start

asking and seeking how does the Gospel impact and inform

and transform this part.

Of my life? Is this something the Gospel kills?

Is this something the Gospel transfer warms like my affections?

Is this something the Gospel answers even today? In our text?

It shows us how the Gospel answers the issues we

have with our identity. There we're no longer our old

self and at lists what that looks like. But it

shows us now who we're supposed to grow into and

be like. It shows us that our very life is

wrapped up in Christ.

But do you believe that? Do we live like that?

Is that belief evident in our life?

And this really isn't a time to beat ourselves up,

but to realize the power of the Gospel has to

actually transform every aspect of your life. If it simply

would preach the Gospel to ourselves in these areas, our

life would be marked by the peace and truth of

God's Word, ruling and dwelling richly in our lives, which

is exactly what we're called to at the end here

verse fifteen. And let the peace of Christ rule in

your hearts. Man, I want the peace of Christ to

rule in my heart. I need it to rule in

my heart to which indeed you were called in one

body and be thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell

in you richly, teaching and monishing one another in all wisdoms,

singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in

your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word

or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,

giving thanks to God the Father.

Through him? Does the peace of God? Does the peace

of the Gospel of Christ rule in your heart? Or

do your worries? What rules in your heart? Maybe you

need to preach the Gospel to it.

Are you guided and seeking direction and wisdom meaning from

something other than the Word of Christ.

Maybe you need to be admonished. Maybe you need to

be taught.

Are you prone to listen to the world, or or

maybe your own wisdom over God's word. I know God's

word says that, but I don't know if that's really

gonna work for me? Or are you being washed and

transformed renewed by the truth of the Gospel. Brothers and sisters,

we must preach the Gospel to ourselves. Preach Christ and

Him crucified. Preach Christ the risen Savior. Preach Christ now

ruling and reigning on the heavenly throne. Preach Christ your

comfort and your shepherd. Preach Christ your peace. We as believers,

need Christ every day applied to every area of our life.

We must rely on Him daily until He returns, because

if we don't, we are prone to default to our

old ways, trying to save ourselves to our own works.

Instead of trusting in the finished work of Christ, we

turn to other idols and things to give us peace

and comfort, rather than resting in the peace of Christ.

We need to keep our eyes focused on our eternal destination,

and that is eternity with Him. We need to keep

our eyes focused on our eternal destination so that we

don't get distracted by the things of this world. And

I was thinking about it this week of kind of

this this whole car image being on our on our

way to our destination. And I'm a big fan of

road trips. I don't know about you, but like when

you go on a long, long road trip, you pass

a lot of cool stuff, you pass a lot of things,

and you're like, oh, I want to stop there.

Oh I gotta see that.

Oh everyone's kind of crowding around over there. I might

need to go check that out. And there's maybe even

some places that are like, hey, this this is better

than wherever you're headed.

But we can't be duped. We got to keep going.

We cannot be duped or into thinking that this world

has something better.

To offer than where we are going.

And to be clear, I'm someone who wrestles with fomo,

so I'm the person like sadly looking out the window.

But this is something that I need to preach for

the Gospel to myself to go like no.

No, no, you're headed somewhere better.

We need to preach the truth of the Gospel to

ourselves so that we don't settle for something less than

what God has promised us in Christ.

When we truly set our minds.

On things above we can, we'll quickly begin to see

how there's really no competition with the things of heaven.

And here's how I.

Know, because most of the writers of the New Testament

have a hard time explaining how much better it is.

Let me show you one Corinthians two nine. But as

it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor.

The heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for

those who love him. That's good. And we don't know

what it is. It's just good. It's better. You can't

even imagine it trying to think.

Of it right now. Better than that, your heart can't

imagine it, God's Word says. So that's how good it is. Believers,

you need the Gospel every day to make it all

the way. So preach the Gospel to yourself, open God's word,

and believe the promises and truth of the Word of Christ.

Let it dwell richly among all of us. Let it

dwell richly in your life. Let the peace of Christ

rule in your heart. And honestly, I think that's the

way that we could have this always grateful disposition in

our life. This is how we can always be grateful

no matter what comes our way in this life.

I can always be grateful because I know where I'm

going and no one can take that from me.

And I won't settle for anything less. Because we have

the Gospel, we have everything we need. So put your

trust in Christ, always preaching the Gospel to yourself until

the day you die, simply.

Saying Jesus died for me. Amen. Would you please stand

to your feet