Colossians 3:15-17 - ”Be Who You Are”

Amen.

>> The first Old Testament reading is

Proverbs 4:es 5-9.

Get wisdom, get insight. Do not forget

and do not turn away from the words of

my mouth. Do not forsake her and she

will keep you. Love her and she will

guard you. The beginning of wisdom is

this. Get wisdom and whatever you get,

get insight.

Prize her highly, and she will exalt

you. She will honor you if you embrace

her. She will place on your head a

graceful garland. She will bestow on you

a be as the Lord has forgiven you, so

also you 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 called

in one body and be thankful.

Let the word of 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 the word of the

Lord.

>> Thanks be to God.

Knowing whether something is good

implies

knowing its purpose.

What's that?

Come on, guys.

>> It's a hammerhead.

How useful is it?

>> Not very.

It needs a handle

and then it can fulfill its purpose.

Knowing what it is

implies,

you know its purpose.

At least if you know it's good, you know

its purpose because it's good for

something. If you call it good, you

probably know what the purpose is.

The Westminster confession of well the

shorter catechism

asks very first question what is the

chief end

purpose

of man?

What's the answer? The chief end of man

is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

That's man's purpose stated simply.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2.

It is by grace that you have been saved

through faith. And this is not your own

doing. It is the gift of God, not a

result of works, so that no one may

boast. For we are his workmanship,

created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand that we

should walk in them.

I can go throughout scripture and point

out where the prophets and the apostles

and the writers

point out man's purpose

and everything points to God and what

God is doing

on this earth.

This calling is far beyond anything we

could obtain

and live unto ourselves.

It's in this frame that things like

worldly success

kind of lose their significance in and

of themselves unless they're done with

God in mind to his glory.

NT Wright puts it this way. Forget

happiness.

You are called to a throne.

That's your purpose.

But what we've got

is a society

where

we got to figure it all out on our own.

We've been conditioned to be full of

morality.

Although that's a shifting and ambiguous

thing. Doesn't

go anywhere really unless you determine

it for yourself.

It lacks virtues because it denies that

we have a purpose.

As a result, we're constantly striving

to do the right thing but never sure

what the right thing is.

I'm going to point out some virtues

and the need for them this morning.

I think the study of virtue has sort of

been

in some ways lost for a long time.

Do you know who the people that have

been

writing and teaching about virtue

are the Catholics? The Roman Catholics

haven't forgotten this.

I'm going to be quoting from Yseph

Peeper this morning

and I have been learning a lot from him.

So, let's begin

by saying that virtues are cultivated

habits [snorts]

that align with who God created you to

be.

virtues or morality has become the study

of moral

quanderies. I don't know what other word

to use or dilemmas.

You know what a quandry is? That's when

you're in a state of not being able to

decide what to do about a situation.

Well, what's the right thing to do? And

this this has become sort of famous. You

know, the philosophers and the people

that talk about ethics

wrestle with life and death dilemmas and

quanderies.

Do we kill one to save five?

Do we allow aborted fetuses to be used

as a source of stem cells?

Do we administer paralyzing fatal drugs

to end the suffering of a depressed

young woman?

At a lower level, what you and I might

struggle with are things like,

do I pay my taxes when others are

cheating?

Do I turn in a wallet full of money that

seems to belong to a drug dealer?

Do I tell my spouse about a sexual

indiscretion?

Do I lie to my friend about how awful

her makeup is because I will hurt her

feelings?

These are quanderies.

And

it's turned the study of ethics and

morality and virtue

from character ethics to quandery

ethics. The Greeks

talked about virtue

as character.

Who a person was.

What kind of person are you? Are you a

person of virtue? And that's been turned

in our day into problem solving.

It's moved from

character to dilemmas.

Our children are being catechized.

We are being catechized by our society,

by a secularist society that has already

discarded and walked away from the idea

that there is a God-given biblically

directed path for excellence,

meaning, and purpose for humanity.

By the way, when you do run across the

word virtue in the New Testament, it's

often translated as excellence.

So, let's think of virtue as excellence

of character.

put on then as God's chosen ones, holy

and beloved,

compassionate hearts.

Boy, there's a virtue. 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 must also forgive.

a virtuous person.

Finally, all of you have unity of mind,

sympathy,

brotherly love, a tender heart, and a

humble mind.

Are those the qualities? Are those the

characteristics of a weak person?

Are those the characteristics of a

doormat?

I would say no. Absolutely not.

And yet our society wants to turn them

into these things.

Let the word of 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.

I think I left out a verse, didn't I?

I did.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your

hearts to which indeed you were called

in one body and be thankful. I'm not

going to talk about so much the virtues

as the need for virtues and what they

result in.

Virtue results in experiencing the peace

of God.

Virtue results in

being thankful,

being grateful.

Virtue results in

having a heart

full of God's word.

Whatever you do in word or deed, do

everything in the name of the Lord

Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father

through him.

So, we come to the peace of Christ,

what I'm calling a quiet heart.

Do you know somebody that you would

describe as a person who is

That person has a quiet heart.

That person is at peace

with himself and the world around him,

with the people around him, and with his

God.

If you're like me,

you go, "Yeah, I think I know somebody

like that.

I wish I were like that. I know little

pieces of it.

Boy, I wish I knew more of it.

It isn't new to feel that way. Bla1

Pascal,

he was a famous mathematician and a

Christian

few centuries ago, wrote that all of

humanity's problems stem from man's

inability to sit quietly in a room

alone.

For those of you who were fortunate

enough to know my brother Dale

when he [snorts]

settled his affairs with God and humbled

himself before his God and became a

Christian,

God gave him the ability to be at peace

with himself.

I often describe my brother

as a man who was comfortable with his

own company.

When he felt tension and stress,

he would just disappear for a couple of

days,

three, four days.

I was never worried about that. Dale,

you know, could take care of himself. I

found out later that he was [snorts]

spending

couple days, three days, four days just

living in a tent

standing in the middle of a creek with a

fly rod.

I wonder how many of us

know

that peace

God gave him that

St. Anthony,

now we're going back further

said that Satan has three steps

to steal our peace, regrets about the

past,

fear for the future, and ingratitude for

the present.

How do you take care of every one of

those things?

You turn to Christ.

He takes care of your past.

How about your future?

He settles that.

He takes care of it.

And your present.

Even though we might make a long list of

anxieties and worries and things that we

just can't get control of,

we've got a lot to be thankful for.

God has given us new life and guaranteed

that it will extend into eternity

in a perfect heaven and earth.

Is that easy? M no it isn't because in

this life

[sighs and gasps]

the indwelling of the spirit will not

erase our anxieties. [snorts]

Embracing uncertainty

is part of faith.

So how does that fit in with a quiet

heart?

H that's a good question.

And if you are a Christian, I hope you

know

those little experiences that the Holy

Spirit gives you when you seem

overwhelmed

by things

that the spirit steps in and calms.

That can be in big ways. It can be in

little ways.

I think this is a good example of how

the spirit can step in and give you the

peace of Christ.

I know a woman

who

came upon the scene of an accident, car

accident,

and a young man was killed by a drunk

driver.

The young man who was killed

was her son.

And the behavior of the driver who

caused the accident was such that if if

when it was described to me, I felt

anger.

I felt,

you know, I you don't have to be a guy

to feel this. I put my hands on his

throat and choke him.

She immediately

[clears throat]

went to that young man, as drunk as he

was,

to comfort him.

What was ruling in her heart?

The peace of Christ.

Only the Holy Spirit

can explain that.

Whatever you do in word or deed, do

everything in the name of the Lord

Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father

through him.

So

if we can ask God and learn to have a

quiet heart,

it will lead us

to a couple of things.

What am I looking for? Sorry.

How do you have the peace of Christ?

It comes through trusting God.

For one thing, when we know

that God knows,

God cares,

God will act according to his character,

according to his

decree,

according to his will.

Then we can know in any situation

I have been put here [snorts]

at this time in this place

for this.

Now that's tough.

That will be learned by life experience.

A quiet heart doesn't come like that.

A quiet heart comes

by learning

about God, about yourself, about the

world around you.

Like St. Anthony warned,

don't let the devil steal your past or

your present or your future.

You will learn a quiet heart.

But God will also

give to the virtuous person a grateful

heart.

I'm just going to jump into this.

Read this first from a writer Lydia

Brownback. Some of you ladies may have

read of her. I hope some of the guys

have too.

And trusting the Lord with what makes us

anxious is an act of humility.

We often don't recognize anxiety as

pride.

But Peter makes the connection right

here in these two verses.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the

mighty hand of God, so that at the

proper time he may exalt you, casting

all your anxieties on him because he

cares for you.

We say to God, "Have your own way, Lord.

You choose for me, deliverance or not,

as you see fit." And we can do this with

confidence because the sovereign God of

the universe

cares for us. [snorts]

How can you be anything but grateful

for that truth?

Community thanksgiving is the voice of

the church. And in terms of being

grateful,

you can stay seated, but we're going to

read something together. It's half a

dozen slides,

and I hope that this goes straight to

your heart. God, use this prayer. Let's

read together.

We thank God for life and health. These

we share together. When plague strikes a

city, terror reigns.

Thank God for conscious well-being and

supply of daily needs.

We are thankful for the benefits of

civilization,

for ordered government, for scientific

improvements, for education,

good streets, institutions of

benevolence,

industry, and art. Canada has done much

to improve the lot of the common men and

women like ourselves.

We must share it with the world.

We are thankful for a Christian

environment where temperance and good

will are encouraged and fellowship with

kindly folk is possible for us all.

What would we be without the church, the

open Bible, and the gospel of Christ?

These are values beyond man's power to

estimate.

We are thankful for faith in the midst

of tragedy. There is a God who

understands and cares. Dark and

mysterious is our life, but his way is

good and true. Our trust is in our

salvation.

We are grateful for the vision of better

things to be, for the promise of

Christ's kingdom and universal

brotherhood in him. It is our highway

from despair, cynicism, and degeneracy.

We thank God for the hope eternal. This

life is but the seed of a life that will

blossom into unimeaginable glory

according to the promise of God.

Are we a thankful people?

We can be. We should be.

But we're also

supposed to know the word.

Let the word dwell in you richly.

This is a God-given virtue

to love the word.

short reference

to the farmer

in the

sermon on the mount that only a

continual cultivation of the soil of our

hearts

will keep it soft, fertile soil for

fruitful expression

of the gospel.

I'm just going to encourage you

to read scripture. Many of you do. Some

of you struggle to do it. Some days I

struggle to do it.

But I make it a mark

to do it

regularly.

There is your food. There is your

guidance.

And Paul exhorts us to do this in many

ways.

When do you do it? When's the best time

for you to do it? For some of us, when

we wake up in the morning,

whether it's opening a book, whether

it's pulling up scripture on our phone,

whether it's sitting in front of a

computer

and reading scripture,

we've got the gift of scripture being

anywhere and everywhere we want,

whenever we want.

Sometimes for extended periods,

sometimes for short periods.

That scares me. [laughter]

I know exactly what that little kid has

done. Put the tail of that skateboard on

the ramp and then just stepped off.

We've all seen it, right? How many of us

have done it?

My son was doing that before he had

double digits in his age.

Scared me then, it scares me now.

Jesus has granted us the ability to

become like little children and to run

freely to him. Run in his word.

Read the scriptures for the enjoyment of

his presence.

Have you discovered the pure joy

of reading scripture? Won't happen every

time,

but it should happen enough that it

keeps you coming back. You discover

yourself. You discover God. You discover

your kids. You discover your mom and

dad. You discover your spouse. Then boy

then do you ever discover yourself

in the word.

A Christian has three things continually

in front of him.

He has a creed in front of him.

By creed I mean a set of beliefs.

I'm not going to go into this in detail,

don't worry.

He has in front of him a what I will

call a cult.

In the

dictionary meaning of the word that

means

briefly

a worshshiping community

that a group of people gather together

based on the creed

to worship together.

And out of that comes a code.

Meaning

the

habits and practices of life

that are expected of people that adhere

to that creed and that cult. You can't

have one without the other two.

I mean, you can, but it's going to be

very incomplete and it's going to be a

dead end.

Beliefs,

worship, community,

ethics, and moral conduct. That's like

beliefs being the root.

cult being the trunk, the tree itself

that we see with the limbs and the

branches.

The ethics and moral conduct would be

the fruit.

The place where these are properly

connected

and lived out

is where human beings are consecrated.

Where is that? It's in the church as a

worshshiping community.

In line with having a wordful heart, let

me say that sinful acts

always [snorts]

have their origin

in some form of unbelief.

You can think about that this week.

Behind every sin is a lie.

The root of all our behavior and

emotions is the heart. What it trusts,

what it treasures. And people are given

over to sinful desires because

scripture puts it this way. They

exchange the truth about God for a lie.

In Romans 1,

humanity's problem,

according to Ephesians 4, is futile

thinking, darkened understanding,

ignorant hearts.

We sin because we believe the lie that

we are better off without God.

His rule is oppressive.

we will be free without him. Sin offers

more than God.

There's the lie.

And every sin

is a part of that lie.

That's why I had Proverbs read this

morning.

People don't think of themselves as

believing lies.

But every time we don't trust God's

word, we're believing something else.

And that something else is a lie.

Proverbs describes a road, a path of

trust.

And God is like the first gleam of dawn.

And as we move along the path,

that gleam becomes brighter and

brighter.

The path of the righteous is like the

light of dawn, which shines brighter and

brighter until full day. The way of the

wicked is like deep darkness. They do

not know over what they stumble. My son,

be attentive to my words. Incline your

ear to my sayings. Let them not escape

from your sight. Keep them within your

heart, for they are life to those who

find them and healing to all their

flesh. Keep your heart with all

vigilance, for from it flow the springs

of life.

If we

start out on this path to virtue, to

seek the peace of Christ, a grateful

heart,

learning from God's word

by walking in light, we are declaring

war against darkness.

This is important.

We are declaring war against lies.

Developing a godly character

is being an active participant in the

spiritual warfare all around us.

Galatians 5.

But I say walk by the spirit and you

will not gratify the desires of the

flesh. For the desires of the flesh are

against the spirit, and the desires of

the spirit are against the flesh, for

they are opposed to each other to keep

you from doing the things you want to

do.

And it goes on

and then Paul in Galatians lists

right in that context a whole bunch of

virtues,

gifts from God,

spiritual gifts, the fruits of the

spirit.

But there would be none of the fruits of

Christianity without roots.

Specifically, the essential beliefs in

God the Father,

maker of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ,

his only begotten son, our Lord, and the

rest.

Isaiah writes this, "The effect of

righteousness will be peace, and the

result of righteousness,

quietness.

and trust forever.

Paul writes again in 1 Corinthians 11,

"Let a person examine himself

and then so eat of the bread and of the

cup."

If we judged ourselves truly,

we would not be judged

because we have a mediator, somebody who

stands between us and what we deserve.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we

are disciplined

so that we may not be condemned along

with the world.

We have Christ's grace. We're going to

fail.

That's a terrible thing for me to say,

but it's true.

There is grace for that.

He does not. He did not. He never will

love us because we are virtuous.

He loved us first.

He loves us still.

This is grace.

For our sake he made him

Jesus to be sin who knew no sin.

So that in him we might become the

righteousness of God.

We learn from our mistakes.

We learn from our sins and our

forgiveness.

We are children of the King.

We are noble saints. [snorts]

Let us wear our identity and live out

who we are.

Scripture is clear that faith is

something more than mental ascent.

It is more than agreeing to a

theological creed.

Faith is not just an exercise of the

mind.

It is a commitment of the heart that

fundamentally changes the way you live

your life.

was determined

to be noble

children of the king,

virtuous people

in a world that desperately needs

virtue. Let's pray.

Father, guide us.

open our lives

from deep within

so that we may know the transforming

power of the Holy Spirit in our lives,

in our church,

and see that transforming power

effective

around us.

Thank you

for the peace of Christ.

Thank you for a grateful heart.

Thank you for your word.