Get Dressed

Starting with I'll Fly Away.

I'll fly away in the morning when I die.

I'll fly away, I'll fly away.

When the shadows of the slumber go,

I'll fly away.

Like a bird from within, but this one,

I'll fly away.

I'll fly away.

I'll fly away.

Okay, let's get this. I'm going to ask you what's an easy leading question.

Wacked out simple stuff. Something simple. An easy leading question.

Of all that God created, what did He create to stop the enemy?

To put an end to the ministrations called the devil, evil, whatever. Stop evil. What did He create? Go ahead.

Yeah, He did it, right? When He was creating in the beginning.

From the beginning. When He first started creating, what did God create to end the ministry of evil?

Put it that way. Okay, let's read a couple verses real quick and then we'll try to answer that again.

This is from Psalm 8.

Or maybe if I find Psalm 8.

Psalm chapter 8. I'm going to read the whole thing.

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

I'm going to read verse 1 and verse 2. That's it. Verse 1 and verse 2.

This is Psalm 8. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name?

Somebody tell me what the word majestic means.

Okay, that's good. I'll go with that. It has to do with kingship, right?

Majesty. Think of like His Majesty and Majesty. That's how awesome and ruler.

Think that. How majestic is thy name in all the earth, who has displayed thy splendor above the heavens.

Now here's verse 2. From the mouth of infants and nursing babes, thou hast established strength.

To establish something is to put it on a firm foundation, right? Make it solid.

And God did that. From the mouth of infants and nursing babes, thou hast established strength.

Because of thine adversaries, adversaries are the people that are against God, because of God's adversaries,

to make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

So let's read it one more time. From the mouth of infants and nursing babes, thou hast established strength.

Because of thine adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

Now I ask you again, what was it that God created to stop the enemy?

From the first day you were born, you took your first breath, you had in you the ability to stop the enemy.

Now the truth is, because of sin, we get enticed, we go do things we shouldn't do, that kind of thing, right?

Because of that, we're not available. That's the truth.

And so it says we're dead in our trespass and sin. What died?

The ability to stop the enemy. The ability to overcome evil. The ability to do good.

So we're dead in our trespass and sin, which means we can no longer do that what we were created for.

And then reborn in Christ, made new in Christ, you get that ability again.

Not by virtue of who you are now, but by virtue of who you are in need.

Because Jesus never lost his ability to stop the enemy.

So when Jesus comes and lives in us, we're here to see that he lives in us, and he lives in the world.

So what did God create to stop the enemy? People. Us.

Now remember, the next time you run into something that seems evil, maybe you're there just for that purpose.

To speak up. Not even being mean or evil yourself, or be wicked or hateful or anything like that.

Don't turn to violence if you don't have to. Right? Nothing like that.

But maybe you're there just for the purpose of stopping bad people.

Because God created you with the ability to do that even before you lost it.

And then hopefully if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you got it back again.

Okay, we're going to pray together at this time. Then we have one more song.

And then we'll release the children. And then one more song. And then we'll go to the Word.

Again, that's what we've already been through the Word tonight. We're going to read through the Word twice.

Cool. Alright, let's pray.

Father, thank you so much that you foresaw what it was that was coming.

As terrible as it is, you knew that we would face disease.

That we would face poverty. That we would face violence. Persecution.

You knew that mankind would walk through the fire of self-sufficiency.

And you made us just the right thing.

And then for my part, I wasted 25 years plus, over 25 years, of my ability to do the right thing.

Sometimes I guess I maybe did the right thing. But a lot of times even when I was doing the right thing, I was doing it for the wrong reason.

Because I wasn't making people see I was contributing.

But in Christ, we get again the ability to make a difference.

Wherever we go to speak up, for us to be able to see clearly, someone asks us to do something, we can say, no, that's just not me.

That's not right. That is not what God would want. And we tend to see clearly in Christ.

And I thank you for that for us.

Father, I pray for those who are sick. There are numerous.

It's a blue bug. And a week and a half ago we even had somebody diagnosed with COVID.

And we had stress. And there was something we might have had to stress that they didn't test for because it had already been a while.

And it was already maybe a little on the men.

And Lord, we're grateful. We pray for those who are still sick.

And those who are hurting in other ways.

We pray for special blessings upon those who during the Christmas season have to work so many hours and push through.

And in some ways it's good because they get paid a lot more.

And in some ways it's hard because it's hard to have a life when you're doing that.

And we have special blessings upon them.

We have special blessings upon those who are traveling and can be with us for whatever reason.

Those who are still on their way here.

We pray for little Zoe.

It sucks to be sick when you're little and she's so sad.

And she's not really even sad, but it makes it sad to look at her.

She just keeps right on like a trooper.

And she may cry a little easier when she gets bumped.

Things like that.

We just make her healthy and strong.

And Lord, be with us as we learn and grow tonight that we would repute somehow our ability to stop evil wherever we go and stand up for you.

We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you.

We pray that the Father, with the joy of the Lord, is our spring.

We bow down to our shepherd now, the great, awesome is he.

Everyone sing.

The earth is filled with his glory.

The earth is filled with his glory.

The earth is filled with his glory.

Now Lord, we come together we sing.

The earth is filled with his glory.

The earth is filled with his glory.

The earth is filled with his glory.

Okay, at this time we'll let the children through sixth grade and their leaders go to class.

Hallelujah means praise the Lord.

So what's better than a praise the Lord?

Better than a praise the Lord.

We pour out our miseries. God just hears the melody. Beautiful the mess we are. The honest cries of breaking hearts.

Better than a hallelujah.

The woman holds a handful of eyes. The darling man gives him a little light. Better than a hallelujah.

Tears of shame from what's been done. The silence when the word from her. Better than a hallelujah.

We pour out our miseries. God just hears the melody. Beautiful the mess we are. The honest cries of breaking hearts.

Better than a hallelujah. Better than a church bell ringing. Better than a choir singing out.

We pour out our miseries. God just hears the melody. Beautiful the mess we are. The honest cries of breaking hearts.

Better than a hallelujah.

That's what we're going to talk about. This lesson is entitled, Getting Dressed. It's a play on words though, so it's okay.

Did somebody hold up one for Tim? Okay, awesome.

So the reference is Colossians 3 verse 5. So if you have a Bible and you want to turn there, that will be the only reference 3.5 through 16 that we will primarily focus on.

Colossians 3:5

At the end I'll share just a few quickly with you to kind of like reinforce, you know, that it really is the same across the whole Bible what we're talking about in the New Testament.

Okay, so as we read, I'm going to first tell you how this page works. Okay, and I'll try and we'll be picking out the blanks as we read the verses.

Okay, so looking at the paper, you see the face and the face to the right and then over here you see the aside and then down on the bottom it says members, dead two.

Okay, so these are the things that we're putting aside. Like if you went to your closet and you say, oh I don't fit in those fans anymore, you put those aside.

Right, so these are the things that we're putting aside. So we're going to read some things we're going to put aside.

And down on the bottom here, these are the things that are members and your members are part of your body. So your hands, your arms, your shoulder, your liver, your lungs, those are all members.

Okay, your jaw, that's a member. So those are all members. And those are things that we are dead, we're going to put things that our members are dead to.

I'm giving you the first letter of most of them. Okay, over here on the right it says put on and the new self and we're going to get a list of things that we're going to put on.

Okay, all the way down to where it says even complaints and then below that, those are all things that we're going to put on.

And then you've got in the middle, you've got three things that are in your heart. So we're going to discover three things that are in your heart. I bet you could guess one of those right now, couldn't you?

Sunday School answer. What or who is in your heart? God. Yeah, the Lord, right? So the Lord or God is one of those things.

So if you want to just kind of jump ahead and fill that in, case you get behind later you could.

Okay, and there's one thing that in all the verses it says it's an absolute no when it goes in the box. Okay, and it also goes in the box over here on the things that we put aside.

Because if it's an absolute no you should put it aside, right? And then down here in between the arrows is a block and we'll get it at the very end.

That's what we're going to end up at. And that is what we do, what the church does, what we as Christian people do.

Okay, and some of them I gave you the first letter. If you get behind or you get messed up and don't have a blank filled in, stop me. It's okay.

Because I didn't do like the start, follow the whole arrows thing, right? So I understand. It can be like that.

So I'm going to begin reading in 3-5. Before I read 3-5 though I want to explain to you the reason for everything that we're about to read is right before that.

Whenever a verse starts with therefore, it's wise to always look and see what it's there for. Okay?

So like the verse says therefore blah blah blah blah blah, then what does the therefore point back to?

In this case these verses point back to verse 4 where it says, when Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Okay? And so that revealed there means you're going to be laid naked. You're going to be laid out bare. It's going to be obvious. Everyone will be able to see.

Okay? So the reason for everything we're about to read is because when Christ is completely revealed and everybody can see him and nobody can deny him anymore,

it's probably going to be at that moment where the Bible says every knee will bow and every tongue confess, then we also will be revealed with him in glory.

Okay? So it's going to be obvious to everybody what we are and what we've been doing. Then it goes verse 5.

Therefore, because that's true, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to, so find it on the paper, members, members dead to, right?

And we're going to have a list. Okay? Our body is dead to, immorality, so immorality is behavior that's not moral, right?

So you're doing wrong things that, and probably I think immorality anyone would recognize, right?

Impurity, so you notice you've got two I's there. Passion, now passion is an interesting thing because we always talk about what's your passion,

I'm passionate about this, passionate about that, right? But this passion here is being driven like by a physical passion or you want something,

going after it because you want it even if it's something God doesn't want for you. Okay?

And then evil desire, so the E is evil. And then greed is the last one. Greed is the pursuit of anything that you don't want.

Now it's interesting because in my life greed, I know this firsthand, has taken another form which is I love bargains.

I love flea markets, I love yard sales and like that, and I always want to get a bargain, right?

Now I have money, I get an allowance, that's how we handle our miscellaneous spending. I get an allowance, she gets an allowance,

we just spend it on whatever, wherever, whenever we want to, whatever, it doesn't come out of the rest of the spending plan, right?

And typically when I get my new allowance, my past allowance has not been spent because I'm a miser, I don't want to spend money.

I will spend money if God tells me to and I will spend money on people, I like to be nice to people, right?

But be aware, greed is not just the pursuit of money like going to get a better job or going to play the lottery or whatever to get rich.

Greed can be just penny pinching. It can be unwilling to spend money that God wants you to spend, right?

Or for example, this is how they tell you, well you don't get it today, you're not going to get it for this price.

And you know you have to buy it today because you have to get it for that price. Well that's greed. They're playing off your greed, okay?

Now you'll notice that all of those come together. Who can tell me what that I is? Say it again.

Yes, it's idolatry. Yep, idolatry. So now who can tell me what idolatry is?

I-D-O-L-A-T-R-Y. Idol, A, try. That's what it is, but it's all one word, okay?

The verse actually says which amounts to idolatry. So all of those things, the immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire, and greed, those things amount to idolatry.

And so what is idolatry? Yes, that's exactly what it is.

Okay, now I have a particularly large bag of candy up here tonight. So I'm going to throw candy at my son.

Okay, so that's how far we've gotten. Now we're in verse six.

Why? So there's a four. So if you see a four, you want to ask why. So those things, those things are put away, those dead to immorality, those things.

For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come.

In other words, God is going to violently oppose men, and the reason he's going to do that is because of idolatry.

Much idolatry is wrapped up in immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire, and greed, right? So God is going to violently oppose men.

You realize that God loves men, right? God loves all human beings. God is love.

And so it takes a lot to make God violently oppose people. God does not do that lightly.

When the people in the promised land that were living there were sinning against God and into idolatry, they were throwing their firstborn babies in the fire

to a false God called Molech, who was probably a demon, but they were burning their babies in the fire.

God's people were in Egypt, and God had already told those people that they were going to come out and take that promised land away from the people who were burning their babies in the fire.

Yet God left his people in Egypt for 400 years more until that people who was in the promised land, their sin had reached full measure.

Then when God called them out of Egypt, he said, wipe them out. Their sin had reached full measure, right?

God does not want to hurt anybody. God is not against anybody, and God would never willingly send anyone to hell, ever.

People don't go to hell because God says, you're going to hell. They go to hell because they refuse to come to Christ.

It isn't even because of their sin. They're separated from God because of their sin. And then ultimately, even if they had sin, because I have sin, I have sin.

So if I would accept Jesus, that sin would be dealt with, then I could have a relationship with God again.

But if I could never have a relationship with God, there's going to come a time when there's only heaven, the new heaven and the new earth, and the final time it will be the new heaven and the new earth, and hell.

And if you can't be in the new heaven and the new earth because you can't be with God, then you have to be in hell, by extension.

So God does not want to oppose people. But this is how bad idolatry is. It's on account of these things that the wrath of God, his violent opposition, will come.

Verse 7 says, And in them you also once walked when you were living in them.

So if you're a Christian and your eyes are open and you realize the way you're supposed to be in Christ, you realize that before you became a Christian, you used to do things that you weren't supposed to do.

That's not godly. That God would not want you to do.

And now we're not supposed to be like that anymore. We used to walk in those things, but now we're supposed to be different.

So we're putting those things off. But now you also put them all aside. See, that's why it's listed under the aside column.

And then there's a colon. So these things are included in what we would put aside.

Now you're up under where it says aside old self and there's a row of blanks going down.

First blank says anger.

Now anger, the Bible does not say you cannot be angry. What does it say you cannot do?

If you can be angry but don't throw things. Kind of. Maybe it could be don't sin in your anger.

So throwing things that people could be. Or acting out. That would be sinning in your anger.

So you can be angry. Also, just on a side note, this word anger here is the Greek word orgy.

It's where we get the word orgy from, which is like a party where men and women come together and do things they shouldn't do with each other.

It's all about emotion. So it's about emotive energy. It's not really anger as you and I have been trained to think of it.

It's about emotive energy. So you have to be careful not to be controlled by your emotive energy.

Suddenly I want this. Suddenly I think this. Suddenly someone hurt me and I'm going to react.

You can't be controlled by that. You have to put that aside.

Wrath. We already said wrath is violent opposition. So we want to oppose people.

So if we can't oppose them violently, how do we oppose them?

There's only one other alternative, right? Peacefully. Do the best you can to stay peaceful.

Somebody comes against you to attack you, for example. You only defend yourself.

At the point at which their attacks become now you could be killed or you could be seriously harmed in a wheelchair for the rest of your life or something like that,

then you become violent. Then you become offensive because you have to stop that.

But in the meantime, we're always peaceful. We always try to be peaceful.

Malice. Malice is nasty. It's almost like hate. Nasty feelings toward other people.

Somebody did something you don't like and you go, I don't like that person.

I can't be around them. You have to put that away from you.

Slander. Slander is when you talk bad about somebody. Hang on.

Because slander is when you talk bad about somebody even if it's true.

You hear me? So somebody lies and you go tell other people that they lied. You're slandering them.

That's biblical slander. In the modern English, because of our court system,

the court says you can't do that either. You can sue somebody for slander.

You have to have some damages. Like somebody slanders you, says bad things about you, it's true or not.

And then you don't get a contract, so you lose $100,000, you lose the job, you get fired, whatever.

You can sue them for slander in the court. Because our court system is based on a biblical model,

even though it's not very biblical anymore, it's based on a biblical model.

So that's not right to slander people. Whether you're telling the truth or telling a lie, it's still not right.

Then abusive speech from your mouth. So that's the last one on that list there.

So we went all the way down the list. So it was anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech.

The long line is abusive speech. You can try to squeeze in from your mouth if you want,

but I think you pretty much know where your speech comes from.

Then nine. This is the no, so it goes in the box there, and it goes in the box over under the no exclamation point next to heart.

It goes in both places. It says, do not lie to one another. Do not lie.

So you can put just lie in the box, you can squeeze in do not lie if you want to, but no lying.

The word says no. It says no exclamation point next to the box. You put lying, no lying.

So right here. Lie is L-I-E. Yep.

So it goes right there in this box and also right here in this box. There's two boxes that say no exclamation point.

Or just lie. I just put lie in both when I did it. It says do not lie. So you cannot lie.

Specifically it says do not lie to one another. Why? Why shouldn't we lie to one another?

It says since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices.

As sad as it is to say, you do realize that most people lie.

Most people do. Saved people learn not to, try not to, grow and try not to lie.

They shouldn't lie. They're supposed to put it away from themselves. But a lot of people lie.

That is a normal practice. In fact, in politics it's considered vogue to get away with lying.

If you lie and nobody catches you, yay for you. You're a good politician.

In a court of law, if you can pass off a lie, not make a lie, not lie because you're not allowed to lie outright,

but if you can pass off a lie so that the opposition believes a certain thing or the judge rules a certain way,

well then you're a good lawyer. But the Bible says for Christians we do not lie to one another

since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices.

And before I go any further, what do you think is the most important reason why Christians cannot lie to one another?

To me. It's most important to me. Jason?

Because if the Christian lies, then people might think that what the one guy is saying might be true.

Okay, yeah. That's an interesting way of looking at it. That wasn't what I was going for.

I'll tell you mine in a minute. Nobody else gets it. But you're right. That would be bad.

So you lie to somebody and then they start thinking it's true and pretty soon you're fooling yourself too.

And everybody believes your lie. And that does happen in Christianity. Sometimes people get away from God and they start doing that.

That's a good point. Who else has got one? Tommy?

Yeah. Okay, you're getting really close to what I was going after right there.

So if the church is lying to one another and somebody else is aware of it, then you go out into the community,

or your brother, your sister, your cousin, or whatever knows that Dustin lied to you and you're okay with it.

Or they know Dustin's a liar and he's a deacon in the church. Or Dustin's a liar and he's a pastor or whatever.

The ministry of the church is ruined. It's gone. You can't win anybody to Christ if you're a liar.

Because how do they know? And that brings me to what I think is the main most important thing why you can't lie.

Because how do they know the truth? If I say I'm a Christian and then I lie to you about something else,

how do you know I wasn't lying to you and I said I was a Christian? If we say we're a church and we go try to win people to Jesus,

but over here we're lying about other things, like we said we're going to do something but we don't, or whatever,

how do they know you're telling the truth? I had a young man I was doing marriage counseling with at one point in time

and he said, well everybody in the world lies. And I said, so you lie? He said, yeah.

And I said, well you know what the problem with that is. I mean it's good that you're humble and you're willing to admit your weaknesses

and whatever, but if you're sitting here and you know it's called when you lie, he said, what? I said, you know what they call you

if you lie, it's a liar. So if you're a liar, then when you stand up and say I do, how do we know you're not lying?

That's the whole point of marriage. When you say I do, you're making a commitment to be with that person for the rest of your life.

That's what marriage is. It's not a one-time deal, it's not for a day, it's not when you change your mind,

and it's not because you said it one time but you didn't really mean it.

And that's the problem is so many people don't do that. They don't take it seriously.

So the point is if Christians are liars, are they Christians?

And you could say maybe because they could still be wrestling with it, they're still growing out of it, whatever,

but regardless of what you think, what does the world think?

They may think, yeah, they're Christians but they lie, so Christians lie.

Or they may think, no, they can't be Christians because they're liars.

But either way, you're not going to win anybody to Jesus because they're going to think that place, that people is full of lies.

So it basically takes the gospel out. And by the way, the Bible says Jesus is the truth.

And so you're going to talk about Jesus, you better be saying the truth. It should be the truth.

Verse 10, it says, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him.

A renewal which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised,

barbarian, Scythian, slave and free man, but Christ is all and end all.

So in other words, who can be saved? Who are we actually talking about here?

What race of people, what culture, what social class? All.

Which is why it says nice and big at the top, all.

Because this passage of scripture applies to everybody. If you will allow it, God will renew you.

And that's huge for one reason I'll get to at the very end, it's really important.

Continuing on verse 12, and so as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on, here we go, a heart of compassion.

If you look in the middle, under all, it says in, and then there's a blank, and it says of, and there's a blank.

It's heart on the top line, compassion on the next line.

So right in the middle above the heart. What kind of heart? A heart of compassion.

Now notice over on the right hand side under put on, is the same thing. It says there's three blanks, it's heart of compassion.

So you've got a heart of compassion, that's what this is in the middle, a heart of compassion.

And then up here on the right hand side, the first thing on the new self is heart of compassion.

Under where it says new self, and there's arrows indicating that those are the same thing.

So we've got heart of compassion, and now we're going down that list, we've got a K.

Anybody following along in their Bible that can tell me what the K stands for? Kindness, very good.

So kindness goes in the first blank there, and then humility.

You know what kindness is, I don't have to define kindness for you, right?

Kindness is when you treat people the way you would want to be treated.

Not the way they treat you, but the way you would want to be treated. That's kindness.

Humility. Anybody want to define humility? Not the dictionary definition, but tell me what you think humility is. Anybody?

That's beautiful. That's a biblical definition of humility.

It's a realistic perspective of yourself in relation to other people and in relation to God.

So humble in relation to somebody else is to say you're less than them, right?

But if you say it falsely, then that's not humility.

So for example, if I say I'm a better guitar player than Josh, that is arrogance, whether it's true or not.

If I say I'm a lesser guitar player than Josh, that also could be arrogance, right?

Just because you're saying somebody's better than you doesn't mean you're not arrogant.

Is it your job to decide? If I look at a good preacher and I say I'm better than he is, that's probably arrogance.

If I look at a good preacher and I say I'm worse than he is, also probably arrogance.

Because who is, am I the one gets to judge his preaching? That's not my job.

Don't judge other people. Have a realistic estimation of yourself, which is to say God is God and I am not.

That's our realistic explanation. And so we think I'm not God. I'm going to let God handle it, right?

Somebody, an authority figure comes to you, a police officer. You're not a police officer, right?

Police officer writes you a ticket. You can't flash your badge and get out of it because you ain't got a badge to flash to get out of it as a police officer, right?

So you pay the ticket. The police officer stops you when you're speeding. You treat him with respect because he's doing his job and you are breaking the law, right?

That kind of thing. Humility. Realistic estimation of yourself even in relation to others.

Gentleness. Gentleness is pretty obvious. Gentleness is what you do with a small child when they need help or they're crying, right?

That's how we're supposed to behave. We should be gentle all the time. That's what we put on. We should be gentle all the time.

Now, there is a time just like God comes to the end of his rope, there's a time where you got to say, OK, gentleness didn't work, right?

So the child is heading for the road. They're still 20 feet away. You say, hey, honey, don't go toward the road. I'd like you to stay back. That makes me nervous.

At 10 feet, you say, hey, you're getting off of close the road. It's too close for comfort. Please stay back. And you're already moving that way.

At five feet, you're like, stop right now. That's not gentle. You're not being gentle anymore because they're five feet from the road heading out into a car.

When you're one foot away and they're going into the road, you grab their hair or their shirt or whatever you have to. And they'll be crying because you jerked them.

It's not gentle, right? You start with gentleness and sometimes you might have to give up gentleness to do right.

But most of the time you don't have to. A gentle word turns away wrath is what Proverbs says.

So most of the time people come against you. If you use a gentle word, you'll be OK. And they won't do anything. They don't have to.

But sometimes they will. And if they do, you may have to stand your ground. OK.

And then patience. This is one of the things I struggle with the most. I always have. I had zero or very little patience before I got saved.

And God has poured out abundantly in me. And it's not a lot because I was not very patient to start with.

Patience is nicely laid out when dealing with other people. Verse 13 says bearing with one another.

In other words, you're going to put up with each other. And that's what the B-W-A-O-A is. Bearing with one another.

OK. And then forgiving each other. F-E-O. Forgiving each other. So you get all the way down that list.

Kindness was the first one. Humility. Gentleness. Patience. Bearing with one another.

Forgiving each other. And notice I put in parentheses there. Even complaints.

It does not say forgive each other when the person asks for forgiveness.

People always use that because one of the disciples came to Jesus and said, Lord, when my brother sins against me and asks for forgiveness, how many times should I forgive him?

77 times 7 times. Meaning infinitely. If your brother comes and asks for your forgiveness, you forgive infinitely.

You never stop forgiving if they come and ask. It doesn't mean you let them have access to things that they can hurt you again.

So you don't have to be unwary. But you forgive them. You don't hold a grudge against them. You don't have malice toward them.

You don't hate them. You don't try to undo them.

But this says forgiving each other and it doesn't say only if they come and ask you forgive.

In fact, if you look at the next phrase, it says, whoever has a complaint against anyone.

In other words, anyone has done anything to you, here's what you do. Forgive them.

God forgave them. If they're indeed saved, God already forgave them. And if you don't, you're just arguing with God.

Or as Gamaliel said, talking about Peter and John, maybe you'll wind up fighting against God.

Because God says put on forgiveness. And it says, just as the Lord forgave you.

Nicely done. Jesus taught the disciples to pray what we call the Lord's Prayer.

Even though it was really like more like the disciples prayer. It's kind of a weird title for that.

Because he taught the disciples how to pray. And in there he said one of the phrases, forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And then Jesus after the Lord's Prayer says, if you cannot forgive others, you cannot be forgiven.

So put on forgiveness. All right. So all shall should you. We're in verse 14 and we're almost done.

And beyond all these things, put on love. So that box there that has the hearts on either side.

Love in the middle. Love goes in there.

And love is the perfect bond of all unity. It says.

And then 15 says, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

So one of the three lines we already said in the middle of the heart was Christ or the Lord.

Another is peace.

Okay, so we'll go a little further and see if we get the last one.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.

And then it says in verse 16, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.

So what's the third line? The word. Right.

So we've got peace, the Lord or Christ or God, whatever we put there, and the word in our hearts.

What kind of heart is it, by the way? A heart of compassion.

Right. So we remember we have a heart of compassion.

And I submit to you, it is because you have peace and the Lord and the word in your heart that you can have a heart of compassion,

because otherwise you don't feel safe. If Jesus isn't taking care of everything, then you might feel a little worried about taking big risks.

Right. Okay. So now we're down to the right hand side.

We're talking about the things that we do. And this one will step on your toes a little bit.

I'll begin with verse 16 so we get the whole sentence.

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, with all wisdom teaching, sorry.

And okay, I didn't put that one. All right. With all wisdom teaching and admonishing.

So the A is admonishing. There it is.

By the way, what does it mean to admonish someone? Kind of. Yep.

Encourage them to do the right thing. Yep. So admonishment is just encouragement, but it's specifically encouragement to do the right thing.

Yeah. Constructive encouragement, I guess you could say. All encouragement is kind of constructing.

Okay. I lost my spot. All right. Here we go. Admonish one another. Okay.

And then it's the P. A-ha. Psalms. P-S-A-L-M-S. Psalms.

Even though it starts with an S, it's a silent P. Okay. Then hymns and spiritual songs.

There's two S's. Spiritual songs. Say again. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Just like that.

There's only like, I don't know, what did you say Bill? Like a half dozen words probably.

All the words that have Pneuma, which is actually wind or spirit. Yeah. Pneumatic. All those words have a P.

And pterodactyl. Yep. Okay. Anyway, we're off track.

Singing. Then it says spiritual songs. Then it says singing with thankfulness.

So S-W-T. Singing with thankfulness.

In hearts. I for in a art to God.

And that ends that. That ends the worksheet.

So do we have blanks? Anybody got empty blanks?

H-O-S-N-H-I-T-G.

What? You confused me. What did you say?

Okay. So, yep. So the H is hymns. H-Y-M-N-S. Hymns has a silent N in it. H-Y-M-N-S.

And then spiritual songs. Yes.

The P, the I-P, the I-P-G.

Okay. So which P are you missing?

The up-end.

Up under put on?

No.

Oh, down at the bottom there? Psalms. That's Psalms.

So Psalms in the Bible is a prayer or a song to God. That's what a psalm is.

What about the I-T?

It's I-H-T-G in heart to God.

In heart to God.

Any other questions? Okay. So just a real quick summary piece to this.

As I mentioned to you, your heart of compassion is what makes all this work.

So what do you do when something makes you angry?

What do you do? Now I'm angry. And I'm supposed to what? What do I do with anger?

It's on the left side. Put it aside.

So I don't act out of my anger. Does that mean it goes away?

You ever try to do that? I'm just going to put this away for a while.

I'm not going to think about it. I'm mad. I'm really mad about this.

But I'm not going to think about it. Later when you think about it, do you feel better?

Probably not unless something changed.

Like if you totally got off course or didn't think about it or whatever.

But probably the same. It might have dimmed a little.

But it's still enough to make you angry. If it really was something in the first place.

If you're just getting angry about something dumb.

Then when you come back to it later you're probably like, yeah I was just dumb.

But if somebody truly hurt you or somebody you love, that's a reason to be angry.

If you put that aside, come back to it later, you're going to have the same feelings about it.

It's not going to go away. You have a right to be angry.

So what you need is something to change that anger into something you can use.

See what I'm saying? You need to take that. People get angry.

People oppose other people. If you have an enemy and they're trying to hurt your family,

you are supposed to oppose that person. You're not supposed to stand by and let it happen.

There have been lots of times in history where people say, well we're not going to do that.

We're just going to be passively resistant and whatever.

While horrible injustices are taking place.

And I'm not going to say anything.

And the line, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Which is actually not from the Bible. It's from Hamlet or something. One of those.

I think it's Hamlet. It's from Shakespeare anyway.

That line is very true. If you stand by and do nothing, not only are you not going to stop the evil,

which is what you were created for, but on top of that, they're going to think you agree.

Right? If you stand by while somebody is bullying your friend and you say nothing,

you run away and leave them standing there.

They're going to be like, well he doesn't care. Right?

Or if you just laugh, they're bullying your friend.

You're like, yeah that's funny. Yeah, you stuck paint on his face.

Or you pulled his pants up in his butt crack.

That's funny. Ha ha ha ha.

So you agree. That's what you're saying. No.

So you need something that's going to transform these emotions that we experience.

Because we're creating the image of God and God also experiences it.

And we need something that's going to transform that.

And the something that's going to transform it is a heart of compassion.

Filled with the Lord and with peace. Right?

And with the Word of God.

So you now, you get emotive energy. I've got to do something.

I've got to do something. What am I going to do? I've got to do something.

And you've got Jesus in your heart.

You've got the peace that whatever you do is going to be okay.

Even if you screw up, God is going to take care of it. Right?

And you've got the Word to tell you what you actually should do.

You've got all of those things. And those three things working together will take that anger

and make it so that you can act in your anger in a way that will not dishonor God.

Not the way you would have done it before you were saved. Right?

And if you channel all that anger inwardly and don't change it into something that you can use.

It's like if you have a closet in your bedroom and you've put on about 25 pounds.

And everything in there is two sizes too small.

And you go to the closet and you're putting everything inside.

I can't use this. I can't use this. I can't use this.

What do you feel like when you're done in that closet?

Fat. Right? And undressed. Right?

And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about how to be dressed in the Lord.

How to be ready for what comes. Because stuff is coming.

And some of it ain't going to be good. And you're going to go through it.

And when you go through it, what are you going to do with it is determined by who you serve.

What you've learned. Right? And the peace that we have in Christ.

The verses I listed at the bottom, I won't go over them and read them.

But Romans 12.2, that's that verse where it says, by the renewing of your mind.

Here, in case you were wondering, Colossians 3, if you go back to the beginning.

The verse that I read it, verse 11 says, a renewal in which there is no distinction.

So we're renewing everything. It's being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him.

That's what's happening to us. We're being renewed according to a true knowledge, Jason.

So that we'll be more and more like Jesus. Right?

Okay. So if there are young people in the room, if you've been taking notes,

hold up your paper so I can see what percentage of notes we have.

I want to see. I'm curious. What do we got? Just hold it up.

See how many blanks you got filled in.

Okay. Pretty good. 100% looks like.

Oh, you missed a few on the right there. No, I see it.

You got small, pretty hand writing. Very good. Very nice.

Look at that. We rocked the house. Okay. So we did good. We did good. We nailed it.

Okay. So that means everybody gets candy pelted at them.

But Karina, didn't you put yours up?

This will be fun. Watch this.

Everybody in the back ready? Okay. Get this on camera.

Okay. I always got to adjust the camera.

You might want to cover your head.

Okay. He's dialing the camera in. Okay. You ready?

Go!

I'll be much gentler on this side of the room.

I got you right in the nose.

Okay. All right. So we're through with our lesson. We had fun.

Walk in it. That's how you get it done. Okay.

We're going to pray in closing and then...