Christless Christianity - Colossians 2:20-23 (Oct. 11, 2026)

Well, good morning.

My name is David.

I'm a member here, and it is a blessing and opportunity, a great opportunity to be able to bring God's word to you this morning.

We're going to be looking at Colossians chapter 2, if you have your Bibles, verses 20 through 23.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

We've been looking at the book of Colossians for a while now just to see the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And just to remind ourselves that we need Jesus always.

So if you have your Bibles, Colossians chapter 2, verse 20 through 23, this passage is about the Christian life.

Colossians 2:20–23

The Apostle Paul is continuing his argument from chapter 2 and verse 6 when he says, Just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him.

This is about the Christian life.

And in our passage, he addresses a church that has been captivated by false teaching and asks, Why are you living this way?

Before we get started, it's really important.

I want to define two terms that I'll use kind of interchangeably.

The first is holiness.

And holiness means fundamentally to be set apart and distinctly different.

And then sanctification means being set apart for the purpose your designer intends.

So holiness being set apart and distinctive in sanctification being set apart to be as our designer intends.

Both are a gift and a task.

In commenting on this passage, Sinclair Ferguson writes, Paul is addressing believers who may have been disappointed by their relatively small advance in the Christian life.

If you feel disappointed in how you are advancing in the Christian life, this passage is for you.

Colossians 2, verse 20 through 23, follow along with me.

Colossians 2:20–23

If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belong to the world?

Why do you submit to regulations, don't handle, don't taste, don't touch?

All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up.

There are human commands and doctrines.

Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.

Pray with me.

Dear Heavenly Father, we are so thankful this morning to gather to be reminded of the great news that you and you alone save us, redeem us, make us new in Jesus Christ.

We're thankful that we have the privilege to know you, to be invited into a relationship with you and to walk in your ways.

Father, this morning we confess that the Christian life is not easy.

Many, if not all, of us would say this morning that we're struggling, that we're disappointed.

Father, would you let us see with eyes of faith Jesus more clearly this morning?

And may we be encouraged by what we see.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Several years ago, Kara and I attended a Dare to Share conference with our son's youth group.

And in one of the sessions, we were asked to text to somebody, How do you view yourself?

And the texts were really revealing.

Some people would text the normal things you would expect.

I'm funny, I'm shy, I'm talented if they were confident.

But one text that I received broke my heart.

The person said, This is how I see myself.

I'm worthless, I'm a failure, and I'm disgusting.

I want to ask you a question this morning for us to think about.

If God were to send you a text and ask you, how do you think you're doing in the Christian life?

How would you answer?

Some of us might say, I'm holding on with everything I have, but I'm losing my grip.

Some of you might say, I'm struggling in my Christian life.

I'm discouraged.

I'm disappointed.

I'm not making the progress that I want to make.

Some of you may feel pretty good.

You might think now, like I read my Bible, I'm here at church, right?

I serve, I go to growth group, don't miss one.

I even serve in setup and teardown and kids, that's gotta count for something.

How many of us would text, if God asks us, how are you doing in your spiritual life?

I'm holy, or blameless, or even not guilty, faultless.

The reality is that like the Colossians, we're mostly disappointed with our progress in holiness.

We want to change, but it feels like the harder we try, the stronger sin's grip becomes.

This passage this morning has a word for both those of us who are struggling, and maybe some of us who think, you know what?

When it comes to the Christian life, I'm killing it.

I'm doing all right, or at least I'm doing better than most.

This morning, the main idea is because Jesus is our righteousness, we are free to joyfully produce holiness.

Because Jesus is our righteousness, we are free to joyfully pursue holiness.

Just two points this morning.

One, the problem of legalism.

The problem of legalism.

Legalism assumes that human achievement and living up to a code of behavior is what makes someone acceptable in God's eyes.

In his book, You Can Change, Tim Chester lists two reasons legalism is so appealing to us.

First, it makes holiness manageable.

A whole heart totally devoted to God is a tough demand.

But a list of ten rules I can cope with.

Two, legalism makes holiness an achievement on our part.

Yes, I was saved by the grace of God, the legalist says, but I'm a godly person.

I am today because I'm holy because I've kept this code and I've practiced the spiritual disciplines.

That's a problem.

Legalism is a problem, and we're tempted to approach the Christian life like a legalist.

Three problems in the text of legalism.

One, legalism is Christless.

Look at verse 20.

If you died with Christ to the elements of the world, why do you still live as if you belong to the world?

The problem that's going on here in the church is they started with Christ.

They've been freed from the power of sin by Christ, but now they're approaching the Christian life without him.

This doesn't mean that an approach like this doesn't use the word Jesus, Holy Spirit, or even Lord.

It basically just means that when we think about our own Christian life, we are prone to forget Jesus.

And we try to grow on our own as if we don't need him.

You may think, how could that be possible?

How could we be, as Christians, able to forget that we need Jesus as we walk in the Lord?

I would venture to say it's easier than you think.

I was recently at a men's prayer breakfast.

There were probably, I think there were 200 men there.

And the person who was speaking and leading this prayer breakfast got up and said, I just want to highlight, I want to, we had such a great talk last week about the fundamentals of the Christian life.

Here were the fundamentals.

Feed yourself, do something for someone else, and embrace accountability.

That's the fundamentals, the basics of the Christian life.

Who or what is missing?

Jesus.

And I want to give them the benefit of the doubt because I wasn't there for the talk.

They may have assumed the reality that we need Jesus Christ, but I just think that's how we approach the Christian life a lot.

These are the things that I need to do in order to grow, and we are guilty of practicing Christless Christianity.

Secondly, legalism is heartless.

And the heart in the Bible is the default mode of what controls us.

It's what controls us, it's the center of who we are.

And legalism here is absolutely heartless.

It concentrates on the externals.

Look again here at verse 21.

There's two characteristics that I want to look at in this heartless religion.

Number one, verse 21, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.

This is negative spirituality.

This is spirituality divined what you don't do.

Right?

I'm holy because I don't go to movies, watch TV, cheat on my spouse, vote for that party, don't listen to that type of music.

We can be tempted to look around at Christians who do those things and think, man, I'm doing pretty well.

I don't do any of those things.

Think about that list for a second.

All of the things that I just listed, which may be good, very good.

Any unbeliever can do them.

We don't need Christ.

It's all external.

Secondly, these are man-made standards, verse 22.

All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up.

They are human commands and doctrines.

This really is an echo of what Jesus was talking about with the Pharisees.

You'll remember in Mark 7, the disciples are walking along and they're eating with unclean hands.

And the Pharisees ask Jesus, why don't your disciples keep the traditions of our fathers?

Why are your disciples breaking our tradition?

And Jesus answered them, saying, Isaiah prophesied correctly about you, hypocrites, as it is written, the people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.

This is what's going on in Colossi.

The disciples later are confused by what Jesus says, and he's like, Don't you get it?

He goes on to say in Mark chapter 7, verse 18 through 20, are you still lacking in understanding?

Mark 7:18–20

Don't you realize that nothing going into a person from outside can defile him?

For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach and is eliminated.

Thus he declared all foods clean and said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him.

For within and out of people's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

All these evil things come from within and defile a person.

Jesus says, You're missing it.

Right?

It's about the heart.

It's about the heart.

Your standard of righteousness, he says, is based on human commands and doctrines.

And human doctrine evaluates holiness on the basis of external appearance.

But God looks at the heart.

This morning, what standard are you using to evaluate your spiritual condition?

If you feel defeated, discouraged, and hopeless, could it be that you're using the wrong standard?

Could it be that you're looking around at what everyone else is doing, which may or may not be good?

You're looking at the external things that you're doing and you feel defeated.

Maybe you're looking at the wrong thing.

You're evaluating yourself incorrectly.

If you feel confident this morning in your spirit spiritual condition, maybe you feel like, look, I'm I'm doing really well.

Could it be that you are evaluating yourself by the wrong standard?

Maybe you feel that way because you look at your life and you say, I'm doing all the things that I need to do.

The reason that legalism is dangerous is because it's heartless.

And a heartless approach to the Christian life produces hypocrites, not holiness.

Let me ask you a question.

Is it possible to memorize the Bible, tithe, go to a Christian school, serve in ministry, preach God's word, and your heart not be transformed?

When I went to camp in high school, I heard the testimony of a man that changed my life.

Really, it was at that point I was called into ministry.

He was a youth pastor in West Virginia, and he got up to share his testimony.

And he said, I grew up in a Christian home.

I memorized scripture.

I went to church.

I went to Bible college.

I served as a pastor in ministry.

And I got up and I was preaching, and during my message, I realized I wasn't a Christian.

How is that possible?

And yet it is.

If we only focus on what we do and miss the main thing, it is possible to look holy, to look righteous, and even be lost.

You can remove yourself from the world, you can read your Bible, you can fast, attend church, even abuse your body and be spiritually dead.

Which leads us to the next point.

Heartless Christianity is powerless.

So legalism, it's a problem.

It's a problem because it's Christeless, it's a Christeless approach to the Christian life.

It's a problem because it's heartless, but ultimately it's powerless.

It's powerless when it comes to living the Christian life.

Look at verse 23.

Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.

Don't miss it.

They are completely worthless without Christ.

Legalism can accomplish something.

Look again at verse 23, the first part.

It says, All these, although these have a reputation for wisdom, it creates a reputation for being godly, for being holy, for being righteous.

Like if you follow all these rules, if you follow all these steps, through safe, self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, even, people can look at you and say, man, they are holy.

That's the kind of person I want to be.

You can have a reputation for holiness and yet not be growing in it.

And I wonder this morning, if we don't fall into that trap, the reason that we pursue reading our word, going to church, serving is more about our reputation than it is growing close to God through Christ.

This is easy to do.

We can be guilty of cruise control Christianity, where we're doing pretty well, we're saved, we're making progress, and then we look around and say, wow, I'm better than most of these people.

I can just slow down a little bit and coast.

Students of all ages can fall into this trap.

You may be tempted to think, as long as I know the answers to some important Bible questions, as long as I'm reading and memorizing scripture, as long as I can give the right answers, I listen to the right Christian artists, I learn to talk the talk, then no one will know what's going on in my heart and the secret sin that I'm harboring there.

Senior saints, we, we can rest on our reputation for being a servant, a teacher, a mentor.

Well, if we're honest, we've just come to believe at this point of our life, this is as good as it gets.

We've grown as much as we're going to grow, and so we can rest on our own reputation.

And I know this for me, we can be guilty of parenting this way.

Like our whole motive for our Christian life is we want to just grow enough so we don't make a fool of ourselves or we don't embarrass the church.

We can do this with kids, right?

We parent them, and sometimes we just want to raise good, respectable kids so they don't embarrass us or damage our reputation.

Maybe I'm the only one.

I remember when I was pastoring, I pastored when I was very young.

And man, pastors' kids, there's a lot of pressure on you.

I remember we were having vacation Bible school, and one of my daughters was given a verse.

1 Corinthians 13, 4a, so half of it.

She was about five years old, and in my mind I'm thinking, my kids need to show up and know their verses, or else, what kind of pastor am I?

And so my daughter, Carissa, was sitting next to me, and I said, We're gonna we're gonna learn this verse, all right?

1 Corinthians 13a, repeat it after me.

Love is patient, love is kind.

And she looks at me and says, First Chronicles?

No, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay.

1 Corinthians 13, 4.

Say it after me.

Love is patient, love is kind.

1 Corinthians 13, 4.

Love is patient, love is blind.

No, no, no, no, no.

Listen to me.

Love is patient, love is kind.

Okay, 1 Corinthians 13, 4.

Love is, and I just I'm thinking, what's going on?

Like, this is only half a verse.

Love is patient, love is kind.

How hard is that?

Why don't you listen?

Get it right.

Love is patient, love is kind.

And I look over to my daughter and there are tears flowing down her face.

And then it hit me.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

And I wonder if we aren't guilty of putting so much pressure on our kids, not necessarily because we are shepherding their hearts, but maybe because we're too concerned about what people think of us.

Parents take heart.

When sin abounds, grace abounds much more, and 30 years later, Carissa is here this morning at our service and is one of the most patient and kind people I know.

So legalism can give us a reputation, but what it's not able to do is transform our hearts.

Look at 23 again.

Although these, all these things that these false teachers are saying we need to do, all these things have a reputation for wisdom.

By promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence indulgence.

They can't change our wicked hearts.

It's powerless.

Legalism is powerless to transform the heart.

When it comes to our spiritual life, legalism, this approach to the Christian life, is at best worthless, and honestly, it's damaging.

Like the Pharisees, we can remove ourselves from the world and sinners, and our hearts still be wicked.

We can emotionally and even physically abuse our bodies because we're trying to get rid of.

Of the guilt because we're disappointed and discouraged in our Christian life.

We know we should be living differently.

We have Christ, and yet we're struggling.

And so we beat ourselves up emotionally, and some hurt themselves to try to get rid of the guilt.

We often think if holiness is going to happen, if it's going to be a reality in my life, then I need to try harder.

I need to fix myself.

I need to do something because I don't want to live this way.

But the problem is, no amount of religious performance can make us holy in God's sight.

Because after all, Isaiah says even our best acts of righteousness are like filthy rags.

And yet so often we're caught in sin.

And so our first response is, I gotta try harder.

And the harder we try to escape the clutches of sin and our own power, and the harder we try, we're enslaved more by sin.

Have you felt that?

There's this sin in your life, and you're just like, I've got to do something.

I've got to read my Bible more, I've got to try harder, I've got to go to more services, I've got to read more books, and yet you're still clamped down by that same sin.

When I was probably seven or eight years old, I went to Kroger with my grandma, and I did what all seven and eight-year-old kids did at Kroger.

I went to go get my blood press blood pressure checked.

And as I pushed the button and it was clamping down on me, all of a sudden I heard this crackling and explosion and saw smoke and saw people running, and I looked down the aisle behind me, and the smoke and fire is coming down.

And what had happened was there was a large uh fireworks display that someone got the bright idea to put a match in.

And so I'm terrified.

I'm like, I can't believe it, I'm gonna drop die in a Kroger and in a blood blood pressure machine.

I could can you see that like show up, and there's the dude just stuck in the machine.

But the harder I tried to get out, you know what happens?

It squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter.

And I was I was terrified.

And finally, my grandma walked over, pushed the button, I was released, and by the grace of God, here I am.

I did not die.

Here's the thing that's how we approach the Christian life so often.

Try harder, try harder, try harder, don't do this, don't do that.

And we just are enslaved to the sin we want to escape.

We need someone who's outside of us, who is not enslaved to sin to set us free.

And here's the good news there's someone like that.

John Webster says this God's grace is visible, embodied mercy, and it's visible and embodied in one place, Jesus Christ, he literally is grace.

And so the problem of legalism is that it's Christeless, it's heartless, and it's powerless.

But what I want to look at this morning is the power of the gospel.

The power of the gospel.

Because Jesus has set us free, we can pursue holiness through him.

We are free, key word, free to pursue holiness in him.

Now, when you think of freedom, that's a loaded word.

In our culture, freedom means I do what I want.

I do what I want.

Biblical freedom, however, is something much greater.

Biblical freedom is desiring what God wants, being free to desire what God wants.

That's freedom.

And God's desire for us is to enter into a vibrant, intimate relationship with Him.

That's what God wants.

And through Christ, that is the freedom we have.

Now, some of you might be thinking, if that's freedom, I don't want it.

Or as my granddaughter Natalie, who's almost two, would say, no thank to.

When it leaves the tracks or when it's smoothly running on them.

When it's on them, right?

Because it's doing what it's created to do.

And so that it is with us.

We are free to do what we have been created and redeemed to do, to have a vibrant personal relationship with God, which by the way is the good life that you're looking for everywhere else.

It is the only thing that will satisfy your restless heart because God has created you and Jesus has redeemed you in order to enjoy that life.

So look again at the gospel.

Where is that found in our text?

Look again at verse 20.

If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, that is the gospel.

What it's talking about is our union with Christ.

And let me explain that specifically here in the text and then a little bit generally.

First of all, what does it mean that we died with Christ to the elements of the world?

That's a difficult term to understand.

As Jeff mentioned, it showed up in another passage in Colossians.

What it means, according to one scholar, we've died to the elements of the world in Christ.

This is how he describes that elements of the world.

The Colossians had a hodgepodge of religious ideas.

They thought about God as if he could be manipulated, just as people thought they could control the pagan deities by magical incantations or ritual acts.

What Paul is basically saying is when you are living this way, you're thinking about God and his law as if you were pagans trying to keep their deities happy.

What he's saying is, you've died to that, right?

You cannot manipulate God by your religious acts.

You can't.

Generally, what does it mean to be united to Christ?

It means when we place our faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit truly and really unites us with Jesus so that we in Christ have died to sin and to the elements of the world, been baptized and raised with him.

That's what it means.

And it's hard to understand, but it is absolutely key to our Christian life.

Our participation in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection changes our identity.

We are new creatures in Christ.

We belong to God through Christ.

We have a new way to live in Christ.

And friends, when it comes to the Christian life, that is the best news you could ever hear.

We are united to Christ.

What does that mean?

How does that help us in the everyday of our life?

Here's what I want you to know: Jesus is our holiness.

He's our holiness.

In him, you are not only justified or declared righteous, Jesus himself is our holiness.

We are sanctified, past tense, holy, past tense by faith in Christ.

And that's great news.

I'm always I always marvel at the book of Corinthians.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 2, Paul writes, to the church of God at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus' past tense, and called as saints, which literally means holy ones.

1 Corinthians 1:2

How, if you know anything about the Corinthian church and the Corinthians, how does Paul call them sanctified and holy?

If you know anything, they're not doing awesome.

Like they're divided, they're unspiritual, they're fighting, they're creating all kinds of division and immorality.

And yet, when Paul writes them and describes them, it's holy, sanctified.

How is that possible?

Here's how it's possible: Jesus.

He goes on, 1 Corinthians 1 30.

It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us, our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

In Christ, we are holy.

We are cleansed from sin and set apart for his purposes and placed constantly in the presence of God because in Christ, through faith, we are sanctified and holy.

We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Praise God?

Right?

When God sees us, we are right in his sight.

We talk about that a lot, but here's what I want you to know.

In Christ, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, we are sanctified and we are holy right now.

You might think, well, that's that's great news.

I'm holy in Christ.

Does that mean so I don't have to fight sin anymore?

I can just sit back and say, you know what, if you got a complaint, take it up with Jesus, like he's my sanctification.

Friends, that's like a prisoner saying, I've been pardoned, so I can stay in prison and don't have to worry about enjoying my freedom.

If you were living as a beggar in the streets and were adopted by a king, would you continue to live in rags and go out begging for food?

No, why?

Because your identity has changed.

You have freedom, you have a new status.

And that's why we grow in holiness.

That's why we pursue God, because of who we are.

And we get it backwards for some reason when it comes to living the Christian life.

We think, I've got to get my life together so that I can be holy in Christ or so that he will accept me.

And that's that's the wrong way to think about it.

We are holy in Christ.

That is who we are, and so we have the freedom to live it out in everyday life.

And that is such a privilege and joy.

We pursue righteousness in Christ because we are righteousness, because we are righteous in him, and we strive for holiness because we are holy in him.

Salvation from beginning to end is through Christ's work for us and in us.

We receive God's gift of righteousness and holy hands, and holiness with empty hands.

You might be here and think, that my view of the Christian life is this is what you don't do, this is what you do.

Try to be a good person, try to be nice to everyone.

And that's impossible.

So that youth pastor who read his Bible, went to church, from the outside were saying, that guy, that's who I want to be.

Who was lost.

Do you know what he found?

Preaching the good news of the gospel.

Do you know what he saw?

He saw Christ.

He saw his own sin and said, No matter what I do, I cannot please Christ.

I cannot live up to God's standard.

But he saw the power and the beauty of the gospel and was transformed that merchant in the pulpit.

Friends, if you're here and you're trying to earn God's favor, can I just say it's impossible?

None of us can.

What we need is someone outside of us, a perfect righteousness, and Christ offers that to us by faith.

We are saved from the power and not only the penalty of sin through Jesus Christ.

You might be here thinking, man, I okay, I want to change.

I want to please God with my life, but how can I do it?

I don't know how to change, I don't know what to do.

I want to want what God's want, God wants, but I don't know how to do it.

How is it that we in the Christian life can guard against legalism and make sure that as we read our Bibles, as we go to church, what we're really doing is pursuing God and living in His presence.

Can I just list two ways to do that?

What we need to do is feed our faith.

We need to feed our faith, and there are two ways that we do that.

First is by prayer, and prayer, by definition, is a declaration of dependence.

One of the things that strikes me about Paul's prayer, even in Colossians, is that it always focuses on things that I wouldn't think of.

In Colossians 1, 9 through 14, he prays that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of a Lord, fully pleasing to him.

If you look at Ephesians and his other letters, what is he praying for?

He's praying that the church would grow in Christ.

How often do we pray, Lord, help me to grow in the knowledge and power of you?

Help me to be like you because I can't do it in my own strength.

We start with prayer.

So let me encourage you this week.

As you pray, would you pray that God would open up your the eyes of your heart, that you would see him more clearly, that he would enable you to grow, that he would set your heart on fire for him.

That's where it starts.

We have to pray.

The second thing we need to do is meditate on God's word.

And so the question is, how do we how do we avoid legalism?

And how do we cultivate a heart that truly is seeking after God, which is our great treasure?

We have to pray, we have to ask God for help.

But secondly, meditating on his word.

And it's through the word of God, not just reading it, which is important, but actually thinking on, pondering what we have read through the day, through the week.

And we want to stir up our affections, which is an old word.

This I'm not talking about stirring up emotions, like let's play the Christian music real loud this week.

Let's get really pumped up emotionally.

It involves our emotions, but it's much deeper.

It's our affections.

That's what matters in the heart.

One prominent scholar and pastor, Jeff Strickland, in The Foundation of Joy, puts it this way: Affections compromise the core of the soul, enabling believers to enjoy God.

The soul loves that which it perceives to be good.

The love is manifest in desire and delight.

That's the Christian life.

Desire and delight.

That's what it looks like.

We delight to be in God's presence because we taste that it is good to be with Him.

We want to obey because that is the good life.

That's what it means to be free.

And we need the word of God to fan that flame of our heart.

We will never grow as a Christian until we believe that the Christian life is not drudgery but a delight.

Obedience is not a burden but a birthright.

Our hearts are stirred with desire and delight when, with eyes of faith, we look to Jesus and meditate upon his person and work for us.

Can I just be honest?

This is a really big struggle for me.

Legalism.

I grew up in a church, went to a Christian school that said, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.

That's what it means to be a Christian.

Don't let the hair touch your ears.

Don't wear jeans.

Don't wear shorts that are too short.

Don't, don't, don't.

And my whole Christian life, that's what formed me.

That was my view of the Christian life.

Man, that's awesome.

The Christian life for me, obedience to me, it was like I'm trying to keep an angry God from zapping me with lightning because I did something I shouldn't have done.

It has crippled me.

It still flares up in my heart and mind.

And I fought it.

I tried to read more, do more, fix myself, and nothing worked.

You know what?

You know what helped?

You know what changed my life?

It was Jesus and thinking about who he is and how great and how glorious of a Savior He is.

And when those demonic voices, and I hear them all the time, say, You're not good enough.

You're a fraud, you're a fake, you don't measure up.

You know what I do?

With the pages of scripture and eyes of faith, I go back to the cross and I stand and I see Jesus Christ crucified.

And I say, I'm not enough, but He is.

I'm not righteous, but in Him I am.

I'm not holy.

I'm not where I want to be.

I'm still struggling.

I do the things I don't want to do and don't do the things I do want to do.

But I am holy.

And I don't go in my Christian life thinking, I want to try harder, I want to fix myself.

I look at Jesus and I say, I just want to give my all for him because he died in my place.

Not when my life was cleaned up, but when I was still a sinner.

Christ died for me.

And when God looks at me now, he's not disappointed.

He's not getting ready to hit me with a lightning bolt.

Wait it for a second.

No.

He draws me in and says, come closer.

Christian, is that who you are?

Do you know that?

Do you believe that?

Have you heard those voices?

If you hear those voices today, go to the cross and with eyes of faith look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Parents.

When our kids are driving us nuts, they're driving us crazy.

You have to tell them the law, all right?

But show them Jesus.

Would you pray for your kids that their hearts would be transformed?

Because as a parent who has adult children, I can tell you this, it's terrifying.

And no matter how much law teaching we give them, only God can change the heart.

Husband, pray for your wife.

Wife prays for your husband that God would transform their heart, that they would see Jesus more clearly, and that their desire would burn for him because their affections have been stirred by the gospel.

That's the power of the gospel.

We're free in Christ to joyfully pursue holiness.

And his friend looked at him and said, What if we walked out that door today and actually lived like these things were true?

Christian, if you're struggling in sin, I want you to know if you're a believer.

If God texts you, which would be amazing, if God texts you this morning to describe how you think your Christian life was going, I hope that you would text right back to him.

I'm holy.

I'm blameless.

Because I'm in Christ.

You may be here this morning discouraged, wanting to give up.

But what if you walked out this door today believing that this is who you are in Christ and pursued him with everything you have.

Because in him we are free to pursue holiness.

Let's pray.