“The Lord’s Supper” – Luke 22:7-20

How many of you have some kind of junk drawer at home?  I bet most of us do.  Most of them will be crammed full of stuff that we rarely use but we don’t want to throw away because some of it might be useful in the future but some of it is just purely sentimental.  What are some things you have in your junk drawer at home?

I found three things real quick in my drawer that I want to show you.  All three of these things will stay in that drawer forever and never be used for anything but I would never get rid of any of them.  The first thing I found was this watch.  It’s not a particularly valuable watch especially since the clasp is broken and it won’t stay working even with a new battery.  But it was my dad’s watch.  I remember him wearing it and he gave it to me years ago and it just reminds me of him.  So, it goes back in the drawer.

Next, I found this little slip of paper that says, “I rode a bull at Kowbell Indoor Rodeo”.  That brings back some really fun memories from about 20 years ago.  I keep this as proof that I really did ride a bull or two back in the day and lived to tell about it.  So, it goes back in the drawer.

Next, this is a real prized possession.  In this box are two silver dollars that were given to me the day I was born.  In fact, my birth announcement is in the box too.  One of the coins is from 1923 and the other is from 1896.  They might actually be worth something.  I don’t know and I don’t care.  I’ll never get rid of them.  Their value is all sentimental to me.  I keep all of these things just to look back on and remember.  So, it goes back in the drawer.

Now, we just finished a month and a half long sermon series based on Isaiah 43:18-19.  Can anybody tell me what any of that said? 

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.”

God said through Isaiah that we should forget the former things and He is talking about good things and bad things.  Forget your history.  You don’t live there anymore.  God is doing a new thing and yet Jesus tells us in Luke chapter 22 that there is one thing He wants us to remember.  He wants us to remember Him and we do that by sharing in what we call the Lord’s Supper.

I read this story.  One of the funniest memories I have of the trials and tribulations of making the journey from childhood to adulthood was our annual summer vacation trek from Chicago to a cabin usually someplace on a lake in Wisconsin or Michigan.  Every year, it seems, we would get on a highway a few miles out of the city, and mom would wail, “Oh my goodness! I think left the iron on." And almost every year we would turn around and go back. But as I recall, not once was it was ever plugged in. She often had the same fear that all our earthly possessions would disappear in a fire caused by her forgetfulness.  When I was about 14 years old, we were headed out of Chicago for Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and, sure enough, Mom gasped, “I just know I left the iron on."  My father didn't say a word, just pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, got out, opened the trunk and handed her the iron.

Just like that father, Jesus wants us to be sure we remember Him and what He has done for us.  Why is that so important?  He knew it was important to remember what He has done because it is the only way that we can be right with Him; the only way to have true, lasting peace and joy in this life and the only way to get to Heaven.

Jesus said to remember Him.  Let’s read about that in Luke 22:7-20.  Jesus and His disciples are about to celebrate the Passover and to really understand this passage, you need to understand the Passover.  The Passover celebration happened every year to commemorate what happened to the children of Israel all the way back in Egypt when they were slaves and God had sent all the plagues.  The last plague God sent was the death of all the first born.

In Exodus 12, it tells what God told Moses to do to keep from having their own first born killed.  All the people were to take a perfect male lamb and slaughter it at twilight then take the blood and put it on the sides and tops of their door frames and when the angel came to kill the firstborn of every household, he would pass over every house with that blood sign.

God told them that from then on they were to celebrate that day as a remembrance of what God had done.  So, that is why Jesus and His disciples were celebrating.  But I doubt if Jesus felt much like celebrating.  He knew He was just hours away from being arrested, tried and killed.  But this is how it happened.  Let’s read Luke 22:7-20.

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. ⁸ Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.” ⁹ “Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked. ¹⁰ He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, ¹¹ and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ ¹² He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.” ¹³ They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So, they prepared the Passover. ¹⁴ When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. ¹⁵ And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. ¹⁶ For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” ¹⁷ After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. ¹⁸ For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” ¹⁹ And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁰ In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

The commentaries tell us that the man in town would have been easy to spot because men never carried water like that.  That was a woman’s job.  We don’t know if Jesus had planned this out with that man as a sign or if Jesus was just foretelling what would happen.  It doesn’t matter.  It showed the disciples exactly where to go.

This is a fascinating passage, especially when you know what all was going on before, during and after all this.  If you read the other gospels, you see that while Jesus was mentally and spiritually dealing with what was about to happen to Him, the disciples were having a disagreement about who was going to have the best places of honor in the new kingdom Jesus was bringing in.  They were obviously missing the point on several levels.

So, this is where Jesus, in the middle of this ridiculous, petty argument just quietly walks over and gets a jar with some water in it and begins to wash their feet.  I wonder how long that argument lasted once Jesus started doing that.  Probably not long.

Now, the picture we probably all get in our mind of this is what Leonardo Da Vinci painted of them all sitting around a table with Jesus in the middle but it wasn’t like that.  We know that it was customary to lie on your stomach and prop yourself up on your left arm and eat with your right.  They had a strict menu of unleavened bread and some bitter herbs, some matzo balls, an egg and a mixture of fruits and nuts.  All of it had great sentimentality for the Jewish people and it all represented something about their life and escape from Egypt.

They had probably all taken this meal in celebration since before they could remember but now Jesus says something they have never heard before.  He starts by saying that He is anxious to eat this Passover meal with them but that He will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the Kingdom of God.  Now, I’m no great food connoisseur.  I think pigs in blankets are a great meal.  But can you imagine what Jesus is talking about here?

Can you imagine the feast that we will have with Him when we all get to Heaven?  Dos Chiles got nothing on that!  Not only that but can you imagine celebrating Passover… with Moses and Aaron?  With King David and Abraham?  With all the men in that room on this day including our Lord and Savior Jesus???  I get chills thinking about that.

Now, it would have been customary for them to have one cup or glass full of wine or grape juice of some sort and they would just pass that cup around.  I’m glad we don’t have to do that to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, especially with all the sickness going around but that’s what they did.  But then Jesus said something different.  He probably has the cup right there but He takes the bread and breaks it and gives each person a part of it.  Then He says, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

There are two parts to that sentence and neither part probably made sense to the disciples.  It didn’t make sense because it hadn’t happened yet.  His body had not yet been broken nor had the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of Jesus been made.  I can’t help but think that Jesus said this, of course for the disciples to remember later on, but just as much to us; so we would remember.

Think about it.  He breaks the crusty, unleavened bread and at the same time says that He is giving His body to be broken.  He didn’t have His life taken from Him.  He gave it away.  He made the choice – for YOU!  Then Jesus said that we should eat this bread in remembrance of Him.  That didn’t make sense to the disciples like it does us now.  For them, they were remembering what happened in Egypt to their forefathers thousands of years before.  Now, Jesus says to remember Him.

Two elderly ladies were playing cards together one evening like they had done since they were kids when one of them finally said, “You know, we’ve been friends for many years and, please don't get mad, but for the life of me, I can't remember your name. Please tell me what it is."  Her friend glared at her. She continued to glare and stare at her for several minutes. Finally, she said, "How soon do you need to know?"

We forget so easily!  It’s why we have these little rocks in these goofy little cups here on the pulpit.  They remind us of what God has done for us.  Somebody tell me in just one sentence what God has done for you.  He has done countless wonderful things for us as individuals and as a church but here, in Luke 22, He says remember me for laying down my life for you.  John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.”  So we remember that great love today. 

Now go on to verse 20.  He takes the cup and blows their mind with something else new.  Jesus says we now have a new covenant.  That’s where we get the “New Testament”.  It’s a new promise or a new agreement between man and God.  The Old Covenant said that when a person sinned, they had to make a sacrifice of some sort of animal.  Jesus was saying His sacrifice on the cross was the new way, the new promise, the new covenant and all we have to do is believe.  The sacrifice has been made once and for all.

But as great and incredible as that is, we would even forget about that if we didn’t take the Lord’s Supper as a reminder so that is why we are here today.  Some people call it “communion” because we take the bread and juice as we “commune” with God and each other in our remembrance but whatever you want to call we are to remember the sacrifice Jesus made.

I find it interesting that nowhere are we called to remember His miracles or His character or where He went except when He went to the cross.  We are called on to remember His blood, specifically.  It’s why we sing all those songs about His blood that will never lose the power or “Are You Washed In The Blood”, “Covered By The Blood” and “Nothing But The Blood”.  “His blood is a fountain…”  How gory that would be if you didn’t know why we sing and celebrate and remember the blood of Jesus.  He said we should remember it because “it was poured out for you”.

So, we are going to do that right now but before we do we have to hear from Paul who wrote in 1 Corinthians 11, “So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸ Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. ²⁹ For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.”

The Lord’s Supper is a celebration but it is a somber celebration and we should take it with the utmost reverence and never without being as completely free from sin and as clean and forgiven as possible and we do that by going back to what David wrote in Psalm 139.  He said, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  ²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Let’s do that right now and if you have never done that before then what a perfect day to do that.  Go to God in prayer and ask Him for your forgiveness based, not on what you have done, but on what we remember Jesus has done for us.  He is the pure and perfect Lamb that was slaughtered for us.  All we have to do is believe but when we do, that belief will result in a changed life, full of peace and joy, forgetting what we are called to forget but remembering what we are called to remember.  Do it today.

“Above All, Forget Pride” – Genesis 3:1-13

An interesting thing happened in the summer of 1972 in Chicago, Illinois. That summer the minister of Chicago’s Vernon Baptist church planned a parade intended to draw 15,000 people for the sole purpose of paying honor to God. It was labeled a “Happy Parade” and was set up not to protest against anything, but simply to praise God for being God. The Mayor of Chicago was invited to march and 214 police officers were assigned to the parade route. The interesting thing was that no one showed up. Absolutely no one came. There was no parade because no one was present to praise God.  (https://www.sermons.com/sermonweb/jobef2.html)

Yet, this coming June will be the 48^th annual Gay Pride Parade there in Chicago.  For nearly 50 years, that parade has gotten bigger and bigger.  My purpose today is not to bash gays but it is a perfect example of what our topic is this morning.  Romans 1 makes it very plain that the homosexual lifestyle is a sin and in that passage it says that “Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death (spiritual death), they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”  Isn’t that exactly what the marchers in the Gay Pride parades are doing?  They take pride in who they are and how they have chosen to live.  They say it’s good; in fact, it’s so good let’s have a parade to celebrate it.  They approve of this lifestyle and those who practice it so much and are so proud of it that if you Google the word “pride”, most of the pages have something to do with homosexuality.

Did you know that Proverbs 8:13 says that God hates pride?  Hate is a strong word but it’s clear that God hates pride.  I’m not saying that God hates homosexuals; not at all.  But He hates that lifestyle and when you add pride to that lifestyle, God says, “Woe unto you.”  That’s not “whoa” like you would say to horse telling him to stop.  That’s “woe” as in bad things are about to happen.

Now, so far, this may be one of those messages that you feel comfortable saying “amen” to.  Well, don’t get too comfy.  You know, the older I get the easier it is for me to forget things I need to remember but it can also be easy for me to remember things I need to forget and pride is one of those things.  We need to forget pride, above all, forget pride.

Do you remember what Isaiah 43:18-19 says?

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.”

For true believers; for real Christians, real disciples, people who truly have a relationship with Jesus, pride is a thing of the past and we need to forget it because God is doing a new thing in our lives and there is absolutely no room for pride.  Above all, forget pride.

God is making the impossible possible and making a way where there is no way but when we have sin in our life, sin like unforgiveness, anger, bad habits and worry, that puts a barrier between us and God and we miss out on so many of his miracles, so many blessings, so many awe-inducing God things that our lives start to look like the lives of worldly people.

Are you ready to live a full and abundant life?  Are you ready to see God at work in our lives, our church and our community?  Then we have to forget those former things and above all, forget pride.  I say, “above all, forget pride” because pride is at the root of every other sin.  Pride is telling God, “I got this.”  Pride is looking at the Creator of the universe and saying, “Look what I did!”  Pride is the root of all sin because pride comes from thinking your wants, needs and desires are more important than anything else, including what God says or wants for us.

Let’s look at the very first sin as recorded in the book of Genesis and we will see where pride played a part in the fall of all mankind.  Genesis is one of the most fascinating books ever written and also one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted books ever written and the reason is that it doesn’t read like we want it to.  We want it to read like a novel, fully giving explanations to every detail and every topic and answering every question our minds can conceive but what we need to remember with Genesis is that if it is in there, God wants you to know about it.  There is a reason for it being there.

Likewise, if it’s not there, it’s not something we need to know so don’t read between the lines with Genesis.  In fact, if you want to understand it better, read it like the Hebrews would have read it since it was originally written for them.  When they read that a snake talks to Eve about a piece of fruit, they just accept it as a talking snake and a piece of fruit and go on.  If it’s not explained, it’s not meant to be explained.

So, if you ask me when this is over if the dinosaurs were still around when Adam and Eve lived, I will punch you because you have missed the point.  Just be warned.  Let’s read Genesis 3:1-13 and see how pride and sin entered into the world for the first time.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”  ⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  ⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.  ⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”  ¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”  ¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”  ¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”  ¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”  The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Let me help you get the picture of what is going on here.  Use your imagination with me for a minute and visualize the Garden of Eden.  It’s just the right temperature.  It’s not too hot or too cold.  You don’t need a jacket or shoes.  There are no stickers to hurt your feet.  The sky is perfectly blue.  The grass is a deep shade of green and there are beautiful flowers everywhere.  Food is plentiful and delicious.  You want for absolutely nothing.

God visits with you often and you know what is expected of you and you know the consequences of disobedience but that’s not a problem because you have everything you could ever need in abundance.  But here you are standing before the one, true and holy God Who has provided it all to you and you dare to look at Him and tell Him that your sin is not your fault because your needs are greater than His provision.

Can you imagine that?  Can you imagine the guts, the gall, the nerve of Adam and Eve to say, “Yes, God, we know what you said and we know what the consequences would be BUT…we have needs that weren’t being met and that is obviously your fault, God”?

Isn’t that what Adam is saying in verse 12?  “The woman YOU put here with me…”  “This is your fault, God!”  Can you ever imagine saying such a thing to God?  Of course you can, because we all do it every single time we sin.  Every sin; our greed, gossip, lust, envy, anger, homosexuality or cuss word is telling God that our needs are greater than your provision and I wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t created me this way.

That’s pride.  Now, we start to understand, when we think of sin like that, why God says He hates pride and that pride comes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18).  And destruction is exactly what Satan wants for you just like he wanted for Adam and Eve and so he comes to us and twists God’s word and what God has said to us just like he did with Eve putting that little seed of doubt in our minds about God’s provision for us.

Pride is thinking that we have needs that God can’t or won’t provide.  Pride is taking credit for something that only God can do.  Pride is putting ourselves above God in our thoughts or choices or what we say.  Pride is essentially self-worship and we all know how God feels about it when we worship something besides Him.

Now, the obvious question is what is the difference between good pride and bad pride?  I have struggled with this question all week.  Because we all know it when we see it but where is the line between the two?  We know good pride when we see it.  We often encourage young people to have some pride in how they look or in the job they do.  We all know that’s not wrong.

But we also know bad pride when we see it.  Some people don’t even have to say anything.  You can just see the pride on their faces.  Noses up, eyes narrowed, mouth clinched tight.  Maybe their arms are crossed.  You look at that guy and you can just see the pride and it’s disgusting.  The Bible calls that “haughty eyes”.  Proverbs 21:4 says, “Haughty eyes and a proud heart produce sin.”

The Bible almost always speaks of pride negatively, although, Paul tells the Corinthian church, “I take great pride in you.” (2 Cor. 7:4)  Think of pride as a word that is a wide spectrum from good to bad; a spectrum that includes how much pride one has and who gets the glory for that which one is proud, how it is shown in public and how it is shown toward God.  Those are all things to consider when we talk about pride.

When you see Troy Pittman, do you see a proud man?  Do you see a man with haughty eyes, a turned up nose, bragging about what he has or what he is?  Of course not.  Nobody would describe him that way and yet, just yesterday, Troy himself told me he was proud.  Do you believe that?  He said he was proud of the chain link fence that we put up around the church.

Troy, Brian, Jeff, Robert and I all put in some labor to put that fence up and, even though none of us knew what we were doing, it turned out pretty nice, I have to say.  There are some others who loaned tools or gave good advice.  Still some others who just criticized from afar.  But it is something to be proud of.  It took twenty-four trips to the store.  That I’m not so proud of but Troy should be proud.  He worked hard.

But he will tell you that God provided everything we needed to get that accomplished.  God gave wisdom, energy, patience and some YouTube videos and we all got it done.  Thank you, Lord, and thank you, Troy, for your hard work.  That’s a good kind of pride.

The bad pride kicks in when we start to compare ourselves to other people and feel like we are better than them in some way.  Or when we compare our lives to how we think it should be because basically that is comparing ourselves to God.  “If I were God, I would provide this, this and this…”

But again, that is just Satan twisting the truth into a lie because while we sin when we compare ourselves to God, having a right vision of who God is and who we are in comparison is exactly what we should do to keep from being proud.  The trick is to have the right vision of God and the right vision of ourselves.

Last Thursday night, we had a big meal for our Thursday Bible study and I decided to prepare my world-famous hominy casserole.  Okay, maybe not world-famous but it’s at least popular around here.  Well, okay I like it and I don’t know how to cook many other things so I poured the hominy in the bowl and then opened the pop top on the Rotel sliced tomatoes and when I did, the lid curled up and cut my hand.

I knew it was pretty bad but I didn’t want to look at first so I just balled my fist and held it for a few seconds.  When I did look at it, I wished I hadn’t because there was a huge chunk of nasty, red flesh just sitting there on my little finger.  It was gross and as soon as I saw it, the pain got considerably worse.  You know how it is. 

So, I stood there for a second thinking about what I needed to do.  This was a huge chunk of flesh and obviously I’m going to need stitches.  That means hours at the emergency room, lots of money and lots of pain, right?  Then I realized I was starting to get dizzy and light-headed and my stomach was feeling sick.  Great, I hope I don’t pass out.  All because of some sliced tomatoes.

But then I reached down and went to move that huge chunk of bloody flesh to get a better look before I passed smooth out and realized…it was a sliced tomato.  It was covering up the tiniest little cut on my finger that didn’t even bleed.  You can’t even see it now but when I thought it was my flesh I just knew I was in mortal peril.

See, my vision of the truth, how I saw reality, was completely wrong.  It felt like I was in real trouble.  It looked like it but I couldn’t see the real truth and it’s the same with our pride.  We feel like we need this or that.  It looks like God is not going to take care of our needs.  It looks like we have done all this on our own and we will just have to continue fending for ourselves since God won’t but…that’s a lie from Satan who wants you to be destroyed.

So, let’s boil it all down to see how we can keep from being prideful.  Nobody wants to be proud.  In fact, nobody thinks they are proud but we all know people who are so just assume that you need to hear this because we all do.  Help me out here.  What’s God like?

He’s perfect.  He’s holy.  Majestic, loving, gracious, generous, just, etc.  Now, what are we like?  Fallen, sinful,  needy, hurting, deceived, worried, angry, unforgiving, regretful and…proud.  That was Job’s real problem.  Did you know that?  He lost everything.  He lost his family, his health, his livelihood, everything and still sat on the dung heap wearing sackcloth and ashes and bragged about who he was to his friends.

Who do we think we are?  We have nothing, are nothing, can do nothing without God’s amazing grace and mercy and yet we dare to be proud of who we are and what we have done and even insist that God give us more or He doesn’t love us so we better just do what He can’t or won’t.

Pride.  It’s a wrong vision of who we are and who God is and it will destroy us individually, as a church and as a country.  That’s why God hates it.  It is an affront to Him and yet He still loves us.  Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

We can’t fully understand that kind of love and we can’t fully understand how God is in control of everything and yet we still have freewill but it’s true.  I know I say it all the time but God loves us and is in control so what do we have to worry about?  What do we have to be angry about?  What do we have to be unforgiving about?  What do we have to be proud about?

Above all, forget pride.  It’s not hard once you get a real vision of who you are and who God is and once you do you will find that because He is in control and loves you that sin becomes less of a temptation.  Accept His love.  Accept His forgiveness and accept Him as your Lord and Savior.  He’s making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland but you have to be His.

Admit you are a sinner.  Ask for His forgiveness and believe He is the only way to Heaven and start living that way.  Do it today.

“Forget Worry” – 1 Samuel 13:1-15

I hate going to the doctor.  I went for something a couple of years ago.  I don’t remember why.  But the doc asked if he could do a complete blood work analysis on me to just check me out completely so we did that.  He said the nurse would call me in a couple of days with the results.  Later that evening the nurse calls and says the doctor would like to see me the next morning at 9:00.  She asks if I can make it.  Of course I can make it because obviously I now have every disease known to man, right?  I mean, that’s what I have to assume because she didn’t give any details.

So, how do you think I slept that night?  Well, I deliberated; I repined; I speculated over the situation for a while (which is pastor-speak for worry because I don’t worry about anything) and I got a few hours sleep maybe because how could I sleep?  The nurse made it obvious (with her silence) that I had cancer.  Probably stage 4.  No, I don’t have cancer, surely.  I probably have cancer and diabetes.  Diabetes runs sort of in my family so now I have diabetes and I’m going to have to become a vegetarian which means I basically only have a few months to live because I can’t do that.

What else could it be?  Ebola?  Mad Cow?  Rabies?  I know I don’t eat right.  I bet I got it from that Chicken Express I ate the other day.  I knew that didn’t taste right.  I knew I should have gotten more exercise.  Now, who do I want to leave my car to?  Who’s gonna take care of my dogs when I die next week?  You can imagine the thoughts running through my mind – as I deliberated.

So, I went to the doctor’s office the next morning bracing myself for the worst.  He finally comes in.  Of course, he’s late but what does he care?  He’s not dying.  He picks up my chart and begins to read.  “Let’s see, your heart is good.  Lungs are good.  Kidneys, liver, spleen, all good.  Oh, your cholesterol is about two points over where it should be so we’ll keep an eye on that.  All your PSA, NBA, FBI and KKK numbers are just right (or whatever they are).  Looks like you’re pretty healthy.  See you again in a year or so!”

So, of course, I punched him in the mouth.  No, but I wanted to.  All my…”deliberating” was for absolutely nothing.  Has something like that ever happened to you?  For some of you it has happened and the doctor actually told you you had cancer.  But all of us have worried about something that never happened.  So, what’s the problem with that?  Everybody does it at least some.  It’s sort of like going a couple miles over the speed limit.  Everybody does it.  What’s the harm?

Well, we are going to talk about that today because we want to forget that kind of thing, don’t we?  Do you remember why we want to forget it?  Because God told us to forget that kind of thing.  Do you remember where he said to forget the former things?  Isaiah 43:18-19 says,

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.”

That’s my favorite scripture in all the Bible.  God promises to take us on a trip and He is going to provide everything we need even as we go through wilderness and wasteland.  Forget about everything in the past, whether good or bad, because God is doing a new thing.  We are new creations and He is doing something new and what better way to start a new year than to focus on what God is going to do with us in the future?  It’s gonna be a great trip.  All we have to do is NOT pack our baggage.

We can’t pack our unforgiveness because that is a sin.  We can’t pack anger because nobody will believe we are Christians if we pack our anger issues.  We can’t pack our regrets because that is the suitcase that Satan packed for us and it does no good.  We can’t pack our bad habits because we have died to that old self and we are now alive in Christ.

Today we are going to talk about worry.  What is worry?  What’s the difference in being worried and being concerned?  How do I keep from worrying?  Why is worry a problem and why should I worry about whether it is or not?  Those are all questions we will talk about this morning and if we don’t answer them his morning, then we will work on them some more tonight at 6.

If you are a worrier, take some heart in knowing that you are not the first.  Turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel.  1 Samuel is in the Old Testament between the book of Ruth and you won’t believe it but 2 Samuel before 1 and 2 Kings.  Samuel tells us the story of how Saul became Israel’s first king.  He was anointed by Samuel.  He was picked by God and had he done what God had told him to do through the prophet Samuel, God would have blessed him but we see from the very first that Saul made some bad choices.

Now, let me just warn you that we are reading a copy of an ancient manuscript and as such there is some discrepancies about what it originally said.  When you read almost any number written in this passage, take it with a grain of salt because if it says 2, it may be 42 or if it says 3000, it may mean 30,000.  It’s okay, though, because we are not going to get bogged down on numbers.  They don’t tell the story we are concentrating on here today.  I’ll go into more detail tonight if you’re interested but for now let’s read 1 Samuel 13:1-15.

Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years.  Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Mikmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest of the men he sent back to their homes.  ³ Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, “Let the Hebrews hear!” ⁴ So all Israel heard the news: “Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost, and now Israel has become obnoxious to the Philistines.” And the people were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal.  ⁵ The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Mikmash, east of Beth Aven. ⁶ When the Israelites saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns. ⁷ Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.  Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. ⁸ He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. ⁹ So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering. ¹⁰ Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.  ¹¹ “What have you done?” asked Samuel.  Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash, ¹² I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”  ¹³ “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. ¹⁴ But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”  ¹⁵ Then Samuel left Gilgal and went up to Gibeah in Benjamin, and Saul counted the men who were with him. They numbered about six hundred.

Corrie Ten Boom said, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”  How true that was for King Saul.  The thing is though, Saul had good reason to be worried, didn’t he?  We see that he had 600 troops and the Philistines had soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore.  They were the big, bad Philistines, too, and Saul’s son, Jonathon, had attacked them near his hometown and killed a bunch of them but that made the rest of them fighting mad as you can imagine.

It wouldn’t have been a problem though because Saul knew God would be with the Israelites.  The prophet Samuel had told him to just wait and he would come in a week and make the necessary sacrifices and God would speak through Samuel as to what to do.  Can you imagine the look on Saul’s face as the week dragged on and he can see more and more and more Philistines showing up and Samuel is nowhere in sight?

Then Saul looks around and his soldiers are slinking off to hide in caves and thorn bushes and some went home or ran off completely.  Finally, the seventh day comes around but no Samuel.  Saul had reason to be worried, right?  You have reason to be worried, right?  Your situation is looking pretty grim, isn’t it?  Maybe it’s your health or your finances.  Maybe your kids are acting the fool.  Of course, your kids are acting the fool just like you did.  What did you expect?  You can’t help but worry!

And yet Jesus says in Matthew 6 that we are not to be anxious about anything in our life.  That is worry.  Being anxious and worrying are the same thing but concern is different.  If you look up the words worry and concern they may both use the other word as part of their definition but mental health professionals will tell us that worrying involves trying to solve the problem whereas concern is just a heightened awareness of the situation.

“I’m concerned about this problem so I will take it to God in prayer since I can’t do anything about it.”  Or you might say, “I am so worried about this problem because I can’t do anything about it so I have to figure out how to solve it.”  That’s the difference.  What was Saul doing?  He couldn’t make Samuel show up on time so he got worried and figured out a way to solve the problem, at least in his mind.

The problem with Samuel’s solution to the problem is that God has never wanted a sacrifice just for the sake of sacrifice.  God didn’t instruct Samuel to make a sacrifice so that God could have a barbecue.  He wanted a sacrifice to show obedience.  God wants your obedience as well.  But when you worry, you try to come up with a solution to a problem you could never solve and in doing so it’s like telling God, “Hey God, don’t worry.  I got this.”

The same basic situation happened just two chapters later and Samuel said to Saul, “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
    as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
    and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
²³ For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
    and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
    he has rejected you as king.”

Worry is sin.  God doesn’t need or want you trying to figure out how to solve the problem.  Let me give you three things to do when you are tempted to worry.  You might want to write these down although they are pretty simple. 

Wait for God prayerfully.  Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  Wait for God prayerfully.

Obey God promptly.  Like Samuel said, “Obedience is better than sacrifice.”  If Saul had just waited a few more minutes; if he had just been obedient, then, as Samuel told him in chapter 13, verse 13, “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.”  God would have blessed him because BOOCOD, right?  There are blessings of obedience and consequences of disobedience.  So, obey God promptly.

Until God speaks, rest patiently.  Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”  We’ve talked about this before but what it literally means here to be still is to let your hands hang down.  Let your hands hang down; be still; quit worrying and trying to fix it.  Quit telling God not to worry that you have this and let Him have it and you don’t worry.  Until God speaks, until He tells you to do something, rest patiently.

This life is full of problems.  Job said, “Man, born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.”  (14:1) We all know that.  I heard two young people talking the other day.  The young girl said to her boyfriend, “Honey, when we are married I want you to always tell me all of your problems, cares and worries.  I want to be there for you.”  The boy said, “Well, thanks but I don’t really have any worries.”  She said, “But baby, we’re not married yet.”

Trying not to worry is hard work sometimes, isn’t it?  If it were easy, we wouldn’t need to be reminded with messages like this but it can be very difficult especially when we find ourselves in a situation, like Saul found, where it looks so hopeless and the odds are all stacked against us and there is just no way out and it’s hard to sleep and we are biting our nails and pacing the floor.

For some of us, this is when Satan comes to us and whispers, “Why don’t you just have a drink?  That would make you feel better.  Why not just do that drug?  Your life is the pits anyway, at least feel good for a few minutes.  Go look at some porn and take your mind off of it for a while.  Go raid the fridge and eat yourself into happiness.  That way you aren’t worrying.”

The Bible warns us about this in 1 Peter 5:7-8.  “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.  ⁸ Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Whatever your sin of choice is, that’s where Satan is going to attack.  He wants to make you sin on top of sin.  That’s what Samuel did.  He was already worrying.  He knew better than to make a sacrifice.  That wasn’t his job and it wasn’t what God wanted.  What God wants is for us to just come to Him and say, “Lord, I can’t do this.  I can’t solve this.  I can’t fix it.  Would you please?”

Now, this leads me to one last practical thing to do when you are tempted to worry.  I said there were three but there are actually four.  Write this down and keep your pencil handy.  The fourth thing to do when tempted to worry is to remember God’s promises.

Do you know that the Bible is full of God’s promises?  I bet y’all can recite a bunch of them.  Tell some promises of God that might help somebody tempted to worry.  How about Proverbs 3:5-6?  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; ⁶ in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Psalm 55:22:  Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

There are thousands of them but let me close with one that is one of your favorites although some people don’t really understand what it means.  Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

First off, who is this promise for?  For those who love God, right?  But if you ask anybody on the street, “Do you love God?”  Of course they are going to say “yes”.  But this promise is only for those who have a relationship with Him and we will talk more about that in a minute.  But unbelievers?  They should probably worry.  There is no comforting promise for them.

Next, does this verse mean that for Christians everything is going to work itself out and all is going to be fine?  No.  When it says that God works all things for good, then what does that mean then?  Let me ask it this way.  In God’s eyes, what is the best thing that could happen to you?  It would be for you to look like Jesus. 

Do you know that God is more concerned that you look and act like Him than He is your health?  Or your wealth?  Your job?  Your comfort?  Your happiness?  Don’t get me wrong.  God loves to see you happy but He will sacrifice your happiness…for His likeness.

So, wait for God prayerfully.  Obey God promptly.  Until God speaks, rest patiently and remember God’s promises; promises that include His peace and joy and His protection but with the goal of making you more like Him.  God is in control and He loves you.  Now act like it and forget all that worry.

I want to close by going back to talk about that relationship I mentioned a minute ago.  Jesus said that all you have to do to get to Heaven and all you have to do to have peace and joy in this life and to be able to claim all those promises was to believe in Him.  That’s it.  But that belief will manifest itself in a growing relationship with Him as you learn more about Him and become more like Him.

If you don’t have that today, I need to talk with you right now.  Don’t wait.  We aren’t guaranteed another breath.  Ask Jesus to be Lord of your life and to forgive you of your sins and to start making you look and act more like Him right now and He will do just that.

“Forget Bad Habits” – Colossians 3:1-17

I need you to really use your imagination with me today.  Are you ready?  Okay, here we go.  Since I am so incredibly wealthy, I would like to take all of you on a wonderful, all-expenses-paid vacation.  You don’t have to worry about anything.  I am going to pay for the tickets, the food, the lodging and all the extras.  All you have to do is show up.  We are going to leave tomorrow.  I’ve already talked to your boss and he said it was fine.  I’ve lined up baby sitters and dog sitters and somebody to water your plants and get your mail.  I’m sending a limo to pick you up at 9 in the morning.  We will be gone for 10 days.  What’s the first question you would ask?

Your first and only question should probably be:  What do I wear?  Right?  That’s all you have to be concerned with.  You just need to know how to dress.  If I’m going to do all that, you don’t even care where we are going, do you?  Let’s go!  It might be Hawaii.  It might be Florida.  It might be the Arctic.  So, all that matters is how you are dressed.  That’s your only responsibility.

Did you know that God is incredibly wealthy?  Yep.  He’s loaded!  God is so wealthy that He owns everything and has promised us that He is going to take us on a trip in this life.  Do you know where He is going to take us?  I don’t either.  But He gives us a clue in Isaiah 43:18-19.  Do you remember what that says?  Can you quote any part of it?

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.”

We don’t know where exactly God is going to take us but He says He is going to provide everything we need as He takes us through the wilderness and into the wasteland.  He tells us not to worry or even think about what has happened in the past.  He is doing a new thing and do you know what the only question we need to ask is?  All we need to know is what to wear.  That’s our only responsibility.  The good news is that He tells us what to wear and even provides what we need to wear and we will see that in a minute in the book of Colossians.

But first, let’s go back to our scenario where I’m so rich.  That was fun, wasn’t it?  Suppose we are going to spend 10 days at a 5-star hotel in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.  It is absolutely gorgeous.  We are going to play in the snow.  We’ll go skiing, horseback riding, rent some Jeeps and run over some trails.  We will make snow angels or you can just sit in the cabin by the fire listening to the live band and eating s’mores.

Now suppose you come to me and tell me that you have a problem.  Your problem is that you are in the habit of wearing only flip flops for shoes.  I say that’s okay because I have provided you with brand new boots in your size and favorite color and I can’t wait for you to try them on.  But you say, no, you can’t wear boots because you are in the habit of wearing flip flops.

I would tell you that is not going to work because we are going to be in the snow a lot so just put on the boots but you refuse.  You refuse to go on our trip to Colorado just because you are in the habit of wearing those nasty, fungus-infested, raggedy old flip flops.  That doesn’t make sense, does it?  You are going to miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure – a full and abundant trip (John 10:10) – because of your bad habit.  Crazy!

God wants to take you on a trip.  He has told us He is going to provide the way.  He has proved in the past that He is faithful to do what He says.  He is generous to provide what is best for us and make it a full and abundant trip.  All we have to do is NOT pack our baggage.  Forget about all that old stuff that hinders you.

 Forget unforgiveness because that is sin.  Forget anger because nobody will believe we are going on God’s trip if we pack anger.  Forget all those regrets that Satan wants you to carry around and we have to forget our bad habits because that is not how God wants us to look on this journey.

God tells us what to wear and what not to wear in a wonderfully delicious passage in Colossians chapter 3.  Colossians is between Philippians and Thessalonians in the New Testament.  It is written by the Apostle Paul to the church of Colossae while he was in prison in Rome and there is a bunch of juicy meat in this passage so put your teeth in and put your napkin in your shirt and let’s read Colossians 3:1-17.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³ For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.  ⁵ Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶ Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. ⁷ You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸ But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹ Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹ Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.  ¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.  ¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Wow!  What a smorgasbord of a passage.  It reminds me of Thanksgiving dinner with so much good stuff but I want us to not get filled up on the salad and the rolls.  Let’s concentrate on the meat.  There is some really good stuff in here and if we are going to go on this trip that God has planned for us we need to know what to wear and what not to wear.

We are talking about bad habits this morning; things that will hinder us as we take our trip.  In this passage, Paul is specific about some bad habits and more general about others but this applies to whatever bad habits we all struggle with.  Maybe your bad habit is eating or drinking or otherwise putting something in your body that is not good for you.  Maybe it is something that comes out of your mouth or through your mind.  Maybe it is a place you go or something you choose to put before your eyes.  Paul did not intend to name every bad habit so I won’t either.  We don’t have to.  This passage applies to you and your situation no matter what your bad habit is.

Paul starts off by giving us an overview of how we should live; how we should dress, if you will.  We should get up every morning and set our hearts on things above.  That’s verse 1 and that sounds real good, doesn’t it?  But what does it mean?  What does it really look like for us to set our hearts on things above?  Does it mean we should just think about Heaven all day?

Well, there’s nothing wrong with thinking about Heaven.  We should probably do that more often but there is more to it than that.  Setting our hearts on things above means to concentrate on the eternal more than the temporal.  It means to focus more on what is going to last; what we are going to get rewarded for in Heaven rather than what might be rewarding in this life.

So, with that mindset, Paul starts to get a little more specific.  He says in verse 3 that we have died.  He is talking about our death to self that is represented with our baptism.  We know that baptism doesn’t save us but it represents our old self being put in the grave and our new self – in Christ – being raised from the dead.

Some people may not completely understand that when you became a Christian, you made the choice to make Jesus Lord of your life and I don’t think that is always explained well enough.  It means that what you want to do and how you want to live (your old self) is no longer your driving force.  It doesn’t mean you don’t have preferences anymore.  It means that you want what God wants for your life and nothing else matters.

I hear professing Christians says sometimes that, sure, they know what the Bible says, but they are going to do it their way instead.  Let me make this real clear.  That is your old nature and that is sin.  In verse 5, Paul actually says that we are to put to death that old nature and gives some examples of what that old nature looks like.

The commentaries tell me that this list of five things is primarily sexual in nature, even the last one, greed.  It starts with sexual immorality which would be something like out and out prostitution.  Now, even prostitutes would say that is a bad habit, right?  J  He goes on with impurity which might be something like living with someone you are not married to.  Lust would include wanting someone sexually that is not your spouse.  Evil desires might include looking at porn and down to that interesting word, greed, that might include something we might think is as harmless as comparing your spouse to somebody else.

Those are bad habits and Paul goes on to say in verse 6 that I don’t care who you are, God will punish that kind of lifestyle.  You used to live that way, Paul says, in your old nature.  That’s how unbelievers live.  Don’t be surprised when that happens but we, as believers and as disciples of Jesus don’t live that way.  The behavior in that list are all things that are destructive to us.  1 Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”

He goes on to another list that is indicative of our old nature and it includes things we do that are destructive to other people.  This includes anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language and also lying.  Those are obviously bad habits but Paul goes on to say that all of these, whether sexual sins or other sins, are like clothes that we as Christians just don’t wear.

He already told us in verse 5 to put this stuff to death.  Have you ever had any clothes that need to be put to death?  You know, put out of their misery?  Ok, so here is today’s episode of “Todd’s Embarrassing Stories”.  I’m in middle school and I wore a pair of jeans to school that I hadn’t worn in a while and didn’t realize until I got there that the jeans had a hole in the worst possible place.

I thought for most of the day that I was getting away with it until Renee York ever so nicely whispered for me to please keep myself covered because all the girls were laughing at me.  Yep.  True story.  What do you think happened to those jeans when I got home?  I couldn’t kill ‘em fast enough.  I was mortified; embarrassed to death so I killed those jeans in humiliation and that is just how we should all feel when we wear those clothes of our old nature.

When our bad habits come to light, we should be humiliated.  That is not how we are to be dressed as followers of Christ.  We can’t go on the trip God has planned for us dressed like that and it should be so embarrassing to us that we can’t stand it and will do whatever it takes to put those old habits; those old clothes to death.

In verses 9 and 10 Paul says that we should have taken off our old selves and should have put on the new self.  Now we have to move on to the meat in verse 12.  Are you still there?  Look at it.  Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 

Did you know that you, as Christians, are God’s chosen people?  Do you understand the significance of that?  Do you understand that the Creator of the universe, the great I AM, who just spoke the worlds into existence and at whose name Satan and all the demons quiver in fear…chose you?  He may or may not have chosen the other guy but that is not your concern.  God chose you and that is more than enough.

In verse 12, Paul makes that point and goes on to call us “holy”.  Do you feel holy?  I don’t but God calls us holy.  What does it mean to be holy?  It means to be set apart just for God.  It means to be different.  That’s us.  Right?  Then Paul says we are dearly loved.  Dearly loved by that same King of kings and Lord of lords.  Proven before the world was created and proven again to the point of sending His Son to die for our sins in our place.  Chosen.  Holy.  Loved.  And we should dress like it.

Guys, what if your wife said to you “Honey, since we are going out to dinner tonight, I would like for you to wear that plaid, flannel shirt hanging in the closet.  I just love how you look in that shirt.”  Then she does that thing she always does when she really wants your attention.  You know how women are.  They want to make sure you are looking at them in the eye so they get right in front of you.  Then she says, “I love how it brings out your eyes and it makes your arms look so big and you look so good in it.”

She has your attention now, doesn’t she?  But she continues.  She says, “Honey, I chose you all those years ago and I would choose you again.  I will not share you with any other person on this planet.  You are mine and mine alone and I love you dearly and want you to wear that shirt.”  Then she starts to walk off and says, “Besides, flannel makes me hot.”

Guys, what shirt are you wearing to dinner tonight?  That’s right.  What shirt are you going to buy 6 more of tomorrow?  Absolutely!  Well, God has chosen us.  We are holy to Him and He will not share us with the world or our old nature.  He has proven His love to us and we should dress how He wants us to dress and He says to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Forget that old lifestyle; that old self, the old man with those bad habits.  We are new creations and we should dress like it.

Now, I want to close with one last piece of meat found in the last paragraph.  Verse 15 says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.”  That’s another one of those passages that sounds real pretty but it’s hard to know exactly how to do it.  That word “rule” is an athletic term and literally means “to preside at the games and distribute the prizes.”  In the Greek Olympic games they had judges or rulers.  We might call them umpires.

The peace of God is the “Umpire” in our believing hearts and churches.  When we obey the will of God, we have peace but when we step out of His will we lose it.  (Wiersbe, Bible Exposition Commentary, V.2, page 139) How do you know what bad habits you need to forget?  Do you have peace in your heart while you are doing it?  If there is no peace, call that bad habit “out” like an umpire.

Lastly, look at verse 17.  Can you do this habit with peace and can you do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving Him thanks for it?  That’s the test.  If you can do whatever it is in peace and you can thank God for providing it and do it in His name then wear those clothes.  But, if not, put those dirty clothes with all their embarrassing holes to death.

God wants to take you on the most fulfilling, abundant and wonderful trip.  But you can’t bring your baggage.  He is providing everything you need.  Forget the unforgiveness, the anger, the regrets and the bad habits.  Put them to death along with your old self and your old ways and your old clothes.  He is doing a new thing.  Do you not perceive it?

This trip that God is going to take us on is a very exclusive trip.  It is only for true believers.  It takes more than just church membership.  First, admit that you are a sinner.  Romans 3:23 says we are all sinners.  Romans 6:23 says we deserve eternal death which is Hell for our sin but God tells us in John 3:16 that He has provided a way out of that.  He sent His only Son to die on the cross and all we have to do is believe.  That belief will manifest itself in a life change just like we have talked about today including baptism, a changed life, a growing relationship with Jesus and peace in this life.  If you don’t have all that today, I need to talk with you right now.