Colossians 3:1-10 • Gospel Living

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

 Let's look at the Scriptures. Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3.

 In this last year, as we have been zooming through the entire scope of Scripture in order to be able to go through the Bible in a year, I hope that we have seen that there is a core message that whether you're in the Pentateuch or in the prophets or in the gospels or in the writings of the apostles, there is a core message that keeps repeating over and over again. And it is just this simple. God sang to His people, "You are not your Redeemer, but I will send one, and if you put your faith in Him, I covenant with you by an irrevocable love that I will secure your souls for eternity and by that promise bless you with joy that is your strength for all of this life."



 Now if that message is familiar to you, it's because we have been able, perhaps not just this year but previous years, even in settings where people go through the Bible and they say that's the background, that's the history, and that's the good news of the gospel.



 But where we are in our study of the Scriptures is in the recognition that after Jesus has risen from the dead, appeared to His disciples and said, "The Holy Spirit is going to come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth." As that ministry begins to spread, they quickly run into people who have no idea what they're talking about, who do not have the background. They go into Gentile Greek cultures and are trying to explain the gospel. Like Paul when he goes to this city of Colossians, and as he goes to Colossae speaking to the Colossians, he has to explain the gospel.



 In ways perhaps familiar to you, but they have to say, "What is this good news that is in Jesus?" And even for new believers, he has to explain it again.



 Colossians 3 is one of the key places. I've struggled to say, "How much of this will I read to you today?" I'm going to stop at verse 11, but we may go a bit further. Let's think, if you were to explain the gospel to people who are just starting to get it, what would you say?



 Here's what Paul says, Colossians 3.1, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek



 the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.



 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."



 Then Christ, who is your life, appears. Then you also will appear with Him in glory.



 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.



 Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.



 On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming.



 In these, you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away.



 Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.



 Do not lie to one another, saying that you've put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. Here there is not Greek, Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.



 Burger King is making waves again about the way that it makes burgers in a commercial that most people describe as gross. Have you seen it? It's called Moldy Whopper.



 And what the commercial displays while Aretha Franklin is singing in the background, what a difference a day makes, is time-lapse photography of a Burger King Whopper over 34 days unrefrigerated.



 And as you observe the growing mold, the message is clear.



 This is proof that Burger King makes juicy burgers that deteriorate because they are not treated with preservatives, supposedly like McDonald's burgers, which can sustain a nuclear holocaust because of the preservatives that are supposedly in them.



 But the critics are divided over the success of this particular commercial because while it makes clear that without some sort of preservative, everything becomes garbage, including what you take into you and including you.



 What actually is that communicating?



 It's really just a very basic truth. The Bible verse we all know, even if we don't know where it's from. Dust you are, and to dust you will return.



 You get moldy too.



 You deteriorate too.



 Dust you are, and to dust you are return. Every culture has to deal with that. Every religion has to deal with that. And so perhaps it's not so strange that the Apostle Paul trying to explain the gospel to Gentile Greek culture starts on that common ground.



 What is the consequence of your mortality as you consider the goodness of the nature of the gospel? Because as he begins to talk about Jesus, what he is saying is not, this is just a commercial for Jesus, he's saying, "I want you to know how you are preserved by the life of one who did not get moldy for three days, or 34 days, or 2,000 years.



 You're actually united to Him.



 And if you are united to Him, that means something very special for you." What difference does a Savior make?



 It means that when we look back at our lives and believe they are garbage, for what we've done, for what's in our reputation, for the character that we have no respect, for the children who have no respect of us, when we begin to think there is nothing that gives us any standing before God, there is this whopper of a great message.



 Jesus makes you new, not just preserves you, but renews you over and over again with the goodness of the gospel.



 What's the message that the Apostle Paul wants to make clear? What good is this Jesus? He first gives us an incredible new position before God. Verse 1, "If then you have been raised with Christ." Now the original language here functions just like English does. If then doesn't mean if this were to be true, it means since this is true, since this now is true, since you have been raised with Christ, and almost everyone must cock their head and go, "What are you talking about?" Since you have been raised with Christ, that's resurrection language. And He's talking to people who are still alive. In order to be resurrected, they have to have died. How can He say, "Since you, who are listening to this message, have been raised with Christ, you should seek the things that are above." Did you die at some point?



 Actually, the Apostle says you did. If you just back up a chapter into Colossians 2 and verse 12, where the Apostle is explaining what baptism, that witness that we make as new believers when we come into the church of Jesus Christ, he says, "What is that washing with water actually signifying?" Chapter 2 and verse 12, "Having been buried with Christ in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from the dead, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses." You have been raised with Christ, raised from the dead. How did you die?



 You were separated from God who is holy by your trespasses. You were spiritually dead, having no ability to be alive, united to God because of the sinfulness of your being and the holiness of His being. And yet, when you were baptized, you were buried in Christ. You know, I often think of that in a Christian culture. Paul's making it clear to Gentiles that our baptism is our death certificate.



 We just think, "Oh, in our traditional culture, people just do that sometimes because it's sentimental, sometimes it's a tradition of their parents, sometimes just to show that they're good in front of other people." But what did ancient people know about baptism? It was the signification of my loyalty to Jesus Christ, apart from all previous loyalties. I might have been Jewish. I might have been following a theanist. I might have been following Zeus. I had some other God that I said, "That's my life." And now I'm saying, "That's dead to me." Instead, I am a follower of Jesus Christ, and I signify it by my baptism. I'm uniting myself in body and faith and witness to the world by saying, "Jesus is my Savior." And this water, whether it's by immersion, in which we are signifying burial and resurrection, whether it is by pouring, which signifies that washing work of the Holy Spirit, by sprinkling the cleansing that is done by God Himself as He sprinkles the nations with the work of the gospel, all are metaphors for that work that God does, which in baptism we profess. We are made right by the work of Jesus Christ. And so we confess, "My life, my actions, my work count as nothing. I'm crucified with Christ. I no longer live. Christ lives. He lives in me." And I testify that by my baptism. Rush of my sin, united to Christ, I stand before the world by standing for Him.



 Now you just presume that.



 But I mentioned to you two weeks ago that in the last 15 years, more Muslims have come to faith than in the last 15 centuries.



 And you now, I think, well-recognized that for so many of the young people who are saying, "I am now a follower of Jesus Christ rather than Mohammed," what might their families often say to them? You are now what? Dead to us.



 And when we are baptized, we are saying, "I profess that death. What I stood for, what I lived for, what I identified as my life, that is dead to me. I sign my own death certificate in this baptism."



 But Paul doesn't say that's the end of the message. You have been raised with Christ, united in His death, but He didn't stay dead. He rose to be with the Father. And when I recognize I have this new life, like Christ had new record, new being, new purpose, new direction, all that is signified in the work of Jesus Christ, but curiously, there's a contrast that's immediately set up. If then, verse 1, "You have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." You have been raised with Christ. Where is He?



 He is seated at the right hand of God. I've been raised up to be united to the one who's sitting down.



 And it sounds like a contrast. It's actually a beautiful expression of the gospel. What does it mean to think that Jesus, who paid the penalty for our sin, who took the weight of the soil and the mold and the corruption of our sin upon Himself, He is now raised



 and seated at the place of privilege at the right hand of God? What does that mean if I could be with Him there?



 We don't really have to question. The Apostle Paul does drawing on rich imagery that the people of the older world would have understood. It's actually explained much more explicitly in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 11. There the writer of Hebrews explains what it means for Christ to be seated at the right hand of God.



 Verse 11, Hebrews 10, "Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God." Now if you've been with me as we've gone through the Bible in a year, you recognize that one of the profound things that was happening centuries before Jesus is His ministry was being explained to the people of God by the Old Testament tabernacle and temple system.



 Intricate detail given to us so that when things happen like the Passover where once a year people by the hundreds of thousands would make pilgrimage to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices, we understand what they're doing. We are told in the Old Testament temple what was in the holy of holies, the Ark of the Covenant with the tables of the Ten Commandments covered by the mercy seat of God whereby blood atonement, blood covered the guilt of the people. And outside the holy of holies there was a seven branch candlestick signifying the work of the people praying to God, being carried by the work of the Holy Spirit, not by their work. We learned about the labor, the water that was purified for the washing away of the impurities of that which was to be sacrificed. We get so many details of the temple that are explaining the gospel. We even learn about what the tassels are on the robes of the priest to explain how the gospel will go to all nations.



 We get so much description of furniture and architecture and decoration, but there is one article of furniture that is never explained in the Old Testament temple, never given. What is the one article of furniture never described?



 No chair.



 Why no chair?



 Day after day the priests stand performing their religious duties. Why? Because there's so much to do. At the Passover hundreds of thousands of people are going up the southern steps of the temple, making sacrifices to God. There had to be thousands and thousands every hour of the Passover celebration. So much to do, and that is just one of the celebrations that occurred every year. There are not just annual sacrifices that occur. Every season, first fruits in the springtime when you begin to see the fields coming with their fruit, the first fruits were taken and sacrificed to God. At the end of the harvest season there were the harvest fruits that were taken and sacrificed to God. But there weren't just seasonal sacrifices. Every month, every new moon there were sacrifices. And not just every month, but every week on the Sabbath day there were to be sacrifices. And not just weekly, every day there were to be, not just every day, every morning and evening of every day. And not just for people in general. You had to bring sacrifices for your own sin. If you were guilty of something, you had to make a sacrifice. What if you didn't know what you had done or could not remember it? You had to bring the sacrifices for the unknown sins.



 Unknown sins, known sins, every morning, every evening, every day, every week, every month, every season, every year for 1,500 years.



 And the blood ran in the ditches and the smoke fills the heavens and the priest could not even sit down for the work until one year one lamb went up a hill called Calvary and he offered himself upon a cross. And when he did, the Holy of Holies veil was split from top to bottom. And God says, "You now have access to me." And the fires on the altar went out and the sacrificing was done and the high priest sat down. And Jesus said, "If you're with me, I'm at the right hand of God and I'm sitting down." What does that mean for you and for me? It means the wrestling is done, the fighting is over. God, what am I going to do to make you happy? When are you going to be satisfied? How much money, how much sacrifice, how many tears until you're happy? And he says, "Sit down.



 I've taken care of this. And not only has Christ sat down, he's at my right hand." Which means you cannot just rest, you can know the reward of being precious to God. You're with Jesus at God's right hand. If you're with Jesus, do you know what that means? It means you don't just have to rest from trying to make things right with God. It means you can say, "God loves me as much as he loves Jesus." I'm with Jesus. Jesus at his right hand, he's in the place of privilege as well as the place of rest and that is mine.



 And the beauty that has made so much more evident is Paul wants to just kind of keep driving this home. He says in verse 2, "Set your minds on things above as we..." You need to just be fixated on this because everything in your life, in your world is going to tell you you're not okay with God if you haven't measured up. And he keeps saying, "No, listen, Christ measured up in your behalf.



 Set your minds on things above, not on things of earth, for you have died."



 It's not you who's making things right anymore. It's not your accomplishment. It's not your performance.



 And your life is hidden with Christ in God.



 Just think what that means for the people of God at the temple who recognize the glory, whether they were Gentiles or Jews, they recognize that any time you would enter an ancient temple, you would see massive glory such as an agrarian economy would have known no other place. You would have the writings of the prophets where Isaiah would say when he saw the glory of God above the temple, the seraphim in the clouds of smoke as burning angels of fire who are audibly singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty and the whole earth is full of His glory." That when we would recognize that, we would say, "I would faint if I entered that glory."



 But here we are being told your life is hidden with Christ in God. You've been united to God, but you need not fear His glory, His rage, His frown, His wrath, the burning fire of His very glory that would burn you to ashes in a second. Why?



 Because you're hidden with Christ.



 Even though you're inside the glory cloud of God.



 Jack Buck, the long-term sportscaster, was a fun, clever, articulate man, not a godly one.



 Sent by an early divorce, later marriage to a showgirl who became a profound Christian,



 who so much wanted her husband to know her Jesus.



 And she spent much of their married life trying to introduce Jack Buck to believers so that his heart would be attracted to the same Jesus. And we got the advantage of that one year as we, Kathy and I, got the opportunity to go into the press box with Jack Buck during the World Series. Now I don't know if you can even capture what that felt like. When you go into the best seats in the house for the World Series and you enter and suddenly you see the feel, and the noise is like thunder coming at you, and the glare and the brilliance of the lights, and all the celebrities, and all the glory, and all the wonder, and the security guards coming to us and saying, "What are you doing here?"



 And we say, "We're with Him."



 And even as we are in the glory, we are hiding behind Jack Buck, a faithful pastor ministered for years to Jack Buck at the behest of his wife.



 And while Jack Buck was actually on his deathbed due to complications of Parkinson's, having been ministered to so faithfully by that pastor, Jack Buck made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.



 I want you just to imagine, hours or days after that profession, Jack Buck is entering heaven and there is the glory of 10,000 times 10,000 heavenly hosts in thunderous glory singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty and the seraphim who are the angels whose names means burning ones are flitting about lighting the skies. There is no night there for the glory or the brilliance of the Son is Jesus Christ Himself." And you can just imagine those angelic guards coming to Jack Buck and saying, "What are you doing here?" And he says, "I'm with Jesus."



 And hiding behind him and believing and knowing that in Christ we are made safe, we are made whole, we are hidden with Christ in the glory of God. And even that is not the end of the story. For the Apostle goes on in verse 4 to say, "When Christ, who is your life," and I always almost want to end right there and say, "Can you just capture that? When Christ, who is your life?



 Not my accomplishment, not my sin, not my performance, not my evil, not my record, but Christ is my life.



 And when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory."



 We don't even have the words to capture all of what that means. I'm hidden in Christ right now as I seek status before God to make me right with the holiness of the Father in heaven. I'm hidden in Christ, but I won't always be hidden nor the loved ones who've gone before me. What will happen? One day they shall appear and when they appear they will come with Jesus. The clouds will part, the trumps will peel, and they will say, "Blessed is the Lord God Almighty, Hosanna in the highest, and right with Jesus will be people like you and me who have the glory of Jesus."



 Now we don't fully know what that means. The Apostle John himself tries to capture it later and he says, "What we shall be when Christ appears has not been fully revealed, but this we know when Christ appears we will be like Him." Amazing.



 C.S. Lewis, an amazing sermon called "The Weight of Glory," tries to explain it this way by saying, "What does it mean to think that Christ in all His glory with the crowning of the seraphim and with the glory of the smile of His Father upon Him, with the radiance of the holiness that is His, when He appears, we'll be with Him and like Him?"



 C.S. Lewis said, "What that means is the dullest, most unattractive Christian you know." Now don't think of anybody, but just hear the words. Okay.



 "The dullest, most unattractive Christian you know.



 If you could see them now in the estate they shall be when Christ appears, you would be tempted to bow down and worship them."



 Now think about that, not necessarily, think about yourself.



 I know my failures, my weakness, my sin. Even when I have resolved to serve Christ, even when I've walked with Him for a while, I fail and falls in ways that surprise even me. There is so much shame in my past, so much weakness in my body, so much frailty that I have no excuse for, and yet to believe that when Christ appears, I will be like Him. This is a whopper of good news. This is the greatness of the gospel that I will have standing before God and for others, not because of what I have done, but what Christ has done in my behalf.



 And that begins to change us with that reality in which our minds are settling as we're seeking after the things of God, as we're setting our minds on certain things. It begins to change our passions, not just our position. That's what the apostle's after. He's after the heart. And he says for those who have been raised with Christ, there are certain results. Verse 1 again, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.



 Seek not as in following a path. Seek as in longing for.



 Seek at your desire these things that are above." Because that's motivating. That's life-changing when your heart is drawn with deep affection for one who has given himself for you.



 This past week I told you that we were ministering in Poland. I'd actually been the previous week in Ireland, which means Kathy had to make the trip from here to Poland on her own. Isn't it easy? Just get to Chicago, direct flight from Chicago to Krakow. One little problem.



 The morning of, the flight is canceled.



 And so she has to make these multiple stops across the United States, across different cities of Europe, the one who's not so accustomed to flying, who's not so confident about flying. So she has this terrible day. I'm getting the text all along, you know, "Now there's, now there's, now."



 And, of course, I was scheduled also to get to Krakow, but I'm flying much later and from Ireland. So Kathy arrives, totally washed out, distressed, anxious from all that had happened, and I'm not arriving until about midnight of that same day. And so our host said to Kathy, "You just go to bed.



 We'll go get Brian at the airport."



 What did my dear wife say?



 No way.



 No way. And so I, having been apart from my wife for a week, having read all the texts of how difficult life has been for her, I get off the plane, I get through customs, I go down the concourse, and who's waiting for me?



 My wife.



 Who made her do that?



 A sweet love in her heart.



 And when the Apostle says to us, "If you've been raised with Christ, if He's your identity, if He's taken your sins away, seek the things that are above. Long for them." Because he knows how compelling, how ultimately powerful those things will be. And so he says in verse 2, "Set your minds on things above." This is more than just desire. This is almost becoming fixated, rivet on these things. Don't let life or your own sin take you from this focus on what God has done for you. Remember it and keep remembering it. Why? For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Verse 3. But because you know that, because you're riveted on Christ, you have to be honest about the things that can begin to create some distance to make your relationship less dear.



 And so verse 2, even as it says, "Set your minds, get riveted," and almost things that are above, it has this little caution.



 But not on the things that are of earth.



 Well, what things might those be?



 Bible's just real. It's just real.



 And so the Apostle goes right after them, verse 5.



 "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you. If there are things of earth that get in the way of your being riveted on the things of heaven, what are they likely to be? Put to death therefore what is earthly in you." Verse 5. "Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolory." Now sexual immorality is not the only sin that can distance us from close relationship with God.



 But for many of us, it is the gateway sin.



 It is so easy for our lust, our desires to take us down a path that's further and further from the things of God. And as a consequence, our distance in affection is growing all the time. And so Paul says, "How does this happen? If what is earthly is sexual immorality," that's kind of the umbrella term, "how does that usually proceed?" First with impurity.



 You know, the off-color joke, the provocative close, just not so bad. Just a little impurity that moves to passion.



 We begin to dabble in it.



 It may become a certain habit, starts to pull us harder, becomes part of our lives so that the passion moves into evil desires.



 We're not just playing with it anymore. We're not just dabbling in it. Now this has become the desire of mine. Now I want more of this. And not only do I want more of it, it becomes covetousness. I need it. I need this person. I need this image. I need this hit of whatever is immoral in my life. I need it in order to be satisfied, in order to be happy, in order to be content, which means because it's immorality that's signaling our satisfaction, it has ultimately become idolatry.



 It's not God who satisfies you. It is the thing, the person, the sight, the image, as that now begins to control us.



 Now the good news about this is what this is ultimately saying is this is not the first culture ever to struggle with sexual immorality. We typically say, "Oh, those Bible people, they don't know what we struggled with." Believe me, it was worse back then where religion said that sexual immorality is the way that you get to your God, where it was on every street corner where every man had opportunity for other men, any woman who was not equal to him in social rank, any child was available to the men who had sufficient power. Everyone knew this is what you could do to satisfy yourself. One of the reasons Christianity spread so rapidly in the ancient world was because it began to dignify women and children before powerful men and say, "They are equal to you before God. You may not take advantage of them." But Paul certainly knows what the problem is. And so he says, listen, verse 6, "On account of these, the wrath of God is coming."



 You have seen how this damages people, whether it's sexual trafficking, whether it's the user taking advantage of other people.



 You know how this angers God.



 So don't think you can dabble in it and it will have no effect on your relationship. You need to hear me. He is not saying this undoes your salvation.



 You're already raised with God, already seated in heavenly places. But to think that you can have a close heart affection with God and to dabble and desire and covet other people and it's just not going to affect your spiritual walk at all. It's just foolishness. And so Paul says in verse 7, "In these you too once walked when you were living in these things."



 It's just plain talk. Why do you want to go backwards? You've been raised with Christ. You are living this new life. Why do you want to go back to the one that brought you such unhappiness and clutter and garbage into your soul? And so he actually uses strong words like the beginning of verse 5, "Put to death therefore." Some of your Bibles say, "Mortify" means kill it. Mortify the mold.



 Whatever it is, identify it and deal with it. And having done that, he says, "This guy's going to set up a new pattern in your life."



 What is the new pattern? Verse 8. But now you must put them away.



 Things like this, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth. Don't lie to each other seeing that you've put off the old self with its practices.



 I sometimes like the way we balance the Scripture saying it's like putting on clothes. You put off certain things and you put on certain things. I actually like the ESV translators rather say, "Put away those old things." They don't fit you anymore. You know, it's like you've got spiritual health. Why would you put back on stuff that doesn't fit who you are? It's us moving into the springtime and saying, "Why would you take out the bulky sweaters and the heavy coats for spring?" This doesn't fit new life. And so he identifies the things that are not in the pattern of new life and he says, "This is what doesn't fit anymore." And at the same time he is saying, "You need to put on something new." Verse 10.



 "Put on the new self who you really are, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator."



 I will just tell you, I'm not proud of it at all, but one of the things that stopped me in my tracks at one point where I was having an issue with one child that had created such anger in me that something in me wanted to damage my child, to hurt him in some way, to keep him from ever embarrassing and hurting us like that again. And I was expressing my rage to my wife for what our child had done and she just stopped me and she said, "Brian, that is not who you are."



 And it's just arresting.



 That's not who I am.



 Why would I put back on the old? I'd put that away. Why would I go back to the rage that my father would express toward me? Why would I go back to those family patterns that were so destructive in the way I was raised and did so many damaging things to my siblings? Why would I go back there? Brian, that's not who you are. Who are you? Put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. And then verse 11 so beautifully here where we're putting off the old and putting on the new, the reality where we are, verse 11, "There's not Greek and Jews circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all." What are we to recognize? If you come into the church, you recognize nobody's got a leg up on you with God.



 We're all leveled before God because we're hidden with Christ in God. He's our only standing. He's the only thing that makes us right. We're out and perform better than others, do better than others, not the point. Even if we give certain privileges, they are gifts of God. They're not our claim on our merit. And it's why things like our life on life discipleship, our Bible studies, why people meeting and support groups, why is that so powerful? Because nobody's able to say, "I have risen above you. I am better than you. I've got all this." No, listen.



 There's not even a barbarian versus a saint.



 Joe Girl or Billy Graham, Jack Buck or St. Thomas the Quine, level.



 All made right before God only by the work of Jesus Christ. So whether we are sinner or saint, coming out in old faith, different ethnicity, old religion, where do we end? Christ is all and He's in all. That's all there is. And I need to know that in my own sin and my own frailty. Because while I can speak to you about the things of Scripture, what that does at times, it gives me a more refined lens to see the sin in my own life.



 And I recognize what's going to happen is I, like every single person here, is going to have to follow Romans 14 into heaven. We will all give account before God, and that scares me. I will have to give account for the time that I gave into the lust, for the time that the anger made me say things that I should never have said to a child, for the ways in which my ambition can get in front of my service to God's people. I have to be ready to give account, and I fear the day when God will say, "Brian Chapel, step to the line, give account." And I will have to say, "Lord, I am so sorry, but I gave into lust that day.



 Lord, I apologize, but my son made me so mad that I said things I should never have said." And I just want to recognize that what's going to happen in that moment is God is going to say, "Wait a second.



 Who's talking?"



 Well, Lord, it's just me. I'm just right. Wait. Who is that talking to me? Lord, it's me, and I confess that ambition got… Who is that? Well Lord, it's just me. Well, all I see is Jesus, because I'm hidden with Christ and God.



 And on the day that I give account, I will say, "Christ is all I got."



 And the Lord will say, "Bless you, my child.



 You are mine, now and forever.



 Praise God." That is a whopper of a good deal.



 That's a wonderful gospel.



 He takes my mold, and He makes me new.



 Praise God. I will give account. You will.



 May you say before God, "Jesus speaks for me," and God will say, "Jesus is all I know, and in all.



 Come into my glory, my child."



 Father, help us to hear the gospel again.



 May love for Christ compel us. May the joy of the gospel be our strength. When we face that which would tempt us, which would tear us from closeness of affection for You, would You repair us with the good news again of the one who stands in our place, took our sin. Now claims us with Himself at God's right hand so that we can rest and enjoy the reward of being God's precious child, not just in the days to come, but even now. So the stuff that doesn't fit anymore, we put away, and we live in the glorious reality that God intends for all who are His blessed ones.



 So bless us that we might know what it means for Christ to be all and in all and for us.



 This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.