Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Colossians 3, emphasizing the theme of new life in Christ. He highlights the importance of seeking things above, setting our affections on heavenly matters, and waiting for Christ's return. The sermon encourages believers to put off sinful behaviors and attitudes while putting on godly attributes such as mercy, kindness, and love, which foster unity within the church. Ultimately, he challenges the congregation to reflect on their spiritual lives and commit to living in alignment with Christ's teachings.
Welcome and Church Information
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Amen.
I hope that's all our prayer is, that all we have is Christ this morning, and that every day of our life, I pray that's where we live. If you have your Bibles, we're going to turn to the book of Colossians. We're going to continue there.
We've got this week and two more weeks to finish up the book of Colossians. It's what we have planned.
We're going to be in Colossians chapter 3 this morning, and we'll continue talking through where our focus is at.
And we started a couple of weeks ago talking through where our knowledge is at, and understanding that knowledge is power, and knowing God is one thing, but then we transitioned into understanding that Jesus rules over all.
And then a couple weeks ago, we began to talk about alive in Christ, and it's funny how Paul writes because Paul, I imagine he's like any good,
to our knowledge, he wasn't a father. He wasn't a dad by any stretch of the means that we understand by Scripture. But a good dad knows that kids don't understand things the first time they hear it. Right, parents? And they have to reiterate some things.
And so a couple weeks ago in the first part of chapter 2, he talked about being alive in Christ. And then last week we talked about being free from our past and the thought of legalism.
And then in chapter 3 today, he says, you know what, maybe you didn't get that last part, so we're going to go back and re-hit being alive in Christ. Because a good parent sometimes has to repeat some things to get it to fully understand and to fully comprehend some things.
And so today, chapter 3, new life in Christ and what that looks like and how he begins to practically lay this out.
So he hit it a couple weeks ago, and now he's hit some practicality to it.
And he begins to put some feet behind it and say, this is how we have new life in Christ. And so if you have your Bibles, open to Colossians chapter 3. We're going to do the first 14 verses. They'll be on the screen as well.
And if you'd stand in honor of reading God's Word, we'll read and open in prayer.
The Bible says, If you that have been raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things of this earth. For you are dead and your life is hidden Christ in God.
When Christ to our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth. Fornication, uncleanliness, inordinate affections, evil consumptuousness, covetousness, which is idolatry.
For which things the sake of the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. In the which you also walk sometimes when you live therein. But you also should put off these things. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy,
filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not with one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have now put on the new man, which is renewing in the knowledge after the image of him that created us. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision,
barbarian or Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on, therefore, as elect of God, holy and beloved,
vows of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, forgiving one another.
And if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so you also should forgive. And above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. Father, we pray that you will be upon this service today. Let your spirit fall fresh on us today.
Lord, help us to live in your word, live in your gospel.
Help me to have the words to say this morning. Clear my mind and give me the thoughts that you'd have me to say this morning. In your name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated. New life in Christ this morning is what we're looking at and what this new life brings. How Paul, through his writing here, begins to give us this thought of having new life again.
And he opens up in verses 1 through 4, and I'm going to jump right into our message because of the amount of content I've got.
Understanding Our Purpose
I want to be stewards of our time. And he begins to say, you are alive in Christ, verses 1 through 4. And he begins by restating what he said in the very last chapter. As a reminder, he makes this statement. He says this, do not forget that you are no longer dead.
We are not dead in our sins. We do not live in our sins, but we live in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he says this, this is your new identity that you are now alive in Christ.
You are no longer alive in your own sins, but you are alive in Christ. You are not alive in and of yourself, but you have this new power source that you're connected to, which is Jesus.
And we are no longer having this life where we're continuing to struggle when there is struggle there, but we have this ability through Christ to live in him.
And he makes this statement, and he says, because you're alive in Christ, he lays out four basic questions. As a good parent, as a good teacher, he begins to ask these questions. And the first question he asks is this, what are you seeking?
In verse one, he says this, if you are raised with Christ, seek those things which are above.
And he begins to say, what are you seeking? What is the purpose of your life?
And he begins to ask us this question by saying, you yourself, ask yourself, Pastor James, Allison, Brody, Jade, Hudson, begin to ask yourself, what is the purpose of your life? And put yourself in this question by saying, what am I seeking? Where is my gratitude in life?
When we scrape away all the extras in life, when we begin to lift all the different things in our life away,
what is the God-given purpose of our being? What are we put here on earth to do? Every single person is put on earth to do some specific thing.
And we have to ask ourselves, we have to begin to challenge ourselves, what am I seeking?
What is it in my life that is giving me the purpose to live, to go from day one to day two, from day seven to day eight, from day 485 to day 787? What is it that is driving me in my life?
And if it is just simply the selfish material things in life,
those things fade away. The Bible tells us that putting up, storing up in heaven gold and silver where moth and rust is corrupt is vain and vanity.
But putting up in heaven those things which are for Christ are what last forever. And it says this, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.
What are we seeking in our life? He begins to go from not only what are we seeking, but verses two and three he asks the next question, where is your affection? Verses two and three he says, set your affection on things above,
not on things of earth. That shall appear and shall disappear, but you are dead and your life is hid in Christ. Things above.
He begins to say, what is the things that are above? One commentator wrote it like this. This is the mindset and the thought that life goes beyond the things that motivate us or shape us the way we live.
Look at this part. We will determine to emulate the mind of Christ and let it guide our thoughts and their resulting actions.
Is this our mind? Is our mind in Christ to where when our actions begin to take steps, that that is what is going on because our mind is in the mind of Christ.
And we begin to emulate what Christ has done for us. Right?
When you're married and me and my wife have been married 12 years, going on 13 years. She had to make sure I was right on that. 12 years. Okay? I know what my wife expects of me. Okay?
Most husbands in here would say, yes, I know what my wife expects of me. She expects certain things to be done around the house. And when they're not done, she gets upset. Same thing as a husband. And we begin to, out of just habit,
doing the things that our spouses want us to do. We begin to emulate the things that we know are going to make them happy. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to get up and say, well, I wonder what Allie's going to be happy about today. No, I know it.
I know if I do these X amount of things, she's going to be happy with me. She's going to be pleased with me. And it's the same thing with Christ. Christ, we no longer have to just sit, when we absorb our life and are filled with Christ,
we no longer have to ask ourselves, what is it going to be? Because the mind of Christ is in us. And he's guiding our thoughts so that we emulate and we live the way he lives. He says this.
He said, we should be focused our affection on things above because the affections of those that are fixed on houses and lands and fashion and all the things of this world and low and debased enjoyments will fade away.
And so our mind must be fixed on things above. But he says this. Is your affections on things below? The things that are below are simply the vanity of life.
The death in Christ, as one commentator said, the death in Christ is not an end, but a beginning. It's not a loss, but a gain. An empowerment to begin truly to live.
For we have been liberated from the enslavement of sin and to the things of this world. When we focus on the things that are below,
those are the things that hold us back as Christians. And the Bible says that we must forget the things that are below and focus on the things that are above. Because the death with Christ means we have power and we have freedom to live in his goodness.
And we must ask ourselves, am I living in the power of Christ? Am I alive in Christ? And if that is true, where is our affection at? And then the last question he asks us here in this first part is this.
Are we waiting for his return? Verse 4. He says in verse 4, When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall you also appear with him in glory. You see, we have this beautiful thing that's happened since the first century.
Since Jesus ascended into those clouds of glory in Acts chapter 2, when Jesus is standing there and he begins to float up in heaven, and the mic drop of all mic drops happened, he begins to say,
I am going away and one day I'm going to come again, and then boom, he's gone. And while they're standing there looking up into heaven, two angels appear. And they say, why are you focused on heaven?
You should be focused on what Christ has told you to go and do. And in this moment, from that point on, 2,024 years later, we are waiting for the return of Christ.
And we can sit here and we can say, well, maybe it's going to be when this happens, or maybe it's going to be when that happens. But what Christ has told us through this book here is this.
When we are waiting, we should be waiting for his appearing with him in glory. And as we wait, we wait as two different types of people. Okay, and I'm going to sort of illustrate this a little bit because I've got kids. And has anybody ever had young kids in here before?
A couple of people. All right, perfect. So you can maybe relate to this. Have you ever been home at, let's say, summer break?
Got a couple of kids and they're home and can't really go outside because it's maybe raining outside.
And it's like the world is coming to an end for that child. Okay, have you ever seen a kid that just sits there on the edge of the couch and just looks out the window and goes,
when is it going to stop raining, Dad? I just want to go outside and kick the ball. I just want to go outside and ride my bike. I just want to go out and shoot my gun. I just want to go outside.
And they begin to get stir crazy and they wait and they wait and they're bored out of their mind. Have you ever seen a kid like that before? Maybe that was you one day. Okay, that's one style of waiting. God, woe is me. Hey, the world's going bad and I'm just sitting here.
Lord, come back soon. That's one type of waiting. Or the waiting of, hey, we're in Thanksgiving, right? Mom's cooking, right?
Cleaning the house. Thanksgiving breaks upon us. You're waiting for your guests to come over and you begin cleaning. You begin organizing. You put all the food in the oven.
You start getting things ready and you're working while you're waiting. Right?
That's what Paul was saying here. He's saying we shouldn't be waiting with this doom and gloom and hoping that one day the Lord comes back. He says, no, you should be waiting. And while you're waiting, you should be doing the work of Christ.
Because we are not dead. We are not living in the deadness of sin, but we're living in the aliveness of who Christ is. And we're waiting in order for preparing for the day that Lord comes back.
And we're wanting our house to be fully stocked for when our guests come over. We're wanting the meal to be completely ready.
And Christ says in that same way, we should be preparing and waiting and getting everything fully prepared and ready for Christ to come back. Not waiting in a dreary and droughtful way of being bored, but waiting with the excitement.
The opposite of that rainy day, but the excitement of that guest coming over for that very first time. And that is Christ coming back for his return. And is that the way we're waiting this morning, church?
And he says, this has been alive in Christ. Christ, it's what are we seeking, where's our perfection, and what are we waiting on? But then he begins to say, okay, I've got to really get into some practical ways. Because what does it mean to be alive in Christ?
And he begins to give out two main ways that you're going to hear me over the course of many, many years of preaching use these two phrases. Because it's all throughout scripture.
If you've never heard of it, this is what it is. It's putting off and putting on. Putting off one thing and putting on something new. And this is the thought of what Paul lays out here.
Putting Off Sinfulness
And all throughout his writings, he says this. We should be putting off something and putting on something else. And in this specific passage, he says this. We should be putting off sinfulness in verses 5 through 11. Dying to the old ways of living.
We are alive in Christ. And if we're alive in something, we must be dead in something else. We cannot live for two things. Okay?
We are going to be alive to something and dead to something else. And Paul lays out three basic things here of what we should be dead in.
Verses 5 through 7, he says this. You should be dead in your passions. This is the earthly nature that we have. And he lays out just a few here in verses 5 through 7. These are the few. Fornication, uncleanliness, inordinate affections, evil consumptuousness or desires. Evil desires and covetousness, which is idolatry.
And he says this. He says if this is the attributes or the passions of your life, he says then you are, according to this, the children of disobedience. The children of Satan.
You are no longer alive in Christ. You are dead to these things. And he says if we are going to be living in Christ, we have to put off these passions.
We have to put off the thoughts of these things that he lays out here in verse 7. Because he says this is something that is a lifelong putting off.
It's a lifelong sin nature that we have that we have to crucify the old man. Okay?
And put on the new man. It's all throughout scripture of putting off and putting on. And so we have to put off our own passions. But then he says this. You have to also put off the practices that we have in verses 8 through 10.
He says put off these things that you have. And he says not only the actions, but you have now attributes of the old self. And this is what they are. And tell me if any of you struggle with these. Because these are some things that I struggle with often. Anger. Wrath. Malice.
Blasphemy. Filthy communication. And lying. Lying to one another. He says well maybe you don't have a problem with the first one, the passions. Maybe your passions are great. There's not fornication. There's not uncleanness. There's not inner affection. There's not evil desires. You're not coveting.
But all of a sudden now he gets to the attitudes of life. And he says do you struggle with anger? As a redhead I struggle with anger every day of my life. Right? It's there. Okay? My kids can push me the wrong way one time and the anger slips out.
I struggle with it. It's my own personal thing that I have to deal with. And over the years of my life it has been something that I have tried and tried and tried. And through scripture have seen God deliver me from that.
But often times when I'm not filled with the spirit it comes out quicker. So we've got to ask ourselves is that where we're at? Maybe it's wrath.
Maybe you just hold grudges all the time. You just can't let go of things. Maybe it's malice. Maybe you just want to cause problems. Maybe you want to be the center of all the problems that are going on so you can hear the gossip. Maybe it's blasphemy.
Maybe it's talking bad about God. Or filthy communication out of our mouth. Or lying to one another.
Because the Bible says if we put on Christ then why are we still living in these areas?
Why are we still struggling with these areas? And the basic answer is this. We will continually have a time where we are trying to put away these things every day of our life. To be conformed.
To be more and more like Christ. Sanctification every day of our life. And we're asking ourselves am I doing these things in my practice?
Am I doing these things in my passion? And then he says maybe your passions are great. And you've done perfect here. Maybe your attitudes are just fantastic.
Man they're off the charts. No one's ever seen you in a bad mood. Man you're just spot on in everything. He then gets to the last one. And he sort of drives this home with the most amount of force. Because he says this. The pride that is in our life.
He shifts his thinking to what we identify ourselves as.
And he says how are you thinking of yourselves? And he lays out a couple here. Jews or Greek and circumcised and uncircumcised. Barbarians or Scathians.
And he says bond or free. And he says this. We get to the point where we focus our life on who we are and where we come from. And that's all we think about. Right? You ever meet a Jewish person. Specifically a Jew.
You can even take this into the American church. Into the American culture. We are proud to be an American. Right?
And Jews. They refer to every single Jew in the land of Israel as a brother and a sister. Because everyone is a brother and sister there. And they identify themselves as that. They are a Jew first.
And then everything else second. And Christ says we must get our mind off of who we are. And where we come from.
And we must get our mind on whose we are. And where we're going.
It's no longer about our identity and who we are. But it's whose we are. It's in what Christ has declared us to be. Which is free. And as we talked about in Sunday school today. Where we are going.
And if we're in Christ. Then we get that glorification one day. Where we're going to live with him forever. And if for some reason we choose to not be in Christ. Then we have that eternal separation. And we live with the opposite of God. Which is Satan and hell forever. Forever.
And we have to ask ourselves. Where am I going? And who am I?
Whose am I? You see the social acceptance in the matter no longer matters. No longer matters whether we're Jew or Greek. No longer matters whether we're bond or free.
No longer matters whether we're. What our name is. Or who our name is. Because we are one body. For the glory of God. And when pride enters in. When pride enters into our life. And the pride enters into our fellowship. It becomes all about us.
And what this simply does is it devalues what Christ has done for us. It devalues who Christ is in our life.
One commentator said it like this. The beauty of the body of Christ is found in its cohesive unity.
When it's blended diversity. The divisions of pride not only cause divisions among God. But people. I'm sorry. Division among God's people. But it hinders the work of the gospel. Pride hinders the work of the gospel.
And we must ask ourselves. Am I living in pride? Am I living in these passions? Am I living in these practices? What is it?
Embracing Godliness
And what do I need to put off? Because once you identify what you need to put off. Now you have this awesome opportunity of putting on godliness.
You put on what God has for us. In verses 12 through 14. He begins to lay out. And he says now. As I've talked through all these things. Put on therefore.
As the elect of God. Or as the children of God. However your version says it. Holy and beloved. He begins to lay out these things. And he says. The greatest thing that the church has to offer. Is hope and help to a dying world.
The way we do this is by simply putting on the attributes of God. Putting on the one another's of scripture. There's like nine or ten one another's. This passage lays out three of them. And that's what we're going to look at. But we have to ask ourselves.
What are we putting on? Every day you get up and you put on clothes. You put on the mind of who you are. You put on what you desire for that day.
And what you put on. Is it matching what God wants us to put on? And we begin to ask ourselves. And we begin to align these things in our life. And we begin to say. What is it that my life is putting on?
What is it that I have desire for every part of my life? And as he begins to walk through this. He says the first thing that we should be putting on. Is bearing with one another. Verses 12 through 13. He lays it out. But he says forbearing one another.
And he says this is walking hand in hand with one another. This is doing life with each other. It's showing things like this.
And he lays it out in verses 12. He says this. Mercy.
Are we putting on mercy? Are we putting on mercy to where when one brother or sister has hurt us. We show mercy back. Or are we holding grudges? Maybe it's kindness. He says we should be putting on kindness. Humbleness. Putting yourself below someone else. Having a mindset of lowering yourself.
Having a mindset of meekness. And the one that I struggle with the most. The King James says like this. Long suffering. Man that's a tough one. Patience. Long suffering.
Long suffering. Does anybody in here struggle with that? Or is it just me? All right. Long suffering. Man. You're suffering long. Bible doesn't say long goodness. Bible doesn't say long happiness. It says long suffering.
Long suffering with one another. Bearing with one another. The trials and the tribulations they go through. You bear it on your shoulders.
And you begin to walk through life with them. In the years. The 12 years that I've been a pastor. The weight of other people's burdens on my shoulders.
Is the hardest thing that I have to walk through. Preaching. This is easy. This is getting up. And walking through the scripture. But when you begin to walk through life. And you begin to sit beside a bedside of someone. Whose father is dying. Whose husband is dying.
And you begin to sit there on death's doorstep. Suffering is hard. Long suffering is even harder. But Christ commands us. To put on long suffering. To suffer well with others.
To love others in their suffering. To show mercy. To show kindness. To show humbleness. Because that is godliness.
In Christ's eyes. He goes on in verse 13. And he says this. Not only should you bear one another. But you should forgive one another.
The Importance of Forgiveness
Says for bearing one another. And forgiving one another. If anyone has a quarrel against anyone. Even as Christ forgave you. You also forgive them. Forgiveness as Christ has forgiven us.
You see it's easy sometimes for us to ask for forgiveness. And forgiveness to be given. But when other people come to us. And they've hurt us. And they've done wrong to us. And then us to show forgiveness back. Back is difficult.
Jesus illustrated like this. He said there was a man who owed an unthinkable amount of money. The money was not even being able to be able to calculate it. That it would be his entire generation. His children's generation.
And his grandchildren's generation. Was the amount of debt this person owed to someone else. And he went to his master and said. There's no way I can pay this. And his master said. You know I'm going to forgive you everything.
Everything. The guy walked away forgiven. And happy. And joyful.
And it says that one of the people that were under him. Came to him and owed him about ten dollars. And when he said I can't pay this. The man that was just forgiven three generations of debt. Said you know what. I can't forgive your debt.
You're going to jail. And you're going to spend the next amount of time in jail. Until you can pay me back my money. And when the master heard that.
He said how dare you not forgive me. Forgive others the way I forgave you. And Jesus says often times this is our life. We've been forgiven a debt that we could never pay in and of ourself.
And yet so often we can't forgive others the way Christ forgives us. It's quite possible one of the hardest things for us to do.
Especially in the Christian church is to show forgiveness. Because it is personally hurting ourselves.
No one wants to have self-inflicted pains. And yet when you forgive others. You are forgiving of whatever that was. Anger.
Malice. Wrath. A debt. Whatever it may be. You are now forgiving them as Christ forgave us. And the Bible says that others are going to know that we're the disciples of Jesus. By the way we love one another. And love equals forgiveness.
Love is part of that forgiveness. And this is where it continues on. As Paul's writing. He says this. And above all these things. Okay. Above all these things. Put on charity.
Or put on love. Is another way to put it. It says which is the bond of perfection. Which is the bond of unity. Loving one another. This is how others are going to know that we're the disciples of Jesus.
By the way we love, forgive, and bear with one another. This is how we must have bonds of unity.
By the way we love and forgive and bear. Love is tough. Love is difficult. Because love is typically shown when we know someone.
Right? We begin to know someone in an intimate way. And that's when love is shown. And Christ says here.
Through his writings and through Paul's writings. That love should be shown not only to those that we know. But to everyone.
To those we don't know. To those that are going to hurt us in the future. We still love them. To those that are going to betray us in the future. We still love them. Because this is the bond of unity.
This is the bond that brings all men together for the sake of the gospel. It's by loving one another. We want to ask ourselves how can we be an effective church?
Church Mission and Community Impact
How can we be a church that is on mission? How can we be a church that is impacting our community? How are we loving one another? Inside these walls. But outside these walls as well.
how is our love as terry comes in place for us i like to close with some questions to consider it's a way for you to sort of wrap your mind around some of the thoughts that we talked about
today so that you can respond properly and as we close i want you to consider this are you alive in christ is your life living for christ or are you still dead in the world and dead into sin
maybe today you've never came and you've never asked christ for the gift of forgiveness that he's offered to us through the death the burial the resurrection of his life maybe you've never followed the lord and believers baptism maybe
you accepted jesus one day and you never sort of took that next step of saying you know i want to show the world that i'm a christian i want to come and show the world that i want to
be baptized maybe that's you this morning come and talk to me i'll be down front we can discuss these things maybe you're here this morning you say well pastor james listen i was raised in church i've accepted jesus
i've lived my life but maybe you're here and you're saying you know what i'm still living in those sinful desires i've never fully put off the deadness of the old self i'm still living in that deadness maybe today
is the day where you come and you put off that sin and you say god i want to put on your godliness and get this church it's not just today it's tomorrow too it's every day we get dressed
and every day we have to put on the godliness of christ
maybe today we need to come and recommit to one another and say god i want to bear with one another i want to love one another i want to forgive one another way you have bared my burdens and
you forgave me and you love me even in my darkest days is that the way we're living our life i don't know what need is this morning but i know a god who does and i know a god
who can help as we stand and as we pray the altars are open lord we thank you for this day lord i pray that your word would go out
help us this morning as we go from here as we go out to our service tonight as our young people go out and they shop for some seniors and they show love to others god that you would allow
Closing Remarks and Prayer
us to be the hands and feet of christ be with this invitation in your name we pray amen thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of pleasant grove please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week
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