Good morning, everybody. It's great to be with you here.
Thanks, Hannah. Hey, my name is Nate.
I'm one of the Co directors of student ministry here at Ford
Church. I had the privilege of serving
alongside a bridge. She was the one in the cheetah
print pants earlier up on here. And it is great to be with you
here this morning. We are going to be in Colossians
31 to 17, and we're going to be going through it slowly but
faithfully. And if you don't have a Bible
with you, I'd love to invite you to grab one.
They'll be one of the seat backs beside you or in front of you.
And if you grab one of those, it will be on page 1044.
And that's your gift. You can keep that.
We'd love you to mark up, bring that to church, reading it and
be a part of it. And I hope your your Christmas
was a good time spent with family.
I know my wife Laura and I had a wonderful time bouncing around
all different parts of Ontario celebrating.
We even got to have a wedding in this season.
Congratulations to Macy. And usually around this time, as
we head into a new year is the time we start to think about
setting goals, the time we start to reflect on how our year went.
But it's also about looking forward and being able to go,
what is my next year going to look like?
What is 2026 going to look like for me?
And a quick Google search will tell you what the top five list
is for every other person around.
It starts with #1 being health and fitness.
Number 2 is financial improvement #3 is better
lifestyles or habits #4 is self improvement through learning.
So maybe your Duolingo streak is going to hit 365 this year and
#5 is personal well-being. In 2025, the same five made that
list, and in 2024, the same five made that list.
And you can probably predict that in 2023 it was the same as
well, just with a slight change in order.
So why has nothing changed? Why is it year after year we
make commitments to go to the gym, to be happier, to have
financial stability or whatever your top five resolutions are
going to be or were? I know that life gets busy, kids
sports start to stack up, Netflix drops a new series we
have to binge watch, bills start to pile up and the goals start
to fade into the background. We start to lose focus of our
aim and sadly the same can happen with our faith journeys.
We can lose sight of what it means to follow Jesus.
It's times we know we have things that need to change.
We know there's people we need to stop following or habits that
need to be removed, but we lack to be able to follow in the
steps. There seems to be a disconnect
between what we believe and what in the actions that follow that
belief. As we unpack the message today
as we unpack the passage God through Paul's challenging
believers to live a faith that is consistent with what they
confess and it starts by setting our aim on things above can open
up to Colossians 31 says this. So if you've been raised with
Christ, seek things above where Christ is seated at the right
hand of God. Set your mind on things above,
not on earthly things, for you died and your life was hidden
with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life
appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.
See, the section of scripture that we are in is jam packed.
If you're unfamiliar with Paul's writing in his letters, he
usually starts the small lentil introduction.
Sometimes he name drops some people from the church that he's
speaking to. Then he heads into a section of
doctoral work. He starts to lay the theology.
He says to lay down the message he wants his people to
understand. There's usually a bunch of
therefore, so the word, but that comes in and it starts to head
into the application section of the Scripture and that's where
we are today. Paul has some action steps for
his people to live out. He has some action steps for us
to put on to head into as we look into 2026 and it Paul
starts with Paul reminding us of our life with Christ.
He's starting to remind us of what our identity with Christ
actually is and the stars by setting that aim on things
above. See, Paul wants you to remember
the things that make you a Christian is that your old life
has been put to death with Christ and a new life is
resurrected with him. A new life of a goal of being
Christ like a new life with an aim that is heavenly things
above, not on the earthly ways. See, the Pagan religions of the
time that Paul was writing this letter would have said nothing
about acting out on their belief.
A worshipper could bow before an idol, put their offering on the
altar, and go back to living the same life of sin.
What a person believed had no direct relationship with how
they behaved. But the Christian faith brought
a whole new concept in the Pagan society.
What we believe is a very precise connection with how we
ought to behave. Jesus's life and death and
resurrection not only changes our internal status, but it also
changes our current one. It is a change that we are to
live here on earth in a new way. See, living in the resurrection
life takes intentionality. Paul's saying listen up.
When you don't fix your eyes on the goal, when you don't fix
your eyes on things above, when you don't physically lift up to
look at God in glory, you will lose sight of what really
matters. Crisis sets you free.
And that changes every single thing about your life.
And this passage should come with the warning sticker not to
be done in your own strength. So if you try to do anything
about what Paul is saying without first understanding what
Jesus has done, there's no point of continuing on with the rest
of the sermon. Let's look at verse 5 together.
It says Therefore put to death what belongs to your earthly
nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and
greed which is idolatry. Because of these, God's wrath is
coming upon the disobedience, and you once walked in these
things when you were living in them.
See the word therefore says it all, and that it links the 1st 4
verses. Therefore, if you are going to
put to death what belongs to your earthly nature and needs to
come out of a personal life with Christ, the list of vices that
take off is not about achieving a certain stature.
It's not about becoming good enough for God or trying to
prove to God or the people around you that you're doing OK.
It is a total rewiring, a total rewriting of the self that can
only come from death to self. It's the same idea that Jesus
says in the Sermon on the Mount when he says if your right eye
causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.
For it is better to lose one part of your body than it is for
your whole body to be thrown into hell.
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw
it away. For it is better than you to
lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go in the
house. Now neither Paul or Jesus is
talking about literal surgery. We don't need to go into the
parking lot and start cutting off our hands.
That wouldn't be great for Rob to clean up later on.
He's not talking about physical surgery, but it is a or a
physical changing of clothes as we talk about in our passage,
but it's about a rewiring of the self.
See century goes of England. I don't know if this is a fake
story, but my commentary has them to go.
It's real century goes in England.
If a pickpocketer was convicted, the right hand was cut off.
And if they continued to convict the second time, their left hand
would be cut off. And I don't know about this one
because it says once both his hands were continued to be cut
off, he continued his trade using his teeth to pickpocket.
Now, I don't know how how well you'd be able to pickpock
someone's backpack with your teeth, but if you can do it,
good on you. But physical surgery never
changes the heart. That's the point of this story.
See, you are either dead in sin or alive in Christ.
There is no in between. See, it starts by taking off the
old. It is necessary to put to death
what belongs to your earthly nature, because if you do not
kill them, they will kill you. And the only thing that kills
them, the only thing that puts off the old, the only thing that
destroys the old life is life with Jesus.
John 336 says the one who believes in the Son has eternal
life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life.
Is that the wrath of God remains on him.
Friends, if you are here today, you do not know Jesus as Lord
and Savior in your life. You're living in the ways of the
earth and that leads to death and there is no amount of good
deeds that will save you. It is only by putting your faith
in Jesus Christ as Lord and the Savior of your life that you
will be saved. If you've yet to put your faith
in Jesus here, maybe you were brought by a friend.
Maybe you physically stumbled into service today.
Maybe you decided to come another week after Christmas.
I just want to give an opportunity here for you just to
pray out quietly pray out asking the Lord to just show you what
it looks like to live life with him, to just pray and say, Lord,
I want to follow you. I want to put my life in your
life. I want to be resurrected with
you. Lord, just pray that out today.
See this decision to follow Jesus.
It's not just a prayed and forget it situation, but it's a
relationship that needs to be continued, tendered to, to be
continued, to be nurtured. This is why Paul is telling us
fix your aim on things above, on heavenly things, to be reminded
of the nature of life with Christ.
So this is where the intentionality part kicks in.
The picture in this passage is a person putting off the old life,
changing clothes and putting on the new life.
Let's look at verse 8. But now put away the following
anger, wrath, malice, slander and filthy language from your
mouth. Do not lie to one another since
you've been put off the old self with this practices and have put
on the new self which you are being renewed in the knowledge
according to your Creator. See, the Greek word translated
put off and put on indicates a once and for all action.
We put off the old life and put on the new life.
The old man has been buried and the new man is in control.
New life has begun. But the verb translated renew.
It's a present participle meaning you are consistently
being renewed. It is something that is
presently happening, but something that you strive
towards and continue to seek. See salvation.
Giving your life to Christ leads to the process of sanctification
where you become more like Jesus.
The words from Paul are not meant to be a shame moment.
Is that to be a moment where you start to list all the things
that you have done wrong or the times that you've spent in
captivity, listing all the things that you've done in your
life, trying to figure out how to do life with Jesus.
This isn't a time where you need to start taking an inventory of
the times you've fallen in, the sexual immorality or slander or
impurity or lust or evil desires or greed.
This is a reminder that Jesus's death had conquered those things
in your life and it is time to start living like you've been
set free. This is a reminder that Jesus's
life and resurrection has demolished the bondage of sin.
That's something we can celebrate.
This should be a moment where the weight is shed off of you
all. The past, the present, the
future sins you've committed, the people that you've hurt, the
shame that you have felt, the greenness of your heart, the
impurity of your soul, the evil desires that were of nature have
been taken off in Jesus name. 1 commentary noted it like this.
It is time to take off the grave clothes and it's time to put on
the grace clothes. See, a new life can be lived, a
life that will take intentionality, a life that will
take working towards because it is a constant renewal.
It is a consistent work to be made into the image of Christ.
Again, this isn't just a one and done situation.
Our new life is, but is a consistent walk.
This is what I call a youth ministry.
It's slow drip discipleship. It's the slow erosion of a rock
time after time with the same water hitting the same spot.
Or Eugene Peterson says it's a long obedience in the same
direction. It is a long and winding Rd.
step by step, trying to collect the dust off the sandals of
Jesus as you walk close to him. So how does this get achieved?
You don't just walk out of service today and all of a
sudden I'm following Jesus. Everything's great.
What does it look like to live out the promise of life rather
than living in the bondage of sin?
The verse that we read says it at the end, you're being renewed
in the knowledge of courting to the image of your Creator by
knowing God, by setting your aim on things above, fixing your
eyes there, letting it be your north star.
And when I say no, I don't just mean no things about God or do
as he did. I mean do as he did.
Know his words. Practice what he practiced.
Pray, spend time with him, spend time in unity with other
believers, Sit under sound teaching, correct one another
through songs and through the Word.
Sing songs of praise. See, let's unpack what the
restless passes have to say about what this new life with
Christ should look like. Verse 11 In Christ there is no
there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised,
barbarian or sit there and slave and free, but Christ is in all
and is all. Therefore, as God's chosen ones,
wholly and dearly loved, put on compassion, put on kindness,
humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one
another, forgiving one another. If anyone has a grievance
against one another, just as the Lord has ever given to you, so
you also are to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is
the perfect bond to unity. These words from Paul's about
what it looks like to live out the resurrection life.
And it starts with taking off the old, but now it's about
putting on the new. It's about living into the way
that God already sees you. Some of you might be sitting
here like, why would I change? Why would I want to be
different? I don't feel like the bondage of
sin has actually been taken off of me.
In fact, I feel like more of it has come on.
See, following Jesus, it's just as hard as it was not following
him, maybe even harder. Why would I want to do anything
different? Think verse 11 and 12.
Give us some good reason. See, this new life with Christ,
it erases the old. It erases the visions between
people, and it replaces them with how God sees them as
chosen, holy, and dearly loved. See, God doesn't care about the
outside. He doesn't care about where
you're from, your social status, what you wear, whether you came
here by bus or car, whether you're Jewish or dentile, slave
or free. He's interested in your heart.
See, Paul is reminding believers.
He was reminding you of what God's grace has already done for
you, that God has chosen you. He calls you holy and He loves
you. Ephesians 1/4 to 8 puts it this
way. For He chose us in Him before
the foundations of the world to be holy and blameless in love.
Before Him, He predestined us to be adopted as sons and daughters
to Jesus Christ for Himself, according to the good pleasures
of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He
lavished out on us in the Beloved One.
In Him we have redemption through the blood, the
forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His
grace that He richly poured out on us with all wisdom and
understanding. Can we just sit in that for a
minute? Before the literal foundations
of the world was formed, God chose you to be his sons and
daughters. God knew that you were going to
be born and he wanted you. So God has chosen you as his own
and there is nothing that can separate that.
This is what scholars call divine election.
It is not dependent on anything that we could do or have done.
If God only saves sinners based on works based on how good we
are, then nobody would be saved. But it is all done through God's
grace. We don't need to work for this,
work for God to see us chosen or as his own or loved said, We
need to work towards the way God already sees us.
Because the Lord has forgiven you.
He sees He was chosen. He's adopted you as His family.
He sees you as holy and dearly loved before him.
See, it is out of these labels. It is out of the way that God
already sees you that you are to put on compassion, that you are
to put on kindness, that you were to put on gentleness,
humility, and practice forgiving those around us because we have
already been forgiven. So your ears are all the things
that characterize Jesus life and they ought to characterize us as
ours as well. And they're very hard to do.
I'm not just sitting up here and be like you guys do that.
I'm going to do something else. See, this passage again should
come with a warning sticker not to be done in your own strength.
I get how hard these things are, and not just because I work with
teenagers. Because I'm not perfect and I
can't be. You can ask my wife Laura to be
the first person to tell you how difficult that putting on
compassion and kindness, humility and gentleness and
patient aren't always my first reaction.
But they're to be forged. Not by great, not by strength,
by a long obedience in the same direction towards Jesus.
Slow drip discipleship to work towards these goals.
Because God has already labeled us by bringing out the character
into a place of consistency with the work that Jesus has already
done in US. You have been made new.
Walk it out. And it'd be great if we can just
Matrix download this. That'd be awesome.
Be a whole lot less work. We wouldn't have to do the
character formation thing. I can just wake up one day and
put on these qualities. But it's not the case.
See, God is not interested in a robotic faith.
He's interested in you. So take off the old and put on
the new. See, what would 2026 look like
if we were a church that did this, that walked out the work
that Jesus has already done for us?
Think about it. What would it look like for the
people around us? What would it look like for the
people at work? For the people at home?
For the people we play sports with?
For the people we interact with when we're running chores or
hobbies or at the grocery store? What would it look like if we
put on compassion? We are stirred to deep mercy for
others and saw them the way God saw them.
Instead of staying in our lane and not wanting to bother other
people, we talked to them. Kerry Newhoff put a statistic
out recently that 82% of people would attend a church, would
attend church, of a family or friend invited them.
Yet only a small fraction of church members, around 2%,
actually extend the invitation. This blew me out of the water.
One of my youth leaders dropped this one liner to me.
Says I'm learning that my 2 minutes of awkwardness when
inviting people to church is better than their eternity in
hell. I was convicted deeply by that.
Deeply. What would it look like if we
put on kindness like the Good Samaritan?
We stopped and helped those who were in need?
What would it look like if we put on humility or gentleness or
patience? What do we put on love?
How would the people around us be changed?
How would we be changed? I believe this is what Jesus was
talking about on the Sermon on the Mount when he calls
believers to be salt to the earth and light in the darkness.
This is what it would look like. We would look like people who
have been so radically changed by God that others would be
drawn to Him. One of our youth students, I
won't say her name, demonstrated this so well.
During Halloween. One of our youth leaders sent me
the Facebook posts from a lady in the community and it was
titled this Just some good news and hope to share with the
neighborhood group. The rest of the post reads like
this. I had a delightful encounter
with a teenage girl. I was sitting on my front porch
handing out candy for Halloween. Instead of collecting treats,
she stated that she was doing a reverse Halloween, having
prepared homemade meals to give out to others.
Well, I didn't need any meals. I praised her for her thoughtful
initiative. Before she left, I asked her why
she was doing this and she explained that she wanted to
celebrate Halloween in a different way, a more giving
way, and ends like this. This young woman truly gives me
hope for the next generation. Church.
Let your character be a demonstration of the work of
Jesus in her life so that other people can know who Jesus is.
Paul ends this section with three final exhortations for us
to live this new life. I want to challenge you just to
think about how one of these can make it into your New Year's
resolution in 2026, verse 15, and let the peace of Christ, to
which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts and
be thankful. The first practice is to let the
peace of Christ rule over you. The word rule here.
It's really interesting. It's actually taken from sports,
from the world of sports, and it literally means that Paul's
telling you to let the peace of Christ act as a referee in your
life. Let the peace of Christ call it.
Because if you don't, your emotions will.
In every situation, the peace of Christ is to be the one who
calls a shot. He's the one who dictates the
aim of the conversations we have with each other.
And listen, I play in a men's basketball league.
I know how bad referees can be. If you watch NFL football, you
probably agree with me. Let's give them a break.
See, a good referee isn't indifferent or passive.
They don't just sit there half paying attention to all that is
going on and said. A good referee is an active
participant in what is going on around them, alert and ready to
spring into action. See, Paul portrays the peace of
God in this way. It is an active presence
watching carefully and should be calling the shots.
See, the peace of Christ needs to decide how you are going to
continue playing the game. The next one is let the word of
Christ dwell richly among you in all wisdom, teaching and
monitoring one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
That's verse 16. So the second practice is to let
the word of Christ fall richly among you.
Rebuking one another and singing songs of praise to the Word of
God will transform your life if you let it dwell richly among
you. And the word dwell literally
means to make at home, to live out the labels that God has
given us. We need to know God and we need
to know to know God. We need to know His Word and
what it says about him. For all the Bible nerds out
there, I was doing some study on the dating of this letter to see
whether this, when it talks about the letter in the Word of
God, dwell with you, among you. I was doing some nerdy work, as
I do, to see if Paul was talking about the first circulations of
the gospel of Mark or if he was talking about other letters that
were dated or just the oral tradition.
And I came to this conclusion. It really doesn't matter.
We have the complete Bible in front of us right here.
Read it. See, what does it matter if we
don't know about the one who wrote it or what's in front of
us? So not only are we supposed to
read it for ourselves, but we are to read it so we can use it
to correct other people and so that we can allow them to
correct us. This is that humility piece.
If you're serious about putting on compassion or kindness or
humility, if you're serious about putting off the old ways
of sexual immorality or greed or idolatry, you need to put
yourself in a position to be corrected by those around you.
Maybe you need to join a discipleship group in 2026.
Maybe you need to start by asking a friend to call you out.
Maybe you need to take a step into a quick class where you'll
be steeped in the Word of God. See, we are meant to sharpen
each other, but if we don't know what we're talking about, we
cannot do that. That's when you become really
dangerous. The verse is not only talking
about the Word as a means of correction and wisdom teaching,
but it also talks about singing songs.
OK, to say I didn't grow up in a Christian home, going to say I I
didn't really understand why we sing songs in a service.
I don't know. If you don't come from a
Christian household, you kind of just walk in and all of a sudden
there's music. I didn't really understand what
it was. I kind of disliked it.
Sorry, Pastor Keith, but I was confusing why I was a part of
the service and maybe it's just because I'm a really bad singer.
Matt, who does worship in kitchen, likes to say that I
have a congregational voice, not an on stage singing voice.
But over the years I've I've become to see the immense value
of singing with our brothers and sisters.
Even just before coming up here was a thing that stilled my
heart. Seeking the truth of God and
letting it seep in before I can come up and teach friends.
It's incredibly nerve wracking. It's wonderful to look around
the room and see those who are 15 and 75 worshipping God
together. Not only is this a wonderful
sight, but Paul seems to see that it's an equal value of the
Word and it is both good for correction and for wisdom.
This is why Pastor Keith intentionally goes through each
song that we sing. This is why there's a whole list
of songs that are OK for us to do or not see.
A singer has no more right to sing a lie than a preacher has
to preach a lie. So join in worship.
Let the biblical wisdom seep into your heart.
I don't know about you, but I'm often reminded of the truths of
Scripture through song. Whether I'm just I'm doing
dishes and a song pops into my head or I'm in a difficult
situation and I'm reminded of the truths from the Word,
there's lyrics that have just popped out in my head.
Maybe for you, you need to physically take your Bible out
and sift through it as we go through songs, finding the words
that are from here and connecting them to the words
that are up there as a promise you they're in there if you're
here. A few weeks ago, Pastor Keith
went through all the different verses and in fact, he couldn't
even do all of them because we would have been here the entire
service on how they affected the song.
In a minute, we're going to be able to practice this together.
Look for what scriptures come to mind in the song.
And finally verse 17 and whatever you do in Word or in
deed, do everything in the name of the Lord, giving thanks to
God the Father through him. So the third practice is to do
all things in Jesus name. This kind of feels like Paul at
the end of the section is just throwing to see whatever will
stick on the wall, but do all things in Jesus name.
We tend to put a downplay on names, but in the ancient world
they held them to the utmost importance.
Often during the Old Testament days, they would change a
person's name based on someone's important or experience and new
development. Paul himself with Saul, now
Paul, these Christians, we bear the name of Christ.
It's Christians. It's found only three times.
The New Testament, the name was originally given as a name of
contentment, but gradually it became a name of honor.
The name of Christ then means identification.
We belong to Christ, but his name also means authority.
We pray in it, we cast out in it.
See all that we say or do to be associated with the name of
Jesus Christ. By our works, by our words, we
should glorify his name. If you want to look different in
2026, do all things in the name of Jesus.
Would you pray with me this morning, Church?
Father, thank you for this morning.
Thank you for the blessing of being able to just come up here
and share from your word. Father, thank you for those who
are here. Father, I pray that this doesn't
fall on deaf ears, Lord, that as we think about 2026, as we head
out, as we in head into conversation, as a lobby, as we
drive away in our cars, you will let this seep in.
You will let us actually think about what it looks like to be
changed in 2026 by your words, not not mine, by your words.
So that I pray that as we head into these, would you give us
the practices that we need? Would you calm our hearts?
Would you help us to see what you have for us?
We just pray these things in your holy name or Jesus Christ,
Amen.