Preparing Our Hearts For Thanksgiving, Part 1 Colossians 3:13-17 Englewood Baptist Church Sunday morning, Nov. 15, 2009

Transcription

1 Note: This is the sermon manuscript that Ben carried into the pulpit. Feel free to use it in any way to advance the kingdom of God. Preparing Our Hearts For Thanksgiving, Part 1 Colossians 3:13-17 Englewood Baptist Church Sunday morning, Nov. 15, 2009 Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away. By this time, most of you have solidified your plans. You know where you are going, you know what you are eating, you ve already got the cool whip. There is no question about it the meal will be prepared. There s gonna be turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Game on. Your belly will be ready. But what about your heart? Will your heart be ready? Do you know what I love about this time of year? I love the challenge of being thankful. That s not an easy thing to be. Hungry. Oh, I can get hungry. Excited, I can get excited. Focused. I can get focused. Driven. I can be driven. But thankful. That s not easy. In fact, it s a whole lot easier to be negative, critical, and pessimistic than it is to be thankful. But, I m telling you, there is something about thankfulness that stirs the heart of the Father. Just the other day, my two oldest children were raking leaves in the yard. When I say raking, I don t mean bagging them. I mean pushing them into a pile. Little brother Miles came along, observes this new phenomenon with these new tools, and then he says to his older siblings, My wanna rake. And I was just standing back there knowing that I was about to break up a fight over a rake. My son Max, who doesn t do this all the time, walked over and handed him his rake. And Miles said, Tank you Max. Tank you. I m telling you. I wanted to jump for joy. A moment of victory. I wanted to say, That s my son, right there showin some gratitude, saying Thank you. It just warmed my heart. There is something about thankfulness that moves the heart of a Father. In the Bible, we are told over and over again to be thankful. And this Thanksgiving, while our nation celebrates the blessings of God upon this land, what a perfect time it is for you and for me to examine our hearts. Are you a thankful person? Does God look down on you and say, that s my son, my daughter, my child showing some gratitude? In the passage of Scripture that we are about to read, Paul is writing to the Colossians and he is talking about the community of believers and how they are to live. He s talking about their attitudes as well as their actions and these words are challenging to us even now, 2000 years later. Do you realize how much the church has changed in 2000 years? We have campuses now, and internet video, and parking lots, and cars that drive into those parking lots. We don t wear tunics, but ties. We don t read from scrolls, but from books. So much has changed, and yet, so much is still the same. People struggle to have a Christlike attitude. When we read about the problems in this early church, we realize that technology has changed the world, but humanity is

2 just the same. By nature, our hearts are gloomy, cynical, and glum, and it s only by the work of Christ that we are any different. Let me read to you Colossians 3:12+. How Do We Prepare Our Hearts For God? There are 4 principles here that I want to show you. 1. The grace of Christ should motivate our hearts to change. V. 12 is the first line in this thought and in it, Paul lists 6 important virtues that we should put on. He says, clothe yourselves with these. You there in the front row,, how did you get that shirt on today? You put it on? And the pants? You put that on to. So you would say that it s your fault that you came with clothes on. I think it was a good decision. I m just clarifying. Paul says put these things on: Compassion. Another translation reads, tender mercies. Be tender with one another. I mentioned my boys earlier. My boys love to rough house. In fact, I made up a game the other day with them. It s called, Do you want a piece of me? They love it. I stand on one side of the room. I get down on my knees like this. I hold up a pillow, and I say, Do you want I piece of me. And they say, Yes, I want a piece of you. And they come running at me and knock me over, and I pretend that they are like a NFL full back. I fall over from the sheer force of their shoulders. They love to be rough. Do you know what else they love? They love for me to kiss them and to rub their shoulders. They love for me to read to them, and they love to sit in my lap and watch cartoons. The desire for me to be tender. And you know, as grown ups, we re pretty much the same. We like for people to be joke with us, push us around for fun, but we also like for someone to say, You are really important to me. And you make a difference in my life. That s tenderness. Put it on. Kindness. Do you realize how kind God was to you in sending his only Son? How hard is it then for you to be kind to the girl at McDonald s who is learning how to ring you up and taking extra time to do it right? How hard is it to be kind to your husband when he loses his wallet again. How difficult is it for you to be kind to the man in your SS class who is socially awkward and tells weird stories every Sunday? Are you kind? Put on kindness. Humility. Jesus Christ made himself nothing, and yet so many of us are spending our lives trying to prove that we are something. We want everyone to think that we are something special, that we are irreplaceable on this earth. I went to a pastor s conference this week and this pastor named Bob told the greatest story. He said that he has learned from experience that churches move on when the pastor is gone, that they do quite well. He said, I don t care what those church members tell you at the door. They cry and they lie. They say, It will never be the same again. You re the best preacher we ve ever had. And Pastor Bob said, For ten years, I believed it. And then, God called him to another church. About a year after he left, he went back to his previous church to perform a wedding ceremony. While he was in that town, his old hometown, he bumped

3 into a person who had been attending when he was the former preacher. The guy said, Hey, I know you. You re that preacher. And Pastor Bob said, yes. And the man said, I remember what you did you re the preacher that did that goat thing. And pastor said this, One time, I had preached a sermon from Leviticus about the sacrificing of a goat, and I had brought a live goat onto the platform, and the only thing this man remembered about my 10 years of blood, sweat, and tears was that I was the goat boy. And he used that story to encourage us pastors: we are not God s gift to the world. We just happen to be ones who have received God s gift to the world. His name is Jesus, and his name is above all names. Are you humble? Meekness and Patience. I link these two virtues together because they are so close in meaning. It has been said that meekness is not weakness. That s true. Jesus was meek, but he was not feeble. He had power, but it was power properly channeled. Someone who is meek is not helpless, but instead, he is a man who controls himself. He does not fly off the handle. He does not lose his head. That next word patient is also translated long suffering. Literally it means, long tempered. So this person can put up with many provoking people, and he can endure criticism, and he does it without losing his tongue and his testimony. Do you have an anger problem? Do you have short fuse? If so, stop blaming it on your family gene pool. Confess it as sin and change. Put on meekness and patience. Forgiveness. Now this one right here is where Paul steps on our toes. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the test comes. We just went from theory to practice. Can you forgive a person who has taken a stab at you? You say, I can t forgive him, but I m not going to get revenge. That s good, but it s not enough to endure grief and not retaliate. You can hate a troublemaker even while you avoid taking a swing at him, and hating people is sinful. Look at v. 13 And when Jesus went on the cross, he did not look upon his killers and say, You low lifes, you despicable, ignorant, wretched people. No, he said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Jesus was never bitter. A preacher once said, Bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. And there are some folks in this congregation today who are bitter. Have you ever eaten anything bitter? This is what it does to your face. [show expression]. Do you know what? Every Sunday morning, I am sure, there are people who show up to their church to celebrate that they are once-for-all forgiven because Jesus Christ chose to forgive. And yet there faces look like this. And I say, How can this be? Something has gone wrong! And Paul says the same thing, put your grievances behind you! The grace of Jesus Christ should melt your heart, and above all else, is love, which binds them all together. We prepare our hearts before God when we put those things on. The grace of Jesus motivates us to change. Now, let s move on because isn t finished talking about our attitudes. 2. The peace of Christ should rule in our hearts. Look at v. 15

4 That word peace means an attitude of rest and security. As Christians, we know that we are at peace with God. Romans 5:1, Therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The war between a believer and God is over, and the treaty was paid by the blood of Christ. So why do so many Christians, then, live in a state of turmoil, trouble, worry and fear? Because they have not allowed the peace of God to rule. That word rule in the Greek refers to an Umpire making a call in an athletic contest. He rules through his decisions. One of the reasons that Christians live in turmoil is because they refuse to let Christ rule their decision making. They persistently sin, and it is this sin, that causes restlessness. Recently I walked into a public place and I saw a man in the corner of the room. This man has attended this church, came through our Discover Englewood class, and recently walked right out of his marriage. I hadn t seen him in weeks. There were no biblical grounds for divorce. He just decided that he didn t want to be married anymore. And guess what he did when I turned around, he slipped behind and walked out of the room. I can t say for sure that he saw me, but I have a feeling that he did, and the reason he left so quickly is because is uncomfortable around the preacher. And why would he be uncomfortable around the preacher? I m just an ordinary guy. Here s why: because the peace of God is not reigning in his heart and he knows it. It is not the peace of God that is ruling like an umpire, making the calls in his life. That man, I believe, is living according to his own desires. And when we do that, guess what happens? We live like Jonah, in hiding at the bottom of a ship, running from the rule of God. And there is nothing more miserable than running from God. Can I ask you today is there any sin in your life that is hidden? Anything lurking in the dark that makes you uneasy? Here s a more practical question: Is there anything in your personal life that you would feel guilty doing around me? Not that I m Jesus, but I do speak his words every Sunday. Anything? Is your conscience condemning you for anything? If so, let the peace Christ rule in your hearts. V The Word of Christ should live in our hearts. Paul says to the believers, Let the Word of God take up a home in your heart. And let it do so richly. Think about a man who is extravagantly rich with money. He has cash in his pocket at all times. Have you ever stood by someone at the grocery store and when they pay for their cereal, they pull out this enormous stack of cash. And you think, Wow, that guy carries a lot of money. He must be rich. In the same way, people should spend time with you as a Christian and they should leave thinking, Wow, that guy has a lot of Scripture in his hands, on his heart, and in his mind. He s just full of Bible. And Paul mentions here two things that happen when a person has the Word of God richly in his heart. Number one, he becomes a teacher. He teaches with all wisdom. Well, what is a teacher? A teacher is somebody who imparts helpful information. And when you have the

5 Word of God, right here, it s like the American Express card, you never leave home without it. And when the opportunity arises to speak the truth, there is no time required to load the bullet in the gun, it is cocked and ready to fire. Parents, let me speak to you for a moment. Your children are learning Bible verses every week in AWANAS. They are memorizing little fragments of truth and they can spit those out every Wednesday night to receive a little plastic jewel for their badge. I urge you. Don t let your child have more Scripture in his heart than you do. If your 5 year old can learn one verse a week, certainly you can. You re supposed to be the teacher and you re supposed to be ready when that little girl comes to you and asks spiritual questions. Let me ask you: If your child or grandchild came up to you and asked, What is the gospel? Do you have any fire power from the book? Or would you say, we d better go talk to the preacher or let me go find my Bible. No, the Holy Spirit is working right then, and you must strike while the iron is hot. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. This is the head knowledge component of Christianity. But it s not just information that is shared when the Word of God lives in you, but also emotions are shared. Paul says, sing to one another psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and do so with gratitude in your hearts. Have you ever heard someone sing a song from their heart? I m not talking about from their lips. We ve all heard that. I m talking about from the soul, with real emotion. When Robin Parrish sang Through the Fire at Troy Mitchell s funeral, it came from her soul because she believed the words that she was preaching. He never promised that the cross would not get heavy And the hill would not be hard to climb He never offered our victories without fighting But He said help would always come in time Do you know why that song had such power in that dark moment? Because she believed it and she has lived it. And she knows that it echoes the truth of Scripture. And when you have the Word of God dwelling in you richly, you sing differently. The truth changes your heart. And let me just say a word to those of you in music ministry. The greatest temptation you will face is to perfect your song, and neglect your Savior. Whether you realize it or not, this congregation can tell when you all have been in rehearsal. It shows by the timing and the melody and the harmony. We can hear the difference when you have been with Brad. But I also want you to know that we can see the difference when you have been with Jesus. Don t give Brad an hour each week, and then offer Jesus 3 minutes in your car on the way to work. If you do, you will sing well, but you won t sing from the heart. You will sing from your head. And it s singing from the heart that makes a difference in people s lives. Let the Word of God dwell in you richly, choir and sing out of the overflow of your heart. 4. The name of Christ should unite our hearts. V. 17

6 Now this verse is one of the hardest to understand today because our society does not emphasize names like Old Testament people did. In the ancient world, a man protected his name, his reputation, his family s testimony because no one would do business with them if they had a bad name. Even God, in the Bible, would often change a person s name to emphasize something new. So Simon becomes Cephas, which is translated Peter, and means the rock. He would be foundational to the growth of the early church. And Saul, the persecutor, became Paul the Apostle when Jesus called him to be a missionary and church planter and preacher. A person s name was significant. And in the same way, it says that we should do everything in the name of Jesus Christ. We bear his name. We are identified with him. Do you know one of the most challenging things about being a pastor? Everybody knows my name. If you ever come up to me and say, Hey Ben, and I say, Heeeeey, brother. I ve forgotten your name. Don t take it personally. I forget my own sons names. There are times when I walk up to a deacon, who I know well, and my brain will not pull up a name. And I hate this because names are important. And you all know my name because it s listed on the front of the bulletin, and you all know my face, and sometimes, that s frightening. Sometime ago, I was pulling my children in a wagon through my neighborhood, and it was a beautiful Saturday morning. As I was pulling this wagon and walking down the street, I saw something right in the middle of the road. It was glass. It was an empty beer bottle just waiting to pierce somebody s tire. I was on my way back to the house so I thought, I ll just pick it up and throw it in the trash. You know where this is going, don t you? There I was one hand pulling a wagon, and when the neighbors drove by, I waved with an empty bottle of beer in my right hand. And I thought great. They know my name. They know I m a preacher. They know I m a Christian who likes to get liquored up at 9:30 in the morning. I can t get away from my name. And some of you pity me because of that. You say, Oh, you just can t ever get away from it. But you know, there s up side to being identified as a preacher. Do you know what it is? People associate me with Jesus. And do you know how powerful that is. Jesus said, You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:14 That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. John 15:19-21 He said, people will hate you or love you, because of my name. What a privilege to be associated with him, to carry his name! And one day, we will associate more closely in heaven and the Bible says

7 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Rev. 22:3-4 Bearing the name of Christ is not a chore for me, it is the highest honor. And have you ever thought about this? When a woman gets married to a man, she takes on his name. It is the highest compliment to a man when a woman gladly says, I want your name. Do you know why that makes a man s chest stick out and his head swell and why it makes him want to fight a thousand fights for her? Here is why. Because she is saying, I am yours. I am with you, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer I will carry your name. That s called the power of identification and it glues those two people together as ONE flesh. Unity. And church, let s be honest, with a congregation as large and diverse as ours, there are so many things that we can disagree and bicker about. We like different kinds of songs, different instruments, different translations of the Bible. We like different foods. Some of us go to Barnhills, some of us go to Burger King. We like different books and movies and cars and houses. We like different people and different places on our vacations. We like different preachers and different kinds of pizza. We like different styles of clothing and different styles of haircuts. We all have a lot of things to argue about, but healthy churches are not those where the people agree on everything. They are churches who agree on ONE thing: the name. 41 I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name will certainly not lose his reward. Mark 9:41 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:31 6 Then Peter said, Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk. Acts 3:6 2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 1:2 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20 I am thankful that I have the name USA on my passport. I am thankful that I have the name Mandrell. I am thankful that I have the name Englewood Baptist Church on my tax returns. But there is nothing in the world that makes me more grateful than to bear the name of Jesus. I hope we agree. I hope we agree.