Greater Than Your Religion

1. 0:00 Good morning.
2. 0:01 It's a pleasure to be with you again.
3. 0:04 Let me invite you to stand for the reading of our passage this week.
4. 0:08 We find ourselves continuing in the book of Colossians in chapter 2, wrapping up that chapter starting in verse 16 and through the end of the chapter.
5. 0:21 Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
6. 0:30 These are a shadow of the things to come.
7. 0:33 But the substance belongs to Christ.
8. 0:35 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and the worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
9. 0:58 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?
10. 1:06 Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things all perish as they are used according to the human precepts and teachings.
11. 1:16 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
12. 1:28 Please be seated.
13. 1:31 And let me open in prayer.
14. 1:35 Heavenly Father, we come before you as flawed and broken people who desperately need you, your Spirit, and your Son.
15. 1:46 Without your Spirit, we are lost.
16. 1:48 Without your Son, we are lost.
17. 1:51 If it were up to us, we would be running away from you as fast as we could, and yet you have called us to yourself.
18. 1:58 So my prayer, Lord, is that you would shine, that your son would shine in these words this morning, because they are true, that they would mold us and make us into lovers of Christ, in whose name we pray.
19. 2:13 Amen.
20. 2:15 When I began to be interested in the things of God, which was as an adult,
21. 2:25 one of the very first passages that I went to in the Bible was in 1 Peter.
22. 2:30 I figured, it's a little letter.
23. 2:32 You know, Peter's writing.
24. 2:33 Peter's sort of important.
25. 2:34 I knew that much.
26. 2:35 Let me start there.
27. 2:37 And I went to 1 Peter and I started reading.
28. 2:39 And in chapter 1, Peter quotes from the book of Leviticus and he says, and he writes, be holy because I am holy.
29. 2:48 And I was like, whoa.
30. 2:50 Hold on a second.
31. 2:51 Be holy?
32. 2:52 That's a thing?
33. 2:54 You know, I had figured all my life, you know, be happy, be prosperous, you know, be good, don't be bad, but be holy.
34. 3:05 That was a thing that I was supposed to do.
35. 3:07 I didn't even know what that meant.
36. 3:09 I was not that, though.
37. 3:13 I knew I was many things, but holy was not one of them.
38. 3:17 And since I was raised up,
39. 3:19 in a religious tradition, I figured, well, what do you do?
40. 3:23 You go to church.
41. 3:24 You want to be holy?
42. 3:24 You go to church.
43. 3:25 You do stuff.
44. 3:26 You feed the poor.
45. 3:28 You stop doing the bad stuff you're doing on Friday nights, the parties till 4 o'clock in the morning.
46. 3:36 Lucas, I'm talking to you.
47. 3:38 Right?
48. 3:40 And you just stop that stuff.
49. 3:42 I thought it was about doing certain things and not doing certain things.
50. 3:45 And that's how holiness was gained.
51. 3:47 Because holiness is important to God.
52. 3:48 It should be important to me.
53. 3:51 But it didn't work.
54. 3:53 Because I couldn't keep the list.
55. 3:55 My own list.
56. 3:57 Jay's religion list didn't work out.
57. 4:00 I constantly failed to do that which I knew that I shouldn't do.
58. 4:04 Because holiness is bigger than a list of do's and don'ts.
59. 4:09 It's not that at all, as a matter of fact.
60. 4:11 Holiness isn't about doing things and not doing things at all.
61. 4:15 There's a passage in Exodus where the implements of the temple, of the tabernacle, are blessed by Moses.
62. 4:24 And he tells us that these things are holy to God.
63. 4:29 So the tongs are holy.
64. 4:31 The spoons are holy.
65. 4:34 The candelabras are holy.
66. 4:36 And I thought to myself, well, they don't do anything.
67. 4:38 They just sit there.
68. 4:41 And what I learned was that holiness is much more than doing or not doing anything.
69. 4:47 Holiness is about being.
70. 4:50 It's about being who God has called me to be.
71. 4:54 Holiness is a state of being, a product, a result of our union with God, of our communion with Christ, of abiding in him.
72. 5:08 That is what holiness is all about.
73. 5:11 Holiness and the way to achieve holiness and our striving for holiness.
74. 5:16 And I hope that you are striving for holiness.
75. 5:19 I am striving for holiness that never ends on this side of eternity.
76. 5:25 But how is it achieved?
77. 5:26 It's achieved by standing in the face of a holy God somehow.
78. 5:34 And how are we to do that?
79. 5:36 How do we lean into that
80. 5:39 The passage this week ends with this statement.
81. 5:43 The things that you're doing, all of these things, are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
82. 5:52 And when Paul writes about the flesh, Calvin told us, this is a Presbyterian church, so we always have to mention Calvin.
83. 5:59 Calvin told us that this flesh idea that we've seen in other parts of the sermon series in Colossians,
84. 6:07 isn't just this, isn't just this, the body, but it's this whole state of rebellion against God, this world system that opposes God and opposes His ways.
85. 6:18 That's the flesh.
86. 6:20 And when we are brought into the kingdom of God by God, we're living with one foot in one world and one foot in another world, and we're trying to figure out, well, how do I do this?
87. 6:30 And what Paul is saying is that
88. 6:32 All this religious stuff, these do's, these don'ts, this eat, don't eat, that's not going to get you there.
89. 6:39 You're missing the point altogether.
90. 6:41 It's not about religiosity.
91. 6:43 So this week, as we continue in our study of Colossians in chapter 2, Paul admonishes the Colossians to reject religiosity, to reject religiosity in their pursuit of holiness.
92. 6:59 And what we are going to learn through this passage is that holiness is attained as we embrace Christ.
93. 7:07 That's how holiness is attained.
94. 7:10 As we embrace Christ.
95. 7:12 And so we're going to talk about this in two different sections.
96. 7:14 First, we're going to talk about rejecting religiosity.
97. 7:19 And then we'll talk about embracing Christ.
98. 7:21 So rejecting religiosity, embracing Christ.
99. 7:25 When I say reject religiosity, I'm not saying that all religion is bad.
100. 7:31 Some people say that.
101. 7:32 I don't think that's right.
102. 7:33 Because James writes in chapter 1, the true religion before God is this, to take care of widows and orphans in their hour of distress.
103. 7:41 So there is a true religion.
104. 7:43 There's a true religion that is good, that builds us up.
105. 7:47 But mostly what we see in the world is the world religion.
106. 7:50 A religiosity, a cloak.
107. 7:53 of something else that is false, that is man-centered, man-made for man's own good feelings and not about God at all, the God of the universe, the God who is true.
108. 8:04 And there's a problem with this kind of religiosity.
109. 8:07 So let's turn to the passage and go through it and see what Paul teaches us.
110. 8:13 He tells us, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you.
111. 8:16 And just like Pastor Kent talked last week about that therefore, it's basically the same therefore as the week before.
112. 8:23 In the week before, Paul had said, last week, Paul had said, therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus to the Lord, so walking him, rooted and built up in him, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit.
113. 8:39 And in this passage, later on in the chapter, he continues with this same train of thought.
114. 8:43 Therefore, let no one, meaning that some people were doing this,
115. 8:49 So there were people in the Colossian community that were pushing something.
116. 8:55 And this is what they were pushing.
117. 8:56 Let no one pass judgment.
118. 8:58 This pass judgment thing is interesting.
119. 9:00 Because what he's saying is, well, God has passed judgment.
120. 9:04 You are justified in Christ.
121. 9:07 So how dare they judge you?
122. 9:09 And when somebody judges you, it's with the idea of enslaving you, putting you in jail, making you pay.
123. 9:17 And that's what these people were doing.
124. 9:20 Let no one do that to you in questions of food and drink with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
125. 9:29 Now, what's that all about?
126. 9:30 Similar to Galatians 4, what that's about is the Judaizers of the early church that were saying, I'm glad that you're a Christian, but you also have to be a Jew.
127. 9:40 I'm glad that you have freedom in Christ, but you still have to practice these festivals.
128. 9:44 You still have to be circumcised.
129. 9:47 You still have to go to temple.
130. 9:49 You still have to do all this stuff to be a real Christian, to be a real worshiper of God.
131. 9:58 And Paul says, that is nonsense.
132. 10:01 Don't let those people who are pushing that kind of religion pass judgment on you because, verse 17, these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
133. 10:13 Interesting metaphor that Paul draws up.
134. 10:17 These are a shadow.
135. 10:18 I mean, we read about that in Hebrews chapter 1, the shadow of the former things, right?
136. 10:24 And the word that's used there for substance in the Greek is soma.
137. 10:28 It's body.
138. 10:29 So the picture is of a body casting a shadow.
139. 10:32 We're very familiar with that, as were they in their day.
140. 10:35 The body cast a shadow.
141. 10:36 So Jesus is standing, casting a shadow over the entire Old Testament.
142. 10:42 All those sacrifices, all those things, the temple, everything, the law, everything points to him.
143. 10:51 He is the body.
144. 10:53 He is the substance.
145. 10:55 And those things are shadow pointing to the body and the substance.
146. 11:00 So why are you going to worship the shadow?
147. 11:04 Why are you going to follow the shadow when the substance is here?
148. 11:09 That is who you want to follow.
149. 11:11 The substance is Christ.
150. 11:15 Then he reiterates the point again.
151. 11:17 Let no one...
152. 11:19 disqualify you.
153. 11:20 Interesting, the word there for disqualify is basically to rob you, to steal from you.
154. 11:26 And what were they going to disqualify the Colossians from?
155. 11:30 Galatians chapter 1.
156. 11:33 The gospel.
157. 11:36 They were going to disqualify them from their inheritance, from their salvation, from their place in the kingdom.
158. 11:41 Because once you give yourself over to a different gospel, do this, don't do that, do this, live like this.
159. 11:47 You've lost the gospel of Christ because that's something else.
160. 11:51 It's not the gospel of grace.
161. 11:53 That's another thing.
162. 11:53 That's a gospel of works.
163. 11:55 And that's not good news.
164. 11:56 That's bad news.
165. 11:58 So he's telling the Colossians, don't believe them and don't give in to this.
166. 12:04 which is a lie.
167. 12:06 Do not let it disqualify you insisting on asceticism and the worship of angels going on in detail about visions puffed up pride without reason by his, I think he's thinking of a person, sensuous mind.
168. 12:22 It's interesting that he talks about the worship of angels and asceticism.
169. 12:26 Asceticism is a big word basically for denying the flesh, denying the body.
170. 12:32 Right?
171. 12:32 And later on in the same passage, Paul refers to the asceticism and severity to the body.
172. 12:40 So the word that's used here for asceticism is the same word that's used throughout the entire New Testament for humility.
173. 12:46 So it's a kind of false humility that's baked into this deprivation of the body, this severity to the body that is completely false.
174. 12:57 It's a false humility because the people are
175. 13:01 filled with pride these teachers are filled with pride and it's to the worship of angels he had just told us in the in the prior verses before the verse that we looked at in verse 15 that jesus disarmed these rulers and authority and put them to open shame so why are you turning to them again galatians 1 if even an angel were to come and share a different gospel let him be accursed
176. 13:27 So it's a kind of false religion doing stuff and a kind of false religion with this fake mysticism.
177. 13:38 Oh, I saw an angel.
178. 13:40 Listen to me.
179. 13:41 I had a vision.
180. 13:42 Listen to me.
181. 13:44 Apart from Christ, apart from the Word of God.
182. 13:47 And Paul's saying, don't let them fool you.
183. 13:49 Don't do that.
184. 13:51 Reject that fleshy stuff, sensuous mind, fleshy mind, mind of the world.
185. 13:59 Instead, have a spiritual mind.
186. 14:03 And then he writes, and not holding on to the head from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through his joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God.
187. 14:15 Not from them, but from God.
188. 14:17 We'll come back to that verse in a moment.
189. 14:22 If with Christ you died, you know, this is interesting here.
190. 14:26 Because not only does he tell us these things, don't do this, don't do that.
191. 14:33 And really the danger is that we turn God's relationship into a transaction.
192. 14:41 Right?
193. 14:42 That's false religion.
194. 14:44 If I do A, B, and C, God, you owe me.
195. 14:49 And so good things will happen to me.
196. 14:53 it's negotiating with God.
197. 14:54 We know, if you've ever tried, listen, if you've been around for more than five minutes, you have negotiated with God.
198. 14:59 I know that I have.
199. 15:01 Does it work?
200. 15:03 Never.
201. 15:05 Because He's God and you ain't Him.
202. 15:09 And what we risk when our worship of God becomes something like this, a list of do's, a list of don'ts,
203. 15:20 is that we turn our relationship with God into a transactional relationship.
204. 15:25 Instead of beauty, it's what can I get?
205. 15:29 If I'm a good boy, I get happiness.
206. 15:34 If I'm bad, bad things happen.
207. 15:36 So what can I get from God?
208. 15:39 I do it not for God, but for myself.
209. 15:44 It's man-centered, man-made.
210. 15:46 Interesting.
211. 15:47 Paul then turns and gives five reasons why it doesn't work.
212. 15:52 Why it's just nonsense.
213. 15:54 All this stuff that's being pushed on the Colossian Christians is nonsense.
214. 15:59 Look with me at verse 20.
215. 16:01 He writes, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, right?
216. 16:08 You looked at that last week, the elemental spirits, the ABCs of the worldly system that is rebellion against God.
217. 16:14 Well, that's the first thing.
218. 16:15 It's of the world.
219. 16:18 Those things are of the world.
220. 16:19 They're not of God.
221. 16:21 They're not of spirit.
222. 16:23 They're flesh of the world.
223. 16:25 And the world is passing away.
224. 16:27 And the world is under condemnation.
225. 16:28 And because it's of the world, it's not what God has intended.
226. 16:33 So why are you going to pursue the things of the world?
227. 16:36 Those things are of the world.
228. 16:38 Forget about those things.
229. 16:41 Why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to these regulations?
230. 16:45 Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.
231. 16:49 Referring to things that all perish.
232. 16:52 They perish.
233. 16:54 They're not eternal.
234. 16:56 These things are temporary.
235. 16:58 Why are you going to focus on the temporary when you should be focusing on the eternal?
236. 17:06 According to human precepts and traditions.
237. 17:10 So, it's not divine, right?
238. 17:14 It's human.
239. 17:15 It's tradition.
240. 17:16 It's something that some guy made up.
241. 17:19 Somebody made it up and said, this is a good idea.
242. 17:22 Let's all do it this way.
243. 17:24 It's not from God.
244. 17:26 It's not from heaven.
245. 17:27 It's not spiritual.
246. 17:29 It's a made-up human tradition that somehow crept in.
247. 17:35 These have an appearance of wisdom.
248. 17:37 Uh-oh.
249. 17:40 Meaning what?
250. 17:41 It's not wisdom.
251. 17:43 It's foolishness.
252. 17:44 If it's not wisdom, it's foolishness.
253. 17:46 So all this stuff that you think is going to bring you closer to God, that's going to make you holy, is a foolishness, he says.
254. 17:57 It's not wisdom.
255. 17:59 It's foolishness.
256. 18:01 And then finally, in promoting self-made religion and asceticism,
257. 18:08 Self-made religion.
258. 18:09 Actually, there it's just self-religion, by the way.
259. 18:14 So, these religions that are not of God through Christ, based on His work, it's all man-made.
260. 18:24 It's all self-religion.
261. 18:26 There's a cafeteria stuff out there.
262. 18:29 I know this was me before I came to Christ.
263. 18:32 I thought that I knew what was good and bad, right and wrong, and I did those things.
264. 18:36 It was the religion of J.
265. 18:39 And I couldn't even keep up with the religion of Jay because I would constantly do stuff that I knew was bad.
266. 18:46 And that's what he's saying.
267. 18:47 It is a self-made religion.
268. 18:49 There's billions of them around the world as people walk around.
269. 18:53 My personal values, how I think I should live, self-made religion.
270. 18:58 Your self-made religion is foolishness before God because it is temporary, not divine, and not of heaven.
271. 19:07 It's nonsense.
272. 19:13 Severe to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of work.
273. 19:18 And the idea of these five things is this.
274. 19:22 It don't work.
275. 19:24 At the end of the day, none of this works.
276. 19:28 You're going to kill yourself to do some stuff and to not do some stuff, to live a certain way under this, and to make some people happy.
277. 19:36 Why?
278. 19:37 It doesn't work.
279. 19:40 It has no value.
280. 19:42 So what's the answer?
281. 19:44 If this doesn't work, what is the answer?
282. 19:47 What do I have to do?
283. 19:49 What's the answer?
284. 19:50 And you see, the answer is not a what.
285. 19:53 The answer is a who.
286. 19:54 And he tells us, Paul tells us in verse 11 of chapter 2.
287. 19:59 In verse 11 of chapter 2, he writes, In him you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by the putting off of the body.
288. 20:11 of flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
289. 20:15 Christ has done this.
290. 20:18 He has cut off that life and given you a new life.
291. 20:23 He has done it.
292. 20:24 See, it's not about the what.
293. 20:26 It is about the who.
294. 20:28 It's about embracing Christ, which is right in the middle of the passage, which is what Paul wants us to focus on because that was the core of the failure of those that were trying to influence the Colossian church
295. 20:41 Away from Christ.
296. 20:43 So let's go again to verse 19.
297. 20:47 And this is the heart of their problem.
298. 20:50 Not holding fast to the head.
299. 20:53 Now we've seen previously in Colossians that the head is Christ.
300. 20:56 And the head is supreme.
301. 20:58 He is creator.
302. 20:59 All of this is by him.
303. 21:00 All of this is for him.
304. 21:03 He is above all things.
305. 21:05 You know, the name of our series.
306. 21:07 Christ is greater.
307. 21:08 Jesus is greater.
308. 21:12 He is the head from whom the whole body is nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments and grows with a growth that is from God.
309. 21:24 He grows it, not we grow it.
310. 21:28 And so what is he teaching us?
311. 21:30 He's teaching us that the answer is communion with God.
312. 21:38 Communion with God.
313. 21:40 How we grow in holiness is communion with God.
314. 21:49 United to God in Christ is how we grow in holiness.
315. 21:57 But he doesn't leave it there, because there's more here.
316. 21:59 Look, look at verse 20.
317. 22:01 If with Christ you died...
318. 22:03 So what's that about?
319. 22:04 If with Christ you died.
320. 22:05 Now we saw that in the prior section when you looked at it last week.
321. 22:10 We are dead in Christ.
322. 22:13 We died with him.
323. 22:14 And we are raised in Christ.
324. 22:16 We are united to him in that way.
325. 22:18 But it's more because it's a foundation.
326. 22:20 You see the foundation.
327. 22:23 The foundation is this union.
328. 22:27 The union with Christ is the foundation of holiness.
329. 22:31 The union with Christ, our union with Christ is the foundation of holiness after communion with God is the means of our holiness.
330. 22:42 Those two go together.
331. 22:44 And together what they produce is conformity.
332. 22:48 The result is holiness.
333. 22:50 The result of our union, the result of our communion, the result of Christ's work is our holiness.
334. 22:58 It flows out of that.
335. 22:59 It comes from that.
336. 23:03 This is how we grow in holiness.
337. 23:07 I've been trying not to use a lot of theological language.
338. 23:11 So the word here is sanctification.
339. 23:14 That's what I've been playing around with.
340. 23:17 The prior passage dealt with our justification.
341. 23:19 We are declared righteous by God by the work of Christ as he brings us into his kingdom.
342. 23:27 But how do we grow?
343. 23:29 And here's what he tells us.
344. 23:31 This is how you are sanctified.
345. 23:33 This is how you grow in Christ.
346. 23:36 You stand upon the foundation of your union with God.
347. 23:41 You commune with Christ as the means.
348. 23:45 And the result is holiness.
349. 23:49 You see, it's looking for God.
350. 23:52 Being in the face of God gets you the holiness.
351. 23:57 The holiness is not something to be sought after.
352. 23:59 It is a byproduct of our union more than anything else.
353. 24:06 Hold fast to Jesus is how this happens.
354. 24:11 Psalm 1.
355. 24:13 In Psalm 1, it's a beautiful psalm.
356. 24:15 I encourage you to learn this.
357. 24:17 There's a big painting in my bedroom.
358. 24:22 which my kids and I prepared as a gift for my wife when they were little itty-bitty ones.
359. 24:27 The little one was so small that she couldn't put her handprint down, so we put her feet in paint and put it on the canvas.
360. 24:34 And it has Psalm 1 across the bottom of the painting because I wanted this to be the foundation of our family.
361. 24:42 And in Psalm 1 we read, the psalmist is talking about the blessed man, who the blessed man is.
362. 24:49 The blessed man is the one who
363. 24:51 who avoids the wickedness, who doesn't walk in those ways.
364. 24:55 But then in verse 3 he writes, Ms. Holmes writes, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season and its leaf does not wither.
365. 25:09 All that he does, he prospers.
366. 25:12 And what that tells me is like, okay, what's the picture, Jay?
367. 25:14 Well, the picture is that there's a stream of good and pure and clean water and there's this tree standing next to it
368. 25:20 And the tree is drinking deeply from that stream and so it is flowering and blossoming and it is alive.
369. 25:28 What happens to the tree if it decides to get up and walk into the desert and plant itself there?
370. 25:34 It shrivels.
371. 25:36 It dies because it has lost its source of life.
372. 25:42 Christ is the source of life.
373. 25:46 And to the extent we drink from that source, we abide in that source, we grow and flourish and blossom.
374. 25:54 That's holiness.
375. 25:56 See, holiness isn't don't drink that, don't do that.
376. 26:00 Holiness is joy.
377. 26:02 Holiness is happiness in God.
378. 26:04 Holiness is the reflection of a thrice holy God.
379. 26:08 That's what holiness is.
380. 26:11 Another picture, it's found in John 15.
381. 26:13 In John chapter 15, John writing about Jesus' explanation about his teaching that he is the vine, writes this, I am the vine, Jesus speaking, and you are the branches.
382. 26:31 Whoever abides in me and I in him, it is he that bears much fruit.
383. 26:35 Your fruit is holiness.
384. 26:39 Apart from me you can do nothing.
385. 26:41 So, the branch does not manufacture fruit.
386. 26:47 Right?
387. 26:48 The job of the branch is to drink from the vine and hold the fruit.
388. 26:55 But it's the work of the vine.
389. 26:56 It's not the work of the branch.
390. 26:59 The branch just hangs on to it.
391. 27:03 You don't find holiness by trying harder.
392. 27:12 And I know that this place this morning and people listening online have tried that.
393. 27:19 Try harder.
394. 27:21 Don't do this.
395. 27:23 Do that.
396. 27:24 Isn't that the same thing Paul's teaching us here?
397. 27:26 Trying harder is not the answer.
398. 27:30 Trying harder will fail you.
399. 27:36 Because you're a mess.
400. 27:38 And I'm a mess.
401. 27:41 And as I read
402. 27:43 the accounts, I love reading biographies, of mature men of God, what I learn is this.
403. 27:53 The more and more I get close to God, the more and more I see my failure.
404. 28:02 The closer I get to God, the more sin he exposes.
405. 28:07 My wrong ways of thinking, my wrong ways of being, how little like Jesus I am.
406. 28:15 That's what he exposes.
407. 28:17 Because we're all a mess.
408. 28:20 And we all fail and fail and fail.
409. 28:24 But here's the good news.
410. 28:26 Jesus is greater than all your failures.
411. 28:33 He carries them all.
412. 28:36 There's a beautiful hymn.
413. 28:38 Listen to it this morning.
414. 28:40 Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
415. 28:42 Right?
416. 28:43 That's the answer.
417. 28:44 It's not try harder.
418. 28:46 It's not do or don't do.
419. 28:47 It's turn your eyes upon Jesus and look full in his wonderful face.
420. 28:53 If you do that, everything changes.
421. 28:56 There's a 19th century Scottish preacher, writer, Thomas Chalmers, wrote this little book and gave this sermon called The Explosive Power of a New Affection.
422. 29:09 And in my life, I have found that to be the key.
423. 29:12 And what Chalmers wrote
424. 29:13 hundreds of years ago is this.
425. 29:16 The way you overcome that thing in your life that has got you chained to death isn't by trying harder.
426. 29:32 It's by loving something else more.
427. 29:38 And that's what Paul's telling us.
428. 29:40 You know what the answer is, my friends?
429. 29:43 If you are failing in the sin that is keeping you chained, the answer is don't resist that sin because it won't work.
430. 29:57 That's not the answer.
431. 29:59 The answer is you haven't seen God big enough.
432. 30:03 You haven't seen Jesus big enough.
433. 30:06 You love that sin enough.
434. 30:09 And what we need to find is a love that's greater than our love for that sin.
435. 30:12 And the only love that is that big and that great is the love of Christ.
436. 30:17 Because of what he's done.
437. 30:19 Because of who he is.
438. 30:21 Because of the hopes that we have in him.
439. 30:23 Because of the promises that he makes.
440. 30:25 That's the answer.
441. 30:28 Find a love that's worthy of you as a son and daughter of God.
442. 30:34 Cling to that love.
443. 30:35 That love is Jesus, my friends.
444. 30:40 Cling to Jesus.
445. 30:42 Look upon Jesus.
446. 30:43 Feed upon Jesus.
447. 30:47 Holiness will follow from that.
448. 30:52 It is found in proportion.
449. 30:57 to your communion with Christ.
450. 31:00 Do you want to be holy?
451. 31:02 You need one thing and one thing only.
452. 31:04 More Jesus.
453. 31:05 That's the answer.
454. 31:06 Because He is greater than your failure.
455. 31:09 Amen?
456. 31:11 Amen.
457. 31:12 Let me pray for us.
458. 31:15 Heavenly Father, we might look good right now, but You see past our clothes.
459. 31:25 And you see not only the suffering in our life, but the brokenness in our life and the failures in our life.
460. 31:35 They're no surprise to you.
461. 31:38 But your son is greater.
462. 31:41 You see the times that we've turned our back and run the other way.
463. 31:44 And when your son ran after us.
464. 31:49 You see all the efforts we're making to do stuff.
465. 31:56 as if that somehow pleased you, now we're missing the boat.
466. 32:02 Jesus is greater.
467. 32:05 And so my prayer, Heavenly Father, for each of us in this room and listening to this sermon is this, as we meditate on this throughout the week, make Jesus bigger.
468. 32:21 My failure
469. 32:25 All of our failures is only this, that Jesus is too small in our lives because we've shut our eyes.
470. 32:32 And we've hardened our hearts.
471. 32:36 Open our hearts to him.
472. 32:39 Make Jesus bigger.
473. 32:45 We can't make him big enough because he is supreme.
474. 32:51 Make Jesus bigger.
475. 32:55 And bigger and bigger.
476. 32:59 Take our eyes and our focus off of ourselves and put them on Him.
477. 33:06 That's where it belongs.
478. 33:09 Because we are yours.
479. 33:12 And you promised to persevere with us through our failures and through our brokenness.
480. 33:21 You will never give up on your children.
481. 33:25 And we desire you.
482. 33:29 So Lord Jesus, we glory in you.
483. 33:35 And we ask you that by your spirit, you would shine in our lives this week until we come together once again to praise your name.
484. 33:46 Amen.

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