Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

When I was a senior in college at Purdue University, like a lot of seniors I began my senior year setting my sights on getting a job.  And like a lot of universities, Purdue had a placement center.  And what you did back then—and I suppose now—is your senior year you get registered at the placement center.  And corporations from all over the country and really around the world would come and interview potential graduates.  And I remember beginning my senior year, my parents helped me get an interview suit.  You know, guys, that blue suit, that white shirt.  And you had to have the red tie, the power tie, right?  That’s how you went into an interview back then.

0:01:04.2

For my degree program and for what I was going into, which was sales and marketing, one of the coveted interviews on campus was with the Xerox Corporation.  Now, you’ve got to understand, back then Xerox sales training was the industry standard, and maybe it still is today, I don't know.  But a lot of companies, even other than Xerox, used Xerox sales training to train their sales force.  But Xerox was coming to campus, and I signed up and hoped to get an interview.  And I got an interview with Xerox.  I was so excited.  The day before though, I realized as I was getting ready for the interview I hadn’t taken my one white shirt to the dry cleaners to have it properly cleaned and pressed.  It was laying over here in my laundry pile, and I didn’t have an opportunity to take to the drycleaner.  So I did what every college student does.  You grab it out of the pile there, and you get the ironing board and you do this, right?  It wasn’t that dirty because I just used it the week before for another interview and worked for an hour or two.  But, you know, I did the ironing board thing.  Showed up for my Xerox interview the next day, and the interview went well.  In fact, at the end of the interview the guy who came to campus offered me a second interview, which meant going to the regional offices.  And so I thought it went really well.  We finished the interview; I shook his hand.  Before he let go of my hand, though, he says, “By the way, when you come to our regional offices, make sure you send your shirt to the dry cleaners and have it properly cleaned and pressed.”  I thought, “Well, yes, sir, yes, sir, that's a very good point.”  I was dying on the inside, because back then—and maybe even still now—the Xerox Corporation was one of those companies you dressed for success.  Now, I know a lot of corporate you'll things that we wear in the business world has gone more casual.  But back then Xerox and IBM and companies like…you dressed for success.  And he was telling me, “When you come to the corporate offices, you make sure your shirt is properly pressed.”  I got the point.

0:03:14.6

Well, this morning I don’t want to talk about dressing for corporate success.  I want to talk to you about dressing for spiritual success.  Are you dressed for spiritual success?  That's the question of the morning.  I think that's the question the apostle Paul is getting at here in Colossians chapter 3 verses five through 17, because he’s gonna tell us to put off some things and put on other things.  And it's the picture of taking off your old ragged close and laying those aside and putting on your new clothes, putting on your new self, laying aside your old self and putting on your new self.  I’ve titled the message “Putting On Your New Self” but if I had a chance at a second title, it would be “Dressing for Spiritual success.”

0:04:05.9

Now, before we get to the how’s and to the text, let me just kind of tell you where we are in our study of Colossians and where Paul is.  Pretty common to Paul's New Testament letters and to his writings is that he deals with his theology first.  He lays out his doctrine in the first half of the book.  And he has pretty much done that and in the book of Colossians through chapter 3 and verse four.  And that he says in so many ways “Jesus is greater than.”  He takes on the false teachers who were talking about a “less than” Jesus, and he takes them straight on.  And there’s just been some wonderful and rich theology that Paul gives us.  But Paul's theology…his orthodoxy is never far from his orthopraxy.  Paul can scale Mount Everest when it comes to theology, and I love it when somebody can do that.  But at the same time, you don’t want to scale Mount Everest in theology and distance yourself too much to the everyday practical realities and the ethical realities and demands of living out the Christian faith.  In other words, how do we put this all in the practice?  So what?  Why does this even matter?

0:05:22.4

And beginning in verse five of chapter 3, Paul begins a discussion of how all this impacts our daily life, how we’re getting down to the getting down, right?  This isn’t the ivory tower anymore.  This is real practical application of the good they he’s given us up to this point, including how we talked last week about our new identity in Christ.  And the here come the implications to that.

0:05:55.9

So with that in mind, let’s talk about dressing for spiritual success.  What does it look like to take all the good theology that we’ve learned in our study of Colossians, put it into practice in a way that we live the Christian life successfully.  And Paul gives us five instructions and I want to share with you this morning.

0:06:14.0

First of all…and I'll begin negative because that’s where he begins.  Before we put on the new self, a positive way of saying it, he tells us, “Put off” something else.  I say put off the vices of the flesh.  He is how Paul says it beginning in verse 5.  “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”  He says, “On account of these the wrath of God is coming.  In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.  But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.  Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.”  Again I say, put off the vices of the flesh.  Later Paul's going to say, “Lay these things aside like you’re laying aside a dirty old garment because now you need to dress for spiritual success and to put on some of the things.”

0:07:23.9

 He uses some stronger language though beginning in verse 5.  He doesn’t just say put it off or lay it aside.  He says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.”  And then he pulls no punches by talking about some of those earthly things that define the old you and the old me- sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, idolatry.  You know, not quite the dirty dozen, but, boy, you get a sense of the old self.  “Put this to death,” he says.  “Put to death what is earthly in you.”

0:08:04.7

It kind of reminds me of Romans chapter 6 that tells us we are dead to sin but alive in Christ.  Remember, we are fundamentally identified with the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  That means we are we are dead to sin, meaning sin is no longer master over us.  It’s no longer calling the shots in our life.  You don't have to answer to the old sin master, but you are alive to Christ.  Here he says now we have a responsibility to, in a practical way, put some things to death.  We’ve died to sin, but you’ve got to put it to death every day as well.

0:08:38.6

Now, it kind of reminds me of a phrase that I sometimes here in our culture today.  It's not a real nice thing to say to somebody else, but it applies here.  So just hang with me a bit.  But have you ever heard somebody say or you said to somebody else, “You're dead to me.” It's a way of saying to somebody, “This relationship is over.  You're dead to me.”  Didn’t say it's a kind thing to say.  Every relationship has its redeemable qualities, right?  But I use that because I think that's kind of what Paul would say to us here.  You need to say to your old self—maybe characterized by sexual immorality and impurity, all that is earthly in you—you need to say, “You're dead to me.  This relationship with sexual immorality and impurity and passion and evil desire and covetousness or…and I’m done with this relationship.  Fundamentally, I have a new identity and a new relationship, and I'm living out of that.  But you're dead to me.”  This is what Paul would say.

0:09:47.4

And it would say that there are couple reasons for that.  Not only are we dead to sin but alive to Christ, but he goes on in verse six to say, “On account of these the wrath of God is coming.  That’s kind of an ominous thought, the wrath of God coming against those who are practitioners of sexual immorality and so forth.  He’s not saying that the believer in Jesus Christ is the object of God's wrath, because we’re not.  As believers in Jesus, we’ve been rescued from the wrath of God and from His condemnation.  Romans 8:1 says, “There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ, but to those who are not in Christ by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the wrath of God is coming upon these things.”  Paul is setting up this argument that these kinds of activities, these kinds of behaviors are unbecoming of the believer in Jesus Christ.  He says in verse seven, “In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.”  Notice the past tense.  What he’s saying is that this this sort of lifestyle, these earthly things are unbecoming of a believer in Jesus.  He says put them to death.  “You're dead to me.  This relationship is over.”

0:11:05.9

He goes on to list other things.  He moves from sexual sins to what we might call social or relational sins.  Verse 8, “But now you must put them all away.”  He goes from “put them to death” to the clothing picture of laying aside the old garments.  “You must put them away.”  Now he lists, get this, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth.  He goes on to say, “Don't lie to one another.”  Again, actions and behaviors that are unbecoming of who you are in Jesus Christ now.

0:11:42.3

It's interesting in the list of sexual sins, the word “impurity” is the Greek word porneia.  Where do you think we go with that in our culture today?  Sexual immorality is rampant in our culture, just as it was in the 1^st century.  And new believers in Jesus Christ had to now pursue a life of purity, understanding of course that sex is a gift from God.  It's a gift from God.  He created us in His image.  He made us male and female, and then He told us, “Be fruitful and multiply” within the context of the marriage relationship…which He also created the institution of marriage, which is defined biblically as one man with one woman for one lifetime.  Any sexual expression outside of one man with one woman inside the context of the marriage relationship could be defined as sexual immorality.  It’s rampant in our culture today but should not be named among believers in Jesus Christ who are to pursue purity.

0:12:49.1

Likewise, these social sins, even sins of the tongue.  We don’t get as shocked by these.  I wonder why that is.  He begins with anger and wrath.  There are two Greek words in that language that can be translated anger- two kinds of anger, orge and thumos.  Orge is that the deep-seated anger, that the root of bitterness.  You can never detect it on the outside, but it's been lingering there for days, maybe weeks, maybe even years you've been holding a grudge against somebody.  And you're orge- you’re angry.  Thumos is that spark of loss of temper.  It's very visible.  I always say I’d rather have somebody be thumos toward me than orge toward me.  I can't detect the orge.  Maybe through passive-aggressive kinds of activities, you know, but it's never visible.  He says anger and wrath.  He goes on to malice, you know, that intentional, kind of, “getting back at you.”

0:14:00.1

Then he talks about sins of the tongue- slander, obscene talk from your mouth.  He says “Don't lie to one another.”  We could go on to talk about gossip and backbiting.  You know what backbiting is?  It’s when you talk about somebody negatively behind their back.  Come on now.  Let’s have a face-to-face conversation.  And what he’s saying is that this is all part of the old you, and it doesn't define who you are in Christ anymore.  You’ve got to lay that aside.  You’ve got to put that the death.  You’ve got to say, “This relationship is over.  I'm a new creation in Jesus Christ.”  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.  Old things are passed away, and all things have become new.”

0:14:48.3

Now, I know that's, you know, a process in the Christian life.  We call that sanctification.  There is one sense that we are sanctified; there's another sense in which we are being sanctified.  And not one of us is perfect in this.  But Paul is saying here if you want to dress for spiritual success, put on the new self.  Not the “improved you,” but the “brand-new you” in Jesus Christ.

0:15:16.2

I remember back when Catherine and I were dating, I had a pair of gold shorts, gold denim shorts that I liked to wear.  And this was back during the era, too, where tube socks were popular.  You know, the ones that were kind of mid-calf or just below the knee, the white socks with the colored rings around them.  You know, you put that with a good pair of tennis shoes and a nice shirt and, “I’m ready to go out on a date, honey.”  And my wife, every time I showed up in those gold shorts, she just kind of looked at me like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”  And we had this thing going on, especially during our time of engagement, where she wanted me to get rid of them.  I said, “No, I really like these.  I’m comfortable in them.”  And I probably wore them too often because I didn’t have that broad of a wardrobe.  But when we got married, I went looking for my gold shorts one day, and they were missing.  I learned she had thrown them away.  She had taken my precious gold shorts I felt so good in and those tube socks, and she had got rid of them.  She had put them to death somewhere.  And that’s what Paul is saying here.  Put these things to death.  Warren Wiersbe says, “These sins belong to the old life and have no place in our new life in Christ,” and he’s right.

0:16:33.5

Now, let’s go on to number two.  If Paul says negatively, “Put off the vices of the flesh,” positively, “Put on the virtues of the spirit.”  Pick it up in verse 12 where he says, “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,  bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  Don’t you want that that list to describe you more than the two previous lists?  I certainly do.  And don't you want the community of faith that we are a part of at this church, for that list I just read to describe our community of faith, not the previous one?  Of course we all do.  He says you’re going to have to put to death and put off these things.  Put off the vices of the flesh and put on the virtues of the spirit.”  Really what he is talking about here is an extreme spiritual makeover, right?  We’re dressing for spiritual success. And it has to do with the virtues of Jesus Christ being true of us.

0:17:54.3

Now, this list that we find in verses 12-14 or so, which has compassion and kindness humility and meekness, patients, forgiveness…I see love in there, even harmony or unity.  It kind of reminds me of another list that we find, known as the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5- you know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.  It’s known as the fruit of the Spirit in Scripture.  It’s the byproduct of living in the Spirit, of walking in the Spirit, of keeping in step with the Spirit of God.  Because here's the reality, friends.  You know, we can say, okay, put off the vices of the flesh, put on the virtues of the Spirit.  Here's the hard part- how you doing with that?  If you're struggling with it, you’re in good company.  Even your pastor struggles with this every day.  Even the apostle Paul struggled to dress for (0:19:00.0) spiritual success and live the Christian life successfully.

0:19:03.6

Now I want to take you just to Romans 7.  You’ll read in there the Apostle Paul's own confession.  He says “I do the things I don't want to do, and I don't do the things I do want to do.”  That sound familiar?  You know, you really want that second list to describe you- love and joy and patience and meekness and humility and forgiveness and harmony and so forth.  But more often than not, there's anger and wrath and slander and obscene things coming out of my mouth.  Paul says, “I do the things I don't want to do, and I don't do the things I do want to do.” At the end of the chapter he says, “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?”  And he says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

0:19:53.0

And then in chapter 8 he begins with these words.  “There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ.” (0:20:00.1) Okay?  If you are in Christ, the wrath of God will not be poured out upon you.  He’s not going to condemn you.  Now, our heavenly Father will, like a good father does, discipline His kids on occasion.  When there are things in our life that are not rightly related to Him, it's not beyond Him to bring discipline into our life for the purpose of shaping us and molding us more into the image of His Son.  That’s Hebrews 12.  But Paul goes on in chapter 8 after that encouraging word about no condemnation, and he introduces the Holy Spirit.  And he answers two questions in that chapter- do you have the Holy Spirit, and does the Holy Spirit have you?

0:20:46.4

Now, he doesn't intentionally mention the Spirit, but these virtues, these graces are byproducts of a relationship in the Spirit.  Because when you became a believer in Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God came to live inside of you.  Part of what it means to talk about the new self, the new you, you're not just an improved you.  You’re a brand new creation in Christ, and one of the evidences of that is the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you.  Now, you can have the Holy Spirit resident in you, but it doesn't mean the Holy Spirit has you, president of you.  You’ve got to walk by the Spirit, lived by the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit.  Say no to the flesh and yes to the Spirit, because the flesh wars against the Spirit, and the Spirit wars against the flesh.  “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?  I do the things I don't want to do; I don't do the things I do want to do,” says Paul…okay, chapter 8, let me introduce you to the Holy Spirit.  That's the key to this.  How do you put off the vices of the flesh and put on the virtues of the Spirit?  Well, you’ve got to keep in step with the Spirit day by day, moment by moment, saying yes to the Spirit and no to the self.  And the new self…we’re talking about putting on the new self, right?  Dressing for spiritual success.  The new self comes first from the new birth.  And then once you’ve been born again and you have the Spirit of God in you, it comes by living in the Spirit.

0:22:21.8

So let me ask you this- have you been born again?  We’re not talking about a self-improvement program.  We’re not talking about willpower.  We’re not talking about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.  We’re not talking about, you know, the old Avis way- we just try harder.  That's where Paul was in Romans 7, trying harder to live the Christian life.  The Christian life is not just difficult to live.  It's impossible to live apart from the enabling resources of the Holy Spirit, who is the One who is on site and on the job, helping us to live by the Spirit, helping us to put off the vices of the flesh and put on the virtues of the Spirit day in and day out.  Are you still with me?

0:23:11.7

Here is something else that helps us put on the new self and dress for spiritual success.  We must embrace our new identity in Christ.  Go back to verse 12.  Paul says, “Put on then,”—and before he gives us this next list—“Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved,” and a little bit later, “as the Lord has forgiven you.”  I find four words in there that describe and further describe our identity in Christ.  We were chosen.  Think about that for a moment.  I don’t want to get too off the beaten path.  Jesus said to His disciples, “You didn't choose me; I chose you.”  “There is none that seeks after God, not even one.” the Bible says.  But He's been seeking after you, and He chose you.

0:24:10.5

Secondly, you are holy.  “Me?  Pastor, me holy?  Nah.”  Well, God says you are.  He also says you’re a saint.  Even the Corinthian believers were called saints because they were in Christ.  And you can be a saint and not acting very saintly, I get that.  That’s called sanctification.  But you are holy.  You were set apart for a divine purpose, the Word means.

0:24:40.4

You’re also loved or beloved.  You’re in the beloved.  Does anybody here just need to remember again and be reminded that God loves you?  Maybe you’ve had a hard week, and you don't feel very loved today.  But God doesn't love you more today than He did yesterday.  He doesn't love you more or less because of what you did or didn't do, because of how you performed well or didn’t perform well.  He just loves you.  Sometimes He certainly love us too much to leave us the way we are, and He’s got a plan for sanctifying us and shaping us.  And, yes, discipline is a part of that to bring us along and shape us and help us put off the vices of the flesh and put on the virtues of the Spirit.  But He loves us.  And no matter what hard time you're going through right now, don't ever forget that He loves you.

0:25:30.1

And then finally, you’re forgiven.  You’re forgiven.  The Bible says when God forgives us, He casts our sins as far as the east is from the west.  And He doesn't forgive and forget.  You’ve heard me say this before.  How can an omniscient God forget?  He does something better.  He chooses to remember our sins no more the Bible says.  And Paul…go back to Colossians 3.  He says that we’re to bear with one another.  “If anyone has a complaint against another…”  Does anybody have a complaint against somebody else, maybe in the church or at your place of work, or in your family, in your neighborhood?  Are you at odds with somebody?  He says, “If anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.”  Wouldn’t that be nice?  “As the Lord has forgiven you,”—he raises the bar here—“so you also must forgive.” Wouldn’t it be great to be in a family, even the family of God and in a local expression of that where grace and forgiveness and love and harmony were all part of that?  It begins by embracing our new identity in Christ.  What Paul is trying to drive home is, listen, you’re a brand new creation in Christ.  And there is behavior that is becoming of that, of you being a chosen, holy, loved and forgiven person.

0:27:00.9

When Cathryn was growing up and she was in high school…she has two older brothers.  And when any one of them would go out on a Friday night with some friends, her dad would say, “Remember who you are, where you came from, and what you stand for.”  In other words, whatever you do out there, make sure you're doing it out of who you are in this family.  And Paul is saying a similar thing.  Embrace your identity in Christ and live this way.  Not through self-effort, not through pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but by drawing upon the enabling resources of the Holy Spirit.

0:27:37.3

Number four, how do we do this?  By renewing your mind with the word of God.  I find it interesting how at least twice Paul drops this into his conversation.  Verse 10 is one of those places.  “And have put on the new self,” he says.  Now listen, “which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”  How are we renewed in knowledge? Well, through the Word of God.  This has to do with our minds.  And Paul's picking up on what he said just a few verses earlier in verses 1-4.  He says, “Set your minds on things above, not on things of this earth.”  Remember what we said last week.  How do you set your mind?  It all starts with your thinking.  It all starts with your mind.  If you sow a thought, you reap and action.  If you sow an action, you reap a habit.  If you sow a habit, you reap a character.  If you sow a character, you reap a destiny.  It all starts with our thinking, right?  “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”  And whatever it means to put off the vices of the flesh and put on the virtues of the Spirit, we’re doing this as we’re being renewed in knowledge.  That implies process and progress in the Word of God.

0:28:53.2

He goes down…in verse 16 he mentions the Word of Christ, which is, of course, the Word of God.  “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” he says, “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”  I just want us to see here the connection between the Word of God and worship of God, between teaching and admonishing one another and singing and worshiping in the church.  I had an interesting conversation with some people this week.  We were talking about how you choose a good church.  And one person said, “It’s all about the music for me.” And somebody said, “No, it’s all about the teaching, the Bible teaching.  I want to make sure I’m getting fed well.  All that music stuff is just prelude for the really important part of the worship service.”  I say no, it’s both/and.  It’s not an either/or.  If you want to put on the new self, and if you want to dress for spiritual success, it starts with how we think and renewing our minds with the Word of God.  Not just in a setting like this where you’re under the teaching of God's Word.  We all need to be under the teaching of God's Word, including the pastor.  But then you need to be in it for yourself, and you need to be reading the Word of God daily.

0:30:10.8

Romans chapter 12 says, “Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It starts with the Word of God as that tool.  But the Word of God and the renewing of our minds spills over into the worship of God.  We sing and we worship.  It’s all worship through the Word and through the song, and it's all part of how God brings progress in our lives toward the image of Christ.

0:30:45.4

And then finally, here is the fifth thing that I see Paul dropping in that is key.  It has to do with getting connected in biblical community.  How do you dress for spiritual success?  How you put on the new self?  To say it to you in just a short quick way, you can't do it alone.  You can't do it is a Lone Ranger.  You can't do it as a rugged individualist.  Now, one of the problems that we have as the Americans in the church and as Westerners is we think like Westerners.  And part of our American psyche is this idea of rugged individualist.  So if you listen carefully to a lot of preaching and teaching and Christians talking, it’s all about “me and my relationship with Jesus.”  And that’s fine.  You have a personal relationship with God.  I have a personal relationship with God.

0:31:38.4

But biblical Christianity is communal.  That’s the way they think in the East where this faith began.  That's the way they thought in Judaism.  That's the way the apostle Paul thought.  It wasn't about me and Jesus hanging out together, which often times leads to, “I'm okay with Jesus, and Jesus is just all right with me.  But I don’t like that organized religion stuff.  I don’t want to organize into a group of people.  No, it’s just me and Jesus.” That is so antithetical to the Christian life and to the Eastern way of thinking.  It’s a Western way of thinking.  How do I know that?  Because in this discussion and in Colossians 3:5-17 we could easily just talk about me and my relationship with Jesus, me putting off the vices of the flesh and putting on the virtues of the Spirit, completely disconnected from biblical community.  But if you read it carefully, Paul drops these words into verse 12.  “Here then is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”  He's talking about the larger community of faith.  And unless you understand the Eastern way of thinking, this seems out of place to our Western way of thinking.  But it's not out of place in the flow Paul's thought here because he’s always thinking communally.  He’s always thinking about and “living out my faith connected with others who are also running hard after Jesus.”  And what he is saying here is in this community of faith that sometimes devolves into the old life—and there's anger and there's this, and there’s that—but here's who we really are in Christ.

0:33:32.8

By the way, Christianity has no barriers, he says.  There isn’t a Jew and Greek.  Today we would say there is not black and white and brown and yellow and all these racial and ethnic diversities pitting themselves against one another in the body of Christ.  Of course not.  There is not circumcised and uncircumcised.  The Jews thought of themselves as the special chosen people of God and wouldn't even associate with an uncircumcised Gentile.  There's not barbarians out there.  The Greeks thought that some people were barbaros, barbarians—just rude, crude barbarian-like people—and nobody was more of a barbarian than a Scythian.  And then there is the free.  What Paul is saying is, no, we’re just one big family, the body of Christ.  And to put on the new self we need one another.  We need each other to do this.  You can't live the Christian life as a Lone Ranger.

0:34:35.2

One of the evidences of that in the New Testament are the many “one another” passages.  You ever studied those?  There are 50 of them in the New Testament.  Love one another, bear one another's burdens, encourage one another, forgive one another… over and over it’s just layered throughout the New Testament.  Twice in this passage, if you read it carefully, you see the phrase “one another.”  “Bearing up with one another.”  In other words, put up with one another, because there is a lot to put up with, with me, with you, with all of us.

0:35:10.0

Twice he mentions “one another.”  Once in verse 15 talks about one body.  This isn’t individualism.  This isn't rugged individualism.  This is the body of Christ, the family of God.  This is why we talk so much about life groups here. Getting connected in biblical community.  And it’s not an option for a pastor or staff member or elder or deacon to say, “Yeah, it’s nice for everybody else to do, but…”  No, we make it a requirement of ourselves that we’re connected in community.  I have a life group.

0:35:48.

By the way, my life group is not my favorite people at the church.  That's how it happens sometimes.  You know, pastor has a small group, but he picks and chooses his favorite people.  No, we don’t do that here.  There is neither Greek nor Jew.  We don’t have all these barriers to entry and all that.  We do it by geography.  We do it by high school zone.  I’m in the Kellam High School zone.  If you live in that high school zone, guess what?  You can come to my life group.  Come up and talk to me, and we’ll figure that out.  And we say to people here, “Tell us where you live, and we’ll get you connected with people from this church who you live in your neighborhood, your community, your high school zone.”  That's how we do it.  We’re not picking and choosing our favorite people.  That produces cliques, not community.  But we all need it.  I need my life group desperately.

0:36:43.9

We’ve been doing this for about four years with this life group.  I didn’t know any of these people when I came here.  They weren’t on the list of people that you would think that a pastor would choose to be in his life group.  No, we just said, “Hey, who are the people who live out near us who go to this church.”  And our relationships have developed.  I need this group of people—and you wouldn't even perhaps even know who they are—but I need them to help me be a better pastor, to help me be a better follower of Jesus.  Because we’re in this together.  We’re not just rugged individualist trying to put off the vices of the flesh and put on virtues of the Spirit.  We do this together.  We hold one another accountable.  We encourage one another.  We’re there when we’re going through some struggles, and we’re there to celebrate great things going on as well.  That’s why we encourage you so much to get connected in a life group.  Otherwise, you’re kind of on your own.  And the Christian life doesn’t work that way.  You’ll end up taking three steps forward and 18 steps backward and wondering, why doesn't this work as well as I want it to work?  For all the reasons we talked about, including the importance of getting connected in biblical community.  We need all of that to help us put on our new self and to live out who we are in Christ, to dress for spiritual success just as God intended it to be.

0:38:39.4