Morning church, man. I'm honored to be here in the middle of three holidays, right? We're coming off Christmas. We're looking towards the new year, but today is a special holiday because today is Nationational Student Pastor Preaching Day. So I'm honored to represent I'm the high school associate, Seth Bundy. If I have not met you, man, it is an honor to be here with us this morning. Man, for many of us, we have, uh, we're looking towards the new year, right? We're knowing that everything that we've had is about to come to an end. All of the time with family, which some of us are a little excited about, the in- laws are out of the house. We're like, "Oh, cruel. I have a free house now. It's not gonna get dirty," right? Well, we have, uh, we, all the free time that we've had, all the moments that we've had, all the food that we have had, man, we're looking back at all these things, but we're looking towards the new year, knowing that soon we're going to go back to the normal.
Or for some of us, it's tomorrow. Or we've already gone back to work. We've already gone back to the normal. And we, we're, we're missing these things that we've been enjoying for the last season. As Carrie said, the lights are coming down, right? The joy of Christmas seems to be going away, but today we're looking at how we can continue living in that in the new year. Man, this is a time where many of us are starting to set these goals for the next year, right? We're starting to set these new year's resolutions. Things we want to achieve, maybe it's personally or career-wise. But let's be honest, right? If we're lucky, most of these things are gonna last until about January 12th, right? We're not gonna make it very far. And so today we want to, we want to focus on things, how we can build things to make them last.
We don't want to just get two days into the new year and then fail. We want to continue on in walking with Christ. I mean, every time, or every year we enter this specific time, this time between Christmas and New Year's, and we find ourselves at a crossroad. We find ourselves at a time that's filled with, uh, great joy, or we're coming off a time that's filled with great joy. And for many of us, maybe we've stepped in church for the first time in a long time. And we've been celebrating the birth of our savior. We've celebrated with family. We've opened gifts. We've seen people open gifts that we've gotten for them, and we've really enjoyed this time. But we find ourselves in a moment that if, if you grew up in youth group, it's what I would equate to the, the adult version of a camp high, right?
You're coming off of camp and you're super excited, you're on fire for God, and then you go back and you have to go back to school and all these things. For us, that's where we sit right now. We're coming off of a time of great celebration, of great joy in Christ, of a great reminder of who Jesus is, a great refreshment in our relationship with him. But now, we have to go back to the normal and we have to then be way more intentional about our walk with Christ. See, right now, it's pretty easy. For many of us, if we're off work, uh, we, we can make time to get in the word. We can make time to focus on Christ because you can do your quiet time at 2:00 PM when you have nothing going on. You don't have to worry about when to go pick up the kids from school.
You don't have to worry about when you have to be in the office. You can do it whenever you want. If you wake up late, not an issue, but soon, that's gone. And we don't have that freedom. See, here's the reality for many of us in the room today. We're about to enter into a time where we have to become much more vigilant with our walk with Christ. And if we're truly honest with ourselves, our walk with Christ has not been where it should be. Our walk with Christ has not been where Christ has called our walk to be. We haven't been living out the things and the ways that we should be living out. We've allowed other things to take the place of God in our lives. We've allowed work to take the place of God in our lives. When we're in the office, we're certainly thinking about it, but even when we're not in the office, we are thinking about work and we're thinking about the projects that we need to get done and the problems that are happening and the issues that we need to solve.
And so even when we're home or maybe you sit down in the morning for your quiet time and you open up the word or you get in prayer, but the whole time your mind is just running through, "I need to do this when I get into the office today. I need to do this. I need to do this. " And you're allowing that thing to take the place of God in your life, or for some of us, it's our kids. For some of us, it's our kids' academic success or their athletic success or their perceived success amongst the people around us so that our kids look better than their kids. And we've allowed that to take the place of God in our lives. These things aren't bad. These are good things. But when they take the place of God in our lives, then they become a very, very bad thing or our finances, right?
That's the one the world loves to throw at us. "Man, I need to make this much money so I can keep up with them, so I can look like them, so I can be like that. "And we allow that to take up all of our focus. But we have good times. We have good moments in this. We see baptisms on a Sunday morning and we go, " Man, that's, that's super inspiring. I, I, they, I love how they're walking out their relationship with the Lord. I need to be better at that. "Or we hear a message from Matt on a Sunday and we go, " Did he find my journal and preach that directly to me with what I've been struggling with? "And we feel convicted and we leave and we're, we're thinking," Man, I, I really need to be better at my relationship with the Lord walking in Christ.
But the reality is, if we're honest with ourselves, Monday morning hits and absolutely nothing has changed. We sleep in too long. We don't get up and get in a quiet time. We don't focus on the Lord throughout the day. We don't treat others the way Christ has called us to. And what happens is we wind up living this life of rollercoaster Christianity. We're going up and down and upside down and backwards and left and right, and we're allowing our situations to pull us everywhere we go instead of being anchored in Christ. See, my goal for us this morning is to simply understand this. It's to understand that true freedom in Christ is not passive, but it is intentional. It takes intentional effort every single day to grow in a relationship with Christ. He as a sinful creature, we're never going to naturally drift into a relationship with the Lord.
We're gonna, we're never gonna naturally, uh, if we don't do anything to try to grow in the Lord, we're never gonna accidentally walk into a relationship with God. We're sinful beings. That's not how, uh, a sin, the sin nature that we have does not push us towards Christ. It takes effort every single day to work and to grow in Christ. And there's a word for this. There's a word called sanctification, and it literally just means growing to be more and more like God. See, we, we see these things. We know this. This is how it works for, for non, uh, for things that aren't in our relationship with the Lord. Like, we know that it takes intentional effort to grow in other things. If, if you're trying to grow in academics, right, you're not going to not put in work. Man, all throughout school, I always wondered, because I felt like I was smart and pretty smart, but, but I noticed people to the left and the right of me, they were doing better in school.
And I, I wondered why that was. And then I realized they were doing their homework and I wasn't, right? I wasn't applying myself. I wasn't being intentional in those moments. Same goes for athletics. And it certainly is true for our relationship with the Lord. See, I think far too often, our relationship with God does not look like this. We're not walking in Christ every single day. We're not growing in Christ. And, and I think there's two main reasons for this. The first one is sin, right? The easy one, right? Uh, it's, we, we struggle. We know that we sin, we are sinful beings and we fail. And sometimes we allow this sin and allow this failure to, in our minds, become a barrier between us and Christ, even though that's not what Christ has called us to. He's Christ, He's called us to, to repentance in Him and to leave that behind.
But the other thing that I think comes up the most is this. I think sometimes we don't realize how real our relationship with God is. See, I can see the projects that I'm working on at work. I can see my math test. I can see my kids' report card and how much work it needs. I can see a relationship with a friend, right? I can see that friend. I can physically talk to them. I can see their face. I can see how they're responding to me. I can see their eyes when we talk and see if they're, they're annoyed by me, right? I can see these things. I can see the number in my bank account and the things that we see, oftentimes we allow to take the focus. But because we can't physically see God, we can't physically see that relationship with him. I think a lot of times we, we begin to think it's not as real as the things here on earth.
But let me remind us this morning that it's the most real thing that we can experience here on earth because when we die, when we leave this earth, it doesn't matter what we have in our bank accounts, it does not matter what our house looks like. The only thing that then matters is your relationship with God. That is the most real thing that we can encounter, and it takes an intentional focus every single day. Let's pray. Father, God, I thank you for this day. God, I thank you for this moment where we can gather together. But Father, I pray that we are not sitting here in vain. God, I pray that we, that we focus our hearts and our minds on what you have for us today. God, that we're truly open to your word and to allow it to speak to us. It's in your name we pray.
Amen. So we're gonna be in Colossians chapter three today. And the mess- the title of this message is In With the New, Bringing in the New Year, but also walking in the newness of Christ. But it could have also been titled Next Steps, right? The word that we love to use, the word that shows the, the next steps that we have to take in Christ because we never reached the end, right? There's always another step. And in Colossians three: one through 17, we see seven steps to take in order for us to intentionally walk in this relationship with the Lord. And nobody in here is, is passed to these, right? You're never past these. Even if, even if you think you do all of these things well, we can all always do them better. And so we can always continue to grow in our relationship with the Lord.
Colossians three: one through four shows us the very beginning of it all. "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. "See, the first thing that we have to do in order to intentionally live out a relationship with God is we have to set our focus. We have to set our focus. We don't set our focus on Christ. We can never grow in him. See, oftentimes we just drift aimlessly. We just wander around with no true intention and we wonder why we keep failing. We know that there's some issue here or there that we, we struggle in, but we just pretend it doesn't exist.
And instead, we continue to drift. We continue to wander. We continue to just be a passive Christian, be a convenient Christian. When God fits into my schedule, sure, I'll grow in my relationship with him. I'll read my word. Maybe I ... Somehow I woke up early this morning, so I'm gonna read the Bible, but we don't intentionally set out the time for it. And so we just allow it to come to us whenever it does. Uh, but our, our walk with Christ does not grow by unfocused wandering. It grows by having a set focus to run towards, by looking towards Christ and having a goal, having a focus on him. That is how we grow in Christ. See, when we look back at chapter two of Colossians, if you have time, I, I challenge you to read it today. We see Paul writing here, telling the church, right?
The church, uh, at the time that there, there's no real value in just trying to not do bad things. There's no real value in just trying to restrain the sinful natures of the flesh. We won't grow by just focusing on what not to do and trying not to do it, but instead he carries on into verse, into the first verses of chapter three and reminds us that we grow in being more like Christ by looking towards Christ. Not by looking at all the things around us of, " I, I don't need to be doing this. I don't need to be doing that. I, I need to get away from that. I need to stop hanging out with those people because I fall into that and I, I, I need to stop doing all these things. "No. Instead, we look towards Christ. We set our focus on him.
See, so many times we're just trying to avoid a sin instead of really following Christ. We're just trying to not do the bad thing instead of living out what Christ has called us to. And, and maybe we know that there's an area that we fall and we're just like, " I need to not be here so we, we lay awake at night. "We go, " I need to not be here, so I don't do that. I need to not be with those people so I don't go too far in this. I need to not be at, at that event because then I'm gonna wind up doing ... I, I need to not be around that person because then I'm gonna be led to be angry. We don't get along well. "And we look at all these things that we shouldn't be doing instead of focusing on what we should be doing.
See a bank teller, right? When you're training to be a bank teller, which is a weird thing to think about, that bank tellers are trained, but they are when they're training to see what counterfeit money is, they don't do this. They don't look a- a- and they don't go, " Hey, this is what these frauds do, and this is how you can tell there's a little symbol up here that's not quite right. And, and this group, they, they have this little crease here that you, you can just tell it's not ... This line isn't lined up. And, and this group down here, uh, the feel is just a little bit off. Here, here's the fake one, here's ... That's not what they do. No, what they do is they study the real one over and over and over again. They look to the one true thing so that when it comes a time when something along is not that, they know it instantly.
They know that doesn't feel right. That's not where that's supposed to be. They can instantly see it, not because they know all the bad, but because they know the one true focus. That's how our lives should look in Christ. Instead of trying to rid ourselves of all these different sins, specifically focusing on the sin and going, "I, I, I need to not do that. I need to not do that. I need to not do that. We must set our focus on what we should be doing." Then it leads to getting rid of the sin. Paul carries on in, in the last verse here in verse four, it says, "If then you have been raised with ... " or in verse one, he says, "If then you have been raised with Christ," and he carries on and reminds us that our power to do this, our power to set our focus on Christ does not come from us.
Praise God, by the way. It comes from Christ. It comes from God. He is the way that I can set my focus on it because if it was up to me, I'd fail over and over and over again. Because in my life, I fail over and over and over again because of my sinful nature. But because of God, we can even look to him and have that relationship with him and we can seek the things that are above. Verse five carries on. He says, "Put to death, therefore what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and conveciousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you two 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 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed and knowledge after the image of its creator." See, once we set our focus on Christ, in order to continually walking in that intentional relationship, we must slay the flesh, we must slay the flesh.
Verse five, when it says put to death, that word in Greek there mean, it is necrosat, which means to actively put to death, to actively make death. What it doesn't mean is, "I'm gonna put this thing away and I'm just gonna let it die. I'm not gonna feed it. I'm gonna, like, it's gonna passively die. I'm not going to do anything. It's just gonna die on its own, like a plant that you just leave in a room and never do anything." That's not what it means. What it means is to actively kill it, to actively get away with it, to actively put it out of your life. That is what this is saying. Put it to death, the old things, the things that you were, the sins that you fell into. It's not passive. It's intentional. It's intentionally denying over and over and over again.
These sins in our lives, we have a sin nature. Our flesh is naturally sinful. But again, we do not do this by looking at the specific sins. We look, we do this by looking to the Father because it's through him that we have the power to deny our sinful nature. It's through him that we have the power to follow after him. See, this is the case of any sort of physical change that we make in our lives. We have to put to dead the old. If January 1st hits and your goal is to lose weight this year, in 2026, your goal is to lose weight. If you have four bowls of ice cream every night for a snack, you're gonna have to put that to death. You cannot continue in that and expect to see results. If you wanna spend more intentional time with your family, but you know that you struggle, well, when you have your phone in your pocket because you just wanna pull it out and just scroll on it, you have to put that to death.
You have to get your phone away from you in order to be more intentional in those moments. We know this with our physical things. We know this with our physical improvements that we have to get rid of the bad habits, get rid of the old. But when it comes to our spiritual life, sometimes we try to hold onto those things. We try to keep them with us. We try to drag them behind us. But the reality is we can never move forward in Christ if we're looking back at the world. But so often, that's what we try to do. So often, we try to take those things with us. We try to say, "God, I, you can have most of it, but I, I just need to hold onto this. " See, check this. It's so important that Paul, what he does here is he specifically names the sins, right?
He specifically names these sins. Part of putting, uh, to death the things of your flesh means knowing what you're putting to death. See, you can't fight an enemy that you don't know exists, or you also can't fight an enemy that you try to pretend doesn't exist. That's not a problem. That's not really an issue. I, I, I can overcome that. I, I, I'm fine with it. Imagine if the Falcons, right? Every game ... I heard hear some laughs. I just said Falcons. Come on. <laugh> But it is going that way. So, uh, imagine the Falcons, every game, right? What they did was they, they're in the locker room, they're getting ready for the game. They go out on that field. And in that moment, they see the jerseys of the other team, and that's the first time they know who they're playing. There's no scouting, there was no specific play calling for that game.
There is no intentionality behind it at all. Sometimes it looks like that's what they're doing, but it's not. When we're fighting an enemy, we want to know, we have to know who we're fighting, and it goes the same with our sin. We need to know the areas that we fall, because then we look to Christ for his power to walk in that and to walk through that. See, Paul, he calls out specific sins here. He starts, uh, with big, with quote unquote big sins, sexual immorality, idolatry, et cetera. And we start to think, "I'm doing pretty good," right? I'm not doing any of those things. I'm not falling into those things. And we start to think that, that we're kind of on top of it. But then he goes to the next verse and says, "Get rid of anger, wrath, slander, obscene talk, lying, every aspect of our lives." And we're like, "Well, maybe I'm not doing this hot," right?
Every aspect of our lives, not just the big, not just the big sins where we go, "Well, I'm not doing that. I may be lying to everybody around me. I may be putting on this fake persona, but I'm not, I'm not doing that. " And so we feel good about ourselves, but that's not what Christ has called us to. He's not cr- called us to just do enough to look okay to the world. We shouldn't care what the world thinks about us. Our goal is to live out a life for Christ, and that means getting rid of everything of our sinful nature, not 95%, not going, "God, I, I just need to keep this. I've been doing it for so long. It makes me feel good. I'm gonna keep it, but I wanna follow you with the rest." That's not how this works. If you know there's a specific spot or a specific time or a specific group of people where you fall into p- into sin, uh, maybe pretend it doesn't exist, maybe we have to call out those sins or maybe it's not even that you are pretending and knowing you're pretending, maybe you've done it for so long that you've actually convinced yourself that it's not a problem.
It's not even a sin. Hey, I know what scripture says, but I, I just don't feel that way. Know how this works. Scripture is truth and our life is meant to reflect scripture. We must call out the sin in our lives and look to Christ for the strength to overcome, but catch this. We don't just get rid of the old. We don't just slay the flesh, but after we slay the flesh, verse 10 shows us that we put on the new and we step in freedom. We step in freedom. So we don't just kill the flesh, but we put to death the flesh through Christ and walk in the freedom through Christ that only comes from Christ. See, we talk a lot about this with students that, uh, when we're trying to get rid of bad habits, we don't just get rid of a bad habit and then leave it, right?
We don't just, uh, get rid of a bad habit and then not replace it with something. Because what happens is it's a lot like weeding your yard, right? It's a lot like weeding a flower bed. Uh, I used to do it when I was a kid and if my dad's watching online, he's probably like, "You did not. " All right. But I did. A couple times I did. And I listened to him when he told me, because he always said, he always said a couple things. But one of the things he always said was, "Make sure you get the root, because if not, it's just gonna grow right back." But the reality is, even if I take that weed, I get everything out. I get all the roots out, but I never replace it. I never put weed barrier or mulch or a good plant that's stronger than the weeds trying to go up around it.
What's gonna happen? A weed's gonna grow right back, right in its spot. So often that is what happens in our lives. We get rid of a bad habit. We know I, I, I can't be doing this. I can't be falling into this again. And, and so we get rid of it. We do, but then we just leave it blank. We just leave that time open, hoping to naturally drift into something of the Lord. That's not how it works. Our sinful nature is going to fill that with something else of sinful nature. We have to be intentional about it. When we pull that weed, we have to fill it with something good. We have to fill it with worshiping God, reading scripture, uh, growing in the fruits of the spirit, prayer, being with other believers. See, we are freed from our sin and we then walk in that freedom of Christ.
And some of the best news is that we are not made to walk in this freedom on our own. Verse 11 says, "Here, there is not Greek or Jews circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian inside the enslave or free, but Christ is all and in all. " See, in Christ, not only is he walking with us and giving the power to us to do it, but we've also been called to stand as one family, to stand as one family. If we're truly gonna live out an intentional relationship with the Lord, we have to be a part of the family of God. See, a life in Christ is not isolated. It is a life and fellowship with other believers. A true intentional relationship with the Lord includes walking alongside others, being in the church. And what I don't mean is you slip in the church at the end of service or at the end of worship and you just sit in the back and then you head out a little early because you wanna beat the car line to get out to lunch and, and you never talk to anybody, you're never a part of it.
You're not a part of a life group. You, you never really have any accountability here. You're just physically in the building. That is not what being a part of the body of Christ looks like. That's not what he's called us to. God doesn't care. He doesn't go, "Hey, I need you to check off a box and say that you were attending church." That is not what it looks like. He wants to stand as one family to be a part of the body. If we do that, you're like the, the second uncle that comes to Thanksgiving that nobody really knows and they get there late and they just come get a food. They don't bring anything. They just get food and then they dip, right? Y- you don't really know them. They don't really, uh, they're not a part of the family there, right? On, on paper, I guess, but they're not serving the family.
We have been called to be intentional parts of the family. See, Satan wants us to isolate. Satan wants to make us feel like we're all alone or, or maybe make us feel like we should be alone. Like, I, I don't need them. I can do this on my own. He tries to separate us. Look at the world around us. If you watch the new, everything in culture today goes, "Hey, that's different, that's different. Y'all should separate. There's differences here. Y'all shouldn't get along. There's differences here. Y'all should separate." Or really what happens is there's differences here. Y'all can't talk about them, ignore them, let everybody else live that they, the, the, the way that they want, never bring it up, allow them, tolerate it. Really, what they're cha- what they're saying is accept it and then go on with your lives. Everything in culture today wants to separate us because Satan knows that if we're isolated, if we are separated, we are way more likely to fall back into our sin.
We don't have accountability. We don't have anyone holding us accountable. See, in Christ, we are made in one family. We're not called to isolated ministry. We know this for ... If, if isolated ministry was the best way to do ministry, Jesus would have been a lone ranger, right? 'Cause I know if I was a disciple, I would not have been speeding up the process. I would not have been help ... I would have been like a middle schooler on a vacation, like, where are we going? Why are we doing this? How did you do that? What are we doing now? Like, what's next? Where are we gonna go next? How, how do we do with these people? How, how do we do what you just did? We ask all these questions. It does not speed up the process. I know for a fact Jesus could've, he would've been way quicker if he did not have Peter with him, especially, right?
And so we see all these things, but, but Jesus shows us in the early church shows us that our, our life in Christ is not meant to be isolated. It's meant to be in one. We are meant to work together for his glory. And here's the thing about a body is that all parts work to serve the rest. It works as one. Your hands and your feet, your ears, your eyes, your nose, your mouth. It all serves the body. Supposedly, even your appendix serves your body. I don't know what it does. The only thing I know about an appendix though is that the only time the appendix comes up, because it doesn't really do anything, the only time it comes up is when it turns against the body, when it's a bad thing. Don't be the appendix of the Christian body. I bet that's a quote you did not think you were gonna hear today. <laugh>
Don't be the guy that we only know you ... If you're just making a mess, making, causing chaos, yelling at other Christians. That is not what we've been called to do as the Christian body. We have been called to serve one another, to live with one another, to walk with one another. We should be serving one another. In our life groups, we should be praying for one another, physically serving for one another. If there's an area that we can, what we shouldn't be doing is be like EOR and just complaining. And then when someone else has a prayer request, you go, "You don't have it as bad as I do. " But so often that's what our sinful nature does because we're not setting our focus on Christ, but we're setting our focus on ourselves.
Our job in the body is to serve the body wherever that looks like. Serving in children's ministry. Bless you. Serving in the nursery, especially bless you, serving with students, serving in prayer, serving in the parking ministry. There's so many different ways we can serve the body, both here at the church, but also importantly outside the church that we have been called to do as followers of Christ. The early church literally sold their possessions and lived with one another, walked with one another in Christ, and sometimes we struggle to spend an extra part, an extra hour of our Sunday morning to serve the body.
You stand for your family. You fight for your family and you serve your family. It's the same for our family of believers as well. See, this church is not made up of, uh, hundreds of different families. The Big C Church is not made up of hundreds of different families. It's not made up of 50 different families across the many life groups. We are one family in Christ together. We're not built to walk isolated or separated, but we've been created for a relationship with God and others. That family is our backbone. There's been so many times where the people closest to me in my life have supported me. They have, uh, shown me back to who Christ was in hard times. They've shown me the joy of who Christ is. They have reminded me how I should be. I would not be here today if it was not for the people around me.
If I had isolated myself, I would not be here today. But the people around me held me accountable. They showed me who Christ was and they showed me who Christ was calling me to be. There are joy in our hard times and they're the people that help us grow even in the characteristics of Christ. Verse 12 says, "Put on then as God's chosen people. Holy and beloved. Compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience." See, these are the things that we must be filling ourselves with so that we can have a, a foundation in Christ. In order to have an intentional walk with Christ, we must set the foundations. We must set the foundations. We must fill ourselves with something. When we get rid of the new, or get rid of the old, when we put on the new, we begin to fill ourselves with these things to become more and more like Christ.
But I love what Paul does here because Paul's very intentional about the things that he lists. And check this. All of these things, kindness, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. They're all qualities that express themselves in relationships, not on your own, but in relationships. See a significant sign of our walk with Christ is how we treat others. Paul's showing us how important these relationships are that as God's people, we must treat others with his love, showing them Christ. These are the things that we must fill ourselves with. As a follower of Christ, these are how we should be treating those around us. We're called to be compassionate, be kind, be humble. All of these things, if we're honest, at least I hope, are pretty easy to do inside these walls. And then you come in on a Sunday morning and, and our welcome team, those greeters out there, they have the biggest smile on their face.
It is really hard. Some of us do it, but it's really hard for them to be smiling and say good morning, and you're just like, "Mm-mm. No. It's not been a ... I didn't have my coffee this morning. It's not been a ... We didn't have time to go by to Starbucks." It's, it's hard to do that, right? Usually we can respond in kindness. We can respond in compassion in here, but the moment we step out the doors on Sunday, sometimes it's a different story. Man, sometimes it's a good thing that we've got tinted windows because that cop stopped us as the first car before we got to turn out and it's good they can't see in. Or we get to the restaurant and our waiter's having a bad day and we're hangry and they can see that we're in our church clothes. They, they can make assumptions about where we're from.
They may not know what specific church we're from. We're from the Methodist church, but we, we, look, they don't They don't know, right? But they know that we represent Christ. They know that we at least go to church. We should be a representation of Jesus, but we're just showing them anger, impatience, frustration. We're not showing them the love of Christ. William Toms is, is attributed to this quote. He says this. He says, "Be careful how you live. You may be the only Bible some person ever reads." And I heard that quote a long time ago and I, it really convicted me because every time you walk past somebody, every time you see somebody, it's a moment to show them scripture. It's a moment to show them the love of Christ. That is why the foundations of our characteristics in Christ are shown in relationships with other people.
It's because that's one of the most important things we have. We have that relationship with Christ, but our purpose here on earth is to share the gospel with people. And nobody wants to hear the gospel from someone who's always angry, from someone who's always rude to people, who's from someone who always gossips about others. Nobody's gonna listen. But we show them the characteristics of Christ and through then we can show them the gospel. We can show them scripture. We can show them Jesus. See, our words and our actions have the power to show someone the love of Christ and show how important God is in our lives, but they have the same power to show someone that God has absolutely no impact on me.
And that's one of my biggest pet peeves because that is, that, that is me in high school. Where I, I, I called myself a Christian, but nobody around me, if you, if you saw the fruits of my life were not how they should be. And so people would hear me call myself a Christian, but then they'd look at me and they'd go, "Well, all he's focused on is himself. He doesn't care about anybody else. He's caring about what his, uh, personality looks like, how he comes off to other people, his athletics, his academic ... He's cared about him, not about anybody else. This is what Christ is. And I can't tell you how many people that I had a negative impact on for Jesus because of that. Man, that is not what we've been called to do as Christians. Even in the small moments, someone checking us out at Kroger, something, being a waiter for us at whatever restaurant.
It's in those moments where we have a chance to show them the gospel. We set our foundations of a walk with Christ to impact others and to constantly be showing them the love of Christ. Paul continues on in verse 13. He says," Bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgive each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. "And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you are called in one body and be thankful. See, the reality is, if we've started to put together these other pieces, if we are starting to grow together as one body in Christ, the biggest thing that Satan wants is to start a little, little bubble that we then can't ever put out through forgiveness.
The sixth thing that we must do is we must seek out forgiveness all the time. Man, those little quarrels, those little fights, those are the things that Satan wants us to, to allow us to, to separate. Uh, our families, our family of God, he wants those things to cause chaos. See, when we've grown in these foundations, when we're growing closer to Christ, man, Satan's gonna try to break those things up. And aren't we really hold a, good at holding a grudge, by the way? Man, someone could've wronged you five years ago, and you see them walk in a room, and your mood changes. You walked in happy. You, you did your quiet time that morning, but they walk in and you're like, " They never apologize, so I'm still mad at you. "And now, not only have you not walked in what Christ has called you to, but now you're upset for no reason.
Maybe there is a reason, but you're still allowing them to dictate your emotions now from a practical standpoint. You're allowing them to dictate and make you go from joyous to angry every time you see them. But instead, we have freedom in Christ when we learn to forgive and as the body, we must learn to forgive one another. And we forgive others as the Lord has forgiven us. It's not from our own power. Praise God. Praise God that we don't have to forgive because of how good we are. We forgive because Christ has forgiven us. When we see here that forgiveness comes from love, peace, and thankfulness. When we have these three things, it's so much easier to forgive someone because if I'm not loving someone like Christ loves them, I'm not really gonna wanna forgive them. I don't see them as valuable as Christ sees them, and so I'm not gonna wanna forgive them.
But if I love someone, to the extent that Christ does, or almost to the extent that Christ does, I'm gonna see how valuable that person is, and I'm going to want to forgive them. I'm going to want to forgive that person who is loved and who is valuable in Christ. If I have the peace of Christ, if I know that peace of Christ, not only am I gonna wanna keep it myself, but I'm gonna wanna share that with others and forgive them. If I have thankfulness from Christ, I'm gonna know who God has created me to be, know how good he has given the, the gifts he has given me. I'm gonna know all those things and understand that the little inconveniences or even the big moments that we have on earth that separate us pale in comparison to the goodness of God. And so I'm going to want to forgive them.
When we focus on Christ, get this just like the f- when we set our focus on Christ, all of this comes much easier. When we look to Christ, instead of trying to do things on our own, and trust me when I say these times will come. There will be a moment, if there has not already, where you will offend somebody, or someone will offend you. Not on purpose, maybe. But either way, God has called us to forgive them. You can either respond in the flesh and do what many of us want to do and give it right back to him, or we can do what Christ has called us to and respond in the love and the peace of God and keep the unity that he has called us to. Lastly, verse 16 and 17 say this, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do, in word or indeed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. See, this point really encompasses the other six. We must submit to the Father. We must submit to the Father. Submitting to the Father means trusting His authority and His wisdom over every area of our lives, choosing His ways over our own desires and obeying His commands every single day. It involves surrendering control, letting go of the results, which is so hard for us because so many of us want to be in control. We want to go, "God, I just wanna do this because I think I know how it's gonna work. And so just let me have control of this. " And we try to work out these ways that we can have ownership over the things that, that God has given us.
He's given us those opportunities, but we wanna try to hold it to ourselves instead of surrendering control to Him. Submission also looks like seeking His will, seeking Christ through prayer, through, through a family of believers, through scripture and prioritizing His mission for us, going and making disciples of all nations. And it's a posture of humility. It's saying that, God, you are so much greater than I am. See, everything we do is for the Lord. Check the ... I mean, in, in 16 and 17, just those two verses, we see that whether we're, we're teaching, whether we're singing everything that we do, verse 17, whatever you do in word or in D, which includes everything, those are the things that we should be giving to Christ. Not trying to do enough good deeds to have this perception that we're a good Christian that has it all together.
We're this good person that, that has it all together. No, we do these things once we set our focus on Christ, once we get rid of the junk from before, and we start walking in a new life in Christ. See, this is the bow on it all. As we enter the new year, this is the focus of our lives. This is what it takes to truly walk in Christ, to become more and more like Christ every single day. It means that we're worshiping him with everything that we have, not just singing on a Sunday, but on Tuesday when we go into work, we're worshiping God through that. We're worshiping God with how we treat our, our, uh, the people, our coworkers, our customers, whoever it is, whoever it is that we encounter. We're worshiping God with how we treat our family, even when we come home tired from a long workday.
We're worshiping God in every part of our lives. It means that we're not just passively letting those opportunities come, but we're intentionally seeking out opportunities to share the gospel with people. Man, how often do we do that? Where we go, God, if you just put this person in my life, I'll, I'll share the gospel with him. Instead of going, "God, who can I share the gospel with today?" We must be intentional in every aspect of our walk with Christ, submitting ourselves to his will and seeking what he's called us to do to live a life that has been radically changed for Christ. See, living in true freedom requires intentional living every single day. Looking to Christ, looking to what he has called us to do and allowing it not just to impact the 95%, but allowing it to impact every single area we walk. And that's the mission for us as believers.
And if you need to take one of these next steps today, if you need to, to figure out what it even looks like to set a focus on Christ and, and get rid of the old and walk in the new, or, or maybe you're looking at how to, to walk as one in the body, you've never been a part of a church before, you're, you're kind of the person that's always snuck in and, and not really been involved in a life group or maybe you're looking to be baptized, to take those next steps, to walk in believers baptism just like we saw this morning or maybe you're looking to join the church, to join the body, to stand as one family, or maybe you're looking to serve that family, to figure out areas all across this campus that you can be serving Christ. I'll be over here by the next steps banner.
We'll have some friends over there with me. We would love to talk with you to walk through what it looks like to bring in the new year with a new life in Christ, no matter how long we've called ourselves a Christian for.