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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, god, and others. We're glad you're here, and we we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I was rushing through my hallway, and I happened to glance down at my watch, and it read 7:58 AM, which meant for me I had about 16 seconds to get out of the house if I wanted to get my kids to school on time. Now, I go to rally them in the house to see what they're all doing, and of course, 1 of them happens to be frantically scrambling and, like, rummaging through a pile of stuff we had in our house. Now here's what you gotta understand. It's the last week of school. We're almost there, but also we had construction going on at the house at the time, which meant all of our bedroom stuff was literally just piled in this big, nice, organized mess in our living room that was stressing me out for weeks, right, and there I find 1 of my kids rummaging through it looking for something, and I'm like, yo, we gotta go.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What are you what are you looking for? And I was like, my drawings. I'm like, your drawings? What do you what do you need your drawings for? Like, I need a sketchbook.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And, of course, I hit him with that question that a lot of our parents hit us with, which was like, you couldn't do this last night? You know? Right. And so I realized that question didn't help now as it didn't help then, and so I started helping, you know, look for this, like, little sketchbook. And then, you know, minutes go by, moments go by, and you guys gotta understand, this is a pile of their entire bedrooms and living rooms.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So there's clothes, there's books, there's toys, there's stuff that I had no idea we still had in there. Right? And and we can't find this thing. And at 1 point, I'm like, yo. We gotta go.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We're out of time. We're gonna be late. And not just late like the bell rings as we park, but the bell rings and I gotta walk you up in in embarrassment, you know, explain to the office why we couldn't be here 5 minutes earlier. And so I tell them, it's time to go. My child looks at me and says, daddy, I have got to show my class that I'm good at something, because it was show and tell, and and that statement broke me.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I don't know about you, but I kinda feel like life boils down to a few key moments, and for me, this felt like a key moment. In the middle of being late, literally standing in the middle of a mess, which I can't stand, I I just embraced my child, tears coming down my eyes, and and did my best to remind them that who they are is not found and it really is so much more than what they think they're good at. And then I started to think to myself as I've reflected on that experience is, like, what happened if they would have never say that statement to me? What what happened if if if that idea, which is a lie by the way, who we are is so much more than what we think we're good at or not good at, but what if that lie just stayed there deep in their soul, and year after year, that lie became not just a lie but a kind of truth that shaped the kind of person they become. What do you think would have happened to them?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like, I'm deeply grateful that in that frantic moment where I was not my best self, that that just came out of them because it needed to. And I'm wondering now as I zoom out of that picture, like, how many for us need need to have those kind of statements come out of us too? Because like my child, many of us are are rummaging through the organized mess of our lives trying to understand who we are because what struck me in that moment is that my child is so young, so so young, and at that age, they're already trying to discover a sense of who they are and what their role is in the world they live in, and it's a journey, it's a discovery that we actually all are on as people. It's 1 of the most foundational, journeys you can go on as a person to discover who you are. Now the Bible says in this declaration of good news that your identity is not something you earn or create, but it's something you receive by the love of God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And the phrase we often use as Christians is that you are in Jesus, but my suspicion is that many of us as believers don't know what it's like to actually experience a life in Jesus. So we know the phrase, but not the lifestyle, because we are, in a lot of ways, like my child, rummaging through trying to find an identity to give us a sense of worth and meaning, a sense of security and love, and and that's why we're in this new series, Image, where we're gonna take the next few weeks exploring what it means to embrace who we are in Jesus. And the reason why we need this is because I came across this quote from the Christian writer, Pete Scazzaro. He says this, the vast majority of us go to our graves without knowing who we actually are. Let that sit for a second.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The vast majority of us go to our graves without knowing who we actually are, meaning we we can spend our whole lives, so many years living a kind of life that God has not called us to live under the name of saying I'm in Jesus, like like a lottery winner who just walks around with a big check but never actually cashes it, and never lives from a place of the wealth that, that it is to be in Jesus. And so we need this series as a church as we understand all that God is calling us to be in Him. And so with that in mind, would you stand with me as we read together? We're gonna be in Colossians today, chapter 3 starting in verse 9. I'll read and pray for us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Paul writes these words, do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge in the image of its creator. Here there is no gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian or Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. This is God's word. Let's pray together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Heavenly father, as we pause now to pray, we recognize that in our gathering today, you have gathered with us too. And so we ask now God that you would speak, and that you would in your spirit and in your power, make us all that you call us to be in Jesus. Give us ears to hear today. Give us eyes to see. We pray these things in his name.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Amen.
Dani Crowley:We are so glad that you are here. If this message has served you or encouraged you in any way, I wanna invite you to participate in what we're doing and to give whatever you can today. You can do that by going to give.sc, and for now, let's get back right into the message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now in our passage today from Colossians 3, what we see here is this, beautiful exchange that Paul is talking about in which we're on this journey of of taking off the old self with its practices and putting on the new. Now this is a journey, listen now, that all Jesus followers are invited to go on. This is the lifelong process of becoming who you are in Jesus, but notice he says, since your old self, you're taking off, and then he says, with its practices, Meaning, listen now, before you met Jesus, your old self, your flesh, or the false self as we're gonna call it today, you had a set of practices, a set of rhythms, really a way of life. There was a way in which you were living your life that corresponded to your old self, your false self, and Paul is saying, don't be false to each other. That's gone now, that's passed away.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now you're putting on you the new, and and that newness is renewing you every day and you're becoming more like the image of your creator. Come on. Meaning, as a Christian, someone who's following Jesus is in the process of becoming a reflection of Jesus every single day of their life. That's that's what we're doing. Now that might not sound sexy, but that's what we're doing as people, becoming new in Jesus.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now for Paul though, he realizes that even in the church, he's addressing this problem of projecting. When he says don't be false, it's not so much about lying on your taxes, or or, you know, kind of fibbing about the kind of grade you got in school or, you know, what time you actually got to work today. What what he's after when he says don't lie is don't don't live in falsehood with each other. In other words, be your real self. This is this is a a statement that is deeply rooted in our vision as a church, right, to be who you actually are.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because if there's any place in the world where we are supposed to be real, we would hope it would be in the church. Right? But there is still this problem of pretending, this problem of presenting an image that isn't real, And Paul knows the danger here because if we continue to live like this, we will never step into the identity and the calling that God has for us. Like like, 1 of the beautiful invitations is is realizing that god sees you and and he has a a destination for you. Yes.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But you can't get on that path the longer you live from this false old, dead self, which is why Pete, I think, is right. We go to our graves without knowing who we actually are. Augustine said it like this, years years ago Saint Augustine said, how can you draw close to God when you are far from your own self? And And then he goes on to say, Grant, Lord, that I might know myself, that I might know thee. Or or, Saint Catherine of Siena, years after him said it like this, when we are who we are called to be, we will set the world ablaze.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What a picture. Saint Teresa of Avila said almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from a lack of self knowledge. I mean, all the issues you deal with today in your spiritual life are probably rooted in the fact that you don't know who you actually are. And so what all of these great Christian thinkers and writers have have said over the centuries is that discovering who we are is a key part of following Jesus. And so real quickly and simply, let me ask you this.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Do you know who you are right now? Because who I believe I am very much determines the kind of person that I become. Who you think you are determines the kind of life you live or don't live, the kind of things you do or don't do, the people you spend time with or don't spend time with. And what's been so beautiful lately is I've been reading through Colossians. I have just once again, it's a short little book.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You can read this in a sitting, maybe, like, under 10 minutes, you know, and it's been a profound reminder of how many times in Colossians Paul takes a moment just to say, this is who you are, and it's reminded me that this simple act of reading scripture is not just about, you know, knowing information or doing this because, you know, Christians are supposed to do but but reading scripture is a way for God's voice to speak to you, to remind you of your identity in Jesus, to tell you all the things that you truly are in him. And so I say that because our church has worked incredibly hard, on a bible reading plan to go with this series image, and we we want you to engage with that. Even more so for those of you who are, like, I hate reading. We got something for you too. We worked hard not just on a bible reading plan, but on, a podcast we're gonna release every week in which we're actually reading scripture over you designed in a way that models an ancient Christian practice, on how to both kinda read and pray through scripture.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's called Letio Divina. You don't gotta know what that means, but it's just a simple way to engage God through reading and prayer. And we recorded this, so it's an ancient practice in a modern tool that we believe that I'm convinced will serve you. So as you travel, as you go to work, as you just need a break from your kids, just just play that and allow the scripture just to remind you, because as you do, you'll hear verses like this. Colossians 113, he's rescued you rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his son he loves, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I mean, right now, who am I? I'm rescued. I'm rescued from the domain of darkness, a a world that is clouded by ambiguity, confusion, pain, and darkness. I've been brought out of that, and I I live in a brand new environment, a brand new kingdom. Or Colossians 3:1, he says, since then you have been raised with Christ.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I don't know how you feel right now in this moment, but you are raised with Jesus. You're raised with Christ in this moment. And so he says, set your your heart on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Or just 2 verses later, he says, you died. It's nice to hear.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And your life is now hidden with Christ in god. You're you're hidden. You're safe, you are secure in him. He's taken us out of falsehood, he's brought us into truth. Colossians says, we we were once slaves, we're now free.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He's reminded us that that, man, you you once operated like this, but now you have a new self, and so Paul, he's like, what are you doing acting like your old self? What are you doing acting like the false self? You're not you're you're done with that. And, again, I think Paul is saying this because he understood that God has divine orders for all of us, and you can't receive and live in those things until you embrace that that the false self has gotta go away. And and his love is so great for us that there's a path, there's a journey, and we need to walk on that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Amen. We we need to embrace that. And and here's what I mean when I say old self or false self. When you when you find any kind of love or worth outside of Jesus, you're operating out of a false self. Or if you're looking externally into something else to give you a kind of value that isn't rooted in Jesus, that that's the false self.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I'll give you an example. For some of us, we find our identity in popular opinion, meaning, I am what people say about me. And and all of us know this at some level. Right? Like, you walk into a room and you feel all this weight on your soul to be cooler than you actually are.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We all know this. Right? I remember when I first started teaching here at Sandals, like, I don't wear sandals and I don't I'm not funny like Matt. Like, I wear sneakers and I'm a bit dry, and I like quiet. But I gotta talk.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I walked into the the room to teach, and there was just this pressure to like, hey. And, you know, but that's not me. But but that that is that is the draw to to come in and to operate out of a sense of who I'm not. Right? The the truth is there's always someone cooler than you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There's always someone better looking than you, and so if if king of the hill is kinda how you're gonna form your identity, you're gonna fall apart a 1000 times over. If your emotional and psychological state is determined by what other people will say and the headlines of your life, you're in a dangerous place. Now for others, it's not so much popular opinion. Maybe it's pleasure. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I am what I desire. Now now this is a touchy subject, but it's very real today in our world, where where a lot of people are defining themselves based on what they desire most, physically and emotionally. And so I just want to say this as pastorally as I can and as kind as I can. Though your sexuality is an important part of who you are, would you say it's the most important part of who you are? And I get we all have compulsive, like just strong desires for intimacy, for connection, but is that kind of identity strong enough to hold and carry the ache that you long for for meaning and purpose, Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So I'm not saying that those desires that you have within you are not true, I'm just asking, are they the truest thing about you? And is it possible that there is there is something even deeper than what you desire most? That's all I want you to consider for those of us who are maybe inclined to define ourselves by what we pursue when it comes to pleasure or our sexual identity. Now, for others, it's possessions. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I am what I have. In America, it's work more, buy more, and then you repeat, and you try to enjoy those things on the weekend before you gotta get up on Monday and go do it again. And materialism, when you think about it, here in the West is a kind of religion today. Amazon and other websites are very much their temples and shopping has become a kind of sacrificial worship. And and with any kind of religion, a lot of people look to it for its identity.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And and without, you know, getting so maybe judgmental or critical on your shopping habits, lord knows I got some spending habits, my point is this. You know your identity is getting into the things you have when the things you have are more than just things. They become more, and so be aware of that. Now for others though, it's also performance. I am what I do, and this kind of fear of failing, that's when you know, like, if you can't be criticized, if you can't receive good feedback, if failure keeps you up at night, it's probably the case that you are finding a sense of who you are in your performance.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And now, here's the danger. There's even a religious kind of performance too, and that's what Paul deals with in Colossians 2 where he has to talk to the the church about, hey, some of you, you're worried about festivals, new moons, you're saying, hey, do you Sabbath? I Sabbath. I don't eat this, do you eat that? I don't do this with my body, do you do that with your body right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like, there was a concern Paul noticed in the church there and he's saying, Look, you guys have a religious kind of performance where now you're starting to find your identity and what you do for God rather than just in simply who you are with God, and that's a dangerous thing. Right? And that's happening right now with you and I. Here's what I mean by that. I'm standing in front of you publicly teaching.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why am I doing this? You're like, why? Why am I afraid to always ask why questions? I'm partly doing this out of a sincere love for you to know, love, and follow Jesus and to experience a real life with him. But let's be honest, this is a public position.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Pastors do work in public, which means it's natural for me to get a sense of my identity in my religious performance of what I do for you. So as much as I'm motivated by my love for you, I also want you to nod your head and affirm the things I'm saying. But, oh man, Fredo's so insightful, you know. Fredo just brings some depth to his sermons, and I'm like, oh, I love that. Thank you for that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? There there is also a motive in which there's affirmation. And for some of you, you're like, man, you love it when Fredo teaches. And I also know for some of you, you know, when I get up to teach, it's like it's kinda like when your dad's gone and so the uncle comes over. And you're like, I don't know how to really listen to the uncle.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You're not my dad. Right? Now here's the thing, both of those identities are not real about me. They're not true and the danger is to operate out of either 1 of them. Like, that was nice when Matt's back, you know, but we got to be careful.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We gotta be careful that even our religious activity can blind us, and I just share that because that's the reality of what's happening, that's the inner cocktail of my life right now, motivated by love, selfish ambition, and who knows what. It's all there. Right? Naming it is important, but there's there's much more that has to be done. You gotta start to ask yourself, where do you find meaning right now?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like, you say this phrase, I matter because what? Or I'm safe because I belong where? Or or I'm happy because you fill in the blank. Because identity is so important to us because it gets at all those things, I matter, that's meaning, I belong, that's safety, and I'm happy, that's happiness. Who am I if I'm not safe, happy, and my life has purpose?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's why identity is so critical. And the truth is possessions, performance, pleasure, and popular opinion can all be taken away from us. And so what you have there is a scenario in which your life is built on sand that moves, And when we start finding our identity in the wrong things, as a foundation for who we are, we become a different kind of person, And then it becomes very true as to what Pete said, you go to your grave not knowing who you actually are. And what's so tricky about this is that a lot of these messages we believe about ourselves, they came to us at a young age. Like, in that moment with my child, I could have been like, well, of course, yeah, get that drawing book out, show them that work.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I had to look at it and tell you how good it was, like so if you're not aware of it, like you have movies that are running in your head constantly, scripts if you will, reminding you and maybe there are things that your parents said, that a co worker said, they're driving you right now to be a kind of person and it plays like, you know, that terrible action movie always plays on Saturdays on TNT. It's like the same movie on TNT all the time, right? Why is that same 1 on? These these scripts, they run over and over in our minds and then over time, they become the truth that shapes us. Why do we do this?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why is this happening? It's fear. Fear has motivated me to project a false image of who I am. So when Paul says in Colossians 3, don't lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices, notice the old self, the flesh, the false self with its practices, the false self is not motivated by love of God, but by fear, ultimately fear. Now, what is fear?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Fear is for sure that compulsive desire to project the perfect image. It's the stuff I convince myself internally that I may never ever say out loud, like some of the things I just shared out loud. Like, who you say I am is more important than who god says I am. So I pamper the most serviced version of myself so I can appear a certain way to you. Fear is that definition of success that I carry with me, always chasing.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's the time I spend trying on different outfits but never actually praying. Fear is what leads me to talk a big game about what I want to do with my life, but then I lose sleep because I'm afraid to do those things. Fear will have you so worried about the email you sent to your coworkers hoping for a response, but never putting pen to paper to journal about your own spiritual life. Fear is the preoccupation we have with the approval of others. It's the Instagram post you throw up on your anniversary, and then you spend most of the time looking to see who's engaged with the post rather than just spending it with the person that you're celebrating life with.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Fear is the feeling I get on a great day as I'm walking in every week to get the same haircut from the same barber, and then I catch a reflection of myself in the mirror, and I'm like, why does my stomach do that when I walk? And I'm like, hopefully, this fade can take away £10 today too. Or fear is the question you have because it's summertime, and what next adventure are you going to go on to make you feel like your life matters because everyone else is gone? Fear is the role that most of us have taken for 40, 50 years of our lives to offer value to the world, which is why statistically suicide rates increase after retirement. Can you see yourself in any of these definitions of fear?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And again, this is an identity born out of that thing fear, not love. And this is a disease the Bible calls, and it's plagued humanity since the very beginning when our great great grandparents, Adam and Eve, were in the garden. Now that scene is an interesting 1 to me that I think we need to go back to. Because when Colossians says to, you know, put off this and put on that, we've seen people put on something, haven't we, all the way back in Genesis. In that interesting exchange, what you see Adam and Eve doing is fear is driving them to cover a part of who they are in shame and to reject a vision of themselves, which is why god says, who told you you were naked?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now, what's amazing to me about this exchange in Genesis is that the serpent actually never tempts them to eat the fruit. He never says eat this. He comes to them with a question, did god really say? Which means then that oftentimes the fears that lead us to cover ourselves and to project an image is rooted in a lie. Did God really say?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's a twist of the truth. And so when you think about the sinful behaviors of your life right now and my life, think of them less like you're doing the wrong stuff, like that's helpful, but that doesn't get at the root of things. Right? Sin is really about you and I trying to meet a deep need, oftentimes a good 1, but with our own resources. Eve has a need to eat food, but now she's gonna try to meet that need with her own resources by taking from a tree that God said, don't eat that 1.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And what the serpent does is he's like, you know, if you eat this, you won't die. Did God really say you can't eat of this? His goal, like, when he destroys humanity, he doesn't come with a knife or a gun, he comes with an idea. Did God really say? And so he's he's switching this abundant view of the garden.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You can have anything to sustain your life, just not this. Satan comes and says, you really can't just have this. Notice what he's doing. He's narrowing it. He's narrowing the choice, making this abundant god feel like a restrictive master or mentor.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's what happens. And so an example like this can look like this, man, I I want to feel safe, which is a good desire, but instead of finding safety in the affirmation of God, I find safety with my own resources by what other people say about me. I'm trying to meet my own need, but with my own resources. That's sin. The word that we use a lot in scripture is hamartia for sin, which as you many of you have heard means missing the mark.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's a beautiful word picture, but here's what it's showing. It's saying when you hear the word hamartia, you should think of someone who's drawing back an arrow to shoot, right, because it's missing the mark. You're aiming at a target, but as you draw back and release, the arrow veers off terribly and misses it altogether. Now oftentimes, we think, well, the archer is wrong. But no, Harmattia is saying the the arrow is the problem.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What you're aiming at is just fine, but the thing you're using to try to get you there, that's the problem. The problem is not with the archer, but the arrow is bent. So that if you're trying to get to that destination with that method, it will never get you there. So in your life, if you're aiming at an identity that keeps you intimate and safe, you're potentially using the wrong arrow to get you there. It's a fine desire.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:If you're aiming to be successful, that's a fine thing to aim at, but what arrow are you using to get you to success? That's the problem. Because the bible be begins with this beautiful picture of love, and it all comes apart because of a lie. A lie. That's the way that he wants to tempt us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And it's the most effective kind of 1 when Satan says, did god really say? The twisting of the truth to get you to try to meet your own good desires, but with your own resources. It is why I love Psalm 103, maybe my favorite psalm, where it says, you satisfy my desires with good things. You satisfy my desires with good things so that I don't need to harm our Tia, miss the mark by trying to get my own desires, meet them, but with my own resources. But at a deep level, we got to figure out what it is that we're using to cover up ourselves.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Adam and Eve made fig leaves, my child was looking for a sketchbook, what are you scrambling for as a way to cover up a part of you and project another part of you? Because that's what the enemy is after. And so to help us get there, the question I have for you is this, what parts of yourself are you afraid to look at in god's presence? What parts of yourself are you afraid to look at? As 1 of our executive pastors says, I'll give you the gift of going second, for me, it's my anger.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You know, the 1 thing I kindly left out of that story is how frustrated I got that we were late. And when I think back to my to that scene, I I I'm terrified to imagine that kind of anger is inside of me. And then what makes me afraid to look at it before God's presence is I'm not convinced that will ever change in me. That's what's terrifying. You see, what you might be afraid to look at in God's presence is that aspect of your life that is marked and covered in shame, fueled by fear, and and you're subtly convinced you will never be healed of that thing, and so you'd rather not look at it before god.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You'd rather come to god as a different version of who you are. And there is a part of me that's just as convinced, that kind of anger will always be inside of me, and it terrifies me. And it's like that scene in the Avengers where the other Avengers are asking Hulk, like, you know, what's your secret, Bruce Banner? Like, how do you how do you know how to, you know, control when you change into Hulk? And then he, like, turns and swings.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He's like, I'm always angry. You know? I'm like, that's me. Calm, but like always subtly humming, like ready to go at any moment. Alright?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so what what needs to happen is you need to wrestle with that question. What are you afraid of to look at in the presence of God? And you need to consider how going before him is a way to undress the fig leaves and allow God to ask you, who told you you were naked? Why did you put those things on? Because the great things about fig leaves is that they are effective, but they are not eternal.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:As soon as you cut a leaf, it already starts to die, which means you will constantly cut leaves the rest of your life until you find what you think will actually cover you up. The beauty of knowing God in Christ is allowing him to love the parts of you that you are terrified to look at in yourself, and the reason why we do this, lastly, is because who I am in Christ is infinitely greater than who I can pretend to be. Amen. Who you are in Jesus will always far exceed any version of yourself that you wanna offer to other people. That false self is nothing compared to who you truly are in Jesus, And who you are in him, it needs to blossom, it needs to grow.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And you you gotta get to a place where as you undress from the fig leaves, you hear these words from Colossians 3, Therefore as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved As an angry person, I'm chosen, holy and dearly loved. As a broken person, as a frustrated person, as a foolish person, you are chosen, holy and dearly loved. Chosen meaning before you had an idea about wanting God, God wanted you already. Holy meaning that he saw your name and he has set you apart for something. Holy has to do with calling, not just avoiding stuff, but stepping into stuff, into what you're actually called into.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Holy has to do with your destiny and your calling and then dearly loved, meaning you you and I will spend the rest of eternity trying to come up with words to describe the ways that God loves us. We can't exhaust the love of God, and so that's the beautiful journey of learning that you are loved in the places of your secrets, you're loved in the places of your shame and your fear, and and to become a genuine human being means that you are going to get, like, going to have to get back to the simple truth that your life is immersed in the love of God. A true human being is someone who swims, basks in, and breathes in the love of God every day of their life, and learns to live from that place. The Bible, I'll make it short, it's 1 long story about people getting vulnerable before God and being transformed as wrath. That's what it's all about.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's just simply what it's about, messed up people getting vulnerable before God in a way that transforms a sense of who they are, discovering that they are loved without limit or condition, love that they can never earn or lose, and and here's the thing, you might have a great career, you might have incredible ambitions and dreams for your life. That's fantastic. I'm not saying to cut those things out, but what I'm saying is if you lose them, you don't die. Like, you still remain yourself. Right, because you're grounded in the love that God has for you, and so you're freed from having to always feel successful, you've made all the right decisions, all the right people like you, right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like, you don't have to worry about those things. Paul wrote the letter to Colossians in jail, in prison, rooted in a cell but rooted in Jesus at the same time. You know what that tells me is that you can be physically locked up but spiritually set free. In the same way that some of us can be spiritually in bondage, but thinking we're physically free. That's right.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Paul lived it in reverse. Right? And and not only that, but you and I, we start to get free when it comes to the way we relate to people. Though this is the beautiful part, this is why knowing who you are actually is a love, a loving act towards neighbors because Paul gives us this list, neither Jew nor Gentile. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Meaning, when you live from the false self or the old self, you always have to use things to measure up against other people. I'm a Jew, you're a Gentile, but but when you are in Jesus, those go away. He deals with the issue of ethnicity and race. Circumcised, uncircumcised, he gets into religion. It doesn't matter if you're circumcised or uncircumcised.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Barbarian Scythian. Like, a Scythian for me, modern day, is like a Celtics fan. Right? It's a worse kind of person. Like, who are you?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why? Why do you like the people in green? Right? But in that day, a Scythian was the worst kind of way you can describe someone. So so think of the person you can't stand.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? Now, I can stand Celtics fans, barely, but even Paul is saying, when you're in your new self, it doesn't matter, barbarian, Scythian, slave free. The socioeconomic standards that the world operates by are now trashed. Why? Because Christ is all and in all, meaning as n t Wright says, if Christ is all, that means when you see a human being, you see the image of Jesus in them, and you love and respect them, even if they don't even know him, even if they don't love and respect you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You honor that person because of the image of the creator that they were made in. It's a transforming way, like, you you you and I cannot relate to God and not have it impact and change the way we start to relate to people. That this journey of leaving the false self, putting on the image of Jesus has everything to do with who we become to the world and how we live our lives. But what's astounding to me is that it's it's not a lot of commands, right? When you read through Colossians, there are as many statements about who you are as there are commands, which means you can't do anything as a Christian until you understand yourself as a Christian.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so if you spend a lot of your time reading scripture trying to find out what to do next, you're gonna waste a lot of time. Read Colossians and and just focus on all the places that Paul says this is who you are because it's out of that kind of transformation that flows a love and a change that makes you radically different so that false stealth begins to melt away. And so as we close, I I want us to go into just a moment of silent prayer, and we're gonna ask that God would help us finish this sentence. It's there in your notes, but it's this. And so as we're in silence, just just take a moment, ask the holy spirit to help you to finish this sentence, and it's this.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The false self that I need to confess is that I am what? What is that version of you that is in your best efforts, covered in fig leaves, rummaging through the pile, hoping that you can find something to prove to the world that you're worthwhile? Whatever that is, confess that to God in prayer. Let's do that together now. Heavenly father, you chose us, you set us apart, and you love us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And Jesus, you are the fullest demonstration of that, in your life for us, in your death for us, and in you conquering that very death so that we might come to life too. And so would you help us here at Sandals Church over the next several weeks to be freed from the false self, the old self, so that we might live into the new and discover all the beauty, the freedom, and the love that you have for us. Do that now we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.