Teaching podcast from the Eagle Community Church of Christ in Mont Belvieu, TX.
Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Eagle Community Church of Christ podcast. My name is John Gunter. I'm the preaching minister here at our church. And this week, you are listening to, part 6 of our series called Fix Your Focus and this is really a series challenging us to, fix our eyes back on Jesus and how he would have us live, and to really eliminate those other ways that culture may tell us to live, but to really examine our our actions and how we talk, what we do, examine all that through the lens of scripture and through Jesus.
John:So, again, thanks for listening. We hope you you come visit us sometime. And if we can ever do anything, let us know. Have a great week. Good morning again.
John:We continue with our series that we have called, Fix Your Focus. You probably can't even see it, but it says right here a series on Colossians 3. So that is why we have spent time, every week talking about Psalm in Colossians 3, one of my favorite chapters in Scripture. But we begin there, again this morning, in the first four verses, Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things, for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
John:When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. And so, we begin there each week because, again, as we've talked, that, when when Paul is writing this letter, Since you have been raised, he's talking to who? Christians. Church, right? He's talking to church folks.
John:And so, when I went to Mississippi, y'all may not have known I was preparing for my revival there through you guys. I called it Fix Your Focus Here. Over there, we called it Believe Faith with Consequences. The idea that we have a faith that makes us do something. That we have consequences with our faith.
John:And and the way I started off over there was, you know, can you imagine again, Paul is talking to church people and obviously he's talking to them about these things because why? They needed to hear it, right? They needed to understand this because they hadn't gotten it right. And so, with us, we we talk a lot about baptism but a lot of times, we're not really good with going past baptism like we get somebody dunked and we all celebrate and sing, and then we don't follow-up with that. We don't continue to disciple, like, make disciples.
John:Right? That's what that is. It's having this faith with consequences that grows you, continues to grow you into the person you're supposed to be before god. You understand? And so what I said was, can you imagine, you know, a relationship like a marriage, where you come together and, you know, you have some conversation, you decide to get married and you go through with the ceremony.
John:And right after the ceremony, you decide, we'll just go our separate ways and do our own thing. How good is that relationship going to be? Right? It's not going to be very good, and it's the same way with our Christian life. If all we do is come and have the ceremony, I want to be baptized, Jesus, I want to follow you, and then immediately say, okay.
John:Well, now I'll go live the rest of my life the way I want to live. You've missed it. You've missed the point. Because Scripture keeps saying over and over, there is something that happens after you have been raised with Christ. That we continue on in this growth, maturing towards, Scripture says perfection, what that means is completeness.
John:And often what we find in churches is, let me put my feet down and stop this growth stuff. Right? But I don't wanna grow anymore. I wanna I wanna stay right where I am. The scripture continually talks about continuing to grow.
John:We're gonna spend some time this morning, in Romans 12. So if you got your Bibles, if you're following along there, we're going to spend time in Romans 12 again, for most of the time. Paul there says, Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this, this church is your true and proper worship. Now if I had asked the question instead of reading the scripture, what is worship? I'm sure we would have gotten all kinds of answers, wouldn't we?
John:Right? And a lot of them would have been correct. But what Paul says, again, is offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do you see how that fits with what Paul said to the Colossians?
John:The church there, as he said, okay, your life is now hidden with Christ in God. What does that mean? I have given my life to him. That is not mine anymore. Do you understand that?
John:It's a lot easier to read that and say, Man, I understand it than to live it, isn't it? Because, Man, I've got some things I'd like to accomplish. How about you? And sometimes we go about life just thinking about those things, being driven to and fro by what I would like to accomplish, what I would like to do, often forgetting, again, my life is supposed to be hidden with Christ. And when you say fix your focus, fix your focus on Jesus.
John:What would Jesus have you do? How would Jesus have you live? Paul says, you offer your body as a living sacrifice that everything you do I need to say that again so you can tweet it out. Everything you do in your life serves, if you are living a sacrificial life, as true and proper worship to God, because in doing so, you are giving yourself to God. And that's something we need to be mindful of each and every day.
John:In verse 2, he says, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the what's that word, church? Let's say it one more time. What's the word? Renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good pleasing, and perfect will.
John:We don't I don't know that we think much of this. Again, I I I don't think we try to just be baptized and and quit, but often we may leave our brothers and sisters that have been baptized just kind of alone instead of helping disciple them. But what he's saying here, again, don't be conformed to the world, the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Again, he's talking to Christians. He says, brothers and sisters, I'm talking to Christians.
John:You need to understand that you need to be transformed. Continue to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is. So we can read into that. If you are not, you cannot. You get that?
John:If you are not being renewed, you cannot understand, you cannot test and approve what God's will is because you are conforming your life to the world. And so, instead of fixing our eyes, our focus on Jesus, we are running stuff through the lens of culture, or what I like, or what I think would work, when we should be focusing on Jesus Christ. One thing I want to point out, and we read this here a few weeks ago, as he says that then you will be able to test and approve, that sounds a lot like the Sermon on the Mount. Do you remember when we read that about judging and things like that? There in Matthew 7, we'll read 3 through 5 there.
John:He says, why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite. First, take the plank out of your own eye and then and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do you see how that works?
John:Right? This renewing, this paying attention to, okay, what's going on within me? And if you remember, if you were here, I held that board up beside my head and said, can you imagine? Jesus said this in a ridiculous way because it is ridiculous. He wants you to look and say, hey, we are doing this.
John:Church, we're doing this. You know that? Church is good at it. Church is good at at having a beam sticking out of our own head and trying to pick the sawdust out of our brother's sister's eye, right? And we know that.
John:Every church, since then, has been just like this. The question is not whether that's the case. The question is what are we gonna do about it? Are we gonna pay attention to scripture? Are we gonna be faithful to what Scripture is calling us to be, to be renewed people, to be people following Jesus Christ, to be conformed not to the world, not to earthly things, but to spiritual things?
John:Or are we just going to be okay with whatever? Ephesians 4 17-nineteen, hopefully you'll remember this, I'm doing these over and over so they stick in your mind. Remember this. So I tell you this, Paul saying to the church in Ephesus, so I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as as the Gentiles do. And again, talking to church people, why is he saying this?
John:Because some of them are. You think that's the case here? In our church and church worldwide? Absolutely. And again, the question is, what are you going to do about it?
John:You must no longer live as the Gentile do in the futility of their thinking. You pair this up with, again, the renewing of your mind. Right? Versus the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated.
John:Well, we ought to underline that, shouldn't we? Because if we're here, we need to know this. They're darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of god because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Anybody in here just enjoy being called ignorant? Like that comes to blows in the parking lot, doesn't it?
John:You get called ignorant. But what Paul is saying is here here is again, the ignorance is not you're just less than intelligent. The ignorance comes from what I have done is harden my heart. Now I read this and I think a lot of people don't understand when they have hardened their heart. I think a lot of people think I'm doing the right thing.
John:The scripture, do you remember when we went to the series and every week, Jordan or I held the mirror up at you and you got all cringey and kinda don't wanna be seeing that. But every time we come to scripture, that is an opportunity to do exactly that, to look in that mirror and say, is this me? If it is me, we don't wanna say, woe is me and think, well, God could never save me. I'm so bad. What we ought to do is say, god saved me.
John:Don't give Satan a foothold to make you feel less than, but we have every time we have the opportunity to come back to him. Remember, this is the story of the prodigal. Right? This is the story of the prodigal son, as the son leaves the father and really insults him every way he can, and the father doesn't chase after him, but he waits. And Jesus shows us the picture of God just waiting for us to return, right?
John:Waiting for us to return. So when you read this and you say, Yeah. If you got if you hadn't hardened your heart enough to where it can get in to this morning, ask yourself, okay, now what? The answer is, God saved me because He will, because He is faithful. So the ignorance is not, I'm not smart.
John:The ignorance is, I have chosen to harden my heart. I am darkened in my understanding because I have conformed not to Jesus Christ, but I have conformed to the world. I have conformed to the things that I like or I want or things that maybe, are more acceptable, but it isn't that I've conformed to the life of Jesus Christ that I have promised, that I have vowed through being raised with Him. Verse 19, it says, having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. And again, just like with the hardened hearts, I think when we read, having lost all sensitivity, that means we really don't see it as as important.
John:Right? So that's why I say, I think a lot of people operate in this way and don't ever understand that's where they are because they've lost all sensitivity. Everything has become okay. That I can live like this, that I can talk to other people like this, that I can I can talk about love, but I'm not gonna show love or I'm not gonna care for other people? I can talk about scripture and maybe I can quote a bunch of scripture but I'm certainly not going to live this way, right?
John:Because I've lost all sensitivity. It's no longer as important to me to live this way. And I gave the goofiest of, examples when we talked about this. Remember me talking about even driving fast. Right?
John:That even, you know, following the speed limit and, again, I know, as I've told you before, as soon as I got to Texas, interviewing over the church one time, they said, don't look at the speed limit. Go with the traffic or you will die. I said, okay. I believed them. They said it with all seriousness.
John:But those things that we start to give way in, over time, again, those little decisions, those small decisions that we think aren't leading us anywhere begins to erode that sensitivity towards that being wrong. And all of a sudden, we've done it enough that it no longer seems wrong. That it all seems okay. Again, it says, because of this, they've given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, It doesn't really leave anything out there, does it? Every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
John:What does greed mean? I'm out for myself. I want what I want. I'm gonna pursue what I want to pursue. I am out for me.
John:Right? The scripture tells us that greed is idolatry. Because what we have done in our greed is we have replaced Jesus on the throne with whatever it is we're pursuing. A lot of times, that's money or things we buy with our money. Right?
John:You cannot serve both God and money. There's a reason he said that. There's a reason that greed is mentioned basically more than any other thing. It's because it gets in our heart, doesn't it? I love my stuff.
John:We are in a blessed place, aren't we? We are we are blessed. We're in a place where it it is really hard to starve yourself to death, that we have things in place. We have people who, are giving, we have social organizations that will feed you. We are blessed.
John:Aren't we, church? But what we can do is forget about where all these blessings come from. We can become greedy and, again, replace Jesus with what it is we pursue. Back to Romans 12. I told you we were gonna spend some time there.
John:Verse 9, and this is this is on your bulletin this week. Love must be sincere. What's it mean to be sincere? You ever told somebody you loved them and you weren't sure that was the truth? Yeah.
John:Yeah. Uh-huh. That's when it's better to say okay than I love you back. I'll just tell you that right now. I love you.
John:Okay. Thank you. Uh-huh. We're talking about the church. We're talking about Jesus Christ and our relationship to Him and to our brothers and sisters.
John:Love must be sincere. And again, we have to read this with the understanding that Paul is writing because a lot of people's love is not sincere. That we say it, but how do we act? Right? We can say a lot of things to the church.
John:We those of you who've been church a long time, you know the right things to say, don't you? Ask a question in class and answer is either Jesus or Paul. Right? You got that down. What what are the the greatest commandments, church?
John:Love who? God, love each other. Right? Love your neighbor as yourself. Do we act like those are the greatest commandment?
John:Is that what's in your your mind is the greatest commandments that I love God and I love my neighbor as myself. Love must be sincere. Paul spends a lot of time on in that in first Corinthians 13. He says, you can do all kinds of things saying you have love, but if you don't actually have love, you're nothing. We need to take that to heart because what we say better match up with how we live.
John:Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. Now, if you have lost sensitivity to those things, you need a reset. You need a reset this morning and say, god, convict me of those things.
John:We just need to pray that kind of prayer anyway, don't we? God, convict me of those things that I have just said are okay and you're not okay with. Ways in my life that I have smoothed some things over and they aren't good, but I have called them good. That's what we need to do, is pray that prayer. But you need to hate what is evil.
John:Don't grasp it. Our culture will try to to make you grasp it, make you feel good about it. You get disrespected today, our culture will say, you get yours back. You get, you know, you get revenge. Well, if we run that through the focus of Jesus Christ, what does he say?
John:Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. And if you're unsure or unclear what either of those things are, we need a reset. We need to come back to Scripture and remind ourselves what all of this means. He says, be devoted to one another in love, honor one another above yourselves. Again, going back to verse 9, love must be what?
John:Sincere. That I really mean it. And we've got some, some weird things that we do in church. How many of you, if you really needed help today, would actually ask for it? Thank you, Karen.
John:Some of us would. Been there, done that. Yeah. You know where I'm going. A lot of times, even when we need help or need something, we don't tell anybody.
John:And I don't mind that, if that's your way. My mom is probably watching online. Mom, I love you. She's one of those people too. I don't want to bother.
John:You've been there before? Don't bother. I guess what the church is for. We're here to to help one another. Right?
John:But a lot of times, we we do things like, I don't wanna bother. I don't wanna do all that. But love is sincere. I tell people like, listen, I'm serious. I want to help you, but you gotta tell me what I can do.
John:I'm not just gonna show up at your house and start cleaning or mowing your yard or something, stepping all in your business. But you gotta tell me, what I can do. But I can do all of that, and if my love is not sincere, it is nothing. Right? And I need to be conformed to who Jesus is.
John:He said, be devoted to one another in love. If you're not sincere, you're certainly not gonna be devoted. And devoted comes with it, this understanding of, guess what? All times aren't gonna be perfect. It's easy to love someone that you just completely agree with, and you all get along, maybe you're going through the same season of life together.
John:It's easy to love people like that. You understand each other more. But to be devoted to somebody means there may be bumps in the road, isn't it? I mean, have you lived long enough to know that? Yeah.
John:Yeah. Be devoted to one another. Honor one another. Boy, I don't like this. Let's just go to the next verse.
John:Honor one another above yourselves. Do you really like that verse? It seems like an ideal that we can't attain. That's what it feels like sometimes. But to honor one another above yourselves.
John:And I care sincerely about you that I will move out of the way and I will do I will move my schedule around. I will move the stuff that may be important to me around to help you, to focus on you, to sincerely love or encourage or whatever with you. Because that is sincere love, that is sincere devotion in love, to honor one another above ourselves instead of, again, thinking, man, I'm pretty cool. Verse 11, Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. I need some extra zeal sometimes.
John:Sometimes I find it in a Coke 0. But I need some extra zeal. Never be lacking in zeal. Don't let off, right? That's what he's saying.
John:Don't ever let this fade because what happens when it fades? Again, it slowly fades away, doesn't it? As soon as I turn my attention off of this and what I should be doing, the way I should be living life, that kind of slowly fades away. He says, keeping your spiritual or keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord, be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. That's another one.
John:Put that on your wall right there. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. And oftentimes, I think is that as we start to slide away, it's these things that slide away first. That we've lost hope or we've become cynical. You know, something happens in our life, affliction of some sort, something's happened that didn't go right, and we get upset with it and then, we're no longer faithful in prayer and that leads to a life that just slowly drifts away.
John:Or storms out the back door, one of the 2. We have to keep that spiritual fervor, keep that zeal to keep going, keep going through all of this. Share with the lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Listen.
John:It takes a sincere love to do these kinds of things, doesn't it? Again, it's easy to practice hospitality with some people and some people, not as easy. I have, of course, I have moved around. I've lived in different places going to school or moving for work or whatever, and I got to experience several congregations. I will just tell you, that I have met some of the most faithful, loving, encouraging, zealous people in the church.
John:I have also met some of the most negative, just angry, don't wanna talk to them, certainly don't wanna have them at my house. Right? Find fault in everything people in the church. And that's exactly why Paul is writing letters. If everything everything would have been going smoothly everywhere, they might have gotten a letter and said, hey, how's it going?
John:I just want to come by sometime and see you. But he's got plenty of time to spend on all of this because it wasn't going right. We understand that, and we need to be looking at the mirror saying, is it going right here, and what do we need to change, or do we? Share with the Lord's people who are in the practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you.
John:Bless and do not curse. Can we vote on this to take some of these things out this morning? Can we take some of this out of scripture? I don't like it. Do you?
John:Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Now, one of those things maybe more natural than the other, But all is very clear. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse.
John:Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn. And I'll tell you this right here, 14 and 15, you can only do if you're conforming your life. Your life is hidden in Christ. Right?
John:That's the only way you can do this. You can try to fake it, but the only way this is real in your life is if your life is hidden in Jesus Christ. That's all I can say about that. He says, live in harmony with with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.
John:Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. I love that verse. I've told you several times before that I used to say I could get along with anyone, and then I worked with a lady who made me say I can get along with anyone who wants to be gotten along with.
John:And y'all y'all probably know some of those people like that, don't you? They don't wanna be gotten along with. But Paul encourages us to have the sincere love to honor people above ourselves, to care about them and their lives and he says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on them and whether they've acted right is that right what it says? As long as far as it depends on whether they apologize to you. Is that what it says?
John:No. Oh, I wish it did. As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Now just like people that are mad all the time, sometimes our our churches do this very well, and sometimes we just seem like we can't get enough drama. You lived in church like that?
John:A lot of people have left church because that's the way their church treated them. A church is supposed to be a safe place, a place where you can, again, love and care for people, but what they experience oftentimes is anything other than peace. What they find is, again, that we really like that being conformed to the world stuff. We really like the negative. We really like the drama.
John:We really like all the other, instead of the whole living at peace thing. And, again, that's the reason why, news is able to catch our eyes. The negative sells, doesn't it? Negative has the ability to invoke emotion in you, to get you angry, to feel like I need to do something. If the news just sat and showed good things all day, I don't think they would get the viewership, do you?
John:No. Because we want you scared. We want you angry at each other. We want you fired up so you will come back. Live at peace with everyone as far as long as it and as far as it depends on who?
John:Me. I like that. Thank you. And if we'll do that, that's conforming to Jesus, isn't it? That's throwing out what I want or really what I'd prefer the scripture to say, something like that.
John:And that is saying, my life is hidden in Christ. That's what I signed up for when I put him on in baptism. You understand that? Since you have been raised, you lived this way, that your faith needs consequences. It needs to have consequences.
John:Because if you are living a life of faith, and you have no consequences with that faith, that faith does nothing in your life, doesn't change the way you act, talk, any of these things, the way you love, sincerely or not? James will tell you, your faith is dead. And we need to hear it. We need to be as blunt about that as we can be. So this morning, I'm gonna finish, just the way we have the last few times.
John:Would you stand with me as we read from Hebrews 12:12? Read with me, please. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Fix your eyes on Jesus' church.
John:We've got an invitation song, picked out. We'd love to see you, again, have that reset this morning. We'd love to pray with you about that. We'd love to see you put on Christ in baptism. Begin that walk with him, but if you have any need, you come as we stand and as we sing.