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This podcast is for the messages from the Highland Student Ministry at Highland Baptist Church in Waco, TX. HSM strives to be a place where students in grades 6-12 embrace a Kingdom Culture by following Jesus, experiencing true fellowship, and advancing His Kingdom. Learn more about Highland Student Ministry at Hbcwaco.org/students.
You guys are gonna go ahead and open your bibles to the chap sorry, the book of Colossians. Colossians chapter three. That's in the New Testament. So, like, three quarters away through the bible. Awesome.
Katie:Again, if I haven't met you before, my name is Katie, and I am on staff with HSM as a student assistant. So I'm really glad that each and every one of you are here. I love the greetings, but I would love even more if you guys respected whoever's on the mic. So right now, that's me. And somebody else is about to be on the mic because tonight, like I just mentioned, we're gonna be in Colossians three, and we're in a series called taming the tongue.
Katie:And tonight, we're gonna talk about the difference in lying and truth telling. But as we've started midweek this semester, we've had students come and share gospels not gospels. There's only one gospel. The gospel testimonies in scripture verses with us. So I'm gonna invite my friend Shepherd up, and he's gonna read our passage for tonight.
Shepherd:Colossians three verses nine through 10. Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices, and you have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge and the image of the its creator.
Katie:Great work. Let's go, Shepherd. Sweet. Thank you, Shepherd. Thank you, Shepherd.
Katie:As he just read, we are talking about the lying and truth telling and how this is gonna attach to our old and our new self in Christ. And that's a lot of words I'm throwing at you and probably not a lot of definitions, and so we should probably define what we're gonna talk about. And so on the screen behind me, and this is an encouragement for you guys to bring a notebook, a journal if you have one, and use a pen, so you can annotate in your bible. That means take notes in your bible if I used a big word for you. Sorry.
Katie:Or in your journal as we go. So thing number one we're gonna define is the word lie. I think it can be simple that a lot of us might know what that means, but lying in the definition I came up with and put on the screen is hiding, twisting, or denying truth. Plainly put, that is lying. It's not only these big and blatant lies.
Katie:Sometimes it can look simply like stretching the truth, hiding parts of the story, or even putting on a false version of ourselves. That is what lying can be defined as. So if we know what lying is, the opposite of that is gonna be truth telling or the truth, and truth is reality as God defines it. So lies ultimately are gonna reject God's reality because they are the opposite of truth. Truth is going to align with God's character, and telling the truth is, yes, about honesty.
Katie:Yes. It's honesty, but it is living in God's character in align with who he is. So Paul, say Paul, he wrote Colossians. He's a pretty cool dude. He wrote a lot of the New Testament.
Katie:And so when he's talking about, not lying and wearing this new self, this idea is all throughout scripture that we can see it. And it's not just talking about, hey, like, be a good person because you know God. That's not what this is saying. It's talking about being Christ like, walking in the image that God has created us. And when you have called upon Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior savior, each and every one of you are new creations in Christ.
Katie:So if that is ever a decision you've made in your life, like, this applies to you. And so the old self, that's what we're gonna talk about first. We we define lying. We define truth telling. So now we're gonna talk about how that attaches to these words that Paul says with old and new self.
Katie:So it says, do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices. Again, the old self is gonna be who we are before Christ, and our old self is most often shaped by lies, we just defined, but also fear and pride and hiding. These are all things that can define us when we are living in a way that is not honoring to Christ or we haven't even met Jesus Christ yet. And so if that answers the what, what is lying, that's what defines it. It's what I all all the things I just said and it is defined by being in the old self.
Katie:And so if that answers the question of what, I wanna look at the question of why. Why do we lie? I honestly had to wrestle with this question for a while because I was like, I don't know why I lie. Probably, can make up an answer. But statistics show that a lot of people I didn't put the percentages because numbers kinda stress me out.
Katie:Why do we lie? The reasons that I came up with and saw just research studies is that a lot of people are gonna lie to protect their reputation. And so that would be like, if they knew the real me, those people would reject me, so I'm gonna lie instead. Or if they knew this sin that I struggled with, they wouldn't accept me or love me. So they do it to protect their reputation, protect what they're viewed as.
Katie:I know this one is real in my life. I lie to avoid consequences, especially when I was living at home with my parents. I would do that all the time. If I just cover this up, I'll be okay. If I just hide this under my bed, my parents won't know.
Katie:I'll be fine. I won't get in trouble. Or even to gain approval, if I stretch this truth, if I twist this story, if I don't act like myself, then this person will like me. I'll make this basketball team. Like, whatever that might be for you, those are just three examples.
Katie:Three examples that are so shown in research to be true of a lot of people in The US, but also could be true of you. And so when we think that these lies are gonna protect us, our reputation, our consequences, whatever they might be, they actually hurt us. And it's also not just hurting us as an individual or the people around us. It's gonna damage the community we've already built. So it will break trust, it can create fear, and it can create distance in our community.
Katie:And I know that if lying hurts me, it hurts my parents, it's gonna hurt my friends, and that just has a ripple effect onward. And the why of lying not only comes from all these, like, reasons, but also because we can recognize that if we have a lord and savior in Jesus Christ, we also have an enemy. And in the book of John, the bible says that Satan is the father of lies. Like, is our enemy and he is the father of lies. That means he's basically in charge of lying.
Katie:And so when we are lying, we're ultimately reflecting that character, and that's not good news. But there is good news for us. We're gonna look at another passage. You're gonna flip a couple pages back into the book of Ephesians. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, not too far behind you.
Katie:We're gonna be in Ephesians two. We're we'll be here the most of the rest of what I'm talking about. And when I said, like, underlining in your bible, this is where you're gonna do this. If it's your personal bible, you can write in it. Maybe not a Highland bible.
Katie:Anyways, there's there's a lot of verses behind me, and there's things underlined. So I'm gonna read the verses, and I want you guys to underline what's on the screen, and then I'm gonna talk about them. This passage, I actually have, like it's in my bible at all times because when I, like when it falls out or when I look at it, it reminds me that these things these things in the old self, they're not true of me anymore or they shouldn't be true of me anymore. And if they are, I can pray and ask God to change them. So Ephesians two verses one through three says, you were dead.
Katie:You, that means you personally, me, Katie, was dead in my sin in which I once walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. So before Christ, they're underlined behind me. Before Christ, we were what? We were dead in sin.
Katie:When we were dead in sin, that means spiritually, we were stuck and we are unable to help ourselves because of that sin. It also says that we were sons of disobedience. That just means people who naturally choose or have chosen to disobey God. Following the enemy. I just said that a second ago.
Katie:We were living or we are living the way that Satan wants us to instead of how God wants us to. Living for passions. What that means is that we're kinda doing what our feelings or maybe what people around us are telling us to do even if it's wrong. We're following other the passions of the world. Children of wrath, that's a big word, but it means that we're deserving of punishment because of our sin.
Katie:Children of wrath, by nature, that means we are deserving of punishment because of our sin. So lying again, it's gonna belong to the old way of life. It belongs to sin. It is disobedient, and lies are ultimately passions from the enemy that it says in that verse. So if that's the reality of the new self that it belongs to the enemy, not to Christ, we didn't have to stay stuck in the lies.
Katie:He gave us a new self. That was already in the verse in Colossians and it's gonna come up again as we continue to read in Ephesians. The old self, it's not true of us anymore or it shouldn't be true of us. We shouldn't act that way anymore in Christ. At the that second part of Colossians, you don't have to turn there.
Katie:It says that you have put on a new self which is renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. So if we've defined what the old self is, we've already talked about what that might look like. The new self is simply our new identity in Christ. I thought this was really interesting as I was reading, different, like, commentaries and passages that go along with this idea of, like, being a new self, it is that scripture in this portion or sorry. In this time period when it was written, it was actually referring to, like, clothing.
Katie:And so imagine with me for a second that you had a jacket from when you're, like, three years old. I'm in sixteenth grade. I'm 21. Imagine if I tried to put on that jacket I had from when I was, like, three years old. Do we think it would fit me?
Katie:No. Somebody said yes, and that's kind, I guess. Nice. Anyways, that jacket is probably, like, so old, so beaten down, probably has holes in it, and let alone just doesn't fit me anymore. So just like we would not wear our old clothes because they're small, they're beaten down, they don't fit, whatever reason we might not wear those old clothes for, we just shouldn't wear them.
Katie:And the same is true when we're in Christ. Is that old self for us, it's not gonna fit. We would not wear our old clothes, and so we would shouldn't wear our old self or partake in the actions of how we were before Christ. And Christ's grace to us on the cross is that we are new and that he has taken the old self and we are now clothed in his character and the new self is now his character. So if we know that lying is reflected of the old character, it's reflective of Satan, then that means that truth telling is also going to be reflected of God's character.
Katie:They're all gonna be contrasting statements. I sound like an English teacher. My mom's an English teacher. Maybe that's where I got it from. So what is God's character?
Katie:These words that I'm about to say, they're not just like Katie decided to write these words down and, like, this is what Katie thinks about God. I know this is true about God because God has told me it in his word. That's how I know these things to be true about god. So what is god's character? These are just a couple of the words.
Katie:God's character is that he is faithful, that god is trustworthy, that he is authentic, that he is graceful, he's kind, and he's just. I could go on and on and on in this list because scripture is all about God. Genesis to Revelation is about God. And you might ask yourself again, like, what is God's like? You said all these words and I don't believe them, or what else is he like?
Katie:If you wanna know God's character, you invest in your relationship with God. You read the bible, you read his word because his word reveals exactly who it is and that person is God. And so we went when we invest into our time with God, when we invest into prayer, that is how we answer the question of what's God's character like. He reveals himself to us through his word. Some other words to describe God are gonna be in the rest of the Ephesians passage, so you should still be there in Ephesians two.
Katie:Told you we're coming back to it. We're now gonna go verses four through 10. And again, there's gonna be words underlined that are gonna be descriptive of God's character and what we as new creations can look like in Christ. K. Got a lot to read.
Katie:We got this. Ephesians two starting in verse four, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith.
Katie:This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. It is not a result of works so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. That was a lot of words, but we're gonna break it down.
Katie:The first thing it says is that we are alive in Christ. We are alive in Christ. That means that god has given us a new life through Jesus. Pretty simply put. Simple but kinda crazy.
Katie:It also says that we are raised with him. Just like Jesus rose from the dead, we get a fresh start in new life with him. When somebody's baptized at Highland, the video that they show every single time is that they are alive in Christ. That's like the whole name of the video. If you see the shirts they wear, it says that they're alive.
Katie:Like, it is reflected of Jesus Christ that he died and he was buried and he rose again. That is what it means to be raised with him. It says that we are saved by grace. That means that God has rescued us from our sins as a free gift, that it's not what we do to earn that. It is a free gift from God that we have been saved from our old self, that we have been saved from sin.
Katie:God's workmanship, that means that we are God's masterpiece, that he created us, that we are carefully designed by him for a purpose, and we are also created for good works. That means that we are to live in a way that shows his love in our actions, in the way we serve, in the way we steward our time. That's what being created for good works means. And I wanna clarify for a second that the new self isn't just like, oh, I'm this new person. I have to try a lot harder now or I have to try to tell the truth.
Katie:Like, that's not really what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say that we can tell the truth because it's reflected of God's character. And when we say yes to God, his spirit dwells in us, and we are now his creation. And so we can be authentic, truth telling people because of our identity in Christ. And so we can reflect who he is because we are made in his image.
Katie:And telling the truth is yes about words. I don't wanna dismiss the fact that it's not. It is about words, but it's ultimately about being authentic. And being authentic means that we are the same person in front of others when we are as we are when no one is watching. It's very similar to the word that we like to say is integrity.
Katie:Integrity, being authentic, very, very similar that you are the same person in front of others as you are when no one is looking. But guess what? Wow. That really got your attention. We don't always get this right.
Katie:That's the truth is that we still mess up. Me, Nathan, Caleb, we all still mess up. We lie sometimes. We twist stories to fit in. Even people who have been seasoned and have walked years with Christ, it is still truth about us because we are still sinners.
Katie:So what do we do? I have two words for us. The first one is conviction. Say conviction. Good work.
Katie:Then repentance. Say repentance. Two big words, but again, we got lots of definitions today. Today. Conviction is that nudge or maybe that feeling when when hello.
Katie:That nudge or feeling in your heart when God shows you something is wrong. That is the simplest way I could describe it. It's the feeling in your heart when god shows you that something is wrong. And then repentance is turning away from lies or turning away from sin and turning back to Jesus. So if you were to take conviction, so if you're take the feeling and then not turn back to Jesus, that's basically saying that, like, you feel bad, your room's messy, but then you don't clean it.
Katie:Like, you just kinda sit there and do nothing about it. That's what that would be an example of. But conviction with, so that feeling, and then I'm like, okay. I'm aware something's wrong. I wanna turn back to Jesus now.
Katie:That is where we admit what is wrong, and we admit that we have sinned or we have lied, and we ask God for con for forgiveness, and he is the one that changes us. So conviction without conviction without repentance, so feeling something but not doing anything about it, that is where guilt just simmers and simmers and simmers because nothing's actually changing. Conviction with, so that feeling, and then you turn to Jesus, that is what leads us into freedom, is when we turn back to Jesus after God has corrected our hearts that we know something is wrong. Here's the question though, is what do we do with the conviction? Do we just carry that weight around or are we actually gonna repent?
Katie:Are we actually gonna turn back to Jesus? I have a little diagram. Let me let me grab my old backpack for a second. I should have done this earlier. I'm sorry.
Katie:This is my old backpack. Y'all wanna guess what's in there? Yeah. I got some rocks, but they're illustrative. That's a new word.
Katie:I'm here we go. This backpack is representative of our life and our hearts. It's okay. I got it. And there's some rocks in here.
Katie:So when I add let's say this is fear. I'm scared of what people will think of me. It goes added into the backpack. A different one, I wanna protect how people see me. This is me trying to lie about my reputation, gets added in.
Katie:I keep adding in things like approval. I want people to like me. If I lie, maybe I won't get in trouble. I'm running from consequences. Shame, if I hide this sin.
Katie:If I hide this thing, then I won't feel so guilty. Or even at, like, control. You're lying about control. You're trying to twist the truth so you can keep things how you want them. At first, if I only had one rock in here, like, that wouldn't be that heavy.
Katie:It doesn't feel that bad. But the more and more I add more rocks, the more and more we lie and we don't do anything about it, we just keep carrying it, it gets really heavy and it gets really full. Does somebody wanna hold this? Like, Shepherd, come here. Would you rate that as heavy?
Katie:No. The answer was yes. Can you say yes?
Shepherd:What she said.
Katie:Yes. It's heavy. Okay. You can set it down. I have, like, 15 rocks in here.
Katie:You can hold my backpack later. You can sit down. Sorry. Okay. Stay with me.
Katie:I'm almost done. I'm almost done. You can all come and hold my backpack of rocks later. How thrilling. But the rocks are representative.
Katie:Stay with me. Stay with me. The rocks are representative of what happens when we lie or we continue to sin and we know that something's wrong. We can feel the weight as if there were so many backpacks or hello. So many rocks in my backpack.
Katie:The weight gets added and added and added, and we just keep carrying it even though we know that if we took these rocks, if we took these lies, if we took these guilty feelings and give it took them out and we gave them to God, that the weight would go away. I still hear voices. Stay with me. So repenting would be as if I took these rocks out, that I gave them back to where they came from, that I gave them straight to god so that he would put them in the right place. He would correct my lies with truth, that he would help me collect the lies I believe with truth.
Katie:And so the weight can come off when we give it to God. When we repent to God, the weight comes off. We can actually breathe again. We can walk lighter. We can walk in freedom.
Katie:And Jesus has already carried this full weight for us of our sin on the cross. That's exactly what the cross is about is that Jesus has carried the weight of our sin already. And so we don't have to do that. We don't have to carry the weight of it because conviction without repentance will leave us in the guilt, but conviction with repentance will set us free. And so, yes, we're talking about lying and truth telling, but more so I'm talking about sin in Christ.
Katie:Because before Christ, we were dead in lies. We were dead in sin. But after Christ, we are alive in truth, and we are alive to walk in the truth of what God has called us and said who we are in him. And so we don't have to grit our teeth and just be like, I'm never gonna lie again because that's just trying to modify or change our behaviors. But what actually happens is that Christ will transform us.
Katie:He is the truth. It says that in scripture that Christ is the truth, and his spirit will renew us from the inside out. It's about God. It's not about me just trying to change my behavior and never lie again. It's all about God.
Katie:Say bottom line. Bottom line. Bottom line. Great work. Is that lies belong to the old you.
Katie:The bottom line is that lies belong to the old youth you. Truth belongs to the new you in Christ. I want all eyes on me. All eyes on me. You do not need to fake, hide, or perform because the truth keep saying truth, but the truth about God and what he has said about you is that you are already loved, that you are already forgiven, and you are already made new in him when you say yes.
Katie:And so we can walk in that truth because you belong to him. You don't belong to the old way. You don't belong to lies. You don't belong to sin. You belong to Christ.
Katie:I'm gonna pray for us, and we're gonna head to small groups. So bow your heads with me. Father, we thank you that your word is true, it is right, and it is trustworthy. Lord, we thank you that you are the truth, Lord, that you have forgiven us, that you have clothed us in new clothes, Lord, that we don't have to walk in our old ways, that we don't have to be stuck in sin, but you have set us free and called us to walk in those new ways. So, God, I pray tonight in small groups that we would be honest, that we would be vulnerable with one another, that we would honor and respect our leaders in their time, Lord, and that our conversations would just be glorifying and honoring to you, Lord.
Katie:Remind us of the truth of Christ, God, of what your cross did for us, Lord, that you have already taken the penalty for our sins, and we get to walk in your love and who you have called us to be. So be with us and go before us and be praised because of that. In Jesus' name, we all say, amen.