United to Christ (Part 1)
Now we're continuing in Colossians 3. So we'll just read through it again just to jog our memories from verse 5 to verse 11. So Paul says this, put to death, therefore what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath. malice, slander, 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 in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave free, but Christ is all and in all. Now let us begin in prayer. Father, you are the one we need in this very moment. Father, where we do not have desires at this moment to seek Your Word, we pray that You may grant them to us. Incline our heart to You now. Stir up our hearts, Lord, that we would receive Your Word, be transformed by it through the power of Your Spirit, Lord. We completely depend. In Jesus' name, Amen. All right, so this was part two of what we did last week. So we're talking last week, we talked about that, how would you call it? That pattern or that structure in Scripture where you have, God has done this, now therefore go and do this. But we had a kind of different spin on it, it was you are this, this is who you are now, go and live like it. See, it was the similar construction from Romans 6, where he told them, you're dead to sin, right? You're not the same person anymore, you're now alive in Christ. And so he says, therefore, consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. And we talked about the fact, Why would you need to consider yourself something that you already are? What's the point in that? Because we know that there are lies that we believe in, but yet there is someone out there continuing to tell us lies, trying to deceive us, and who is that? Does anyone want to answer? Satan, the devil, right? He is the one constantly seeking to deceive us and pull us away from our true identity. And so you see, last week we talked about who we really are, that we are united to Christ. that we are one with Him. So you see, our destiny is His destiny. When He died, we died. When He rose, we rose a new person with heavenly desires. And as He will be glorified, as He will be in heaven, so will we. Not because we did enough, not because we're amazing people, but because we believe in Him. And so now Paul transitions from this. He goes, so we are united in Christ. Now, now... go live like it. And it gives us some explanation, some more elaboration on what it looks to live like someone who is united to Christ. And so we see, we are basically living out this truth. 2 Corinthians 5 17. He says, anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, the new has come. And now this is the tension in which we live. The old has passed away, the new, I'm a new person for all those who believe in Christ, truthfully, who have received the Holy Spirit, they're a new person with new desires. And so now Paul teaches us how do we live in that truth. Now, first thing, we're going to come to our first point, which is called the image of God, the first part. And the important thing, that distinction I talked about last week, where it's now, God has done this, now go do this. It's not a strict pattern because Paul is still elaborating on the truths from the first four verses in the rest of this. And we're going to tackle the most important part that he elaborates on in verse 10 here. So, if read from Colossians 3.10, and he says, and having put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. And now the part we want to focus on here that he's elaborating on, because he says he's talking about this new self here and he says that's being renewed in knowledge. So you're constantly being renewed in what? The knowledge of the image of our creator. So, for starters, who's our creator? Shouldn't take too long to get to that. God, Jesus. and we are being made to look like Him, right? That's what an image is, you're made to look like that thing. So we are being made to look like Jesus. Now, there's another place in Scripture where if you think we're being made into the image of our Creator, what's another passage in Scripture, another section that maybe brings to mind? Anyone? Come on, surely. Image were being made in the image of God. Genesis, exactly. Genesis 1, that's where we read it from. Verse 27, so God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created the male and female. So you see, Adam and Eve were made in the image of God. So when you saw them before Genesis 3, they perfectly reflected God. You could look at them and you see, I am receiving a perfect revelation of who God is. In their actions, they demonstrate who He is. And there is nothing in their actions that demonstrates otherwise, until Genesis 3. But what do you think is the real point that we start to see? Where is our problem start to come out? Because all of us are made in the image of God as well. But I think we all know there's a problem, that we don't perfectly reflect who God is. So where does the real problem come in? It's not actually Genesis 3 where Adam and Eve sin, where they eat of the fruit and fall, it's actually what they do afterwards. And Genesis 5, we'll read from the verse, three verses, he says, God created man. He made him in the likeness of God. So that's Adam there. Male and female, he created them. He blessed them and named them man when they were created. And so he says, then when Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. And so you see. He made a son in his own image. Now, if Adam were a perfect child of God, what would his son look like? A perfect child of God. Was Adam, at this point, when he gave birth to his son, a perfect child of God? No, he was anything but that. He was now a sinner. And so instead of creating children of God, what does he create? He creates children of sin, sinners. And so this is where you get the old adage, like father, like son, right? Adam used to reflect that with his godly father, but then he estranged himself and now because of that, all of his children live with that same estrangement from their heavenly father. So you see, we rebel against God, not just because we choose to, but also because it's who we are. We are united to our father. We always image our father, our Adam. so this creates our problem. So you see, we read, now we go to the New Testament equivalent, 1 Corinthians 15, 47 to 49, where he says, the first man was from the earth, that's Adam, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven, Jesus. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust. So see, we are like those, so the man who was of the dust, who rebelled against God, those who are of the dust, that's us, are like him, those who were born from him. But he says, as So also, say, as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. So you see, it says, we have borne the image of the man of dust, of Adam. So we're made, we look like him in his rebellion. But he says, we are born, that's past tense, it's fading away, it will die. And then it says, we will bear the image of the man of heaven. We will look like Jesus one day, but it's... future tense. And so, in the middle is what Paul is talking about at this very moment. We are dying to that old part of us, to that old part that used to rebel against God and we're being made and to the true us, which is one that is fully obedient to God and that loves Him for all He is. And so, you see, this is a reality, right? Imagine two tables, right? And the head of the family sits at those two tables. One family, Adam sits at the head, right? and all his children sit on them and he looks at each and every one of their faces. ah They look just like me, just like me in every way. He's such a proud father. And they're sitting around a feast and the food kind of looks good on the outside but as soon as you poke into the pumpkin, it's just rotten. It's just falling apart. It's disgusting. The food kind of looks appetizing from a distance but the truth is that everything Adam lays out only looks good on the surface but underneath it is all rotten, all falling apart. And yet there's another table. with Jesus at the head of it. And all those who come are not his biological children, but those children that have come to him in faith. All those who did receive him, he gave the right to be called children of God. So you see, as we receive him, as we accept him in faith, we join that table. We look like Jesus now, we reflect the one who sits at the head of the table. And the food is actually good, not... rotten on the inside. It doesn't have an appeal of goodness, but it actually is. And so you see, the old image was tarnished after sin. We look like Adam, but now as we join this new table, as we accept Christ into our lives, this was the mission for which Jesus came. He came to restore the image of God so that all of us who, you know, it's like those, you know, you always see the carriages going past on the the trains. I know they've kind of just accepted that they're going to be graffiti now because that's just life and they can't be bothered cleaning them. But that is what we are like. Not that you're a coal carriage, but you are simply covered in graffiti. We are covered up. You can't see the true thing underneath, but slowly that is being restored. And that is what we are being restored and we will become a perfect reflection of Christ. And so now Paul goes on from there. And he explains what this looks like in detail as we deal with this. Imagine you've got a coal carriage and you're scrubbing it off. How do we do that to our own lives, to this image within us? So first verse, verse five, put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. So he's saying put it to death. Now, for starters, first thing. I know we're kind of used to reading scripture, but we need to understand that these are harsh statements. Have any of you ever killed someone? No? Okay, that's good. Good start. Have any of you ever killed a cow or a pig or any kind of animal? Surely some of you have? Yeah, right? Yeah. Would you say it's a particularly enjoyable thing to do? Maybe some of you are a bit, I don't know, into that kind of thing, but for most of us, yes, okay, we do it and it's a matter of life that we have to. you probably don't look forward to it. It's messy, it's ugly, it's not a particularly nice ordeal. And particularly when you think about actually killing a person, there's nothing nice about that. You need to be to the uptenth level of psycho to be okay with that. And so you see, when Paul is calling us to put to death the old self, this is not an easy thing. This is a very harsh, very visceral statement that we're dealing with. But you see, he's calling us to something that is necessary. We have the old us and the new us, and we talked about last week, these two are opposed to each other. They can't coexist. And so you see, we must choose one or the other. And Paul is trying to set us to give life to the right thing. You see, either we're sitting, right, we talked about us, we're setting our mind on the things that are above. Because if we do, we put to death the things that are here on earth. If we set our mind on the things that are on earth here, we give life to them. But we talked about the foolishness of that, because the old us is passing away. You've sprung right up, round up on a plant, there's no point in trying to care for it anymore. It's going to die. That is foolishness. And so, Paul is setting our mind on the right thing. He's saying, are programmed to hate God from birth, but now you've been made new. You have new desires and so you were to give life to them by focusing on them. And so, he's saying, what do I want you to do with the old self? I want you to do the opposite thing, rather than give life, put it to death. And so, what you have here is actually the only time, I think, in the Christian life, where we can actually have righteous anger. Yes, we can have righteous anger about some things, but it very quickly turns unrighteous. The one person you can always have righteous anger against is Satan. End your sinful flesh. Now, you might think, but aren't we meant to show grace? Aren't we meant to be nice to everyone? Maybe we should even be gracious to Satan. I'm sorry, but he's completely opposed to God and everything. To give him any inch in your life is to give him a mile. He will take it. We must hate him. That is the only logical thing we can do. And so then you come down now to this list that he gives us, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetous. Now these aren't siloed sins. They're not individual kind of things that we have to deal with. They're of different ways of looking at roughly the same sin. The first three you look at, impurity, sexual morality, passion, they're kind of different ways of looking at sexual morality, right? Of our desire to please ourselves outside of God's ordained means. Because you see, the reality is that God has set up a place for us to pour, all of us have sexual desire, it's just a reality, right? And God has given us an ordained means in which we put that. But all of these then, all these sins here are simply talking about us seeking to put that desire and seek it somewhere outside of marriage, outside of what God has ordained for us. Could you see sexual morality seeking it outside? Impurity is mixing bad with good and passion is those desires that seek to make us seek things outside of what God has given to us. And now the other two, evil, desire and covetousness. So evil desire, it's just any desire that's evil, right? Any desire you have to seek things which God hates and covetousness, desiring things which other people have. Now, all of these boil down to one thing and it's really helpful because Paul puts it in one word at the very end when he says what covetousness is, he says it is idolatry. Now this, it just sums it up very nicely, all these different sins. Because. What is idolatry? It is to love anything more than God. It is to say, yeah, God number two, but something else here. It's not just saying I hate God. It's just if anything is edging him out, that is idolatry. We must love him above all other things. That means if I have to let go of something, I'm going to let go of that thing before I ever let go of him. And so you see, to covet is to say what God has given me is not sufficient. I love him and all that he's given me, but I need to love something else because I'm just not being satisfied. I'm just not happy here. And so if you think about it, idolatry is idolizing something, setting a mind to, that thing is going to make me happy. But is that object that we're looking at actually God in that scenario? When you say, imagine, you just have, yes, you know, like, yeah, I go to church and I love things, but I do need a bit of money. And I just kind of love money. Isn't it nice to always have a little bit more? And you set your eyes on that. Doesn't money become your God? But the reality is, why do you want money? You want it to serve your needs and you want it to make you secure. You see, the reality is at the centre is not actually the money, it's you. You sit at the centre there and so you see, the reality of what idolatry does, what all sin does is it makes us God. Everything. So you see, covetousness is saying, God does not give me enough. Sexual immorality is the same thing. It's saying God has ordained a means, but those means are not sufficient for me. What He has given me in this season, in this moment is not good enough and that can never be true. So you see, we trade God for ourselves, our own needs, our own wants. And so you see, this is what Paul is trying to get down to the core here of what the old self is about. Really what epitomizes as what its main thing is. And you see, it's funny because the old self has so infiltrated our culture now. Well, we have these words now, know, where it would be like a me day or something like that. I need to show myself some love. I need to have some self care, some me time. It's funny, we used to have, these are modern words. We didn't have these, know, a hundred years ago. What was the word we used to have for that? Self-ish. When I'm concerned simply, is because we've covered it up in nicer words because obviously we know the word selfish is, well, it's not a nice word. It has negative connotation. So we put these positive. positive ones on it to make it seem better, but all these words are saying the same thing. I just need me to be on the throne for a little bit. I just need something for me because God is not giving me enough. And now here's gonna come the hard bit. This is the exultation from, sorry, this was the second section. I should have said that at the start of it. um we have to understand that often the reason this second love slips in, this thing that, yeah, you know, God's got some good stuff for me but I kind of need something else, is because we think life is meant to be easy. We think that because we become Christians, everything is just going to become a breeze now. Yes, most of us are like, I'm not actually foolish enough to believe that, but all of us believe it a little bit because the devil is going to keep trying to put that line in your And so you see the exhortation from this is that our Christianity is not just about Sundays or morning devotions. The hardest thing about accepting becoming a Christian is that it requires daily effort and striving. You actually have to try to be a Christian. That's the hard part. It is a daily effort because every day the old part of you is rising up saying, you sure God's really given you everything you need? Are you sure there's not some more you want to enjoy here? It is warfare. It is hard. But you ought to keep this quote in your mind. I always love it because it's very pithy and it kind of gets right to the point. It's from John Owen, a pastor way back when. He says, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. That is the reality. If we are not daily seeking to put the old part of us to death, then it will put us to death. That is the reality. There is no middle ground. So now we go on to our third point. So you've seen the epitome of the old self is it loves itself. It is a self-centered by definition. And now, point three, the old self hates others. So we'll read from verses eight and nine. He says, now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you've put off the old self with its practices. Now you see here, we have another list. The first list is focusing on the things that we do ourselves, to make ourselves happy. It's about worshipping us. But notice now, the object in the sins in this second one is no longer us, it's other people. Is your anger ever against yourself? Your wrath, your malice? Very rarely we're malicious against ourselves. We don't really seek to slander ourselves. No, now these are focused at others. And now Paul is telling us this is a reality of the old you. The part that sought to bring in hatred and division and disdain towards others into the church must die. Now you see, why is this old part of you opposed to others? Because it loves itself. You can't say, I'm number one and I also will put the interests of others before myself. You see how they don't fit. You can't be number one if you count others as number one. But you see, this is what we are called to. Philippians 2, 3, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourself. The old you can't do that because the old you could only be worried about you. You are at the centre, but there is a new you now who knows that no longer are you at the centre, but Christ is. And so now we understand. This new self becomes a part of this church family and the only way a church family can exist is if we choose to deny ourselves. Not everyone can be number one in here. In fact, no one can. Because otherwise the family becomes dysfunctional. And so you see. we come to understand. And the new self is shaped by this revelation, by the revelation of the cross. Because what does the cross do for us? It shows you who we really are. The thing that devil does not want us to see, that you're sinful, that you're a sinner from birth, that in Adam you could never do anything good. There is nothing you could do where God would say, wow, you figured it out. Wow, man, I didn't think you could do any good, but you've actually made me proud. Never. You were never gonna make your heavenly father happy apart from Jesus. And so you see in this revelation of the desperate situation we were in, but then also the immense love that has been showed to us in Christ offering up Himself for us, taking our punishment on the cross, this forms us now. Because you see, it is a person who knows they deserve nothing and yet has received everything that can pour their life out for others. If you do not understand that, good luck. you will find an end to yourself. You will say, this is enough. But you see, when it is Christ that we are united to, when Christ is His work in us, when the person who is at work in us is the one who did not care but would suffer the loss of everything for us, because what did Christ do? He was God and He became a criminal upon a cross. He died a sinful death. He lost everything. And so you see, it is that. is at work in us. That same love that compelled him to go to that cross is the same love at work in us now. And now this becomes the hard part. The church is an amazing place, not the building, the people, because it is among the people of God that you will experience Jesus, that you will find Him. Yes, you can find Him in the Scriptures, but you will not even begin to encounter the depths of this Word without His people. End. So just as the church will give you much, this is the hard part, it will take much from you. We must live in a sinful church. In a sinful church that will hurt you over and over and over. It would be so easy if it was just the world opposed to us. But just as there is sin in the world that will attack us, there is sin at work in each and every one of you that will seek to attack. It actually is less concerned with you attacking the people out there. It very much wants you to attack the people in here. To create division and hatred. Because you see it is in that, that the old self thrives. But just as we feel that we will find an end to ourselves, where we can suffer no more for the sake of these people here, because we say they've just taken too much, I can't forgive another time, we are reminded of who we are connected to. That it is not with our love that we love the people here. With whose love do we love? With Christ's. It says that he has poured his love into our hearts as a physical thing, literally his love. You don't need to worry about your own resources, he has granted it to you. And so we do this, 1 Peter 3, 9, we do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, we bless. For this we were called that we may obtain a blessing. No longer we under the law, the law demands an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, right? You must seek to be avenged, no longer. We leave the vengeance to God. We are now under grace and this is not easy. Because like I already said, being in the church is hard because of the sinful people. And every time you'll feel, there can almost seem like a nobleness in it. I am being persecuted. I will not return to evil for evil, but I will be a good man. I will be a good woman steadfast and firm. And it sounds noble, but we don't consider the reality that it's like getting sucker punched over and over and over again. When you have another friend who betrays you, when you have another person who takes... when you have another person who you've forgiven over and over but yet still hates you. We bless others not for their sake, but for God's sake. Who are we aiming to please when we love others? Is it so that they may love us? No. Even if they should insult us over and over and over again, we will continue to love because we aim to please God, not them. And so, this point we conclude with just this final sentence. If you want to sum it up. When Jesus tells you to take up your cross, Don't expect not to be crucified. You will suffer pain for choosing this life. Most of all, you'll suffer pain from in here, but don't think there will not be reward for it. You will obtain a blessing, eternal life. So, now we come to the final point. Christ destroys our love for ourselves and our hatred for others. So we read from verses six and seven now. We're going to take this in two parts, six and seven, and then the final verse in verse 11. So, verses six and seven first. Now, he says, the first list, on account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you too once walked when you were living in them. Now, he says this. He says, now, this is the thing he's offering up to the Colossians, the reason that should destroy their love for themselves and their hatred for others. He first takes aim at the love of themselves. He says, These sins, because people have loved themselves, the wrath of God is coming. And he says, you Colossians, and he's therefore continues to say it to us through his word. We used to walk in these. Walking means you habitually did them, you lived in them, were part of your life and your practices. So how does this help us to put to death the old us, the love of ourselves? It's in this. For you to love yourself, you must have an inflated view of who you are. must say, man, I'm pretty good. Man, is like, yeah, I know there's some parts of me that aren't that good, but man, God loves this bit. This may not be thoughts that actually go on, but deep down, these are the motivations. But you see, that He tells us that you used to live in these, that apart from Christ, what was your destiny? Roth. That was your great reward for all the good that you had in your life. You would suffer the loss of everything. He is saying, what Paul says of himself, we are scum of the earth. Apart from Christ, we are nothing. We are worth nothing. We are garbage. But in Christ, we have gone from scum to sons of God. And so you see, it's this acceptance of the fact that when you separate us from Jesus, if Christ were to look on those who do not accept His Son, what does He see? Absolutely nothing of worth. Because they have rejected the only thing that is worthwhile. You see, this is in all of us. All of us have narcissism. All of us are narcissists. All of us love ourselves because all of us still have the old self in us. Every single one of us. We can try and cover it up with our good deeds. I'm quite a generous person. I serve in church. Have you seen my children? They're pretty well raised. I don't think many parents actually say that. um But the reality is maybe we take some pride in that. We find things to cover up the fact that we love ourselves. That we are actually sinful people. But true freedom, the true depths that you can enjoy in the gospel can only be enjoyed when you accept that the only thing that God actually sees good in you is what Christ has done in you. When you see that, when you actually accept that, it's free because you're like, you're right God, I do suck and that's fine. Jesus is working, doing a work in me. That means you will truly love me for all that I am. At the moment, the old us, he didn't love us because there was something in us, but because he chose to love us. so you see God destroys the love of ourselves by showing us there is nothing worth loving in us. And so then now, under Colossians 3 11, he says here, there is not Greek and Jew circumcised, uncircumcised, barry and sithy and slave free, but Christ is all and in all. Now I'll try and wrap this up quickly. oh All of these are just different ways you could create distinctions within the church, right? But all distinctions within a church. All ways that we might seek to segregate ourselves from others, to create some hierarchy within the church is simply an expression of this, to say, why do we have to have distinctions? Because they well, I'm closer to God than they are. Again, may not be the actual thought that goes through our minds, but that's the only reason to distinguish ourselves, because we say, I am better than them. And why would you want to be better than them? You say, well, as Christians, I'm closer to God than they are. And you see, this is the argument of the selfish Christians. the one who loves themselves, they're saying, I'm not like them. This is what distinguishes me from them. But then Christ destroys it all. As he finishes with his final thing, but Christ is all and in all. What does he mean there? He's saying Christ is everything. We already talked about this in the last couple of weeks. Jesus is enough. He is everything. You don't need anything else. So he's saying, He is the most precious treasure in the universe. So put Him in the place He deserves, at the centre. And so therefore he tells us the only distinction that matters in the church is this, those who believe and those who do not. That is the one distinction that we are allowed to make. But this makes it hard for us. Because suddenly then, who are those who are close to God? Every person who shows faith. Those ones who are not close to God are simply those who do not. And so then, suddenly, the brand new Christian who comes in, a day saved. who's still drinking like a fish and smoking like a chimney is just as close to God as that elder who has walked with him for 50 years, who everyone looks up to. Neither one is closer to God. They both have the entire God, all of Him. Why? Because both of them believe. Just because one is further down the salvation, sanctification and maturity train line, whatever you want to call it. does not mean they have more of God or are closer to Him. They are simply experiencing more of Him. So Christ is in all who believe for salvation. And so you see this is what gives us hope to go on. that God is in us. He is in each and every person in this room who believes. And so this gives us hope to go on. Because again, like I said, one of the greatest struggles we will face in this life is that we will suffer loss for being a part of this church, from outside and from inside. But it is a reminder of this, that as we say to God, God, this person has hurt me for the one thousandth time. And He replies, they have hurt me more than you ever know, yet I gave up my son for them. And you say, but God, I can't forgive them, I'm not you. And then He tells you that love which my son displayed in offering himself up for you was supplied to him through my spirit. And now that spirit I give to you. You do have enough love to continue loving the people in this church. You do have enough grace, you do have enough compassion. you will not find the end of yourself. Because if you have, that's to say you found the end of Jesus and there is none. And so to say I can't forgive is to say Jesus can't, which is impossible. And so bringing this all to conclusion. We must put all these things to death. We must stop loving ourselves. We must learn to suffer for the benefit of others, to count ourselves as less significant than them. Why? Because that is what Jesus did. We are being made unto that image. Now, you may choose to think, there is nothing for me in this message. Fair enough, if you choose to, but beware. Because the reality is I'm speaking to a truth that is occurring in every single one of us, if you believe in faith. There is an old you and there is a new you and that old self must be put to death. If you're saying, well, I'm actually feeling like I'm going pretty well. If you think there actually isn't an old me that is waging war within me, if you deny this, it means the only person there is a sinful part of you. It means there is no salvation in you. So we must believe this truth that we must wage war. But for those of us who do believe and wish to put the old us to death, know that desire in you is from God. that is a great and encouraging thing because only God can put that desire in you. Remember I said the old self doesn't want to kill itself, obviously. That is the new you who is putting it to death. And so now as we strive to put it to death, you can have this promise as an assurance from Philippians 1 verse 6, for all those who have this desire, am sure of this, that he who began a good work and you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Do you have a desire to put the old you to death? Great. Now go and put him to death, but as you seek and strive and as you figure, find that sometimes you're not doing that well, go back to this promise. He began a work and he will bring it to completion just because you feel like you're backsliding doesn't mean you are falling away. You will need this promise because this journey will be the most painful of your life. It is saying goodbye to those things that made you you, the old sinful you. You're ripping up roots that have been there for a very long time, but you're planting new. seeds that will bring a harvest of righteousness and are well worth the effort. So, let us finish up in prayer now and I'll invite the worship team up after. Father, we know it is biblical truth. Father, there is an old us that it is what Paul speaks of in Romans 7. Lord, that there is one who wages war against his mind, against the desires that he has to seek you. But Lord, We know that old part of us should be put to death and so grant us the strength, the grace, Lord, and all that we need to fight against it, to not give into it, but Lord to live for you. So we pray that you may grant that to us Lord and as we go out into this weak and face the temptations of this world, as our sinful desires within us will lure us away, do not let them, but let us remain steadfast in the hope that you have given us and let us know that you shall bring the work to completion that you have begun in us. In Jesus' name. Amen.