Colossians - How To Be A Super Christian

God Centered Theology

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Everybody loves Superman.

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Allow me to rephrase. Everybody should love

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Superman. I don't want to hear all this mess about Marvel, but you love

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Superman. Superman is great. He can fly.

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He can bounce bullets off of him. He can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

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And according to Superman part 1, he can apparently fly so fast around the world that he actually moves time backwards.

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It's hard being a Superman fan sometimes. He can even take a direct hit from a nuclear bomb and keep going.

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Everybody loves a Superman. Now we tend to think that super Christians are those with superpowers that we don't have.

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They are these the ones that pray the best or teach better than everyone else.

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We look towards those with the largest ministries or those that are on TV as somehow being super Christian while we are just the normal and common

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Christians in comparison. In our minds, these super Christians can fly through the heavens, bounce

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Satan's arrows off of them with ease, and even leap tall theological hurdles with a single bound while even taking a direct hit from a sin filled nuclear bomb and keep right on down the path of sanctification.

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Everybody loves a super Christian. The Bible paints quite a different picture when describing what the

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Christian life looks like. According to Paul in the book of Colossians, what it takes to be a super Christian has nothing to do with whether we stand out from the crowd, has nothing to do with whether we have certain super powers or abilities.

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It has nothing to do with how large or successful our particular ministries may be or seem to be for that matter.

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It has everything to do with how Christ -like we are. It has everything to do with how much we are like our super Savior, how much like Jesus Christ we are.

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So we want to look today at Colossians chapter 3 verses 12 and 13 and consider what the actual characteristics of a super Christian is and how you can be one.

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So this is a little different than most sermons. Usually I'll have two or three points. This time we've got about six or seven different things, so we're obviously not going to dwell on any one in particular for very long.

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So I'm going to kind of move through these a little quickly. So if you want to take notes as you go along, that'll be great. But number one, we notice that a super Christian has a heart of compassion.

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Verse 12, it says, so as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion.

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A heart of compassion, this word meaning pity, mercy, sympathy.

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It is a deep feeling about someone's difficulty or misfortune. Now we will long certainly to see people's needs met, and we will want to see them met as fully as we possibly can, even if it means sacrifice on our part.

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That is what a heart of compassion looks like. Now, many people are need spotters, but Christians, and in particular, a super Christian is a need meter, not just a spotter.

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We desire to see needs met and not just spotted. If someone's genuine need does not move you in your heart, then something is amiss.

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Something is wrong. We should care deeply about our fellow brother and sisters, brother and fellow, fellow brother and sister

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Christians needs and where they're at and how we might can meet that need, this heart of compassion.

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Number two, a super Christian is kind. It says compassion and it says kindness.

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A super Christian is kind. This means goodness, uprightness. Here's the key to this one.

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It is a kindness that is serviceable. It is a useful kindness.

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It is meeting real needs while at the same time avoiding harshness.

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This is a kindness and this is an area I think many of us would struggle, and I've spoken on the subject of contentment and how discontentment as a sin is a hard sin to deal with.

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This is a kindness that is equally concerned about your neighbor as much as yourself, if not more so concerned about your neighbor than you would be yourself.

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For the super Christian is kind. You know, it's one thing to say you're concerned and look, don't misunderstand.

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We'll commonly say things like, my heart's with you, my prayers are with you, I'm thinking about you.

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Don't misunderstand that those things aren't important. One of the things I try to do, I don't do this perfectly, but I try to do this.

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It's one thing I'm in my own personal life for 2019. I'm trying to change one of the cultures of my own personal life is when someone says, you know, here's such and such, such and such is going on my life.

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Will you pray for me? Instead of saying, yeah, I'll pray for you. And most of the time I'll remember, sometimes

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I don't. So I try to, if I can stop immediately and pray for them. If I can get to the side or if I'm sitting in my office and they call me and tell me,

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I'll try to pray right then when I hang off the phone or somebody messaged me on Facebook and says, you know, I got this going on.

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Will you pray for me? I'll message them right back and say, I'm praying right now, or I'll make it more of an effort to follow up the next day and say, look,

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I prayed for you on this yada, yada, yada. And you know, it's something that I think all of us as Christians can do, because it's one thing to say you're concerned.

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It's one thing to say, yeah, my heart's with you. I'm praying with you. It's one thing to say you love or care for someone, but a

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God -centered kindness is one that actually does something about it.

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It is not a sideline kindness. The next word, it says a super Christian is humble.

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It says humility in the text, a super Christian is humble. This word is lowliness of mind.

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It's modest. And what's really cool about this particular word is the understanding it is an inside out virtue, inside out, meaning that what is on the heart, what is in your heart will show forth and manifest in your actions, in your life.

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When we talked a few weeks ago earlier in Colossians about putting to death the sins of our earthly body, we talked about sins of speech and we referenced,

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I believe it was Noah's James 3. There was a reference in Matthew as well, but it talked about the fact that out of the mouth comes the intents of the heart.

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What is in your heart will show up either in your speech or your actions, so on and so forth.

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And a super Christian that is humble, if you're a prideful person, you can go to great lengths to hide it.

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In my life, when I've struggled with pride, I know how this is. You can't fool everyone forever.

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It will show up. But someone that is truly humble, they are so because they have compared themselves to Christ and they have full awareness of just how far short they really come.

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See, Christians get prideful when we start comparing ourselves to other people. You know, if you look long and hard enough, you can find another

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Christian that is either not on your level or you're quote unquote, this is what a lot of Christians do.

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I'm more spiritual than them. But see, we do that because it's much easier to find someone we'll compare to, or that we're quote unquote, better than if we're comparing ourselves to other people.

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But if you compare yourself to God, my friends, there is no comparison.

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Romans 3 says we continually fall short of the glory of God.

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Someone that's truly humble understands this. Self -exaltation is not a mark of a super Christian.

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To be super, you must be humble. And to be humble is to have an absence in your life of self -love.

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No doubt, this is probably magnified in high school because of all, maybe the hormones ranging and all the changes that are going on.

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But I can remember in high school, self -love being on display all over the place. And it just, if you're a humble person or if you're, or even if you're not humble, if you just don't have the ability, someone does, it makes you just cringe to see them throw it in your face.

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And I hate to admit this, but sometimes you even almost wish they'd maybe twist an ankle or something to knock them down a few pegs.

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You know, confession's good for the soul, right? I would venture to say

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I'm probably not the only one that's ever done that. So hopefully I'm in good company there, but that's just as wrong as somebody that is self -loving themselves and exalting themselves.

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A super Christian is also gentle moving along in the verse. This is meekness, mildness.

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Now this does not mean that you are spineless. There, we are, we as Christians are not doormats.

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There is a time and a place for standing firm or standing up to someone. The key to this is being in balance and understanding you're doing it from a place of gentleness, meekness, and mildness.

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This is a person that would rather suffer injury or setback than to inflict one, especially through retaliation or out of anger.

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It's a very difficult thing to do. We all naturally, and like I said last week, we only have one nature.

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We don't have a new nature and an old nature. We have one redeemed nature, but we still reside in sinful humanness.

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And one of the easiest sins to give into in our flesh is unchecked or improper anger.

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Now saying it that way, and we're not going to get into this because it's a sermon for another day, but there is a righteous anger.

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There is proper anger. But the Bible says, be angry in sin, not. You see? And sometimes if the anger is unchecked or it's not dealt with, it can take on retaliation or a feeling of a need to get retribution.

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Well, this is not gentleness. It's not mildness. In fact, in most cases, it would be better for us just to go ahead and be injured or have something done bad to us, rather than to turn around and inflict on someone else.

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And that, y 'all, that ain't easy. It's not easy. If you're in the workplace or if you've got somebody in your family or a friend or someone you go to church with or whatever the context is, sometimes, and a lot of times, it can happen from well -meaning, well -intentioned people.

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They don't think before they speak, and they say something to you, and it just hits you. You know how it just hits you, and you feel that anger burning up, and you're like, you got to back it off.

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Because they may not have meant it. They may not have meant what they said or did to you. And you could actually cause more harm in retaliation than the initial harm that was at least perceived done to you in the first place.

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Now, look, already, and we've got a few more of these to get through, super -Christian is not easy.

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But here's the thing, though, unlike Superman, who only, well, many people have played him, but there's only one

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Superman in the comics, all of us can be super -Christians. You all can do it, because we all have the same indwelling

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Holy Spirit. We all have the same power of Christ indwelling us. So, don't look at these things as something you cannot do.

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Yes, you can. A super -Christian is patient. Sometimes, Scripture just meddles.

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It's like, I'm studying for this. I'm like, yeah, I don't do that one well. I don't do that. Oh, well, I'm okay there. Well, then it is, oh, man,

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Paul really knows how to drop some truth bombs on you, don't he? But patient, long -suffering, or as my pastor back home says, long -suffering, showing restraint, tolerance.

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Now, not the uber -progressive leftist tolerance, what the textbook definition of tolerance, meaning you put up with something, you can't change it, you just deal with it, right?

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If you ever grew up with a sibling, you live to learn to tolerate them. Tolerance, showing restraint, is the exact opposite of resentment, revenge, retribution, all these things.

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It's a learned behavior, too. One of my buddies back home used to always say, you know, we always say,

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Lord, I wish you'd give me more patience, right? You know what always happens is the

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Lord gives you more opportunities to learn patience. He doesn't just supernaturally make you more patient.

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He gives you more problem people, or more problem situations at work, or whatever it is in your life, because it's a learned behavior.

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It's hard. If it was easy, there'd be no need for inspired scripture to tell us that as Christians we need to be patient.

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It's something we struggle with. It's a learned behavior. It doesn't come naturally. But what's interesting, and I didn't check all these to make sure, but I know this one in particular, it's a fruit of the

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Spirit, which is mentioned in Galatians 5. So I encourage you this afternoon, go home and read

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Galatians 5 and the fruits of the Spirit, and see how many of these pop up there.

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A super Christian will bear with others. Okay, well, let's check back with our scripture.

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Verse 12, so as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

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And then verse 13, bearing with one another, bearing with one another.

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This goes along with patience because, because of our patience, we will bear with one another.

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That's how it works there. It means to hold up. And it's actually a present tense verb in the

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Bible, bearing up. So as you go, as you interact with people, as you live out your life, you will keep bearing up, and keep bearing up, and keep bearing up.

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It's continuous action there. We will hold up. We will bear up in spite of persecutions, injuries, complaints.

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We will not sinfully retaliate. We will bear up. You know, anytime you get a group of people together, you have different ideas, you have different ways of doing things, both in our individual lives, but also how we see certain things, how they should go.

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And bearing up is allowing for that working out, and that friction and conflict of the disagreement, and allowing

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God to work in that. I saw a really interesting quote this week where somebody was talking about what unity looks like, and how people are compromising unity for the sake of a false harmony within the larger picture of Christendom, Christendom right now.

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It's, well we are giving up certain foundational things because we want to make it seem like we are all getting along.

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Well, an absence of drama doesn't mean you have unity. An absence of conflict doesn't necessarily mean you have unity.

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Now, God certainly blesses at certain times when things are drama free, and conflict free, and you have that blessing that comes from that.

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But an absence of that doesn't necessarily mean you have unity. Unity, as far as Christianity goes, is being unified with Christ, being unified with what

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He wants, and what He desires, and what He commands. And it's that unity and allowing for the different expressions, and the uniqueness of who we are, and how that comes together.

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That's a much more beautiful picture of unity, and how a bunch of people can come together in the name of Christ, knowing they are not all going to see eye -to -eye all the time, but they still love one another.

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The world's vision, the world's idea of unity is somehow everybody's floating through the clouds, and we're all happy, and nobody ever does anything that makes anybody mad, and da -da -da -da -da -da.

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I'm like, what reality are they living in? Conflicts arise.

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There's life. Life isn't always pretty, but that's okay. There's sin, and we have sinful people doing things sinfully.

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But Christians are able to rise above those things, and love each other despite them.

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We bear up with one another. Now, this paints a picture like somehow Christians are always fighting or something.

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That's certainly not the case either. Obviously, we as Christians, I think we have the ability within power of the indwelling

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Holy Spirit to have far more times of peace than the average person out there. But in those cases where there are times of disagreement and so on and so forth, we will certainly continue to bear up.

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Now, a super -Christian, and then I believe this is our last one. Yep, a super -Christian lastly will forgive others.

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Look at verse 13, bearing with one another and forgiving each other.

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Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

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This word forgive literally means to be gracious. It means to show favor, to pardon, extend gracious favor freely, freely, freely without any consideration of merit.

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One of the biggest sins that we need to avoid as Christians is nowhere in the Word of God does it allow us to withhold forgiveness because someone hasn't repented, or they haven't come to terms with what we think they should do, or they're not living like I think they should, or they haven't satisfied me in this regard, so therefore they don't deserve my grace.

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They don't deserve my forgiveness. Scripture says, so as the

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Lord forgave you, so also you should forgive others. Did the

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Lord not freely forgive us? Did the Lord not graciously forgive us despite the fact that we're sinners?

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The Bible says, in that while you were still sinners, Christ died for you.

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He didn't wait for us to clean up our lives, but because we can't. He didn't say, well you're going to have to kind of do this, and this, and thus and so, and then maybe

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I'll get around to forgiving you. He says, no, despite all of your mess, despite all of your sin, despite all of the hardness of your heart, and your rebellion, because of your faith in my

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Son, I forgive you. And here's the cool thing about forgiveness, and the thing that, you know, we so often through one of our

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Christian cliches, we talk about forgive and forget, forgive and forget. It's not scriptural.

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You can't, now look, I do think there are instances in people's lives where an act of the grace of God, He somehow helps us to just sort of forget certain things that may have happened to us, so on and so forth.

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But in case of forgiveness, more than likely you're not going to forget what that person did to you. There are many things that have been done to me,

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I can't forget. The key to forgiveness is that you treat them as if they're no longer in debt to you.

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They owe you nothing. You have chosen to excuse that, to extend grace and favor.

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They owe you nothing. You treat them as if they've done nothing wrong. Super Christians, not easy.

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Treat someone as if they've done nothing wrong to you, that is real forgiveness. But it's what

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God did for us. When you and I stand before God, those of us that have repented of our sin, placed our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, He's not going to list out our sins to us.

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We're going to stand before God as if we're perfectly righteous. And we won't be, we're not.

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We have righteousness because Jesus Christ's righteousness has been credited and imputed to our account.

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Therefore, when God sees us, He sees His Son, He sees the righteousness of His Son, and then

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He treats us as if we're righteous. The forgiveness of God means

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He treats us as Christians as if we've never done anything wrong. That's why as Christians, there's no room to walk around in guilt and feeling shame all the time over your sin.

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If you have repented and God has forgiven you, which He says He always forgives the repentant heart, there's no need to walk in shame.

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Jesus Christ said, again, came to give you life and that you would have it more abundantly. The abundant life is not guilt and shame.

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The one person in existence that deserves to have his wrath for sin satisfied is the eternal

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God of the universe Himself. And He says, my wrath for sin has been satisfied in my

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Son, Jesus Christ. And it is on that basis that we should forgive each other.

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Now, that's enough to convict your pastor.

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I hope he's working on you, too. Well, let's wrap this up. Everything from heart of compassion, kindness, humble, gentle, patient, bearing with others, forgiving one another.

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I'm one of the ones that like to ask the obvious questions. Why would Christians behave this way?

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Because it's not easy. Why do super Christians, quote, unquote, forgive and bear with others and are humble and gracious, compassionate?

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Why? Because it's different than the world.

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Notice what he said in verse 12. So as those who have been chosen of God, holy, set apart, separated from the world, in it, but not of it, beloved, we are the objects of God's special love,

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His chosen people, the ones that are the believing ones of John 3, 16, the ones who have faith in Christ.

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We're His saints. We're called out. We're separated from the world. And watch this, and don't miss this.

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It is in being Christlike that we are most effective in our testimony for Christ.

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It is in being Christlike that we are most effective in our testimony for Christ.

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That's the whole point. That's the whole key to being a super Christian. There's no special powers.

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There's no Christian better than the other one. No matter who you are, what your gifts and abilities are, they've been given to you by the

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Holy Spirit for service and for ministry. No matter who you are, where you are, how old you are, none of it matters.

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You can all do this. We can all do this. Why? Because inspired

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Scripture says you can. Very quickly,

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I want to read for you just a few verses, and then we'll be done. It says in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, in verse 11 it says,

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Paul says, to this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless.

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We toil, working with our hands. We are reviled. Excuse me, when we are reviled, we bless.

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When we are persecuted, we endure. When we are slandered, we try to conciliate.

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When we have become the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.

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Who signs up for that? Why do Christians behave this way?

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Why do we bless when we are reviled? Why do we endure when we are persecuted? Why do we do what we do?

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Because of the Gospel. Because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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If you endure everything you endure in your life, and you bear up under it, and you hold up under it, and you wonder if it will ever end, and it never does, but you keep on moving forward, and one person, just one person comes to know faith in Christ because of your testimony in Christ's likeness, none of you will ever say it wasn't worth it.

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Every person would say it's worth it. Everything I've endured, it's worth it because of that one saint that came home.

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You know Clark Kent, when he goes to change into Superman, will much like this picture, pull back his shirt, and underneath is a

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Superman shirt. Now I did not wear a Superman shirt under my shirt today, so if any of you are hoping for some kind of cool reveal,

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I'm sorry to disappoint you. Although it did go through my mind to wear one of my Superman shirts that actually has a cape on it, but I didn't know if y 'all were quite ready for that yet, so I said, well maybe next time around the bend we'll do this.

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If I ever get back to the book of Colossians at some point down the line, which would be multiple years from now, maybe.

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By then I probably wouldn't fit in that shirt though, so. But he pulls it back, and there's the

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Superman suit, right? Well for the Christian, what lies beneath, what is on the inside, is not a super suit, but a super savior.