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C .S. Lewis once said, "...if I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world. Indeed, this world is not our home or just a passing through, as the old spiritual goes.
In fact, our hearts and minds should be with the Lord in heaven right now, when we understand the text.".
You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .tt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. Jesus said in Matthew 6, starting in verse 19, "...do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?
And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his splendor was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat?
Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you.
Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. We started in Colossians chapter 3 yesterday where we read the following,.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. So we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things that we need in this world will be added unto us as well.
There are things that we need to learn to do our job in a proper way. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and God will show you the things that you need to learn to do your job in a proper way.
There are things that we need to go out and purchase, or bills that we need to pay, and responsibilities that we have, and on and on it goes. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and God will provide for you to take care of all of these other things.
It's not that the other responsibilities in your life are unimportant, but they're not your priority. Your priority first is seeking God and his kingdom and his righteousness. He will help you take care of the rest.
We tend to compartmentalize our beliefs, our faith in God, and it's got its own compartment. Then we've got our job over here, our friendships over here, churches over here, and all these kinds of things all separated out, but it's not meant to go together.
My faith can't interfere with all of these other things, but remember, you cannot serve both God and money. You will either love one and despise the other one, so you must seek God first and his kingdom.
He will help you take care of the rest. We're in Colossians 3. Today we're going to be looking at verses 5 through 11, but before opening up this passage, let's open our hearts and minds to the Lord in prayer.
Our great God, as we come to your scriptures today, I pray that you will show us by your spirit what we are meant to understand out of our reading today, how we are to apply this and how we are to live and conduct ourselves in a proper way that is pleasing and holy and acceptable to you, Lord.
Teach us these things. Help us to continue to be convicted. Help us to remember that our conviction was not meant to be a one-time thing in our lives, but we continually are convicted by the Holy Spirit and respond to that conviction in repentance and prayer and seeking your scriptures to know what it is that is pleasing and acceptable to you when we submit ourselves as holy sacrifices unto the Lord.
Lead us in our scriptures today, and we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Colossians chapter 3, beginning in verse 5, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and 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, and 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 and uncircumcised, barbarians get the enslave free, but Christ is all and in all.
Going back to verse 5, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, all right? So given that we are not supposed to seek after earthly things, our treasure is not to be on earth where moth and rust destroys, but we are supposed to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, therefore, we must put to death what is earthly in us.
Now remember this, therefore, goes back to the verses that we've read in verses 1 through 4. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
So the question must be asked, are you in Christ Jesus? Have you died and is your life now hidden with Christ in God? In Romans chapter 8, we read the following, those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit.
For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you. I love that Paul kind of adds that little caveat in there.
So as he's talking to this Roman audience here, he says, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, just in case he would happen to be addressing anybody who may not yet know Jesus Christ as Lord and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. Now, our bodies are going to decay.
They are going to die because they are part of this world, which has been subjected to futility, which Paul talks about as we go on in Romans chapter eight. There is still sin that has been conducted in this body, so it is necessary for it to die.
But we know that on the day of resurrection, when the Lord Christ comes back, that our bodies will be raised again. They will be made imperishable and our lowly bodies will be transformed to be like his glorious body.
But it is necessary first for this body to die. Now, since we are a people of the spirit of God and not a people of the flesh any longer, we must not live according to the flesh for to live according to the flesh is death.
But to live according to the spirit is life and it is peace. And remember that in Philippians chapter four, the apostle Paul described this peace as a peace that surpasses all understanding. It is beyond comprehension because the peace that we're talking about is not simply a peace that is a relaxation of the body.
It's not simply a stillness in your soul. It's not simply knowing that you're not stressed out and not anxious. All right. The peace that we have with God still talking in this concept of seeking first God's kingdom and his righteousness.
OK, the peace that we have is a peace with God. So therefore, that peace that we have with God filters into everything else that we do with our lives. And there's now no reason for us to be anxious about anything because we have peace with God.
God's wrath, which was upon us because of our unrighteousness, has been paid for by Christ, who is our propitiation. And that word means that he satisfied the wrath of God. So if we are in Christ, we are no longer under his wrath.
The wrath has been satisfied by the sacrifice of Christ. So therefore, through Christ, we have peace with God. Peace has been made because Christ is our atonement for sin. He has paid the penalty for our sin and we have peace with God.
So knowing that knowing that when we stand before the throne of judgment on the day of judgment, that we are guaranteed eternal life because of what Christ did for us, then there's no reason for us to be anxious about anything else in this world because we know that everything in this world is simply transient.
We know that it is it is just merely passing. All of this stuff will fade, including our bodies that will fade away. But we will continue to live with the Lord forever because of what Christ has done.
And that gives us peace and that peace filters into everything else. So now there's no reason to be anxious about anything else in this world when we have that eternal peace with God. This is why it's something that surpasses all understanding.
How can we possibly comprehend these things? Paul goes on in Romans 8 to say that the spirit intercedes for us in our weaknesses. And I truly believe in the context of what's being talked about there in Romans 8, that the weakness that Paul is referring to is our inability to understand how what we are going through in this physical life, how it pertains to eternity.
We don't yet understand that there will be a day that comes when we stand on the other side in glory and we will look back at this life and it will go, oh, oh, oh, oh, OK, I get it now that all makes sense to me.
But right now we don't get it. We don't understand it. As it says in First Corinthians 13, 12, now we see as though through a glass darkly, but soon we will see face to face. And then we will know just as God knows each and every one of us.
Exodus chapter three is where we read the story of God speaking to Moses through the burning bush. He said that I have seen the affliction of my people who were in Egypt and I have heard their cry because of their sufferings and I am about to deliver them up out of Egypt.
And Moses was going to be the guy that God was going to send back into Egypt to appear before Pharaoh and say, let my people go. And Moses replied, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?
And God said here was God's reply to Moses. He said, I will be with you and this shall be the sign for you that I have sent you. This is the sign for Moses, not for the Israelites. God would explain that sign coming up a little bit later on.
This is the sign for Moses that he would know that God is with him. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. So basically, here was the sign for Moses. It wasn't that we're going to do some great and miraculous things in Egypt, Moses.
It's not that you're going to throw your staff down. It's going to turn into a snake or you're going to touch your staff to the Nile and it's going to turn into blood or that there's going to be all these plagues, locusts and flies and boils and darkness.
And the firstborn is going to die. And and then when you're trying to get away from the Egyptians, you're going to be up against this body of water and you'll stretch out your staff and the Red Sea will part and you'll walk through the Red Sea.
Then by that miracle, you'll surely know that I am with you. No, that's not what God said. The sign for Moses that he would know that God was with him through that entire thing is that when it is all said and done, you will come back here and you will worship me on this mountain.
Because then Moses would be able to look back and he would see how God had fulfilled every single one of the things that he said that he was going to do. And that was the moment that Moses would go, oh, all right, I got it.
I see it now while he is worshiping God. Now, understand that there is something on the other side of this temporal life that we are in right now. We can kind of see it. We can see glimpses of it. There's something there.
We can tell there's something there, but we can't quite make it out. That's why we are looking through a glass dimly right now. There's a fuzzy image there, but we can't quite see what it is. Soon we'll see it face to face and then we will know just as God knows each and every one of us, we will be made like him and then we will see him as he is, as John talks about in first John three, two.
So we can't quite grasp what's on the other side of eternity right now. We can see that there's something there. In the meantime, we're going through this life, not quite understanding how these things that we experience in this life make up in eternity.
How does this pertain to eternity? We can't figure that out. And it's in that weakness where we can't figure those things out or see the eternal things that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, as Paul talks about in Romans chapter eight, helping us in our weaknesses.
So we read these commands. We read that we're supposed to set our minds on things that are above. We, we read that we're supposed to store up our treasures in heaven for where our treasure is there. Our heart will be also, but there's also part of us that's still confined to this fleshly finite body where we're going, but how, how do I do that?
I don't get, I don't get how I'm supposed to do that. And it's there where the spirit helps us in our weaknesses. In second Corinthians chapter four, starting in verse 16, the apostle Paul says, we do not lose heart though our outer self is wasting away.
Our inner self is being renewed day by day for this light momentary affliction. And it's very interesting what Paul is calling this light momentary affliction, because at the start of the letter, second Corinthians chapter one, he says, we do not want you to be unaware brothers of the affliction we experienced in Asia for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. So when Paul's talking about an affliction, man, if we're looking at this in our flesh, that's a pretty serious affliction, all right, that, that Paul and his missionary brothers were going through.
And yet you get to second Corinthians four 17 and he calls it a light momentary affliction. Cause when we compare this with eternity, it just simply doesn't compare for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal going on into chapter five, for we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.
For in this tent, we grown longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. If indeed by putting it on, we may not be found naked for a while. We are still in this tent. We grown being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
He who has prepared us for this very thing is God who has given us the spirit as a guarantee. We have, we have that seal in the Holy spirit. We have the spirit as our intercessor who is helping us in our weaknesses.
So when we're trying to figure this thing out, we're trying to figure out how the temporal stuff amounts to the eternal stuff. It's the spirit that helps us out in those things. If you're still trying to figure that out, you know, I'm going to tell you that in a half an hour Bible study here, I'm not going to help you figure all of this out in 30 minutes.
These are things that I'm encouraging you in by showing you that our hope has been written down for us in scripture, the spirit of God, which inspired these scriptures to be written, written by the Holy spirit so that you know, the promises of God are here.
So as we finish up this study, if these are things that in your spirit, you are still struggling with consult God, go to his word, spend time in prayer and meditation, sing his songs and his praises. And it may take more hours.
It may take days, weeks, even years of your life trying to understand how these things work out. But there is a piece that surpasses all understanding, which has been gifted to us through the Holy spirit of God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
And it is that piece that God is comforting you with in knowing that there is no condemnation against those who are in Christ Jesus, Romans eight one. So put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry on account of these things.
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, and 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 and uncircumcised barbarian, Scythian slave free. But Christ is all and in all. If the spirit of God is living in you, live according to the spirit, not according to the flesh.
And we're going to expose that passage a little bit more again tomorrow. Colossians three verses five through 11. So I hope you'll come back with me again. Continue to read through Colossians. The challenge as we're doing this study is to read Colossians chapters one, two, three and four, all four chapters at some point during the course of your week.
Be encouraged, motivated by these things, driven to prayer and praise to our great God who saves us through Jesus Christ, our Lord God, as we are wrapping up our study today, I pray that we understand what it means to have our treasures laid up in heaven where you are, that our heart is with you, that our heart is not in this world and it is not relying upon anything of this world.
It is not depending on anything in this world for our happiness, for our sustainability. We know that all of those things come only from Christ Jesus, our joy entirely in you as we are completely satisfied in our savior.
Continue to show us these things and in our weakness, show us by your spirit where we do not understand, what we have not yet figured out, where we can't connect the dots. Let the spirit help us in our weakness.
We pray and ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
Take pleasure when we're happy. That's the thing that gets him the greatest joy this morning. So I want you to know this morning, just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy.
When you come to church, when you worship him, you're not doing it for God, really. You're doing it for yourself because that's what makes God happy. Amen.
First Corinthians 10 31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God, not the glory of you. Look, those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh.
But those who live according to the spirit, set their minds on the things of the spirit for to set the mind on the flesh is death. But to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.
It does not submit to God's law. It can't. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. In Second Timothy three, the apostle Paul warns about those who are lovers of self, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.
Avoid such people. When we understand the text, that's Victoria Osteen, the wife of Joel Osteen, that was heard at the beginning of that video. And I felt like that video was relevant with what it is that we have been studying today.
My question, and we get several questions here at when we understand the text that sound just like this one. But my question today, this one in particular comes from Sandy in Pueblo, Colorado. She says, Dear, what I have family that are so stuck on teachers like Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen, and I can't seem to shake them free of that false theology.
Whenever something Joel or Victoria said comes up, I try to take them to the Bible and show them what God said. But they counter by saying that's only one person's interpretation. And Joel's interpretation isn't wrong.
It's just a different interpretation. I have to admit that some of my most frustrating moments come when they quote something to me that Joel said that does actually line up with what I believe the Bible to say.
I'm at my wits end here. How can I show them that the teachers they're listening to are false teachers? Sandy, I feel your pain when you say that you'll hear Joel say something that does actually line up with your theology.
I've had that moment as well. There was one time that I was working on a sermon and I was addressing a false teaching in that sermon, and there was something that I knew that Joel Osteen had said that I could use as a soundbite.
So I went to one of his sermons to try to draw that soundbite out so I could play it in the sermon and say, see, here's an example of this false teaching. But when I actually went back to the sermon and listened to Joel say it, it sounded so close to the truth that I knew I couldn't use it because taking it out of the context that he was placing it in and playing it next to what I was saying, somebody would have gone.
I don't know. I think I hear you and Joel saying the same thing. So I couldn't use the soundbite. Now, I knew from Joel's whole body of teaching that what he was saying was wrong, and he meant it in a wrong way.
But it would not have sounded that way if I had just used that clip by itself. So I understand the frustration, and this kind of goes to what we've been studying in Colossians. Last week when we were in chapter two and verse 23 says that there are things that indeed have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
So how is it that you can show a person that these false teachers like Joel and Victoria Osteen and Joyce Meyer and many from their camp, how is it that you can show a person that what they are teaching is false?
I will tell you with long suffering, this is going to be one of those things where the light's just not going to click on right away. But over time, as you are filled with the spirit of God and showing them the truth of God's word, it is continuing to pour forth that truth that will eventually lead them away from false teaching and into the soundness of the word of God.
This is where verses like 1 Peter 3 .15 are so important. In your hearts, set apart Christ the Lord as holy. Always be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within you. But do this with gentleness and respect.
And we read in 2 Timothy 2 .23, have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil, correcting opponents with gentleness.
God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. So continue to hold steadfast to the truth of God's word.
Just rely upon that when you are giving your answers. And do this with gentleness and respect. Thank you for your question, Sandy. God bless.
We continue our study tomorrow. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text. Pastor Gabe is the author of the book 40 of the most popular Bible verses and what they really mean. Available in paperback or for your Kindle.
He's also authored a Bible study through the book of 1 Corinthians. Both books can be found at our website at www .tt .com. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.