WWUTT 080 Friday Review

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In Colossians 3 .10, the Apostle Paul said to his readers to take off the old self and all of its former manner and its practices and instead put on the new self, which is being renewed after the image of its creator.
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Well, what does that look like to put on the new self? Well, that's what we're going to be looking at today when we understand the text.
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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt
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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We are summarizing everything that we've looked at over the course of the week in our five -point
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Friday review. So four messages, all 20 minutes long.
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Today is just one message that's 20 minutes long, summarizing the previous four into five concise points.
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So we're in Colossians 3 .12 -17. Remember what we have desired to learn as we study over Colossians is knowing
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Christ as preeminent. We are completely satisfied in our savior and we need nothing else but Christ.
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My encouragement to you has been to read all of Colossians, all four chapters, at least once during the week because it keeps everything together in context.
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You're remembering what we've read previous and even looking ahead at what's coming up next. Next week, we'll be in Colossians 3 .18
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-25 and we'll have messages on each day that correspond to something specific that's talked about in that next paragraph.
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Like one day, I think Monday, we'll be talking about marriage. On Tuesday, we'll be talking about parenting.
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There will be a message in there where we will be talking about how we are to conduct ourselves as workers in a secular culture.
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That's going to be a subject of another message. And so be looking ahead at those things and please come back next week as we continue our devotionals.
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Before opening up the text today, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our wonderful God, we thank you for guiding us according to your scriptures and I pray that your spirit is with us as we read these things so that we come to understand them more and more.
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Help us to express thankfulness and gratitude in reading your word and we express that thankfulness in our regular devotion to this word.
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Thank you for your patience with us and continue to shape us in the image of Christ and we pray this in Jesus name.
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Amen. Colossians 3 starting in verse 12. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another.
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And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you.
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So you must also forgive and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.
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Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the
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Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the father through him. So our five points now that we are summarizing out of this paragraph versus 12 through 17, here's point number one, put on compassion.
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So Paul starts out in verse 12 by saying, put on then realizing that we have been raised with Christ, that we have taken off the old and put on the news.
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He said just a couple of verses earlier. So he says in verse 12, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate heart.
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So everything that follows after that flows from a compassionate heart, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
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So the first thing that we're called to put on is a compassionate heart. What does compassion mean?
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Well, I had to go to the dictionary myself and look up a definition of this. Here was the definition that I came up with.
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Compassion is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
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So if we put on compassionate hearts, as Christ had a compassionate heart, we would have a desire to alleviate the suffering in this world by introducing a person to the gospel of Jesus Christ and knowing that is the only solution to the things that we experience in this fallen world.
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Now we share the gospel even with those who are walking in the gospel, our brothers and sisters in Christ, because as we share these things, it restores and renews our hope.
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This is what comes by what is said later on in this paragraph, that the word of Christ dwells in us richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.
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So at times we teach to restore hope and sometimes we admonish, correcting those who may be straying from the path of righteousness so they would be restored to the understanding of that hope.
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So with a compassionate heart, we have a desire to alleviate suffering, restoring the hope in our brothers and sisters in Christ and introducing the lost to that hope, which is in Christ Jesus.
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We have Jesus described in the gospels as having a compassionate heart. In Matthew 9, verses 35 through 38,
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Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.
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When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.
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Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
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Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
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In Luke chapter 15, we have the parable of the prodigal son, the son that demanded of his father his inheritance.
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And then he went off and squandered it with his debaucherous friends. I don't know if debaucherous is a word or not, but his friends who were practicing debauchery and he squandered it with prostitutes.
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And then as a famine hit the land and all of his friends left him, he went and found a job feeding pigs.
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And he was so hungry that even got down to eat the pig slop. But before that, a thought danced across his mind and he realized, hey, my father is rich and he's got many servants.
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I can just go work for my father. So he goes back to his father. And as his father sees him coming up the road in Luke 1520, it says the father saw him and felt compassion and he ran and embraced him and kissed him.
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So before the son could even utter a word before he could even say to him, dad,
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I'm sorry, his father was all over him, smothering him with kisses because he had compassion for him.
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And that is a display of the way that our heavenly father has compassion on us and sent
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Jesus Christ to die for our sins. So as Christ displayed this compassion, so we must also put on compassion and from a compassionate heart flows kindness and humility.
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Not looking toward our own interests, but looking toward the interests of others, putting others needs ahead of our own, as Paul called the
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Philippians to live in Philippians chapter two, meekness. And remember, I said that meekness is not the same as weakness.
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Meekness means to look after someone else's interests, expecting nothing in return.
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So you do kindness for somebody else, expecting that you won't get anything back for it. And as Jesus said of the meek in Matthew chapter five, the meek will inherit the earth.
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So though they do not expect anything in return, God will give them the entire earth as their inheritance in the new heavens and the new earth.
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And from a compassionate heart also is a display of patience, being patient with one another because God desires none to perish, but all to come to salvation.
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And so we must be the same. God was patient with us and though he could have wiped us out in our sin, he did not.
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He sent Jesus to die for our sin at the right time. Christ died for the ungodly, as Paul says in Romans.
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So point number one, as we're looking at a summary of Colossians three verses 12 through 17, point number one is to put on compassion.
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Point number two is this put on forgiveness. So as we go on bearing with one another and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the
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Lord has forgiven you. So you must also forgive. As I said earlier in the week, we are not to be experts in one another's weaknesses.
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You are not to be a Rolodex of one another's sins. That is satanic.
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That is what the devil does as his name, Satan means the accuser. So when we are constantly accusing one another of all of our shortcomings and we are holding very tertiary issues against one another and kind of making these small things in one great big hole, we're doing the work of the devil.
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It is not a godly thing to do that because as we read in Colossians chapter two, that God has taken that record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, set it aside and nailing it to the cross of Christ.
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That's Colossians 2 14. So if Christ did that for you, so you must do that for one another.
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We are not to be experts in one another's weaknesses. We are to be experts in forgiveness, put on forgiveness.
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And this goes back also to Colossians 1 14 in Christ. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
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Let's look also at Psalm 130. You can turn with me there if you like Psalm 130. I don't have that mark, so I'm going to have to flip back in my
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Bible here a little bit. There's Psalm 114. All right, here we are.
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Psalm 130. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice.
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Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. If you,
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O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Whoa.
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You like that? If you should mark iniquities, who could stand? But with you, verse four, there is forgiveness that you may be feared.
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Knowing that God could mark iniquities, but he does not. He gives us forgiveness, all those who are in Christ Jesus.
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For that reason, God is to be feared. In other words, worshipped. Verse five.
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I wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the
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Lord more than watchman for the morning, more than watchman for the morning. O Israel, hope in the
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Lord. For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.
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And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. That is the exact same way that we are to live toward one another in a spirit of forgiveness.
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In Matthew chapter six, Jesus taught us how to pray. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Jesus went on, for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you.
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But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive you your trespasses.
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Forgiveness is a mark of a person who is in Christ Jesus. Do you live in that forgiveness and extend that forgiveness toward others?
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We are to put on forgiveness, living as forgiven, and forgiving others.
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All right, so point number one, put on compassion. Point number two, put on forgiveness. Here is point number three, put on love.
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That's Colossians 3 14. Above all these, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
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First Corinthians 13 is what we have known as the love chapter. In verses four through seven, it says, love is patient, love is kind.
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And that's what we've got listed here already, that flows from a compassionate heart, kindness and patience.
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Back in first Corinthians 13 4, love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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Love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, and love endures all things.
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So you can see how very much how that would connect also with the call to put on forgiveness, which was point number two.
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So we are to put on love, above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
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We compliment one another in our strengths and weaknesses. We all have our failings, we all struggle, we all stumble, but let another's strengths help to build us up in those places where we are weak.
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So again, not being experts in one another's weaknesses, but experts in forgiveness and also experts in encouraging one another's strengths.
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This is how we display that loving kindness toward one another. Here's point number four, we are to put on Thanksgiving.
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And that message of Thanksgiving fell very well with the holiday that of course we celebrated yesterday for those listeners that I have here in the
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United States. You know, at the very root of all sin is a lack of Thanksgiving.
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And that is something that Al Mohler talked about on the briefing earlier this week. He read from Romans chapter one verses 20 and 21, where we read the following, for God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.
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So they are without excuse for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
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Essentially at the root of all sin, again, is a lack of Thanksgiving. They did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.
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So a person who knows God and honors him as God gives thanks to God.
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I'm going to let Dr. Mohler continue to explain this theology a little bit more in this clip from the briefing.
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Being unthankful, that is refusing to recognize God as the source of all good things has to be very close to the essence of the primal foundational sin.
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What else would explain the rebellion of Adam and Eve in the garden? They lacked a proper thankfulness and that was at the very core of their action of their sin.
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God gave them unspeakable riches and abundance, but forbade them the fruit of only one tree.
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A proper thankfulness would have led our first parents to avoid that fruit at all costs and to obey the
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Lord's command out of gratitude. Taken further, this first sin was also a lack of thankfulness in that the decision to eat the forbidden fruit indicated a lack of thankfulness that took the form of an assertion that we creatures and not the creator know what is best for ourselves and intend the best for ourselves.
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It is God who knows what is best for us. It is God who knows what is right for us. Breaking God's law breaks that basic relationship of thanksgiving and gratitude that should mark constantly the response of the creature to the creator.
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They did not honor Him as God or give thanks. Clearly, honoring God as God leads us naturally to thanksgiving and to thankfulness.
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To honor God as God is to honor His limitless love, His incomparable and His uncountable gifts.
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To fail in thankfulness, thus we understand, is to fail to honor God, and this is the biblical description of fallen and sinful humanity.
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We are, as sinful human beings, a thankless lot. Sinners saved by the grace and mercy of God know a thankfulness that exceeds any merely human thankfulness at any other level.
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How do we express thankfulness for the provision the Father has made for us in Christ, the riches that are made ours in Him, and the unspeakable gift of the surpassing grace of God?
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As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.
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So another mark of the Christian is that we put on thanksgiving. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.
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Verse 16 of Colossians chapter 3, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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Verse 17, whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the
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Father through Him. And that also leads us to our fifth point, put on Christ.
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Romans 13, 14 tells us this, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.
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And in Galatians 3, 27, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
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So point number one, as we summarized Colossians chapter 3 verses 12 through 17, point number one was this, put on compassion.
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From a compassionate heart flows kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
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Point number two, put on forgiveness. We are not to be experts in one another's weaknesses, but let us be experts in forgiveness and encouraging one another in our strengths.
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Point number three, put on love. Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
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Point number four, put on thanksgiving. Be thankful, have thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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Give thanks to God the Father through Jesus Christ, which is point number five, that we put on Christ Jesus.
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Lord, teach us these things as we go. And in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. This has been
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When We Understand the Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt
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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com
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and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again next week as we grow together in God's Word when we understand the text.