Process of Change
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I am one of the pastors here. We are in week three of our four-week series on soul care. This is an introduction to the idea of soul care that we would, as Christians, grow in understanding the brokenness and the sin that's beneath the surface that's in our soul and that we would treat, we would help grow in the gospel and grow as Christians as we care for ourselves and ultimately care for one another. So the first two weeks of this series, in the first week we introduced this idea of soul care that at the core of our souls is our heart and at the core of our heart is our view of God, how we worship Him, our lack of worship of Him, and our view of self in light of who God is.
That's at the core of who we are and we took a step back from that and looked at us as complex people with complex stories, that our history, that the way we're built, that our behavioral patterns, that there are things that affect our hearts. So we walked through that in week one. Last week Chet walked us through what is the core problem of our hearts, that we worship things in the place of God, that we have functional saviors that we run after. And even beneath that we've got deep idolatry, deep idols that's at the core of our heart, that creates this dysfunction in us, in our souls. So the first two weeks was really getting to know what's going on underneath the surface.
And it stirred up quite a bit, I'm sure. Sometimes my wife and my kids will go out to my parents' house, they live on the lake, and they've got this entryway into the water. And at the lake, before you walk in, you can kind of see the water, you can kind of see underneath the surface. After about a minute of being in the lake and standing there, the whole, like, the water's cloudy and muddy. We've been, our feet has been all in the mud beneath and all this stuff's been stirred and clouded the water and clouded to the surface. And that's kind of what it's felt like the last couple of weeks as we've walked through this.
We've just been stirring up stuff, we've been poking at things underneath the surface, and some of you are like, okay, thank you for telling me everything that's wrong with me. Appreciate it. And others of you, there's probably a range of responses. Others of you are excited, and you're like, yes, you've told me what's happening beneath the surface. Let's go.
I want to tackle this sin. It's like, okay, we're getting there. The first two weeks is really getting beneath the surface. This week, what we want to do is walk through Colossians 3 and walk through the process of change. Now that we know what's been going on underneath the surface in our souls, what do we do with that?
How do we actually change? That's what we're going to do today. And as we walk through Colossians 3, we're going to see three stages of change, three kind of steps of change for us. So I hope this morning can be incredibly practical for us as we seek to change and grow to know more of Christ. So let me pray, and then we'll jump into the text.
Lord, we love you. I'm thankful for the last couple of weeks that we've been able to walk through the Scripture's teaching on our soul and what's going on beneath the surface. God, I pray this morning that you would, as that has been brought to the surface, as that's been brought to the light, as that's continually going to be brought to the light, that you would give us a vision for change. That we would not be hopeless as we face sin and brokenness in our life, but you would give us hope from the Scriptures. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right, so we're going to walk through Colossians 3, but I want to give some context because we're jumping into a book. Typically, we walk through books of the Bible. But when we are kind of going through topical series like this and we're sitting in a chapter, I want to give you a little bit of context for where we are in Colossians 3. In Colossians 2, in the middle of it, Paul is proclaiming the gospel to this church. This is a letter to the church at Colossaea. He's proclaiming the gospel to the Colossians.
In the middle of it, he says, and you who were dead in your sins. Those of you who were once dead, that's the idea that before we knew Christ, we were dead in sin. We were spiritually dead. We did not know him. He says, and you who were dead in your sins and the sinful nature of your flesh. God made alive together with Christ.
He made us alive. When you place faith in Jesus, he brings you to life. And he says, having canceled the record of debt that stood against you with its legal demand, the sin debt that we've accumulated, it says, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross, that your sin was bought and paid for as you were raised to life in him. He proclaims this truth to this church. This is what's true about you because you've trusted in Jesus. And then he shifts into addressing kind of some problems that's been happening in the church, the Colossian church.
Some self-made, self-religious efforts that have been added on to the gospel. So he addresses some of these things that they're doing, they're adding on to the gospel. And he closes out chapter two with saying in verse 23, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion, an appearance of wisdom in promoting asceticism and severity to the body. But they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. This self-made, self-religious effort, it has no value in actually stopping the indulgence of the flesh. There's no value in bringing about the change that you want to see.
You're doing it wrong. You've got a bad model that you've been surrounded by for change. My daughter, my oldest, she's in first grade this year, which is crazy to me that she's now in first grade. And last year, she was in kindergarten, and she was learning to read. And the teacher said, hey, I want to do a parent-teacher conference. I couldn't be there.
My wife did it. It was a Zoom conference. But later that night, right before we went to bed, she said, hey, let me tell you how the parent-teacher conference went. And I said, okay. She's like, is she doing well here? She's doing well here?
But when it comes to reading, the teacher is taking extra time. She's sitting down with her and reading. And Ellie won't look at the pictures. She's like, look at the pictures and the words and try to make the connections here. And Ellie just looks at the words. She won't look at the pictures, and the teacher can't figure out why.
So I was like, hmm, I think I know why that is. I said it to myself. And then I said it out loud. All right, well, good night. The next day, I was like, no, I can't hide this. I need to fess up.
So I said, honey, I think I know why our daughter doesn't look at the pictures. It's because every time that we're reading together, I say, don't look at the pictures. You're cheating. Don't look at the pictures. Look at the words. Don't look at the pictures.
Don't look at the pictures. To which I find out by talking to teachers about this is harmful to learning process. It damages your child. And I didn't know. Listen, I pay my taxes. I send my kids to public school so they can learn.
I can't. We don't teach. I just I didn't know. I'm just kind of rocking with what I got. It seemed like pretty logical. She's cheating.
Looking at the pictures. Focus on the words. And since then, we've had to implement the correct process. It was a bad model for change. And the problem is for us is that we sometimes have a bad model for change. We want to grow in our faith, but we were doing it wrong.
So I want to let the scriptures address some of our self-made, muscling through, trying to own change by our own strength. I want the scriptures to address us with this process that it lays out in Colossians 3. So pick up in verse 1. This is the first step in change. 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 mind 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. Step 1 is to set your mind on Christ. It is to focus on Him. You look to Him first. If you have, Christian, if you've been raised with Christ through believing in Him, if you've laid down your life and trusted Him, it says continue to look to Him.
Set your mind on things that are above. Set your mind on Christ. Because here's the problem. If you jump straight into addressing sin, if that is your first focus, your effort to affect change will be by your own effort, not Christ working in you. It is of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. It is a self-made effort of your own.
He says, Behold Him. Behold Christ. Set your mind on Him. The one who died for your sin. The one who conquered death of the resurrection. The one who ascended to the right hand and is seated at the right hand of the Father in power.
The one whom you can hide in, in the face of fire. He says, Look to Him. And I love the physical nature of that command. He's literally saying, Look up. Look above. I love that, because often when we are in sin, we don't do this.
We look down. When we feel the effects of depression and the effects of sin through deep sadness and depression. The Bible has a category of language for this. In the Psalms, you're downcast. You're literally, your body language is down. That when you're ashamed in sin, your body language, you're looking down.
I remember a few years back, I was confessing some sin and some brokenness to a friend, to a brother of mine. And as I was confessing this, I didn't realize this. The whole time I was talking with him, my head was down. I could not look at him in the eyes. And he finally just said, Hey, look at me. Look at me.
You're proclaiming the gospel over me. You can look at me. I love this command to look up. Jesus, in the midst of our sins, says, Hey, look up. Look at me. Focus on me.
Set your mind on me. You're no longer a slave to sin. You're no longer identified by your sin and your brokenness and the worst aspects of your sinful nature. Look to me. Set your mind on things are above. Set your mind on Christ.
And this is not a formality. This is not a checkbox. We say, Okay, okay, step one. All right. Set your mind on Christ. All right, I pray.
All right, Jesus, now help me with my sin. This cannot be a formality. This has to be a desperate need in looking to Him. This is you in the ocean as the waves are crashing over you. And you see a life buoy. And you're like, That is my only hope.
You fix your eyes and your grasp and your hope on that to save you. That's the type of desperate need that it takes to set your mind on Christ as your only hope for change. It starts with this. Now, how do you practically do this? Well, you practically do this through a desperate pursuit of Him through word and prayer. A desperate pursuit of Him through word and prayer.
And I know that when I say that, that the response from some is, Oh, huge shock, preacher man. Read your Bible and pray more. It's not like I haven't heard that before. And others will say, That's over simplistic. To look at someone and their sin and their brokenness and their disorders, and to say, Read your Bible more. That's overly simplistic.
You don't understand the complexity of the problem. My hope is that the last couple of weeks have highlighted that we absolutely believe that the problem is complex. That the sin and the brokenness, that our stories, that our idolatry is absolutely complex. But I, hear this, I wholeheartedly reject any idea that does not place word and prayer as a sin. central aspect of soul care. I reject any idea that doesn't, that downplays the need for word and prayer in the process of change. I mean, honestly, that, I mean this, that, that can really only come from someone who hasn't desperately sought Christ as their only hope through word and prayer.
Not just for a moment, not just for a couple of days, not just for a couple of weeks, but has for seasons, for years, clung to Christ in word and prayer as their only hope for change. That critique can honestly only come from someone who has not done that. And I have seen, over the last three years, some of the people I've watched grow in our church immensely have grown in this. They have, there's a common thread. They have sought the Lord and word. They're growing in prayer.
It is a long-term approach. It is a long-term pursuit. One of my former pastors, he used to say, I'm sure he's not the source of this quote. He used to say, soul work is slow work. That soul work is slow work. It takes time.
It takes more than just a couple of months pursuing God. You need to look at him as your only hope and continue to look and fix your gaze upon him. And that happens practically through word and prayer. Over and over and over again to see the change you want to see happen. Now, the reason this is so important is that when you focus on him, when you continue to look at him in his word, he starts to change your perspective on all of it, on yourself, on life. There's a book that I'm almost done reading called Gentle and Lowly.
It is the book you see on both sides. Crossway was, the publisher was generous enough to give us 200 free copies. So today I want you all to take a copy when you leave. But this book just does that. It looks at the heart of Christ. As a diamond, you're turning all the facets and seeing different aspects of it.
And as you sit in it, as you look at the heart of Christ, it begins to change your perspective on everything. It changes your perspective on your sin, on your brokenness. That's what he's calling us to do. To continue to look at him, continue to gaze upon him, continue to fixate on him, to pursue him in prayer, to go after him. We need to tether ourselves to Christ, to fixate on him. And when you do this, it sets you up for the second part of this, in step two, which picks up in verse five.
He says, 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. And 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 and its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the 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.
Now, we could spend a few weeks just walking through that right there because there's a whole lot packed in. But I want us to see, take a step back and see that the big second step in the process of change is this. It is an aggressive approach to sin. It is an aggressive approach to sin that when you put and focus your mind on Christ, it will inevitably result in this, an aggressive approach to sin. There's an illustration in that book, Gentleman Lowley, that I found incredibly helpful. He says that the father's view of sin in us is similar to a father's view of cancer in their child.
That when their child is diagnosed with cancer, they hate it. They hate the cancer in them. They hate seeing it hurt them. They hate seeing it harm them. That you hate that in your child. You want it destroyed.
That you will aggressively treat it with chemo, which hurts. But you will aggressively treat, you will treat this disease. And he says that's the father's approach to sin in us. That he hates sin in us. He hates the disease of sin. He knows what, he can see what it does to us.
He sees how it destroys us, how it kills our fellowship with him, how we run to lesser things. He sees what it does to our friendships, to our marriages. He sees what it does to our community groups, what it does to our churches, what it does to our society. He hates the disease of sin in us. And he wants us to aggressively approach it. And he gives two basic metaphors in this.
The first metaphor that he gives is put to death what is earthly in you. That's the first aggressive approach to sin that we're given. It's to put to death what is earthly in you. He says, therefore, linking back to everything he just said, therefore, put this to death in you. Week one, we talked about knowing our hearts and knowing our greater story and how that's all connected and how that knowledge helps us in the change process. Last week, we looked at deep idols and functional saviors.
And all this is knowledge to help us understand the brokenness that's within us, the brokenness that's underneath the surface. And the scriptures say, now that you know this, you can see this, put it to death. Murder it. Bludgeon it to death. Strangle it. Snuff the life out of it.
It is, I mean, it's an aggressive approach. I mean, this isn't unique to Colossians. You can go to Galatians 5, 24, where it says, crucify the flesh with a similar list of sins. Crucify. We walk through the crucifixion regularly in our church and teaching to understand how awful that death was. The ripping apart of the flesh that Jesus went through.
The suffocating on the cross. The scriptures say, crucify. With that aggression, crucify the flesh. It's violent language. And the reason it's violent is because we are called to take sins seriously. The disease is serious.
We need to look to God and as we look to Him and He stirs in us a holy hatred of sin. We look back at our sin and say, oh no, it's got to die. And I've got to murder it and if I'm going to bring people in in my group to help me murder it, I will crucify this. I will kill this. I will end this. And then it gives a second metaphor.
The second action it says is put them all away. Put off. Now the language of that in the Greek has to do with clothing. that you would put off, put away bad clothing. He's saying, you have bad clothing. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene, talk from your mouth. He says, put it away.
Take it off. Get rid of that clothing. It's not good for you. There was a brief time when I was a kid that I pulled for Tennessee. And if you know me, I'm a huge Gamecock fan. But in the 90s, I saw Peyton Manning play and I went, oh man, that's a quarterback.
That's not a Tannehill. That is something different. And I fell in love with him. I was like, to this day, he was my childhood hero. I followed him to Colts. I'm a huge Colts fan.
I love Peyton Manning. And for a brief period of time, I also pulled for Tennessee. And then after he went to the NFL, I went to a Gamecock game where Tennessee was playing and I had a Gamecock shirt underneath and a Tennessee sweatshirt on. And about halftime, I looked around and I looked at myself and I was like, I look ridiculous. Why? Peyton's gone.
He's never coming back. I don't like this team. I look ridiculous. So I repented of my ways and I never wore anything Tennessee ever again. It was a bad look. And he's saying, it's a bad look.
These patterns that you were once enslaved to. Don't go back to them. Put it away. Pornography. Sexual sin. Masturbation.
This pursuit and gratification that comes from the flesh. He says, put it away. Get rid of it. You don't need to wear this anymore. He says, self-hatred. You can add cutting, disordered eating.
Did it ever bring you, did it ever fix anything in you? Did going after that ever actually bring you an ounce of joy? He says, put it away. Put it away. Greed. Materialism.
The worship of money. Did it ever satisfy? Did it ever bring you the true joy that Christ offers? He says, no, put it away. Don't wear it anymore. It's a bad wardrobe.
These two metaphors for approaching sin are helpful. We need to absorb this. Now, how do we take that, take a step back and apply that to what we've been learning about the last few weeks? How do we apply that to the complexities of our story, to our deep ideology, to our functional saviors? I think part of this is knowing what is earthly in you so that you can respond accordingly, aggressively. I think it's part of knowing your anxiety and some of the, not just some of the feeling of anxiety, but some of the unbelief that's attached to and within anxiety that you get to know yourself.
You get to understand yourself. And maybe as you study yourself and you study the anxiety in you, you start to understand that maybe for you, what's underneath the surface is some control idolatry, which we walked through last week. That you want to be like God and control everything and if you can't control everything, then what happens is you start to get anxious and as you know yourself and you know this deep idolatry and as you take a step back like we looked at in week one and start to know yourself and know your story, that maybe part of it is is that there are things that you do that add to, that fuel unhelpfully the anxiety in you. We talked about one of those things is if you're prone to anxiety, drinking coffee and caffeine can stir you up in a way that's unhealthy, that maybe some of these behavioral patterns, some of these physical aspects of yourself and some of the deep idolatry, when you know this and you can piece it all together, you say, okay, I know what I'm up against and I'm going to put it away.
I'm going to put it away. I'm going to take it off. I'm going to put it to death. You can do this with depression, that as you see some of the hurt that comes from depression, maybe you've identified some deep idolatry that's underneath the surface, that maybe there's some approval idolatry that's underneath this deep sadness in your life and that part of it is is that you are seeking the approval of others always and it's not working and you're never satisfied and it makes you very sad and then you look at some of your behavioral patterns we walked through in week one and you realize that you spend a lot of time on social media, on Instagram, on Facebook, over others of you, on the news and it makes you cynical and it makes you sad and comparing yourself to others makes you even more, I mean, you understand all of this.
You piece together your story, your idolatry, these functional saviors and you understand it and you say, okay, no, no, I'm going to put this away. I'm not going to wear this anymore. Maybe this is, for some of you, this might be unrighteous anger and you have these fits of unrighteous anger or you just stay angry all the time and maybe you identify that for you there's some power idolatry underneath the surface that there's this need for power and that when people at work make jokes at your expense that you see then you get angry and then you can also take a step back and look at your story and realize that, oh, when I was 12, I had brothers who used to flex their power over me. I had friends that used to flex their power over me and I made a decision a long time ago that nobody was ever going to outman, outgun me, that I was going to be the one in power and when you piece all of this together you understand it and you're like, no, this will be put away.
I will aggressively address this. Part of aggressively addressing your sin is knowing what you're up against. It's knowing the bad wardrobe that you have and once you know the bad wardrobe that you're wearing it's got to go. It's got to go like a Abercrombie polo flipped up, flipped up collar or Matt Freeman's goatee that he rocked in college which you can go back on Facebook. It's a bad look. It just is.
It's got to go. It didn't fit anymore. You've got something new that is better. We aggressively approach our sin and then we move into what he gives us in the third step that we get to put on something that is better. Here's the third step. Verse 12.
Put on then. Alright, that same language in the Greek for clothing. Alright, you put off, you put away and now you're putting on, you're replacing the wardrobe. Put on then as God's chosen ones holy and beloved. As God's redeemed people that he chose that he redeemed that he scooped up out of our sin and our brokenness and set us apart and that we get the righteousness of Christ applied to us. He says, put on then as chosen ones holy and beloved.
Here are the things you put on. Compassionate hearts. Kindness. humility. Humility. Meekness. Impatience.
Put these on. The spiritual fruit that comes from pursuing Christ. Put these on. Bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against one another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must, you also must forgive. As you're putting on this fruit that comes from Christ, it's not ultimately just good for you, it's for the good of one another.
It's for the good of your church family, for your brothers and sisters that you might bear with one another better, that you might forgive one another better. It says, put this on and above all, verse 14, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Love. The love of Christ. It binds, it's the glue that holds us together. It binds us together.
So people ask sometimes when we talk about our elders, the four of us and how we work together, they're just like, man, how do y'all do this? How do y'all work together so well? And I'm like, man, it's a lot of heavy drinking. No. I'm like, no, honestly, it's love. We love one another.
We love one another deeply. We work through stuff. We fight through stuff. We fight for what is good and we argue, but we absolutely love one another. That binds us together. And I see our groups and I fight for this, that love binds them together in their healthy place.
They love one another. We're replacing what is earthly in us with this deep, abiding love of Christ. Verse 15, it says, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. As that, we should aim, we should, we should absolutely pursue that wholeheartedly. For those who feel turmoil in our souls, he says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. You should pray for this.
You should seek this. One of your regular prayers, if you feel like there's turmoil in your soul because of sin, it should be, Lord, the peace of Christ rule and reign in me. Let your peace just flood over me and be in me and ruling in me. He says, rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly that we would continue as we look up and behold him in his word and prayers. We're looking at our sin and dealing aggressively as we're putting on the righteousness of Christ.
We are letting the word of God dwell in us richly. And then he keeps going. He says, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And y'all, that's what we do here every Sunday. Teaching and admonishing one another. Singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Listen, part of your sanctification, part of you growing to be more like Christ, part of you changing is this, is being here on a Sunday morning. It's worshiping together. It's sitting on the authority of his word. It's reading scripture together. This matters. I'm thankful that we have really good group attendance week in, week out.
I want us to grow in this. To not just come once every couple weeks. To be here. To be present. To worship. And to sing praises.
And to be molded and shaped by his word. It is important in the process for change. And in 17, he says, And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. That it's all in the name of the Lord Jesus. The power comes from him. Clothing ourselves in righteousness, that comes as a gift from our God.
That he grants us this righteousness. That we get to grow in this as we have the righteous standing of Christ eternally. The fruit of that gets to well up in our lives. We get to display this fruit as we actively replace sinful patterns in our life with something better. Repentance is not just putting off, it is putting on. It's not just turning from things, it's turning to Christ.
That's what we're called to do over and over and over again. The direct application of this is what he said. Meekness, kindness, it's Galatians 5, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It is this fruit that we put on. Kind of a next application from that is something that I do in counseling. It's called gospel replacement.
Gospel replacement is the idea that attached to sinful behavior, idolatry, attached to some of the sin and functional saviors that's beneath the surface is this these bad confessions, these bad narratives, these bad refrains, this bad liturgy, this negative talk that we cycle through over and over and over again. And we reinforce some of the brokenness within us by saying the same things to ourselves over and over again. And what this does in gospel replacement is it addresses that by replacing it with the gospel. it's similar to there's a therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy. It's one of the more popular therapies out there.
And cognitive behavioral therapy is the idea that if you have a bad behavior or something you want to change you introduce something that is different and good to address it and through every time you have a bad thought you replace that with a good thought that it ultimately changes your behavior that it can rewire synapses in your brain to be able to change behavior. And it's like that I understand that psychologically I understand that through observation but behavior modification doesn't bring about the change that we want. But when you take the gospel and you apply that to some of the deep idols to some of the functional saviors to the sin and broken and you replace some of the bad confessions with good ones then we're doing the work that God has called us to.