| 18 June, 2000 | Setting your Affections | Colossians 3:1 |
One of my favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 5:17; "If any
man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are
passed away; behold, all things are become new."
We are new creatures in Christ, but unfortunately, we are still
stuck in our old flesh.
God has judged us, judged our flesh, it went to the cross with
Jesus, but for the moment, He still requires us to keep using
it. Bummer.
Because Paul tells us over in Romans 7 that there is something
that dwells in our flesh that frustrates us.
Every time we desire to do good, there is something in our flesh
that turns up evil, something at war with our mind, and he calls
it the law of sin.
He goes on to tell us that there is deliverance through Jesus
Christ, and the way of deliverance is to walk in the Spirit instead
of walking after the flesh. Good! So there is a solution.
But we have a problem putting it into practice; instead of walking
in the Spirit, what do we do?
We walk in the flesh, we continue making the same sinful mistakes,
and it's frustrating.
Why do we keep making the same mistakes? Because we are creatures
of habit. Good habits, and bad habits, we are creatures of habit.
Particularly in times of trouble, or distress, or difficulty,
we will tend to go to our reflex habits, do what we normally do,
do what we have always done, wether it is spiritual or not, whether
it is expedient or not.
Some of you that have been involved in the martial arts know about
repetition, practice, repetitive habit forming actions to ingrain
the proper responses to a situation.
A person who has not spent a lot of time learning the correct
responses and motions will react instinctively under pressure,
and the instinctive response will be wrong.
How do you get rid of reacting with the instinctive response?
You spend enough time reprogramming your habit patterns with the
correct response so that you will reflexively do what is correct
without having to think about it every time.
The verse that we used today; "if any man be in Christ, he
is a new creature; old things are passed away, all things are
become new", how does that apply?
When we get saved, God does not just dump out everything that
we have ever learned, all our personalities and emotions, and
pour us full of all new stuff, He trains us up into holiness,
just like we train our own children.
So we are constantly in the process of getting rid of the old
stuff, the old habits, and constantly learning new habits.
Old habits, and new habits: which ones will we respond to? What
kind of response will we have to any given situation?
How many of you in here have a computer? OK, how many of you don't
have a computer?
Let's do it this way; how many of you know almost nothing about
computers?
OK; we'll make it real simple. A personal computer normally has
different programs that let you write letters, look up information,
send mail electronically, store pictures, all kinds of different
programs.
Computers have a memory device called a hard drive, this is one
right here, and it will store all the millions and billions of
bits of data that it takes to make your programs run.
What if you are doing something illegal, and you get scared, so
now you don't want that program, that data, around anymore?
You would like to erase that incriminating evidence, right?
Since you don't want to go to jail, you tell the computer to delete
the program.
So you go ahead and delete it, and then, if you check to see if
it's gone, the computer tells you that it can't find it.
And also your hard drive says that it now has X amount of free
space more than it did before, so the program must be gone, right?
Not so. Hard drives have no way of erasing data, they can only
read and write data, or write new data over the top of old data,
and eventually, cover it up.
When you delete a program, what you actually do, is overwrite
the address system that tells the computer where the program is.
The program is still there, just the address of where to find
it has been over written.
This frees up that program's space, the computer now considers
it as available space, free space, and eventually will write other
stuff there.
If you try to get the program to run, the computer says there
is no data. That's not true, much of it, maybe all of it, is still
there.
A good computer geek can go in and figure out how to redo the
address, and possibly get that old program to run again, and all
that illegal stuff that you thought was gone will still get you
in trouble.
That's a little bit like how the sin in our flesh uses our brain.
Let's draw an analogy between our brains and a computer.
We have been living our pagan, heathen life for years, writing
a lot of sinful programs onto our brains, writing ungodly behavior
programs, ungodly habit programs, and then one day - we get saved.
When we get saved, God does not try to fix up our old sinful nature,
He doesn't give us a retread, He sends us to the cross with Jesus
and He kills us, in Jesus.
We are dead in Jesus, crucified with Christ, and then raised from
the dead with Jesus, in Christ, to walk in newness of life through
the Holy Spirit.
It all happens in a moment of time when we trust Jesus Christ
for salvation, and receive Him as Savior and Lord.
And after that we need to grow in grace and the knowledge of Jesus
Christ. The Holy Spirit will help us, and God's Word will teach
us.
Now: what about all those ungodly programs that we have stored
in our memory banks, what happens with them?
God the Holy Spirit immediately starts working in our hearts,
in our conscience, in our minds, to overwrite those old addresses
to those rotten programs that we used to run.
He also starts writing new programs, Godly programs, because reading
His Word, and being around other Christians and learning from
them will write new programs for us to run in our lives.
As we run those new programs, we think different, we act different,
and we look different to ourselves, and to those around us.
But we are still have the same bodies that we have always had,
we still have the same brains that we were born with, and a lot
of those old programs, those old memories, are still in there.
So we get up one morning all ready to be spiritual, and have a
God- filled day, and then something happens.
One of those old programs that we thought was deleted a long time
ago pops up and runs in living color and stereo sound, and the
name on it is "SIN." That Old Sinful Nature has run
one of those nasty old programs again.
And we are thinking; "Where did that come from? I thought
God had deleted that from my life a long time ago!?"
Did you know that Satan is an excellent computer geek? He knows
what programs we still have lying around on our hard drive.
Even though you thought your new Christian life had over-written
all those sinful programs, he still knows how to get your old
fallen nature to run them.
What is the solution? The analogy between our brains, our habits
and our behaviors, and the hard drive in the computer is accurate;
we need to continuously overwrite all those old programs with
new data.
The world, the flesh, and the devil will try to refresh those
old programs in our brains for as long as we live, and the only
way we can disable them is to continuously overwrite them with
Godly programs.
That works. We can do that. When we practice the presence of God,
the Holy Spirit will write new, good programs faster than our
old sinful nature can refresh the old, bad programs.
Here's how we do it: Turn to Colossians 3:1; "If ye then
be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where
Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."
This is a wonderful "How to do it" verse, please follow
closely with me:
The word "affection" has to do with our minds, the things
we value, the things we think are important, the things we want.
What is important to you? What do you value? Years ago I was down
in Jonesborough for Jonesborough Days, and they were selling all
kinds of things.
There was this man selling these little hand drawn calligraphy
sayings and proverbs, and I bought one that said; "Be careful
what you set your heart upon, for it surely shall be yours."
Are the things of this earth more important to you than the things
of heaven? Then that's what you shall have. Without
fail, you will obtain the things your heart desires.
Will they satisfy you? Will you be disappointed? That's another
story.
If you want to be satisfied, you need to "Seek those things
which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set
your affection on things above, not on things on the earth."
And you are thinking; "That sounds like a good idea, but
it's easier said than done." Read the next verse.
"For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."
God has crucified our old man on the cross with Christ, and we,
by faith need to keep that old, fleshly man up there, and not
keep dragging him off the cross, and trying to make him alive
in our day to day life.
When we drag the old fleshly man back up, then we end up running
those old programs that are still back in our memory banks, rewriting
and refreshing that old bad data.
Here's how to write new data, new programs, new habits over the
top of that old junk.
Set your affection on things above. Make a decision what you will
value in your life, what you want the most.
What do you want in your life? Showing the love of Christ to others?
Set your affection on it.
Being Christ-like to the people in your life? Set your affection
on it.
Showing your family the love of Christ, the patience of Christ?
Set your affection on it.
Showing your spouse the tenderness of Christ, the graciousness
of Christ? You've got to want it, and you've got to want
it the most. Set your affection on it. God is
telling you to want it.
What ever you value very highly of the things of Jesus,
make it your affection, the thing that you want the most in your
life.
Now; how do you obtain that heavenly thing that you value, that
attribute of God you have set your heart upon?
Verse 3; "Your life is hidden with Christ in God." Did
you know that you have the ability, as a believer, hidden in Christ,
to let Him live His life through you?
The Holy Spirit dwelling in you enables you to let God live out
His divine life through you on a day to day basis.
You will still be you, you will still have the same size, shape,
and personality, you do not become Jesus; but you are enabled
to live a life where those around you will think of you as being
like Jesus to them.
And it's not a life of feelings; you don't sit around and wait
until you feel holy, or feel sanctified, you don't need to feel
anything.
2 Corinthians 5:7 says that we walk by faith and not by sight.
That means that we don't walk like sighted men or blind men either
one, feeling our way along, we walk by faith.
The Christian life has a lot of feelings, but if we base our Christian
life on feelings, Satan will give you enough false feelings to
send you down a bunch of rabbit trails. In certain areas; lose
the feelings.
Here's how you do it; when you set you affections, your mind,
your thoughts on things above, then you accept at face value that
what God says about you is true.
God says that you are Holy because you are in Christ.
But you say; "I don't feel holy." Lose the feelings.
God says that you are accepted by Him because you are in Christ.
But you say; "I don't feel accepted." Forget your
feelings.
"But you don't understand; my parents never accepted me,
my friends don't accept me, I know they reject me."
OK; so they do. God never promised that they wouldn't. But
He accepts you, set your mind on things above, and let
what God says about you be more valuable than what the world says
about you.
God says that you are blameless in Christ. But you don't feel
blameless. Lose your feelings; God says otherwise
- believe Him.
God says that he has forgiven you all your trespasses and sins.
But you still have guilt feelings about things.
Give it up on the feelings, take God
at His Word.
In Romans 8:37, God says that you are more than a conqueror, through
Jesus, over any and everything that will come your way. But you
feel like a loser. You feel defeated.
Your feelings lie. Who you gonna' believe, your
feelings, or God?
God is telling us what is truth, we need to reprogram our computer
to run God's programs, and over write the junk that is still in
there.
Remember back at the start of this message, I said that one of
the basics of successful martial arts is reprogramming our habits
by repetition of doing the right things?
Let me give you a for-instance of letting Jesus live His life
through us:
I'm trying to write this sermon, and it's going down eight rabbit
trails because I can't get it to gel, it won't come together.
There are roofers up on the roof, replacing all the shingles,
banging and hammering on the plywood, making a ton of racket.
Meanwhile, Barbara is rearranging Jennifer's old room and trying
to get all our household papers, and documents out of my desk,
and into this other room, constant interruptions.
Her file cabinets have the wrong kind of drawers, the files won't
fit, she keeps asking me things, and then she says; "What's
your sermon going to be about?"
The old, natural, fleshly man that God nailed to the cross with
Jesus would say; "It's a sermon on how to not do things
in your own flesh, now would you please get out of here and leave
me alone?"
"Here I am trying to tell people how to be like Jesus and
you're driving me nuts! Take a hike!"
My old natural man could do such a thing. So could yours. But
Colossians 3:3 says that my life is hid with Christ in God. So
what do I do?
If my life is hid with Christ in God, then that means I don't
have to live my life in that old nature.
Does my wife have needs? Jesus can meet her needs through me.
And I have chosen to believe that He will use me to
meet my wife's needs.
And I can say; "Well Lord, I sure am glad that you showed
my wife how to make these file cabinets work, because she sure
was frustrated."
"And Lord, I guess all these interruptions are because there
must be something I need to learn and think about before I get
this sermon done, that must be the reason for the delays. Thank
You Jesus."
"I sure am glad that your Holy Spirit will show me how to
give your people at the Chapel what they need, I'm glad it's your
problem and not mine."
You see, I have chosen to set my mind on things above, I choose
to believe that Jesus is meeting your pastoral needs through me.
I don't feel like I'm doing a good job, but I don't
go by my feelings; I act on what God has shown me to be true through
His Word.
Later on that day, Barbara goes to take a shower, and I go to
get a drink of water.
So I'm standing there with a glass of ice water in my hand, and
suddenly, I know what I must do. Go to the bathroom.
So I stand outside the shower curtain, take as big a mouthful
as I can, and spray it over the top of the shower curtain, and
she screams; "What are you doing?" I said; "Cooling
you off", and then I dumped the rest of the glass over the
curtain.
Unfortunately, it has been so long since I sprayed any water that
way, that I got it all over the curtain, and my glasses, and my
shirt, and the side of the bathtub and the floor. Made a big mess.
So I got out a towel and started wiping everything down, and she
says; "Now what are you doing?" So I told her and she
starts laughing and tells me; "OK, go put that in your sermon,
Mr. Don'tDoThings InYourOwnFlesh!"
Now; was this a good example of Jesus living His life through
me? No, but her response to me was a good example of Jesus living
His life through her. A happy, and insightful response that I
needed to see.
Meanwhile, all morning, the roofers have been up there beating
and banging, but all of a sudden, things get real quiet.
I go up on the roof, and they've quit. The nail gun won't fire,
and although this guy's a great roofer, he's a mechanical klutz,
because he's trying to tape a penny in between the trigger and
switch, on the nail gun.
Now my old natural man could watch this guy and his penny and
his nail gun and think;
"You moron! Dale could of fixed that nail gun better
than that when he was five years old!"
But I can set my mind on things above and let Jesus live through
me, and give me an idea of how to cut out a little piece of wood,
trim it to the right size, tape it behind the trigger, and get
the nail gun working, please this man, meet his need.
Because if you start out saying; "Well Lord, what will you
do about this?", then you can end up saying:
"Hey, Lord; that was fun, you showed me how to fix the guy's
nail gun, it didn't take but a minute, didn't cost him any money.
Neat"
But now the roofer needs to stop and go get plywood and flashing
to replace some bad spots that he's found.
My old natural man would probably say; "This guy's
been roofing for 20 years, why didn't he bring the right materials
with him to start with?"
"It's getting cloudy, if it starts raining while this
guy is running back and forth to Lowes, I get an attic full of
water."
But I remember that my life is hid with Christ in God.
"Lord, it sure is hot on this roof, it is terrible. It is
really good how you arranged circumstances so that these people
can get off this roof, and go somewhere else for a while, take
a break in some air conditioning, and get some lunch, or they
might get sick."
"Thank you Jesus for getting me out of the house, and up
from my desk for awhile, and up on the roof, the view sure is
better up here."
Now, what was all this doing? Reprogramming the computer. Writing
new behavior pattern data over the top of the old behavior pattern
data.
Not that I was doing anything super spiritual or being Holy Joe,
this is practical stuff, this is the spiritual equivalent of learning
your horse stance.
The best way to get rid of old habits is to replace them with
new habits, and new habits can be awkward, they can seem unnatural,
they can seem not to make any sense.
When some neighbor walks down the street in front of the school,
and sees several students standing for long periods of time under
that tree in the horse stance, who knows what they think?
Or those students; how long does it take until the various stances
and moves start to seem natural, and become second nature? A long
time.
It takes a while to practice the new habits well enough that the
old habits quit showing up. But the end result is worth the trouble.
Maybe you never did certain things of the Christian life before.
Maybe your old natural man
never knew how to be patient, or thoughtful or tenderhearted,
or any number of other things that might make you a better Christian.
Jesus knows how to do it. Jesus knows how to do or be anything
you need, the question is; what do you want?
Set your affections, your mind, your wants on things above,
and not on the things of this earth, and then count your life
as hid in God, and let Him do them through you.
Then practice letting Him do them through you. "Aw,
I'd feel stupid doing that, telling myself those things like what
you were doing."
The only way you will learn new habits over your old ones is to
practice them. Over and over.
Think about them. Verbalize them to yourself. They might seem
awkward at first, but the more you practice, the more they will
become second nature.
And that's what it's all about; replacing habits from your old
nature with habits of a new nature from God.
Walk by faith that He is doing them through you, and that is how
you get victory over the flesh.
Romans 12:2 tells us "Be not conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind." That
is how you renew it.
Write new habits over the old ones, cover up those old programs
with new data. Eventually that old program won't run nearly as
well.
There is one more verse in Colossians chapter 3 that we didn't
read, it is verse 4.
"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with Him in glory."
Christ is our life. We need to quit trying to live
in the dead life of our old, dead, natural man, crucified with
no future, and start living in Christ, because God has made Him
to be our life.
Set your affections on things above, set your mind on wanting
to be like Jesus, and then act by faith, day by day, that He will
conform you to that goal. If you want what He wants, He will surely
give it to you.
Practice the basics of letting Him live His life through you.
And you will not be disappointed.