Series: Church On The Move (Colossians)[#6]
VICTORIOUS (PART 1)
Colossians 3:1-4
Introduction:
I get many emails forwarded to me each week. To be honest I don’t even read them all; but I received one the other day marked, “Best email I’ve ever read”. So out of curiosity I read it and they may just be right. Let me share it with you this morning.
“Pure Blood”
For GOD so loved the world that HE gave HIS only begotten SON, that whosoever believeth in HIM should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
It’s a Wednesday night and you are at a church prayer meeting when somebody runs in from the parking lot yelling, “Turn on a radio, turn on a radio!” And while the church listens to a little transistor radio with a microphone stuck up to it, the announcement is made: “Two women are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from a ‘mystery’ flu.” Within hours it seems, this thing just sweeps across the country.
People are working around the clock trying to find an antidote. Nothing is working! California, Oregon, Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts. It’s as though it’s just sweeping in from the borders.
And then, all of a sudden, the news comes out. The code has been broken. A cure can be found. A vaccine can be made. It’s going to take the blood of somebody who hasn’t been infected, an so, sure enough, all through the Midwest, through all those channels of emergency broadcasting, everyone is asked to do one simple thing: Go to your downtown hospital and have your blood type taken. That’s all we ask of you! When you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, please make your way quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals.
Sure enough, when you and your family get down there late on that Friday night, there is a long line, and they’ve got nurses and doctors coming out and pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it. Your wife and kids are out there, and they take your blood type and they say, “Wait here in the parking lot and if we call your name, you can be dismissed and go home.”
You stand around, scared, with your neighbors, wondering what in the world is going on and if this is the end of the world. Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He’s yelling a name and waiving a clipboard. What? He yells it again! And your son tugs on your jacket and say’s “Daddy, that’s me.”
Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy. Wait a minute! Hold on! And they say, “It’s okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure. We want to make sure he doesn’t have the disease. We think he has got the right type.” Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one another… some are even laughing. It’s the first time you have seen anybody laugh in a week and an old doctor walks up to you and says, “Thank you, sir. Your son’s blood type is perfect. It’s clean, it is pure, and we can make the vaccine.” As the word begins to spread all across that parking lot full of folks, people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying.
Then the gray-haired doctor pulls you and your wife aside and says, “May we see you for a moment? We didn’t realize that the donor would be a minor and we nee, we need you to sign a consent form.” You begin to sign and then you see that the number of pints of blood to be taken has been left blank. “H-how many pints?”, you ask. And that is when the doctor’s smile fades and he says, “We had no idea it would be a little child. We weren’t prepared. I’m sorry sir, we need it all!”
“But, but you don’t understand.” We are talking about the world here. Please sign. We need it all!” “But can’t you give him a transfusion?” “If we had clean blood we would. Can you sign? Would you sign?” In numb silence, you do.
Then they say, “Would you like to have a moment with him before we begin?” Can you walk back? Can you walk back to that room where he sits on a table saying, “Daddy? Mommy? What’s going on?” Can you take his hands and say, “Son, your mommy and I love you, and we would never ever let anything happen to you that didn’t just have to be. Do you understand that?” And when the doctor comes back in and says, “I’m sorry, we’ve got to get started! People all over the world are dying. Can you leave?” Can your walk out while he is saying, “Daddy? Mommy? Daddy? “Why, why have you forsaken me?”
And then next week, when they have the ceremony to honor your son some folks sleep through it… some folks don’t even come because they go to the lake or the seashore… some folks come with a pretentious smile and just “pretend” to care. Would you want to jump up and say, “MY SON DIED FOR YOU! DON’T YOU CARE?”
Is that what God want to say? “MY SON DIED FOR YOU! DON’T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I CARE?”
[Prayer] “Father, seeing it from you eyes breaks our hearts. Maybe no we can begin to comprehend the great love you have for us.” (Continue prayer.)
1 Corinthians 15:50-57
We have been given the victory through Jesus Christ’s perfect life, death, and resurrection.
Colossians 3:1a (NIV)
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ…
Christians in order to live a victorious life each day, we must focus on the cross of Jesus. Our first focus needs to be…
Upward
Our text tells us how to focus upward.
Colossians 3:1b (NIV)
…set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Who must make the 1st move here? You! You must set your heart the right direction. This is your motivations of life. This is your desires of life. For example: Is your motive for coming today to show us how good you are or look; or to worship God? You say, “Hey, I showed up!” That’s not good enough if you want to be victorious every day.
I talked to a friend who told me his boss of a very important business wasn’t happy at his church. So this friend invited him to his small church and the boss said, “No, I have no choice but to go to my big church.” “Why”, my friend asked. “Because, if you want to be successful in business you go to where my sort of people go”. Folks, this isn’t going “to cut it”.
Another part of this 1st focus is…
Colossians 3:2 (NIV)
“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
Again, who needs to make the 1st move. You! You must set your mind the right direction. What do you fill your mind with? Here is your options:
1. Poison. Poison is stuff like pornography, occult, trashy novels, things that blasphemy God, anything that is bad for your mind. I read this week that the average television is now on seven hours and seven minutes a day in the average home. If you’re an average American, you watch about 1000 hours of tv a year. That means if you live to be 65, you will amass nine and a half solid years of tv viewing. Parents no longer teach values, the television teaches values. Nine and a half solid years of tv viewing. But if you went to Bible study -- Sunday School -- every Sunday of your life from day 0 to day 65 that would only equal four and a half months of Bible teaching. Four and a half months of Bible compared to nine and a half years of television. Poison.
“The New 23rd Psalm”
"The TV is my shepherd, My spiritual growth shall want. It makes me to sit down and do nothing for His name’s sake; Because it presenteth so many good shows, I must see. It restores my knowledge of the things of the world and keeps me from studying God’s Word. It leads me in the paths of failing to attend worship service and doing nothing for the Kingdom of God. Yea, though I live to be a hundred, I shall keep on viewing my TV, As long as it will work, for it is my closest companion. Its sound and its pictures, they comfort me. It presenteth entertainment before me and keepeth me from doing important things with my family. It fills my head with ideas which are contrary to God’s Word. Surely, no good thing will come of my life because my TV causeth me to backslide; And I shall be ashamed before Him at His coming.”
2. Stuffing. Stuffing is simply stuff. It’s neither good nor bad. A lot of books, movies, tv shows are just stuffing. They’re not harmful, they’re just "there".
3. Brain food. These are things that inspire you, teach you, help you grow, teach you a skill, that make you a better person. Things that build you up rather than tear you down.
4. The Bible. The Word of God. David said, "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee." It keeps us on the right track.
You have to realize that you have to decide what you’re going to fill your mind with because it’s going to come out of your life.
Conclusion:
Why should we look up?
Colossians 3:3 (NIV)
“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
Before you were saved or if you have not been saved, you were or are dead in your sins.
Let me do the math for you:
Born 1 time= Die 2 times.
Born 2 times= Die 1 time.
If you are never born again before you die the physically, you will also die spiritually.
Jesus explained this 2nd birth to Nicodemus.
John 3:1-21
What is the result of being born again?
Colossians 3:4 (NIV)
“When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
The destination for the Christian is eternal life in Heaven.
Revelation 21:1-4
The destination for the “lost” is eternal death in hell.
Revelation 20:14-15
If you are here without Christ what must you do to be saved?
Romans 10:9-10, 13
Christians, who has the victory? We do!
Look upward and then march forward in victory!
