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All right. So as biblical counselors, we we view marriage. What we’d like to do when people come to us with issues as far as marriage is concerned, is we’d like to try to get them to the root of the problem. There’s all kinds of things that can happen in marriage that lots of hurts and anguish and all that stuff that kind of builds up over time, and we tend to focus on those things, those hurts that the other spouse has done to us, that that think that causes our unhappiness. And what we try to do is kind of try to peel all that away, kind of like an onion, and get to the root of the problem of the issue. And that’s kind of what I want to do today, is kind of expose to us the root as far as issues in our, in our, in our marriage, as far as arguments and arguments and, and fighting and, and bickering and all that stuff is just to get to the root of those things, um, and build the foundation, the biblical foundation to change from there. And so in order to build that foundation, we first have to start, as Pastor Nathaniel did last week. I wasn’t in the service, but I was able to listen to it online. And I just want to recommend. That’s a great way for us to carry the teaching we hear at church out throughout the week.
A lot of us have access to smartphones or the computer throughout the week, and it’s great to be able to dial up alpinebible.com and and listen to the message that we just heard to renew what what we were taught on Sunday. It’s a great, uh, ministry for us and a blessing for us. So I just want to recommend you doing that. So as I was listening, Pastor Nathaniel started here as well in Genesis. Right. We know that God speaks and we’re thankful for that. He speaks in his general revelation. We see take a look around at the universe. And we we have to admit that there was a creative, a higher being, a something that set all this into motion. And and so we can tell just by the order of all things, that indeed there was a creator of all things, but that doesn’t get to the heart of who he is and how he’s revealed himself and how he’s revealed himself is through words, right? Thankfully, he’s given us special revelation, specific revelation. And that’s through his word, through the progressive human history. He’s given apostles and prophets the words through the God, the Spirit to and breathe the words to write down to us, to communicate his special, his specific revelation of who this creator is and what he’s all about. Right. And so we have today, um, here in 2014, this amazing blessing of having God’s completed word and God’s completed revelation to mankind.
But the beginning of all that is through. It starts in Genesis one, where God speaks the creation into existence, and he speaks Adam and Eve into creation and into into existence. And we see here in Genesis 128, God blessed them. And God said to them, he’s using words, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. He’s, he’s he’s giving them his will. He’s relating to him, to them, how he should they should interact with, with their creator. All these things is same with us. He’s he’s he reveals himself and he communicates how we are supposed to act with our creator through his word. He did this to Adam and Eve and imagine this for just a moment. All the words that were spoken in Genesis chapter one were godly. Uh, they were full of peace and truth. There was not one word that was spoken that was ungodly. There was not one bit of bitterness between Adam and Eve. Nothing like that ever existed in Genesis chapter one. Could you imagine your your marriage without any conflict? That’s kind of hard to even believe on this side of the fall, right? But that’s how it was in Genesis one, and that was God’s intention for his creation to be in complete harmony with their creator first, and then with the horizontal relationships, the family structure beginning with the spouse, and then the children later. It’s supposed to be complete harmony.
But we all know, sadly, that Genesis one, Genesis one is long gone, right? Um, and in Genesis three we have the great deceiver, Satan. Satan speaks. So for the first time in creation, there was a different set of words being spoken in the garden. And these words were one of deception. And he, Satan, called God in his power and his authority, and challenged him on those things. And the very words of God were being challenged. As we look at Genesis three, did God really say, um? And he began to provide them a different interpretation of God’s words, right? Genesis three four, no, you will not die if you take of the of the fruit, partake of the fruit. Right? It’s a different interpretation. And sadly, we know that Adam and Eve believed. That different interpretation and spun humanity into sin and devastation. So because of that, because they believe Satan and believe that different interpretation of God’s words and did not submit to God’s authority, but to another their relationship with God was severed. That what God had designed, a complete, perfect cohesiveness between God vertically and horizontally in other relationships had been uprooted by sin. And that also played out in Adam and Eve’s relationship. And we see it here in Genesis 311. It says the Lord asking Adam, who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? The man replied, the woman you gave me to be with, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.
So the Lord asked the woman, what is this you have done? And the woman said, it was a serpent. He deceived me, and I ate. So as we look into God’s Word, we understand that God has order in all things and and in marriage. Man is the man. The husband is supposed to be the federal head, the the spiritual leader of that unit, that cohesive unit and all that are their equal in importance and equality and all that. There’s still order that God had laid out in that marriage structure. And the failure was really on Adam to not be that spiritual leader, to allow this to happen. And and so God comes to Adam, not to Eve, what has happened. And he says it’s the woman’s fault, right? He didn’t say, God, I didn’t step up as the spiritual leader, the federal head of of this family that you’ve given me and step in and and protect this beautiful lady that you’ve given me. Instead, he blame shifted. Well, it’s the woman’s fault. It’s not my fault. He also not only blamed Eve, but he accused God, did he not? It’s the woman that you gave me. It’s actually your fault, God. You gave me this. This person. It was the person that you gave me. And so this marriage, this, this thing that was meant to be a reflection of God and who he is and and unity and community of marriage became very broken in a sudden fall from God’s presence and his control.
Sin spun us off into what we see now, today, all around us. Devastation, sickness, uh, hatred, murder, all those things were all caused from back in the Garden of Eden, when sin began to wear its ugly head. And our words no longer were pure words that were from the root of God, that were designed to uplift and encourage and exhort. They became another. There was another root of words, right? Blame shifting, hatred, um, anger. All these things began to rear their heads, in our words, to one another. And in our society today, I think it’s it’s really I think everybody would agree that we all can meet in a social gathering like today, and we can all extend, uh, common courtesies and graces, believers and unbelievers alike. But when we come to the family unit, right, the closest neighbor that you have is who your spouse. And it’s there. We see these roots, the roots of the Lord. And the roots of Satan begin to rear their ugly heads or battle with one another. I would hope that we could all agree that we’ve often spoken in the roots of our words of from the roots of Satan, where we, instead of uplifting and encouraging and exhorting our spouse that God has given us, we use them to cut down and and write, return, um, uh, just in conflict.
Those those things happen in our marriage because of what had happened in the Garden of Eden. Matthew five 1518 Christ is speaking here. He he puts it pretty much. He finds the root of this problem of our words with one another, our words to our spouse, the closest neighbor that we have. He says, but what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this defiles a man. So what we speak is really a reflection of what’s going on in our heart are these words that we’re speaking life giving words, roots from the word rooted in the Word of God? Or are they words mean meaning to take away life or to, to, to? Destroy and to cut down into attack and to malign another person. So Christ is saying that the words that flow out of our mouth are really a heart issue. That’s what’s going on. The wisdom literature there in Proverbs, Proverbs 1821, life and death are in the power of the tongue. We have the ability to to give life with our speech. We have the ability to speak of death and speak those negative aspects into someone’s life. With all what we decide to do with our tongue and those who love it will eat its fruit. Right? So these words that we speak to one another.
It stems from the fall. It stems from sin. As Pastor Nathaniel uh uh, revealed to us last week. Um. So let me ask you, just take a few seconds here. As we like I said, we can all extend common courtesies to one another. But when we’re in the heat of the battle in the middle of the week and we just got home from work after working a 12 hour day, what normally, what route do our words normally come from? Are they coming from God? Are they coming from? The deceiver? What are we speaking into our families? What are we speaking into our relationships? I have to tell you that I had to go and and confess. I said, I’m going to be a hypocrite tomorrow, Tara. I’m going to tell stand up before all these people and tell them that they need to, to understand that, um, they shouldn’t be speaking words from the root of the devil. And and I know that I do that often to you. And so I apologize. I ask for your forgiveness because I won a lot of things. But the one thing I don’t want to be is a hypocrite. But I know the majority of the time, if I’m not engaged in the things of God, the words in which I speak are rooted in the deceiver. The words that I speak are rooted with me on the throne, that I need to have peace in my life.
And so the words that I speak are about me and controlling my environment so that I can have my control in those things. And instead of submitting my control back to God. So. That is where what we are to conclude the things that come from our mouths are from our heart. We have a heart problem, do we not? But there’s good news, right? The gospel. Gospel means good news. I’m so glad there’s good news. Genesis 315. That same section where the deceiver has come and destroyed looks like he’s destroyed all that God had designed for, for mankind as the image bearers of God in His creation. He spun that marriage into disarray, and blame shifting began and accusations began. God said, there’s hope. Genesis 315 I will put hostility between you. He’s talking to the devil and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel. It’s a personal pronoun. There, he. This is the first glimpse of what God was to do. He was telling the devil, you think you might have screwed things up, but I’m not done. I’m going to send a redeemer. I’m going. This. He will come and he will defeat you. And what you’ve done, he will redeem and he will rescue a people and restore this people back to his original intention of mankind.
And that is complete harmony with God first and foremost, and working that out in our horizontal relationships with one another, beginning with our spouse. So that’s the good news. Christ did come. And then John in the New Testament. John chapter one has this wonderful declaration that this God who speaks has sent his word, the Redeemer, to come into his existence, to redeem a people, to rescue a people from this sin and this heart that is rooted in the in the in the words of the devil and the deceitfulness of the devil. And I just love reading it. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. He was God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that was created. Life was in him and that life was the light of men. It goes on in verse 11, he came to to his own. He came into the world. He was rejected by the Israelites as a whole, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to become or to be children of God, to those who believe in his name. So this Redeemer has come. And the gospel message is this, that through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that we are full of sin, we are separated from God.
This Redeemer. From Genesis 315, God used the the history of mankind to to bring this Redeemer into existence or into into the creation as existence. He’s always existed, but God the Son has stepped into his creation to redeem and rescue a people. And he’s given us the requirements for this rescue. If you need rescue today, if you need redemption, if you see the scars of sin in your life and and have come to that point where you understand that you in no way can do it through behavior modification and get rid of those things in your life. There is the rescuer and Redeemer who stands ready to rescue you. And John declares it right here to those who believe in his name. So this sin that we, that we have Christ lived, stepped into his creation. And because he was God, he lived that perfect existence without sin, because he was the Lamb of God, without spot or blemish. But then he willingly went to the cross, and on that cross God the Father poured out his wrath on the sin, not his sin, because he was without sin. But God the Father poured out his wrath on His Son for our sin because of that. That’s the gospel. Because Christ went on our behalf and was punished for our on our account. We can now become, as John says, children of God, that restoration of separation that happened back in the garden can be restored.
And what do we have to do? It doesn’t say here to join a church and be baptized and do the best you can for the rest of your life. It says believe. Believe in the gospel message. Understand that you are unable to work your way back to God. Trust and believe that this Messiah has come in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and that Son of God went to the cross for you and died for your sins. And all those who believe and trust in that, that the penalty that you deserve was placed on him. Therefore I have become a child of God. If you believe and trust in that, you are adopted into the family of God. It’s this wonderful thing that’s called regeneration that tied us. And multiple scriptures in the New Testament speaks about. But when that truly happens, when you repent and turn to God and trust in him and what he’s done on the cross, that this regeneration happens, that this something happens to our heart that was separated from God, is now alive and wants to seek after God. It’s given us a new heart that desires for him. And guess what else? If you’ve given been given that heart by accepting the gospel. That heart can also allow you to change to the power of Christ. And the grace he has given all those who believe and trust in his name.
But to all who did receive him, he gave him the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God. It’s the being born again. I used to tease people that were saying they were born again believers when I was a kid, but it’s so important to be born again, be given that new heart, be regenerated by trusting and believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as we do that, we begin to walk with the Lord. It’s God’s hope that we begin to walk with the God and understand that he’s given us the avenue to reverse the curse. Those words that we speak that were rooted in the devil no longer have to be there because we have a new heart. We are a child of God. We can now walk in his light and in his power and his grace, and we can. Get rid of that. Die to the old man. Live in the new man. So the first part of understanding how we can fight fair in our relationships is understanding the problem sin. Because of the fall. But understanding the solution to the problem is Christ and His a relationship with him. So and we can begin to change. So I wanted this to be try to be practical today.
Okay. I want to be able to have you guys walk away from this and, um. Have some some practical application that if you so choose, so you can try to apply to your, your life and to your, your relationship with your spouse. So how can genuine change through the power of the gospel? How does that occur? How does that occur? Uh, James, the half brother of Jesus, said this draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Okay, so the first part of change is just as you had that moment where you realized that you could not save yourself because of your sin, and so you turn to God. It’s really the lifestyle of the Christian from that point forward. The ability and the willingness to understand that I need to draw closer and closer and closer to God. And there are some, uh, elderly saints that have been walking with the Lord in this congregation a lot longer than I have. And I guarantee you, if you ask them, they say they would say they still need to draw closer. It never ends. We need to begin by understanding we have no power and to change our our hearts within ourselves. We have to draw to God. We have to be closer to God. And then he goes on to say, cleanse your hands, sinners. And so what does that mean? Well, it means the practical side of changing our behavior.
You speak out in anger often in your home and to your spouse. You need to change that. You need to understand that those words are rooted in the deceiver, not the life giving words of the Lord. You need to change that, and so you need to stop yourself. You need to come up with ways in which you can change that. But behavior modification doesn’t go far enough. Okay. We’re talking about a new heart that God has given us, and we want that heart to overtake the old. And so he goes on to say, and I think James agrees here. And purify your hearts, double minded people. Anybody? Atheist. Any religion can do behavior modification, but only a child of God can purify their hearts through the power of the gospel. And that’s what James is declaring to us. You must purify your heart. Quit being double minded. Cognitive cognitive dissonance. Right where Christians on Sunday, and then we’re going out and not putting one thought into how we’re speaking to one another, and to our spouses and to our family. We must purify our hearts. What effectively controls your heart. That’s the issue. If you want change in your life, you’re going to have to take some time and figure out who’s on the throne of your heart. I can tell you that Jesus came into this world to save you and to redeem you, so that he can be on the throne of your heart.
And not yourself. It’s a constant dethroning of yourself on the altar of your heart and your comfort and your pleasure, and in your power and allowing God and Jesus through Jesus Christ, to reign in you. So how does that happen? How can we purify our hearts? Right. We’re trying to make this practical. And Nathaniel used this same passage again last week, but it’s just of utmost importance. Matthew 22, verses 37 through 40. So Jesus here is the context, is that Jesus is walking in his earthly ministry. And the Pharisees, these religious leaders who had gone through great lengths to display their outward righteousness in the works of the law that they did, they tried to kind of trip Jesus up, and they asked him, what’s the greatest commandment? And this is what Jesus declared to them. He said to them, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. All of it. All of your heart, all of your soul. All of your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it love your neighbor as yourself. And there was a time before I understood the way in which God changes us, that I would put those into two different categories. Okay. All right. Because I’m a checklist guy. All right. So I want to change. So give me the things I need to do so I can change.
Right. Love the Lord your God with all your soul all through okay I’m going to love the Lord. And then I’m going to do that. And then I’m going to I’m going to go do service work on Saturday so I can love my neighbor. It’s not that way. It doesn’t work that way. It’s not two compartments. It’s not two separate things. They’re both encompassed the first if we need to, if we want to change, if we want to love our neighbor. And who is our closest neighbor? If you’re married today? Your spouse if we want to love our neighbor. Like ourselves, we have to get the first commandment right. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. That’s the greatest commandment. Um. See, the thing is, is if we begin to focus on that first commandment of loving the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your mind, all those things, it’s naturally going to flow out horizontally. Okay, let me show you. And this is kind of a warning. This next in John chapter six here. It’s kind of a a warning for us as Christians. We want to make sure that Jesus isn’t the way in which we can have a better marriage, okay? Because that’s not what the gospel is about. And John six, Jesus here is talking or he just got done.
It’s a well familiar story. He’s, uh, takes a loaf of bread and he feeds 5000 people. Right. And it’s this wonderful, miraculous miracle that a lot of people know and have heard before in their lifetime. But the interesting thing about that is the scriptures go on in John chapter six to say that the people saw what he did and they said, this is the Messiah, this one that was prophesied from the Old Testament. He has come, let’s grab him. Let’s make him king. That’s exactly what he is, right? But what did Jesus do? He withdrew himself. He. Vanished. I mean, he withdrew himself from the situation. He didn’t allow them to bring him to that king or that throne ship. And we got to ask why? Why did he not? That’s what he was here for. He’s the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. The people saw for that, and he withdrew himself. And so the people as us maybe are a little confounded. Well, why did that happen? And in John chapter six, verse 25, he says, uh, when they found him, the people, they’re searching after him because he withdrew himself on the other side of the sea. They said to him, Rabbi, when did you get here? Jesus answered, I assure you, you are looking for me. He goes, I am the Messiah. Not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
What he’s saying here is you missed the point. You want to follow me? You want to make me king because your physical belly has been filled. When that was an intended sign. I like how John uses the instead of miracle. He uses the word sign. If we’re going to go on vacation, right, and we’re going to go to a destination, we follow the signs. Let me see the sign to Disneyland. 50 miles. We don’t pull up and go, all right, kids, we’re here. Disneyland, right? It’s a sign. It’s meant to point us to the the the destination. Right. And Christ, at that moment, by feeding the 5000, he was demonstrating his power and his glory. But he wasn’t there to fill their bellies. He was there to give them a sign that the one that the scriptures had promised has come. But he goes on verse 27, don’t work for the food that perishes. Don’t work for that. You’re seeking me because you’re physically satisfied. Don’t work for the but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. Because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him. Jesus said to them, I assure you, Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the real bread from heaven. That bread that I give, that I turned into, and the multitudes, that’s not the bread of heaven.
And he goes on, for the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life. And then they said, verse 34, sir, give us this bread always. Verse 35, he said, I am the bread of life. They were still looking through their physical eyes. Well, give us this bread. He says, I am the bread of life. I am the one you need to be feasting on. That miracle was to point you to the true bread. That was just a sign. The true destination is me. Live your life in me. Feast on the bread of heaven. And that is what if you desire change in your in your relationship with your spouse. If there’s far too much rooting of from the from the deceiver. You must begin by feasting on the Lord Jesus Christ, the true bread of heaven. That’s fulfilling the first commandment, is it not? Love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your. God has revealed himself. Through Jesus and we can feast on him. And as we feast on him, if we’re a children of God, if we’ve accepted the gospel, we begin to feast on him and learn of him, and we’ll be spiritually nurtured and satisfied in him. Guess what’s going to happen to our relationships horizontally? It practically, it just does it by itself, right? If we’re feasting on God and through Jesus, the true bread of life, our physical, our horizontal relationships will naturally work themselves out.
And the amazing thing that happens if we’re truly doing that, if we understand that the first commandment, what God really wants us to do is focus on him and feasting on him and learning in spirit and being spiritually grown in him, we begin to look at our relationships around us through the eyes of the Lord. He’s our redeemer, he’s our rescuer, and he’s given us as to his children of God, a responsibility to be agents of redemption here on earth. Agents of rescue here on earth, in your workplace, in where you play cards on Friday night. Uh, in your marriage. That is who you are as a child of God. He wants you to be an agent for him. An agent of rescue, an agent of redemption. And so suddenly we go to our spouse and we begin to see them in a different light. We begin to see them as we’re feasting on the Lord Jesus Christ. We begin to see that she, just like yourself, is in need of the rescuer and the Redeemer, and that God has sovereignly given you a chance to be that agent of rescue and redemption in that marriage. And so your spouse suddenly no longer becomes the object in which prevents you from enjoying your life. Your spouse suddenly becomes. Someone that needs you to walk alongside them, instead of butting heads and warring against one another with the roots of the words of the Deceptor.
What God has given us in marriage, if it’s from the roots of the Lord, is someone to walk along with one another, realizing that this person suffers from the same problems you do, and that the sin that originated back in the garden, but that Jesus Christ has come to redeem her or him and rescue them. And he wants you to be an agent for that purpose. It’s a different paradigm in which we look at our spouses. No longer are they the enemy preventing us from enjoying the marriage. It’s someone that God has given us to be. Walk alongside them and bear their burdens with them, and help them feast on the word on the bread of life. All right. So how does that really work? Up to this point, it’s idealist, idealistic, right? It’s it’s great. It’s one thing I learned in college. There’s a lot of people there that can spout off theology, but practical. How can we make this practical? How can we see these truths that God has given us in Scripture and see our position in Christ, and then make that work to where we can truly feast? I say feast on the bread of life. Feast on Jesus. How do we do that? Well, there’s many ways. And if this spurs you to to seek us out or to seek anybody else out in the church to, to help walk alongside you and to give you more, more direction, it’s kind of hard to tell you all the ways you can feast on the on Jesus Christ practically in a sermon.
We’d love to see you. As Pastor Nathaniel would love to talk with you, Tara. And I would love to walk alongside you and show you because we see ourselves in much, just as much need as you do. Right. I need you just as much as you may need us as far as working this out practically. And the one thing that I did take away from my biblical counseling is especially in the marriage, is the. The professor was a discipleship pastor at a very large church in LA. And, um, he told us, he said, the problem you’re going to the biggest problem you’re going to face is that every. Well, he said 99% of the couples that come to you for marriage counseling have come in the moment of crisis. At the next step separation, the next steps divorce. So that’s a lot of pressure right? Yeah. But that’s the problem is we wait till it’s the crisis point. We try to pretend like everything’s okay, everything’s fine. And then the crisis comes and the next step. And so I took that and I’m like, whoa! And it’s true, it’s true. But the one thing I did do is I didn’t think Tara and I were having marital issues.
And I don’t think she, she, she would say outright that they were really bad or crisis point. But I did take that. And I’m like, well, maybe we need to, you know, step out and go see someone before the crisis hits. And guess what? There were some things to work on. There still are, but I’m so glad we took that time to meet with the pastor and to meet with this counselor. Get those things out on the table. Get ourselves walking alongside one another in the direction that God had set for us through the scriptures. So glad that we had that opportunity before it reached the crisis moment. So it’s just something to think about. And counseling isn’t biblical. Counseling isn’t like we just sit across the table and there’s no charge. We just want to walk alongside you. As I walk with my wife, I want to be, you know, walking with others that are trying to walk with theirs. And Tara does the same thing with the women. They love to be able to do that for you and with you. That’s what the New Testament church is all about. Carrying one another’s burdens. Walking alongside one another as we follow Christ. So how do we do that? So as we begin to focus on the vertical relationship feasting on the Word of Christ horizontally, things begin to play themselves out. And I think Colossians chapter three, verse 16, uh, kind of summarizes it very well for us.
It says there, loving your neighbor is a life of service. So as we begin to do that, we we love the love is not. As Pastor Nathaniel said last week, it’s not this very emotional, gooey thing that this world proclaims it to be. But love is service. It’s sacrifice, self sacrifice without any expectation of getting anything in return. That’s the love of the neighbor that Christ is asking us to be. And so as we, the vertical becomes an alignment, as we feast on the Word of Christ horizontally, that plays out in serving others, serving your closest neighbor first and foremost in your marriage. So Colossians 316 says, let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, and singing songs, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. So he says, let this message of the Messiah, the gospel, the good news that he has come and he has rescued and redeemed. You dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing one another. We go out and we serve, and we teach others. We bring them along, we disciple them in the things of Christ, and we admonish. Right. God allows the church to be accountable to one another. Those are all healthy things. And that’s what Christ desires us to do in those horizontal loving your neighbor relationships.
Beginning with your spouse. But he also says in Colossians three, before he says that, he says this. Therefore, in verse 12, therefore God’s chosen ones, holy and loved, put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, accepting one another and forgiving one another. And if anyone has a complaint against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. Above all, put on love. The perfect bond of unity. So before he admonishes us or tells us that we need to go out and serve, love other people by serving, teaching and admonishing and singing songs and hymns and reading as a church and doing all these things he says, put on these things. It’s like a soldier in a foxhole. If you’re a soldier. Forgive me. I have no idea what I’m talking about here, but, um, all of a sudden, I just was trying to think of an illustration. This is what I came up with. Sorry. So say you’re in a foxhole with your buddies. All of a sudden, a firefight starts ensuing, and you need to get to another foxhole, okay? And your armor is off. Right. Everybody else’s armor is on, but your armor is off, and you pick up the armor and you start running to the other foxhole in the middle of the battle. What are you doing? Your friends would say you got to put on your armor. You got to put that stuff on to protect you.
You can’t engage in battle if you’re not protected. And this is, I think, what Paul is trying to tell us here. Look, we’re going to go out and we’re going to have a battle Monday morning. We’re going to have a battle, if anything, with our words. And what we need to do is put on these things. We need to spend some time before we go out into battle and put on the armor that God has given us. So put on compassion, put on kindness, put on humility, put on gentleness, put on patience, acceptance, forgiveness, love. You need to put all these things on before you go out. Or you engage your wife in an issue in the marriage. Now, if you’re like me, you’re saying, well, that’s great, that’s very idealistic, but that’s pretty impossible for me to do every day. What do you mean, put on kindness? Put on. Well, if you really think about it, what he’s really asking us to do is put on Christ. If you look at each one of those, those are that’s Christ. Those are the things that Christ has demonstrated to us. Are you a believer today? Can you see his compassion for you and in spite of who you are and how many mistakes you’ve had, he cares for you. He has compassion for you. Put on kindness. I’m so glad that I don’t wake up and Jesus decides to be unkind to me.
He’s always kind. If I’m seeking him and feasting in him, and if even if I turn away for a little while and I repent and come back to him, he’s there and he extends kindness, humility. Philippians two talks about Jesus being humbled because he was in heaven and enjoying his eternity with the unity and community of the Trinity, and he stepped out of that and into this world so that he could redeem a people. He humbled himself and took upon the form of a servant. Those are things we need to put on. We need to put on Christ. Patience. I’m so glad he’s patient. So glad I don’t go to him for the 175,000 time and ask him for forgiveness of anger towards my wife. And then I say, nope, I’m I’m done with you. No patience. He’s very patience. He provides and gives us acceptance and forgiveness as children of God. And even if your spouse isn’t a believer, these things. He stands ready to give him these things and love. That’s self sacrifice. That’s all these things embody Christ. And Paul’s telling us if we want to change, if we want to have true change, you need to put on Christ. You need to feast on the word of life. You need to obey the first commandment by loving the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your mind.