The Word of Christ

[0:00] So I want to back up just a little bit and kind of remind ourselves what Paul's doing in Colossians. You'll remember that this is a group of people who Paul has never really seen them himself.

[0:13] They have trusted Christ. Their pastor is doing a good job trying to help them understand things. And false teachers have come into the church giving them all kinds of false ideas.

[0:26] For example, one group, they're called Gnostics. And one of the things that they're doing is that they're telling these Christians, you believe in Jesus, that's great, but it's not enough.

[0:40] You need more than Jesus. What you need is you need the secret knowledge that we can give to you, the secret knowledge that comes by worshiping angels, fasting in the way that we tell you to, and doing all of these other things.

[0:55] And when you do what we tell you to do, then you're going to be living the abundant life. You're going to be able to avoid sin. You're going to be almost in heaven already here upon earth.

[1:07] Just listen to what we're telling you. Now, there's a lot of those things that we as Christians would say, well, yeah, I want some of those things. But the way that the Gnostics were trying to teach them to get these things is not scripture at all.

[1:22] There was even another group that was sort of a Jewish segment, and they were trying to say some of the same things and telling them, listen, you've got to follow these rituals that we've established.

[1:33] You've got to follow these kind of ideas, and again, into the fasting again. And the point is, is that here's the Colossians as new Christians trying to live the best that they can.

[1:44] They know who Jesus is. They love Jesus. They want to follow Jesus. They want to do what they can to fight against sin and live in a way that pleases Him. And they've got all these voices around them, their pastor and these false teachers, and they're trying to figure out, what do we do?

[2:03] How do we live? When there's so many voices telling us that we ought to do this or this or this or this. And as Paul is writing to them, he's begun chapter 3 in a positive way saying, listen, you have all that you need in Christ.

[2:21] Seek the things that are above where Christ is seated. Remember who you are, that you were raised with Him, that you're united with Him. Remember the commandments of God and be obedient to the things that He's told us to do.

[2:34] And as he's saying all of these things, he comes down to this point and says, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. In other words, what he's saying is that since you have Christ, since you're united with Christ, the way to fight against your sin, the way to live the Christian life in an abundant sort of way, is that you need the Word of Christ to dwell in you richly.

[3:03] Now, I want to talk about that phrase before I get into my points of the sermon. I want us to understand it in relationship to what I've already said, because let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.

[3:16] I said a couple of weeks ago that that's another way of saying, be filled with the Spirit. And I think that that is true. It's not all of the truth that's there.

[3:27] It's almost as though you've got a coin, and you've got two sides of the same coin. One side is being filled with the Spirit, and the other is letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.

[3:38] But this phrase, letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, it's not just memorizing Scripture. That's not what this verse is about. It's not just like a, you know, hey, you need to memorize your Scripture and have a bunch of things jammed inside your head.

[3:53] That's not what this verse is. This verse is about the Word of Christ. And I want you to think about what it means to think about God's Word, to think about Christ's Word.

[4:06] And I want you to think about it from this point. Just as an example, you go back to Lazarus. He's in the tomb, dead. And as Jesus comes to the tomb, He says, Lazarus, come forth.

[4:21] What you have in the Word of Christ there is you have content. You've got the words that He spoke. You've got the things that He said and the things that He means.

[4:32] But you also have power. His words raised Lazarus from the dead. When He said Lazarus, Lazarus came awake. Right? And so you've got content.

[4:45] You've got power. But you also have the person. You've got Christ Himself as the one who says these things. This is the Word of Christ.

[4:56] And as we talk about having the Word of Christ dwell in us richly, richly, what we are saying is that this Word dwells. It dwells.

[5:06] To dwell is to make something your home, to make something your house, to make it yours. And Paul is telling the Colossians, let the Word of Christ be at home in your life.

[5:22] Both the content of what He says, the power of what He says, and the person of who He is. And how does the person of Christ make his home in believers? By the Spirit of Christ.

[5:35] That's how that happens. So here we are. As we're trying to fight sin, what He's saying is that every believer should have the Spirit of Christ, the one who inspired the Word of God, the one who empowered the Savior, we should have Him making His home in us.

[5:52] Because when the Spirit dwells within believers, He does not come without the inspired Word of God, because those are His words. So what we have in us is both the person of the Word and the content of what He has spoken.

[6:10] Does that make sense at all? I'm just looking at you, just kind of saying, are you with me? Okay. So, it's important to grasp that, because everything else that I'm going to say is built upon that.

[6:30] Because the difference between Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 is that Ephesians 5, if you're filled with the Spirit, then certain consequences happen.

[6:43] the submitting to one another, the singing, the thanksgiving, those kinds of things. Those are consequences of. In Colossians, the way it's written, it gives us two ways in which we can have the Word of Christ dwelling in us richly.

[7:02] In other words, a way to accentuate and just lean into the fact that Christ, by His Spirit, dwells in us, and now His Word can more richly dwell within us if we do these two things.

[7:15] And if we do these two things, then in that, we are fighting against sin. So, I want to show you what these two things are, because I think that it's very helpful if we get our minds sort of around what's being said here.

[7:29] He says again, in the verse, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.

[7:40] The teaching and admonishing go together. That's one thing. Singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness to your hearts and your hearts to God. So, here's what I'm saying.

[7:52] We need to, first of all, center our lives on the teaching of the Word of God. And when He says this, He says to teach and admonish one another.

[8:03] There's a Greek word for one another, and that's not what's used here. The word that's used here is the word self. So, it's teach and admonish yourselves. Teach and admonish yourselves.

[8:16] You could see it as yourselves, ourselves, himself. The important part of this is that He's trying to help the body of the Colossians understand you have a responsibility for yourselves.

[8:27] You have a responsibility for yourselves to teach and admonish yourselves in the Word of Christ in all wisdom.

[8:38] You have a responsibility for your own learning and admonishing. Every member of First Baptist Church has a responsibility to all the other members of First Baptist Church to make sure that we're getting this teaching and this admonishing that we're supposed to have.

[8:56] This responsibility comes in a couple of different ways. We fill it out in a couple of different ways, but let me see if I can illustrate what we're talking about here and just how strange this is to our ears.

[9:10] Imagine the students at the school are the ones who form up the school board. That would be a teacher who responds that way.

[9:23] But if the students were responsible to fill out the school board, then they would have the responsibility to find their own teachers to make sure that all the teaching was in line with the standards and the success and failure of all of their own learning would be upon their own decisions in the teaching that they brought into their lives.

[9:47] Make sense? Now, I know that in the school system, that would not be very good. However, in the church, that's precisely how it is.

[9:58] You have a responsibility as the body of Christ for your own teaching and admonishing. And one step in taking that responsibility is to call teachers to your church who can teach you that you can learn from that you would grow through the teaching that they give.

[10:16] That's a part of calling a pastor. It is not the leadership of the church that's required or responsible for finding teachers for the flock. It's the flock's responsibility to call their own shepherds, to call their own teachers.

[10:30] That's one of the reasons why when I came, there was a church vote as to whether or not I would be asked to come and be a teacher here. Because you have a responsibility for your own teaching and admonishing in the scriptures.

[10:48] And Paul gives us this sort of idea of what he has done as an example for us in Colossians 1.28 where he says, Him we proclaim, warning everyone, everyone, that's admonishing, and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

[11:06] And as a pastor, I have a responsibility to teach and admonish you. But that is not the only way that this responsibility gets carried out. You have a responsibility to the teaching and admonishing in your own life.

[11:21] As you go to your own devotions, as you open up the Word of God yourself, you are to be teaching and admonishing yourself as you get into the Word. But also, another way that this is carried out is that you are to be teaching and admonishing one another.

[11:38] You're to be getting with other believers and helping them to grow in the Word of God. You're to be there to help teach and admonish them in the Word.

[11:49] And so we have all of these different ways that we can come together and we can teach and admonish one another to teach and admonish ourselves in the Word. Now, when we talk about doing this teaching and admonishing ourselves so that we might have the Word of Christ dwelling within us richly, I just want to point out that as we do so, we must do so accurately as we look at the Word of God.

[12:21] because there are times and there's been so much of this that pastors have not given good examples of how to interpret the Word of God and therefore the people of God don't know how to read the Word of God.

[12:39] And I want to give you an example. I'm sure that you've heard people talk about the idea that, you know, for somebody who's lost, they need to listen for Jesus knocking at the door of their heart in order to welcome them in, right?

[12:54] Well, that comes from Revelation chapter 3 verse 20. But I want you to really pay attention as we read this verse. Okay, this is all, I'm just giving an example of something here.

[13:06] Behold, I stand at the door and knock. It doesn't say door of anything. It doesn't say door of heart. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

[13:17] If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me. Not only is there no heart mentioned here, but the context of this is to the church of Laodicea, to a bunch of people who were already assumed to be Christians.

[13:37] So the coming to a person that Jesus is doing and knocking on their heart or knocking on the door, whatever door and whatever thing it is of, is not the heart and not for lost people, but it's for saved people to know that he wants to have this communion with us.

[13:55] I think this is about him knocking on the door of the church. So many of these churches were not living the way that they ought to live. Here's my point. My point is, is that as I preach and as you read your Bible and as you read the Bible with other people, we need to read the Bible carefully so we interpret it accurately so that we have biblical authority.

[14:17] Because if you get up and you say, and you quote from Revelation 3.20 and then you try to say that you've got biblical authority to call people to come to Christ, you have zero biblical authority.

[14:31] The only biblical authority we have is when we accurately interpret the Word of God. And it's not a mysterious thing and it's not even a terribly difficult thing. Are there difficult passages?

[14:42] Yes, there are. There are very difficult passages. But the vast majority of passages are quite straightforward and simple. And my point is, is that we need to be teaching and admonishing one another.

[14:54] And he goes on to say, in all wisdom. Now what is wisdom? What's wisdom here? It's a little understood idea, this idea of wisdom, but wisdom is basically this.

[15:07] It's the application of biblical truth to the circumstances of life and the attitudes and actions we should have as we face life. Wisdom is practical application.

[15:21] Listen to this verse from James chapter 3. He talks about wisdom. He says, but the wisdom from above is first pure. That's interesting. Wisdom's pure. Then peaceable.

[15:32] Okay. That's interesting. Gentle. Wait a minute. All of a sudden, gentle is how I am supposed to treat someone. Wisdom is gentle? It's open to reason.

[15:42] It's full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And verse 18 says, a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

[15:53] In other words, what he's saying is that a person who lives out this wisdom is going to have a harvest of righteousness because they have sown peace. Wisdom is about practical application.

[16:07] Now, what does all of this mean? Let me see if I can tie this all together because I think this is important for us to grasp as we try to live out the way the Lord's called us to live.

[16:18] The Lord has given to us his very presence to dwell in us both individually and as a body.

[16:30] It is his powerful, resurrected, word-filled presence by the Holy Spirit here in me, in you, in us to fill us, control us, guide us, direct us.

[16:45] And this is true. This is a truth that's there because upon the cross Jesus shouted out, it is finished. And he was saying, the debt's paid in full.

[16:57] I have paid the debt my people owe. I've purchased the promises of the new covenant. Therefore, they have this powerful, resurrected presence of the Holy Spirit of Christ with the word of Christ dwelling within them.

[17:10] You have that if you are a Christian. And the result of that is we have the power to live out the Christian life he's called us to live, to fight our sin, to follow what he says, to engage in this world for its good.

[17:24] That's what he has given to us. When we then seek to teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, we need to make sure we're doing a couple of things.

[17:37] Number one, we need to make sure that we are under the preaching of the word on a regular basis. If you're not under the preaching of the word, you're not having the word of Christ dwell in you richly as it should.

[17:59] In the preaching of the word, life can change. Eyes can open and hearts can be challenged. But primarily, the preaching of the word is something that we're to take in academically and intellectually.

[18:15] We're to examine it and look at it spiritually and biblically so that eventually it connects to us emotionally so that we have change in our lives.

[18:27] What I'm saying to you is this, that I remember times, I remember times that probably started back in the 30s when what people wanted out of the preaching of the word was some guy who was telling stories and saying things in emotive ways to challenge the heart, to stir up the emotions so that when we walked out of here, we said that we could feel the spirit move, that was a good sermon.

[18:55] Because then also we opened up the aisle and we had people come forward that wanted to make a decision and in all of that, in all of that movement, as the emotions stirred, that's what we began to judge sermons by is how many people attended, how many people walked the aisle, and how many goosebumps did we feel before we left the place.

[19:15] And in the history of the church, in the history of the church, that period of time has been the only period of time that that kind of thing has been what the church has been after.

[19:32] And the thing is, is that it's begun to die out. This preaching of the word, yes, it is academic. We're supposed to learn something.

[19:44] Yes, it should be emotional. It should touch upon the emotions because we're holistic people. But it should be spiritual and biblical so that we can understand the mind of the Lord.

[19:56] Preaching. Preaching is necessary for us to grow in Christ. But it is not sufficient. The other thing that we need is we need somebody else in our lives.

[20:11] Matter of fact, I'm going to say it this way. I think you need a partner. I think you need a partner who's not your spouse that you can sit down with and you can go through the scriptures together.

[20:21] You can read them. You can talk about them. You can challenge one another because here's what's going to happen in a sermon. Right now, I'm right at the end of my first point and I'm making application of this passage and I'm shooting it out like a shotgun and I'm hoping that it sort of hits.

[20:40] What you need is you need some one-on-one so someone can take this same thing and make an application with a scalpel. You need to be able to have that precision and application to your own life because it is applicable to you.

[20:55] And one of the best ways to do that is just take notes on the sermon, write down your questions and sit down with someone and say, let's talk about the sermon and see, was it biblical?

[21:08] Was it right? Was it theologically accurate? And how do we apply this to our lives? But maybe, maybe where we come to is I'm saying all these things like, man, you need to be in the preaching of the Word.

[21:22] You need to be reading the Bible for yourself. You need to be having a partner or somebody that can read through Scripture with you. And you might say, you know, I haven't done any of those things. You might be surprised at what I'm going to say.

[21:35] But if you haven't done any of those things, I just want you to know Jesus died for people like you and me.

[21:46] Because sometimes we get more interested in the things of this world. Sometimes we think that we just can't do it ourselves and we don't want to take the time to do it or we get distracted by other things in life. And I'm just saying Christ died for our sin.

[22:00] So we need to center our life on the teaching of the Word. And the second thing is we need to center our life on the worship of the Word. The worship of the Word. So the second word in this verse 16 is this idea of singing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

[22:23] And just as with the first thing, we want the Word of Christ to make its home in us. We want to make sure that we're part of that teaching and admonishing ourselves.

[22:34] We also need to make sure we're a part of the singing of the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And primarily what Paul's after is to help us to know what to sing. He gives us these three words, right?

[22:47] He talks about psalms. Let's talk about psalms for just a second. What's a psalm? It's not a trick question. Yeah, it's one of these 150 things there in the Old Testament, right?

[23:00] There's 150 out of them. These are psalms. He's telling Christians you ought to sing psalms. There are no psalms in that book.

[23:15] Now, there might be some songs in this book that have some connection to some psalms, but there's not a single psalm in this book.

[23:27] You say, what do you mean by singing psalms? Well, I don't have a lot of great examples for you because I didn't grow up singing psalms either, but there was an old song in the 80s or 90s.

[23:39] Somebody have to help me with that. It's from Psalm 8. It goes like this. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all of the earth. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all of the earth.

[23:53] Now, that part was from Psalm 8. There's a lot of rest of that that probably wasn't from Psalm 8, kind of like some of these, but that's the best example I've got for you at the moment. But we're to be singing the psalms.

[24:06] I just want you to think about that for a second. He says, singing to one another psalms. When's the last time we sang psalms?

[24:22] Well, let's think about the next word he says. The next word he says is the word hymns. Now, do not think about this book. When Paul said hymns, this book was not in publication.

[24:39] Right? And none of the songs that are in here were written. The oldest song in here is probably from the 1200s. Frank Francis of Assisi, right?

[24:54] All creatures of our God and King. That's probably the oldest song in here. So, none of these songs were in Paul's mind when he said to sing hymns. Does that mean we can't sing these?

[25:06] Well, no, I'll get there in just a second. But I think we have to understand this because what he's telling us is that a hymn is a song that's dedicated to praising God.

[25:18] It's praising God for who he is. It's praising his character. Some of them are directly aimed at God using like the second person pronoun, you. Right?

[25:30] There's some hymns in the Psalms and there's some hymns in the New Testament. Mary's song, when she finds out that she's going to bear the Messiah, she sings a song.

[25:40] In Philippians chapter 2 verse 5 and following, that's a hymn, a Christian hymn. In Colossians 1 verse 12 through about 15, that's a hymn.

[25:53] So what Paul is saying is that you need to sing songs that are primarily aimed at giving praise to God. We sang one this morning. You know what hymn we sang this morning?

[26:05] Holy, holy, holy. Now the other two songs weren't hymns and we'll talk about that in just a second, but that's a hymn. It's where we're giving praise to God.

[26:15] We should give praise to God in our singing. Why? Because it's a little bit like going to the edge of the Niagara Falls or to the Grand Canyon or to some other glorious sight in nature and being overwhelmed with the spectacle of the majesty of the thing we're seeing.

[26:31] We should come into worship and lift God high and praise Him because we want to see Him as He's revealed Himself to be overwhelmed at the sight of Him in the words that we sing.

[26:44] He knows that singing is good for us. He knows that singing gets to the heart in ways that nothing else does and He wants us to sing our praise to Him.

[26:58] Well, then He talks about spiritual songs and these are songs that do not directly praise God. They eventually do praise God, but they talk about other things about God, things of His ways or of His work, and it might lead our heart to praise Him, but primarily the content of the song isn't like how great God is or something like that.

[27:23] Both of the songs that we sang this morning after Holy, Holy, Holy are spiritual songs. Tell me the story of Jesus is not a direct praise of God, but it's a spiritual song.

[27:34] Living, He loved me, dying, He saved me, is not a direct praise, but it's talking about what He's done, and yes, will your heart feel towards the Lord some sort of graciousness, gratefulness, and joy?

[27:47] Yes, but it's a spiritual song. Do you understand what I'm saying here? That there's these different kinds of songs, and Paul is saying, listen, you need to be singing all of these, and I'm just going to tell you that most of the songs that we sing are spiritual songs.

[28:04] Our diet is unbalanced. Most churches I know, their diet is unbalanced. Singing is of vital importance, because here's what it's doing.

[28:17] As we sing, and we come together, and we're singing these songs, we're singing our theology, we're singing our faith, we're singing what we believe, and that gets into the heart, and that helps us to fight against our sin, so that as we come together, and we sing together, then we can go out, and in the middle of the week, that song should pop in your head.

[28:39] You know, there are times, there are times that I get afraid, there are times that there are things that are happening in life that are difficult, and there's actually a psalm, a verse that we've memorized, but we memorized it through a song.

[28:57] Psalm 56, all of a sudden, I can't remember how it goes. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you, in God whose word I praise, in God I trust.

[29:16] What can flesh do to me? Thank you, I appreciate you finishing that out. God. Because there's something about singing our faith and singing the truths about who God is that shouldn't be narrowed down and limited to Sunday morning only.

[29:34] You should walk out of here singing every Sunday. You should throughout the week be singing, and maybe you don't know good songs to sing. We're going to talk about that, but in the handout on here, I put a list of good groups that you can go listen to.

[29:47] These are pastor-approved people for singing. So singing is important, and David and I have been talking for 18 months about the criteria by which we choose songs, and we need to choose songs that are good songs.

[30:05] We need to be able to sing things that are good, but I want you to understand something, and I know that it may feel like a chastisement, but it's not. It's just an encouragement, because I love you, because I want you to have the very best of what the Lord has to offer to us.

[30:21] When we choose songs, what our personal preference might be is immaterial. I have been in the middle of what's called the worship wars.

[30:36] Back in the 80s and the 90s, as a worship minister, you would go to a church, and you would try to sing some sort of song that was kind of new, and you had a whole group of people who were sitting here going like, well, I don't want to sing that new song.

[30:49] I don't know that song. I want some of the good old songs. And then you would have these people coming in like, well, we need to sing new songs because you're not going to get young people to come if you don't have these new songs here.

[31:00] And you know what? I've been in a church that was just the opposite. That they did nothing but new songs. And when you ask them, could we sing an old hymn? Oh, we don't want to sing one of those old hymns.

[31:11] We just want the songs that we like. I was like, that's weird. You know, and then these people who were coming in new saying, yes, but if we sing these old songs, like it'll draw new people. And I thought to myself, this is weird.

[31:25] Our personal preference, like I have a personal style. I like certain things. I like certain music. And I like certain ways that it's played. That's entirely immaterial to the point.

[31:41] And the more that we as a church body can grab a hold of, it's not about, I want to do the song that I want to do because of the sentimentality or the sound, but instead we want to sing something that's biblically accurate, the more that we get a glimpse of God in our music and can have our souls thrilled, the more that we can fight against our own sin and become a holy nation to the Lord.

[32:12] So let me give you a couple criteria. One, it's got to be biblically accurate. It's got to be biblically accurate. Like we've got a couple of songs in this hymn book that are not biblically accurate. I've already told David, no, we're not singing those songs.

[32:25] And David's like, okay. You know, like he's very willing to listen to me. He challenges me. You've got to know he challenges me and says, oh, wait a minute, are you sure? But the point is, is that there's some unbiblical songs in here because they don't teach exactly what we see in scripture.

[32:41] I'll just give you one example. There's a song called The Savior is Waiting. It's built on Revelation 3.20. It's being sung to lost people so they would open the door of their heart and let Jesus come in.

[32:53] I've already showed you that's not what that verse is talking about. And Jesus is not waiting for anybody to be saved. We are waiting for Jesus to save us. He is the righteous king.

[33:06] He is not going to fail in saving those. We don't get to decide when we're going to be saved. He's the one who decides when we're going to be saved. It must be biblically accurate.

[33:17] It also must be theologically, must be lyrically rich. When I say lyrically rich, what am I saying? I'm saying that this is not lyrically rich.

[33:31] It may be true, but there's something about it that just leaves me flat. And maybe it doesn't you, and if you like this song, I apologize ahead of time for offending you, but you'll be okay.

[33:46] Oh, I've heard a thousand stories of what they think you're like, but I've heard the tender whisper of love in the dead of night, and you tell me that you're pleased and that I'm never alone.

[33:57] You're a good, good father. It is who you are. It is who you are. It is who you are. And I am loved by you. It is who I am. It is who I am. It is who I am.

[34:11] And I know some people love this song, and it's not a bad song, but as we gather together for worship because we have limited time, I want every song that we sing to be lyrically rich.

[34:25] I don't want it to just say hardly anything. I want it to say a lot, like this, when I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride.

[34:47] Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were present far too small, love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

[35:00] Biblically accurate, lyrically rich, emotionally satisfying. I do think the things we sing should connect with us emotionally.

[35:11] There are some songs that just don't connect, right? But here's one, I love this one, you may not love it, this is my favorite song, we're going to eventually sing this, so get used to it.

[35:22] It's before the throne of God above, when Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin.

[35:35] Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free, for God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me.

[35:47] To look on him and pardon me. It needs to be emotionally satisfying, and fourth and finally, it needs to be musically accessible.

[35:59] It needs to be musically accessible. There's a lot of music that's come out of high church hymns that are really hard to sing. One of the ones, I love the words to it, but I just can't stand the music.

[36:12] It's really hard to sing. It's called And Can It Be. You ever heard that song? And can it be that I should gain an interest in my Savior's love?

[36:26] Died he for me? Okay, I'm not sure that that's pretty, but also that's a little difficult to sing. You know there's another song that says almost the same thing?

[36:38] It's a little bit easier to sing. You know how it goes? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. You understand what I'm saying? We want it accessible, because we want to be able to, we don't have to come in here, because used to we had choirs, used to you'd met three times a week, and you would practice, and you read music, and you were taught how to read music, but we don't do that anymore, and that's okay, so we just need to be able to sing it accessibly.

[37:07] What I'm saying then, is that as Christians, we still have remaining sin in our lives. We are not perfected yet. God is still working on us, and one of the things he does to lift his glory before us, is in the singing of the body of Christ, so that we're overwhelmed with the splendor and the truths of who he is, so that that gives us the motivation and the power to fight our sin, to fight discouragement, and to fight disobedience.

[37:39] So, let me encourage you, go home, read the lyrics of the songs that we sang today, ask yourself, are these songs biblically accurate?

[37:51] If you don't think they are, let us know. Scratch it. Are they lyrically rich? Are they saying something? Actually saying something?

[38:03] Are they emotionally satisfying? Are they musically accessible? And just because it's new to you and you've never heard it before doesn't mean it's not musically accessible. Right? Sometimes it takes a couple of times hearing it, so you've got to think about that.

[38:16] But here's the other thing. You need to sing at home. You need to sing at home and you need to sing the things that we're singing. It says to do so with thankfulness in our heart.

[38:31] What kind of thankfulness do we need to have? We need to have thankfulness that our voice still works, thankfulness that we have oxygen in our lungs, thankfulness that Christ has done for us all that he has. We have to sing because he's worthy of all praise, all glory, and all honor.

[38:51] Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thanksgiving in your heart to God through Jesus Christ.

[39:10] Let's pray. Father, we praise you because you are worthy of praise. and we thank you for your word and we thank you that you have given to us the instructions that we need for life, that we don't have to guess, we don't have to listen to a lot of other people, a lot of other voices that disagree with your word, and I pray, Father, that you would help us to focus in on your word.

[39:44] Father, I pray that you would help us to make sure that your spirit, who inspired your word, is at home in our lives as we teach and as we sing.