My brother in law recently completed the Phoenix Fire Academy. And so that was fun. We went down, um, uh, like a month, two months ago, down to the family night where they do a lot of, uh, demonstrations, firefighting demonstrations. And so that was fun to be a part of, well, one of the demonstrations was actually how fast, how quickly the firefighters need to put on their turnout gear. So, the jacket helmet, the air apparatus, all those things. Right. And it was amazing how quickly they're able to put on so much gear. And I thought to myself, I wonder if we could train our Children to get dressed that fast because if toddlers and small Children were firefighters, everything would burn down. Right. It's time to go. Well, I don't want to put on, you know? Ok. Anyway, I mean, in a matter of seconds they have all this gear on now. Why do they have to wear all their stuff? Well, every item serves a purpose. And if you think about it, it's interesting because the reason firefighters have to put on their, their turnout gear is that their clothes really serve a purpose and help them accomplish the purpose to which they've been called. Here's the thing as Christians, we have clothes we gotta wear, we might not have turn out gear, but we got spiritual armor, we got transformation gear and here's the thing, we got to put it on every day because we're in some spiritual battles. But God wants you to fulfill the purpose to which you've been called. See, we're studying this letter called Colossians written about 2000 years ago, Apostle Paul in prison, right into the church at Colossi to encourage them as well as they're facing some challenges. But what separates Christianity from other religions at that time was that he takes their theology, the study of God and then actually makes it very practical and powerful in their everyday life. It was common practice in pagan religions to talk about theology and the power of these gods that they would pray to and, and offer sacrifices to and, and pay money to. But once they would offer a sacrifice or pay money, then they would go live however they want it. And it was separate from their, their behavior was separate from their belief. But what we see in the letter to the Colossians is that in Colossians chapter one, we see that it's Christ declared Christ declared is that he is pre eminent and supreme over everything. That's the tagline for our whole series that Christ over everything. And then in chapter two, we see that it's Christ defended that Paul urges them not to be taken captive by the empty philosophies and beliefs of this world. Then in chapters three and four, he gets real practical and he says, Christ demonstrated and saying here is what the gospel looks like in your everyday life, in your everyday life. And so we began that discussion last week and last week, we shared from the 1st 11 verses of Colossians chapter three that an eternal mindset cultivates earthly freedom, an eternal mindset cultivates earthly freedom. And we shared that when it comes to our mindset, we're called to seek the things above and then to set our minds on the things above and that when we do so, we're gonna be forced to put aside to mortify, to kill, to put to death, the sins of our previous life, the sins of this world that are trying to kill us and to put down or to put to death. The things of the world seems extreme. But it's similar to saying to someone put down, stop drinking the poison beca, in other words, stop doing the things that are killing you put to death, take off the grave clothes. I think they're grave clothes. There were things you did things you wore in a previous way of life. But now being made new, a new creation in Christ, a new identity that's found in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior alone. When you when you have this new life, this new identity, we have to put the grave clothes away. And today we're gonna continue our conversation and say now that we've put the grave clothes away, now we're gonna talk about the grace clothes that we can put on and because we have to do this and we're gonna see how this really transforms our relationships. But here's, here's what, here's what we're gonna do though because I know relationships gets real tricky because we want, we wanna step on some toes a little bit this morning, right? And so here's what I'm asking you guys to do and I've said this before, but this is one of those messages today. I'm gonna ask you to keep your eyes on your own paper, not like physically like some people are taking notes like, oh OK. I mean, if you forget to fill in the blank, go ahead and look on someone else's paper. But you know what I'm saying, keep your eyes on your own paper. The reason I say that is because when you hear a message that can be challenging to your current practice and behavior, it can be easy to hear the message for somebody else. You know what I'm talking about? Oh You need to hear this. Oh, Sally should have heard that. Oh man. Yeah, that's that. I bet that's hitting Billy right now, you know what I'm saying? And so here's what I want you to do. OK? And I'm giving you the setup. Now, I'm gonna ask these questions at the end of the service. And so I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna give it to you upfront. I'm gonna tell you what's on the test. OK? I'm gonna give it to you right now. So the two questions we're gonna come back to this morning. Is that what relationship has tension in your life? I want you to ask this question, what relationship has tension in my life? And then the second question, I want you to ask yourself simply God, what action or step can I take this week now? Will everything change in a moment? It can probably won't, right? Especially if you got years in the making, you're probably not gonna solve it in one moment. But what if instead of a change in destination, we have a change in direction and we take a step towards health this week, take a step toward forgiveness. This week, we take a step toward reconciliation. This week, we take a step. And so I'm, I'm giving you the question now because we're gonna come back to this. OK? What relationship in my life has tension? And I want you to ask God, God, what step or action can I take this week now? The other person, what can you take? OK. You with me? All right. So here's the premise for today. If you take notes, you can write this down. It's a daily commitment, shapes healthy relationships, daily commitment, shapes healthy relationships. What we're going to see today is that we gotta put on our turnout gear, our transformation gear, our grace clothes and that's a daily choice. It's a daily choice. There's a story, uh, a funny story of Rob Gronkowski. There's a lot of funny stories of Rob Gronkowski. If you don't know him. He was a retired tight end for the Patriots Jerks. All right. Anyway, excellent football player known as kind of a crazy guy party or just big happy child of a man. Right? And so we always try to get out of stuff and he, he'll tell you this, like in his interview, he told you so back on the other side of COVID, when they were having to do virtual workouts in the off season, they had to do sprints every day. And so his way of getting out of sprints is that he ran them all in one day and just kept changing his shirt and then it would post it. So he worked out really long in one day and then we just send in his videos to the coaches throughout the week so that he didn't have to work out the rest of the week. Now, one, the fact that he was physically able to do all of that and like a seven day workout in one day is impressive, but long term that's not gonna help, right. That's not the purpose of the drills or the training in the same way, if you're trying to get healthy as an individual, like 18 hour, nine hour day of work is not gonna change your lifestyle. Moving forward versus 1020 30 minutes every single day. Right. Your choices matter, your consistency matters. It's not about perfection, it's about progress. That's where Satan tries to come in, doesn't he? First of all, he tries to overwhelm you and say, well, you'll never get there. So why start? And then when you do start, you think I gotta change everything all at once and then that leads to burnout and then you miss a day and like, well, if I miss a day, why I can't, why try right and fill in the blank with any healthy discipline or habit time and we get stuck. I want you to know that there's hope for it. Said that the best time to plant a seed if you want to bear fruit realistically was probably seven years ago. Thanks, John. That's encouraging. Ok. You want to know the second best time to plant a seed today right now. See, you'll never become tomorrow what you're not becoming today. But the good news is the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ in your life, we can start becoming who God has called us to be because here's, here's the encouragement. So when it comes to our relationships, Jesus is our motivation. He's our means. And he's the model you're gonna see from our passage that Jesus is the motivation for us. We just saw Colossians one and two that he is before all things that all things were created by him, through him, for him. And that he laid his life down to have a relationship with you. So you can be redeemed, that you can be freed, that you can be a part of the kingdom of light rescued from the domain of darkness, your sins forgiven your life restored. And so he is our motivation and then he is also the one that transforms us. You are correct on your own. Your relationships will not change. But through the power of Christ, working through you, everything can change. And then he lived in such a way that he also gives us the model. He gives us the example to follow. And so all the attributes that we're gonna read through today, all the grace clothes that we're gonna tell you to put on Jesus and Jesus Christ himself put on and he showed you and he showed me. So we have to remember that Jesus is our motivation. He's our means and he's our model. All right, let's jump into it. We're picking things up here in Colossians chapter three verses 12 to 14, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another forgiving each other. And as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive and above all above all these put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. This morning's message is entitled garments and glory. Because what Paul is saying here is you gotta put on the turnout gear, you gotta put on the clothes of a Christian. You gotta put on the characteristics of Jesus Christ. But what I love though is that he starts with identity, he starts with identity. He says put on then in order to earn my love. No, he doesn't say that he says put on having already received, having already been chosen, right? Put on as God's holy and chosen ones. Now, have you ever lived in a situation with roommates and they had some really good leftovers in the fridge? Question? What is the acceptable timeline of when it is? OK to eat that person's leftovers? Right? Let's just say hypothetically you're married and you have leftover Mexican food and your spouse has not eaten her cheese enchiladas and they're in the fridge. Hypothetically speaking, and you're hungry as a husband and they're probably eating something else and OK, it's getting very specific here. Um Right. If you ever eaten something, you're like, I don't know if I'm allowed to eat this. Ok. Now, that's kind of a cute little example. OK, between family, between roommates. Now, I can tell you what would be weird if I came over and ate the leftovers out of your house. Like knock on the door. Oh hey John, how's it going? I just walk in, grab your food and walk out. Thanks guys. Head out. Why? Cause it's weird to eat someone else's food, right? And ladies can I just invite you to something just while I'm on it unrelated to the sermon. Can you just order what you want? You just order what you want. We know you want it just, or don't say I'm not hungry because I know you're gonna want what we order anyway. You know what I'm saying? Amen, guys. Ok. All right. That was for someone out there. Right. Right. You share food as a family. It would be weird if I go into someone else's house and just take their food. Right. Sometimes Christianity can feel like you're eating borrowed food. Right. You're go, you're like, ah, I can't do that. I can't do it. What Paul is saying here is like, it's your house. You're in the house of God. You are a son and a daughter of God. He put the food there for you. Like, it would be weird if I brought my own lunch to work and then didn't eat it. I don't know if I can. It's your lunch. It's my lunch. Right. What we're about to see what we're reading through here. It's for you and it's for me that we are seen as God's holy and chosen ones. OK? So he says to put these things on. But notice the commonality between these compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, you know where all those are? All of those are a choice. All of those are active. You will not by default, be patient by default, be kind by default. Forgive, you have to choose. And what's interesting here is to put it on means that you have to choose it every day, every day, you gotta put it on. You got to put on that turnout gear, you gotta put on those grace clothes and it's a daily commitment. Let's continue reading because he is going to give us actions verse 15 to 17 and let the peace of Christ rule in your heart to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus giving. Thanks to God, the Father through Him. What does this mean? It means that we worship God with our head, our heart and our hands. Do you want a healthy relationship with the people around you? You've got to choose right? Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. That means you got to allow the peace of Christ in here. And he says, and be thankful. Then he says, let the word of Christ, the word of God dwell richly in you. That's your mind. Well, how do you do that same thing we practice here teaching, that's what we're doing. Admonishing one another. Those are your groups discussions you have and then singing spiritual songs. We sing these songs, we have these conversations, we preach sermons. Why? So that the word of God dwells richly in our lives and we do it with a posture of gratitude, right? And then in case we missed anything he says, and whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. You know what that means? That means you can do everything not to the glory of God. He doesn't say everything glorifies God. He says, you can glorify God with everything that you do, which means you have to choose it. OK, your head, your heart and your hands and all three phases were called to be grateful. Why do we do that? Because as Christians, we must remember that people are the mission, the people are the mission. How many of you are in professions were like, man, this job would be great if it wasn't for the people. I mean, I'm not gonna admit that I've ever said that as a church leader. No, I love all of you very much. We have to remember. People are the mission. Jesus didn't die on the cross to finish his to do list to do this are helpful. But we have to remember that its people, we have to put to death, the things of this world put on daily consistent choices and commitment. How do we do that with the word in our minds, the peace in our hearts and to glorify God with our hands and see context matters because Paul's writing in a day and age where there's a lot of tough stuff going on and he's not condoning everything in the culture, but rather how can you live transformed in the culture name? And so he says some things he's gonna talk about marriage, he's gonna talk about parenting. He's gonna talk about work life and by themselves, our culture does not like any of these verses. This is setting you up for that. OK? But remember this is written in context, right? You remember following our progression here, seek first the things of God, set your mind on heaven, put off the things of the world, put on the things of God. Let the word of God dwell richly in your mind. Let the peace of God rule in your heart and let everything you say and do be for the glory of God all with Thanksgiving. And then next, he gives an expression of great. Let me tell you what this looks like. Here we go. Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting to the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. See, this was seen as a scandalous verse in that culture too, but not like you might think, see if anybody posts Colossians 318 online today, you're gonna immediately get responses back. Right. Right. What's interesting is you would get responses back in their context too. But it actually be for verse 19, you see that context, that culture, when women didn't have a voice, they were treated like property. their testimonies weren't valid in court. And yet Jesus comes in, right? And they and ladies were the first ones to the tomb. First ones to preach the gospel to the people around them, first ones to serve, right? Lydia funded the first church there in Philippi like repeatedly, Jesus shows equal value to men and women. And in fact that ladies get the verse in here, he's, he's commenting directly to them, speaking to them as people. And we know that to be true because just a couple of verses earlier in verse 11, he says there is neither Greek nor Jew circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian Scythian slave are free. It's Christ is all and in all. But just because there's equal value there, right? Another example would be Ephesians five where this verse is quoted in Ephesians 5, 22 wives submit to your husbands. Verse 21 says that we are to submit to one another. And so really a healthy marriage is a race to the back of the line. And because we have this cultural shift to go back. I don't like that. Let's not miss the actual meaning though, that healthy submission is to put the needs of somebody else before your own. And notice what it says there too, a clarifying submit to your husbands as is fitting to the Lord. Meaning that it's for the purpose of glorifying God. Too many religious Pharisees use this to abuse and, and inflict power over women and culture. Submit. Yeah, as is fitting to the Lord, meaning that when someone's following the Lord, when someone is leading the healthy picture in scripture, as you see an example, as wives submitting to the lead headship and leadership of men. You know, all throughout scripture, you see women in leadership, the voice of women in leadership. But let's not miss that fact of there is health and submission. The other thing is that to keep in mind, do you know who the ultimate picture of submission is? Jesus Philippines too? So what he's saying here, wives be like Jesus, be like Jesus, all those graces, clothes you can put those on and it goes in tandem with husband, husbands, love your wives. Ephesians talks about laying your life down as Christ did for the church. And it is a picture of what can be because if we think about a healthy relationship, if the husband is putting the needs of the wife before himself and says, I will give my life for you then submission to that actually bring a connection, right? The ultimate picture of submission is Jesus. The ultimate picture of sacrifice and servanthood is Jesus. If you want a healthy marriage, it's bejesus to the other person. So don't miss that because we have a culture that just goes against it. Say, ah OK, don't let the abuse of sinful people define what God created pain. And if we don't like things that are in the Bible, we have to ask ourselves, OK, who is right here? But you also can't use versus as a weapon to attack people to suppress and put power over. That makes sense. This is a both. And here we have to recognize that that healthy couples are built in that way and it continues on. Now, parenting Children obey your parents and everything for this pleases. The Lord fathers do not provoke your Children lest they become discouraged. Look, obedience is following, I think especially in our American culture today, it sometimes can feel like parents are obeying their Children. Right. Right. As a parent called the lead. Now, this obedience passage typically refers to a child within the home. But here's the thing. If you go back even to the 10 commandments, it says to honor the idea of honoring your parents continues on. How can you honor someone? What are you grateful for? What can you forgive? What can you show grace in? Right? You just put on the grace clothes, how can you express kindness to relationship towards? Again, this is not based on what someone else has done, but based on what you can do, right? So as Children, how can we honor our parents as parents? How can we encourage and lift up our Children? Then he continues on here. It says bond servants, slaves obey in everything. Those who are earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of the heart fear in the Lord for whatever you do work heartily as for the Lord, not for men. Knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the inheritance as your reward for. You are serving the Lord Jesus Christ for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done. And there is no partiality. He says, but masters treat your bond servants justly and fairly knowing that you have also a master in heaven. And we don't have time to get into this conversation of slavery because you don't want to diminish what was happening. Uh At the same time, you understand that they were in a culture. There really was no outs for slavery at that very moment right there. The the local church was meeting, there wasn't like some uprising and they couldn't vote anyone out of it, right? Like they weren't gonna take it. So they were trying to teach him how to function within their current cultural setting. But we know that Paul didn't promote slavery. Because the very one delivering the letter was a guy named O Onus who then he wrote another letter called Flein in which the slave escaped um has some ministry with Paul and Paul writes a letter back to Philemon saying, hey, except onus, not as a slave, but as a brother in Christ. And so the seeds of freedom and identity and equal value actually is what has led to cultural revolutions in our country's history, right? You look at Christian ideas and ideals lead ultimately to freedom. But what he's saying there, look right now in this time in your setting, your work is not for them but for the Lord. Now slavery, peace might not apply to us right now, right? But what we see though is how many of us have had a boss that we didn't like or wasn't nice or wasn't great. So he said, no, don't, you're not people pleasing, you're doing it for God. And we see this example all throughout scripture. You got Joseph, you got Daniel, you got David. Even the early disciples experienced oppression but then remained faithful. But then those in charge, right? Treat people fairly. You use your power not to control but to serve. See, this is where we end daily commitment, shapes healthy relationships for Him. It shapes our marriage, it shapes our parenting and it shapes our work life. So I want to ask you two questions. Green one, what relationship has tension in your life right now. What relationship? Maybe it's not even crazy bad, but you just want it to get better. Is it your marriage? Is it parenting? Is it with a sibling? Is it with friends? Is it within the workplace? What has tension in your life right now? And then that second question, I want you to ask God, what action or step can I take this week? Look through that list of grace, clothes, compassion, kindness, patience, forgiveness. And they're one of those you need to put on this week, right? You walk out of the house without your shoes on or wr that right? Like like don't, don't leave the house without these things on because the proper clothes help you fulfill the purpose to which you've been called to. And we do that because the word of God in our minds, the peace of God in our hearts allows us to then glorify God with our actions. If we do that, God will transform your relationships. Will you pray with me dear God to thank you for everyone here, God. We lift up these relationships. Now, God, I pray for healing within Brokenness. God, I pray for openness and conversation. I mean, we just take a step this week knowing that we are holy and chosen that we are fully loved by you, which means then we can go and love others the way that you have loved us, help us to remember that love makes the first move. But we love others like you do and your says, and we pray. Amen.