New Heart: Colossians 3.16-17 (ESV)

 

We continue in Colossians and today we look at the heart and what’s good for our hearts.  There’s a heart symbol on the oatmeal I eat.  It tells me it’s good for my heart to eat oatmeal. How good would it be if we had symbols that indicated to us who and what is good for our hearts?  How do we care for our hearts?  Our hearts have been tossed around so much lately.  Today the question is before us: how do we care for our hearts?

 

Colossians 3: 16-17 is our focus today.  It’s about a new heart.  The heart we’re talking about today isn’t our physical heart but the spiritual heart, the core of our being.  The heart is the center-most part of us, the deepest part of us.  Sometimes the deepest part of us can get tossed around. 

 

Make Jesus your home.  Have you ever played hide and seek?  In this game there’s a home base where you’re safe if you can make it to home base.  Jesus is our home base, our safe place.  Jesus is home for us. 

                    ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,

The ‘word’ here refers to the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.  It is the Good News we have, our core foundation, how we came to God to being with.  It’s the power of the Gospel that sets us free and continues to set us free.  God is making us more like Jesus.  This is called sanctification, what God is still doing in us.  Even when we stumble, when we see things in our world, in our community, we have this hope of the Word of God.  We all need the Gospel.  It’s home for us.  To ‘dwell inside of you’ means to make something home.  A house is a dwelling, a primary residence.  Guests come to visit but they’re not there to stay.  It’s not their permanent dwelling place. 

This passage is about worship. In times of worship we make Jesus our home. Sometimes we treat Jesus as a passing guest but Jesus is home base, where our hope is.  Let the Word dwell in you richly, fully and completely.  Worship is giving value to something.  Worship is where we place the weight of our being.  Paul is calling us to make the Gospel our home.  This is why we are here.  This is our purpose.  Life makes sense when we are living out the Gospel, when we experience forgiveness in our hearts.  We see the world through the lens of the Gospel and everything makes sense.  When life is about something other than the truth of the Gospel our lives become unsteady and unstable.  Our hearts get tossed around.  The call is to make Jesus our home, that centering place that we come back to.  There’s a lot of things we can give our hearts to!  We can give our hearts to other things and some of them are even good things like our job, our favorite sports team, and politics. We are in turmoil when Jesus is not our home, not our center. There’s nothing wrong with our hearts engaging in other activities. Paul is reminding the Colossian believers that Jesus is our home.

Encourage one another in Truth. (Head)

This is the head part of worship, teaching. 

            teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom,

Teaching brings us back to the truth.  Teaching happens in community.   We can restore one another through instruction.  Encouragement is sometimes all we need.  “Admonishing one another” means strongly encouraging one another.  Maybe you’ve been tossed around lately and what your heart needs is a reminder to get back to the Gospel?  We have truth we can share with one another.  We celebrate the truth of the Gospel.  It’s solid and will always be true.  This is what we enjoy as we dig onto God’s Word together.   We are nurturing our soul.  Sometimes we are just getting by on our diet.  We eat junk that’s easily accessible for a time and then we start to long for a good nutritious meal, a home cooked meal.  This is the teaching of the Word.  There’s all these things floating around and Paul is saying to sit at the feet of Jesus and hear the Word of God.  This can be a challenge for us.  For example, it’s like having a child loves French fries and only wants to eat french fries all the time. When you try to convince them to eat other foods you tell them how good it is for them and the benefits they’ll get from eating it.  That doesn’t mean anything to the child.  They just want to eat fries.  We can get to a place in our lives where we haven’t been eating from the Word of God.  We haven’t been taking in God’s teaching.  At first we might push back a little bit.  We need the truth of the Word of God to nourish our souls.  If you’re in a place like this it’s difficult to take in Scripture but God will produce in you a hunger for His Word, for what’s always going to be true.  May you find that in our times of worship together, in our times of meeting together in small groups and in your times of reading scripture.  This gives us the stability we all need.

Sing to Jesus. (Heart)

Singing is a crucial part of worship.  It aligns our hearts with God’s.

            singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 

One way we express ourselves and teach ourselves is through singing.  The words of the songs teach us.  We are taught how to express to God what we are feeling. Songs can get stuck in our heads.  Singing is vital to good heart health.  It’s how children learn how a bus operates.  The wheels on the bus go round and round!  Develop a habit to allow the songs of scripture to be engrained on your heart.  The Psalms are scripture we sing to God.  The word for “sing” here is translated as a stringed instrument, maybe like a harp or guitar.  We are familiar with hymns.  They are scripture put to music.  They have theology in them of God.  Spiritual songs are full of heartfelt worship to God.  We can express what we are thinking and feeling to God.  

There was a study done at Harvard years ago on people’s moods and stress.  The study found that when people sing it improves their mood and lowers their stress.  It also boosts immunity as well.  Singing is good for us and singing spiritual songs is all this and more!  I encourage you to sing to God.  Express what is happening in your heart.  Every generation has different ways of expressing this with different genres and styles of songs.  What’s your favorite song or hymn?  Which one best expresses how you feel about God?  Singing is good for our hearts.  When we gather together we sing and it’s so beautiful!  Please continue to sing before God.  In my office I have some hymnals and song books I’ve collected over the years.  Sometimes I thumb through them and I sing some of them, just me singing to God.  It's good for my soul.  Paul tells the Colossian believers to sing to Jesus. Paul tells us in 2021 to sing to Jesus.

Let people see your Jesus heart. (Hands)

This is from inward to outward.  It’s the connect between what’s happening inside of us to the people around us.  This is a part of worship and is important for our hearts.  Worship is carried into Monday and every day in all we do; it’s comprehensive!
                    ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Worship is more than just an hour per week.  It carries over into all aspects of our lives.  How are we being the hands and feet of Jesus today?  How are we expressing what God is doing in our lives?  One way you as a church family have been faithful is in your giving and we are thankful.  Why? We have fully funded all our mission efforts inside and outside the U.S.  I’m able to do what I’m doing today because of your faithful giving.  Another reason we’re grateful is because of what faithful giving does in our hearts.  The Bible says that where your treasure is there is your heart.  Paul reminds us to continue an outward expression.  God gives us a desire for ways to serve.  This has been more difficult over the past year and I want you to continue serving.  Continue being the hands and feet of Jesus.  May you continue to serve. God is producing a thankful heart in us. As we go we take the name of Jesus with us.  Whatever you do at your job, in a doctor’s appointment, you carry Jesus with you as you go.  Serve God and worship as you go.  God is with us in all we do. We always have God’s continual presence.  God gives us practical ways to make Jesus our home.  Make Jesus your home. Continue digging into the Word of God.  Stay with us in worship.  Sing to God and find a time to sing to Jesus.  Find ways to continue serving.  Take care of your heart. Live the Gospel and experience that truth.  God sent His Son for us so we can have everlasting life.  Can you confess to God today that you don’t always follow Him?  Can you ask Him to restore you?  Believe God sent Jesus.  You can trust God.

This sermon is be Dr. Scotty Carpenter.  Sermon notes are taken, transcribed and posted by Jeni Martin Johnson.