As we read through all of the instructions and commands that are in the New Testament, we find that the mission of the church is to build itself up to maturity. That the greatest thing that we can give to the world around us is a strong church. And that strong church is a lighthouse. out of which grows the work of evangelism. Effective evangelism comes from effective churches where the people are filled with Christ and are walking in all of his ways. As we examined that general subject last week, I want to get into some of the specifics with you this week, and that's why We're turning in our Bibles to Colossians chapter 3, as you see. And instead of focusing on building strong churches, we're going to be narrowing the focus in on building strong families. For this is Father's Day. And the father is the head of his household. That is what God has designed from the very beginning. However, we live in a time where there's a lot of confusion about how a family is supposed to function. Even what a man is and what a woman is is under discussion, and so we shouldn't be surprised that a lot of misandry, that is hatred of man, is parading around in the world disguised as feminism. Now, a feminist is someone who technically is concerned about women's rights, and so technically I'm a feminist because I am concerned about women's rights. I'm concerned about everyone's rights as defined by Holy Scripture. However, there's a lot of misandry, hatred of men, that is mislabeled as feminism, and that is what is toxic in the culture. A toxic feminism, just as there's toxic masculinity, there's also toxic femininity that is a hatred for the other sex. And so today, as we look into God's Word, I want to build up the family and to do so by exhorting particularly the women and the children in the church, to carry out the commands of Scripture to do their part in building a strong family. Now you thought when you come in here, men, that it's Father's Day and you see the title up there, Building Strong Families, that you're going to get a lot of preaching directed at you as to what you're supposed to do and how you failed and need to do better being the man in your family. I think we've gone through a relatively long period in the lifetimes that we've lived in where the men have been getting a lot of exhortation and commands and responsibilities thrown their way. And we've been kind of tiptoeing around some of the ladies. And the ladies only get encouragement, only get compliments. and they never get correction or reproof. And so I'm going to be bold with the ladies this morning and I am going to direct a lot of the application of Colossians 3 at the women and at the children so that they will be honoring the father that God has put into their life and honoring the man that God has put into their home as the husband. And so take a first note of Colossians chapter 3 verses 18 through 20. It's the chapter in the book of Colossians that gives us practical instructions, specific commands as to how we are to live the Christian life. And I told you last week that the church is supposed to be pure and the church is supposed to be unified. The New Testament instruction is obsessed with the purity and unity of God's church. And the purity of doctrine has been the focus of chapters one and two. And then the purity of life and the unity of the church is going to be the focus here in chapter three. And chapter three of Colossians is one of my favorite parts of the New Testament in detailing how to build good relationships. Now, as I introduce the subject here, let me say one word further to the men. Men, as I do direct a number of applications to your wives and children today, don't just sit back and think to yourself, yeah, my family needs to do better. But instead, your job this morning is to figure out, how do I set the example for them? So I'm not going to be giving you a lot of specific exhortations, but just here at the beginning, recognize this, men. that if your family needs to do better in some of these things we're going to be looking at, well, whose responsibility is the family? If they're not doing as well as they should be doing, what do you need to do in order to help them to be filled with Christ in all aspects of their hearts and lives? So, don't just be thinking about what other people should do, but each one of us always needs to stop and say, what am I supposed to be doing with God's commandments? That's what men do. They take responsibility and implement solutions. So let's take a look there at Colossians 3, verses 18 to 20. It says this, Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord." And it goes on and gives instruction to the fathers as well. But as I said, I'm going to focus on the wives and the children here. That women, they are needing love. That women crave a man who is going to provide for them, who's going to care for them, who's going to be empathetic, who's going to protect them. who's going to do all those things that are involved in that command of husbands, love your wives the way that Christ has loved the church. God knows women and he knows what women need and what he created them and how he created them and what needs the man is created to provide for his wife. Well, in the same way women, Men also have been created with needs and they also have been created so that you are able to provide them the respect and the honor that builds them up and that gives them joy. A woman doesn't want to be neglected. She doesn't want to be forgotten. She doesn't want to be betrayed. She wants to be loved and provided for and served and men Their biggest need isn't to be loved, their biggest need is to be respected, and that respect is shown through the submission that is commanded here in this text. Notice that God doesn't give us 37 commands of the wife to the husband and 38 commands of the husband to the wife, but instead he just boils it down to one thing, and you just appreciate the simplicity of God, that he understands and says, this is what is needed, focus on this. And so wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. And then speaking to the children, as we are here on Father's Day, and my father is here, and so one of the first important commands in all of the Decalogue, the second table of the law, is honor your father and mother. so that it may be well with you and that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God gives to you. And so part of honoring your parents is when you are a young child is to obey your parents in everything. The honoring of parents goes on the whole life. And you should be thinking today about how to honor your father and mother and not just honoring them today, but think about changing your attitude, changing your perspective, changing the way that you interact with your parents so that they're honored the whole year long. And the honor is something that God wants us to give. So children, think about the obedience that you render to your fathers as the greatest Father's Day gift that you can give to your fathers. What use is it to get wonderful flowers or tools or cards or candy on Father's or Mother's Day? If during the rest of the year your children disrespect you and don't submit to you and disobey, that is not what we want. What we want is that obedience and that comes from that heart of respect. So God really does a great job of focusing in here, but we're not going to focus on these verses today. Instead, we're going to back up and look at all the verses that come before it that are general instructions to the church on how we're supposed to build strong relationships in the church, but we're going to make particular application to the family. So often when we read the New Testament, we think, oh yeah, when I'm in church, I'm supposed to be forgiving. When I'm in church, I'm supposed to be humble. And then when I go home, I forget that I'm supposed to be forgiving, and I'm supposed to be humble, and I'm supposed to be compassionate. But the home is the first place where we put these things into practice. That's our first family. And then the family of God is going to be strong, the church is going to be strong, when we individually in our homes are practicing these things towards our family members. So as we read through Colossians 3, 1 through 17 today, I want you to apply it to your own time with your brother, with your sister, with your spouse. with your parents, think about how these commands will convict you, how these commands will exhort you, how these commands will empower you to be able to build a strong family and to do your part in the family. All right? So let's start off then in verses one through four. Let's have a word of prayer and then we'll read these opening verses. Bow your heads with me. Father God, we are all sinful people. We are all in the flesh. We are all beset with temptation. We all fail in many ways. We all fail in how we speak. We all have habits of thinking that are contrary to Christ. We all have habits of actions that are destructive for our relationships. And so, Lord God, as we look into your word today, we pray that your Holy Spirit would open up our hearts, open up our eyes, To be able to see where we fall short and to be able to make a plan, to be able to gain strength of heart, to wage war against those temptations, against those sins, against those bad habits of the words and the thoughts and the actions that we have. that are not Christ-like and that are not healthful for building up our family into a unity that brings joy and delight to your heart. We thank you that you've given to us everything that we need for life and godliness and that you call us to use what you have given to us in order to build Christ into our homes. We pray that you would be with us now and give me the words to speak and give us all hearts to hear. Amen. Alright, so Colossians 3 verses 1 through 4, follow along in your Bibles as I read it out loud for us as a congregation. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Notice that our past, our identification with Christ in his death and in his resurrection, and our future, our future glorification with Christ is the identity from which we live our lives. Beware of an identitarianism that is worldly, that is secular, that is outside of Christ, where people will define you according to your gender, people will define you according to your culture, people will define you according to the color of your skin, people will define you according to your socioeconomic status or your work. Be careful of that identitarianism. Those things are all fine. Those things are all part of who God has made us to be. But when you start to think about, who am I? And what does that mean for how I'm going to live my life? Your truest identity is your identity in Christ. And this is something that is true not just in the letter to the Colossians, but in the whole New Testament. That once you understand your identity, then you're able to live the life that you were meant to live. So, understanding your relationship to Christ, your union with him, is the groundwork from which this flows. And that's where, then, the chapter starts. In contrast with the previous chapter, at the end of chapter two, he was warning them about worldly ideas, worldly self-improvement, using the ideas and the teachings that people have come up with. And he's saying, you gotta leave all that behind, that the church has to be pure in finding in Christ and in Christ alone the rules for life, the power for living, the way to transform ourselves and to become what God has created us to be. It's not in any man-made religion, but it's only in the revealed religion that comes down out of heaven that Christ is there at the right hand of God and we're setting our minds on the things above. What are the things above? Well, it's the things of Christ, his character, his work, his nature. Our focus on Christ has got to be sincere and complete and total if we are going to grow to maturity and become what we're supposed to be. If we're going to change, if we're going to be transformed, it's going to be through faith in Christ and through faith in Christ alone. And so my job as a pastor and the other elders who are pastors here in the church is to keep the church doctrinally pure and to keep your focus on Jesus Christ as the source of the truth and the power to live life, to be what we're supposed to be. So as we look into Colossians 3 today, here's the outline, building strong families, we find our identity in Christ in verses 1 through 4. And because of time's sake, we're going to move very quickly from that into the main section here on personal transformation in verses 5 through 17. So, we have our identity in Christ, and we're gonna act out our life, we're gonna live out from that identity. Another key aspect of that identity is seen in verse 12. Take a look at verse 12. It says, So, throughout the chapter, Paul will come back and remind us of who we are. You're God's chosen ones. You are God's saints, the holy ones. You are those who are dearly beloved by God. And so, you must remind yourself of that identity. Don't let the world tell you who you are. Don't let the world put the labels on you. Let God put the label on you. Let Christ put the label on you of who you are. You are a saint. You are elect. You are beloved by God. And therefore, live out from that identity. Now, as we then move into the practical commands, it starts with the negative. The personal transformation is going to be involving what we are supposed to be getting rid of out of our hearts and lives, and what we are supposed to be gaining, what we're supposed to be putting on. So we're putting off the evil deeds, and we're putting on the good, and we have a wonderful detailed list of what we're to put off here first in verses five through seven. So let's read those verses, actually verses five through nine. Start there in Colossians 3 verse five. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. This is a list of personal sins that have to do with evil desire, whether it's sexual desire, whether it's greed for gain, for money, that desire, that passion has to be put to death. Notice that terminology, put it to death. We're not playing with sin, we're not just trying to minimize its influence, we're not just trying to keep it under control. It doesn't say keep it under control, it says put it to death. Kill, slay, go to war. Another passage that Paul writes, he writes about starving these things out. Don't feed the flesh, but starve it to death. And so what you notice in the terminology of scripture here is that we have responsibility. Oh boy, how about that? We live in a time where everybody wants to just say, well, I was just born this way, or it's because of things that happened to me in my life, or it's because of the way my parents raised me, or whatever. But whatever they have in their life, whatever problems, it's not my responsibility, it's not my actions, but it's my circumstances. And the scripture says just the opposite, that you are empowered when you take responsibility for the difficulties and the evil and the immorality that is in your life. And not only does God give you the responsibility for having done these things, but God gives you the responsibility to get rid of it out of your life. That you're not bound to it, you're not enslaved to it, but that Christ sets you free and that God gives you everything you need in order to be able to do this command. Deliberate, decisive action. That's what God calls on us to take as his people in order to make our thinking and our actions according to the truth that is in Christ. I want to direct your attention, go with me back to our scripture reading there in 2 Peter chapter 1. Such a great passage here in 2 Peter 1. particularly this morning, focusing in on that part at the very beginning, after the introduction, after the greeting, there in verse three. We are told that God's divine power has granted to us, this is the power of the gospel, this is the power of God at work in our life, the power of Christ, he's granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. The faith was delivered once for all unto the saints, and that everything that you need, all of the truth, all of the power, It is given to you. God has given it to you, and so you cannot complain, you cannot say, well, if only my life were different, if only my circumstances were different, if only God had done things differently in my life, then I could be able to live free from the sin that enslaves me. And God says, oh no, don't believe that lie. Don't repeat that lie to yourself, but instead, recognize the truth. that Christ has given you everything that you need to live life to the fullest. Christ said, I came that they might have life and might have it more abundantly. Christ is the one who has caused us to die to sin, as it says in Galatians 2.20. I have been crucified with Christ, and it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives within me. And that is truth on the spiritual realm, on the spiritual level, that is true in your heart. And don't believe the lies of Satan, that you can't change, and that you're stuck, but instead recognize that God has given you everything you need in order to live life and to live it in godliness. And how does this come to us? It comes to us through the knowledge of God, through the knowledge of him who called us. And as we know God, then we have the power of God at work within us. Now, notice what comes after this. Now, I'd love to just preach this whole passage and stay here for a while, but we gotta get back to Colossians. But just notice verse five. How does verse five start? For this very reason. For what reason? Well, the reason that his power has granted to us everything that we need for life and godliness, the fact that we can become partakers of the divine nature, we can become Christ-like in our lives, the fact that we can escape the corruption in the world because of sinful desire, the fact that God has done all of this, therefore, we are called upon to do something. For this very reason, what are we called to do? Make every effort. Make every effort. Doesn't say make a little bit of effort, make some effort, make a good effort, give it the old college try. He says make every effort. Do you know what every effort looks like in the life of a person? Think of someone who is devoted to a task, someone who has a vision, a mission to accomplish, and who is giving every effort to accomplish that. My family just had our movie night on Friday night. We were watching Chariots of Fire. about the Olympic runners, to how these men would train for years and they would give up everything else. They would put everything else on the back burner just for this one race on this one day to be able to beat everyone else and come home with the gold medal. They disciplined their bodies, they disciplined their minds, they disciplined their spirits. They were totally committed and totally devoted. And God says, that's the effort that I'm calling upon you to make. Not to win an Olympic medal, but in order to gain Christlikeness. Now that's convicting. Examine yourself. Are you taking this command seriously? On a scale of one to 10, are you making every effort? 10 being every effort, zero being no effort. Where would you put yourself on your scale of the effort that you are putting into increasing in Christlikeness? See, God gives you everything you need, but he doesn't do the work for you. He calls on you to do the work. You have to make the effort. And without effort, you're not gonna make any progress in the Christian life. Don't think you can just sit back and wait on God. God says, I gave you what you need, now get to work. Make every effort, it says, and that's exactly what we find throughout the New Testament. The book of Philippians, you could write down Philippians chapter three, verses 12 through 21, an awesome passage about making every effort to gain Christlikeness. What does it look like in your life when you're making an effort towards something? When you're trying to accomplish something, when you're trying to achieve something, what does it look like? What do you do? Now ask, what am I doing in order to gain godliness? To add to my faith, perseverance. To add to my faith, virtue. To add to my faith, knowledge. To add to my faith, brotherly affection and love. You've got to take responsibility for your spiritual life. Don't look around and say, well, if my church was better, if my pastor was better, if my husband was better, if my dad was better, what effort are you making? What effort are you making? You'll give an account for yourself. You won't give an account for anyone else. Make every effort. The command is to put to death what is earthly in you. Come back to Colossians chapter three. Now I want to focus in on the more of the social sins, the relational sins that he has in verses eight and nine because our focus here today is on building strong families. How we interact with one another, how we speak to one another, how we think about each other in our hearts. Look at what it says in verses eight and nine. Colossians 3, verses eight and nine. But now, you must put them all away. All the sins. Not just the sins listed in verse five, not just the sins listed in verse eight. He's just giving a few examples here. But whatever temptation you are struggling with, whatever temptation that you are giving into, you must put them away. And you make a list. Make a list of here's where I've sinned. Confess it, confess it to the Lord. Confess it to your family members. And then make a plan. How am I gonna get rid of that sin? Let's look at the list here in verse eight. You must put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth." Let's take a look at the first few together here. Anger, wrath, malice, and slander. Anger and wrath very easily go together. They're pretty much synonyms. And the malice is the ill will that you feel towards other people after they've made you angry and gotten your wrath. And you just kind of are angry at them, and you want to express that, and not for their good, not for their benefit, but for yourself. You have a malice towards them. And then the slander. We fall into slander so easily. Often you think, oh, slander is just sin that other people commit. You know, I would never slander anybody. Well, every time that you twist the words of your brother or your sister to make them sound worse than they actually did, every time you over-exaggerate what your mom said to you and make it sound worse than what she actually said, every time you mock your husband and say, well, he said this and he said that, when he didn't really say that, but instead, your mind has twisted it around. And this happens without us even knowing it, without even trying. That it's just natural to our fleshliness, and it clings so tightly to us, this sin, that we gotta rip it off and throw it away, that we put a bad spin on what others say in order to make ourselves feel better in the situation. So there's been some conflict, there's been some disagreement in the family, and you go away telling yourself, oh, I can't believe she said this, I can't believe she said that, when she didn't even say that. But your mind is just thinking that she did because you're trying to make yourself look good to yourself coming out of the situation by making her look worse and vice versa. Women, that's what you do to your husbands. without even trying. You slander your husband in your heart and you say things about him that aren't true and you've got to get rid of that. You've got to put to death that tendency to slander. You've got to rip that sinful old man clothing off and throw it away and replace it with what we're getting to in verses 12 through 17. So anger, wrath, malice, slander, don't think that you are above these sins, don't think that you don't fall into these sins, but instead ask for God to show you your hidden faults, the things that you yourself are blind to. Self-justification is one of those things that we are just blind to. It just comes as naturally to us as breathing. In order to justify yourself, what do you have to do? You have to condemn the other. I'm right, they're wrong. And so you start telling yourself lies, and then those lies start coming out of your mouth, because the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. Be careful about exaggerating the tone of your spouse or your parents, and saying, well, they said it like this, when they didn't really say it like that. You're just making it sound worse in the way that you're repeating it. That's slander. You don't want to slander your family members. Family is the most important thing we've got. Family is not only lifelong, but in the Lord it's eternal. And so these relationships, they're worth protecting from the sins that so easily entangle us. Think about that. Now, It talks about not lying to one another, and we can talk more about that at another time. But the point is, is you need to take responsibility for your anger, for your wrath, for your slander, and you need to take decisive action against it. You can't just blame other people and say, well, my husband made me angry. You are responsible for your anger, and your husband may have done something that was not great. But he didn't make you angry because God says, I gave you everything you need for life and godliness. I set you free from sin. You don't have to live with anger and wrath. You can live with compassion. You can live with forgiveness. You can live with empathy and graciousness and sweetness. Other people don't make you do anything. God has set you free. You are able to live with joy. You're able to live with peace and love. Develop that mindset. Take responsibility for yourself and don't blame others. Now, when it comes to these sins of anger, wrath, malice, and slander, one of the ways this manifests itself in our families is argumentativeness. Families argue. I don't know, maybe your family doesn't, but my family gets into some arguments. And so I'm reminded of these verses that are so helpful. 2 Timothy 2.24 says, So parents, we must not be quarrelsome with our children, but we must be kind to our children. We must be able to teach our children. We must patiently endure the evil that our children engage in. And your children will do evil things. They're sinners. but you patiently endure it. Even when they wrong you, even when they mock you, even when they dishonor you and disobey you, you teach them and you're kind to them. You're not quarrelsome. Another verse about being quarrelsome is in Proverbs. Here's one that I get in trouble with the ladies. Proverbs 21.9, it's better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. Women, you ever wonder why your husband's not around? Why he's always off doing something? He's out in the shop and he's out in the yard. Well, maybe, I'm not saying this, maybe when he is around, you tend to quarrel with him. And he gets tired of being quarreled with. And so he just wants to go find a quiet place where he doesn't have to deal with quarreling. Now, this is something that happens. Think about what you're bringing to a relationship. Think about what you're bringing to your marriage relationship. Don't just say, well, my husband needs to do this or my husband needs to do that. Think about what am I bringing to the marriage relationship? Am I bringing thankfulness? Am I bringing joy? Am I expressing to him gratitude for what he's doing and working hard and providing for the family? When was the last time, ladies, you told your husband, thank you for working so hard and providing for the family? Or do you quarrel? Do you just talk about your difficulties, your complaints, and you want compassion from your husband? Well, that's good. Your husband should give you compassion. We'll get to that. But do you have compassion for your husband? Do you care about the difficulties in his life? Do you empathize with his difficulties at work? It's important that we think about these things to build strong marriages. to build strong families and to build strong churches. Now men, you can be quarrelsome as well. Proverbs 26, 21 says, Quarrelsomeness in the spirit is kindling. If there's strife in the church, it's because there's a quarrelsome person in the church. If there's strife in the family, it's because there's a quarrelsome person in the family. If you send the quarrelsome person, the child, to his room, and all of a sudden everything's peaceful, well, you know where the source of the problem is, right? It's the quarrelsome person. And so you need to be kind to the quarrelsome person. You need to teach and instruct the quarrelsome person to not be that way so that there can be joy in the family and the family can be strengthened. So be on your guard against a quarrelsome spirit. And women and children, be careful about quarreling with your dad or your husband. Don't do that. All right, so as we get into verses five through 17, we're going to get away from the putting off and we're gonna focus on the putting on. This is really the great part that I was really wanting to spend our time focused on this morning, verses 10 through 17, particularly verses 12 through 17. And let's take a look at the introduction here. Paul transitions from what we're supposed to put off to what we're supposed to put on at the end of verse nine and into verse 11. So after he says, do not lie to one another, he reminds them about their identity. So we get back to the identity. So, because of what God has done, he has taken away your old self, now therefore you throw away all the clothes of the old self, and I like the way one person said it, now that you're rid of the old self, get rid of his clothing too. So now that you have the new self, put on the clothing of the new self. It's that identity by which then we live our lives. You dress according to who you think you are. And if you think you are in Christ, then you will dress yourself with Christ-likeness. Very important that you think about yourself biblically. That's why the reminder is here. You have put on the new self, which is being renewed. So you're not perfect yet, but you're on the way. You're being renewed in knowledge. As you know God, just like Peter said, then you have everything you need for life and godliness. And then we get to verse 12, alright? So let's read verses 12 through 17 and really get what it is that we're supposed to be clothing ourselves with as Christians and how it applies to our families. Read this in relationship to your family members. 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. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Let's stop there for a moment. So, do you want a family that's perfectly bound together in harmony? That is awesome. That is the goal. That is what brings joy to the heart of God and joy to the heart of people is to have that kind of family, that kind of household. Now, you can't make other people be compassionate and kind and humble and meek and patient, but you can set the example and you can do your part, you can do your share. And once one person is doing this, it's amazing how it can spread to others. So you can't force people. They are their own people. They're going to make their own decisions. But you're amazing how much impact you can have when you put on these attributes. So let's take a look at some of this here. At the outset, we have to ask ourselves, how do you put on a heart? It says put on compassionate hearts. And sometimes people get the idea, that's unreasonable, that's impossible. There's no way that you can change out your heart. Your heart is what it is. The heart wants what it wants, the heart feels what it feels, and you really don't have any control over it. So what is God talking about of putting off these things and putting on those things? And you've been lied to, you've been deceived. You've been told that the human heart is out of control, and God says that's not true. You do have control over your heart. And when your heart starts to get bitter, husband against wife, wife against husband, when your heart starts to ruminate about, I can't believe that he would say that to me, and you start to get angry or you start to get frustrated, then you have a responsibility to get that off, to say, I refuse to carry on in that line of thinking. And I'm going to deliberately choose to replace that line of thinking with thankfulness. Instead of griping about my parents, I'm going to be thankful for my parents. My parents disciplined me. They sent me to my room. I can sit here and stew about how unfair it is, how they don't understand. Well, you can do that if you want to be miserable and you want to make your family miserable. Or you can say, I reject those thoughts. I'm going to put those thoughts away from me. And instead, I'm going to thank God for parents who love me enough to tell me when I'm wrong. You can control your thoughts. It's gonna take work. It's gonna take effort. It's not easy. I can't go out and run a four minute mile just by strength of will right now. But if I trained, if I worked, I could get somewhere in the ballpark when I was younger. The point is, You have more control than you think you do, but it's gonna take work. It's gonna take effort. It's something that you've gotta move in that direction and start heading that way, and not just give up and say, well, it is what it is, I am what I am, I can't change. That's the attitude of death. That leads nowhere. But instead, you say, God is with me, he's given me everything I need, and now I'm gonna put in the work to change the way that I think, the way that I speak, the way that I act. Now, God doesn't lay it all out specifically step by step. All right, first thing you do to put on a compassionate heart is this. Second thing you do to put on a compassionate heart is this. He doesn't have the full detailed list. You gotta figure some things out on your own. You're not a baby. You're a person created in the image of God. He's given you imagination. He's given you the power of thought. He's given you reason. Use it. put some work into it, put pen to paper, talk with other people, develop a plan and a strategy against your sin. When God looks at your life, how's he going to rate the effort that you've put into this? Put on a compassionate heart. How do you put on a compassionate heart? Well, I'm not gonna give you all the answers, but you can start by trying to see things from the other person's perspective. You can start by thinking about the difficulties and the hardships that the other person is facing. You can start by thinking about, well, how did they feel when I said that? Instead of thinking, how did I feel when they said that? Put on a compassionate heart, deliberately, decisively. You're not going to be perfectly compassionate just in one moment, but it's something you can grow, it's something you can develop. And then the kindness, the humility, the meekness, the patience, you get the idea here. Men, do you want to come home to a wife who's compassionate and kind and humble and meek and patient? Yes, you do. Do you want to spend time with that type of person? Yes, you do. Women, do you want your husbands to want to spend time with you? Put on a compassionate heart. Men love being around compassionate women. who are humble and patient. Children, are you humble? Are you meek? Are you patient towards your brother, towards your sister, towards your mom, towards your dad? What can you do to become more so? That's what God's gonna judge you about. You're gonna stand before God and give an account. And what did you do with what I gave you to develop these character qualities? That's what life is about. That's the race. That's where we're going. That's your destiny. Your life is defined not by what you look like, where you live, what job you do. Your life is defined by where you are going. Do you know where you're going? You're going to heaven. You're going to live with God. Live that way. You don't get good at anything without deliberate practice. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, train yourself for godliness in 1 Timothy 4, 7. Some of you are athletes, you know what training looks like. You know what kind of effort it takes, what kind of time it takes. If you don't train yourself for godliness, don't be surprised if you're not godly. You don't get good at anything without deliberate practice. Every day, consistent. Do you really want to change? How does that show up? How could someone see that you want to change, that you want to grow? If they followed you around all day, would they see any effort being put into spiritual growth? This is your command. Now, the humility, the meekness, this is being not self-important. Also, it's the opposite of being insubordinate. The insubordinate person is proud, but the one who submits to the leadership that God has placed in their lives, the wife who submits to her husband, the children who obey their parents, this is a meek attitude. Not weak, but power under control. You are self-controlled and submissive, subordinate. You're not self-important. You don't think that it's all about you. Now, there's nothing wrong with having strong opinions. You couldn't be having strong opinions and not be proud. What I'm thinking of here is Proverbs 16, 21. Now women, you have your own opinion, great. We want you to have opinions. But the wise in heart will be called understanding and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness. Don't try to force your opinion by strength of will on those who are in charge of the family. But instead, use sweetness of speech to increase your persuasiveness. Make your man feel like your hero instead of belittling him and making him feel like a zero until he does what you want him to do. But instead, appeal to him as a man, as somebody that you love, as somebody that you want to follow. Not someone that you're pestering, not someone that you're nagging, but someone that you are asking to be your hero. And that's how you get your man to do things for you. Think about being persuasive in your speech. Very wise. Another great proverb that comes along in this aspect of patience and humility and love is Proverbs 11.25. This one came to me recently as we were out working at Gemma's household, and it said there, whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and the one who waters will himself be watered. And this is where you gotta think about, what am I bringing into the relationship? When I go to meet my wife, am I going to think, how can I be a blessing to her? Or am I just going to say, well, here's the things we've got to get done. Business is done, alright. I'm out of here. I don't have to build the relationship. But if I come with joy, if I come with happiness, if I come with a desire to be a blessing to her, to have compassion, to have understanding, to give her a friend that she loves and likes to spend time with, then you're bringing something to the relationship. If all you bring to the relationship are complaints and demands, well, don't be surprised if no one wants to be in a relationship with you, that people who water will be watered. Those who bring a blessing, they're the ones who are going to be enriched. So instead of spending your time thinking about, well, you know, they didn't do this for me or they didn't do this for me, think about what can I do for them? And you know what? The more you do that, the more other people are going to return and say, I want to give to that person because that person has given so much to me. There's two ways that you can go in life. I'll say it again. You can live your life trying to get others to do what you want, or you can live your life trying to get yourself to do what God wants. and you choose wisely which path you take. If you live your life trying to get your family members to do what you want, that's the path to misery for your whole family. But if you live your life trying to get yourself to do what God wants, that's the pathway to blessing for your family, for everyone, and the whole church. So be memorizing, be putting into practice 312 through 15, 312 through 17, And really, there's so much more that I wanted to say on this passage, but it's Father's Day and I don't want to hold you all up too long, so let's just close with a couple of practical exhortations based upon this. Look at the end of verse 15, where it says there, be thankful. Be thankful. Children, be thankful for your brother and sister. Make a list of things that you're thankful for for your brother or sister. Make a list of things that you're thankful to your parents about. And share some of those things. Tell your sister, you know, I'm thankful that you're in my life. And I'm thankful because of this reason and that reason. Make a list of thankfulness. That's one thing that you can do to follow through and put this message into practice. That if you're going to apply every effort, In order to be thankful, well then, a great place to start would be make a list of things that you're thankful for. Put it someplace where you can see it. Remember to pray about it before God. Spend time giving thanks. If you doubled or tripled your thankfulness for your family members, what kind of difference do you think that would make in the joy that is in your household? Think about that. What would your relationships be like if you doubled or tripled your thanksgiving? Now, another key thing that you can do besides memorizing the passage and besides making a list of thankfulness is to journal. A journal is a great way, a great spiritual discipline in order to identify sins in your life and to come up with a strategy, a plan on how to defeat those sins, how to put them off and how to put on the opposite virtue. So you are responsible for your spiritual life. Write it down. God has given you the gift of language where you can read it, where you can see it, where you can think about it, and you can formulate a plan. And then as you write and journal and formulate a plan, find an accountability partner. Find someone that you can talk to about those things. Find someone that you can ask questions about those things. Don't just ignore it. Don't just keep it all to yourself. One of the great things that we do in training is to train with other people. Have a coach that is involved in your life who can point out what you're doing wrong and what you could be doing better. the practice of godliness, training for godliness. Get out of your head once and for all that you can just sit in church and grow Christ-like. You are getting equipped here in order to do the work, and you gotta go home and do work. So, write a journal. Show it to someone. Talk about it. And then one specific here that I just wanted to throw in also is, if you have an anger problem, think about when does my anger tend to flare up? And come up with a plan for what you can do to not get angry in those situations, but to have a compassionate heart, to have a patient heart, to have a forgiving heart. And then be on the lookout for the temptation. and be ready to deliberately put off anger, and to put on compassion and mercy, and then tell someone about it. Say, I kept getting angry when this would happen, and I came up with this plan, and I prayed, and I asked God for help, and the situation came up again, and I was able to put away that anger, and I was able to replace it, and that is a victory, and I'm putting that down as a stake in the ground for the direction that I'm gonna be going for the rest of my life. One victory leads to another. Success builds upon success. So look for those successes. Plan for those successes. And then build off of them. Habits don't change in a moment. Habits don't change overnight. But through determined effort, habits can change. You can change. God has given us everything that we need. I hope this message is not only convicting, but I hope it's encouraging. I hope it's inspiring. and that you go home with a different mindset about your spiritual life, your spiritual growth, and how you are going to approach it. Bow your heads with me for a word of prayer. Father, there's a lot of sin in the world that just seems to seep into our own hearts and lives. We learn by watching other people. We imbibe habits of thinking. habits of speech that just come naturally to the flesh that are self-destructive and are destructive of our relationships and our families. And Lord God, how then it comes into your church and we don't have resilience, we don't have forgiveness, we don't have patience, we don't have humility because we haven't practiced those things in our own homes. And Lord, then we're tested and the church gets divided and relationships are broken and your name is dishonored. Father, you're the one who sees into all of our homes. You're the one who sees everything that happens and all that is said. You even see into our hearts and our thoughts and know our secret thoughts, what's pleasing to you and what's not. And Lord, we want everything in our life to be pleasing to you. You are our creator. You are our hope. You are our hero. You are the one that we depend upon, leaning on your everlasting arms, and you're the one that we rejoice in. Even when we can't rejoice in our closest relationships because of the pain that sometimes comes from those, we can rejoice in you because you are always good, you are always right, you are always true, you are always faithful. And we want to love you and please you by putting effort and work into changing ourselves with the power that you've given to us to become more and more like Jesus Christ and to see our families perfectly united with that bond of love as each one of us does our part. We pray in Christ's name, amen.