Gratitude Dilutes Negativity(From Our 9-22-24 Worship)

West Side Church of Christ - Elkton Ky

Watch The Video Version Here: https://youtu.be/5aBhahbwrYY

Transcript:
It's taller up here.

It was New Year's Day two thousand and sixteen and Matthew South Carolina police officer Quincy Smith was on duty. This was the first time this year that he would be on patrol and for a long while, it would be the last time he would be on patrol. He received a call about an attempted burglary that had happened.

call. Come in the 911 and, and a description was given. And when he got on the scene to his surprise, standing literally behind the building was a guy who matched the description of the suspect. And he was standing there talking on the cell phone. Now, officer smith didn't think much of this. He just figured it was somebody you'd have a little too much celebration.

So he goes and he gets out of his police car and he rolls up on this guy and he's talking with his cell phone in one hand and he has his other hand in his coat pocket. Officer Smith asked him to remove his hand from his pocket and he won't. He asked him again. He asked him again. And the fourth time the man finally turns in anger.

and removes his hand from his coat. And in his hand is a 38 caliber. He opens fire on Officer Smith. Four shots rang out. All four of them hit him. There's video of him making it back to the car and talking to dispatch him sitting there thinking that he was not going to make it. Well, the last things he said before he passed out was Tell my family I love them

most time. A situation like that ends in tragedy. But in this case, it did not be taking a little over a year and a half. But Officer Smith would fully recover from his injuries and nobody would have blamed him if he got out of law enforcement business. But he didn't hop out. He hopped back in. He went right back on patrol as soon as he could.

And there's a reason why this story did not end in tragedy. Because that morning, before he answered that call, Officer Smith had went, and he had put on something that was very critical. This right here, is a bulletproof vest. My son come running in the office and said, Daddy, are you one of those secret spy people?

I If you don't know, this is Jeremy's rig, because God made Jeremy be the type of guy to run towards danger, not away from it. I told my wife, I said, I got a bulletproof vest coming. She said, you order it on Amazon?

No, they don't have 5X bulletproof vests, I bet.

But what he put on that morning saved his life. Two of the four shots went center mass. And these things don't work like in the movies, of course, they'll stop the bullet, but when you get hit, there's still thousands of pounds of force that hits you right in the chest. But what he put on saved his life.

And when you think about being a Christian, in a spiritual sense, what we decide to put on decides our eternity, doesn't it? I didn't realize until this lesson, but how much the Bible talks about You think about putting on. You think about Galatians chapter three, verse, starting in verse 25. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under the guardian, for in Christ Jesus, you're all sons of God through faith, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have what, have put on Christ.

I can't imagine being a police officer and going in the line of danger and not putting on all the protection that I could. And yet so many people in this day and time want to go and live their lives like eternity does not matter. And they don't care anything about putting on Christ. Putting on the only form of protection that can save their souls from eternity separated from their God in hell.

Now, that's a lesson in and of itself, but that's not the lesson that I had planned this morning. If you need to know more about putting on Christ we can sit down and we can study that after this. But this morning I want to go to the book of Colossians. You got your Bibles, go with me to the book of Colossians because There's some very interesting things here.

Paul uses the word put a great number of times And the things that we're going to see him talk about here are going to help us now This morning's sermon is a little bit different. I usually have multiple poets and and Go through the thing. There's just one point today, but I've got to explain some things to get to the point.

So if you're wondering when, when's he gonna get to the point? I'll tell you what I'm gonna get to the point. Okay, but we gotta set the framework. Okay. In Colossians chapter three, we're gonna get in verse five. Put to death. Therefore, what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry.

On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you too once walked when you were living in them. You see, Paul tells them, if you're going to put on Christ, you're going to have to put off some other things, aren't you? You're going to have to put away these evil things. I mean, in reality, that's what repentance is.

Repentance is, I'm going to change my desires for what I want. I used to want all these worldly things. I used to want these things that that fed me and my fleshly lusts. But now I want God. And it's not that you're ever going to be not tempted again. Of course you're going to be tempted. You're probably going to be tempted more after you become a Christian than you were before.

But you see, now you've got to put those things to death continually, don't you? Now you get, you get tempted by that thing. And you say, Man, I remember when and I really would like to do that. But I know where that leads. I know that's gonna lead me away from God. There's a part of me. Yes, it was still want to do that.

But out the other part of me wants God more. And maybe you even slip up. Maybe you even maybe even succumb to that temptation. But the moment that you do it, you realize You have a guilty conscience, don't you? You realize this is wrong. I know that it's wrong. And you confess those sins. First John chapter one, right?

You confess those sins and he is willing and faithful just to keep on cleansing us of those sins. If you're going to put on Christ, you've got to put off some things. But now let's go a little further here. Verses eight through 11. But now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, And I've seen talk from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off your old self and its practices, and you put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of the Creator. Here there is, uh, here there is not Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, sednictant, slave, free, but Christ is all and all and all.

You see here, he gives another list in verse eight. These are things you must put them away, but he just gave us a list. What's the difference in this list than the other list? This list is more important to us because anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk. All these things have to do with what's going on inside a bus.

Why are you angry? Why do you have wrath? Why do you have malice in your heart? Why do you slander other people? Why does a lot of mean things come out of your mouth? Why? Because inside...