The Overflow Of New Life

I’m going to read the entire passage, verses 15-17, and I want you to follow along with me very closely in your Bible.

Paul says, “And let the peace of God…”—“Christ”—rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.”

Someone said that “The surest sign that you are carrying a full bucket is wet feet.” I love that. I believe that the surest sign that your life is full of Christ is that your life will overflow onto others. If you are full of the Lord Jesus Christ—you put on Christ—your life is going to overflow and become a blessing to others.

In verses 8-14, Paul has commanded us to “put off” the grave clothes of the old life and to “put on” the grace clothes of the new life. Now in our text today, he gives us three more commands or imperatives, which are to control the expression or the overflow of that new life. First of all, verse 15, there is “the peace of Christ,” which is to “rule.” Second, verse 16, there is “the Word of Christ,” which is to “dwell.” And third, verse 17, there is “the name of the Lord Jesus,” which is to be glorified. These are three imperatives or three commands in the text, which are to guide and control the overflow of the abundant life.

The first is in verse 15: Let the peace of Christ rule. Paul says, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.” I want you to notice four qualities about this section. Number one, it is a divine peace. Verse 15 says, “Let the peace of Christ….” The King James translation actually translates that, “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts.” So why do I read it, “And let the peace of ‘Christ’ rule”? Many newer, modern manuscripts translate that as “Christ.”

You say, “Well, isn’t there a problem or conflict there?” Absolutely not. The Bible teaches that there is one God, and He is manifest in three persons. We refer to that as the “Trinity” or the “triune God.” We have God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Not three Gods; one God in three persons. All of them in their essence are divine. So in speaking of “God” here, the emphasis is actually on Christ, Who is God. Jesus is God. A better translation is “And let the peace of Christ rule…”—or “reign”—“…in your hearts.” It’s an affirmation that Jesus is God, and that His peace is to rule in our hearts. And it is a divine peace.

Before our conversion or our salvation, the Bible teaches that in that unconverted, unsaved, ungenerated state, we were at enmity with God; that we were at war with God, and we were fighting against God. You may not be aware of that, but that’s the truth. The Bible says that the unsaved person is at war with God. The Bible says that “There is no peace, saith the Lord, for the wicked,” Isaiah 48:22. There is this enmity and this hostility, and we are fighting against God.

Now because we are fighting against God, we are not having peace in our heart, because we’re not at peace with God. God created you to know Him and to have fellowship with Him. The very purpose for your existence is to know God, to enjoy Him and to glorify Him forever. So if you don’t know God, then you’re not fulfilling the purpose for which you were created. Everyone has this God-shaped void in their heart, and it can only be filled with Christ Himself or God Himself. Until then, you’re restless and you’re not at peace. So the unbeliever doesn’t have peace with God.

But at conversion—at the moment, the instant, you were saved by putting your faith in Jesus Christ, by trusting in Him, by believing in Him and by receiving Him, which are all synonyms for believing in Jesus; trusting, relying on, believing, receiving—you are born again. And the moment you are born again, you are saved and have peace with God. The Bible says in Romans 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So the moment you are saved, you have this overwhelming sense of peace, because now you are vertically aligned with God, and then you’re able to horizontally relate to other people. You’re able to get along with other people.

Before your conversion, one of the reasons you had a hard time getting along with other people—and even marriage could be a struggle or a difficulty—is because you were out of alignment with God. You need to be lined up with God, and then you’ll be lined up with others.

So the first peace we have is with God, but once you become a believer and you’re walking with the Lord and you’re growing in faith and you’re learning to trust God with your problems and dealings with the things of life, then you come to experience the peace of God, which Paul is alluding to in verse 15. It’s “the peace of Christ” or “God” that is to “rule in your hearts.”

What’s the difference? The peace with God happens at the moment of salvation. The peace of God is the experience of ongoing tranquility in the soul of a Christian who trusts in the Lord. I love the way D. L. Moody, the famous American evangelist, put it: “A little faith will bring your soul to heaven; a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul.” So if you trust God, it’s not the amount of faith; it’s the object of your faith. God is the one Who saves you. You can have a little faith in a big God, and He’ll save you and you’ll go to heaven. But if you want now to have heaven on earth, you need to trust God with your problems or with your circumstances or concerns, and God will give you His peace.

This is what is spoken of in Philippians 4:7, where Paul says, “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep…”—or “guard” or “garrison”—“…your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Paul is speaking of the peace of God, which gives us tranquility of soul, and we learn to trust in God and not worry about our problems.

Jesus said it like this in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you,” the peace that the world cannot give and cannot take away.

So my question is: Do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior so you have peace with God? If not, then you need to receive Him today, trust Him today and come into a relationship with Him today and have the peace with God. And if you are a Christian, then the second step is to trust Him, to rest in Him and to know that He loves you and will take care of you. Then you can experience the peace of God in your heart.

I want you to notice the second thing about this peace, in verse 15. It’s a ruling peace. He says there, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” The word “rule” is an athletic term that literally means “to act as an umpire.” It means that God’s peace should arbitrate all of our activities and our decisions. As a Christian, you shouldn’t make decisions based on anger or frustration or out of your passion. You should be making decisions based on the peace of God.

The peace of God will never lead you contrary to the Word of God. This is very important for you to understand. In knowing and discerning the will of God, there are three things you need to look for. You need to look at the Word of God, you need to be still and hear the peace of God and then you need to see the hand of God in your circumstances. When those three things come into alignment, you can be confident that God is leading you. God’s Word, God’s peace and God’s hand on the circumstances of your life. Any one of those, isolated from the others, can cause problems, especially when it comes to the peace of God. God’s peace needs to be the arbitrator, the decider.

And as I said, it’s an athletic term that means to umpire or to be a referee. You’re watching a football game, the NFL. That’s coming this fall, and many of you love football. You’re watching a game, and there’s a play on the field that looks like pass interference, everyone’s freaking out, so they call for a review. The referee gets in his box and looks at the review while there’s a silence over the whole stadium. You’re waiting to see which direction the referee will go. He comes out on the field, turns on his microphone, makes the announcement, and the team that didn’t get the call moans and groans and complains, and the other team claps and is excited they got the call. But once the referee makes the call, it’s over. There’s no more debating it; the decision is made.

That’s what that peace is to do for us. “Lord, is it your will for me to marry this person?” “Is it your will for me to take this job?” “Is it your will for this or that?” And you pray, “God, give me Your peace, and guide me and direct me.”

And I’m going to point out another thing in a moment in the context where he’s talking about getting along with one another in the body of Christ. I believe that’s primarily what Paul has in mind, but I do believe that this is an important passage when it comes to us subjectively and individually discerning and knowing the will of God.

But you need to be very careful, because there is a false peace, a pseudo peace; that we want something so badly that we disregard what God is saying to our heart, and we kind of impose our will upon God. That’s why I emphasize the point that the peace of God will never lead you contrary to the Word of God.

The reason I say that is because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people come to me and say, “Well, Pastor Miller, I really feel a peace about divorcing my spouse. I found someone I like a lot better, and I really feel a great chemistry there. I’m much more attracted to this person. I really have a peace about it.” You do not. Slap that dude. You don’t have a peace. That’s like saying, “Lord, I pray You’ll give me Your peace right now as I go rob the bank,” or “I’m going to steal this money right now, and I pray that You’ll give me Your peace.” That’s like asking for protection when you go to rob a bank. How stupid is that?! You’re out of the will of God. You’re not hearing the peace of God. “Lord, shall I divorce my wife?” And then you say to yourself, “Do what thou wantest, my child.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you, Jesus.”

“That’s not the Holy Spirit. That’s your flesh, buckaroo.” And you need to be careful.

You know, Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh and preach to the Ninevites, but he went the other way. He got on a ship and went to Taursus, the ship got into a storm and Jonah was sleeping in the boat. That wasn’t a divine peace. He’s in the middle of the storm, sleeping in the boat and he’s out of the will of God. When you’re sleeping out of the will of God, you’re in a dangerous position. And Jonah was out of the will of God. So you need to pray for God’s peace to guide and direct you and to help you to make decisions, but be careful of a false peace.

I want you to notice, thirdly—and this is the main thrust of the text—that it is the peace of unity. I think we should be careful not to miss this point in verse 15. Notice what Paul says: “…to the which also ye are called in one body.” Why is that in that verse? Couldn’t it have just read, “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, and be ye thankful”? No. Because Paul wanted them to get along in the church. And God wants us to get along in this church.

I thank God for this church. We are so blessed to be a part of this fellowship and what God is doing in this congregation. But the devil, our flesh or people can get in there, and we can argue and debate and can cause division and strife. So many churches have split, because we haven’t let the peace of God rule in our hearts. We never sacrifice truth for peace or purity for peace. Truth and purity always come first. So as Christians, we should want to get along together. We should want to love each another. We should want to forgive each other, and we want the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts, because we are one body. Revival Christian Fellowship is a body of Christ. Christ is our head, we’re all members and we’re knit together in love. In context, it is the peace of unity. So it’s in the church, it would be in our marriage, it would be on the job as well as in my individual life.

Notice fourthly, it is a peace that brings thanksgiving. In verse 15, he goes on to say, “…and be ye thankful.” So let the peace of Christ rule, as umpire, in your heart. Remember, you are one body; get along and love one another, and have the peace among each other. And learn to be thankful. “Be ye thankful” literally in the Greek would be translated “thankful continually become.” Learn to be thankful. When we get down to the end of verse 17, we’re going to see him closing this section by saying, “…giving thanks to God and the Father by Him,” or “giving thanks to God because He is our Father,” being thankful to Him.

We need to learn to be thankful. I have an honest confession, a little kind of self-exposure: I’m challenged in this area. God has blessed me so wonderfully, but I have this natural tendency and bent to look on the negative side of things. My wife calls me “Mr. Negative” as well as “Mr. Grumpy.” I was greeting people after first service, and they said, “Nice sermon, Mr. Grumpy.” I’m just as human as anyone else. I tend to be very critical and look at the negative—the glass is half empty, they didn’t do it right or it could have been done better, it’s never good enough and I’m so focused on that. It’s hard for me to stop to remember how good God is and all the blessings I have.

Inevitably when I force myself to do that—to think about God’s grace and goodness—I tend to thank God for all the good things He has done. It’s when we’re not thinking that we’re not thanking God for what He has done. So take the time to

Count your blessings.
Name them one by one.
Count your many blessings.
See what God has done.

Be appreciative and thankful, so the peace of God is ruling, and we’re growing and learning to be thankful. And I believe that when God’s grace and salvation bring me the peace of God, then the peace of God turns into the thankfulness to God.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Paul says, “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” He didn’t say “for” everything; he said “in” everything. Even in difficulty, you can be thankful to God.

So I ask you this question: Is your life overflowing with God’s peace and thanksgiving?

Here’s the second command in verse 16: “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another…”—again, the context is in the church—“…in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in yours hearts to the Lord.” You should be singing with grace in your hearts unto the Lord.

What does Paul mean by “the Word of Christ”? The answer, first of all, are the words that Christ spoke recorded in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all record for us the teaching and the words of Jesus Christ. Let God’s Word, “the Word of Christ,” dwell in you.

And I also believe that this is a synonym for all of Scripture; that it is referring to the whole Bible, the Word of God. When Paul uses this phrase, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you,” it is a reference to all of the Bible, all of Scripture. I believe that as Christians, the Bible is to dwell within us. And I’m going to break that down, as to exactly what that means.

What does it mean to “dwell in you”? It means to be at home, to settle down and to be at home in our hearts. The words mean that we let God’s Word have access in all areas, into every part of our lives. Let our hearts become Christ’s home. Let the Bible come into your life, and let it have free roam, into every area of your life.

Have you ever noticed that when somebody comes over to visit, or you have a guest staying, that you use that expression, “Make yourself at home”? Have you ever done that? You don’t really mean that. At least not if I’m at your house. You want me to make myself at home? I put my feet on the couch. “Could you please not put your feet on the couch?”

“You told me to make myself at home.” That’s what I do; I take my shoes off and throw my socks; make myself at home. I go in the refrigerator [glugging the milk down] and drink right out of the carton. I make myself at home. Praise God. Even married men do that. When my wife’s gone, I drink from the carton. Don’t tell her. She comes to the third service, so I won’t use that at the third service. I hope she’s not watching online right now. I’m busted. I make myself at home; I’m just going to go in, throw the blankets back, take a nap, brush my teeth, spit all over the mirror. Isn’t that weird? “Make yourself at home.” What they really mean is, “Sit right there and don’t move. Don’t do anything. Just sit there, but make yourself at home. Not really, but whatever.”

But the truth is that when the Word of God comes into our lives, we are supposed to open our hearts and let God’s Word be at home in our hearts. Again, when somebody comes over to visit, we throw all the junk in one room and shut the door. We say, “Okay, just keep them in the living room. Don’t let them go down the hall. Don’t let them open that closet.” But the Holy Spirit wants to come into every room; that every room would be His home. He wants to take out the old, and He wants to bring in the new. He wants to repaint and He wants to remodel. He doesn’t want any hidden closets. He doesn’t want anything stashed under the bed. The bedroom, the kitchen, the living room—every part of your life should have the Word of Christ dwelling and controlling it.

How do we do that? “…richly in all wisdom,” verse 16. It means that we are to highly prize God’s Word in our hearts. We do that in three ways: by reading the Scriptures daily, by believing God’s Word in faith and then obeying. We read, we believe—or we add faith—and then we obey or put it into practice in our lives, in our home and in our church. It’s not enough just to have a Bible-preaching church. We need to read the Bible on our own. We need to study the Bible daily. We need to bring it into our marriage and bring it into our homes.

When “the Word of Christ is dwelling in us richly,” here are the results. Look at the text. There is teaching and admonishing. Teaching means we get the positive instruction of truth. “You’ll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” When you read, study and obey the Bible, you’re learning truth. You’re putting it into practice. Your mind is being enlightened and transformed. Then the “admonishing” in verse 16 has the idea of warning and correcting. So teaching is the positive instruction of truth, and admonishing is the warning and the correcting of error.

In 2 Timothy 3:16, it says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God…”—or “God breathed,” and in the Greek it means that God “breathed out” Scripture. So even though the Bible has human authors, the Holy Spirit superintended the human authors so that the very words they wrote were the words of Scripture. And the Bible “…is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Someone pointed out that doctrine is what is right, reproof is what is wrong, correction is how to get right and instruction is righteousness in how to stay right. So the Bible gives us everything we need “for life and godliness.”

Notice in verse 16 the words “one another.” Why? Like verse 15, the context is applicable to the church. In the church, in the body of Christ, we’re to be sharing, teaching, admonishing one another with the Scriptures. This is where the verse takes on a direction that is amazing. Paul tells us how to do that; by “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

This is amazing; that actually as Christians, we are to sing to the Lord. Christianity is a singing religion. People get upset with Revival Christian Fellowship saying, “You sing too much in your church. I’m a Christian but not a singing Christian. I’m not one of those singers. I don’t like to sing at church.” You know what we’ll be doing in heaven? Singing. So if you come here and say, “Oh, man, they’re singing too much,” wait until you get to heaven. You’re going to go, “Oh, no! They’re doin’ it here too!” Actually, it’s because we have heaven in our heats, and heaven is our home, that we’re singing to the Lord; we’re worshipping the Lord.

I remember that the moment I got saved, I began to sing to the Lord. Jesus puts the songs in our hearts. That’s the overflow of the new life. Now he doesn’t say that we have to sing well. Praise the Lord! The Bible says to “make a joyful noise.” You people know that verse very well [singing poorly]. You might want to sit at the back of the church. The Lord knows if it’s coming from your heart, and you’re worshipping the Lord. It doesn’t matter how well you sing; you’re worshipping the Lord.

To make a distinction between psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, is a bit of a challenge. I would say that psalms are God’s playlist from the Old Testament psalter. Do you know that in your Bible in the Old Testament, the Psalms are God’s songs or God’s playlist? They were put together with instruments. They had instruments, and they sang them. As Christians, we derive our singing from the Jewish faith.

The hymns are songs of praise to the glory of God. Did you know that even in the New Testament there are verses of Scripture that scholars believe were written to be sung? An example is 1 Timothy 1:15. Paul says, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” It’s actually believed that when Paul used that phrase, “This is a faithful saying,” it was a hymn of the early church; that Christians actually sang this verse as they worshipped the Lord. We have hymns today that we sing that are so precious to us.

Then finally, the spiritual songs. They are all other songs that are spiritual that edify the believer and glorify God.

I think it’s okay if a Christian listens to secular music. But my question is: Why? I’m not a legalist here. If you want to listen to your kind of music, you can listen to your kind of music. But since there is so much good, sacred music, music that is inspired by the Holy Spirit, that glorifies God, edifies God, educates the believer with so much content, why wouldn’t you want to listen to music that builds you up and strengthens you in your faith with Jesus Christ? It sounds only natural to me that if I’m a Christian, I’m going to listen to music that edifies me and strengthens me.

How are we to sing? Notice verse 16: “…with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” I love that. Jesus indeed puts a song in our hearts and a joyful song in our hearts.

Do you know that in church history, all the great revivals were accompanied by a revival of singing in the church? Do you know that the Protestant Reformation brought congregational singing back to the church? Martin Luther introduced congregational singing. Do you know that in the Wesleyan revivals, with John and Charles Wesley, Charles wrote so many beautiful hymns during the Wesleyan revivals, and there was a revival of singing in the church? D. L. Moody had his song leader, Ira Sankey, to travel with him, and they sang songs and worshipped the Lord. And in the Jesus movement in the ‘60s and ‘70s here in America, of which I am a product, I saw that happen; all the hippies getting saved and then they said, “We want to write our own songs.” And they got their guitars out and started singing songs to Jesus. We have the rebirth of the contemporary music in the church today because of that movement. So it was a work of God in which people were coming to Jesus in a new style of worship, and songs of praise were introduced.

We’re so blessed at Revival Christian Fellowship to have a worshipping church. I believe that the more the Word of God dwells in us, the more we should want to worship God, to express praise and thanksgiving. When people come to our church, they should sense God’s presence, even in the worship, and they should be instructed by the words. I believe the Spirit of God can use the worship to speak to hearts and glorify Jesus Christ.

I want you to note in the text that there are two things about our singing. In verse 16 it says that we do it “with grace in your hearts.” That actually means with “graciousness” because of God’s grace. If you want to strengthen your worship, remember God’s grace; that God saved you by His grace, not your unearned, undeserved merit, and that you should worship Him with graciousness in your heart.

Then notice who you are worshipping. The Lord. So we sing with grace in our hearts “to the Lord.” When we sing and worship here on Sundays, we have an audience of one. I sometimes hear people ask, “What do you think of the worship today?” It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what God thinks, because that’s who we are worshipping. The Bible says that “The Lord inhabits the praises of His people.” I believe that when we sing on Sunday morning, God turns to the angels and shushes them. “They’re singing right now at Revival Christian Fellowship.” And the angels, in hushed silence, have to sit back while we worship God, and God inhabits those praises.

We have an audience of one. We’re not singing to the worship team. The worship team’s not entertaining you. We’re worshipping God. The Bible says that we should worship Him “in spirit and in truth.” In John 4:24, Jesus said that the true worshipper “must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

Ephesians 5:18-21 is a parallel passage to this Colossians passage. When Paul wrote the book of Colossians, at the same time he penned the letter to the Ephesians. There is a parallel here that I don’t want you to miss. Ephesians 5:18 says, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess…”—or “debauchery”—“…but be filled with the Spirit.”

I’ll just point this out right now, that the parallel is between “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly” and Ephesians 5:18: “Be filled with the Spirit.” I believe that they are synonymous. To be Spirit filled is to be Word filled. To be Word filled is to be Spirit filled. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to transform the child of God.

Now notice Ephesians 5:19: “…speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Does that have a familiar ring? It’s almost verbatim what we read in the book of Colossians. Then Ephesians 5:20-21: “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear…”—and “reverence”—“…of God.”

Again, I believe that you can’t be a Spirit-filled Christian without being a Word-filled Christian. And you can’t be a Word-filled Christian without being a Spirit-filled Christian. You need the Spirit of God and the Word of God together in your life, and they work together to transform our lives. And the same results, the same consequences, the same evidence of being filled with the Spirit are the same results and same consequences of being filled with God’s Word.

Now notice in Ephesians 5:19 that you will be joyful; you’ll be “speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” You’ll be thankful, verse 20; “giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And you’ll be submissive, verse 21; “submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”

Now back to Colossians 3. This is going to continue next time. The next verse is verse 18. Any of the women want to read it to me? It’s your favorite verse. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands….” Next verse: “Husbands, love your wives….” So it’s the same result of being Spirit filled: joyful, thankful, submissive. And it goes right into marriage, and next time we’re going to go right into marriage. We’re going to be looking into the Christian home—the wives, the husbands, the parents, the children. Very important. But, again, that’s the overflow of being filled with the Word of Christ; letting the peace of Christ and letting the Word of Christ dwell in you. It’s going to transform your marriage relationship. It’s going to transform your home and your family.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a singing home? I know that when there’s a song in my heart, I’m filled with the Spirit. You know what the evidence of the Spirit-filled life is? You sing. Again, I didn’t say you sing well, but you sing. There’s a song in your heart. There’s joy. You’re thankful. You’re “submitting yourselves one to another in the fear…”—and “reverence”—“…of God.” It’ll transform not only our church and our community but our homes and our marriages. So being filled with the Spirit is the same as being filled with the Word of Christ.

Is the bucket of your life overflowing? Do you have wet feet? Are you filled with Christ’s Word and with His Spirit?

Lastly, and thirdly, let the name of Christ be glorified, verse 17. “And whatever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks…”—there it is—“…to God and the Father by Him.” When we let the peace of Christ rule and the Word of Christ dwell, then our lives will bring glory to God.

What does Paul mean by “the name of the Lord Jesus”? Basically, he means the nature and the character and the person. So he’s saying that everything we do, everything we say, every aspect of our lives should bring honor and glory to the person of Jesus Christ.

There are three features involved in this command to let the name of Christ be glorified. I want you to notice the scope of it in verse 17. “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed.” That includes everything. Everything that you say and everything that you do; all of life should honor and glorify Jesus Christ.

Secondly, all of life should be lived under the authority of Jesus Christ and for His glory. Notice verse 17: “Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” That means nothing should be permitted in our lives that cannot be associated with Jesus Christ. Nothing. Everything you do, everything you say, every place you go, every activity of your life, Jesus should go along with you.

Let me give you an example. Say you like to go to the movie theater. You like to go watch movies. Guess what? Jesus needs to go with you. You can’t pull up to the theater and say, “Now Jesus, there’s a movie I want to see, and I don’t think You’ll like it. So if You’ll just sit in the car here for a couple hours, I’ll be right back.” No. When you’re in the theater, think of Jesus sitting right next to you. If you look over, Jesus has His hand over His eyes saying, “We shouldn’t be here right now.” You shouldn’t be here right now if you can’t take Jesus with you.

In a relationship. “I’m kind of dating this gal” or “I’m kind of dating this guy. I kind of like him, but he doesn’t really know I’m a Christian. When we go out on a date, I don’t really bring Jesus, because I’m going to mess things up.” You need help. If you can’t bring Jesus into that relationship, you shouldn’t have that relationship. You need to let the flag fly high from your heart and say, “I’m a Christian. I love Jesus Christ.”

When you’re on the job. If you’re working somewhere where you can’t take Jesus with you, then, hey—I don’t mean you stand up on the desk and preach in the office. But it means that you let your light shine. Everything we do, everything we say should be submitted to the authority of Jesus Christ. Can we take Jesus with us? Will it honor Him? Will it grieve Him or wound Him?

All that we do should be done, thirdly, with thanksgiving to God as our Father. This is an amazing statement in verse 17. He says, “…giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.” The way that would read from the Greek is actually, “Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God as your Father.” It actually indicates that the statement is giving thanks to God because He is your Father; that God is your Father and you are thankful for that when you realize He has promised to “never leave you nor forsake you.” He’s promised to provide for you.

In Matthew 6 Jesus said that you don’t have to worry, you don’t have to fret, you don’t have to be afraid. He said that your Father feeds the birds. If He feeds birds, He’ll feed you. Your Father clothes the flowers of the fields. Today they bloom and they’re beautiful and tomorrow they’re thrown into ovens and used as fuel for cooking. He said that you’re more valuable than they are—the sparrows and the flowers. God will take care of you.

It’s a simply, but simply profound truth, and I want you to grasp it: God is your Father, if you’re a child of God. If you’re not a Christian, God is not your father. If you haven’t repented of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ, then God is not your father. The Bible actually says that “You are of your father, the devil,” that you’re at war with God.

So you need to realize that you’re a sinner, you need to repent of your sin and you need to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. And when that happens, you have peace with God. Then you have the peace of God. Then you begin to read God’s Word and obey God’s Word, and God’s Word begins to control your life and rule your life. Then you begin to realize that “God is my Father, God is taking care of me and God is leading me and God is guiding me.”

This is an ongoing process; letting the peace of Christ rule, letting the Word of Christ dwell and letting the name of Christ be glorified in our lives. That’s the Christian life. That’s the overflow of the Christian life.