Welcome to Connect with Skiff Heidz Weekend Edition. Thanks for joining us today. Here at Connect with Skiff, we're passionate about helping you understand God's Word and apply it to your everyday life through clear, practical Bible teaching. That's why we invite you to sign up for Pastor Skip's free weekly devotional. You'll receive biblical encouragement, ministry updates, and exclusive ministry content, all delivered right to your inbox.
Signing up is quick, easy, and completely free. Visit connectwithskiff.com today. That's connectwithskip.com.
Now, here's how to pre-order an exciting resource from Pastor Skip that's coming next month. Have you ever wanted to understand the Bible better but felt overwhelmed by where to begin? In Soaring Above It All, Pastor Skip Heitek guides you through the big picture of scripture in short daily devotionals designed to help you better understand God's Word. Pre-order your copy of Soaring Above It All today, wherever books are sold.
Now, here's today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Look what it says for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. That is my ultimate goal. Newsflash. Ain't gonna happen.
on this earth. Not going to be fully done conquering that problem till you and I get into glory.
However, If ever there was a battle worth fighting, it's this battle. If ever there was a fight. that you need to be engaged in. It's this fight. You've heard it said before, choose your battles carefully.
Well, here's a battle you need to fight. And you need to win. You need to win more of these battles than lose them. As God spoke to Cain, he said, Sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must master it.
James in the New Testament said, resist. The Devil. Jesus to the twelve apostles, pray that you enter not into temptation. And then he taught us to pray. Deliver us from the evil one.
All of that is. is resistance talk. Military language. Fight it, resist it, push it away, win the battle.
Now, just a quick note before we move on. Suffering will help you do that. If there's another benefit to throw out and say, suffering is good for this, this is it. Because Suffering, you know this to be true, gets your attention like nothing else. And when it has your attention, It cuts away Things that are worthless.
Things that are superfluous, certain activities you got engaged in suddenly when there's a huge amount of suffering, that stuff just. Doesn't mean that much to you. It tends to get cut away. We all have rough edges. And God uses suffering to transform and smooth and temper our lives.
So resist sin. You want to make time count? Put that on the palate. Resist sin. Here's a second.
Relish God's will. If the first was negative, this is positive. Resist sin, that's negative. Relish or enjoy God's will? That's positive.
Verse 2. That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for men. Four. The will Of God.
Now it gets right to the heart of what you and I will do with the rest of your time. How will you spend the rest of your time? Let me put it to you this way. The best of your time. is when you use the rest of your time.
to invest your time in doing the will of God. Again, the best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time. in doing the will of God. Let God's will be your lifelong pursuit. You want an adventurous journey, you want a satisfying journey.
Make sure the will of God is number one in your pursuit. To quote what Jesus himself said, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you. Did you know that the will of God for your life is the most Important and exciting thing about your life. You might be good at a lot of things, but the most exciting thing about your life. is when you discover What God wants from it.
Somebody once said there are two most important days in a person's life: the day he was born. Number one, and number two, the day he finds out what he's born for. What does God want? out of my life. Discover that.
Make that your pursuit, your ambition.
Now let me just throw out a warning here. A lot of times, when you say these words, find the will of God for your life, people, Christians especially, like to mysticize that. They think that you discover God's will by sort of sitting in a corner and just. Humming and Getting an impression. Maybe God's going to speak a voice to me.
Or Believe it or not, some have tried. I'm going to open my Bible that day and I'm just going to go like this and go like this. Just going to point to some random verse, trusting the Holy Spirit will guide my finger. That becomes God's will. Be very careful.
There's some strange texts in this book. And Judas went out and hung himself. Oops. Don't play roulette with this book. Hey, I've loved this story.
I've told it to you before about a farmer who thought he should be an evangelist. He was working in his field one day, he plopped down by Side of a tree, and he's looking up at the clouds, and he looked and he saw the clouds form what looked to him like two letters: a large P. And a large C. And he thought. P C P P C Preach Christ.
That's it. It's a sign. He sold his farm.
Okay. Became an evangelist. The problem is, is he was just a horrible speaker.
So he's preaching one day, and his town is there to hear him. It was pretty sad afterwards. One of his buddies came up to him, put his arm around him and said, Dude. Do you think perhaps God wasn't just using PC to tell you to plant? Corn.
Plant. Corn. Be careful that you don't Make the will of God so mystical. Because you might be doing that. preaching when you ought to be planting or planning when you ought to be preaching.
Simply put, just pursue his will over against your will. Make it your ambition to discover what that is and let that happen naturally. It'll happen supernaturally, naturally. You don't have to force it. There was a guy who uh was on a diet.
Yeah. And he told his office, I'm on a diet, you guys gotta hold me accountable.
So he comes to work one day with this humongous coffee cake. He walks into the office with them, they scold and they go, Wait, wait, wait, you're on a diet. He goes, No, no, no, no, no. This Is the will of God. And so he tells them the story.
He had changed his route to work so that he wouldn't go by the bakery. He went the long way around on his diet. But that day he happened to forget and drove right past the bakery. He says, I'm driving past the bakery. And I looked in the window, and this thing was sitting right in the front window.
I knew it can't be an accident, it's providence.
So I prayed. I said, Lord, if it's your will. For me to get that cake. May there be a parking space right in front. in front of that window.
And he said, wouldn't you know it, the eighth time around the block, There was a parking space.
Well will of God. I do want to say, however, the will of God It's never a burden. It's a blessing. I know that when people hear the term will of God, some go, oh. Gotta be hard.
Jesus said, My yoke is easy, my burden is light. John said, We obey his commandments, and his commandments are not bad. burdensome.
So, the will of God is not an encumbrance, it's an enablement. That makes burdens light. You won't always know what he's up to. You'll want to. He won't always reveal it, but you can rest that he knows best.
So resist sin. Relish God's will. Here's the third. Renounce your past. In other words.
Come up to a point. in your life and maybe today will be the point. Where you look back and you say, Enough. is enough. That stuff's gone.
That's the old me. That's the old lifestyle. I got something new going on. Verse 3. For we have spent enough.
Of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties. And abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil. A view. What a list.
Now, last week I spoke about baptism, and did you know that in some denominations, when you go to get baptized, there's a formality? and you answer questions. If you want to get baptized into that church, The clergy wants to ask you some questions, and they want to hear your answer. And here's the first question. Do you renounce the devil?
And all his works The vain pomp and glory of this world, with all the covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that you will not follow, nor be led by them. That's the question. And they expect this answer. I renounce them. Oh.
That's the thought of this passage. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Everyday friends like you help connect people around the world to the life-changing truth of God's Word through clear, verse-by-verse Bible teaching. Our world constantly tells us we need something more. But the book of Colossians reminds us that everything we truly need is found in Jesus Christ.
That's the heart of Pastor Skip's resource, Expound Colossians. As he walks verse by verse through this powerful New Testament book, you'll discover why Christ is supreme over all things, how to recognize truth in a world full of competing voices, and what it means to live each day firmly rooted in Him. We'll send Expound Colossians as our thanks when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com/slash offer.
Now let's return to today's teaching. Renounce all of these things on this list. They're not good for you. They're not the will of God for you. They're not what's best for you.
Remember, the best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time. in doing the will of God. I went through that list and I could uncover the meaning of every single word, but I think it's pretty straightforward. He's simply saying we all wasted enough time doing bad stuff. I looked at that list and I thought, you know, I knew people.
Who did Those things. for a living. That was their nine to five. And after work, that's when the party really started for them. They were radical in their sin.
But I also know some of those radical sinners. were interrupted by radical salvation. And when they were, they all said the same thing. Enough. I'm done.
Enough. Turning point time. I've had enough of the past.
Some of you look at that list in verse 3. Lewedness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, abominable idolatries.
Some of you here. Can relate to one.
Some of you can relate to all. While others of you read that list, and you cannot relate to a single one. You grow up in a Christian family. You look at that, those overt, kind of obvious, gross sins. You never did those.
Outwardly. You did them inwardly. There's still sin going on. Nobody saw it. It was just as evil.
Now I want to say something to you. Good morning. I remember when I was growing up, I would think I was around 18, 19, I knew a kid who was around 16. His name was Johnny. He was raised in a Christian home.
Good parents. Great kid, all of his life. going to church, loving the Lord. Mm-hmm. But He heard all of our testimonies.
He heard people saying, Yeah, I used to be a drug addict and I came to Christ. I used to be a mass murderer and I got turned around. All of these dramatic, gnarly testimony. I remember talking to him one day, and he said, You know what? I never had those experiences.
Maybe I need to go out and sin a little bit and get myself a dramatic testimony. I said, Johnny. You. have the most dramatic testimony. That God can keep a person from young age through a lifetime.
Your testimony will encourage every parent raising any son or daughter. If God can do that. That's dramatic. Even, I'm thankful, but we parade often ex-cons and ex-drug addicts and famous musicians who turn to Christ. Great, it's all good.
But the keeping power to keep a life true a life. That's powerful. Basically, no matter how much time you spent for the flesh, no matter how much time you spent for the devil. It's enough time. Whether it was 20 years or one day, it's enough.
Enough. Were you an alcoholic? Enough. Were you a pornographer? Enough.
Were you an angry person? Enough. Were you a church-going, Bible-carrying hypocrite? Enough. To make time count.
Count your past. As pass, over, done. Enough. So, resist sin, relish God's will, renounce your past. Those three things will make time Let me give you a fourth and we'll close.
Reach the lost.
Now, hear me, don't turn out because somebody goes, Well, I'm not good at that stuff, that evangelism stuff. You want to add some spark and zing into your life? Tell somebody about your faith. Just try that. Just try it and get back to me and see if it wasn't exhilarating, frightening, perhaps.
Because if you don't evangelize, you will fossilize.
So look at the text, verse 4. In regard to these, they, that is your old friends, the world, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation. That simply means. Um desire to do evil, wicked things. And what will they do?
Speak evil of you. A view. They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason, the gospel was preached also to those who are dead. that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God.
In the spirit. It's an unpeople unsaved people. Do not understand. When God changes a life, they do not get it. Your old friends, they don't get you.
Am I right? Unsafe family members. They may be polite to you, maybe not. But they don't get you. They think it's strange.
I thought it strange. I had a friend. On a Saturday, We were doing drugs in his bedroom. Together. The very next day, Sunday, he has his finger on my chest telling me I need to get saved.
Made me very mad. I'm thinking, that was Saturday, today's Sunday. What happened in 24 hours? Because nobody can change that fast. That's what I told him.
Nobody can change that fast. I was dead wrong. Between Saturday And between Sunday Was Saturday night. He went to an event that night and he gave his life to Christ. He was changed.
And he told me I needed a change. I thought it strange. The world thinks it's strange. They don't think it's strange when people wreck their bodies with drugs. They don't think it's strange when people wreck their homes with infidelity and immorality.
They don't think it's strange when people wreck their jobs because they have hangovers. They do think it's strange when the drunk becomes sober, when the impure becomes pure. They think it's strange when you buy a Bible and you go to church and you want to hang out with Christians. That's strange. Paul the Apostle shared his testimony before a Roman governor.
Talked about how God changed his life and the resurrection, gave him hope and life. And Festus stood up and said, Paul, you are out of your mind. That's strange. If Paul would have said, I got stoned drunk last night. Good on ya.
But he said, I'm a changed man. They think it's strange. So what do we do? We don't ignore them. That's our tendency.
We're patient with them. And As it says in verse 6, we preach to them. We seek to reach the lost. You're their only hope. And why do we do that?
Even when they're mean to us, look at what it says: they speak evil of you. They go, I can't believe you don't want to party with us. And then you leave and they just talk smack about you.
So what do you do? You love them, you're patient with them, you preach to them. And here's why. For two reasons. They're blind.
They're blind to spiritual truth. 2 Corinthians 4: The God of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe.
So I know you're going to your friends and go, don't you get it? Don't you get it? No, they don't get it. God can open their eyes, he did yours, but they don't get it at the moment. It's as foolish as trying to tell a blind man: hey, look at that sunset.
Look at that sunset. Look at the orange and the yellow and the red. I can't. I'm blind. I can't see a hue of anything.
So they're blind. Number two, they're dead. It's even worse. You can't bring them back to life. God can, but you can't.
They're dead. The book of Ephesians says we were dead in trespasses and sins. Peter, to encourage them, says, They may be judging you right now. Verse five. But God will judge them one day.
Leave it there. And then in verse 6, he reminds his readers of those who are dead, who have been martyred for their faith. They were falsely judged by men. They were persecuted and they were killed for their faith. And at the time of the writing of Peter, they were dead.
But they were alive before God getting their reward.
So Don't just spend your time. Invest your time. Make time count. The best of your time. is when you use the rest of your time.
to invest your time. in doing the will of God. This could be the time. The time. I'm going to close with a story back in 1999, true story.
In 1999, in September of 1999, In the West Bank over in Israel, you know how that works? There's a divided country, and there's a West Bank settlement, then there's a line, and on the other side of that line is the nation of Israel. In the West Bank, they were on daylight savings time. Across that line in Israel, they had switched back to standard time. There were a few terrorists in the West Bank preparing a bomb to explode two buses of civilians in Israel.
It was a time bomb. You know where I'm going with this. They prepared the time bomb, got it over to their counterparts in Israel. to place the bomb Their counterparts didn't quite understand the time change thing, and the bomb exploded. one hour earlier than it was supposed to.
according to terrorists' reckoning. Blew up. It killed three of the terrorists, but it spared Two busloads of civilians. They were saved. In an hour, of time.
That hour made all the difference. This hour could make all the difference. This time Could make all the difference. in eternity. You can't kill time without injuring eternity.
You have a coin. It is your life. You're making the decision of how you're going to spend it. And whatever choice you make now. determines the outcome in eternity.
What are you investing this in? It's funny when it comes to decisions like this, people will actually think. If I were to give Jesus Christ my life, What would my friends think?
Well, if they're really your friends, Then they want the best for you. This is the best. They may not understand it. They might speak evil of you if you do it. But you will have a chance.
to see their life also get the best. Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skiff Heitzig. Before we go, remember, your generosity helps share God's word with people around the world through clear, verse-by-verse Bible teaching. And this month, when you give $50 or more, we'll send you Expound Colossians as our thanks. In this five-message study, Pastor Skip explores one of the Bible's clearest pictures of the supremacy of Jesus Christ and shows how being rooted in Him changes the way you live every day.
Give today at connectwithgift.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip-Heitzig Weekend Edition. Make a connection level. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of connection communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
