When God says, “Christ is all, in all.” “But Christ is all, and in all” means there has ceased to be categories within a certain group. Now, I can't help it, it's not my fault that somebody's interpretation of sprinkle versus dunk, and now we end up with denominations, “I sprinkle; you dunk,” “We don't dunk at all, we don't even bathe,” “We roll on the ground”" “We handle snakes,” “We, we spit in napkins,” “We wipe our face with napkins; we're sweaty Christians,” “We're dry Christians,” “We're fan Christians,” “We're sun-beachy Christians,” “No, we-don't-go-in-the-sun Christians,” “I-turn-my-back Christian,” “No, I'm a bowing Christian,” but what are you? No, actually, what the hell are you? Because all of that, all of that is not going to mean a thing at the end of your journey or mine. ♪♪ Here we go back once more into Colossians. I was thinking, you know, we're obviously we're more than halfway through the book, and I'm, I'm kind of, you know, I'm finding this really interesting because I was looking back at a lot of the series I've done and I noticed something. Previously we, I tackled some, I think, we did a brief pickup in the Romans series, I think Ephesians as well. I think when we get into the practical part, you know, the heavy theology for me seems to be, you know, we can kind of pick it apart so many different ways. When you get into the practical it's pretty straightforward. The problem is and I'll just be up front and direct with you, the problem is that these are instructions that Paul obviously wrote to a church. We can benefit from those instructions, but I never want to come across as instructions are do and don't do. That's not what I'm teaching. That's obviously why I'm trying to approach these chapters very, very carefully. We have been looking at kind of starting in the third chapter, obviously the concept which we addressed already of the putting on and the taking off, those, those Greek words that have much to do with much like taking off or putting on clothes. So this whole section begins basically to put into practice all of the theological, we'll call them hard points, but I think as we get into this, this is going be an interesting message, and may go somewhere else, not what you may think. But I'm looking today, I'm taking you to the tenth and eleventh verses of the third chapter. And of course, remember, Paul wrote a letter, so there wasn't chapter and verse, so when we pick up at a verse, it may be disconnected a bit. But if you were reading the whole letter, it just flows straight through. In fact, if you look back at verse 9, the King James even put there, I think it's━my eyes are bad, it's either a colon or a semicolon there, which actually if you look back, you'll find a lot of continuing thoughts. So it's almost impossible to isolate, but here we go, picking up at the tenth and eleventh verses. So verse 10 says, “And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” Now, the first thing I want to jump to, because it really does actually pick up last week. You remember, I kind of wrapped everything up with the how. And the how part of the transformation, how we are being conformed or transformed to His image has everything to do with our understanding of whether we're walking in the Spirit or in the flesh. That's why I kind of left you with some of the verses out of Galatians. But to reinforce the point and to drive home what I was trying to explain last week, I'll show you a concept right in our tenth verse here, when it says, “And have put on the new man, which is renewed . . .” and you can see in your King James, “. . . which is renewed in knowledge.” I'm focusing on that one word for a minute, which is “renewed,” but I want you to see it in the Greek. So in the Greek, it looks like this. The word is anakenomenon, and what's so interesting about this is if we were just reading, “And have, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge,” we could say “which is renewed” could be, if we're going to go into those, it could be present, “which is renewed,” “is renewed,” being possibly even we could put that in terms of a participle, but it still would be ambiguous to interpret it from the English alone, all right. So to get a real crystal clear idea of how we are renewed, you look at the Greek and you see here the first thing, it's verb, a participle. So we're going to add a helper, “having,” something like that, “having” or “being,” and I'm actually going to prefer “being,” but we can use either one. Present is something that is happening in the now and ongoing, but then this key word right here explains everything. Big words here: passive, passive mood in the Greek. So for my listening audience that's familiar with Greek grammar, great, this will be review. For the new folks, just bear with me. The reason why this is important is because is, “which is renewed,” if we were reading in English, we might say, “Well, am I, am I renewing myself? Am I doing an action that would make it something I'm doing?” So Greek has three voices. You've got the active voice, here I am, see this. I'm waving my hand. I'm doing this, right. I'm waving at you. I'm waving my hand; I am doing something in the active voice. In the middle voice, it breaks down a little bit, but I'm waving my hand for myself. I don't know that that even makes sense. But reflexively that would be the middle voice, something I'm doing, that I'm doing for me, being performed upon me, if that's the middle voice. The passive voice is; I can't use my hand, that's not going to work. I just stood here and I could say somebody waved or said hello to me, an action was performed to me, so passively I stand still and I receive the action. So, active, I'm doing, it's me, I'm the subject, I'm the actor, I'm doing; middle voice, I'm doing for myself; passive, something is being done to me, I am not moving, the act I am receiving. Being renewed in the Greek is passive, so remember I was trying to tell you, you don't do it. This confirms. So a lot of times I think people will hear what I'm saying, they say, “Yeah, that makes sense,” but the reason why I do the grammar is to show you that the theology and the concepts I'm teaching you are not opinions of my own, but solid interpretations based on the Greek grammar. So we could never walk away from this passage thinking, “And have put on the new man, which I am renewing myself? Or I am doing something?” Rather if you, you can see it as plain as day, so; and I'm going to cross this out. Instead of “having” I'm going to say “being,” we'll say “being renewed.” Not that that's going to make a big deal, but we can━the “being” lets us know there's a participle action there and the process of being renewed God is working on me. I am not working anything here. So I, I want to just like din this in so hard that there's nobody here in the sound of my voice that will be confused about this, because this is the greatest confusion from these passages. You, if a person is teaching with a slightly legalistic bent, it will be, “You can do this!” or “You're going to try and do this!” But that's all works of the flesh and will worship. We're talking about something that God has promised to do. So let's take another look here, “renewed” and specifically in something, “renewed,” eis, we can say “in” or “to,” it's an accusative, and this word for “knowledge” which is kind of interesting. This is a transitive activity. So if you think about it, I stand still, I am receiving this “being renewed,” but being renewed with a concept; being renewed to knowledge, and not of my own and not of the world, but obviously the knowledge that comes from God that is God. So when somebody says, “Well, how do I put on and how do I become and how do I get to that place?” this is what I was talking about. If, if we're not clear about certain things we will try and do them ourselves. This is what I was talking about last week. So now if we kind of are walking through this, there's, there's some very cool things I want to point out. Paul uses this concept of putting on and putting off the new man, there's actually several passages that he does it in. Romans is one of them, Ephesians 2, Ephesians 4, we have another reference or two in Corinthians, 2 Corinthians. And if you, if you start analyzing it's kind of interesting, if you start analyzing his use of “old man” and “new man,” for example in Romans, it is the focus there is specifically to pay attention to our old Adam-nature. If you go to the fifth chapter of Romans it's talking about by one man sin entered the world, right, so it's directing us, that passage in Romans, old man/new man is directing us to understand our former standing in Adam, all right, versus our new standing in Christ. When you move to Ephesians and you look at Paul's use of old and new man in Ephesians, there's something radical there. He's actually using it in a completely different way. There the application is to the body, the corporate body of the church where he's basically saying the wall of enmity has been broken down. And he even spells it out in Ephesians when he says He is made of two, basically one in Himself, Christ, by basically going to the cross He removed the wall of partition. So when we read about old and new man in Ephesians, it is dealing with the problem that was a great problem in the early church, which is Jew and Gentile. The Jewish converts to Christianity, it wasn't a big jump for them, but the Gentiles came in and they didn't have any Torah, any previous religious structure, if you will. So it's in Ephesians we see it's used to distinguish between there is no more, that has dissolved between races, basically, or between religion; between Jew and Gentile. But when you come into Colossians and you start reading the use in Colossians, it becomes apparent that Paul may be using it a little bit differently here that new man basically speaking of, yes, the corporate body, the whole church, and also the individual as to how they fit into the community. And obviously verse 11 elaborates that. I'm not ready to go there just yet, but verse 11 elaborates that in our text. Now if we are being renewed, that's He's doing, right, to knowledge, and the knowledge, by the way, is as I said transitive; it pertains to Him, it flows from Him to us. And let's look at the rest of this translation here, first, before I move on. So let's look at this word epignosin, which is “knowledge, knowledge,” kat' “according, according to” eikona, “the, the image,” I taught on this word “the image” and I'm actually going to a definite article in brackets, “of the one,” another one that can be bracketed, “having created, having created him.” Okay, so just this one verse, “being renewed in knowledge after the image of the one having created him,” speaks of how God has made provisions for us as we come into the church and come into His grace by faith. He's made provisions for us to be educated. Now we often think the education, and it does start here with opening up the word of God, like what we're doing, but don't limit God. See, this is my big issue with people. They tend to limit, so you mean I can only learn this way? I can only━that's really usually the way people learn, by opening up the book, by reading, by studying, by━okay. But there's also this other thing God said right here through Paul's pen, which is He's giving us, He's renewing our mind and giving us knowledge about Him, for our benefit to grow. So a lot of times when we come in into the church, we, we actually stifle God's ability to bring us along, because we're, we come in and we, we are these block-headed people that “I know everything. I can't; there's nothing that I can learn here.” And then you find out little bit by little bit how much you don't know. And the more you know how much you don't know the more you realize you have so much to learn. So I started doing something just to help me kind of itemize, if you will, a little bit of what, if God is renewing our mind in knowledge, knowledge may have branches. So the first thing that I put down; and they're all going to be D-words to help with some explanations that will contain R words. So this will make sense in a minute. So if we're looking at the way God is renewing our minds and knowledge, okay, the first thing that we might point out is our desires change. And I say that because it's, these are things that are not always evident right away. You know, when people say, “But I'm trying to learn about God and I'm trying to understand,” that's one step. That's something that God's, as long as you're willing, you're desiring, God's going to help you, God will lead you to a place where someone is opening up the word of God. God will help you to understand and give you clarity as time goes on; this is what God does. But He changes or gives us a different taste. So if you think about it, before we came into the church we really did fit the criteria of the old man, which is corrupt according to deceitful desires. So He changes our desires, but don't think that it is radical immediately. Don't think that the, you know, one day you came into the church and, you know, you like this and the next day, “Oh, God! I hate that and oh, stay away from me people,” or whatever it is that you don't like, right. Okay, but the desires. So in our own text here, Paul says, “Set your affections on the things above, not of the thing of earth.” That's very easy to say, but not easy to actually do if the heart has not been touched. How can you set your desires differently? Look, here's what happens, and again, I mentioned this last week, but this is kind of like giving more definition. You start off by wanting to be a better child of God. Now I'm going to tell you, and this is a true statement, and if you don't like what I'm saying, this is; I have not ever seen it be different. People come into the church and eventually over time, “I would like to be a better child of God,” and guess what? The minute you say that you're going to have as many challenges to becoming that child of God that you desire to, and there'll be lots of challenges; in fact, it will seem like you have just been put on an obstacle course. And this is where understanding your desires in this “being renewed in knowledge” matters. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, you do all to the glory of God.” Now somebody who just came into the church, who's just learning about God, doesn't understand about giving glory to God. In fact, it's caricatured a lot, if watch movies, if you watch any movies that have any Christian feel to them where everything's over the top, “Praise God!” People are, it seems like people are constantly praying at every moment. They're praying before they eat, they're praying before they go out the door, they're praying at the grocery store; they're praying a little bit all the time, and I, I yi, yi; I don't know about that. But if your affections are directed towards the Lord, there's no confusion there. Now it doesn't, I think it doesn't start with people saying, “Well, I desire the Lord, and then the Lord's going to make a way for me to receive those desires or the desires of my heart.” Rather, I think it happens over time. The things that, and God knows what they are for you; I can't know, because I'm not in your head, but God knows what they are for you. The things that, we'll call them the strongest fleshly desires that essentially possess you, those strong fleshly desires, as you are being renewed in the knowledge of God, those desires may actually start to get less and less. But they may not be eradicated. They may not completely disappear. And for some people, God just takes away whatever that is that they've prayed about. You don't know how to aim your desires when you first start down this pathway. So that's why it's important to understand that what God is renewing; what the knowledge that God is giving us is helping us to direct that. It's not like you and I will automatically know the desires that we should have in our Christian walk. So there is that that we'll talk about from the old to the new man, person; whatever you want to call yourself, to maybe where ultimately down the road we get to the psalm, like the psalm, Psalm 73, that says, “There's nothing on earth that I desire, but You, Lord.” So I don't know, everybody's progression is different, but that that thing that God is doing that I just said: passively I stand still and God is doing in me will change, eventually change my desires to where the things that were more flesh desires, begin to become less, and the things that are towards God begin to be amplified. The next one is deliverance. I So underneath that━bless you━I'm going to put a couple of R-words, because I'm, these are subcategories. So underneath deliverance: recognition. See, a renewed mind recognizes the state you were previously in. A renewed mind can say, “But if it wasn't for the grace of God.” A renewed mind can actually understand the difference between being in Adam and being in Christ. But if I talk to somebody who does not understand these concepts there will be no recognition of what you formally were and the deliverance that God did. Romans 6:6 says, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him,” but if one has not come to that understanding that when He died, when He went to the cross there was a double happening for us. Well, you might say, “Well, I wasn't born yet.” That's right, but everything that happened at the cross represents past, present, and future. So it's important that recognition of deliverance can only come from a renewed mind that is being renewed constantly, so it's not like “Oh, I thank God that God delivered me that one time.” It becomes almost a daily part of your life to recognize God in all things. Now, do you start off doing that? No. And I've met a lot of people who say, “Well, I'd like, I'd like to be able to do that more.” Well, that comes more and more as you are yielding yourself and God is renewing your mind on an ongoing basis. The next one is responsibility. Under this same deliverance is responsibility. The renewed person, the person who's receiving this knowledge, understands to stand firm and to not let yourself be burdened again with the yoke of slavery, to not be blown to, and tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. A person who understands that is looking to this Scripture and saying, “God is doing something in and through me,” and I am responsible enough to recognize; back to the first one, what He's done, and treat it like you mean it. In other words, I know, the late Dr. Gene Scott used to in one of his messages, I remember sitting in the congregation. And I remember him very sternly saying, “You're a child of God; act like one!” And it, he didn't say it in the same tonality that I said it, by the way. I very distinctly remember. I'm kind of saying that. We have a responsibility and that responsibility basically says it's, it's recognizing what He's done and not treating it like that profane person Esau, who does not discern the spiritual things that have been done for them. The next one is reality. That's still under deliverance, the reality that the former things are past. So for many of my listeners who constantly grapple with “How do I get forgiven? How do I forgive myself? How does . . . ? How . . . ? How . . . ? How . . . ?” the former things are past. You are a new creature in Christ Jesus. You may be living in the old flesh container, but the mind if it's being renewed, the mind is basically getting fresh, we'll call it a fresh exposure, a fresh whatever you want of God as you yield yourself. So there's the reality the Lord delivered me. There's the reality that I, I'm no longer running to the places I used to run; I run to Him. He is my Shelter, my Hiding Place, my Deliver, my Salvation. So we get a sense for the person who understands what's going on, I'm receiving something. This is all giving me direction. I'm going to use another D-word that's seldom used in church, destiny. And that is the renewed person understands their destiny, their future is to be with the Lord. This is the boot camp training for that ultimate destiny. Failure to grab hold of that basically I believe probably comprises of a solid fifty percent of the universal body of the church, because if one really believes that that is your destiny, that is the ultimate aim to be with Him in His presence and live with Him forever you'd be spending; not, I'm not speaking to you now, don't take it personally, but you'd be spending more time trying to know and learn as much as you can, so you're not like some newbie that just gets off the bus and says, “Where am I? I don't know where I am and I don't know what I'm doing here”" That's kind of, I think, the bulk; I said it, fifty percent of the church world is kind of in that state. They don't even know why they're Christians; let alone what their destiny is. Okay, moving on to another D-word here. These are the deeds or acts of God towards us. I touched on this and it's important that I repeat it, 1 Thessalonians 5 says “We are not appointed unto wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” So when we talk about the renewed person as they are receiving knowledge that can be something that you just go, “I don't even have to think about that anymore.” For the person in Christ, remember, if you're ever in doubt, if the devil ever plays tricks with your mind, you go back to Romans 8, where it says, “There is therefore now no ultimate condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” His acts are acts of grace, they are acts of power, they are acts of mercy, and they are acts of love. If you think of God in any other light you probably have a very dysmorphic image of who God is. Now I've met a lot of people who won't come into the church, they won't even think about reading the Bible, because they have a dysmorphic image of God that is God will judge them, God is some━I hate to use this because it's been used here ad nauseam, but some “cosmic killjoy” who's just trying to get you to have really crummy life where you can be miserable, and that's not God. God says, “I came,” in the words of Jesus, “I came that they might have life and life more abundantly.” So the acts or deeds of God toward us that we can look at and say He went, and I've said this many, many times. When He went to die, that passage out of John 3:16 is not something that we should read and say, “God so loved the world,” but “God so loved Melissa Scott,” you put your name in there. He so loved you that He gave His only begotten Son. When you start to personalize it, it actually has meaning; “the world” is too generic for me. So what He did, He took that first step that I could never have taken. And again, it comes back to having, if my mind is receiving on a daily basis from Him as I pray and I stay in the word, I'm looking to the acts He's done and I'm not acting like the children of Israel, who constantly, “Oh, it's not enough, it's not enough.” I've said if the Lord didn't do another thing for me, if He didn't show His hand ever again, if I never ever any prayers were ever answered, the Lord's done more for me in my lifetime than I, I humanly deserve. So it's, it's recognizing the deeds that He's done, even right down to His provision when He says, “Come unto Me,” He didn't leave us to go, “Well, now what are we going to do? How do we figure this thing out?” We're picking apart the word that shows us He's made a way, that we passively, although we stand actively by faith, passively we receive this. And all of what I'm outlining is in that. So part of what's in the deeds or acts of God (I'm going to depart from my pattern for a minute), give us these three things: hope, heaven, and help. In His deeds He has made a way by telling us that He would send the Spirit. The Spirit would guide us, would, would help us, so we have that help. We have our concept of what He's made possible that our first parents took away the possibility of us being restored eternally, but in His acts and deeds towards us, He's made that possible. And ultimately He's given us down here hope, which is in Christ, as Christ is the First-goer, we have that hope of glory; Christ in you. So when people say, “What else is happening here?” I'll give you another D, direction. I love doing this sometimes because it just helps to show everything that could be included in being renewed in the knowledge, basically of God to God for God for you. Does that make any sense? It was a lot of “tos” and “fors.” Direction: “Show me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth,” Psalm 25. These are the things that as we receive from God we can equally ask, like the disciples did, “Increase our faith; Lord, help me to understand.” There are many things, trust me, in this book that people will take and they will kind of make it; you know, those balloon things, ch-ch-ch-ch-ch, right? Now it's horse, now it's a sea lion, now it's a monkey; it's there anything they want it to be except what it actually says. So that's why it's important to get His direction. And the direction is not only guidance in my life, it's also direction in the word, because this is basically our roadmap, it's direction from Him universally. All right, I move on to the next one. I'm going to stop writing and just read: dependence. So the renewed person being renewed in their knowledge knows that they depend on Him. What does John 15 say: “Without Me you can do━nothing”" exactly. We're talking spiritually; we're not talking about fleshly, but spiritually. Jesus says, “Without Me you can do nothing.” So we are dependent on Him. Another D-word for you is declaration. The declaration of the new man basically says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Now if you ask a person in Adam, they wouldn't be saying that. That's why I said this can only come out of the mouth of a person who's being renewed in the knowledge of God. Their declaration is, “My God shall supply all my need.” There isn't some trying to figure out what I'm declaring about God or what you may be declaring or feeling in your heart. It is as plain as day. And the final last one is the demonstration of the new man. And that is I live by faith, I walk by faith. I'm no longer trying to touch and feel my way through this walk that I'm on, this journey I'm on, but I'm navigating it all by faith. That is the demonstration. I'm, I'm, you know, I started off maybe tentatively saying, “I'm not sure about this faith thing,” and little baby steps, but once I took the first step and I knew I was solid, and the next one, now it becomes a pattern; it's a habit. So this is the demonstration of someone who has received, who is in the process and on an ongoing basis receiving. But now, let me point out one most important part of the text, and that is the key word: “in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” That “in knowledge after the image” is basically a way of saying, essentially, all that you need to know about Him. So I want you to think about that, if you believe this, if you believe this book. All you do is show up by faith, trust Him, and for your standing actively in faith, but passively expecting, He's sending all of this information to you to help you to grow, to transform, to grow, and to develop. And for a purpose, which I touched on last week, which is to be conformed to Him image and likeness; that's a lifelong process. So what, I started by saying there's something else here we have to look at and that is that verse 11. Actually, these two verses go together and I'll explain why I'm kind of dissecting it like this. So, the first part of this I've just camped out on is the verse, explaining what all's going on as we're being renewed in knowledge. But if you take a look, it is a semicolon in our verse “after him that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” So it's kind of an odd thing, if, if we're just reading this and we didn't make the connection. That's why I said this old man/new man has more to do with the whole community at large. This statement right here ties into that. So the first thing he wants, Paul wants us to know is that “being renewed in the knowledge after him, after the image of him that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew,” the first thing that we can know is that any cultural or social distinctions have been dissolved. Now, see, this could be a really timely message for right now. Unfortunately though, someone will take this and will twist it so badly that they lose the fact that this represents for those who are in Christ. Don't go looking for, and I'll get to it by the way, you can see in this pass━in the third chapter we're going to be dealing with husbands and wives and children and all kinds of stuff. Do not think for a minute that the instructions here or this part of the text is saying, “Now, you're being renewed in the knowledge, but the barriers stay up.” He's saying socially, Greek or Jew, and then the next subcategory: “circumcision or uncircumcision.” We know that circumcision was the hallmark, the mark of Judaism. Did other cultures circumcise? Absolutely, but in this setting it is intended to say basically; and it's not a repetition, so he says Greek nor Jew to identify on a more social level, perhaps even on a national level, then goes on to circumcision or uncircumcision, that referring to either Jew or Gentile, those who have been in the law and through the law or those who have never been exposed to the law. Barbarian and Scythian, this takes a little explaining, see, because that's what Paul likes to do. He usually takes these and juxtaposes things and makes strong contrasts. But when you get to here, and it's self; all these are self-explanatory, even “bond nor free,” you're either; there's neither slave nor freeperson, right. The only one I need to, to explain a little bit is Barbarian and Scythian. So don't think the way we modernly think of the word “Barbarian” which is someone who is barbaric and they, they're uncultured; and, it does connote that for sure. But from the dictionary, The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume 1, under the Greek word barbaros, “Basic meaning of this word, which is so important in the history of civilization is stammering, stuttering, uttering unintelligible sounds.” Now you might ask why Barbarian and Scythian are juxtaposed. There's actually supposed to be like bond, free; Jew, Greek; Scythian, Barbarian, and it doesn't make sense on the surface, but when you probe a little bit, it does. So, sorry, I'm taking a sidebar. Some of you might not see the relevance of this, but it needs to be explained. So to the Roman mind, which Paul basically came out of Rome, Barbarians were this, what I just described, uncultured, uncivilized, but also unintelligible; uneducated, all right. Scythian is a little bit different. And I need to take a little side road here, so forgive me. But if you're reading this in the Greek, it does not say “Scythian,” it says Skuthe, and Skuthe very clearly for those who follow some of the teaching on the lost tribe, we're talking about Skuthes, the people that were know as the Sakaesuni, the Sakae, the Isiskou; known by every different name that actually is part of a group of people that became━not all Scythians, but a segment of those that ended up basically disappearing in the time of the deportation around the eighth, seventh century. And these very same people end up around the steppes of Russia, the Black Sea, that area, settling. And there are a huge amount of artifacts that confirm this. These people are none other than the people who we describe as people who lived in booths and temporary dwellings, but these people are none other than the descendants of Isaac. And I prove that to you just as a sidebar. I hate to do this, because I, I'm mixing a lot of subjects here, but just for clarity purpose. For those people who are not familiar with this, I wish to show you, and then you can do your own investigating and take your own journey to wherever you want to knock yourself out. So, just so you know what, what I just said to you, that Scythian in the Greek, if you're reading the Greek, will look, will be phonetically Skuthe, which as I said, those are the people that we know are basically, not all, but a good swath of them are descendants of Isaac. And why do I say that? And then I'll come back to tell to you why this is juxtaposed here very clearly. If you turn to Genesis 48 and 16; there are three passages that help us to know who these people are. So, in Genesis 48:16, “The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them,” which is the children of Israel, “and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; let them grow into a multitude,” so remember that, “the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac.” We tend to say Abraham, father of basically three faiths, but Isaac tends to get left out. Where you can see the clarity of that is in Amos 7. In Amos 7:16, it says, “Now therefore hear the word of the LORD: thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.” But we, we know that the name of the house of Isaac basically was grafted onto these people. So you find them in history as the Sacae, the Sakasuni, they're; these are these people. If you wanted more proof you could go to the Apocryphal 2 Esdras 13: 39-46, which says it, it very, very plain, black and white regarding these people. So why am I telling you this? I'm trying to give you a little bit of a history lesson on the back of what we're doing here without losing my message. The thing is Barbarian, unintelligible, unintelligible speech, uncultured. But the Scythian people, make no mistake about it, they were; as barbaric as they were they were incredibly cultured. These are people, just to show you their culture, these are people that would not have pig, swine. They would not grow pigs or swine, they would not eat pigs or swine; right away there, you're going down a pathway to say, “Well, is that, is that normal?” Well, if you were coming from a tribe as part of the lost tribes, who abstained from pork, it would make perfect━you start looking into these people and their culture and not their behavior, their culture, and you find that these are not Barbarians, these are actually people who have a culture, who are highly intelligent, who, if you're not reading revisionist history or someone who's confused about who these people are, not only had a brilliant mind for basically invading, they understood organized attacks, they understood weapons and horses. In fact, a lot of the weaponry that they brought with them on this journey from where they disappeared in the time of deportation, as the people were being deported to Assyria and other places, a lot of the materials that would have been present with those people magically surface by the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, that whole area. So we know these are the same people and they brought with them, although over time culture eroded a lot of their wisdom and understanding, they were cultured people. So the reason why Paul says Barbarian or Scythian, the difference between someone who is unintelligible and someone who has culture and structure. Now if you don't know that background it just looks like two words that might be semantics; they're not. And everything in here is supposed to be juxtaposed. So he says the walls of all this have been broken down. Now, here's where my heart really bleeds, all right, and I'm going to tell you. If we actually, as Christians, believed this we would change the world, if we actually believed that there's neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision or━“Well, I can't associate with those people, because they come out of that tradition.” Listen, I've told you, I've got all kinds of associations from every denomination. They, no one's going to influence my theology. My theology is this book, guidance from God. But at the same time I realize something. You know, if you take the attitude somehow that there's this two groups of Christians; no, there's only one group of Christians. In fact, I'm really tempted to do another message on this eleventh verse for another reason. But what he's saying here is that all of the social, all of the national, all of the religious, all of the culture━it's all been stripped away. And whether you're a freeperson or you're a slave, whether you are this or whether you are that, you are all that in Christ, which should be enough, by the way. You know, think about it. If he's saying that everything has been stripped down to where God's word can penetrate, remember where I was focused on, the renewed, renewed knowledge, it means that a Greek or a Jew, all of this stripped down to be able to receive. And all are receiving, not like some, one person over here is receiving one revelation and another, another. It is the knowledge that God is imputing to us. So he's saying strip down these things, because they've been stripped away, because that's what the cross did. Basically the cross stripped away━okay, got to do it, because I'm here and I'm going to hate myself if I don't. So here's the thing. If you really want, you want the Big Kahuna here, here it comes. I wrestle with, I wrestle with this because it's in black and white, in your face, and yet I encounter more Christians who will completely avoid, if you combine this verse 11, the renewed, the person who's being renewed in knowledge no longer looks at the outward stuff, no longer looks at nationality, no longer looks at your social standing, no longer looks at whether you have money or you're poor; no longer looks at that. Equally, the person who has been renewed in their mind can read this very plainly. You know where I'm reading from: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus, and if you be Christ's then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” If somebody could actually tell me why, as Christians, we are still segregating ourselves instead of being the body that Paul describes in Corinthians, a body that's fitly joined together from which all body parts function, all have a different function; why are we still living with this archaic error somehow that there are divisions within Christianity that somehow Christ did not tear down every barrier and every wall of partition? Now don't go cuckoo on me. There's still a natural order, which is why you're going to; we'll study from about the eighteenth verse on, the natural, the natural role of man, woman, and child, as God intended it. The reason why we're getting this structure right here, it's almost like progressive steps. If one doesn't realize to receive the knowledge freely, to understand that that knowledge basically strips us all and puts us all in the same plane, there could never be━see, if you're reading this, there could never be classes of Christians, there couldn't even be classes of where we distinguish between priests and the hierarchy of the church. Yes, God gave some gift ministers to the church, but we're talking about something. You know, in, especially now in this current climate where people are, everybody wants to talk about equality or equity, why don't you start in the right place? Why don't you start with get off of your freaking high horse that if we opened up every person's veins here, regardless of your skin color, red blood comes out? That's the thing that joins us together. That is also the thing that joins us together when you look at Christ and His sacrifice; one man, man/God shedding His blood for all, all time, for every person who would recognize and see and know what has been done. So it's important. It's important to understand these verses don't let us━if you're a Christian, this is your book, read it for God's sake, because I'm tired of people thinking somehow we've got categories within Christendom. You know what that does? It sets up classes within Christianity. That's no different than what is basically happening out in the world; and we are not out in the world. We're talking about we are Christians. Now, if, if I'm confused about this, which I'm not, the importance of this is to understand that as God gives us that renewal of mind these things become more clear to us. There is no more barrier. To the person who is in Christ there is no more Jew, there is no more nationality. We are looking at ourselves as Christians, and I can't, I've said many times as Christian woman or So-and-so is a Christian man, but here is the big problem here. See, Paul wrote this letter and other letters and meant what he said, so if we're being renewed, why do we still have these ideas that we have barriers between us? And it's rhetorical. No one can answer that because we've been so programmed, our culture, our society; I'm not talking about the “now” culture. I'm not even talking about the “cancel” culture. I'm talking about how we have been indoctrinated actually erroneously. I'm confronted with, and I've shared this with you over the last 16 years, how people still will use or not use Scripture for better understanding of what it is when God says, “Christ is all, in all.” “But Christ is all, and in all” means there has ceased to be categories within a certain group. Now, I can't help it, it's not my fault that somebody's interpretation of sprinkle versus dunk, and now we end up with denominations, “I sprinkle; you dunk,” “We don't dunk at all, we don't even bathe,” “We roll on the ground”" “We handle snakes,” “We, we spit in napkins,” “We wipe our face with napkins; we're sweaty Christians,” “We're dry Christians,” “We're fan Christians,” “We're sun-beachy Christians,” “No, we-don't-go-in-the-sun Christians,” “I-turn-my-back Christian,” “No, I'm a bowing Christian,” but what are you? No, actually, what the hell are you? Because all of that, all of that is not going to mean a thing at the end of your journey or mine. That's what I'm trying; that, that's what I'm trying to knock the nonsense out of, if there's anyone that's listening to me that's still in that mindset that says, “Somehow.” So, very clearly, if you actually go back and you start on your own when you leave here, maybe this week, and you reread from verses━actually you start from the beginning of the third chapter: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.” The whole directive here is, is basically focus. And I've said this before in another message, I probably repeated the word “focus” twenty times, but focus that if the focus is on Christ, a lot of these problems that plague us as human beings will begin to solved. You know, the key one that I said when I spoke, I think I touched on this last week: “Lie not to one another,” but that's the biggest thing we have to work on because it's the easiest thing that we do, beginning with lying to ourselves. And when somebody says, “Well, I, I'm a Christian,” you know what? It's not for me to analyze whether you're not, whether you are or you're not; that's you problem, but my issue is to not end up like those people that talk to God in lip service only. Their heart was never there, they didn't care enough. It's like the; there are some people that I know that they think, “Well, I, I go to church twice a year, and you know, that's like a little, a little pittance for God. God should be happy that I do that.” That's not a relationship. But I've also said you don't need to come to church to have a relationship with God. God; Christ is formed in your heart by faith. Faith comes by hearing the word of God; hearing the word of God. Now you can read, you can pray, you can hear, but until all of that happens, you might just be going through the motions of things. And this is what I'm trying to avoid, people thinking somehow, “Well, I'm,” here, “I've got to, I've got to love my brother.” Guess what? If the mind is being renewed in, in His knowledge, you're not going to be saying, “I've got to love my brother.” Your thought process will be first, “Yeah, I've got to love my brother.” And eventually it will be, “Poor guy; he doesn't know how,” or “Poor, poor woman doesn't know how bad they are or what; I'll just be praying for them.” And then you get to a point of saying, “Thank God that I have an opportunity to pray for somebody.” That person may actually at some point wake up and say, “Somebody prayed for me.” But they might, they might not even be aware. All I'm saying to you the point is the mind doesn't; you're not making statements, it's the thoughts that are renewed. And when the thoughts are renewed, you're not actually having to think, “This is what I'm going to do.” It's almost as though, I, I referred to it a couple of weeks ago, and it's the only thing that I can think of right now as I speak to you. It's like the Potter, you're, you're the clay on the Potter's wheel. To be malleable in His hands means He can mold you and shape you. That's the knowledge coming in from Him that's, that's molding and shaping by your thoughts that then you basically put into action by faith. All of that should produce a mindset that says, “There is no more delineation or demarcation between people as pertaining to Christianity and to our standing in Christ. So all I want to say with this message, because I basically said a lot and went all over the map, it's as important to us contemplate, as I went through all those D-words, it's important for us to contemplate what that renewing in knowledge means, because, why; it started and it keeps going. And you keep receiving it by faith as long as you're looking to Him. And I'd go so far as to say there's not even an admonition or a something that says, “Pray and ask God,” but surely it's not even a crime to pray and ask God for renewing of the mind and for more knowledge; it's pertaining to Him. So it's almost like desiring after Him, which was my first D; looking for that which I may come to know Him better, which will draw me closer. All the things that are pleasing to Him. So I want to wrap this message up by saying I don't think, I don't think it lives here in this house, but there are many houses of worship where there are so many delineations and demarcations of, of who is and, and how much to, to the degree of separating people. I'm going to stand here and say to you, and I've said this repeatedly throughout my ministry: there is one Star in my life. That is Jesus Christ, one audience to please; that's Him. And if what is being said here is true, which it is, He's given me the tools to be able to look on the rest of the body and say, “All of these are in Christ, too.” I am not judging. It, it's not for me to judge and say who is or who isn't. And by the way, people who do that “I'm not sure that person's saved,” or “I'm not sure━if you go to that church, I'm not sure,” you need to basically walk the other way. Those are the people, by the way, that are committing the most egregious sin; they're judging you. And my Bible, Matthew 7 says, “Don't judge lest ye be judged, and with the same measure that you measure it out, that's how God's going to measure it back to you,” so knock yourself out. But for those of us who understand, thank God for this gift, and it is a gift, that all I have to do is trust Him and He helps me along to better understand the things He desires of me for me. So my thought on all of this today is if you came into the church or if you've been sitting and listening to me and you're still thinking, “I need to grow in my understanding of God,” be patient and trust Him, because that, this verse says that's exactly what He's helping you and helping me to do, which is grow in knowledge of Him that I can grow to be a better daughter, and you can be a better son or daughter before Him. And ultimately when you do stand before Him, it's not “Depart from Me; I never knew you,” it's “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That's my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you'd like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com
