Get Motivated to Live a Holy Lifestyle*

Living a holy life isn’t about keeping a checklist—it’s about living in the freedom, love, and purpose God gives us. In this encouraging message from Colossians 3, Pastor Chris Teien shares how believers are chosen, loved, and empowered to live set apart lives. Through Scripture, humor, and honest reflections, this episode invites you to embrace God's calling with gratitude, grace, and perseverance.

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/16335644

Key Points

1. Live as God's Chosen People – Colossians 3:12. If you are in Christ, you have been chosen by God—this changes how you live and why you serve.
2. Live as God's Holy People – Colossians 3:12–14. Holiness means being set apart for God's purposes, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and marked by love.
3. Live in God's Love – Colossians 3:14. Love is the bond that holds our lives and relationships together.
4. Live Clothed in Godly Virtues – Tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience reflect Christ’s work in us.
5. Live in God’s Forgiveness – Forgive others as God has forgiven you. Forgiveness frees you and reflects Christ's grace.
6. Live in the Peace of Christ – Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart and guide your responses and relationships.
7. Live Always Thankful – Gratitude protects your heart from bitterness and keeps you focused on God's goodness.

Stories

• Honest reflection on falling asleep with fans running and the humorous challenges of preaching while tired.
• Stories about autopilot habits—like mysteriously ending up at the post office—and connecting it to unconscious spiritual habits.
• Oreos disappearing while working—an illustration of involuntary actions shaping our daily choices.
• Memories of wearing a Hardee’s uniform and comparing it to how we "wear" virtues as followers of Christ.

Quotes

• "You don't live holy to earn God's love—you live holy because you've already received it."
• "What you put into your heart shapes what comes out in your life."
• "Love binds everything together—it’s not an accessory; it’s essential."

Takeaways

• Remind yourself daily that you are chosen and loved by God.
• Practice clothing yourself spiritually with mercy, kindness, humility, and patience.
• Forgive quickly and pursue peace, even when it's hard.
• Live with gratitude for God's grace and new life every day.

Scripture:

• Colossians 3:12–17 – Instructions for living a holy life
• John 15:16 – Chosen and appointed to bear fruit
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3–5 – God's will for sanctification
• Romans 6:11 – Dead to sin but alive in Christ
• Romans 12:2 – Renew your mind
• Matthew 22:37–39 – Love God and love your neighbor

Keywords
God's chosen people, forgiveness, peace of Christ, gratitude, spiritual growth, virtues, holiness

Challenge
You are chosen, loved, and called to live differently. Let God's love, forgiveness, and peace shape every area of your life as you walk daily in His grace and power.

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The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

Uh pray about your opportunities to connect with the community as they come and look for ways to get involved. Figure out what it is that you can do to get involved to make a difference. All right, so we're looking at Colossians chapter three, living a holy lifestyle. And I know the fans are running and it's kind of warm in here. And I have a problem with fans because when I sleep, I usually sleep with a fan on. So I hear the fan and I'm thinking about taking a nap right now. So if I fall asleep during my sermon, it's not because I was bored, it's because of the fans. It's just a psychological thing. But living a holy lifestyle. So Colossians chapter 3, out of the Bibles that were given away, the new living translation, verse 12. Colossians chapter 3, verse 12. If you have one of these, page 247, there's a whole stack of them by the door, so please take some on your way out to share with others. But since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love which binds us all together in perfect harmony, and let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts, for as members of one body you are called to live in peace and always be thankful. So living a holy lifestyle. It's easy to come to a passage like this and think, all right, there's a list. There's a list that I need to do. So if I want to be right with God, I need to put off the things that were in the previous passage, the sexual immorality and all those things that we talked about in the last two weeks, and to do all these things, to put on all these things, to live this list. If I if I do all these things, so this is actually what's in your sermon outline: living as God's chosen people, living as God's holy people, living in God's love, living in clothes that please God, living in God's forgiveness, living in peace from Christ, living always thankful. If I do all those things, then I'll be right with God, but that's not it at all. A matter of fact, without Christ, you can't live a holy life at all. The Holy Spirit helps you to live a holy life. So you need to come to a point where you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. He comes into your life, forgives you of your sin, makes you a new creation, assures you of heaven, and helps you to live this life that pleases God. Got this cool video in the end that kind of illustrates some of this. But all right, so let's walk through this and the time that we have. So, number one, living as God's chosen people. Since God chose you, so it's a mystery, election, and the theology of who's elect and who isn't. Did Christ die for every person or did he just die for the people he knew who wouldn't be saved? You end up with Arminians and Calvinists fighting each other and everything. But really, if you've come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if you're saved, then you're chosen. So you don't, I don't think there's anybody that really wanted to get right with God and come into a relationship with Jesus Christ that hasn't been able to. And those people that continuously rebel against God, it's probably not that they haven't been chosen, it's that they haven't come to Christ. But it's a big theological debate. But you should live as God's chosen people. If you've come into a relationship with Jesus Christ, if you're saved, if you're part of God's family, then you are chosen, and that should make a difference in how you live. So as a result of what God has done for you, then you should want to do these things. You should want to live this way, you should want to know more about God and not find reading your Bible drudgery. Now I know that some people have learning disorders and it's hard for some people, but you can go to like Bible.com or UVersion and you can actually like push a button and it will read the text to you. So you can listen to the Bible. You can be like me too, and you can turn the speed up to like two speeds. So you can listen to the Bible person talk really fast and get a lot out of it, like I do. Or I just noticed an update that one of the updates, I think it was that one. No, it was a different podcast app, said that you can reduce the speed to 0.5 speed. I don't know why you do that, but nonetheless, you can listen. You want to serve God not because you're trying to be right with God, but because you are right with God. You want to live a life that pleases God because He has chosen you. Think about the things in your life that you really wanted to be chosen for. Did you ever been through the whole, you know, kickball or whatever on the playground and you're waiting to be chosen, and then the girl gets picked over you. It happened to me before. Yep. Other times you're chosen and you have great pride, and you're like, oh, I'm so awesome, and you're just a jerk to everybody. I deserve to be here. But to be chosen for the career, for the for the opportunity at work, to be the leader, to be the server, whatever, to be chosen is can be an honor if it's something that you really want to do. And if you wanted to be chosen for it, and then you were chosen for it, you will change your behavior. You'll change the way you dress. You'll be trying to figure out what is it that you want me to do? What are your expectations? How can I please you? I want to make this work. I'm so excited about this opportunity. That's the way that we should live as God's chosen people. John 15, 16, Jesus said, You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give you. So we're walking with God, we're delighting in God, and we're asking the Lord for things, and then we're getting our prayers answered, and hopefully we're praising him for the answers to prayer. What if there's this great big treasure closet of all these things that God would give us if we'd ask him for it, if we'd pray for it, if we'd just ask him? What if he's got this great store of resources that he's ready to shower upon others if we were to pray for other people? What a great thing that would do. And we have an inside track with God as believers in Christ. So living as God's chosen people should really make a difference. Living as God's holy people, to be the holy people. Now, that sounds tough. I mean, to be perfectly holy in everything. I mean, every one of us makes mistakes every day that disqualify us from perfect holiness. And we walk through this world and we do these things, and sometimes we make a mess. We make a mess in relationships. We're trying to be holy. Holiness is being set apart to God. And as we're trying to be holy, we holy means separated or set apart. God called believers out of the world and away from the old life it offered, the old life of sin and death, and he called believers to be separated and set apart. So God is holy. He tells us to be holy. We are to walk in holiness. It's the Holy Spirit, actually, that makes it possible. The only way we can live a holy life. We need to say no to sexual impurity. I think I have a verse here. Uh 1 Thessalonians 4, 3. Paul emphasizes sexual purity as part of holy living. It is God's will that you should be sanctified, that you should avoid sexual immorality, that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans who do not know God. So in 1 Thessalonians, so we avoid certain things. And the passage in Colossians chapter 3 that we looked at before, we we put to death sexual immorality, and then we put on these clothes that we're going to see in a minute. But we we pursue God, we love God, we walk with the Lord. We're in a spiritual battle. But Romans 6 11 says we're supposed to count ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. So in the old life, when we always fell into sin, we don't have to do that anymore. When that temptation comes, we can say that I'm dead to that sin. I don't have to give in to that. That doesn't need to control me, that doesn't need to guide me, or even I don't have to walk that way, follow that way. I'm not, I'm not a robot on autopilot. Did you ever do that, by the way? Maybe it's just me and my young age. But I find myself, I think I'm driving safely and everything, but I find myself driving down the road, thinking about something, and I'll often end up at the post office or I'll end up at the school. So, and I'll get here, I'll be going, What am I doing here? So I'm sure that I'm driving fine, but I'm just thinking about something. I'm on autopilot, and I like sit here and I'm like, by default, here I am. And I think the same thing can be true in your Christian life. The same thing can be true when you aren't thinking about the things of God, when your heart's not right. You just by default go places or do things that you wouldn't normally do. Same thing is true with like Oreos. All right. I try to make like a rule that, especially when I'm reading things or you know, working, that I do not bring the package of Oreos with me. Because mysteriously, I don't know how it happens, but if I have a whole package of Oreos on my desk, they disappear. I don't know where they go. I eat them, actually. One more, one more, one more. Involuntary actions. It's interesting that involuntary actions can either make you a hero or involuntary actions default. Autopilot can make you, can destroy you and lead to regret, to not have boundaries up, to not be thinking through. It said that uh let's see here, where did I get this? Dr. Jeremy Pierre in Involuntary Sins from the devotional table talk. He writes, can we be guilty for sinful responses that seem to erupt in us automatically? Can we really consider sin voluntary if it's not consciously chosen? Consider the following illustration of how unintentional sin works. Trained instincts. That's how fighter pilots react immediately to rapidly changing situations as they operate$27 million war machines. When a threat aircraft is closing in, there's no time for pilots to reason through what to do. They have to rely on instinct, but not just natural instinct. They need instincts shaped deep within them through years of regiment. The countless little decisions they make in the cockpit are automatic, but that doesn't mean they're involuntary. The pilot voluntarily trained for them, and in the cockpit, he reached reaps the instinctive benefits of that training. Then he writes, like the fighter pilot's hours of training, our hearts are under a regiment of beliefs and values that don't align with scripture, drilled into us through what we put into our heads, what we receive as wisdom from other sources, what we accept as normal from culture, all these shape our unintentional sin. So if you're shaping yourself, if you're preparing your mind, if you're working to have your involuntary responses be good things, be peaceful things, be godly things, be holy things, it will totally make a difference in your life as to what you choose when you auto-respond, if you're listening to what the world says, or you're not putting a filter on the music you listen to. Actually, we'll probably talk about that next week. But music is weird because you listen to the music and you like the song and you like the music, and all these weird messages get into your head, and people are like, I just listen to the music, but I don't listen to the words, but then they start singing the words. It's like, come on, you're just like brainwashing yourself, you're training yourself with the words that you're listening to. And if they're not godly, they can be destructive. Living as God's holy people. So beyond not indulging in sexual immorality, living a holy life is obedience to God from bondage, as you say no to sin. Remember, we're not trying to live a holy life in order to earn salvation. Living a holy life is a natural outgrowth of being saved by God's grace and filled with his spirit. So it's also important not to give up when we mess up. When we fail, our response should be to confess the sin and keep moving forward in our Christian walk. So it's almost like when you fall, then you get up. So when I fall, for some reason I always seem to fall, especially every winter, I seem to wipe out on the ice at least once. So I fall, and the first thing I do is I look around to see if anybody saw, because that's important, because I don't want anybody to think, yeah. I hear that when you get older, like when you're young, when you fall, people laugh. Oh, that was funny. But when you're older and you fall, people get really concerned. Like, oh, are you okay? Did you break a hip, grandpa? Get away from me. But living as God's holy people is not so much as you live in a list, but living in the spirit, and then you'll start to want to do those things. You'll start to want to live the way that God wants, living as God's holy people. And number three, living in God's love. Colossians 3.12 says that he loves. And Colossians 3.14 says, above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. So Paul's writing about these clothes that we put on, these clothes that we're to wear. And love is like the belt that holds everything together. So it'd be really embarrassing if you like your pants, your shorts fell down, or something like that, if you weren't wearing a belt. Well, love is what binds us all together. Love is what God has done, showing to us through what Jesus has done. For God demonstrates his love for us in this while we are still sinners, Christ died for us. So it's all about love. And that is an attitude that leads to action. And we should love other people and care for other people. And Paul's going to give us a list of ways that we can do that. Romans 13 8 says, Owe no one anything except to love one another. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments are summed up in this word love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. In Romans 13. And then in Mark 12, 29, Jesus replied, The most important commandment is this you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. Second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these. 1 Corinthians 13, 13. Three things will last forever: faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love. So I mean, think about it. So you're supposed to love your neighbor as you love yourself, and unfortunately, some of you don't love yourself. So what is it that you don't love about yourself? Maybe you can ask the Lord to help you to change that behavior or attitude. Maybe you can ask God to help you find the forgiveness that you're looking for. Maybe God has forgiven you and you haven't forgiven yourself of something that you've done in the past that causes you to not love yourself. Sometimes drinking alcohol, using drugs, not getting enough sleep or whatever can cause you to not love yourself and to be self-destructive. And you should work through that and pray through that. But God loves you. You should love yourself in a way that God loves you, and then you should spread that love out to others. Love should flow through you. It honors God. All right. So living in clothes that please God, you must close yourself, clothe yourselves with, and then this list. Have you ever had to get a job where you had to wear a uniform? Whether you liked it or not, you had to wear a uniform. Some uniforms that people get, like people that get different military rank, are really excited about their uniforms and their bars and their stripes and everything like that. And they like want to wear that uniform with pride. They've earned that uniform. It represents something. It's a great uniform. There's other uniforms that you just have to wear because it's part of the job. And yes, it shows you as an authority figure, but you don't particularly like the uniform. You can't wait to get the uniform off. But you want the job, you know it's a thing to do. So you wear the uniform and you wear it in the way that you were instructed. So my grandparents owned a couple of Hardy's step-grandparents owned a couple of Hardy's restaurants. And so I got trained up in the Hardy's way when I was like 14 or so, and at the Rice Street Hardy's in St. Paul, and got to learn the Hardy's way. And then I went out to where I lived in Mound and I worked at the Hardy's there, and I had to wear the Hardy's uniform. So I actually read through the entire franchise manual. So my grandpa thought that'd be a good idea. And I did, and I noticed that there was a particular way to wear your brown polyester pants and your polyester and orange striped shirt with the V-neck collar, and then your paper hat and the right shoes you're supposed to wear and everything like that. And I wore that uniform. I don't know if I wore it with pride, but I wore it because I wanted the job and it was the right thing to do. There are all sorts of things that you couldn't wear, shoes that you couldn't wear, and things that you polyester pants, they were regulation. Anyway, it was a uniform. And here, God wants you to clothe yourselves in these things. So think about it. God chose you, God loves you, God wants you to show his love. And if you're gonna be tight with God, if you're gonna be in God's kingdom, if you're gonna walk with God, then these are some things that he wants you to clothe yourselves in. All right, number one, tenderhearted mercy. Tender-hearted mercy. The Greek word means compassion, pity, tender heartedness. God has so much mercy upon us that the one thing we should do is to show mercies, mercy to others. So we should show mercy to the lost and to the needy and the hurting and the poor and all these people. And you, when you're showing mercy and showing love, obviously there's some people that want to take advantage of you, but you need to do all that you can to show love. So, as a church, our policy in the past has been when somebody needs something, if we can provide for it, there's a slight possibility that they're trying to rip us off because that happens sometimes. But if for some reason we get duped and they rip us off, God knows that we're trying to serve him and glorify him, and we tried to be wise about what we did. And years ago, there was somebody that called me in the middle of the night and they said, Hey, we were at your church. Matter of fact, you said you saw my two little girls in their dresses and said what nice dresses they had. But we're going down to my sister's in Florida and our van broke down in this town, and we we don't have any money to fix it. Could the church send us some money by Western Union to fix to fix our van? And I'm like, okay, give me your phone number, I'll call you back, I'll see what I can do. So I got their town and I went online and I found a Christian Missionary Alliance church like us whose slogan was helping people in need. And so I got their number and I got the number to the police department in town, and I called them back and I said, here's what we'll do. I said, we will call the church first thing in the morning and they'll help you and put you up and everything. And I'm gonna have the police department come and give you a ride to a motel that we're gonna pay for overnight so that your van can be fixed and that it will be taken care of. Because we don't really send money by Western Union, but that way you're in a strange part of town, you know you'll be safe, you get to your hotel, motel. The church will probably do everything they can to take care of you, and then you'll get to where you need to go. Does that sound like an awesome plan? And they swore at me and hung up. I guess they really wanted something from Western Union, but that's not the end of the story. Two months later they called and did the same thing again. So I want to show tender-hearted mercy, I want to be wise, I want to help people in need, and you should do the same thing. There's a book, there are actually many books that you can read about boundaries, but clothing your hearts or clothing yourselves with tender-hearted mercy means showing care. And I think that the care that I was trying to show was way more tender-hearted mercy than just sending money by Western Union. Kindness. Kindness. God has been kind to us. Kindness is love and action. Kindness involves having a sweet disposition, being thoughtful, and performing kind actions. And then there is humility, an attitude of self-esteem that is neither puffed up with pride nor self-depreciating. A true understanding of one's position with God. So Christ humbled himself, and we're to humble ourselves. Philippians 2 3 says, Do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves, and gentleness, humble, considerate of others, submissive to God and his word. Gentleness is not to be confused with weakness, instead, it means consideration for others and a willingness to give up one's rights for the sake of another. Gentleness. And then patience. Long suffering or putting up with people who irritate. The person might have the right to retaliate, but chooses patience instead. The Holy Spirit's work in us increases our endurance. So as we receive the fruit of the Spirit, we receive these things too. And then we're to live in God's forgiveness. So make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you. So we need to be quick to forgive. Sometimes it's a process, sometimes it's difficult, but we need to live in God's forgiveness because God has forgiven us and we need to forgive others. So Jesus had a lot to say about how we're supposed to forgive others. Mark 11, 25 says, but when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins too. And in Jesus, Luke 17, 4 says, even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again, ask forgiveness, you must, and ask forgiveness, you must forgive. So we are to be forgiving of others because we are a forgiving people. Number six, living in peace from Christ. So peace is like an umpire. So the Greek word ties into a rule or an umpire. And so as we think about the way that we're supposed to live and the things that we're supposed to do, we're supposed to have an attitude of peace that comes from Christ. It's to rule in our heart, it's to be the umpire in our heart, and it should make a difference in the way that we live. So people are difficult, and we can choose to come at them forcefully, we can be vengeful or we can choose peace. God wants us to choose peace when we can. So Matt, John 16, 33, Jesus says, I've told you this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows, but take heart, because I have overcome the world. I'm gonna show you a quick little video clip here.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Long ago there was a good and mighty king who ruled a great land. All the citizens of the land hoped one day they could meet the king to receive his blessing and favor. But it had been decreed that no one would be allowed in his presence unless they proved themselves worthy. To be invited to meet the king with That each man had to pass a test. One day a messenger arrived to remind the people of the king's decree. To prove yourself worthy, you must shoot an arrow across the river and strike my target perfectly in its center. Many in the land believed the test would be easy, but the target stood far, far across the river, almost further than the eye could see. The truth is that no man had ever hit the target except for one man. The king's son, the prince, of whom it was once told had struck it perfectly in its center. Many had tried and failed in years past, but each man continued to believe he would be the one to pass the king's test. Some men thought it was a joke. Others desperately desired to please the king by working hard to hit the target. But again and again each man failed. Every arrow missed, and none even came close. Then a humble man took up his bow. And like everyone else, he longed to receive the king's blessing. So he raised his bow and drew back his arrow. But soon he realized he was not worthy to take the shot. He could never, ever reach the target. He was overcome with shame. All he could do was beg the king's mercy and ask for favor he did not deserve. He handed his arrow to the messenger and said, Only the prince can hit the target. I am not worthy, but he is. Would you ask him to hit it for me? And then something amazing happened. The messenger revealed that he was himself the prince, and he honored the man for trusting him to pass the test on his behalf. And for his act of humility, he would now receive the king's blessing and favor. What the humble man had realized was what the king wanted every man to know. Let my son pass the test for you, and you will live in my presence forever and ever. And this is the lesson for all of us today. Never forget, God is holy.

Chris T 25:08

So as a result of what Christ has done, that He's taken our sin, that He's shown us how to live, we should live always thankful. Always be thankful. We should be thankful for what Christ has done, for what Christ is doing, for what Christ will do. We may have had a terrible past, but we might be able to be thankful that some of our past made us who we are today, and maybe it makes us more compassionate and more forgiving and more able to make a difference in the world. Always be thankful that we're able to serve the Lord, that we're able to share his word. Obviously, the story we just watched is parallel to Jesus Christ living the perfect life and dying for our sin and rising again and giving us an opportunity to have his righteousness given to us. And these New Testaments share all of this information in the beginning about how you can know God. I came into a right relationship with Jesus Christ by asking, praying and talking to God, and I prayed, Dear Lord, I know that I'm a sinner. Please forgive me of my sin. Come into my life and save me. Make me the person you created me to be. And that started a relationship with Jesus Christ. But living always thankful. Be thankful in all that we do. It's part of living a holy lifestyle. So next week when we get together, we're going to continue in Colossians about God's guide to a life well lived. And if you have any questions about what I said or about faith in Christ, you can you can call me. We'll get together at the coffee shop or whatever. Let's get together and talk about it.