Palm Sunday: The Triumphal Entry

Palm Sunday: The Triumphal Entry

Luke 19:28-44; Matthew 21:1-11

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, it's Palm Sunday and we are excited to be here with you guys. Palm Sunday is kind of like a loud, joyful, celebratory day, as it should be. And when we look at the scripture of when Jesus is coming into Jerusalem, the title or the heading in most of your Bibles say the triumphal entry. That's worth celebrating. It was triumphant. And so the crowd that we see here in the story is celebrating. They are celebrating the arrival of who they believe is the king. And so we honor that And we celebrate that with Palm Sunday in preparation to leading up to Easter. We are going to be in Luke today, in Luke chapter 19. If you want to turn there in your Bibles, it'll also be on the screen. But we're going to look at this story of Jesus entering into Jerusalem from two different perspectives. Because the reality is, even though the people were celebrating, they didn't fully understand what it was that they were celebrating. But they didn't fully grasp it. So we're going to talk about that today. If you will turn with me to Luke 19, verse 28. It says, “After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethpage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you untying it? Say, the Lord needs it. Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, why are you untying the colt? They replied, the Lord needs it. They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt, and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven. Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. I tell you, he replied, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

So in this passage, it starts off with Jesus telling his disciples to go procure a donkey or a colt. And honestly, maybe it's just my sense of humor, but I would love to know how that conversation went. They're like, oh, just taking the donkey. And the owner's like, I'm sorry, why are you taking my colt? And they're like, oh, it's fine. The Lord needs it. Oh, okay, sure. Go ahead, take it. I don't know if there was some prearranged agreement about this or maybe the man knew who the Lord was and believed he was who he said he was. So he was fine with them taking it. Maybe they had some sort of like donkey rental service in the first century. I'm not really sure how that worked. But we don't know specifics, but we know he was willing to let them take this colt. The thing is, the choice for Jesus to ride in on a colt was very intentional. This was not haphazard or a mistake. It was very intentional. He chose to ride in to Jerusalem on a colt because it symbolized two main things. It symbolized peace and it symbolized royalty. and this time often donkeys were used to pull carriages carrying royalty so it kind of pointed to Jesus being the king they thought he was but it also symbolized peace they thought he was coming to overthrow the Romans and he was saying I'm coming to bring peace he could have ridden in on a stallion or a war horse and that would have sent a different message but he was saying no I'm coming to bring you peace. So this was pointing to the type of king Jesus was claiming to be.

See, Jesus is king, but he's not the kind that we expect. He is king, but not the kind we expect. He's a different kind of king. He's one who brings peace to his people. Interestingly, it also fulfilled one of the prophecies that were written about him. Jesus hundreds of Old Testament prophecies in his personhood and who he was and the things that he did. And this is one of them that we find in Zechariah 9.9. It says, rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See, your king comes to you righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Not only is he fulfilling this prophecy, but he is saying and declaring, I am your king, just not the one you expected. or the kind you expected. See, we often want things done a certain way. We want things to work out or our desires to be fulfilled or expectations to be met in a really specific way. And Jesus is here and he's saying, I'm coming and I have what you need, but maybe not what you think you need or not what you want.

He's the king. just not the kind that this crowd who was celebrating was expecting him to be. The crowd had the right energy, just the wrong expectations. They were rightfully celebrating. They were throwing their cloaks down and raving palm branches and praising him and blessing him. That was good. That intention was good, but their expectations were wrong. They shouted, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. They were worshiping him. In Matthew's biography of Jesus, he writes that they shouted, Hosanna. It says the crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. Hosanna means save us now. Save us now. They were saying the right words, and they were celebrating with the appropriate amount of gusto, but their expectations were off. They wanted to be saved from the Romans. And Jesus said, I'm going to save you from so much more and for so much more. I have bigger and better plans for you. They wanted political rescue, not spiritual transformation. They wanted Jesus to fix their circumstances, not their hearts. We, you and I, can be close to Jesus and still misunderstand him. We can know about Jesus. We can read our Bibles and go to church and have Bible study and all these things, and that's great, and we should. We can even believe he is who he says he is and still misunderstand him.

Because if we are only celebrating him and worshiping him because we think he's going to fix our circumstances or answer our prayers in the way that we think he should, we're missing it. We're missing him. We're missing who he is. The same crowds who were shouting, Hosanna and blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, just a few short days later, are going to turn silent and even hostile. Their words are going to change from worship to crucify him. The reason they were so easily swayed and changed their tone so quickly is because they were not worshiping who he was. They were worshiping what he could do for them. They were celebrating what they thought he was going to do, their expectations, not who he was. They knew him. They were in close proximity to him. But they misunderstood him and his mission. And sometimes we are in close proximity to Jesus. Maybe we feel close to him. We feel like a relationship with him is going well. But when we celebrate Jesus for what we think he's going to do for us, or what we hope he'll do, we're going to miss it. We're going to miss him. so we can be close to Jesus and still misunderstand him. Perhaps we're celebrating the arrival of the king today, but maybe our expectations are a bit skewed. We have the right energy, but we're thinking wrongly. We don't want to miss what he's already done for us on the cross. We're going to celebrate that next week. But even as we are celebrating his arrival, his coming, we have the opportunity to be resurrection people. We are on this side of resurrection. We have hindsight in our favor. We know that Sunday is coming. And so as the people on this side of the resurrection, we get to celebrate rightly. We get to celebrate him for who he is, not just what we think he can do for us. See, he may not show up in the way we expect. He may not look or act like the king we think he should be. But he is still the king. And while the crowd is celebrating and shouting and praising, Jesus is doing something unexpected. 

Let's continue reading in our passage this morning from verse 41. It says, “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.”

Notice the difference here, right? It's the scene that Pastor Lauren just covered. We have the people celebrating, rejoicing. They are hyped. This is a big moment for them. We juxtapose that's Jesus who is weeping as he enters the city. This is their king, their savior, God's own son, sent to earth to be a part of the greatest rescue plan in history. But this second part of our passage this morning has a very different tone than the one that we might expect. And it's in this interaction that we see the heart of Jesus, the heart of our king. And it's about the king, again, that we didn't expect.

The first part is that Jesus sees what others miss. Jesus the king has an eternal perspective, a heavenly perspective, an infinite perspective. He sees everything and everyone. He sees people's hearts. He sees how fickle they are. how set on their own ways the crowds are. He sees how fixed and focused they are on being saved in a way that they've conjured up. And he also sees what they can't see, what they won't see, and what they end up missing. He knows destruction is coming. And so while others are celebrating in this crowd, he sees the personal hardship that he's about to face. He sees the pain and hardship that the people are going to face. And he sees that this triumphal entry as he's being ushered in with palm branches and cloaks and shouts of Hosanna is actually directly leading to his death. Directly leading to the cross, his sacrifice, which is the culmination of that rescue plan. He sees that the people in this moment don't really want or can conceive the salvation that he brings. They are seeing, as Pastor Lorne mentioned, a king coming to deliver them from oppression into a worldly kingdom. But he sees a spiritual battle being won. God's eternal kingdom being opened. He's looking over the city, Jerusalem, where God dwelt in the Old Testament. He's looking over these people oppressed and wanting to experience being on the ruling side of being a part of a kingdom. And he's looking over this crowd who's going to turn on him.

And he sees what they miss. Their spiritual reality, their spiritual future coinciding with what will actually come to pass. And he weeps over it. That's the second point, is that Jesus weeps over missed opportunities. There's not anger yet in Jesus. That's coming later. He'll have a moment of anger. But right now it's sorrow. Verse 44 says, you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you. There's sadness in that. Sadly, the tragedy for so many, even today, isn't that they reject Christ. That can be true for many. But for others, it's that they just miss him altogether. I don't know if we think of God, the God that we worship, as one who weeps. We've been encouraging all of you to invite people to Easter Sunday. And when someone misses that opportunity, I think there's a sadness in God that says they didn't even get the chance. They're not even able to comprehend what is in front of them right now. And he's saddened by that. And I think to have a heart like God, we also want to be saddened by people who are missing their opportunities to encounter God. In the weeping, we see the heart of a king who knows what's best for his people and has to go through the heartbreak of watching and witnessing and being on the other end of a real consequence of them missing it. And that consequence, again, is him dying on the cross. If you were to read through all of Scripture, you could see the momentum building to this moment. From the moment of the fall and sin entered into the world, God had a rescue plan in place, and it was to bring about Jesus, the perfect human with no sin, his own son, the spotless lamb, to sacrifice and restore relationship with humanity to God. And so it is a celebratory moment. That is something worth praising.

But as Lauren mentioned, they're praising him for the wrong thing. And it's a celebratory moment for us because we know how the story ends. It's a somber moment for Jesus because it's a missed opportunity for the people in that crowd there with him to be on the same page as him as to what's happening, what's truly happening. But praise God, they get to hear about it later from the disciples. Praise God that we can understand it now. But in this moment, as Jesus is entering in Jerusalem, they're missing the point. And that is that peace, the peace that they sought was right in front of them and they missed it. I think it's ironic that as he heads into Jerusalem, which is the city that means the city of peace. I think it's ironic that Jesus says this, which I think is kind of one of the most haunting lines that he says in verse 42. “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it's hidden from your eyes. As Pastor Lauren said, they were just looking for the wrong thing. They were shouting for peace by saying, Hosanna, save us.”

Thinking that the man in front of them was going to have to do some things in order to bring about peace. And they were right. He was going to have to do some things, just not the things that they thought he was going to have to do. Not the politicking, no battle plans, no campaign against Rome. Instead, Jesus was going to have to endure shame and suffering, torture, excruciating pain. And he was going to have to die. nothing that they had seen before from a leader, just an innocent man, the son of God dying on the cross. True peace, the source of all peace, as Paul tells us in Philippians, was right in front of them, and they missed it. And church, we can do the same thing today. We can attend church, sing songs, hear sermons, and still miss Jesus. We want him to fix things, heal us, provide for our needs, but we're not willing to surrender to him. Not just the king that we want him to be, but the king that he truly is. With all the anxiety that we have in our lives, all the stress, we can want him to bring us peace. And maybe we've come up with some kind of plan. God, this is how I need peace. If you could just do exactly this. But we miss, again, as Paul says, that Jesus himself is peace. And him being in our lives, being in his presence, changes things and brings about peace. And so Palm Sunday asks us, do we actually recognize Jesus for who he truly is? And will we surrender to him? 

So we have the crowd celebrating. They are worshiping him and welcoming him because they think he's going to save them from the Romans. And again, they are correct in worshiping him. But they still missed who he was and what he was all about. And then on the flip side, we have Jesus coming in, seeing all of these people worshiping him. And he weeps for them. We have weeping and celebration, two different perspectives on the same moment. Two different responses to the same moment. The people wanted peace, but they missed the fact that the actual Prince of Peace was standing right in front of them. We don't want to be like the crowd. We don't want to miss what Jesus is doing. He is doing so many things here and now. Yes, he walked the earth and he did miracles and he made ways that didn't look like they were possible, but he is still moving now. Miracles still happen today and we don't wanna miss it. We don't wanna miss what he's about because we are so caught up in what we think he's going to do for us. Should we pray about our circumstances? Yes, please do that. But we don't worship him because of what he can do for us. Rather, for who he is. So let's celebrate his arrival. Let's honor that and remember that. But we need to keep our focus on who Jesus is. That he is the right and true heavenly king. Not the king that we decided he should be. So our question for you today is, will we welcome Jesus as the king we want or the king that he actually is? Will we welcome Jesus as the king that we want or the king he actually is? 

See, if we truly recognize Jesus as the king, who he is, it changes everything in life. It changes life for us. We begin to live life differently every day. We become people who reflect his glory in our communities, who want people to know him and have their own personal relationship with him. We want to bring people into our faith community and say, hey, I'm walking with Jesus. It's changed my life in ways you can't even imagine. Come with me as he changes your life. In the everyday stuff of life, it changes it. So we want to invite people in, just like it says on our wall, the everyday stuff of life, like a movie night tonight. Jesus is working through all of that. And so this week, we want our focus to be on being people who reflect his glory through inviting others to Easter. Really want to push and encourage you guys. You guys have been praying, hopefully praying for people in your life that need Christ. And maybe the Spirit's going to prompt you this week to finally have that conversation. Say, you know what? I want to talk to that person and just say, hey, why don't you come with me to Easter? Why don't you hear about our risen Lord? if we know who Jesus is if we worship him as king if we surrender to him it changes how we go about living our everyday life so we just don't want to be people who wave the branches if we're being back in that scene and worshiping a god who we think this is who god is we want to truly surrender to him say god i want to know more about who you are who you truly are i want to recognize you as the king of my life.

Let's go ahead and pray. God, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the life of Jesus, the sacrifice that he made, the humility that he lived with, and for the emotion that he expresses in this scene as we see the heart of a king who loves his people. Even when his people are missing it, even when we miss it, God, when we miss opportunities, when we miss your presence, you still love us. God, I pray that you would open our eyes to all the ways in which you are working in our life, that we could praise you, that we could know you in a deeper and truer sense, and that we could share with others how you are changing our life, how you are blessing us, sustaining us, providing for us. God, I pray that you continue to transform us to be more like you. And as we head into this holy week, that our hearts would be sensitive to the Spirit. We would listen and obey. And God, we just want you to be glorified in all things that we do. We pray this in your name. Amen.

A Place To Belong: Part 2

A Place To Belong: Part 2 - What does it mean to Belong?

1 Corinthians 10:31, Ephesians 1:12, Isaiah 43:7, Matthew 28:18-20

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I'm excited today. We're going to be wrapping up our series called A Place to belong. And the main part of the series is to really explain what the church is, why we exist, and why we, Spring Valley, why are we here? What are we doing? What's the thing we got going on here? And so Pastor Andre last week, he kicked us off and asking why the church. And he went into detail. He talked about the universal church, which is more like the greater church. If you were to kind of take a zoom back from the area, you see all the different neighborhood churches and all the churches around the globe and around the world, they are all a part of what we call the universal church. And then you have the local church, which would be us here. Spring Valley Church is the local church. And so he answered the question of why is the church even necessary? It's just really good questions. And the church is necessary for the advancement of the gospel. It's to make disciples, to be in the family of God, is to reflect God's glory and to continue Christ's work that he began when he was here on earth. And so then what does it look like to belong to a church? And he gave us four good reasons of why to belong to a church. And it is to attend, is to connect with others, is to serve and use what God has given us, and then is to care for one another.

And so today, we're going to continue in the same light and to walk through some of these questions of why the church or why to belong to the church. And I've been asked from time to time as a pastor and conversations I've had with different people of what church should I attend? Well, I love to tell them you should come to Spring Valley Church. A little bias there. I love this place, but I have probably like five different things I like to tell them every single time. And when people are looking for churches, especially if someone in our church we love and we care for and their job is maybe taking them somewhere and they're moving somewhere else, they have a question of, Pastor, how am I going to find a church like Spring Valley? What does that look like? So I have a couple things. I always tell them, I tell them, find a church that preaches the gospel. Find the church that preaches the gospel. And I mean the whole gospel, all of it, the whole thing, the whole Bible, that sermons come from Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ and that Jesus himself is central. Because if you were to go maybe to a church and to attend and you hear a whole sermon and a whole teaching and the word Jesus is never mentioned, I would argue to say that you probably just went to a TED Talk. And I'm sorry to say that and maybe call out some of my peers and other pastors, but that's the reality, that if we don't share the gospel of Jesus every single week, then we're just giving TED Talks every week. And there's plenty of those on YouTube for you to watch whenever you want to. But the church should preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Number two, I pray and I hope that we are this, but that we are warm and friendly. I think a church that you should attend should be welcoming, should be hospitable, to live in a way that we have been transformed, right? If Jesus comes into our life and transforms us, we should live that out. There's a big fancy word for that term with this that would be called sanctification. It's an idea of every single day is an opportunity to live more like Jesus. And as we live like that, we should treat other people in the same way. And so when people come in, when people are here, a part of our church, I pray that it's friendly and warm.

I think the members should be spirit-filled. Those who are part of the church, I think there should be what we have been talking about lately, abiding and being part of the vine and seeing spiritual fruit. There should be some essence of feeling that there is something here that the Holy Spirit is doing. People should reflect things of God like his love and his care, his grace, his mercy, which also ties in again with the whole being hospitable and welcoming. I think what we members of a church should be concerned about what God is concerned about. There are things in life that God really cares about. And sometimes the church is silent on that and it breaks my heart. And I think we need to be bolder in our faith to speak into those things. And I think that people that we have been transformed, we are continuing to be transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I think the church should emphasize missions, not only local, but around the globe and around the world, that we can focus on the kingdom of God outside these four walls that we call Spring Valley Church. And we're going to be doing a series in May. I've been having Zoom calls with some of our missionaries, and we're getting to hear some stories from them. And so we're going to be doing a series after Easter that we're going to be able to share some of the stories of what God is doing through them around the world. It's some really cool stuff. I can't wait to share it with you guys.

And I think the final thing that a church should be, it should be evangelical and doctrine. There's some really big churchy terms. Let me break that down for you. There should be a strong emphasis on a personal decision to commit your life to Jesus. There should be a push and a regular calling of those who come in here because the reality is sometimes it's easy to go, well, I've been in church my whole life. That's great. But have you made a decision for Jesus? Sometimes we can attend and be a part of a church for a really long time have Jesus. But the reality is we actually haven't made that decision. And so sometimes I get asked, and we here at Spring Valley will regularly present the gospel and I'll get people who say, pastor, why are we doing it? Everybody here is Christian. Everybody here has been coming to church for five, 10 years. I was like, you don't know, man. You know what God's doing in their lives. You don't know where they're at. I'm glad they've been faithfully attending here and a part of the family, but maybe they never made the decision. We just don't know. And so there should be always and emphasis to move people towards making Jesus Lord and leader of their life. And then we celebrate with that. We celebrate through baptisms. We celebrate through sharing stories and testimonies of what God is doing in people's life. Because I think without that key element, we're a social club. We're nothing more than, and no dig on them, but a country club or the Kiwanas or any other local group, the Elks Lodge. Like, love them. They're awesome. They do great things in the community, but they're not doing that in the name of Jesus. We do that in the name of Jesus.

So what does it mean to belong? What does it mean to be a part of more shifting towards Spring Valley Church? Well, our vision and mission on the wall every single Sunday is to see our community saturated with the glory of God, and we do that through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Our vision is our why, to see our community saturated with the glory of God. So what does that mean? What does it mean, this term, saturate? Have you ever spilled water at a table with other people around? You can really test people and how quick their reactions are, of how quick they can move when that water cup gets knocked over. We have four children in our home, some of which are very wanting to be independent. And so we offend them sometimes with lids and straws on their cups. and so every now and then we'll gamble we'll roll the dice and we'll give them a cup of liquid with no lid and it doesn't go well we love them they're amazing kids but it just doesn't go well it's just not there and so we always have the test okay who's gonna knock it over at dinner time who's who's gonna be the one and i've done it myself i i will be guilty i've knocked it over myself quite a few times. But when you knock over a cup of water, what happens to it? It goes everywhere. It goes everywhere. It finds every single little nook and cranny. It finds the edge of the table so fast. I don't know. It's just like, I'm out. I'm free. There's the edge. It's like making a jail break. And it just goes everywhere. It gets on the stuff on the table. The napkins are soaked. Like it just goes everywhere. And I love this idea of seeing our communities just saturated with the glory of God, that it just goes everywhere. That Jesus himself fills us up. He talks about that in scripture, that then we go out with our cup of water of Jesus in our lives. Maybe not actually a cup of water, but we go out with Jesus in our lives. And I pray and I hope that as we interact with people in our lives, we leave maybe a couple drops of Jesus with them. We maybe leave a little imprint, a wet spot of Jesus on their lives because you and I might be the only Jesus that they ever get to experience in life. I hope and pray that there's more people in their lives that are Christ followers and speaking truth into them, but we might be the only people to share Jesus with them. So what does it look like? Well, spreading the glory of God in our community looks like sharing and showing up, showing up in people's lives when they're hurting, sharing kindness, sharing in generosity, praying for people, even if they don't know that you're praying for them. I love that. It's like undercover prayer. Like you're praying for your neighbors and your friends and your co-workers and they don't have no idea. And they'll come tell you stuff that's going on in your life. And you're just like, all right, God, add it to my list. I'm praying for And it's amazing what God can do. But this is meeting a very real practical need in people's lives. And we're not doing it for us. We're doing it for God.

I love what it says in 1 Corinthians 10.31. It says, so whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. Everything that we do at Spring Valley Church, and I pray that that trickles into your life too, is for the glory of God. But who are our communities? It says, two communities are saturated. So who are our communities? Well, our communities are really simple. It's where we live, where we learn, where we work, and where we play. That's our neighbors. It's our coworkers. That's our friends. That's our family. That's our classmates. It's anybody in our life that we interact with on a regular basis. And maybe sometimes just random basis. There's times in my life where I'm having a conversation with a random person, and God says, just tell them that I love them. And I'm like, God, just tell them I love them. I just, hey, I know we just met. God loves you, man. Just want you to know that. And I get to turn around and walk away, and I just left a little Jesus on him. But that's what we're called to do.

Ephesians 1.12 says, So that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of his glory. God fills us up. When we receive Jesus, we are filled up. So then we will go out and be the ones to be the praise for his glory. I love how it talks about in Psalms chapter one, where it talks about the person that is planted by streams of water. That's who we are. Jesus is our source of everything. We just talked about this in Corinthians in our series about Christ, who is our life. Christ is our life. He is our source. He is our everything. And so as out of that flows streams of living water, as it says in John 7, he fills us up to overflowing. We gather regularly together, but that's not the end all be all. Sometimes it's easy to just get caught up in Sunday morning, right? To just be like, I come in, I sit down, sing some songs, maybe take communion, maybe somebody prays for me. I hear an encouraging word from the Lord. I'm filled up, I take my cup and I go out and I hold onto my cup all week. I just walk around, I'm like, oh, I got my Jesus. I love it. Got my Jesus. Oh, don't want to spill it. Oh, I have to share this with somebody else? No, this is my Jesus. They can go find their own Jesus. But that's not it. Our gathering, our Sunday morning is actually just the beginning. If you've played sports, you know the game doesn't happen in the locker room, right? It doesn't happen on the practice field. It doesn't happen in a training session. It doesn't happen in the gym. It happens out on the field. And everything we do around that prepares for that moment on the field together. Because the reality is the world is watching and the world is looking. The world takes on these false promises that society and things and other religions and groups and communities promise to give them, but fall short time and time and time again. And we are out to go to saturate our communities with the glory of God.

So how does this happen? How do we go, okay, that's our why, our what? Well, our what is making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Jesus gave us this commandment called the Great Commission to go and to make disciples. And see, our vision here at Spring Valley will only be brought about when each of us strive as a lifelong learner in the way of God. To understand how he's uniquely created us, how he's called us, and how he's commissioned us. Isaiah says this in 43 verse 7. Anyone who is called by my name, whom I'm created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Jesus has a calling for each and every one of us, and that is to first be a disciple of him. But it doesn't stop there. Each of us are included in God's great redemption plan. And each of us have a part to play in that. And the reality is that we are plan A and there is no plan B. That we are called. And being a follower of Jesus leads us into being a disciple in the everyday stuff of life. So Chris, that's great. What does that mean? Well, what it means is a disciple.

And the definition of disciple is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and is committed to the mission of Jesus. You see how like Jesus is kind of part of the whole thing there? That being a disciple is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and is committed to the mission of Jesus. Matthew 4.19, Jesus calls disciples at different times and he calls us and he says, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. I always thought it was very interesting how he used this term and this phrase. But when we break it down, there's three parts here of what Jesus is actually doing. Jesus says, follow me. Change your head. Or, yeah, change your head. Who are you thinking about? Who are you looking at? What are you striving for? Jesus says, follow me. Change how your head is thinking. Then Jesus said, you will be changed. He says there, I will make. Jesus is the one that's doing the transformation. This is our heart. Jesus is transforming our heart through the Holy Spirit. And then what does he say? He says, I will make you fishers of men. He says, you are being committed to the mission of Jesus. That's our hands of how we do it. So it's a head, our heart, and our hands. And some of these final words of Jesus he's giving to the disciples is exactly what he asked and is calling us to do as well.

He says these. These are some of the final words of Jesus before he goes back to heaven. It says in Matthew 28, it says, Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age. There is one imperative large command in that, and it is to make disciples. But then there's three participles that describe how we do that. The first of which is go. So that is the everyday stuff of life. As you are going throughout life, you are a disciple. You are to baptize. You are to publicly declare with your faith that you are a follower of Jesus. And then you are to teach. You are to teach those and to grow them up, to spur them on, to take them deeper in their walk with Jesus. And the disciple making is about entering into relationships to help people trust and follow Jesus. This is what it's about. It's to enter into intentional relationships with Jesus to help people find and follow and trust him. It's all about him. It's all about Jesus. But we have to change our mindset. We have to focus on Jesus who is working in us, allowing him to work, and to fulfill the way that God has uniquely created, called, and commissioned us.

So Chris, this is great. Great vision, great mission. That's awesome. How does this rubber meets the road? How does this practically play out? We call it our four Gs, and it is just so that easy to remember, is to gather, grow, give, and go. these are the four four focuses to help make the vision and mission happen here at spring valley church the first one gather what does that mean well gathering means to commit to gathering together regularly with the church body what does that look like well that looks like worship that looks like discipleship that looks like evangelism these larger big churchy words but what it means is Jesus matters, prayer matters, God's word matters, and Sunday matter. That's what it's all about. And that when we gather together, we will have these different elements when we gather. Again, if you guys have picked up on that, but every time that we have gathered together as a church, whether it's a men's ministry, a women's ministry, all of us together on a Sunday or some other spot. There is an element of this that is happening every single time. We don't gather just for the sake of gathering. But it's about being together with one another, with the presence of the Holy Spirit, living on mission and on vision for Jesus Christ.

The second way we do this is we grow. We meet regularly with a few others to encourage and equip you in growing up in Christ. because the reality is that growing people change. And I was thinking about this last night as I was walking through my notes of, I always thought of it as in the sense of a positive, growing people change. Sometimes we can grow in the wrong ways and we change in the wrong ways, right? But we are to grow in Jesus, to grow up in Christ because transformation truly matters. I think sometimes we sit around and go, I'm good with Jesus. I'm set. I'm good. I got my routine. I'm set. But the reality is that each of us can be transformed even more into Jesus. Some of the most seasoned veteran Christians that I looked up to and respect, you could ask them, hey, when did you arrive? And they go, what do you mean, when did I arrive? I said, well, when did you arrive when you were like, I'm a Jesus follower. I'm a disciple. I'm transformed. There's always something more to grow and to learn and be sanctified into Jesus Christ more and more every single day. Creativity matters. I think there's some awesome ways in which you have tradition and you do the same thing the same way in a church sometimes, and I love it, but I think also it's great to shake things up. We here at Spring Valley try new things all the time. And you guys are awesome. You run with us on some things. Sometimes it's like, wow, they came up with that idea. But we like trying new things because sometimes we learn and we grow and things connect with different people at different times. That's why we have a few different voices that teach on the regular. Because every person brings a little bit different perspective and understanding with their training, their knowledge, their experience with scripture, and it speaks to a variety of people. I think it's a huge, huge way that we can continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus.

The third thing is that we give. And yeah, I'm going to talk about it, but we support Spring Valley and we serve the larger body with the things that God has blessed us with. Maybe you've been around in the church. You've heard it before, time, talent, treasure. And I'm talking about everything because the reality is that God has blessed us with everything, right? Everything that we have received in life is from Jesus himself. God blesses that with us. And so then his calling in us as we are to be a disciple is how do we use what he has given us to further his kingdom? We desire to have a generous impact here at Spring Valley Church. And that for some means tithing. for others it means tithing and it means to use everything we have for his glory to give back to him to make a generous impact with everything we have because gratitude matters Jesus has given us everything he's taking care of our eternal salvation right everything else is just gravy right he's taking care of our biggest need and so how do we be generous the way he has been so generous with us. We serve one another. Service matters. Saved people serve people. Because if we're truly saved, then we should have the same heart of Jesus. And he was the ultimate servant of giving up of himself to the cross in his death. So we serve one another. We talk about that regularly, serving on teams. Some of you we probably reached out to at times said, hey, can you serve in this way? How can you love on our church congregation?

And so then finally, our fourth G is to go. As Jesus said to go, to be a disciple of Jesus who makes his disciples with others. We want to live in relational community with one another, but not just fun, not just dinners, not just movie nights or vacations or pool parties or fun times, but to live life together missionally, that we are intentionally encouraging one another, loving one another, saying, hey, how are you doing with Jesus? What are you learning? What's he teaching you? How are you growing in him? Evangelism matters. Unity matters. We have a church care team here that you may get a phone call from them randomly from time to time that just checking in. How are you doing? And it's beyond just the pastoral staff, but it's another team that really cares for our church because you guys matter. Pastor Lauren talked about it earlier, but these invite cards during Easter, during this season, to take time to intentionally pray for an opportunity to invite somebody to come with you on Easter Sunday. Because we're all called, When you became a disciple, you accepted Jesus, you became a minister of the gospel. You may not carry the title pastor, but neither did the 12 disciples or apostles. But they're all called to share the gospel and ownership matters and that we need to own that.

The reality is we can't accomplish all of this without you. that's the reality and that we are all called to be together on this team we are called to be part of this family and so what does that mean for you well we've been talking about it for a few weeks now and that means membership and membership in this church means about engaging and partnering with us who is the local church another way of saying it is hey i'm all in this is my church and it's a two-way street sometimes it can get thought about well church membership is just the church wanting something from me no no no this is a this is a mutual relationship this is a two-way street membership is about the church also saying to you we are committed to you we are committed to your faith journey we are committed to you in the every day this is a mutual thing it's not just a person to the church, but it's also the church to the person. And I don't know what you grew up in. There's different churches of different models and some you utilize membership and some don't. And that's fine. They don't have to have membership at all. But I believe that there is something that is missed for both the church and the body when there isn't membership. And you can attend and you can be here at Spring Valley without being a member. This is not a It's a hope and a desire from us. But you can serve here. You can be here. You can give here. You can be a part of Spring Valley without being a member. Now, there are some ministry and leadership roles that membership is required of. But we will never, ever stop anybody from not being able to be here at Spring Valley Church. The church is a gift from God. It's a beautiful thing. And it's a beautiful thing when you have believers who are committed to that gift. And it's something really special when all of that comes together.

So what does it look like? What does it look like to be a member here at Spring Valley Church? It's just five areas. First of which is engagement. What does that look like? Well, that means attendance. It means being present. It means praying for our church, praying for our pastors, praying for those who are walking through different situations in life, encouraging one another.

It means discipleship. It means spiritual growth. They used that term earlier, sanctification, or a pursuit of holiness to allow Jesus to transform us. You're committing to saying, I'm going to walk deeper in my faith with Jesus in a community, and that community is going to be there with me. It means service. It means attending to the needs of others in our community. Spring Valley, Rocklin, Roseville. There are over a quarter of a million people in this region of 65 and 80 from Roseville, over the edges of Lincoln, up to Loomis, down into West Roseville, over a quarter of a million people. There are not enough churches. And not everybody is attending church every single week. And so we have to serve and care for the needs of others.

It looks like generosity, giving of God's blessing that he's given to you in practical needs. Maybe it's through tithing. Maybe it's a special giving project. Maybe it's supporting our missionaries around the globe. Maybe it's giving of your time. You're like, hey, money is super tight right now, but I got time. I can volunteer. I can be here. What do you need? I need help. I'm here to help. It means being generous with the talents that you've been given. What I love about our worship team is these guys are incredibly talented and gals. They're so gifted. They could probably, and most, some of them are on a stage regularly in bands, performing and being paid to do a lot of stuff. They donate all their time and talent to be here. because they love this church. Guys, we are so blessed by them.

And it looks like inviting, like we talked about these invite cards, to pray for people. And we've said it here before, and I wanna continue to say it, that if you come in on church on a Sunday and it was encouraging for you, it was uplifting for you, it was special, God spoke to you, God, Jesus gave you something, Why not invite somebody to come experience that with you? Don't hold back on that. Don't hold your little cup of Jesus and just walk around and don't spill it. But share that freely with others because somebody at some point invited you in, right? Somebody at some point said, hey, come to church with me. I want you to find Jesus. And you found Jesus. And then you found Spring Valley. And we want to keep doing that time and time again. Membership is about finding a place to belong.

And SVC is better with you. SVC wouldn't be the same if you weren't here. And there's people who are going to become part of this church and are going to find this church soon, and they get to be a part of that. And it just continues to grow and expand. and we grow God's kingdom for his glory through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life.

Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for the many blessings, God, that you give us every single day. Jesus, we thank you for how you died on the cross for us, for our sins. The biggest problem in our life, you took care of as a servant, as a humble, humble sacrifice for our lives. And Jesus, you gave this gift that is the church. And God, I pray as we move into after service to have our membership class, God, that those who are trying to figure out what all this looks like may stick around and just have some question and answer, Jesus. But I pray that they would see the church as this beautiful gift to them in life. And I pray, God, that if you were leading them into, that they would step into becoming a member. Then they would see how, God, you have provided a community and a place for them to belong. and that membership is not only them committing but the church also committing to them saying we are all in on you and that we will be here for you. We will pray for you. We will care for you. And so Jesus, I pray that Spring Valley would truly be a place that is warm, that is welcoming, that is caring, that stays focused on the gospel, stays true to your word, and has a heart for lost people to find you, Jesus. For us to see our community saturated, your glory, Jesus. And that we would step into being true disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Thank you, Jesus. We love you. Amen.

A Place To Belong: Part 1

A Place To Belong: Part 1 - What is the Church?

Romans 12:10; 15:7, Galatians 5:13; 6:2, Ephesians 5:21, 1 Thessalonians 5:11

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are starting a new series, very excited for this series, called A Place to Belong. And I think that's true for all of us, right? We long for a place to belong in a world that's increasingly disconnected, transient, individualistic. God has given us something that is intentional and beautiful, and that is the church. Not a building, not an event, not a weekly obligation, but a people. So our series, A Place to Belong, is a two-week series exploring what the church truly is, why it matters, and why it's essential for our lives as followers of Jesus. When Jesus said, "I will build my church," he wasn't talking about just a structure, but a spiritual family. And together we're going to look at what the church is and what it isn't, why it's necessary for our growth, why gathering together isn't optional but vital. And in a culture that often asks, "Can't I just follow Jesus on my own?" We'll discover God's design for community, for accountability, worship, mission, and belonging. So next week we're going to bring that conversation even closer to home, as Pastor Chris is going to talk about the mission and vision of Spring Valley Church specifically, who we are and what we value and what life looks like as a committed member of this body. And he's going to talk about why the global church is a beautiful thing. God places us in local contexts. And so what does it mean to not just attend but to truly belong, to serve, to give, to commit, and to build a spiritual family here at Spring Valley? Because again, the church isn't just somewhere you go, it's something you're a part of. We believe God has created a place for you to belong. So you guys ready to dive into the series with me as we kind of step back and take a general view of the church? Yeah? Okay, I saw it. That's good.

We're going to answer three important questions this morning. The first is, what is the church? Second is, why is church necessary? And the third is, what does it look like to belong to a church? And again, this is just going to be for general. I mean, whether you go here or whether you've been going to other churches, this is just for churches across the globe. And we're going to then next week get specific about Spring Valley Church. Let me go ahead and pray one more time and then we'll continue. God, thank you again for our time together this morning. And I pray that you, as you have been this morning preparing our hearts, I pray that we'd be ready to listen now, that our hearts will be able to receive your truth. And God, I pray that we'd be able to maybe just pause on all the other things going on in life, whether they're good, but maybe they're just distracting at the moment. I just pray that you'd help us to be present. And I pray that you would speak through your word. Give me the words to say and how to say them. And I pray that we would all be encouraged and drawn closer to you. We pray this in your name. Amen.

All right. So the first question, what is the church? As I already said, it's not just a building. We call this church and it is church, but that's not all it is. When the Bible talks about church, it's talking about a people, a group of believers. Paul does a lot of explaining about what the church is because he was alive and he was an apostle during the time when the church was just beginning and Jesus had ascended. And so I'm going to be bouncing around a lot of Paul's writings because he does a good definition of explaining to everyone at that time, here's what you guys are. You group and community of believers. This is the church. Here's what you are. Here's what it should look like. So I'm gonna be referencing him. But I want to start by explaining some terms that I think are going to help us.

And the first is the universal church. What we often call, if you've been around Spring Valley for a while, we've said the big C church. That means capital C church. And we don't mean just this church. We mean all the churches that are founded on Christ around the world. That's what we call the universal church. A definition could be all believers in all times and places. So throughout history, from the early church into the future, when we say the universal church, we're talking about every believer of every, over the decades and centuries, thousands of years. This is the universal church. And some things about the big C church that are true is one, the church is united in Christ. It's holy, it's set apart for Christ, and it is the body of Christ. First Corinthians 12 says, "Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all of its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ." He's talking to all the individual believers. We are all part of the body of Christ. And then First Corinthians, Paul also tells us that the church's foundation is built on Jesus Christ himself. The church is the representation of God here on earth. As we are all being formed individually, to be made more like Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit inside of us, we then share his light and his truth and his hope and love to the world around us. The other thing about the universal church, every church that, again, has its foundation in Christ, it began at Pentecost with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So I just think it's so cool to know that even these local churches, this church has only been around for 20-something years, I think. But we can trace our history from other places on Sunset, where we were, to being planted by Faith Legacy, which used to be called Arcade Wesleyan in Sacramento, to earlier churches in America in the 1700s, to the medieval times, to all the way back to Pentecost. Our church history is tied in with all of that. I think that's beautiful. So that's the universal church, all believers in all times.

Then we're going to get to the local church. So we are a local church here at Spring Valley Church. Local church is all believers in one place and at one time. So it's an expression of the universal church. Our church here in Rocklin is going to look different than the local church in the Czech Republic or the local church in India or even the local church in San Francisco. The local church is an expression of the community that it's in. We might have different songs that we sing, different applications to our sermons, given the circumstances that are surrounding that church and what they're going through, made up of different people, different looking buildings, different emphasis and focuses on Bible passages. But we are still united in Christ, set apart for his purposes and have Christ as our foundation. God created humanity and appreciates the different cultures and tongues around the world. Says so in scripture. And the church is going to be made up of those different cultures and people. And that's a good thing. Another way of saying it is that the local church is the local community of people who have been indwelt by and empowered by the Holy Spirit. So we see examples of the local church primarily in the Bible and just even in the epistles, in the New Testament. A lot of Paul's writings are called Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians. Those are all local churches. The local church in Philippi received the letter of the Philippians. Colossians is written to the local church in Colosia. Ephesians, the local church in Ephesus. Corinthians, the local church in Corinth. So on and so forth. Some of the Bible is addressed to these local churches, each with their unique flavor, not necessarily theologically, but just in the people that make up that church. Some were more diverse and were around port cities. Some were made primarily of Jews. Some were made up primarily of Romans. Others had more upper class. Others had more working class. The local church reflects its local community. The local church is all about glorifying God by carrying out his redemptive mandate in a specific local area. That mandate I'm talking about is Matthew 28 when it says, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." So each local church is trying to do that in their local area. The local church is about serving people, and that work is done by the entire body of believers. Not just a few, it's supposed to be the whole church who is looking to serve others in the church and outside the church. And the local church is equipped by Christ through its church leaders for the purpose of equipping all the saints. Pastor Chris is going to go into that next week in more details. He shares the mission and vision of Spring Valley Church and the mission and vision that God has given him and shared with its leaders. And then we're sharing with you as we equip you for the work that God has given you individually in your life, but also as belonging to this church and the work that we are doing together as a community.

The Bible tells us that the local church is characterized by a few things. Romans 12 10 says, "Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves." So the local church should be about honor and devotion to each other. Romans 15 says, "Accept one another, then just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God." So the local church should be about acceptance of one another. Galatians 5 13 says, "Serve one another humbly in love." And Galatians 6 2 says, "Carry each other's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." So the local church should be about admonishing, serving each other and bearing one another's burdens. Ephesians 5 21 says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." So in the local church, now we're getting a little bit tougher here, we should be submitting to each other in some way, shape or form. And 1 Thessalonians 5 11 says, "Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up." So in the local church, there should be an encouragement and we should be experiencing and partaking in building each other up in Christ. So what the local churches should be characterized as should be known of local churches, there should be true of their community and true of their people. And finally, when it comes to the local church and to the universal church, I just want to mention the two sacraments that Jesus gave us and instructed us to carry out. And these sacraments are the visible signs of an invisible spiritual reality that were given and instructed and that is communion and baptism. So in the church, we practice communion, the Lord's Supper, we share in the Lord's meal and obedience to what Christ told us to do as we gather. And then we also practice baptism with those who are new believers, and we get baptized. Now, we believe that you can take communion in any church, not just here, you don't have to belong, you can only take communion here at this church, you can take communion in other churches. You can be baptized in any church as well if you're a believer, though I think we believe that it's really nice if you belong to this church family that you would practice those things with the people that support you and love you and are walking in life with you. So that's what the church is. This was a huge flyover. We can go into more deeds of all those things, but I only have about 20 minutes this morning. And so we could have spent six months on what the church is, but I just want to remind you that this will be on YouTube and the transcript will be there. And if you want to have further conversation about what the church is or clarify anything, you can find one of us after the service or at that membership class next week, you can stop by and ask your question.

So I know I'm going quickly, but that is what is the church? Next I want to answer why is the church necessary? Why is the church necessary? There's quite a few people these days who might have a personal relationship with God, but don't really want to be involved in church. They may say something like, "I'm not okay with organized religion, but I'm a Christian, I believe." But that isn't quite what God desires or wants. I met a guy over at the park over here one time and he said, "I'm a Christian, I'm a former church goer, and I have my own faith community with my friends." This was after I introduced myself as a pastor, which, you know, we get all these sorts of answers. And he had that down, like that was something he said over and over again. He just had that off the cuff. "I'm a Christian, former church goer, but I have my own faith community with my friends." And it just makes me want to ask more questions. And I didn't really have time to go into it, but I said, "I'm sure there's a story there." He said, "Oh, there's definitely a story there." I said, "Oh, okay." Makes me curious. It's more common now, I'm a Christian, I don't want to go to church, but God wants us to go to church and to belong. And being a Christian technically means you are a part of the universal church. The universal church, again, is the body of Christ. Once you believe and you accept Jesus as your savior, you are a part of the body of believers, the body of Christ. So if you're a part of the universal church, why not be a part of the local church in your area? The purpose of the church, again, is to make visible God's glory. And we do that in primarily two ways, to love God through worship, through prayer, partaking of sacraments, being in obedience with God, by making disciples. The church is how Jesus chose to continue the ministry that he started, to have his believers be together in life, ministering and sharing his truth and his love with the rest of the world. In John 20 and John 17, we hear that from Jesus as he empowers the disciples to say, you are going to continue the work that I have begun. And that is to us today too, as a church. So if we were to parse that out a bit more, I think we see some more specific purposes for the church.

The first one is the advancement of the gospel. While God can work miracles, and there are stories of people in remote places of the earth who have not heard from missionaries or anyone who received dreams and visions of Jesus and come to know and believe in him, and that is amazing. That's incredible. I think the more common route, especially in our context, is by hearing from someone about the gospel, someone sharing with someone else God's word. And that is the purpose of the church. That's why the church is important, is that we are tasked with sharing the gospel to other people. The truth of God will be shared by us. And that can happen in so many different ways. That can be Sunday morning and you invite someone to church and they are here and they hear the gospel message. Or it could be through a Bible study, that someone attends a Bible study and that discussion that's happening around God's word. It can be in outreaches, it can be in men's and women's groups and informal gatherings. It can be in a church setting, it can be something like a VBS, a vacation Bible school, where we invite kids and they are there for a few days and they are going to hear Bible lessons. But the church is about advancing the gospel.

Secondly, the church is important because it's there to make disciples of Jesus. Right after advancing the gospel is to make disciples, make followers of Jesus. And we want to make disciples who make disciples. We want to be leading people to Jesus and then they are with the same heart saying, "Hey, I need other people. There's other people who need the word of God too." Just as the 12 did, the 12 who followed Jesus and they continued the work of Christ and spread the gospel around Jerusalem and beyond. We are to share the gospel with our community, with the people that we have in our life. So the church is about making disciples for Jesus. Again, we are not saying, "Come follow me." We are saying, "Come follow Jesus. I'm following him too. Come join me in following Jesus. We will follow Jesus together.”

Thirdly, the church is important because we are called to be a family of God. So we want to commune with each other, have fellowship with each other, have that community. God created community. And his truth, the gospel, I think this is important to know. His truth is meant to be understood in the context of community. Our culture is such an individualistic culture and it's true that we have a personal relationship with Jesus, but we are also meant to be in community. We are meant to hear God's word in community. We are meant to encourage each other. We are meant to live life alongside other people. It's in this group setting that we are encouraged by others, edified to be more like Christ, where we pray for each other, walk with each other through hardship and difficulty, support each other through crises, and love each other with the love of God. So church is important because we are meant to be a family of God. Church is important.

The fourth reason is to reflect God's glory. As I mentioned, we are a representation of Christ in this world. We just talked about this in our Christian-ish series. We are supposed to abide in him. And as we abide in him, he abides in us. And when we do, and when he abides in us, we reflect his character, his light, his truth, his hope, his love to the world around us. We are that representation of what is true and good, not just individually, but as a church as a whole. We pray that each local church is a light in the darkness, in the chaos, in the confusion and fear of the world.

And fifth is, the church is important because we are continuing Christ's work in us and for others. This goes beyond just making disciples. This speaks to the care that we have for the poor, for the widowed, for those who are treated unjustly, unfairly. We come alongside as a church, we come alongside the broken. We love like Jesus did, those who are in pain, who are hurting, who are alone. We want to have a mind and a heart like Christ, who didn't judge and didn't just say, "Here's what needs to be fixed," but comforted them, walked alongside them, had a meal with them. The church is a place where individually we are refined and transformed and made more like Christ. But it's also a place where together we strive for Christ together. And it's in this group setting as we continue Christ's word that we can better know His truth, we can study God's word, iron sharpening iron, we can care for those who need others, who need love and need someone else to walk with them. So you know what the church is, we know why it's important.

Now what does it look like to belong to a church? Again, these are general, but we see these in Scripture and they are informative for us today and I think transformative for us today. The first one is, what does it look like? Well, it begins with attending, right? You are a part of a church family, which means you got to show up to be with the church family. Your presence matters, you being in church matters. You are missed when you are not here. Church life is not as full when people are not here. Now it's not just attendance, because I think people can attend but not belong, if you know what I mean, right? People can show up but not truly be a part of the church, but it starts with attending. You got to be here at church.

Secondly, connecting with others. That's what it means to belong to a church, is connecting with others. It's a two-way street. We are there for other people and we let other people be there for us. Now some of that is really hard for us. Whichever one, maybe it's easy to be there for others but we don't like to let people in. You say, "Hey, I'll show up, I'll help out, but as soon as we're in a hard time, we kind of disappear. I'll come back when I've figured it out." No, being a part of a church and connecting with others, having that relationship means vulnerability, letting other people in, letting other people care for you, and it requires sacrificial living, doing things and being there for others even when it's not convenient. Even when you may be busy or when you don't get to do that thing that you wanted to do because now someone's asked for your help. That's real relationship. That's what the church should be about, where we connect with others, where we build relationship with people based on Christ's love for us.

So attending, connecting with others, and then belonging to a church means serving with and using your God-given talents. Whatever God has given you, time, talents, resources, how are you using that for his kingdom and in the local church context? Again, whether that's time, talents, or money, but I would say it's not less than money. We serve each other. We use whatever God has given us. We give our time to show that we care. We give our skills because God has given them to us to use for his kingdom, and we give our money as a way to be generous, out of obedience, and as an ongoing way to exercise trust in God. So what do you have? What has God given you? And it may change. Maybe at one season of life you have a lot of time, and maybe you're called to be involved with the church. Maybe in another season you're really busy, but God's blessed you with some finances and you say, "Hey, I'm going to give a bit more during this time." Or maybe God's given you some kind of talent skill that the church can use, and you can offer that and say, "Hey, I want to do this for the church." Then lastly, I want to say that belonging to a church means caring for one another. This just goes beyond connecting. It's actively looking out for one another, and we love that that happens so organically in a small church. When you know each other's lives, when you know what's going on, and when something arises, you can say, "Hey, I heard this, and I want to be there for you. I want to cook this meal for you. I want to show up. I'm going to mow your lawn for you," whatever it is. Pastor Chris is going to share more of this next week, I think, but we have a care team here who checks in with people. Whether we hear something or when we just haven't seen you for a while, you might get a call and say, "Hey, how are you doing? You just want to make sure everything's okay. Is there anything we can be praying for?" But it's actively looking out for one another. Part of caring for one another is also providing encouragement. Through word or deed or by the Holy Spirit, we want to encourage one another to follow God in whatever situation we are in. That may be by providing answers and conversation, or it may just mean praying for each other. Say, "Hey, I heard this, and they're not ready to hear anything right now, but I'm just going to be praying for them." Or it may mean, "Hey, I know this person. I know what they're going through, and I'm going to invite them out to coffee because I think we need to talk it out. I think they need someone to listen to them, or maybe they need to hear some encouragement right now." But we're actively trying to do that. Lastly, the thing about caring for one another is welcoming new people. Again, if the church is doing what the church is supposed to do, we're going to be seeing new people in the church, receiving Christ and starting their faith journey, or returning to church, maybe after years of not walking with God. We are here to welcome them in, back to the family of God. You're here to welcome them, not to judge, not to be gatekeepers of the truth or our community. We are here to welcome people, just as Jesus welcomed people.

So I would say belonging to a church looks like these things. You're attending, you're connecting with others, you're serving the church and giving to the church, and you're caring for one another. Now, given all those things, I want to ask, do you belong here at Spring Valley Church? Do you feel like you are doing those things and this is the place that you belong? Or do you sense, "I'm not doing all these things, and I want to belong, and here's a couple more things now that I can do, that I can improve, that I can work on." I want all of you to pull out your programs, as Lauren mentioned. If you've been here for a while, you might have noticed that we changed a couple of things down here. There's something new. And I want to point this out to you. Now there's a little section that kind of pertains to today. It says, "Sign me up for membership class on March 22nd." If you're not yet a member here at Spring Valley, but you're hearing what church is, and what it means to belong to a church, and you want to belong to Spring Valley Church, I would encourage you to write your name, contact information, and check that box. I am signing up for membership class. If you're here, and you're still wondering, and you've got questions, like, "I've heard this, I've understood what the church is, but I have some more questions," I'd still encourage you to write your name down, attend the class. The class next week is not a, "I'm for sure becoming a member." So don't worry, there's no pressure there. But just, it's time to ask questions, to clarify anything, for us to explain some more things. So I'd still encourage you to attend. There's going to be a bucket in the back, and at the end of the service, when we dismiss, I want you guys to drop those in there. Even if you've been attending church a long time, I'd still encourage you. This is a chance to, again, we've had local churches, but we're going to talk next week about Spring Valley Church specifically, and so I'd love for you guys to be there to hear specifically what God is doing at this church. All right, I know that was, you have your tear-off sheets, I hope I, did I hear some of this, did I hear this happening right here? Did you guys do this yet? Oh, okay, yeah, okay, I heard one. Great, there we go. I know that was a lot, and hopefully some of it was familiar, hopefully some of it might have been new, or a good reminder of why the church exists, and hopefully it's guiding you closer to why, just going week after week, again, not out of obligation, but because you belong to a family, a church family, and that is such a good thing. And again, the sermon will be posted online, if anything, if I went too fast over anything, feel free to go back.

Lastly, I just want to put this in front of you, something that we're trying to stress more is how we can be more intentional, be mindful of those who need Jesus in your life. So who in your life could benefit from being a part of a local church? Who in your life needs to hear the truth, needs to be encouraged, needs to connect with warm and loving people who love God? Who do you know that you can reflect God's glory to? And if some names are coming to mind, good, if you don't have anyone, and everyone in your life is a Christian, praise God for that, but I think it's time to pray that you meet some new people. And I think it's time to pray for a new opportunity, say, "God, bring someone in my life that I can be a Christian to, that I can witness to." But if you don't, if you have names swirling in your head, that's good, I want you to bring out, there should have been a card on your screen, I'm having you fill out a lot this morning, that's a good thing. There's a card that's the Easter service invitation card. And if you have a name that is on your mind, on your heart, I want you to write that down on the top and on the bottom. The top is for you, you keep that section and you're going to put that somewhere in your wallet, your purse, your car, your Bible, somewhere where you're going to see and say, "That's right, when I see, I'm supposed to be looking for an opportunity to invite this person to Easter service." So do that. And then you're going to write the same name on the bottom, you're going to put it in the bucket, and we're going to pray for you. And we're going to be praying for these names. We don't know who belongs to who, we're just going to be praying, "Hey, for this person, we pray that whoever is in their life that knows Jesus, they're going to invite this person to Easter service." So we're going to partner with you in praying for people to come to a church service.

And the great thing about this, about praying about an opportunity, is you guys do not have to be super confident in that moment. It's okay to be nervous, it's okay to just have a little anxiety over it, but I want to tell you this, it does not depend on you. Their relationship with God, their attendance, and what they do with church does not depend on you. I know for some people it takes a while, it takes multiple invites to say, "You know what? I'm going to go." And so you might be the first invite, and you might get rejected, and that's okay. You're priming the pump and making them think about church, and making them think about God. And God is doing so much work that we cannot see in their hearts. Now you also might be the invite that they say yes to. And so just know that, be at peace, pray about it, and say, "God, give me the words to say and help me to be okay as I invite this person to church." But I want you to pull that card out, fill that out, and drop it in the bucket in the back. And if you are, have already done it, do it again. We want to keep seeing those names, okay? If you're like, "Hey, I did this two weeks ago." That's okay, still do it, fill it out, drop it in the back. Well, I'm looking forward to next week, I'm looking forward to what God is going to do in the series in our church, and what he's going to do on Easter and beyond. So looking forward to next week as Pastor Chris is going to share more about the mission and vision of Spring Valley. Hope you guys will join us for that. And again, stay after for that membership class right after.

So just pray with me this morning. God, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the church that you have given us. It is a gift that we have people that we can walk through life with, that we have a community that we can share in our belief in, and have common faith in you that you are the thing that unites us, that gives us life, that gives us love and grace to have on other people. God, thank you for how the church can support each other. I know that so many in this room feel the love from other people in this room who have gone through a hard time and other people in this church have prayed for them, have supported them, walked alongside them. God, I pray for those of us who are in a time right now, you would help us to be vulnerable and say, "Church, I need you." God, I pray that you would help those of us who have the capacity to be there for other people to live with the sacrificial love that says, "You know what? I was going to do this, but I'm going to go be there for this person. I'm going to show up." And God, I pray that you would put on all of our hearts an understanding of how important and vital it is to belong to a church. And I pray that you would help us in our belonging here at Spring Valley Church. Give you all the glory and all the praise. We pray this in your son's name. Amen.

Colossians: Part 5

Colossians: Part 5 - Living Faith Where It Matters Most

Colossians 3:18-4:6

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are wrapping up our Colossians series, so we have been walking through Colossians from chapter one all the way through chapter four. And so we are finishing that up today. And it has been a really powerful series as we dove into this book of Colossians, into this letter from the Apostle Paul, and really kind of got to see how Paul shares who Jesus is and how He's above everything. And throughout the book, starting all the way in chapter one, he's been teaching us and reminding us how we can live a life that is worthy of the Lord. He gives really clear theological arguments for who Christ is, that He is the Son of God, that He did come in bodily form, that He did die and rise again, that He is who He says He was, and then because of that, we should live our life differently. He goes on to say that Christ is our life. He is everything. He gives us a new identity. He takes off the old and puts on the new. He just outlines this so well throughout the passage. But really, because of this, because of who Christ is, and because we are transformed and have this new identity, the natural progression is that our lives, our everyday lives, would be changed. Our behaviors, our attitudes, our actions, our words. Everything is impacted by Jesus. I shared a quote on the first Sunday of our Colossians series. I wanted to share it again because I think it's really powerful, but it also just really applies to how we're going to wrap up the series today. It's from the guys at the Bible Project. It says, "No part of human existence remains untouched by the loving and liberating rule of Jesus. We're invited to live in the present as if the new creation arrived when Jesus rose from the dead. With Jesus, no part of the human existence remains untouched." No part is untouched. This means that we are completely made new. No part of us is exempt. We don't get to just kind of pick and choose what parts are impacted. Or maybe what certain parts we'd like to change. Every aspect of our lives is put under the authority of Jesus Christ. I said in week one that a person can encounter Jesus, and when they do, they will never be the same in some shape or form. Even if they choose not to follow Jesus, they will be impacted in some way. They won't be the same. But when a person is truly transformed by Jesus, everything is different. Everything changes. What we read, the content we consume, the food we consume, the relationships we have, who we surround ourselves with and allow to influence us, how we take care of our health, how we spend our money, how we treat other people. Everything is impacted and needs to be submitted to the authority of Jesus.

Now here's the thing. Jesus isn't just trying to be a fun killer, and as soon as you decide to follow Jesus, you have to get rid of everything you love. That's not the point. But if you are actively surrendering every aspect of your life to Jesus, some things will stay. Some things will have to change in some shape or form, and some things will have to go. Maybe forever if they're a sin issue or something the Lord has convicted you on, but maybe it's just for a season. But when you are living the surrendered life, He's going to make it clear to you of what can stay, go, or be changed. But it all, everything has to be surrendered to the Lord. And that is easier said than done. Honestly, it's an ongoing process. There's times when we are in a new season or we're in a new part of life or something new comes up for us. Maybe we have new information or we learn something new from the Bible and the Holy Spirit convicts us on something and we have to re-surrender. We submit it to Him and say, "Jesus, what do You say about this thing? How can I surrender this? What do You want me to do with this thing? Is this okay for me? Do I need to change it or do I need to let it go?" Paul spends a lot of time talking about who Christ is. And then because of that, how we as individuals are changed. And just to kind of recap some of the things we talked about, he talks about how we should grow in our knowledge and wisdom and understanding. That we should allow the Holy Spirit to produce good fruit in us. That we should grow our roots deeper into good soil of the truth of who Jesus is so that we can be strong in that. That we should build our lives on the truth of God's Word so that we can stand firm when false teachers or other ideologies that go against the Bible come up against us. And we should remember that Jesus is enough, period. He is enough for our life, for our salvation, to sustain us. He is our very life. All of these things are good and necessary for us to live a life worthy of the Lord. But then Paul gets a little bit more practical in chapter three, as we saw last week. He said that we should put to death our old selves and put on this new identity. Get rid of the old self, the sin that is mixed up with that, and put on this new identity. We should clothe ourselves with the characteristics of Jesus. And we should live in holy community, in Christian community with other believers. These are just some really practical things that Paul is saying, "You can do this because you have been made new. These are the steps you can take.”

So we're picking up in chapter three, verse 18, and Paul moves into even more specific and practical things. He's gonna talk about relationships and how even those must be surrendered to the authority of Jesus. So today we're gonna talk about everyone's favorite topic, submission. Everyone loves the idea of submission, right? We love the idea of learning how we can be better about submitting to someone else. But really with this passage, Paul is kind of overhauling the family. He's overhauling the dynamics of the home and family, and then also the workplace. He's teaching us and showing us how the authority and love of Jesus should impact these relationships. In the first century, the readers who were originally reading this, they understood and believed that the man was over everything. The man was the head of the house. He was the head politically. He was the head socially. He had full control and authority over his household. Everyone just submitted to him because that's what you did. And Paul is going to flip the script, not in taking authority away from the men, but in how they behave with that authority. He's gonna turn some things upside down for these first century Christians, but in the upside down kingdom of God, relationships should look different than the world. It would be a problem if they all look the same. So Paul is reshaping the Roman household and the Christian household around Jesus who rules with this self-giving love. He leads and has authority differently than human authority typically operates. Some of these things that we're gonna talk about to our modern day ears may not actually sound very revolutionary. We have progressed in civil rights and human rights, and we have learned how to treat people differently in our Western culture. So they may not seem crazy to hear, but I think it's still a good reminder because just because we know something doesn't mean we always live it out. And so it helps us to remember to shape or reshape our relationships here and now around the rule and authority of Jesus.

So first, he starts with the husband and wife relationship. We're gonna be in chapter three, starting in verse 18. We'll have it on the screens, but if you want to turn there with us. Verse 18 says, "Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord." Little caveat here. This is not all women to all men. This is specific to the husband-wife relationship. This says, "Wives, submit to your husband." Okay? Just wanted to just make that clear. So wives, submit to your husbands. We are called as wives to submit to the husband. But here's the thing. The word in Greek here is referencing, it's similar to a military term, that is referencing to be under in rank. This is not talking about value. It's talking about position. A soldier could have more ability. They could be stronger or more intelligent than their superior officer, but that doesn't change their rank. They still have value as a human being. They still have value in their abilities, but they still have a certain position. And that is under the authority of their higher ranking officer. So in this case, Paul is not lowering the value of wives. He is saying you have a particular position to take. This is your position. Genesis 2 references this idea. And when God made Adam, he said, "You need a helper." None of the animals or anything else in creation was suitable for him. So God said, "You need a helper." Well, this word helper, it's the word "easer." E-Z-E-R. And the only other times, besides in Genesis 2, as far as I understand, the only other times that is used in the Bible is in reference to military, when they would come to help or support the nation, or referencing God himself, that he is the helper, the "easer" of Israel. That God is the helper of his people. So to me, to reference the wife as an "easer" shows strength. It shows stability. It shows support. This is not lowering a wife's value. It is giving her value. It is just putting her in the proper position. It also, this idea that Paul shares, it connotates a willing or a voluntary submission. This wife is allowing her husband to be in rank over her. She is submitting to his authority voluntarily. She is allowing him to rule over her in this marriage relationship. In the verse it also says, "As is fitting to the Lord." So this is not, this "as is fitting to the Lord" can be a little confusing of what this actually refers to. Well, it is not referring to an absolute submission as we submit absolutely to God. It is not the same. We don't say, "Well, I'm going to submit, or wives should submit to your husbands as you would submit to the Lord." It is not the same. It is not this complete absolute submission. It is also on the flip side, not a caveat for wives that says, "Well, if you are fitting to the Lord, husband, then I'll submit to you. If you are doing what is right in the Lord's eyes, then I will submit." It is saying that wives should submit because it is fitting to the Lord. It's part of our duty as Christian wives to operate in this way. It's one way that we as wives can live out our lives worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we do this, it honors God. God is not a God of chaos, but of order. And he has created order in the marriage relationship. So it honors him and it honors the order of authority he has placed in our lives. Really, submission is, this idea here is more about submitting to Christ than it is about submitting to your husband. You submit to your husband in order to also show how you submit to Christ. And it honors God when we do that.

So then Paul goes on and addresses husbands in the next verse. He says, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them." So wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives. The word here is agapeo, for love. You may have even heard a different form of it called agape. This love is a specific type of, we have the word love for just about everything. I love tacos, I love my husband, I love my children, I love this show. We kind of just use the word love interchangeably. But in scripture, we see different types of love. And this one, one commentary states that agape can be defined as a sacrificial, giving, absorbing love. The word has little to do with emotion and has much to do with self-denial for the sake of another. This love is a sacrificial love that gives without expecting in return. A person who has agape gives because they love. Now, Paul is not lessening, again, he's not lessening the husband in any way, or lowering his value, or softening him. I think a lot of times we connect like lovey-dovey or feelings or emotion with like a soft man. He is not softening the husband. In fact, I would say the husband has a greater obligation put on his shoulders because of this charge to love his wife. He is called to put her first, to put her needs above his own, even to his own self-denial. It also, in the definition, it said an absorbing kind of love. I picture that when life's hardships and things come at you, at your marriage, the husband is the one on the front line absorbing the hits. That's the sacrificial kind of love. But that takes a strong man, someone who is surrendered to the Lord in order to love in that kind of way. He's calling husbands to love your wives as Jesus loves his kids. It is not self-serving. It is sacrificial. It is absorbing in the sense of you take on, you take the hits. It is, brings care. So husband, or wives, submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives.

And then he goes on to the parent-child relationship. Verse 20 says, "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged." Now, Paul is affirming that children should obey their parents because children, especially those who have already surrendered their lives to Jesus, they are capable of also living lives worthy of the Lord. And so this is part of that, is living in obedience to their parents. But he also addresses the parents. He says, fathers, or fathers and mothers, do not discourage your children. Parenting is one of the most refining things I have ever experienced. It is wonderful and beautiful, but it is also refining. Because when you parent these tiny humans that look and acts like you, it shines a magnifying glass on your own life. And it is not all pretty, unfortunately. So Paul is admonishing parents and he is saying, don't discourage your children by being too rigid or too overbearing. By being too controlling. Care for them. Expect obedience. Require respect. That is all good. That is all part of parenting. But don't be so harsh with them that you discourage them. That you make them bitter. So children, obey. Parents, don't discourage. My translation is, kids, if you live under your parents' roof, you need to obey them. Parents, don't be jerks. That is the Lawrence Nader translation. Honestly, this was pretty radical. Again, in this first century world, because children were just kind of along for the ride. No one was really concerned about hurting their feelings, or if they were discouraged or not. Kids just did what the parents said. The parents had the, really the father, but the parents had the final say. But Paul is saying, look, these are human beings made in the image of God. They have needs and desires and preferences just like you. So as a parent, as we are growing, helping these kids grow, and we are discipling them towards following Jesus. Again, we do require respect and obedience, but we do it in a way that is loving and caring, and points them to Jesus rather than brings them discouragement, or distress, or bitterness. Because that can impact your relationship. That could impact their relationship with Jesus. We care for them, again, just like Jesus would want us to, and how He cares for us.

So then the final relationship in this section is the relationship between slave and master. It's actually the longest part of this section, if you look at the different relationships here. It's actually the longest part, and I feel like in the first century there wasn't a plethora, nobody was typing up these letters, right? So if they took this much time to write out some words and use this much ink and paper, it's something we need to pay attention to. We're going to look at verse 22. "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, and do it not only when their eye is on you, and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism." So what does this have to do with us modern readers? Because slavery is illegal, it still exists, but slavery is illegal, we don't have slaves anymore in our homes. So what does this mean for us? Well, we can look at it in comparison to our jobs, to our workplaces. Even if you maybe volunteer, if you are a stay-at-home parent or retired and you do some volunteer work, you can even look at it in that regard. If you are an employee or under someone's authority in some type of workplace situation, this applies to you. The first part is really talking about integrity. We actually just discussed integrity at Youth Group this last week, and I asked the students to define, or tell me how they would define integrity, and they said, "It's doing what's right even when no one is watching." And they're right. It's doing what's right regardless if anyone sees you or not. We are called to be good workers. We are called to be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us, even when no one sees it. So worker, operate with integrity. We may have bosses or superiors, managers over us at work, but everything we do must be done unto the Lord. He is the one we're working for. We do have humans that we serve or work under, but He is the one we're working for. So instead of trudging along through your day or seeing how early you can dip out, you're watching the clock go by, instead we're called to work to our best, do our best and work to the best of our ability because we're called to live and work with integrity.

Again, verse 23 and 24 says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." It says, "You will receive an inheritance from the Lord." Slaves did not receive inheritances. So what is Paul talking about here? Well, another translation says, "You will receive the inheritance from the Lord." He's talking about an eternal reward, that when our work and our jobs are surrendered to the authority of Jesus and we are operating with integrity, there is an eternal reward waiting for us. Now, let's be completely honest. I don't know if an eternal reward is going to be enough motivation on a Monday when you're walking in and you're ready to go home before you've had your first cup of coffee. But knowing that we have this eternal reward with Jesus when we live a life worthy of Him, it helps us to do better work. It helps us to work with integrity. It helps us to remember to work for Him. That when we surrender our work, we can do everything as if He's literally sitting right there. We work for Him.

Then in a really weird chapter division, we jump to chapter 4 where Paul finishes his thought on this topic of relationships. So chapter 4 verse 1 says, "Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a master in heaven." Bosses, employers, supervisors, managers, owners, any one of you that has authority over others, this part, they're talking to you. So authorities, do what is right and fair. You also in your role are being called up. You are being called to submit in this position. You're called to do what is right and fair. Right in the last verse, Paul said, "Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism." Yes, he is referring to the slaves or the workers that he just referenced in the previous section, but this also applies to the masters that he's talking to. God does not show favoritism just because you have a higher rank or more authority. You also must live in submission. In the Kingdom of God, last week we learned that there is no Jew or Greek slave or free. I've heard it said, "The ground is even at the foot of the cross." The ground is even at the foot of the cross. When we are living a surrendered life and we are submitting ourselves to Jesus at the foot of the cross, we're all on even ground there. So if you have a position of authority in your workplace, in your home, in whatever space of life, don't abuse that. Do what is right. Do what is fair. Because you serve one who has more authority than you. We, again, we work unto the Lord. So even in our work as the authority figure, it should also be done unto the Lord. It should also be submitted to him.

Well, with these verses, Paul has really flipped everything. He's flipped the script for these first century Christians. And he's challenged them to live differently, to surrender these relationships. But then Paul's not done. In true Paul fashion, he has more words. It's kind of like throughout Colossians, he's worked in concentric circles. He started at the middle, our internal transformation, and then he went out to the closest relationships, our family relationships, and then he moved out to the workplace.

And now he's finally going to talk about the churches, the church relationships, and beyond. So Colossians 4, verse 2 says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful, and pray for us too that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Paul tells the Colossian church, "Keep praying, be watchful, be thankful." So church, pray, watch, thank. This is our call too. We are called to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ, for those that we live in community with here at Spring Valley and in our greater Christian community here. But we're also called to pray for the global church, for the spread of the gospel worldwide, and for those that are doing the work of spreading the gospel. Pray for your pastors, pray for ministry leaders, pray for missionaries. Pray that the gospel would continue to spread. He says to watch. As followers of Jesus, we have to be on guard. We are in an information world. We have all the information we could ever want at our fingertips. But that also means that we have to be on guard against false teachers, against untruths or half-truths, against blatant lies from the enemy, against ideologies that are nowhere near what scripture says. We have to be watchful to be on guard against this. And then Paul tells us to give thanks, always coming back to thanks. He says, "Be thankful. Constantly give thanks." He says this over and over and over again because he knows it changes us. It changes our hearts, our minds, our perspectives. So we should always be giving thanks, regardless of our circumstances, because of who God is, His sovereignty, His provision, His love, His transforming work in our lives. And then he finishes with the final circle, the outsiders, the ones who have not joined the family of God yet. He says, "Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." We're called to be gracious and careful with our words so that we can continually point people to Jesus, to show them His love and grace, that in the everyday stuff of life, we're making the most of every opportunity.

Christ is above everything, and we have a responsibility to tell the world about it. Y'all have cards on your seats. We want you to take these cards, put someone's name on there that you want to invite to Easter, put their name on it twice, you're gonna put it on the top, and you keep that part to pray for them, and then you rip off the bottom, you can drop it in the back when you leave so that we can pray for the same person. That you would not only have the opportunity, but then you would have the courage to take it. That you would take this opportunity and make the most of it. 'Cause we get to go tell the world that He is above everything. He's above our past, He's above our failures, He's above our current circumstances. Nothing is left untouched by the transforming work of Jesus. We get to go into all the world. We get to tell others what He has done for us, so that all may know Him and His greatness. We're gonna head into a time of prayer, as Andrei said earlier. The band's gonna come up, and they're gonna play a song. You are welcome to stay in your seats and worship and pray where you are, but Andrei and I are gonna be up here. We are just gonna be available to pray with you. If you have something you want to pray about, or be prayed over, or maybe a praise, we would love to do that for you.

But before we head into this time of prayer, I just want to read you a group of scriptures that I think really exemplifies the idea of Christ above everything. You'll recognize some of the scripture from our Colossians series, but there's also passages from Philippians and Ephesians as well. And I felt like it was an appropriate way to end our series, to keep our eyes on the one who is above all things. So as I read this, I invite you to close your eyes and make this your prayer as you listen to these words of scripture. "We pray that the eyes of your understanding will be enlightened, that you may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us, word, who believe. And according to His might, the working of His power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and He set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places. He's far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in the world that is to come. And God has put all things under His feet and given Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness which filleth all in all, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by Him were all things created, whether in heaven, whether they're on earth, whether they're visible or invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things. And through Him, all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who was the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell. And wherefore God hath also highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Colossians: Part 4

Colossians: Part 4 - A New Way to Live

Colossians 3:1-17

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I'm excited to be here with you guys today. We are gonna be continuing in our Colossians series, as you just saw on the video. The series we've titled, Call it Christ Above Everything. And this series has really been something I've enjoyed. I hope you guys have too, of just journeying together verse by verse through Paul's letter to the church at Colossae. And today we're gonna be diving into, if you wanna turn, tip, tap, flip, page, I talk for a living, it's okay, don't worry about it. To Colossians chapter three this morning. And anybody else in here enjoy like cop or like spy TV shows or movies? Anybody? Yeah? I love me some cop TV shows, especially like the NCIS, Oh, So Good, or the FBI series. I'm so sad they took away extra FBI series or just down to the original. But I love these shows. And there's always this point in the show at some time that the person has to go undercover, right? They have to go undercover and sometimes it's planned and they have a long runway up to that moment of going undercover. So they get a packet that tells them who they are going undercover, right? And it tells them their backstory. It tells them what they're doing, their role in this position, what the police, the investigators are trying to figure out, whether it's a criminal organization or they're trying to figure out where the drugs are coming from or who murdered who or some like some mob boss or something. And those just fascinate me because there's like a whole backstory. Sometimes this is like on the fly and a guy gets like three hours notice that he's going under, they gotta do a backstory, they gotta put him maybe onto a website with a story so that whoever finds him and meets him, they do a quick Google search on him. They know that he is who he says he is. But people are trying to memorize these facts and these people like sometimes, I remember I think the show called "Chuck" and he would go undercover, but he would like mess everything up and he would just kind of like play it off. And it was hilarious. You guys were watching the show "Chuck", it was so good.

So the thing I wanna talk to you about today is what if you woke up tomorrow morning and you had a completely new identity? Like I'm talking about, you got a new name, you have a new house, a new address, a new job, a new family, a new life. You're not living in Plaster County, Rocklin Roseville, Sacramento. You're not there anymore. You're just, you wake up some other place and you have a completely new identity. What would you be thinking? I would be freaking out, that's a great point. I would be freaking out. I would be like, how did I get here? What is going on? Where's my wife and kids? Like that's what the questions I would be asking. And it's crazy to think that when these people, they go undercover and they do this stuff, there's always that drama of they get so deep undercover, they forget who they were before on the outside and they have to make the hard choice of do they commit the crime to save the cover? Or do they not? Is the bigger part of catching the mob boss worth whatever crime they're about to commit? And there's this tension there that they have of their old self versus their new self. And I wanna dig in here. Paul is talking about this a little bit, kinda. He's not setting up a cop show to the Church of Colossae. But he's going into talking about an identity crisis that we face as followers of Christ. And so read along with me, it's gonna be on the screen.

We're gonna start in Colossians 3, verse one, it says this. It said, "Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above heaven where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life," remember that part, we're gonna come back to that, "Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, which is idolatry, because of these, the wrath of God is coming. But you used to walk in these ways," Paul says. You used to live like this, you used to act like this, "in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language on your lips. Do not lie to one another," Paul says, "since you have taken off your old self in its practices and you have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge and the image of its creator. Here, there, there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Sicilian, slave, or free, but Christ is in all and is in all. Therefore," it's like one sentence that feels like, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, y'all, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with," what? "Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bear with each other and forgive one another. And any of you who has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, since as members of one body, you are called to peace and to be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly, as you teach and admonish one another all wisdom through psalms, hymns, songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or in deed, do it all in the name of Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Whew, it's a lot. We're gonna unpack that in a second here.

But here's what Paul is saying. Here's a quick summary. Here's your AI summarization of the last 17 verses. It says this, it says, "You who has accepted Christ, it transforms us completely. Your old self is gone and your new life is here now. So leave your sin behind, put on the ways as God's chosen people and live in unity with profound deep hearts of gratitude." That's where we're going today. I wanna unpack that for us.

But starting this first section in verse one through four, it says, "Since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory." What's Paul saying here? Paul is saying, "Since you have accepted Jesus Christ into your life, you have taken that step of faith, you have asked him to come into you, then you are to set your things and heart and mind and soul on things above, heavenly things, not this stuff that's going on down here on earth." Because the reality is that you died in that moment. I don't know if it's explained to you when you accepted Jesus, you actually died. You are no longer who you were before. Your life is safe and hidden with God. And who's gonna appear in glory someday. But the key truth here is that Christ is not just in your life. I think we get this mixed up sometimes. It's really easy to do. We don't think about Christ as just in our life. What does Paul say? Christ is your life. The old is already dead, the new is already here. You have been given a completely new identity. It says right there, Colossians 3:4, Christ who is your life. We are to set our focus on the new. That is our priority. We are to set our focus on the new. What do you mean by new? Well, it says right there in Colossians 3:4, “Christ who is your life.” Christ who is your life. Not Christ kind of fits into my life. Christ kind of comes in and is kind of like melted ice cream and kind of fills all the nooks and crannies and just comes in and fills us up full. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have been given a completely new identity. I love what this other translation in Colossians 3:4 says. It says your old life is dead. Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life, even through invisible, even though invisible to spectators, 'cause nobody around us can see really that change, right? It's a God change. Is with Christ in God, he is your life.

Let me ask you a question. Who or what is your life? If you were to have somebody ask you this this afternoon, maybe you're sitting, having lunch with somebody, and somebody said, "Who or what is your life?" What would you say? I think for me, I would probably say, well, I'm a dad. I'm a pastor. I'm a senior pastor here at Spring Valley Church. If I haven't met you, great to meet you. My name is Chris. I have a wife of 18 years. She affirms that. I did the math right. It's not in my notes. I didn't write it down. That's a tricky path to walk. I'm a dad to four kids, Adelyn, Elliet, Oakland, and Iliyah. I have friends in the area. I have friends who live in Nashville. I have a friend who lives in Idaho. I have extended family, kinda in Indiana, and Oklahoma, and Kansas. That's pretty much I would say summarizes my life. I like to barbecue. I play music. I'm the go-to tech guy in the area sometimes. People come to me, try to fix stuff. Nothing's certified, so I can't guarantee any results. But what is your identity? Or in whom do you have your identity?

Because do we truly believe these words of Paul that says that our old life is dead, it's gone, it's kaput, it's toast, it's smashed, it's extinct, it's croaked, it's kicked the bucket, it's six feet under, and we have a new real life. And that life is in Christ. That's the real deal. You have become a completely new person. But Paul is writing this because the reality is people in the church in Colossae, people in the church, Big C Church, people maybe even here at Spring Valley Church, have accepted Christ, but they're not living the way that life, that God has called us to. Verse five, put to death therefore. So if you've been raised in Christ, you have new life in Christ, you have a new identity, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, which is idolatry, because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways. You used to do it. That was your old life, your dead life. You used to walk in these ways, in the life that you once lived, but you now must also rid yourselves of such things as these. Anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to one another, since you have taken off your old self in his practices. Jesus says that we are to put on a new identity. But some of us haven't stopped living our old one. And it keeps showing up in our lives. And we get surprised when all of a sudden, we find ourselves in the midst of sin. And we think, how did I get here? Paul says to get rid of sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, idolatry, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy talk, and lying. We are to put on Jesus. Paul says you used to live like this, but you don't anymore. We are to put the old self to death. We're supposed to put it to death. That doesn't mean we just keep it around when we get bored, or kind of dabble near it. No, you're supposed to put it to death. And it says in verse nine that because we're not putting to death, we are lying to ourselves and to others. I don't like this. Right? I don't like this.

There was a fifth century theologian and desert father called John Cassian, and he was known for his teachings on the inner heart. And he has this quote I want to share. It says, "It is not an external enemy we dread. Our foe is shut up within ourselves, and internal warfare is daily waged by us." John Cassian and other desert fathers had a story they used to tell of a moment they had somebody within their church community who was struggling with lust. And they say, we'll call him Brother Jim. Brother Jim came to them and said, "I need you guys who are my pastors. I need you guys to pray for me so I can overcome this sin that is just so on top of me. It feels like I can't escape from it. I can't run away from it. I can't find freedom from it. I can't proclaim victory over in my life. I continue to struggle with this." And so John Cassian and the other desert fathers, as they were known, prayed for this man, and he continued to struggle day in and day out. And he went before God and he prayed, and he's like, "God, why is this happening to my brother? How can this continue to happen? I have prayed for him. Other people have prayed for him. So many people are praying for him." And yet he continues to struggle in this sin, and the Lord gave him a vision in this moment of Jim sitting there. And there was an angel there with him, and the problem was that Jim was sitting there right next to lust and was playing with it, poking at it, messing with it. And the angel just had this look of just distraught sadness on its face. And he was talking to God, he said, "God, what is happening here?" He says, "The reason that Jim has not been able to overcome lust is because he continues to play with it." And that even though I've sent an angel there to help him overcome this struggle and this sin, he continues to dabble, be around it, play with it, and he is not throwing himself upon God. This is a pretty powerful story because I think for us, there's people in here that are playing with sin. And we do sometimes like to categorize it as, "I'm just being attacked by the enemy." "It's just who I am." "It's just something that I'll just have to live with for my whole life." But the reality is that that's your old self, and we have to put that to death.

We have to stop playing around with sin. "Well, well, well, well, pastor, you know, I'm just not as bad as that guy." Jesus doesn't call us to compare to other people. Jesus calls us to compare our lives to the Bible. That's the only standard, God's word. "Well, you, it just, I'm not hurting anybody." "It's not that big of a deal." You might not have any immediate ramifications of it, but that's a lie just straight from the devil. Let's just be honest. Let's just call it what it is. Because the reality is, yes, you actually are hurting yourself. You're hurting your marriage if you're married. You're hurting your family. You're hurting your friendships. You're hurting your kids. There is no way that you can sow bad seed into your life and expect to have good fruit from it. We've been talking about in the Christian-ish series about abiding to be the branch, right? God, Jesus is divine. We are the branch. We are to be the branch. Pastor Lauren has preached about abiding and being in the presence of Jesus to see and to judge people by their fruit. You cannot sow bad seed and expect good fruit. But what happens? We're sowing bad seed, and then all of a sudden we wake up in our lives, and it's just chaos, and there's all this bad fruit around us, and we go, "How did we get here? How did this happen?" I'll tell you. You've been sowing bad seed. I'm sorry. I love you enough to tell you. That's what's happening. We're playing with sin. It's mandatory that we step into the life that God has already done and actively put the old self away.

This is not optional. I'm sorry. It's not optional. There's no, "Ah, I feel like it today, and maybe tomorrow I won't." Or, "Oh, it's Sunday. Okay, put my Jesus on. I'm going to church. Here we are. Hey, everybody." And then we get home, and we just take Jesus off and throw him in the dirty clothes hamper, right? And then wait for our spouse to wash it and put it away for us. Oh, did I go there? We have to put our sin away. But when we put our sin away, what do we do then? Paul talks about that. Verse 10, he says, "You have to put on, then, the new self." And we've got that scripture here. We've got to put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised, uncertified, barbarian, sissy, slave, or free. But Christ is all and is in all. Therefore, another therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. And patience. As God's chosen people. You guys. That's who you are. This is where you come into the story. This is your part of the story. Holy and dearly loved. Did you know that? You are called to holiness and that you are dearly loved by your heavenly Father. Clothed yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Bear with each other and forgive, just as the Lord forgave you. And above all, put on what? Love. Put on love that binds everything together in perfect unity.

Some of us got some clothing struggles going on. We got some wardrobe malfunctions happening in our lives. That's okay. It's okay. It's okay because Jesus has already taken care of this. So I can tell you, maybe you got a clothing malfunction going on, okay? It's all right. It's all right. Jesus is here to fix that, okay? Jesus is coming in with all the good stuff needed to fix that. What do I mean by wardrobe malfunction? Here's what I'm saying. I'm saying some of us were probably, maybe, I don't know, putting on some Jesus on Sunday morning, right? We're coming here. We're worshiping God. Maybe we're raising our hands, being a little vulnerable, saying, "Hey, I'm worshiping you, Jesus." But then we go out that door. We get in our car. We drive home. And then at the end of the night, we take off Jesus and put on our PJs. But we're not clothing ourselves anymore. That was my Sunday shirt. That was my Jesus Sunday shirt. I got to get some comfies on this afternoon. Anybody love putting comfies on after church on Sunday? Oh, I love it. So good. We're big PJ people in our house. That's just kind of the state of life that we're in with 4 kids 12 and down. PJ time. Everybody loves PJ time. Some of us, we're doing that in our lives. We put on Jesus, and then just like a dirty shirt, we take it off and we cast it away. But Jesus is saying, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have a new identity." That isn't something, Jesus just isn't something you just put on. But Jesus is calling us to put on our new nature in God. It's a new identity. We are to put on our new nature in Jesus. That's our calling. That's what we're here to do. That's our number one priority is to put our sin to death and to put on Jesus. This new perfect nature of God is what we wear.

Paul is saying here, you're going to take these old clothes of your old self and you need to throw them away. You need to completely get rid of them. I think some of us were holding on to an old t-shirt in the back of our closet because it was comfy at some time before Jesus. And we keep walking by it in our closet and we keep seeing it and we keep going, "Wow, that might be cool to put that t-shirt back on." But Jesus is saying, "No, no, no, no, no. Throw it away." And maybe some of us, we've thrown it away and it's gone, but then we're like, "Oh, man, I remember that old t-shirt I had. I wonder if they still sell that at the store." And so we go to the store and we just start browsing. We're just kind of flipping through the rack, just kind of, "I'm not doing anything." Just seeing what's out there. Scrolling Facebook. Maybe we're looking at stuff on Amazon. Kind of got that wish list you don't want anybody to know about. You're like, "I'm not buying anything. It might be in my cart. It might be just saved for later in my cart, but I'm not buying anything." But what happens? Keep flirting with it and flirting with it and flirting with it. And all of a sudden, it's in our cart and we purchase it. And in two seconds, it shows up at our door, it seems like now, right? Prime's like, "Here's your delivery." I was like, "I haven't even checked out." "We knew you were going to. We saw you. We were tracking your fingers and your eyes." It would be really creepy, but I think they are. I don't know. Sorry. All of a sudden, we find ourselves and we have that shirt again. And we're like, "Do I put it on? No. No. I'm going to fold it, put it back in my closet." Some of us got some sin, new with tags, chilling in our closet that we need to get rid of in our lives. We need to put that to death because that's not who we are anymore. That's not who we are. We have a new identity.

We have a new calling. Your calling is to be God's chosen, holy, dearly loved people. But there's something even greater at play right here. And I love that Paul doesn't stop there because I think sometimes we stop there in our walk in faith. We go, "Okay, I pray to Jesus. I accept Him. My sins are gone. I'm not going to sin. I'm just going to live my life for Jesus by myself." But there's something greater here at play. Paul says this in verse 15. He said, "Let the peace of Christ now rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace and to be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, through psalms, hymns, songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or in deed, whether you're saying it or you're doing it, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

Not only are we called to a new self and a new identity, we are called to a new community. Paul says here, as Christians, we are called to be part of a community, aka the church. And you're called to be members of one body. Here's the reality. Most of the current research and data and everything they're doing about church engagement and participation and attendance, it is at an all-time historical low. There has been a constant, slow, downward trend since probably the 50s or 60s. That was the peak, at least in the States. Okay, we're just thinking United States here, okay? I'm not saying what's happened, God's moving around the world. It's powerful and it's amazing. But I'm saying within the United States, there has been a downward trend. And most research right now, there's research that just came out, I think, the beginning, the early February 2016 this year, that says the average church attender attends church two times a month. The average church attender is in church two times a month. And I think there might be some numbers there of the Bible Belt, that area kind of in the middle of the United States, who is very committed and they're in church every single week and weekends and midweek and Thursday nights and Wednesdays and Tuesdays and Friday afternoons. I don't know how they do it. They're there like living in the church. And us on the coast, we probably might be a little bit less. Let's just be honest. But Paul says we are called to one body. It's extremely difficult to function as a full body half the time. I guarantee you, if you all of a sudden had something of your body only working half the time, you'd be going either to the emergency room or you're calling your doctor for a Monday morning appointment. Amen? Right? You've got to move your arm and it's just like, well, that was, I moved it last time. This time it's just not going to move. Well, I guess I'm going to stand here because I used my steps up already today and here's the end of my steps. Or your vision. Can you imagine half the time you can't see or can't hear? Can't breathe? Or your heartbeat? Okay, now we're talking some serious stuff, right? So think about that. It's extremely difficult to function if we're only in a community half of the time. Paul says we are called to a community, a body, members of one body. You and I are called to live in a specific manner as a community and as a family. I'm talking about this is a full-time job, not a part-time job.

Paul says you're called to peace, to let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. You are called to be thankful. You are called to let the message of Christ live richly among you. So how do we do that? Well, I'm glad you asked. Paul says right here in Scripture, straight and simple and easy. It's so easy I can say. He says to be to teach each other about God. To teach each other about God and to encourage one another. When we put a weekend service together, our Sunday morning service, the number one thing that we think about and try to process through is we want whoever walks in these doors to be encouraged, to be taught the word of Jesus and to be lifted up and to be sent back out into the world. That is our number one thing that we think about. Paul also says that we are to sing songs and hymns and songs of the Spirit. You ever wonder why you sing in church? Here it is. Right? See, the reality is that we don't just choose these songs flippantly. We don't have a giant randomizer and just hit a button and bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop. Oh, here's our three songs for Sunday. Every single song that we sing is actually put through a test of theology, of message, of truth, of who God is, what is happening. The words that we sing are deeply vetted.

Well, what do you mean by that? Well, here. You want to hear what you already sung this morning? You're here with worship with us today? Here's what we sung about. We sung about giving thanks to the Lord. Didn't Paul just say that? Right? Give thanks to the Lord. I didn't put that set list before I wrote that note. Okay? God put the set list together on my heart and then he helped me write the sermon and it lines up. It's beautiful. I love when God does this. We sung about God's nature, how it is love that endures forever. How God saved us, how he brought us from mourning to dancing. That we are here to praise the Lord together. How Jesus paid all of our debt of sin. That we were stained as crimson. Remember that song? Jesus paid it all. Stained as crimson. Now we are white as snow. Our sin has been washed away. How we are to live a new life in him. Hey, that's in here too. Right? That the battles in life we face, what has happened? God has already overcome and brought victory. How we hope in God for today, even in the midst of chaos. How we let God's peace outlast the darkness of this word. How God will provide for us no matter what comes in our life. Jesus is our savior. Jesus is our defense. And because of that, we don't have to be afraid of anything. The battle has already been won in Jesus. Amen? I don't know about you, but if I just had that read to me every single Sunday, I am pumped up, ready to go. Right? I haven't even finished my coffee today. This is amazing. I love this. This is why we're here. We now live together in unity and gratitude. Amen? Isn't this awesome? This is why we're here. This is why God has called us here. In our vision, to see our community saturated with really cool things. No, to see our community saturated with just happiness. No, to see our community saturated with the glory of God.

And how do we do that? We have to invite people in. And that's why you had that card when you came in. We had this challenge last year around Easter. We're going to have this challenge again this year. And for the next few weeks, you're going to have a card on your seat when you come in. And this is what we want you to do. We want you to begin to pray about an opportunity to invite somebody Easter Sunday. Easter and Christmas, the two biggest days of the year. The biggest days that non-believers, people who are just in either general spirituality, might be seeking, might be completely disinterested, might have just nothing going on, but they think all of a sudden in their mind, "I should go to church." Each of us has somebody in our lives that we can invite for Easter. Are they going to come? Maybe. But we love to have them. And so the little card here is really cool. What we want you guys to do is there's two lines, okay? There's two lines and there's like a dotted line. The top solid line, we want you to write that name down, okay? And then the bottom one down here, we want you to write that same name as above. "Well, why am I writing it down twice?" I'm so glad you asked because here's what's going to happen. "Oh, no. Mine's not perforated." What we want you to do, I hope yours is, write down the name twice and then you're going to do this. Tear it. You're going to tear it off. And what you're going to do is you're going to take this name and we're going to have some ushers back by the doors, we're going to have some buckets, and we want you to take the bottom section and drop it in that bucket. But we want you to keep this top section, okay? We want you to keep this top section because we want you to put it somewhere where every single day you can pray about this name. And what we're going to do is every single day we're going to pray for this name. As a staff and as a prayer team, we're going to take time and pray for this name. So they're getting prayer from you and they're getting prayer from us. Isn't that really cool? Everybody's getting prayer. So we want you to write down a name because the reality is every single one of us has somebody we can invite to Easter, right? Someone that has a neighbor, a friend, a coworker, a family member, somebody in our lives that needs to hear the message of Jesus. And we're going to share the message of Jesus on Easter because that's what we're celebrating on Easter. But we want you to begin to think about that. "Well, I don't have a name right now, Chris." That's okay. Don't worry about it. Take the card home and keep praying about it. Put that somewhere. You're going to see it every single day. And you go, "Jesus, who do I need to write down? What if I have multiple names?" Okay, wait until most people leave. Then go grab another card. Don't steal your neighbors, okay? Everybody needs to have one card. But grab another card. Write down another name. We love to pray for multiple names. How amazing would it be that come Easter Sunday morning, you've been praying about it, the Holy Spirit's been moving, God's been doing incredible things in their lives, and you get to bring a friend to church with you today. How amazing would that be? This place would be packed. We'd have to pull out more seats. It would be awesome. It would be fantastic. But what if we all brought somebody new to church on Easter? Maybe they're a Christian. Maybe they're not a Christian. I don't know. Jesus knows. He's taking care of it. But what if we did that together?

Because here's the reality. We are a new community that Christ has put together for all of us to do life together in the name of profound thankfulness. We put the unity in holy community. Okay, there's a little old school pastor, "We put the unity in holy community!" All right? It probably is not fully theologically sound, but it rhymes, so I went with it. But now you're going to remember it as you go. That is what we are about. It says, "Whatever you do, when word are due, do all in the name of Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

So put it all together. Because Christ, who is our life, right? The oldest dead. We now live as new identity, as God's chosen people, dressed in His character, loving one another in unity, and giving thanks in everything that happens in our life. That's what Paul is saying. And so, besides the Easter invite card, I have a challenge for you today. Okay? My challenge for you is to pick one area of this and work on it this week. Okay? What does that look like? Well, maybe you need to just start focusing on your new identity in Christ. Right? Maybe you have a sin in your life that needs to be put to death. It needs to be killed. It's a bad weed. Take some holy Roundup. Just get rid of it. Maybe you need a virtue that you need to start putting on in your life. Maybe you need a little more compassion. Maybe you need a little patience. Oh, do I sin! Maybe you need to have some steps towards unity in your life and your relationships. Maybe somebody in here, you need to have a conversation. You need to ask for forgiveness for something in here. You say, "I'm really sorry I did that. That's not right. God calls us to live in unity, to forgive one another, and I'm sorry. I need some forgiveness. Will you forgive me?" And I want you to act on this before next Sunday. That desert father, that fifth century monk, the guy I was talking about, John Cassian, he actually talks about, and he was the first to kind of set up the thought and the teaching among the idea of, when you remove something with your life, you need to replace it with something. Because if you just try to remove something from your life, there's just a hole there. And it's so easy for that thing that you just removed to come back in and fill that hole. So if you're thinking about, "I need to remove something from my life. I need to fill it with Jesus." You need to put Jesus into that place. I really, really, really hope that you guys today have heard that you have a new identity. That you are dearly and deeply loved. That Jesus has a new life for you to live. That you have to put this old stuff. Is it scary? Is it awkward? Is it weird? Yeah, it is. Because you've been living in it for so long, that's all that you know, right? And to step into something new can be kind of scary. Because it's different. You don't know all the ins and outs. You know all the ins and outs of that old life, right? Just step into that new life. And I hope that you guys have heard that we want this place to be a place of great unity and gratitude. We want this church on the corner of Sunset and Fairway in a tiny little business building in the back corner. It has a funny sign on the corner. That there is community there. There is love. There is patience. There is no judgment if you come in here and you're new. You're welcomed into the family. If you're first Sunday here, welcome to the family. This is a place where you can belong. This is a place where you can be encouraged and strengthened and built up. Because we want to be this kind of person that Paul is reminding us that Jesus calls us to. Not Paul. Jesus calls us to this. And we are to put the unity in community.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you, God, for who you are, for your word, for your just everything, God. Lord, help us to put this old self to death. Help us to put on our new identity. Help us to stop playing with sin maybe in our lives, God. To put on the virtues that you say, not just on a Sunday morning, but to put them on in our lives for real, permanent, forever, for all time. God, may we step into life with you and God, may we be a community that is a light in this world. A community that doesn't gossip about people like most do. That doesn't hurt people like most do. That doesn't stab people in the back like most do. God, we are a different community and the world is hurting and searching for that. So God, I pray that we think about these cards and these names, Jesus, that we would invite somebody to step into this community, into this life, into this world, into this relationship with you, Jesus. We thank you. We praise you. We love you. Everybody said, "Amen."

Colossians: Part 3

Colossians: Part 3 - Rooted, Built Up, Secure

Colossians 2:6-15

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Happy to be here with you all. Thank you for being here with us and for worshiping with us today. We are in Colossians. If you haven't been with us or didn't remember, we are in the book of Colossians. We're on week three of this series and it has been such a rich book to walk through together and I love the theology that Paul brings to us and the topics we get to cover. And really, just as a reminder that Jesus is above everything. He's the center of everything. He is all we need. And so the first week we really talked, we kind of laid the groundwork and we talked about praying for knowledge and wisdom and understanding through the Holy Spirit so that we can look like Jesus, so that we can live a life worthy of Jesus. And then last week, Pastor Andre talked about how Jesus is enough. He is all we need. Sure. There are other things he has given us that are good and for our benefit. The word of God, the body of Christ, the other believers, the church, prayer, communication with God. Those are all good and needed, but none of those are needed for salvation. It is only Jesus. And beyond that, he is the creator and sustainer of everything. And so we can know and walk in the truth that he is enough.

Well, today we're going to be moving in to chapter two of Colossians, and we're going to talk about what is needed for spiritual maturity. What do we need to grow in our faith? When we all choose to follow Jesus, regardless of our actual age, we start as spiritual babies. We are fresh and new and learning. But you don't want to stay in that infancy stage. You want to grow and mature. You want to get deeper into the faith and have a more mature relationship with God. So what do we need in order to grow and mature? Well, we're going to talk about that today, but first I want to show you something. I brought my plant. This is my pride and joy of my indoor plants, as I got it all tangled up. For those that don't know me well, I'm a recovering plant killer, a recovering black thumb. And so the fact that this is what it is, is amazing to me. Several weeks ago, Pastor Chris was talking about abiding in Christ, and he used the analogy of gardening and how we had gotten into gardening the last couple of years. And in his kindness, he said that I was the better gardener of the two. Now I'm not going to stand up here and tell you that your pastor is a liar, but I have to disagree with that statement. Because I'm not good at it. And the reason I'm not good at it is because I'm too impatient. See he will go and he will research, he will read discussion boards, he will go find different products and then he will try them and give them time to see if they work. I'm like, I gave you soil and water and sun, just grow. What do you need from me? I already have four children, I don't need another one. Just do your thing. Right? So I'm too impatient. But this time I let it grow its roots. See I will transplant a plant from the pot you get at the store into a pot in our home and then I will just think it needs to thrive and just be amazing right away. I don't give it time for its roots to grow down deep into the soil. I'm trying to rush the process. I just want it to do its thing and be great all on its own. Well on the flip side of that, we have an heirloom rose bush in our front yard. We have some pictures of these roses. And this, we inherited these, these were already there when we moved in almost a decade ago. And these things are hearty. They are sturdy. We have to do next to nothing for these roses. They get water from the rain and maybe the occasional sprinkler. They get the sun and then Chris chops them back every so often so they don't become overgrown. But these things grow year round. They just do their thing. I have to do nothing for them. This picture, it was taken several years ago, but these pictures were taken in January. I didn't realize roses would bloom in January. I know we're not like in snow and the tundra, but the little bit I know about nature is that most plants are dormant in the winter. But the thing with these is their roots are deep and strong. They can grow and bloom and produce regardless of the storms that come, regardless of the wind and the weather. They've survived hail and freezing temperatures. They just keep doing their thing because they've matured and they've grown and they have deep roots.

So we're talking about the day. Paul talks about us needing to have deep roots for our faith. We're gonna start in Colossians 2 verse six. Then we have several verses to go through, but we're just gonna break it down a little bit at a time. Verse six says, "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness." Paul says that in order to be mature, we must be rooted and built up. Now this rooted and built up, it's kind of a mixed metaphor. He's talking about plants being rooted and built up like a building. So he kind of mixes the metaphor a little bit, but the idea here is similar. You need strong roots to grow and you need a firm, solid foundation to build upon. See, we homeschool and I've taught my children the plant cycle three times now, right? And what I've learned is when you plant a seed, the first thing that happens is not a sprout. The first thing that happens is that the roots start growing. And you can't really see it because it's under the dirt, but the roots have to grow first and grow deep and strong in order to gather the nutrients and the water in order to produce the plant. We have to have a solid foundation. A building will not last very long if it is built upon an unstable foundation. If it's cracked, if it's unlevel, if it's not created properly, it will not stand. And Paul's saying the truth has already been taught to you. You already know the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those are the soil and which to grow your roots. That is your foundation.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, "But bless is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes. Its leaves are always green and has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." It has strong roots that can go out and get the water and the nutrients that it needs. And because of that, it's not worried when there's a storm. It's not worried when there's a drought. It's strong and sturdy. In Matthew seven, Jesus says, "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house. Yet, it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock." Jesus is our rock. He is the one we build our foundation upon. And when we do this, Paul says that we will be strengthened and overflow with faithfulness. That is just the natural repercussions of having a strong foundation in deep roots. We talked about it two weeks ago, being strengthened in endurance and patience, and then overflowing with thankfulness. That even when we are going through a storm or going through a wilderness, when our roots are deep, we're getting what we need to survive that. We don't have to worry. We don't have to stress. We need strong roots and a firm foundation. After this statement, Paul goes on to address the issue, the Colossians were facing and why Christ is the answer. He is our firm foundation and He is the ground in which we grow our roots. There's a big chunk of scripture here where he explains how and why this is true and why the Colossians can know that what they believe is real. And same for us, how we can know it too.

Let's go on to verse eight. It says, "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world, rather than on Christ. For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. And in Christ, you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In Him, you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross." You want to break that down? He starts with, "Don't be taken captive by these deceptive philosophies." We explained that the Colossians were coming up against some false teachings, some false teachers who were deceiving them. They were starting with Jesus and then they were building upon it. They were adding to it. It was Jesus and Jesus plus something. And Paul's like, "Guys, deceivers are gonna deceive. They're gonna try to trick you. They can be sneaky." Because here's the thing, someone who wants to deceive you is not going to tell you that they're deceiving you, for one. And they're also not going to make it obvious. If you say murder is wrong, they're not gonna say, "Oh no, murder's right. Murder's okay. Murder's good." 'Cause you're gonna spot that a mile away. You're gonna know, "Okay, they're clearly lying and trying to deceive me." You're gonna take the truth and twist it just enough to make it untrue. Just enough to get you off course. Paul also talks about that it's by the traditions of man. Now there are traditions and there are rituals and there are practices that are good. But what Paul's saying here is they're being burdened by the traditions of man that are not coming from God. These are not things that God is asking of them to do. But they are being put on these spiritual extras that they're being told they have to fulfill in order to truly be a Christian. One of these ideas was narcissism. And at this time it was very early in narcissism, but this idea of narcissism was spiritual versus material. They could not coincide. In fact, to the point that they would teach that God was so other and spiritual that he could not even have been the one who created the earth because it's material. That he used underlings or angels or other beings to do the creating because he couldn't intersect with the material. But we know from last week that that is not true.

Paul demolished that argument in chapter one by saying that he is the creator and sustainer of all things. Paul through this chunk of scripture is demolishing the arguments and the false teachings and the philosophies that are deceiving the people. And he says, "For in Christ," in verse nine, "For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. And in Christ, you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him dwells the fullness of the deity," or Godhead in some translations. He was, Jesus fulfilled that when he came in bodily form. Again, the spiritual intersecting with the material. So it couldn't, it can't be true what they're teaching. If what they were teaching is true, then Jesus didn't actually come in bodily form, but we know that he did. He came to earth. He took on human flesh. He dwelled among us. He is the fullness, the completeness of the deity in bodily form. And because of this, because he did this, we were brought to fullness too. We are made complete in him. We're complete in him because he was full of God and fully man, because he allowed the spiritual to intersect with the material. See, if he isn't the fullness of deity in bodily form, then we can't be complete. We can't be made right. But he is, if we believe it, he is who we, well, whether we believe it or not, he is who he says he is. And so we can know that he came in human form, but he retained his divinity the whole time.

C.S. Lewis said there are three options for believing who Jesus is. He said there can't be an in-between. There can't be, oh, he was just a good person or he was just a good prophet. He said there's three options. He was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. Either he made it all up, he lied for his own gain, which if that's the case, he failed miserably. But he lied and just made up the whole thing. Or he was a lunatic and he was crazy, making all these claims about being the son of God, that he was God, he was one with the Father. So either he was a total liar or a lunatic or what he said was true and he is Lord. But there is no in-between because if he was just a good person or a good teacher, then all the outrageous claims he made, people would have written him off immediately. You can't be a good prophet or a good teacher and also make those claims. Unless they're real. So I choose to believe that he is Lord. That he is the foundation that I'm building on. That he is the good soil that I can grow my roots deep into so I can abide in him. He is above everything. Paul continues on with talking about circumcision. Lovely little practice that they had in the ancient world for the Jewish men. And this was something that was continued even into the New Testament. It's continued today. But it was specifically a Jewish practice instituted by God to represent and show that the people were set apart. They were his chosen people. The problem is the Colossians were Gentiles. They were not part of the Jewish nation. But Jewish leaders were telling them they needed to also be circumcised or else they weren't truly following Jesus. Again, these traditions of men originally instituted by God, but they were burdening the new believers. And Paul saying, hold on, that was the old covenant. We are under the new covenant with Jesus and we are complete in him. We've had a circumcision of the heart. The work of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection is our circumcision. Through his death and resurrection, our old self has been put off. Our sin nature, our old self is gone because of his work. He made us new. He's given us new life. We don't have to have all these practices that were under the old covenant in order to be made right with him because he did the work. See, before Jesus, we were dead. We were dead in our sins. But after Jesus, we are made alive with Christ. After Jesus, we are made alive with him. This transformation of our hearts is often displayed through baptism.

And Paul talks about that. He says in verse 12, having been buried with him in baptism, which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. We're made alive with Christ. So we also practice baptism as an expression of that reality. We go under the water to identify with Jesus's death and we come out of the water to identify with his resurrection into new life. Well, a side note, if you've never been baptized, that is the next natural step in your faith. If you have decided to follow Jesus, I would encourage you to let's look into that next option for you. You can write baptism on the card or shoot us an email and we would love to talk to you about that. Because baptism, it is showing that we identify with Jesus, that we are no longer dead in our sins, but we are alive with Christ.

Verse 14, he says, having canceled our charges of legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. Our trespasses are written out against us like a legal indictment of crimes committed or an invoice of debt owed. Our sins racked up a debt that we could not pay. We couldn't save ourselves because the reality is we can't live perfectly enough in order to earn our salvation, in order to earn our righteousness in the presence of God. We can't do that. And so the only other option is death. We pay the punishment through death, which means eternal separation from God. Neither of those options sound good to me. And Jesus said, no, that's not how it's gonna go down. I'm gonna pay the debt. I will be the one. Have you ever pulled up to a drive-through window and the person standing there says, it's already been paid. The person in front of you paid for your order. I love hearing those kinds of stories. The person who just got their order paid for did nothing to earn that. They just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But the cashier said, you owe zero. Your balance is now zero because the person in front of you paid for it. That is what Jesus did for us on a much grander scale. He didn't want to spend eternity without us. He didn't want us to stay dead in our sin. He knew he was the only option. So our sins were nailed to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made us, oh, sorry, I got it again in the head. Sorry, I saw it on the screen. It threw me off. It got me ahead. Our sins were nailed to the cross. Just like Jesus' charges were nailed to the cross above his head. See, when they practice crucifixion, they would write out the charges against the criminal and nail it above their head. But the thing is, Jesus didn't actually commit any crimes. He was perfect. So he took on our sins and he said, nail me to the cross instead. The words used in this passage regarding our sins means completely wiped out. Our balance is zero because of what he did on the cross.

Okay, now, Colossians 2:15. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Through his death and resurrection, he disarmed the principalities and authorities of this world. See Paul already said in verse nine that he is the head over every power and authority, but now he disarmed them. He already ruled them, but now he disarmed them. See Paul often uses military language in his writings. And he mentioned in verse eight about being taken, don't be taken captive. Kind of that idea of being captive in a battle. Don't be taken captive because we are in a spiritual war. Our souls are in a spiritual war. As we said, don't be taken captive. And now he's explaining that the enemy has been disarmed. Praise Jesus. Jesus has triumphed over them. This idea of him triumphing over them. It would have brought pictures to the mind of the original readers of a procession or parade of the victorious army going through the streets, putting their enemies to shame by parading through the streets and announcing their victory. That's what Jesus did on the cross. He disarmed them and triumphed over them.

Isaiah 54:17 says, no weapon forged against you will prevail and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. And this is their vindication from me, declares the Lord. They no longer have the weapons to use against us. They have tactics like fear and discouragement and lies. That's why Paul tells us to put on the armor of God so we can stand against the devil's schemes. But we know how it ends. No weapon formed against us can remain. We already have victory because Jesus conquered death and set us free. He has given that victory to us. He put them to public shame and he did it with the cross. The cross is a symbol of torture and death, but he took that symbol and in the upside down kingdom of God, he made it a symbol of victory. And it is a reminder for us who followed Jesus that we too are triumphant and set free. This, this truth that Paul laid out for us, this is how and where we grow our roots. This is the foundation that we build upon. If you are a newer believer, keep growing those roots. Get in the word, stay in community, grow your roots deeper into the good soil of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember that he is your foundation. And if you are a more mature believer, if you have followed Jesus for a long time, don't stop growing. The bigger the tree, the stronger the roots need to be. So keep growing, keep building on that foundation, but then go the next step. Find another believer who needs your guidance or your help. Walk alongside them, invite them to coffee. Talk to them, be willing to share your faith journey as they are learning and growing themselves.

And if you've never chosen to follow Jesus, maybe today's that day. Maybe you've even been walking the walk for a long time. You've been in church, you've had a Bible, you've prayed, but you've never actually surrendered your heart and life to the Lord. I'm gonna pray a prayer for us today. It'll be on the screens, but I'm gonna pray it out loud. If you've never surrendered your heart to Jesus, and you wanna do that today, pray this prayer along with me in your own heart and mind. Father in heaven, I know that I have lived for myself instead of you. I have sinned against you, but I believe Jesus died for my sin. So I confess my sin and I ask you to forgive me. I bow to you as Lord and leader of my life. Help me to live for you from this day forward. In Jesus' name, amen. If you made that commitment for the first time today, we would love to talk to you and hear from you. We wanna encourage you and resource you, help you have what you need to grow your roots deeper.

Colossians: Part 2

Colossians: Part 2 - Jesus is Enough

Colossians 1:15-23

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing our Colossians series today. Pastor Lauren kicked us off last week with week one in a sermon called "Life Worthy of the Lord." If you haven't listened to it yet, I would encourage you to go back. We're going to continue today. I want to start off with a question for you guys. How many of you like to cook? Raise your hand if you are okay. Now, I've asked this question. A lot of people have conversations about cooking and I find there's a spectrum, right? There's some of us that like to follow a recipe to the tee. You bring out your recipe. Maybe you have done what some professional chefs say is the most important thing, which is to read through all of it first, not as you go along, but to read through it all at the beginning. You're prepared. You're leveling off every tablespoon. It's very exact. Then maybe on the other side of the spectrum, for those who like to cook, are those who, shall we say, are more creative and just want to ad lib? The pan is your canvas and you're the artist and you're just grabbing whatever and you're like, "That looks good, sounds good." And maybe you're somewhere in between, wherever that is.

My dad was kind of more the latter. He was our pancake guy every weekend. He made pancakes and that's pretty straightforward. He just made great pancakes. But every once in a while, he'd make scrambled eggs. And when we came down for scrambled eggs, we knew that we would never get the same scrambled eggs ever. And they were good. I don't want to say like, they were good, but we knew that if we come down and he'd be making scrambled eggs and the spice drawer was open and we're like, "All right, we don't know what he's added." And he might not know what he's added because he just kind of was like, "Yeah, sure." And self-admitted, he would say this himself, there were a few times that there were more spice than eggs and you'd take a bite and maybe there was a crunch, a lot of crunching. And we're like, "Dad, what'd you add?" And he's like, "Yeah, I'm not sure." It's open and it's over there. "Oh, nutmeg, really, nutmeg." And just a little pizzazz.

But yeah, a few times, I don't know if you've had that experience where maybe you've had a dish, you've eaten something and there's a lot, maybe you ordered something and you're like, "Man, I really wanted this, but I'm getting all this other stuff. And I'm not even tasting what I really wanted to taste." Or maybe you did it to yourself or maybe you ordered something and they did it to you and you're like, "Man, that chef just got carried away." But this happens in other areas of life too besides food, right? Maybe technology, maybe some of us are like, "Man, I just wanted a TV and I just want to turn it on and I want to be able to hit channel and scroll. But now I have to go to this app, to this app, and that app, and I have to push in this." And it's too much. It's too much. It's a lot. It also happens maybe in social conversations where you are engaging with someone in conversation and they just seem to force, like you walk away from that conversation, you're like, "Man, that was a lot of heavy stuff. And I wasn't signed up for like a big heavy conversation right now and we just got forced into going deep." Or maybe it's the other way where you're like, "Hey, I did want to talk about some real stuff and all they seemed to talk about was lighthearted weather and we never got to talk about anything real.”

It can also happen in our spiritual lives where we can happen in our Christian faith where we're trying to add too much to our faith, our understanding of faith. We try to add too much to the gospel. We try to add too much on how to get to heaven, how to live out the Christian life. And we can run the risk of going off course in our beliefs and getting away from what's truly needed and what's true to the gospel. And so the point, to the point where we believe in like the gospel and, we believe in the gospel and this and that. Where our faith and our faith practices might have started with the Bible, but we've added a bunch around it and proclaimed that all these other things are just as essential, just as important as the gospel.

As Pastor Lorne mentioned last week, this is some of what's happening in the church, in the early church, especially in Coliseum, where Paul was in prison and he heard a report about false teaching from this city. And people were saying, "Hey, Jesus was good and the gospel that he taught was good, but that's just the start. We need to add some other things to it. It's not enough." And they were saying that basically Jesus isn't enough. And we have to understand at this time in ancient culture, it was a very polytheistic view, right? Polytheism, the worship of many gods. We are monotheistic, the worship of one god. But embracing polytheism is what helped the Roman Empire spread and to have such a strong empire. As they were conquered different nations, they didn't say, "Hey, you got to get rid of your religion." They would say, "Hey, you can keep your religion. You just got to add our Roman gods to who you worship, especially Caesar." And then people are like, "Okay, that's fine. Well, we've already got a bunch of gods. We'll add a few more. That's fantastic." And so it just helped them spread. So the culture at the time was very polytheistic.

And even in our modern world today, we have people with similar tendencies who just kind of gather everything that's out there and just accumulate different beliefs and worship practices and styles. I was having a conversation sometime last year at this point and met a guy and just kind of casually mentioned that I was a pastor. And he was like, "Oh, I believe in God." And things can get squirrely when you mention that you're a pastor. And when they say they believe in God, I'm always kind of like, "Okay, well, I don't know what God. And let's see what you're talking about." So there's some follow-up questions. And come to find out, he did believe in his words, "Some of the Bible." So I was like, "Oh, okay, some of the Bible. You're familiar with the Bible." But I'm also Wiccan. And I also have these, I really like these Buddhist practices. And I was like, "Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I'm starting to understand." And again, just like it's the gospel and, right, this and a bunch of other stuff. Maybe you know some people who claim to believe in God, but once you get below the surface and you see who they worship or how they worship, your mind is, the flags are going off of like, "This isn't exactly what the Bible says. It's not aligned with the gospel." And so this is the situation that Paul is hearing. He's in prison, but he's heard that this is happening. And even from the church leaders, it wasn't just in the city, it was the church leaders who were sharing this. And he's like, "We gotta address this. This has gotta stop." They were saying the person and work of Jesus isn't enough. And it was like they were in the kitchen and they're at church and they're just like, "Yeah, we'll start here, but we're gonna add this. We're gonna add this.”

And so let's read what Paul says in response to that. If you guys want to turn in your Bibles to Colossians 1, it'll be in verse 15. It'll be up on the screen. Chapter 1, verse 15 through 23. It reads, "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in His sight without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel, this is the gospel that you have heard that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.”

You guys pray with me one more time. God, thank You for Your Word. What a gift to know the truth. And God, I pray that You would speak to us this morning, God, that we would know You in a deeper way, come to understand You and who You are and what You do. And I pray that we would leave this morning with a deeper faith, a stronger faith, and a deeper appreciation for the work that You have done on the cross and that You are doing in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. And God, I pray for everyone in this room. And I just sense that there's a lot on people's hearts and minds, and we all come with a certain burden. And I pray that You would help us right now to lay that before You, to surrender that to You, God, to trust You with whatever it is that we're going through, and to recognize that You are God over all, and that Jesus, You are enough. So I pray this in Your holy name. Amen.

Paul's point is that Jesus is enough. Nothing needs to, and really nothing can be, added to the person and work of Christ. As the Lord over all creation, He is more than enough for every believer. And this morning, I want to go verse by verse and dive deeper into Paul's response to what is happening in the early church. And again, a theme, I can't, if you only take one thing away, Jesus is enough. And I love how it continues this thread that we've had in our church over the last several months and several series of having Sundays where we just focus in on who God is or who Christ is. We've done this in our Advent series and our Christian-ish series, and now in our Colossians series, where we just get to have a Sunday where we just get to better know who God is and come to a deeper appreciation and knowledge where we can give Him more of our lives and worship Him in a deeper way. So that's going to be our morning today. The first thing we see in our section here is Jesus' work as creator and sustainer. Jesus' work as creator and sustainer. In these verses, Paul begins addressing the polytheism at the time. And he tells us that God not only created what no other God could do, but He also sustains His work. It counters this thought that we, you might have heard today, where God, maybe people might say like God might have created the world, but then He just stepped away from it. He hasn't been in touch with it since. And this says, no, He created and He sustains. He holds it all together.

Verse 15, it says, "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." That first phrase, "the image of the invisible God," this is garden language. What I mean by that is the Garden of Eden. The very beginning of the Bible, we hear that man was woman and man were created in God's image. And so this is again, bringing us back to tying this all in. Paul's trying to paint this whole picture in firstborn. It says, "the firstborn over all creation." This does not mean that Jesus was the first thing created. I think some people can read that and misinterpret that as like, "Oh, so God was there, then He created Jesus." No, not what he is saying. The firstborn in ancient culture was the one who had inherited the power and everything that the father had, the firstborn also had that privilege. And so that's the image that Paul is trying to convey here. It speaks to Jesus's sovereignty and supremacy over creation. He is the new and better Adam, the one with no sin, who has a perfect and harmonious relationship with God. And so he reigns over all creation.

Verse 16 says, "For in Him, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him." So Paul is saying that Jesus was there at creation. He was there creating. And all of creation glorified Him because He created it all. The physical, the spiritual, the visible, the invisible, the natural and the supernatural, Jesus is over it all. Everything and everyone is subject to His authority and power. Now, this doesn't mean that we don't live in a world of sin. We do it. And it doesn't mean that Jesus is controlling everything like a puppeteer. That's not. We have free will in this world. People can and do deny God, reject God, rebel against God every moment of every day. But Paul is simply stating that Jesus reigns over it all and nothing and no one is outside His power and rule.

Verse 17 says, "He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together." This is, I think, one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible and my favorite verse in Colossians. "In Him, all things hold together." I just think of the news headlines that we hear so often. How often do we hear things like, "The rainforest is going to be gone in 15 years." Or, "The glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, ecosystems are collapsing, pollution is killing our oceans." It's very like the world is just falling apart. Now, don't get me wrong. All those are concerning and deeply like that's, I don't know how all that works. I just know that it's bad. And as Christians, I think we should care about the environment. We are partners with God to rule and reign over creation. We are partners with Him. So I do love hearing positive headlines about that where someone's created helpful ways to clean up the oceans or how deserts that have been expanding and the sands are just getting wider and wider and how people have started to be able to figure out how to plant things in the desert and reclaim. That's incredible. I love that. But whatever the headline, concern is a healthy response. But concern doesn't need to grow to hopelessness or doom and gloom demeanor because we believe that Jesus is holding all things together. That means He's actively, ongoingly, continuously holding our world together, working through humanity, but also supernaturally in ways that we cannot see. He is holding this world together. And that doesn't just mean the physical world, things that we, the world that we live in, but the world leaders and the powers that be, religious cults or terrorist groups that are hell-bent on hurting others for a better world, to the angry people in our neighborhoods who are so divisive on next door, you know, sometimes I wonder how this world hasn't fallen apart more and how there isn't more chaos and how people haven't succumbed more to the sin and selfishness that runs rampant in our society. And some people would say, well, it's because there's good people out there. It's the good in us that keeps this world together. And I, maybe there's some truth to that, but I know that we're all sinners, all of us, even the best of us are sinners. And so I attribute it to the goodness and grace of God, Christ's sovereignty over the entire world, humanity too. He is holding this world together.

So I want to pause right there after this first couple of verses, this section, and seeing Christ as our creator and sustainer, I want to ask us, who is holding your world together? Who is holding your life together? Is it Jesus or is it you? Are you trying to do it all? Are you trying to white knuckle your way through this life? Are you carrying everything that is going on in your life and saying, I will figure this out, I will do it. Or do you depend on and rely on and surrender to Jesus and let him sustain you? Who is more than capable, who loves you more than anyone else, who is holding the entire world together. And so certainly he can hold your life together. So who is holding your world together right now? So we continue the next section that Paul gets into, we see Jesus' work on the cross. In these verses, we see that Christ is the leader of the church and it is only in and through him that the body of Christ, the church, can mature and develop and grow.

Verse 18 says, "And he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy." So it mentions the head of the church. This is an analogy that the Bible uses, Jesus taught on it, Paul teaches on it. We think of the church as a physical body. Some of us are an arm or a leg or a tendon, a ligament, an elbow, whatever it may be. Paul is saying Jesus is the head. He is the most important part. And he is affirming, and it says that he is also in the beginning and the firstborn of the dead. Paul is affirming here, sorry, the resurrection of Christ. Because some didn't think that he actually died, and so he's saying no, he did die. And he's affirming that Christ died and rose. And he's sharing the hope that we as Christians have in Christ's resurrection. As we share in Christ's death, he dies the death that we deserve. We will not be defeated by death at the end of our time here on earth. Our physical bodies will die, but we know that we will have eternal life with God in heaven. And Jesus is the first one to go through that and then ascend into heaven. And so that's the firstborn. He's the first one to do it. He paves the way, and we get to follow him.

Verse 19 says, "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him." God was fully present in Christ. Christ was fully God and fully man. And Paul helps connect in the people's minds the realization and fulfillment of what God had been doing with Israel for centuries upon centuries. I think this is so fascinating. In the Old Testament, God dwelled in the tabernacle. So Israel was in Egypt. God brought them out of Egypt and brings them to the wilderness. And in the ancient times, people thought that all deities lived in the high places. So mountaintops were often associated with like up on that mountain. That's where this God dwells. And so God, Yahweh, brings Israel out to the desert, into the wilderness, and gathers them. And then he's up on the mountain, Mount Sinai. And he talks with Moses for a bit. He met them on the mountain. But God didn't stay on the mountain. He goes down and he makes plans to dwell with his people. This is one of the biggest indicators to Israel at the time that this God is different. This God doesn't stay up on the mountain away from us. This God comes and dwells with us. So he instructed Israel to build a tabernacle, which is a tent temple. So eventually they were going to have the temple, but they were in the wilderness. They weren't in the promised land yet. So he's like, "Hey, until we get there, build a tent for me. I'll come down and I'll dwell in this tent." So God came down and filled the tabernacle with his glory as a sign of his presence among the people. And the prophet Isaiah interprets this cloud that fills the tent as the Holy Spirit. Now, does this sound familiar to our reality today? This act was God's gracious act of friendship to Israel. And it's the same gracious act of friendship to us today. Jesus is the fulfillment of what God had been doing for centuries, embodied in flesh, incarnate.As John chapter 1, verse 14 says, "The word became flesh and dwelt among us." So Jesus came down to dwell with humanity like never before. They had had a taste of it in the Old Testament with God in the tabernacle, but now Jesus had come down in person. And why? Why did he do this?

Verse 20, "So through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross." He did this to reconcile us to God, to offer opportunity for a restored relationship with God, to how it was before sin entered the world. Theologian John Barry says, "The purpose of Christ's death on the cross was to bring all things created by Christ and for Christ into harmonious relationship." I love that, harmonious relationship. Because the entire world was touched by sin, marred by sin, affected by sin, every part from us as humanity to the ground that we walk on. And Christ came to redeem and to restore. And it's only through Christ's sacrifice that there is hope. Only through his blood on the cross, like that hymn that maybe you're familiar with, only through the blood. It's only through Christ's sacrifice on the cross that we can have a relationship with God. Only through Christ and Christ alone that we can live a life to the fullest and have hope of eternal life. Christ died so that we can live in harmony with God.

So I just want to ask this question right now, as we reflect on these verses and why Christ came and the possible harmony that we can have with God. Are you, right now in life, as you reflect on where you're at, what's going on, are you living in harmony with God? Do you live realizing that Christ died on the cross for you? That you might have a harmonious relationship with God? That your only hope is in the work of the cross. Nothing else on this earth, as good as it sounds, as helpful as it may appear, nothing can save you but Christ. His death equals your salvation. It's the only way. It's the only way to live a harmonious life. And so are you living in harmony with God? Paul continues. In the last section of our passage this morning, we see Jesus' transformational work in us. So we've seen him as creator and sustainer. We've seen what he did on the cross. And now Paul goes into what he does in our lives. Paul addresses the past, present, and future for believers. Past is our former reality, our sinful life. He addresses our present, which is our ongoing rescue. And he addresses the future, our hope of heaven. All of creation, humanity included, awaits the consummation of Christ's work when there is no more sin in the world, when Christ returns again. But until then, we wait with hope and we live for him. If believers, if we are to be presented as holy and blameless and above reproach, then we must continue to be stable and steadfast in our faith.

So Paul says in verse 21, "Once you were alienated from God and you were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior." Right? This is everyone's reality. We are sinners. And just as Adam and Eve were cast out from the garden because of their sin, we are born into a reality without harmonious relationship with God. So how do we gain that necessary right standing with God again? Well, it's through Christ and only Christ, verse 22. "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation." I keep saying this, but it's worth repeating. Christ's work on the cross has done it all. There is nothing else needed, nothing to be added to get us into heaven, to get us into have a relationship with God. Christ is sufficient. And I don't mean that in the, like, he's fine. Like, it's okay. It's just enough. Like that negative connotation of sufficient. I mean, he is supremely sufficient. Jesus is enough. He is more than enough. Paul mentions here Christ's physical body. And again, this is Paul's way of just addressing some rumors out there at the time that Jesus didn't have a physical body. So what he endured and what he did wasn't all that special. But we know that Christ was fully God, fully man, had a physical body. And so he endured the pain, the torture, the suffering, and he died a gruesome, cruel death. And he did this to present you holy in the sight of God without blemish and free from accusation. Jesus did this so that the reality mentioned in verse 21, us lacking a harmonious relationship with God, could be flipped, could be undone. And that way, we don't have to remain banished from God's presence, but we can enjoy intimacy and personal relationship with God, the Lord of all. And again, what Christ did on the cross is the only thing that can change that status, our status with God. That phrase, free from accusation, is because as sinners, when God looks at us, all he sees is our sin. As great of a life as you can live, all he sees when he looks at you is your sin. But once we are saved, that means that Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is now dwelling in us. And so when God looks at us, he sees the perfection of Christ, blameless, holy, free from accusation. And because of Christ, we are then able to be in his presence.

Verse 23 says, "If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel." Paul is addressing the crossroads that the church in Colossae is at. With what they're doing, the practices that they're involved with, he's charging them to continue to trust Christ and live out the gospel message. It's that live out the gospel message and how you live your life. Every part of it must honor and worship God. They have to stop observing and practicing the different rules and traditions which threaten to lead them away from Jesus. He's saying that Jesus, or he's saying that faith in Christ isn't simply a way of entering God's kingdom, it's the way of life within the kingdom. Let me repeat that. Paul is saying that faith in Christ isn't simply a way of entering God's kingdom, it's the way of life within the kingdom. This is so important. This means faith in Christ doesn't just change where we go after we die, it changes how we live now. The way we live our life today should be changed because of Christ dwelling in us.

So I want to ask this final question. What crossroads are you at in life? What is the spirit calling you away from in order to pursue God fully? I don't know what other spiritual practices and habits or religions that you may have come from or are with right now. We all had different upbringings and grew up in different scenarios and so I think at this point in life we've been in touch with several other faith traditions. I think Paul is asking us just to hold everything up to the gospel and say, "Does this, whatever you're doing in life, does it align with what the gospel says?" And if you haven't taken the time to kind of assess what you do and how you live out your faith, I would encourage you to do that this week. What does your faith practice look like? Yes, you go to church, maybe you pray, but maybe there's some other things that are woven in there, or maybe some thoughts of when things get tough or whatever it is, and I tend to think this, hold that all up to the gospel and say, "Is this what Christ demands of me and how I live my life?" The gospel tells us what it means to follow Jesus. The gospel tells us what it means to be saved. The gospel tells us who Jesus is and that he is enough. As we close, I just want to say that we pastors are here for you, and we want to walk alongside you as we all walk together towards God. And our prayer is that God is working in each and every one of you to grow in your knowledge and faith in him, that we know better through time how he is the creator and sustainer of this world, of the world that we live in, that we know better his work on the cross and all that truly happened from his death and resurrection, and we know better through his spirit, the transformational work that happens in our hearts, and that we would all come to a place where we know and believe and live out of faith where Christ is enough and that Christ is over everything. I pray that that would be true for us, that we would know that deeply this week.

Would you guys pray with me? God, pray that your word would be a swift word passing from our ears to our hearts and from our hearts to our words and our actions, that we may be transformed to be more like Christ inside and out. And so as the rains don't return empty but yield life, we pray that your word would do the same and not return empty, but do what it was given for, which is to produce Christ-like life within us and from us. God, I pray that you would this week reveal to us ways in which we are not living in step with you. And God, that you would give us the courage and the strength to repent of things we need to repent from, that you would give us insight and wisdom on how to chase you and pursue you with everything that we have. And God, I pray for those of us who are dealing with doubt, that we don't know for sure if you are enough, that you would reassure us, give us the faith to believe and live every day knowing that you are enough, you are more than enough. Strengthen us, God, through your Holy Spirit. Give us what we need, that we would depend on you daily. We love you, God. We pray this in your name. Amen.

Colossians: Part 1

Colossians: Part 1 - A Life Worthy of the Lord

Colossians 1:1-14

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are going to be in the book of Colossians, which I'm very excited about. I don't think I've actually had the opportunity to begin a series. So I'm happy to be here with you today and get to kick off a new series with you. So Colossians is a beautiful book. It's in the New Testament. It is a letter to one of the churches that Paul writes. And it is just so rich with theology and with learning more about who God is and how we respond to that and what our lives look like after learning more about Jesus. And so I really am just excited for us to learn and grow and kind of see how we as a church body, a Spring Valley church, and individually grow our faith deeper through this series. So we just finished our Christian-ish series. That was how we kicked off the year. And you know, that one was like a hurt so good kind of series. It really pushed us, I think, and I think it was really necessary. But that one was a little bit more about how we get off the fence, the importance of going all in on Jesus, of not having a lukewarm faith. And so Colossians is a little bit more about how we then go deeper. So we've said yes to Jesus. We've gone all in. Now, how do we go deeper with Him and in our relationship with Him? We really want to learn how to grow those roots deeper.

So I want to give us a little bit of background information on the book of Colossians for those that maybe don't know or aren't familiar. But it is, as I said, it is a letter written from the Apostle Paul to the church in Colossae. Now, side note, some people say Coloss, some people say Colossae, some people say Colossae. I have no idea what the actual way of saying it is, but we're going to say Colossae today, okay? So just so you have a heads up, there's three of us preaching on this same book, so we might say a little bit differently. But I'm going to say Colossae just for some continuity here. But Paul actually never met the church in Colossae. Typically, his other books, he was writing to the churches that he began. He started them, he went on several missionary journeys and he started multiple churches. But he didn't actually start the church in Colossae. And so there was a man named Epaphras who was a Colossian, and it's believed that he went to Ephesus. Ephesus is a place where Paul started a church, it's where we get the book of Ephesians. And it's believed that Epaphras heard Paul preaching in Ephesus and then took the gospel back and started a church in Colossae. So here we find that Epaphras has gone to Rome and is giving Paul an update on the church. Now, why Rome? Well, Paul is in prison in Rome. He is currently in prison because he is proclaiming that Jesus is the risen Lord and the Romans don't like it. So he is in prison for the gospel. But that doesn't let him stop, that doesn't stop him, he doesn't let it stop him from encouraging the church worldwide. So Epaphras brings the news to Paul that the church is growing, but they are having some struggles.

And so Paul writes to them, and Paul is encouraged to hear that the gospel is spreading throughout Colossae, but, you know, worldwide. And so that is encouraging to him as he is suffering in chains for the gospel. But he also really wants to respond to the issues of their day. And so the book of Colossians is really Paul, first of all, encouraging them to address the cultural problems that they are facing. It's a little unsure of what specifically the problems were, but one of the prevailing theories was that there was false prophets teaching and preaching things that were against the true gospel. They were tempting the Colossians to turn away from what they knew by preaching a false gospel. So Paul encourages them to address this issue head on. And then the second thing he does is he challenges them to a greater level of devotion to Jesus. And really these things are interconnected, because when we are coming against the cultural issues of our day, when we are standing firm on the truth of the gospel and not letting it tempt us to turn away from it, we will naturally grow deeper in our faith. And then as we grow deeper in our faith and we become stronger, we are more equipped to continue to stand firm against the issues we face and the temptations that come against us. So these are really interconnected ideas. As we will see throughout the book and this series, Christ, Paul acknowledges and says over and over again how Christ is the center of everything. He's the reason for everything. He's above everything. And when a person encounters Jesus, they do not leave the same way. Now, let me be clear. A person can encounter Jesus and choose to keep living the same way. They can choose to not leave a life of sin or allow their encounter to transform them. But when they encounter Jesus, there is an invitation to live differently. And so the person who does choose to be transformed, to be changed by the gospel, will be marked by a different way of living. They will turn from their sin. They will respond to life situations differently. They will show up in the world as a changed person because they encountered Jesus and chose to let him transform their hearts.

There's a popular resource called The Bible Project. I encourage you look it up. Us as a staff use it a lot to learn more about the Bible and books of the Bible specifically. But they have kind of a, they described the big idea of Colossians, and I thought it was really helpful. So I want to read it for us today. No part of human existence remains untouched by the loving, liberating rule of the risen Jesus. We are invited to live a new creation life here and now because the new creation began arriving when Jesus rose from the dead. So even now, even here on earth in our broken and hurting world, we can live as a new creation. Because for those of us who are in Christ, who have decided to follow Jesus, who have allowed him into our lives and made, we've made him Lord of our life. We are a new creation right now. Yes, the new heaven and the new earth is coming, but even now we can live as a new creation. That reality is available to us even now. So we're going to be in the book of Colossians for the next several weeks. But today we're just going to be on in verse or in the first chapter. We're not going to go past the first 14 verses. So we're in a park there today, but we're really going to set the groundwork for this whole series and kind of begin with the end in mind.

We want us to walk away from this series knowing Jesus better. And to see how a follower of Jesus is to live and operate in the world once they have been transformed by the gospel. So that's where we're headed. That's where we want to go. So if you would turn with me to the book of Colossians, it's in the New Testament. It's right after Philippians, if you get to 1 Thessalonians, you've gone too far. But you can turn there in your Bibles. There's Bibles in the seats underneath. We'll have it on the screens as well. But we're just going to read right now. We're going to start in verses one through six. So read along with me. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, to God's holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. Grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God's people. The faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace. So Paul starts out by commending them for their faith and love for God's people. And he notes here in these first few verses where their faith and love come from. Verse five says the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel. It comes from their hope. Their faith and love come from hope. Specifically the hope of heaven and the hope of salvation.

These are the things, hope is the thing that bolsters our faith and love. When we have the hope of salvation because we know that Jesus died for us and rose again, that gives us hope and it bolsters our faith and love for God's people. And when we remember the hope of eternal life, the hope of heaven, that because of that gift of salvation, we get to spend eternity with Jesus, again, that's going to keep bolstering our faith and our love. So he commends them for their faith and love, but Paul knows that while their faith and love is strong, they need encouragement and they need to be challenged in the issues that they're facing. So he goes on, he shares their things for them and for what they are doing with the gospel. But then he writes a prayer. He tells them, I pray for you and I'm going to tell you what I pray about.

So let's pick up in verse nine. It says, "For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Amen.

So Paul prays for the Colossians to have knowledge and wisdom and understanding from the Spirit. Not from themselves, not from the culture around them, not from the false prophets who are trying to preach a different gospel, but from the Spirit. Knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is typically referenced as having information, and wisdom is knowing what to do with that information. So the Colossians knew the gospel. They had heard it, they had accepted it, they had started their church. They knew the gospel. So they had some knowledge, but Paul is saying, "I want you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to grow in knowledge and increase in wisdom so you know what to do with the truth that you have. You know how to stand firm against the issues of your day because of the truth you already have.”

He prays for knowledge and wisdom and understanding from the Spirit so that... I love these little connectors. They're all throughout the Bible. You have "therefore," you have "so that," you have "if/then." All of these things are a literary device to get your attention to know that something else is happening. So it helps me anyways to pay a little bit more attention. That we're not just growing in knowledge and wisdom and understanding for the sake of knowing more things, but there's a reason. So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way. That's the goal. That is the goal of the Christian life. Once you have accepted Jesus, that's goal number one, but then the next one is to live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way. So what is every way?

Well, thankfully, Paul gave us a list. He said, "Bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father." Awesome. But what does this mean? We love a list. At least for me, I like checking things off my to-do list. Am I bearing fruit? Am I growing in the knowledge of God? You know, we have a list, but we need to know what to do with this. And also, Paul's writing to the Colossians. So what does that mean for us? Something that I want us to remember as we study the book of Colossians and really as we read the Bible in its entirety, is I want us to remember that some scripture is descriptive. It is describing a certain situation based on a person in a place and time under certain circumstances. I think of the Israelites. God told them to go pick manna up off the ground every day to provide food for them. That is descriptive. It is describing something that happened. Please don't go pick up food off the ground and eat it. That is not for you. Okay? That scripture is not for you. Not in that way. That is a descriptive of the circumstances that they were facing in that time and place. But a lot of scripture is also prescriptive, meaning it was written for an original audience, and in this case, the Colossians. But it is also for all believers spanning space and time. And in this case, this is for us too. And the reason I know that is because Paul is talking about what the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives. And we still have the Holy Spirit today. We all have access to the Holy Spirit when we invite Him into our life. So in this case, we are looking at some prescriptive texts here that we can glean from in our Christian walk today. So the first one, "Bearing Fruit in Every Good Work.”

Pastor Chris talked last week about abiding. Abiding in the vine, who is Christ? And when we abide, we bear fruit. Now to be clear, it is the Holy Spirit bearing fruit in us. We are not the ones doing the bearing. We are not the ones doing the producing. We are the ones abiding. And by abiding, that fruit is produced in our lives. Galatians 5:22-23 talks about the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, or forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law." These are the spiritual fruit that is produced in us when we abide. And Paul is saying that one of the ways we live a life worthy of the Lord is by bearing this fruit. When we have fruit, spiritual fruit, produced in our lives, it is proof of our faith and of the work that God is doing in our hearts. But he specifically says, "Bearing fruit in every good work." Not in some good work, not in a few things, but in every good work. That is the big and the small, the seemingly important and the seemingly insignificant. The platforms and the parenting, the promotions and the walking the dog, whatever it is that we do in the big and the small, we are called to bear fruit or really allow the Holy Spirit to bear fruit in us. The second thing that Paul talks about is growing in the knowledge of God. Again, this knowledge, getting more information. This isn't just specifically knowing more facts about God.

Okay, the more we know about God, the more we study His word, He reveals Himself so much in His word. And so the more we know about God, the deeper our faith is able to grow. When you get to know a person, you're much more connected. You're closer to them. You're more related to them. You're able to feel more connected and have a deeper relationship with them. You can know facts about someone and not really know them personally. You can know facts about your favorite sports team or an athlete. Shout out Super Bowl for those who celebrate. You can know a favorite celebrity, an actress or actor or a musician. You can know all kinds of facts about them, but you don't know them. And so Paul is saying, grow in your knowledge of who God is and get to know Him. Be in conversation with Him. Read His word so that your faith can be deepened and that you can live a life worthy of Him.

Jeremiah 9:23-24 says, "This is what the Lord says. Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this, that they have the understanding to know Me, that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth. For in these I delight, declares the Lord." We are called to know God, to know His character, to know what He loves, what He delights in, what He hates, what breaks His heart. These are the things that we can know about God. We're not going to know everything, and that's a good thing. I don't want to serve a God that I can figure out, but we are called, and He desires for us to know Him. That's why He gave us His word. John 17:3 says, "Now this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." That is eternal life, is knowing Him. Seems pretty important. The third thing He says is being strengthened, specifically to endure and have patience. I don't know about y'all, but on a job interview when asked what my strengths are, I have never said endurance or patience. Maybe there's some of you out there who have. That is not me. Endurance and patience is something that many of us are weak in, that we need to be strengthened in. Why do we need endurance though? Well, Paul talks a lot about running the race, the spiritual race that we run, and it is a long road. It is not a short trip. It is a long road. And so we need endurance to stay the course, to keep going. We need patience when there are bumps in the road, when things don't go our way.

Thankfully though, it is God who strengthens us in these things. Ephesians 3:16 says, "I pray that out of His glorious riches, He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being." We don't have to white knuckle it. We don't have to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We don't have to be our own hero or our own savior. We just have to be willing to let the Spirit strengthen us. Are we sensing a theme here? That is the Spirit working in us to do these things. Finally, Paul says, "Giving joyful thanks." I really appreciate this extra adjective that he puts in there, because the reality is we can give thanks half-heartedly. "Jesus, thank you for this food. Amen." We said thanks. I think of my kids sometimes, especially when they're little, and we're trying to teach them theirs, "Hey, say thank you." They get it. They say thank you. They get it out there. But we can even say thank you and genuinely mean it without letting the gratitude transform our hearts. And so Paul is saying, "Give thanks and do it joyfully. Let it change who you are." Paul is constantly giving thanks. He starts just about every letter with some version of, "I give thanks to God every time I think of you." He's constantly thanking God for people, and then he'll often thank the people he's writing to for their efforts in spreading the gospel. And the man lived through some wild times. We were just talking about this in youth group a couple weeks ago. Of all the things that Paul went through, he was shipwrecked multiple times. He was stoned. He was bitten by a snake. He was in prison several times. He suffered a lot for the sake of the gospel, but he constantly gave thanks. And why? Why should we give joyful thanks? It's because when we are giving joyful thanks over time and consistently, it shifts our perspective. It shifts our eyes up out of our circumstances and on the one who is above all of them. And really, it expands joy in our hearts when we practice thanksgiving. And I know that when we do these things, when we are bearing fruit, when we are growing in the knowledge of God, when we are giving joyful thanks and being strengthened, this pleases the Father. So we pray for knowledge and wisdom and understanding from the Spirit. We pray that we are transformed from the inside out so that we will live differently. And we will live a life worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him in every way.

Well, after this section, Paul tells the Colossians and us as well, that the Father has qualified you to receive the inheritance of His kingdom. Colossians 1:12-14 says, "In giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light. For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." The Colossians were not Jews. They were not part of the holy nation of Israel that God had set apart in the Old Testament. They were Gentiles, just like you and I are. But thankfully, by God's grace, He invited them and us into His kingdom of light. He rescued them out of the darkness of sin and the hold that Satan had on them. He redeemed them and forgave them. And Paul is telling them, "You've already been rescued. Don't go back there. Don't listen to these false prophets that are telling you things that you know are not true, that are going against the Bible, that are going against the gospel that you heard and believed. You've already been rescued. Don't go back to the chains. Don't go back to the sin that keeps you in bondage." This idea of the dominion of darkness, this power of darkness is a sinister force. It is like combat in the spiritual realm. It is real. There is a spiritual darkness. And I don't say that we should live in fear because we have the power of the Holy Spirit in us. But it is real. And we have an enemy of our souls who wants nothing but to kill, steal, and destroy. And he does this through his power of darkness. One commentary I read this week was speaking to the effects of the power of darkness. And I thought it was really poignant, so I wanted to read it for us. It says, "The power of darkness lulls us to sleep. The power of darkness is skilled at concealment. The power of darkness afflicts and depresses man. The power of darkness can fascinate us. The power of darkness emboldens some men." It lulls us to sleep, making us believe that it's not that serious. It's sneaky. It operates in concealment and under the guise of goodness. It oppresses us by afflicting us with depression and anxiety and mental illness. Maybe even physical illness for some. It can also fascinate us. We are fascinated with things of darkness. We are fascinated with the sin thing that we can't have. And it can embolden some to believe that they can toe the line and walk with Christ while also dabbling in the darkness.

Thankfully, though, we have been rescued. We've been rescued from this power of darkness, and we no longer have to live in bondage to it. It does not control us. It is real, and there are times that we will have to fight. That's why Paul tells us to put on the armor of God. But we are not slaves to it anymore. We don't have to go back to it. Charles Spurgeon, a theologian, said, "Beloved, we still are tempted by Satan, but we are not under his power. We have to fight with him, but we are not his slaves. He is not our king. He has no rights over us. We do not obey him. We will not listen to his temptations." By God's grace, we are no longer bound to the power of darkness. By the shed blood of Jesus, we've been set free, and we should act like it. Verse 14 says that in the Son of God, in Jesus, the son he loves, we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins. Redemption is more like a legal term that we have been released by legal ransom. His death is our ransom. We're free. We're debt free. And then forgiveness here means ascending away. Jesus's death sent away our sins from us. The Psalm says that as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us. So because we are redeemed and forgiven, we are legally set free from the debt of sin, and then we are spiritually free through the sending away of our sins. We are able to live free by the power of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit wants to increase us in knowledge and wisdom and understanding. He has promised that if we will abide, he will produce that fruit in our lives. And he will empower us to live a life worthy of our Lord that is pleasing to him. This is how we walk out our faith. This is how we live differently. This is how we live a life worthy of Jesus. And this is how we show the world that Christ is truly above everything.

I'm going to pray for us, and the band's going to come up. We're going to head into our time of prayer that Andre spoke about earlier. He and I will be up at the front. We would love the opportunity to pray over you. Bob and Chris are going to be in the back if you would rather be in the back and not have any eyes on you. But don't let that stop you. We're just praying. There's nothing magical about it. It's just taking our praise and our needs to God. And we just want to come alongside you and do that with you. The Bible says where two or three are gathered, he is there. He's here, friends. Let's just talk to him. Let us pray for you. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have given us your word to learn more about you, to grow deeper in our relationship with you. We thank you that we don't have to stay the same. That once we have encountered you, you make us new and we are a new creation and we can operate like that here and now. Lord, we ask by the power of the Holy Spirit that you would cultivate these things in our lives, that you would help us to live differently, living a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We love you, Jesus. Amen.