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.

Christian-ish: Part 5

Christian-ish: Part 5

JOHN 15, Matthew 7:16-17, Galatians 5:25

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, it was probably about two years ago or so that I started to get into gardening. My wife is way better at it than me and between the two of us we've killed a few plants, let's just be honest. But she's gotten into it and so she has like her different houseplants that are like really cool and I'm like, I'm gonna do something outside, I wanna be really cool too. And so we got a lime tree a couple years ago and you know the ones you walk into Costco, they're on sale, they're like super cheap, you're like sweet, this will be easy. So I bought the lime tree, brought it home, moved it over to like a potted plant in the backyard 'cause I didn't wanna bury it in the ground 'cause like if we move, like I wanna bring this with us, it's like a family lime tree, right? And so I thought, no problem, I'll put it out there, it's a good spot with the sun, I'll give it some water and like boom, I'll have limes, right? No, I quickly learned that is not how gardening works. And so first year, I don't even think we had any limes on this thing, the second year maybe two, and so maybe even that, probably not, I'm getting the no from the back of the room for my wife, so no, a couple years, no limes.

And I thought, oh man, what did I get myself into? Like what's going on? All right, next year, we're gonna make this happen. And so this summer, I really got into gardening. Like I got in, I'm watching YouTube videos, I'm reading blog posts, I'm reading forums, I come home maybe every week with a different fertilizer from Home Depot, I'm at like specialty plant stores, I'm talking to other people who are successful at gardening, I'm like, okay, we're gonna make this happen. And I really got into it, we planted mint, we planted basil, strawberries, blueberries, bell peppers, jalapeños, Italian sweet peppers, and our good old lime tree. And what was the total harvest? Let's just say if our family needed that to survive, we would no longer be here on earth. It was so hard. Like every week I'm out there, I'm even talking to the plants, I'm like, hey guys, how's it going? You guys good? What do you need? Need anything? I can go to Home Depot, I'll get it for you, you name it, I'll get it. And we had this little bell pepper plant, this cute little thing, and it grew like a tiny little bell pepper, and I was so excited. I was like, we have a bell pepper. Lauren's like, that's not a bell pepper. That's like the tiny little peppers, right? It's supposed to be a real bell pepper, it was a baby bell pepper. And so we harvested it, we were all excited, we all had a little bite, it was great. And then another one sprouted, and I was like, yes, here we go. The floodgates have opened, my bell peppers. I'm going to open up a fruit stand somewhere. And this poor little bell pepper didn't even get to be as large as the other tiny one, and it started to mold on the plant. And it was the saddest thing in the world that it didn't even get a chance to grow to a baby bell pepper before it was over, it was gone.

And this got me thinking a lot about the garden and that my garden did not produce any real fruit at all. And that's a lot like sometimes those who call themselves Christians. We're wrapping up a series today called Christian-ish, and for the last four weeks, for the whole month in January, now hello, welcome to February, we've been in this series called Christian-ish. And we kicked it off week one, and we talked about the trap of comfortable Christianity and that God can't stomach Christianity that's just flat. It's undesirable to God, it's intolerable, and the only way to step out of lukewarm Christianity is to every single day take a step of faith. And I challenge you guys in that, that you would take every single day, you would take a step of faith, trusting something in God, whatever that situation was in your life. And then week two, Pastor Lauren, she talked about the small choices that keep us stuck, and that our selective obedience sometimes is a dangerous illusion. That only doing some of what God calls us and commands, thinking, well, this has got to be enough, is really disobedience in disguise. And then Pastor Andre shared with us, he talked about a faith that puts God second, he had all the different chairs, you guys remember that? And talking about how sometimes we need to keep God in the first chair in our lives, but sometimes he kind of gets pushed down the ranks a little bit. And it's most of the time completely unintentional, but the reality is that if God is not in the first chair, he is not first in our life, it is idolatry. And then he shared last week of when God doesn't do what we're asking. He doesn't answer the prayer request. He doesn't do what we're hoping him to do. He doesn't provide or move or work in a way that we're asking him to do it. And how do we respond to that? Because we can get caught up in this idea of living a transactional faith. That if we just do our part and we check the boxes, then God is obligated on his side to do his part, but that's not how it works. So what do we mean by the title Christian-ish?

Well, we have a definition I'd like to put on the screen for us. That Christian-ish is having a half-hearted faith wearing the label of Christianity without truly following Jesus. See, a lot of people in this world and life, they call themselves Christians. Some might even believe in God. Some might even go to church. But just like my tiny little sad garden, the people who call themselves Christian, but they don't produce much fruit. Not only are they not faithful in bearing fruit of what the Bible calls love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, but they don't see the positive fruit in their lives. They see sometimes the opposite, right? People claim to be Christians and yet are rude, are selfish, spiritually arrogant, judgmental, incredibly hypocritical. Many people claim to follow Jesus, but when you get up close to them, they're really nothing but a plant with leaves and no fruit. I don't want to get too personal right now, but probably in our lives, we might know somebody who says they're a Christian, but when you look at their lives, there's no evidence. Anybody know anybody like that in your life? Yeah. Now, if it were a little bit later in the message this morning, I might ask you the question of, do you ever act a little bit like that? But it's way too early. I don't want to get into that yet.

Sometimes we claim Jesus, but we don't truly display the fruits of the Spirit. See, God's word, a living, vibrant, powerful word of God is very clear as disciples of Jesus, we should bear or produce fruit. Not apples and oranges or bananas or limes or bell peppers. What I'm talking about, the Bible says, called spiritual fruit. In John 15, starting in verse five, Jesus says this to us. He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. This is to my Father's glory that you bear fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” In other words, Jesus is saying, when you actually demonstrate your faithfulness to God, to Jesus, you begin to show spiritual fruit and you are showing that you are a disciple of Jesus when the fruits of the Spirit come out in your life. Jesus goes on to tell us that someone will actually know that you are a committed follower, believer in Jesus by the fruit that you show. He says in Matthew 7:16, it says, “You will know them by their fruits. Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.”

Jesus gives us incredibly powerful metaphor and he says, you are like a tree that produces fruit. And this is how the non-believing world, those who don't know who Jesus is or have no recollection who God is, they will know that you belong to Jesus because of the spiritual fruit that is coming out in your life, not the words you say, but the way that you live. In other words, they won't just know you by what you say, but by how you live your life. Not that we just claim Jesus, but that the fruits, joy, peace, love, all that will be seen to everyone around them. And honestly, a lot of you genuinely live like this. Spring Valley Church has some incredible people who live out the fruits of the Spirit every single day. I see it in conversations. I see it how they treat other people. I see it how they live their lives. And not that anybody is perfect. Nobody is perfect in here by far from that. I am not myself, but that you show the world that you are a clear follower of Jesus by the fruit in your life. But there are others who call themselves Christian, and maybe they can quote the Bible really good. They have knowledge, but they lack integrity. They say one thing, they do another. They say, "Yeah, I'm a Christian." But they're rude. They're harsh. They're selfish. So now we're deep enough in the message for me to ask you that question. When others look to you, what do they see? When others look at your life, how you interact with people in your world, your family, your friends, your coworkers, your neighbors, strangers on the street, random people at a checkout waiting in line for a Costco sample, how do they see you? Is it clear that you are a follower of Jesus? Do they see you're loving, you're patient, you're kind, you're full of joy, or they see my tiny little sad bell pepper that died even before becoming edible? You call yourself a Christian, but you really aren't caring. You don't have a whole lot of time for other people. You're inconsiderate at times. You're unkind.

Well Paul in Galatians chapter 5, he lists nine different fruits of the Spirit. If you guys know those, you want to say those with me? Can we say that together if you know those? It's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the fruits of the Spirit. If you didn't know them, no worries. I'm going to talk about them here in a moment. But these are the fruits of the Spirit. And these fruits are not just fruits of the Spirit, but they are something that comes from God within us. And you have the fruits of the Spirit, but then you also have what would be called the fruits of the flesh. What do you mean by fruits of the flesh? Well, the reality is that we're at a constant war. We accepted Jesus in our life. He's made us new. He's redeemed us. He's given us a new life. And we are to step in spirit with these fruits of the Spirit and produce in our lives. But we have this constant battle with our flesh. I'm not talking about our body or our skin or our organs or our muscles. I'm talking about what the Greek word says is sarx, which means a fleshly nature that is selfish. A spirit is God-honoring. Our flesh is self-serving. So I want to walk through the fruits of the Spirit here real quick. And I want you to ask yourselves, are you more characterized by fruit of the Spirit or fruit of the flesh? Are you loving? Or is life maybe a little bit more about you? Maybe you tend to lean a little selfish. Are you joyful? Or do you often walk around frustrated with life? Are you peaceful? Or are you like most people living every single day with a living, ongoing world of anxiety? Are you anxious? Are you patient? Or do you find yourself always being rushed with nothing going as you want in your day? Are you kind? Or are you uncaring? You got things to do. You don't have time. Sometimes you come across as uncaring. You full of goodness? Or do you have a bad attitude, bad mouth, bad fruit? Are you faithful? Or do you talk behind people's backs or gossip and such? Are you gentle? You're harsh. Are you self-controlled? Or do you find yourself giving in to the things that you want it when you want them? What would you say? Are you more characterized by the fruit of the Spirit? Or by the fruits of the flesh?

Here's why I want to make just a giant theological mess. That's okay with you guys. I find myself constantly being caught up in both. And it's complicated, right? Life is hard. Sometimes I am really, really, really, really patient. And sometimes I ain't got no time for nobody. Just don't. Other times things are going good. And it's easy to be loving and joyful and peaceful and patient. But sometimes life comes at you hard. And you're just like, "I want nothing to do with nothing. Just want me by myself all alone." But here's what I've noticed about me. Almost every single time in my life I display the fruits of the flesh. Almost every time I start showing bad fruit, I might tell myself I have the greatest excuse. Right? Somebody else's fault. Just got a lot going on right now. I'm under a lot of pressure. You just don't understand my life. I got a lot I'm facing right now. But if you got bad fruit, I tell myself, "You got bad fruit." But I give myself the best excuse in the world why I got bad fruit, right? Even though I see it in other people, I am so quick to tell myself that I've got the best excuse. See, the reality is that if I belong to Jesus and connected to the vine, there is no excuse for bad fruit. Let me say that again. If you belong to Jesus and you are connected to the vine, there is no excuse for bad fruit. See, this is where Jesus kind of gets touchy and pushes things and goes a little bit farther. Because in this text, he talks about people who follow and live lives as sheep, actually as wolves in sheep's clothing. But the reality is, as those wolves in sheep's clothing are trying to fool people, we in our excuses do nothing but fool ourselves. You might say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I go to church. I do that thing. I'm there once a month, every other month, when I got a free Sunday. I'm Christian-ish." And we like to take our fruits of the flesh and dress them up to try to convince other people. But the reality is that most of us don't have a lot of good fruit. A lot of our fruit is bad fruit. But we try to make it look good.

If you've been around the church long enough, you know that there is a language that Christians speak, right? Coming to church, asking, "Hey, how you doing? Hey, praise the Lord. Doing good, brother. Hallelujah. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. God is good." Right? We speak a language. God is good. Oh, amen. God is good. But the reality is we're trying to take our bad fruit and make it look good. Maybe after a while, your clothes start to change. Maybe you find a couple t-shirts that's got a couple Bible verses on it. Start wearing those around. You start learning the popular songs on Caleb on the radio and you're singing those all the time. You're just covering up bad fruit. Your bio online changes. Follower of Jesus, not of the world. But the reality is that as Pastor Andre talked a couple weeks ago, you got Jesus in the wrong chair in your life. He's not in that first chair. Because the reality is that we and ourself are masters of disguise. We may have actually been changed by Jesus at some point, but our fruit is not good. And we start to disguise it to make it look good. And we are so creative in the church, right? So creative in the church. We can even disguise gossip as a prayer request. Oh, you should hear about Sister So-and-so. Oh, she be needing some Holy Ghost in her life. She be needing some prayer. Let me tell you what she be doing behind a closed door. We disguise our fruit. We get really creative. We turn legalism and say it's holiness. I'm just trying to live a good life, Pastor. But the reality is, is you're trying to live a performance-based life. Not a true reflection of who Jesus is. We can trick ourselves into thinking, "Well, Pastor, it is just a righteous anger of why I called that person out." Nope. That's just good old-fashioned bitterness. Or maybe sometimes you're like, "Hey, I'm on social media so much because I'm just out there letting people know about Jesus." And the more you begin to look at somebody's profile and the videos they're posting and what they're talking about, it's really self-promotion. It's not Jesus' promotion. You guys are kind of quiet today. You're thinking, "Yeah, I probably should have skipped this week." Yeah, it's okay.

Or maybe you're like, "I'm going to let somebody else serve me." When I get to church, I'm going to let somebody else hand me a program or bulletin. I'm going to let somebody else make me a cup of coffee. I'm going to drop my kids off. I'm going to let my kids be watched by somebody else because I'm just, Pastor, I'm just in a real season where I need some self-care. And maybe that is true. Maybe that's true. But maybe the reality is true that you've mastered the art of selfishness. Literally not doing anything for anybody else with no spiritual fruit. We find ourselves dressing up this idea of the flesh, but the reality is that Jesus didn't call us to dress up the flesh but to crucify it. Jesus didn't call us to dress up the flesh but to crucify it. To crucify our flesh and to stick to the vine and to abide in the vine. The fruits of the Spirit then will come out supernaturally. It'd really be easy for you to hear this talk and to think, "I know exactly who should be hearing this sermon right now. I can't wait to send them a YouTube link this week." And it's really hard to say, "Oh, I think I need to hear this." It's really hard to see our own blind spots in the mirror. See our own hypocrisy and really see it.

So I want to ask you a couple questions here and I'm just going to let the Holy Spirit kind of just do what's working in your heart right now, okay? But how pleased do you think God is with the quality of your fruit? Sit for that for a moment. When other people look at you at work, maybe it's somebody who doesn't know you well. Not by the things you say or the clothes you wear or the cross that you have hanging up in your office. But by the way that you live your life or the fruits of the Spirit present. Or would it be a situation where someone would have a conversation with you years after no knowing you and go, "Oh, I didn't know you were a Christian. No idea." People at your school, do they see that you are literally serving others? You put others before your life. You see them as Jesus sees them and you care for them in the same way. Or they look at you and go, "You're just busy. You're always running around. You're kind of selfish. If you serve somebody, maybe that happens, but I've never seen it." How pleased do you think God is with the quality of your fruit?

The second question, similar but a little different. It says, "How pleased do you think God is with the quantity of your fruit?" How pleased do you think God is with the quantity of your fruit? Maybe you're like my little bell pepper plant that produced two peppers this year. One of them so moldy and nasty and it couldn't even be used. How pleased do you think God is with the quantity of your fruit? I don't want to be selectively loving. I want to be overflowing with love. I don't just want this peace that everything is okay when life is good. I'm walking around. I'm fine. I want peace in my life that comes directly from heaven that goes beyond any human ability. So-and-so might be going through a lot right now, but you can see the joy of the Lord in their lives. I want people to say that about me. So ask yourself genuinely of these. If God wants us to bear fruit, if we abide with the vine and we produce fruit, how pleased do you think God is with the quality of the fruit and the quantity of your fruit?

If you're like me, I will admit I'll be the first. I need improvement in both of these in my life. I do. But how do we begin to do that? How do we produce more fruit? For years, I thought it was just have a relationship with Jesus and live for Jesus, and then everything's going to work out. It's really good, but I don't think it's actually everything there. Let me explain this a little bit. We've got to go back to John 15 of what Jesus said. And Jesus is probably very likely walking near a vineyard. He does this where he's near something, and he uses that as illustration. It's perfect like that. I love it. It's amazing. But in John 15:5, Jesus says, "I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you." Who is Jesus? Jesus is the? This is where you're interactive. Jesus is the? Yes, there you go. You're awake. Hey, wake up. Here we go. Come on. We're almost to lunch. Jesus is the vine. And who are we? Branch. Oh, yes. You guys are doing so good. I'm proud of you. Okay. So let's continue on the verse. "I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you are connected." Okay. That's what this verse is telling you right here, that you are connected. You are the branch connected to the vine. And this is amazing because this is a promise. There's a promise here in the scripture. And the promise is you don't have to do anything. You will naturally, actually more accurately, you will supernaturally bear much fruit. Right? "Apart from me, you can do nothing." So if you are disconnected from me, Jesus says, in other words, you can't do anything.

Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. So there's two players in this, right? There's two players in this story right now. I just want to nail this down for us. Okay? The metaphor tells us this. Who is Jesus? Say it with me. Jesus is the vine. Okay. And who are you? You are the branch. Okay. Jesus is the vine. You are the branch. Okay. Make it a little bit more personal. I want us to say this together. Let's say, say, "Jesus is the vine. I am the branch." Okay? So Jesus is the vine. I am the branch. Say that one more time. Say it with me. Jesus is the vine. I am the branch. So what happens when the branch is connected to Jesus the vine? You bear his fruit. Boom. Ah, that's it. You got it. We can pray and we can close, right? No, I'm just kidding. When you are connected to the spiritual source, the spirit produces spiritual fruit in your life. When you're connected to the vine, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, all of that begins to flow out of you. Does the branch have a relationship with the vine? Yes. Branch and the vine. We need the vine to survive as the branch. Can I give a little silly, crazy illustration here? Okay, cool. Because it's already in my notes. I'm going to share it anyway. So imagine you can talk to a baby in the mother's womb. Okay? A baby in the mother's womb. There's life. Mother, baby, dependent. And you ask the baby. I told you this was going to be crazy. You ask the baby, "Do you have a relationship with your mom?" What's the baby going to do? Baby's going to look at you really strange. And the baby's going to say, "Bro." Why does the baby say, "Bro?" Well, the baby says, "Bro," because it's a really smart baby and it's a really cool baby. Okay? Bro. Yes, I have a relationship with my mom. But it's more than a relationship, right? She breathes. I breathe. She eats a milkshake. I get a milkshake. She likes chocolate. Okay? I told you this was a crazy illustration. But I want you guys to get this. The baby cannot survive without the mom. The entire existence of the baby is dependent upon mom.

And that's what Jesus is telling us here. He's telling us, and he uses this word 11 different times in this scripture. In this chapter, he uses the same word 11 times. It's meno. It's Greek. And what it means, it means to remain, abide, dwell, live in, just like the baby that minos in mom. Eleven times, guys. I think Jesus is trying to tell us something here. Let's go to the scripture. Every time this word meno is here, it's underlined. So it says, Jesus says, "Remain in me, and I also meno in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must meno, remain, abide, live inside the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you meno, abide, live in, dwell, be a part of, in, remain, in me." You must remain in him. You must live in him. You must live through him. You must dwell in him. Then what do you do? You live for Jesus. Not exactly. You abide in him, and then if you live for him, the focus is still on you. Your works, your effort. And this is where we get caught up in this world of Christian-ish. We believe in him, but we think it's still about us. I've got to stop sinning. I've got to stop thinking bad thoughts. I've got to stop saying bad words because it's so hard. Have you known people? I've got to produce more spiritual fruit in my life, but I've got kids that drive me.

Jesus is teaching us this. Don't focus on production. Focus on connection. That's what I want you guys to get today. Don't focus on production. Focus on connection. Stay connected to the vine. Abide in the vine. Well in the vine. Have you ever seen a tree trying to produce fruit? I don't think they sit out there and be like, "Ugh!" I never heard my lime tree scream unless it does really late at night when I'm sleeping. "Ugh!" Boop! It doesn't work like that, right? No. Jesus is divine. You are the branch. What is the assignment? Be the branch. That's it. Be the branch. That's all you've got to do. Be the branch. Stay connected to Jesus. Abide in him. So now how do we do that?

We're going to close our application. How do we do that? Two ways. I've got two answers for you. I've got a normal way and I think I've got a better way. A little bit better than a normal way. But a normal way looks like this. And it's a good answer. I think it's a great answer. We should all think about this as our answer. But it starts, abiding in Jesus, we start by doing this. We start by praying. You pray. Of course you would pray. Right? Of course you'd want to pray. You'd want to talk to your heavenly Father because he is relational. We pray. You worship. Of course. Of course. Because he inhabits your worship. He is everything about you in your worship. We read God's word. Yes. Because we know that through God's word he can renew your mind and he is directly changing us as we take steps toward him. Hiding his word in our hearts. Changing who we are. Yes. You obey God's word. Absolutely. You do life together in community. Being present in church every single week. That's why we gather. This isn't for the pastoral staff to remember they have some really cool friends in their lives every single Sunday. It's to gather together to be encouraged. To pray for one another. To help each other. To care for one another. To love one another in this context of a family. Because without it we are vulnerable Christians to the attack of the evil one.

Now this is the normal answer. And I think all of these things are great. And you should all think about this. But I got one that kind of takes it a little bit above. Kind of rises above this one that kind of shimmers down onto all of this stuff. And here is that. Right here after verse 24 in Galatians. After it listed love, joy, peace, patience, all the fruits of the Spirit. Paul writes this. He says this. “Since we live by the Spirit let us keep in step with the Spirit.” Let's say that again. “Since we live by the Spirit let us keep in step with the Spirit.” Because since we are crucifying the flesh so we don't produce bad fruit of the flesh. We're dying to that. We're putting that away. We begin to step in. We abide. And we begin to produce fruits of the Spirit in our lives. We have to keep in step with the Spirit. You have to remain so close to Jesus that every step you take He directs. Every thought you think comes from His heart. You put His Word in your heart so that it transforms us. So that His power and His truth comes out through you in the form of fruits of the Spirit. You keep in step with the Spirit.

For those who may not know, my wife Lauren loves dancing. She loves to dance. She actually in high school and middle school went to a performing arts school and one of her focuses was actually dance. And so she, I think, is a pretty amazing dancer if you ask me. But I am not. That's just kind of not who I am. I have rhythm because I am a bit of a musician. But I am not a dancer per se. She is. And so when we were dating and she would try to teach me some dance. And I wasn't too good. Let's just be honest. But then we got engaged and then I'm thinking about the first dance at the wedding, right? This is coming. I've got to figure this out. I don't want to make her embarrassed by the way that I dance. And so she began to teach me. We began to work on it. She began to show me how to dance. I have a photo of our wedding, our first dance I want to show with you guys. And this is really cool. So I found this thing called Dancing on the Clouds. It was like this cool thing. You put like dry ice and then it kicks out some smoke and it looks like we're dancing on the clouds, right? I'm more romantic. I'm pretty, a little bit of romantic deep inside, okay? But she began to teach me as I would dance that I had to lead her. And it's the most subtle thing. It's a little squeeze of this hand and a leading. It's a little pull on the back to come back and to come over and to dance around. You come back, dance around. Actually people think I was trying to be romantic with the clouds. It was just to cover my feet if I actually stepped on her. It was reality. I don't think I stepped on her. You'll have to ask her. I say I didn't. She might remember differently.

But this is what we do with Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our lives. When we abide in him, he nudges us. He leads us ever so slightly. We talk about, "Oh, I need thunder and lightning from heaven. I need fire. I need this moment, this mountain type earthquake. I need..." that's just not how it works. It's just a subtle, small, little step and move. We have to abide in him. And when we abide in him, when we Nino with him, he produces fruit, spiritual fruit, good fruit, supernatural fruit, God-honoring fruit in our lives. And it's not about being better because that's what I thought when we first started learning how to dance. I was like, "I have to be better. I have to get better." No, no, no. She taught me it's about being closer and listening to each other because it's like just smallest little thing. And that's what God wants in our life. He wants us to be connected to him in a way that is life-sustaining, abiding in him.

I was convicted of this holidays last year, 2025. It was really rough week. I came home and I just, I wasn't myself. Traffic was horrible. It was kind of like this build up, this giant crescendo to me walking into the house. And the kids just wanted me. Lauren wanted to talk to me about her day. And I was just short. I was snappy. I didn't have any patience with the kids. And then God got ahold of me. He said, "What are you doing, Chris?" And the reality was because of the holidays and the busyness of Christmas and Thanksgiving and things in the church, I was working so hard trying to make sure everything was perfect and all the details were taken care of. Every little tiny thing, little dotting the I, a crossing the T, making sure everything was just absolutely perfect. I was so focused on working it out that Jesus said, "What are you doing? I just want to be with you. Your family just wants to abide with you." And I was convicted that I had bad fruit in my life. And God's been working on my heart this year to have this year be better Chris than Chris 2025. To abide more with him. Not to work harder to, "Ugh, you tried to be the tree to produce fruit." But to just be the one in lockstep with him. To be closer to him.

Don't try harder, draw closer. Be the branch. Abide, remain, be faithful to Jesus. Because a faithful life to God is a fruitful life. And if you stay connected to the vine, he will produce fruit through you. Not from you.

Heavenly Father, God, we thank you for the example of Jesus. God of how he lived his life. And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would only do what only you can do. That is produce fruit through us. God, I thank you for another Sunday to gather together. God, may we reflect on these questions of how pleased are you with the quality of our fruit in our lives. And how pleased are you with the quantity of fruit in our lives. God, I will raise my hand. I will be the first to say, "Jesus, I need help in this in my life." And God, I think there might be a few people in here too that might feel the same. And so, Jesus, I pray that you would guide us in that this week. We wouldn't try to force production, but that we would abide. We would meno with you, Jesus, as our vine and we as the branch. And God, I pray for all of us, we thank you for you as the gift of the vine. Help us each and every day, God, to choose to abide in you. I pray that you would produce some incredibly amazing spiritual fruit through our lives as we show people your amazing love. Jesus, thank you for another Sunday to be together. God, I pray for our lunch that we are about to partake together. God, thank you for the many people who have brought things and made things and are caring for our family, showing spiritual fruit. Jesus, may we spend some time together doing life with one another. We love you, Jesus. And everybody said in Jesus' name, Amen.

Christian-ish: Part 4

Christian-ish: Part 4

Exodus 34:6-7, Isaiah 55:8-9, Psalm 63:1, 3, 6-8

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are really just praying that this series has been good for you, it's been good for us as pastors, and by good I mean I hope and pray that God is using it to reveal things to you, reveal areas of your life that might need to be surrendered over to Him and that we could be made more like Him. So that's what I mean. I hope the series has been good for you, I hope it's been challenging in the best of ways.

So I want to start off by telling you a quick story about myself. When I was in junior high, I transferred from one very, very small private school to a bigger private school, and it felt huge to me. I was very nervous, but it felt like going, I hadn't been to public school and it felt like I was going to this big thing. One because I got to take a bus for the first time in my life, I got to take a bus to school and I was like, this is legit, I'm now going to a legit school, I'm riding a bus, this is awesome. And the other thing that I loved was that they had vending machines. I'd never had a vending machine at my school before, and then I was like, man, every day I get the opportunity to buy whatever I want. And there were two, there was one for drinks, one for snacks, and I just thought, man, I've made it, this is the best. And I remember, so you guys maybe know then, having the good of that, of being able to buy whatever I want, but also you have these experiences where you put in your money, 50 cents, 75 cents, you put in your snack, whatever you want, and then you wait for the little thing to turn and it to come out towards you and to fall down. You also know sometimes when that doesn't happen. And the thing turns and it just stops, or it's like nothing happens, you're just sitting there feeling robbed, you're like, what just, what? Where's my food? Where, I just put in money? This is the worst. And for a junior high student, that can be like, that's the end of the day. I'm ready to go home. This was what I was looking forward to, and now I get nothing.

I share all that. Because sometimes we treat our relationship with God as if he were a vending machine. We put in what we think is good, something good from us, what he wants, expecting something in return, something like blessings, provision, whatever it is. And so maybe it's like, hey, God, I've been attending church, or I've been praying, I've been doing my devotional time, I've been tithing, acts of service, and we come to expect this transactional faith. Okay, God, here's my payment. Now please answer my prayer. Bless me. Give me what I want. It's like we're ordering from God, right? We do all those things, and we're like, all right, God, C12, more money, please. Or B2, can I get that new job? Or if you're a student, and I know because I've prayed these prayers of students, like D7, can help me pass that test. I haven't studied, but God, I was going to church all this month, so I think this should equal an A. Now, say what may seem obvious at this point, that God doesn't work this way.

This is not how faith is. It's not some kind of contract. We may not realize it, but we may be living with a cause and effect faith. If I do my part, God has to do His. Maybe you've thought this in the inverse situation, when something bad happens, and you're going through a struggle, and you're like, God, is this because I broke my side of the contract? Is it because I didn't go to church this Sunday, and now I'm dealing with this? Or is it because I haven't been praying to you? That's still a cause and effect relationship with God. And we think, oh, God's holding me to that thing where I let him down, and so now He's not blessing me anymore. We can live with a faith where we are the ones in focus. We are the ones in charge. And really, we think we're on equal standing with God. I do my part, and equally across the way, He does His part. Subconsciously, we can have these thoughts that when that doesn't happen, when God doesn't show up or answer the prayer that we prayed, we can think, God has failed me. I'm disappointed by God. God let me down because He didn't do this, this, and this. And when we voice that out loud, it sounds maybe a bit obnoxious, outlandish, but maybe it's also ringing true for some of us. To be like, oh, you know what, I have prayed that, or I have thought that before. In our faith, we need to recognize that, one, we are not equal with God. And two, if we don't understand what's happening or why something isn't happening, that's for us to find out for what God is doing. Not to be disappointed in God because He didn't do what we deemed best, what we deemed necessary, what we deemed right. If we don't address this and we leave this kind of faith unchecked, it can lead to us feeling betrayed by God, frustrated by God, hurt by God.

And we want to expose this lie today, a lie that keeps us from real faith, that this false faith, a transactional faith, is dangerous. It's an incomplete faith because it leaves us with an inflated view of ourselves, and it distorts how we view God. We lower Him down to be on our level. And after enough disappointment and hurt and frustration, the danger is that people will, with that entitled view of their selves, will just walk away from God. God hasn't been doing what I want. This isn't worth it anymore. This faith that I bought into, that I invested in, that I thought I was doing all these things, I'm not getting out of it what I deserve, what I'm entitled to. And people can just walk away from the faith. So we've got to be careful and vigilant to cultivate and grow a biblical faith in God. So I want to look today at God's Word to see how faith in God, our relationship with God, what it was intended to look like. If you guys would pray with me one more time as we continue in our service. Gracious Father, since our whole salvation depends on true understanding of Your Holy Word, grant that our hearts, freed from worldly affairs, may hear and understand Your Holy Word with all diligence and faith, so that we may rightly discern Your gracious will, cherish it, and live by it with all earnestness, to Your praise and honor through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

That was a prayer by a theologian called Martin Bueser who wrote that. And I love it, and I wanted to pray it today with all of you because it emphasizes that to better understand God and to have a true faith in Him, we need God. We don't come up with that on our own and just say, "God, I'll figure out my side, you do Your side." No, we need God to do our part too. And we need to understand His Word to understand Him and to have a true faith. So let's look at the Bible. When we look at the Bible, we have a bunch of... Life Church has given us a bunch of definitions, and I think they're helpful.

So I wanna share with us today true biblical faith. Do we have a definition for true biblical faith? It's about giving or about knowing and loving God for who He is, not just what He does. There it is. Knowing and loving God for who He is, not just what He does. We're gonna get to who He is in a little bit, but that's so important. I think so often we just do it for what He does. And sometimes that's how we come to faith, we've seen God work, we've seen what He can do, and so that draws us in, and that's good, but we can't stay there. That's drawing a sense that we get to know Him, and we fall in love with Him, and we get, "God, I love you for who you are, not just what you do." We have our Christian-ish definition, right, having a half-hearted faith, wearing the label of Christianity without truly following Jesus. This is what we're hitting week after week of, "We do not want to be Christian-ish." Those who are Christian-ish often embrace and live with a transactional faith, which is a distorted belief that turns our relationship with God into a contract, believing that if we do our part, God is obligated to do His. I just want to just look at that, read that again, and take a moment to see if that's where you're at in your faith right now. Distorted belief that turns our relationship with God into a contract, believing that if we do our part, God has to do His. And I don't want to heap shame on you if you're looking at this definition and you're realizing that you've been living with a transactional faith, because I want to say, I've struggled with this too, I still do at times, and we are not alone. If you're in this room and you're saying, "Yes, this is a struggle of mine. I tend to think that God ought to do something. I expect Him to do something." You are not alone. We are not alone. Throughout history, there have been many with transactional faith problems, and actually we have a lot of examples in the Bible of people who have expected something of God.

So I just want to take a moment to go through some of these biblical examples. Exodus 16, 3 talks about this moment where Israel has been freed from Egypt. They were in slavery, right? I want to emphasize how bad they were in slavery. It was terrible. They were playing with God, crying out to God, "Rescue us." God rescues them, and they're out in the desert. Desert is hard. It's very hard. They're free, but they're in the desert. And they say to God, "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt, there we sat around pots of meat and ate food all we wanted. But you have brought us out," talking to God, "into the desert to starve this entire assembly to death." So you can get the tone of this obligation. They feel like, "God, we followed you out here." And He told them, "I'm bringing you to a place. You're on the way. You're in the journey. You're not there yet. I'm bringing you there." And they were already like, "You know what? Bring us back to slavery. This is terrible. God, you're not meeting. You're not meeting." Transactional faith.

If we go later on in the Bible in Jonah, the story of Jonah is God calls Jonah to go preach to a city, Nineveh. Nineveh is one of the worst cities on earth, absolutely terrible. And Jonah's like, "I don't get this mission. God, I think I know you. I don't understand this." He doesn't want to go, and he fights it. But then God says, "Look, I'm going to have you preach, and if they don't do, then if they don't repent, I'm going to destroy it. If they do repent, but if they repent, I'm not going to destroy them. I'm going to forgive them. If not, I'm going to destroy them." And Jonah's like, "Great. You might destroy them. I'm in." Shows a lot about Jonah's heart there. Not a great moment for the prophet. He goes. He preaches. One of the worst messages ever, because it's just like, "God's about to come." And miraculously, they believe. They're like, "Oh, my goodness. Really?" That really messes with Jonah. And he says in chapter 4, verse 1 through 3, he says, "After God forgave, Jonah says, 'This is very wrong.' And he became angry. He prayed to God, 'Isn't this what I said, Lord? While I was still at home, I tried to foretell this. I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, God, take my life away, for it is better for me to die.'" So he has this very weird moment. He's very petty. He's just like, "God, I can't stand this. Just take me now. I'd rather I die than see these people be forgiven." Again, that's like wild from Jonah. But he has these expectations, and God didn't meet them.

Think of the story in the New Testament of Lazarus. And Lazarus is sick, and Jesus gets word. Jesus and Lazarus are very tight, and Jesus gets word. But it takes three days for Jesus to get there, and in that time, Lazarus has died. And Martha, in John 11 21, says, "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been there, my brother would not have died." Now we look at Martha, and we praise her for the faith that she had, that she knew what Jesus could do. But we also hear an underlying tone of, "I kind of expected you to be here, Jesus. I kind of thought you would have done something to make his death not happen." Last one, prodigal son. You guys are maybe familiar with the story of the prodigal son. His father has two sons. The youngest one wants his inheritance now, and that is a terrible situation. We hear that today, and we're like, "Okay." He just wants a forward on his, an advance on his inheritance. In that time, it was saying, "Dad, I wish you were dead. I want my money now." Father gives it to him. He goes and takes his money and spends it on all the worldly pleasures, wastes it away, and ends up living with the pigs. And he sits there, and he has a moment of clarity. He says, "My life would have been better even just as a servant at my father's house than to stay here and live with the pigs." So he goes back, and before he can even get a word out, his father runs to him, hugs him, forgives him, and says, "I'm so glad that you are home." That's the story that we're very familiar with. What is often forgotten is that there was an older brother who stayed with the father the whole time, and he doesn't like that this happened. He sees the rejoicing of the younger son over the younger son. And he says in Luke 15:29, he answered his father, "Look, all these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. You never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you killed the fattened calf for him." I mean, that's some heavy fighting words from that older brother who is saying, "This is not fair, Dad. I've been here loyal to you this entire time, and I got nothing." Well, really, he got the blessing of living in his father's house the whole time, but he doesn't think it's fair.

And in all these examples, Old Testament to New Testament, is a thought that I bet that we have had, which is when something happens not aligned with what we think should have happened or what God should have done, is the thought, "God, I thought we had a deal. What's up? What are you doing?" Maybe some of you are having that conversation with God about something in your life right now. And it's not uncommon, even for those who have been walking with God for years, that the more we seek Him, the more we obey Him, the more we serve Him, to expect a little preferential treatment. Right? We're all sitting there like, "Yeah, yeah, totally. Like the more years I put in with God, the more blessing I should get from God." We treat it like a punch card from a coffee shop, like, "God, look at all these 10 things I've done. Look at all the longevity I've done. And now I would like to redeem it for an answered prayer of just a blank check pretty much, whatever I want, God. But look, look at the 10 holes. All done. I've been here long enough with you." And that thought isn't always overtly loud in our minds or our hearts, the fact that we are viewing our relationship with God as a contract or transactional. It can start really small. It can start with just a feeling of hope. Like, "God, I've been walking with you for a long time now or for a while, or I've kind of given this area of my life over to you. I hope that this blesses me in some way." And I don't think that's wrong. But that hope can grow into expectation.

And then what once was a subtle thought now has roots and can be a part of our theology and how we live out our faith. We do this and this for God because I expect God is going to do something that I want down the road. And just like that, we have an unhealthy and dangerous theology that we live by. If we serve God, He owes us. Maybe you've had prayers like this recently. "God, why didn't you answer my prayer, God? I asked for this and I've been doing really good. I'm going to church every Sunday and tithing." Maybe you prayed a prayer. "God, I raised my kids right. They went to church. They went to youth group. Why did they walk away from you?" Maybe it's, "God, I've been tithing. I've been worshiping you with my money. Why am I still paycheck to paycheck? Why am I still struggling to make ends meet?" Maybe it's, "God, I've remained pure. I'm living in a way that honors you with my body and my relationships. Why am I not married yet?" Whatever your prayers have been, can you hear the underlying expectations that we have on God in those prayers? Can you recognize the tone of entitlements that we have towards God? And let me be clear. I'm not saying that we shouldn't expect for God to answer. That we can know. God does hear us and He will respond. It's just when we put God in a corner and say, "You can only do one thing. God, this is exactly what I need you to do. And if you don't do it, well, now we got problems." And again, when I say that out loud, I don't think it's something that we would say, "Yeah, yeah, that's how I view God." But the way we pray can definitely say, "That's how we view God, is we expect one thing. It's the thing that I want. And if God doesn't give it to me, I'm throwing a fit. Sounds like my toddler.”

We can have that kind of faith. You see, true faith is not contractual. It is relational. It's about knowing and loving God for who He is, not just what He does. Got this prayer from Life.Church and I think it's really helpful for us. And maybe this is the prayer that's going to help us this week with our transactional faith. It says, "God, help me to know you and love you, not just for what you do, but for who you are." Again, we can love God for what He does. We should love God for what He does, but that can't be the only thing. Because there will be times when we just don't see God necessarily. There'll be days where it's like, "God, I haven't really seen what you're doing." And that doesn't mean that our love can dry up. We need to know who He is. God, help me to know you and to love you, not just for what you do, but for who you are. It's a simple prayer, but man, it can have such a huge impact on our faith. True faith is less about us and more about God. This doesn't come naturally to us. It means we have to be intentional, just as John the Baptist, when he said, "He must become greater, I must become less." That's John 3:30. John the Baptist is realizing the role that he's going to have to become less so that Jesus can become more. Maybe the phrase that you've heard is, "God must increase and I must decrease." Sometimes we hear that and we think, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that I need to have more of God in my life." We forget the important aspect that we must decrease. We just think, "Oh, God just increased in my life. I need more of God.”

We forget the part that we need to become less in our lives and God needs to become more. So one of the differences between a biblical faith and a transactional faith that treats a relationship with God like a contract. A contract focuses on what we get out of it. We are at the center of our relationship with God and it has a way of making us feel like we are on equal standing with God. It's not true. Pastor Lauren just preached a couple of weeks ago on covenantal relationship with God, speaking about unconditional promises and conditional blessings. So I want to reiterate, God loves us no matter what. That is true. No matter how we're living, whether we're following him or we're not, he loves us and he blesses our obedience. We don't obey for the blessing. That's a twisted motivation, right? See how easy it is to corrupt our relationship with God? All of a sudden we can just have a rotten motivation in our heart to say, "Oh, there's blessing? I want that." And all of a sudden now we are at the center and we are looking to like, "Gimme, gimme, gimme. God, I will do this. I will obey because I'm getting something out of it." And you may be wondering, "Okay, being blessed by God upon my obedience, that seems transactional, contractual." And I would say it's not. It's less that it's more covenantal and relational. We are blessed in our obedience to God because obedience means walking with him.

And I've said this last week, I'll say it again. He is the greatest gift in life. He is the greatest blessing. And when we walk with him and live the way that he intended us to live, there is blessing in that. We are experiencing a life the way that it's meant to. That in itself is a blessing. I think understanding that and the way that that blessing means, we think of it as like, "Oh, if I walk with him, I'm gonna get stuff. I'm gonna get more money. I'm gonna have a healthy life. I'm gonna get whatever I want." No, the blessing of walking with God is that he's with us. He is the blessing. And understanding that helps us to break down this transactional and kind of see how it's not a true faith and how true faith is more relational. Another point that helps us is a contract is transactional, temporary, and enforceable by law. A covenant is relational, eternal, and sustained by love. A contract in its essence is transactional. It's based upon protecting yourself. It exists because by default, there's a level of mistrust between the two parties. And you're just trying to shore up for anything that could happen. And we leave room for the fact that something could go wrong.

So I'll give you an example. Contract with rental homes, right? Neither side know each other. You have the people who own the home or the property manager, and you have the tenant. The rental manager owner is responsible to provide a livable space up to certain standards. You have the renter who agrees to pay a certain price and keep it at certain standards, and they drop a contract so that both parties begin a transactional relationship, agreement. But the reality is that it's temporary, it's transactional, and it can be enforced by law. Let me give you an example of a relational agreement that's very different. Growing up, we had, in a church that my family went to, we had this one family who was on the... Fallen hard times, and they were kind of... People in the church were opening up their homes for their whole family to stay with them for, you know, just as you get back on your feet, come live with us. So my parents were very gracious, and they invited this family in and their kids. It was not rent. It was just a relational thing sustained by love. It wasn't eternal. They didn't stay with us forever. But you see the difference. Think of your relationship with friends. You don't enter a friendship with a contract. If you do... It was weird. I don't know. I've never seen that before. But you don't have a paper, and you're like, "Hey, we're both gonna sign this, and we're agreeing to a certain amount of hours that we must spend with each other every week." There's no court you go to to be like, "They did not go to my birthday dinner, and I want to end it. This is the break of our contract." There's no official that you have to go to to say, "Hey, by the way, we're no longer friends. I need to make sure that everyone knows." It doesn't exist.

It's a different kind of relationship. Think of your relationship with God. It should be more like that, right? As a friendship. It's relational, it's eternal, and it's sustained by love. God loves us with a relational, unconditional, covenantal love for eternity. Even when we don't hold up our end, when we fail, when we turn away from God, or like we talked about last week, when we start pursuing idols, He still loves us. He holds onto us and upholds the covenant. And Timothy 2 says, "If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself." I love that. I love that it's saying that we are going to fail. There are moments where we will not exercise any faith in God, and He doesn't respond in kind. No, He still loves us and holds onto us because it's an unconditional, covenantal, relational relationship. I share this today because knowing this, again, can help free us from the thought of a false faith. The transactional faith knowing that God loves us, and that we should love Him, not just for what He does, but for who He is. Now, I want to get to who He is, because I said this last week, if we better understood God, we'd be more likely to follow Him and keep Him in the number one chair.

But I really want to spend a little bit of today with who He is. We have to understand who He is. That point is just missed if you're like, "Great, I got to love Him for who He is." I don't know who He is. Who is God? Well, I love this question. I love pointing to one passage in Scripture to answer who God is. It's a story of Moses on the mountain. Moses, at this time, had never seen God. He's heard from God, the burning bush, and the voice that came from the burning bush, and he's seen God work some incredible miracles. He's seen the evidence of God. He's seen God as He's led the Israelite people in the pillar of fire by day, or cloud by day and fire by night, leading the people through the wilderness. And they're out in the wilderness, and God is doing His thing where He's like, "All right, they're all gathered. Moses, come up to the top of the mountain. I'm going to give you some instruction as the leader to help Israel be a nation, to be my nation." So Moses goes up to the mountain. It's just him and God. And Moses, after some conversation, is like, "God, can I see you?" And it seems like a simple request, but it's Moses' way of saying, "I just want to know you more. I've heard you. I've heard your voice. I've seen evidence of you, and you in the form of fire and cloud. But can I see you?" And God says, "No." He's like, "Nope, you can't." And we say, "Oh, God, why don't you just..." Because God says, "You would die. If I were to show you my full glory, you can't handle it. It's too much for you." But he says to Moses, "Why don't you hide yourself in the cleft of the mountain? And I'm going to pass by really quick." I don't know what that looks like. I just think I would love to have seen and be there for this moment. But he's trying to meet Moses where he's at, right? He's like, "I can't show you everything, but let me just pass by really quick.”

If you ever want to read this, this is Exodus 33 and 34, the end of 33 into 34. So he's hiding in the cleft and Exodus 34, 6 through 7 says, "And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, 'The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin, that he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents of the third and fourth generation.'" Moses wanted to know who God was, and God in his way answered and said, "This is who I am." Oh, can we bring that back? "Compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, forgiving wickedness and rebellion and sin, and just." This is, by the way, the most quoted scripture by scripture. What I mean by that is throughout scripture, they constantly reference us. We just read this in Jonah. Jonah was like, "I knew you were this God, and I didn't like it.”

But he's saying all these great things that God says about himself. This is who God is. He's introducing himself to Moses. He said, "You want to know me? Here's who I am." And this is why God has given us his word. All of your Bible, all of this points to who God is. You want to know who God is? This is, I would say, start here. This is a great place to start. But you read all of scripture, you're going to find out more and more about God. It's to help us know who he is and to fall in love with him and say, "Great. Now that I know you more and I want to know you more, God, let me go to your word and find out who you are." If you were to read in order, scripture, you learn, oh, you start at the beginning, "Oh, God, I'm going to learn. God is a creator. He created everything." You read through Israel, "Oh, God is a rescuer. He rescued his people." You go through the prophets and you learn, "Oh, God is more powerful than any other God, anything else in the world." You read through David and Solomon, you say, "Oh, God is the King of Kings. Even the best kings of David and Solomon, they pale in comparison to God. Oh, I learned that he's just. I learned that he is a prophet and priest. I learned that God gives himself through Jesus to his people, that he loves us and he never fails and his words are true and that he is the only way to heaven and that he is above all else.”

You read scripture, you learn that and so much more about who God is. And when we learn who God is, we then learn who we are. In light of him, we understand better our position. And the words from Isaiah ring all the more true. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither your ways are my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Oh, this is humbling. We're talking about praying and not getting what we want. And God says this, "Look, you don't get it and that's okay. I'm doing things. I am at work, but I'm up here and you don't see everything that's up here and it's not meant for you to." We need to remember this. We are not on equal ground with God and our relationship with him is not transactional. And as we covered last week, as we know this more and we live in this truth, trusting God every moment of every day, our relationship with God becomes less transactional and more relational.

David is someone in the Bible who embodies this covenantal relationship with God. He repeatedly writes in the Psalms a line that we now sing at times, "God, you are my God." And he doesn't treat God like a vending machine. "God, you are my God. I need your prayers. I need your blessing. I need your provision." No, he writes, Psalm 63:1, "You are my God. You God are my God and earnestly I seek you. I thirst for you. My whole being longs for you in dry and parched land where there is no water because your love is better than life. My lips will glorify you. On my bed I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night because you are my help. I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you, your right hand upholds me." This is a man who knows and lives in the truth, who has tasted and seen the goodness of God and understands that God is the best thing there is. Better than his own provision and blessing is the person of God himself who is with us. It really highlights how our relationship with God should be, not transactional, but deeply intimate and personal and relational. So how do we know? How do we know if we have a transactional faith with God? Well, I got a couple of questions.

And again, like last week, I just encourage you to don't get defensive. You're not answering out loud. This is between you and God. So the first question is, "Do I follow God because of what he does for me or because of who he is?" All right, starting off soft there. Number two, "Do I still trust God when he doesn't answer my prayer the way I wanted or do I feel betrayed?" Okay, now we're getting real. Have you ever felt betrayed by God? Probably yes. And do we still trust him even when we don't get what we want? Number three, "Do I serve God because I love him or because I'm hoping for something in return?" All right, that last one hits hard. There are times. I find myself serving in a way that I'm like, "God, I really hope there's something good at the end of this. I really hope that I get something." And it's, man, that's not the best faith. That's not what God... That's not what the Bible says a faith should look like. But that, I know it's real. From experience, I know it's real that we can be disappointed, frustrated, and feel betrayed by God. I was having a conversation this week with a pastor. We were commiserating on the reality that woven throughout our Western evangelical theology and church practices is a transactional faith. It's everywhere. There's this hope, this wrong hope and motivation that we get something out of it. That's not what the Bible says. Now let me say, we do have good moments. Our hearts can be in the right place. We can love God genuinely and sincerely and worship him with all that we have. That exists, and I know that many of you are in that. That's great, and praise God for that. But it's hard because literally the very next moment you could be struggling with, "God, all right, do I get something now?" That thought just creeps in so easily. And maybe you pray, "God, why haven't you answered my prayers? Why didn't I get that new job? Why hasn't my family member experienced healing yet? Why haven't you fixed my marriage yet? Why am I still struggling to put food on the table?" We're wanting God to do something for us. We're disappointed in unmet expectations. We're feeling frustrated, hurt, or even betrayed. And we ask those questions to God, and we say, "God, why haven't you?" And church, I don't have that answer. I do not know why God hasn't answered your prayer in the way that you wanted besides to say God hears you, he loves you, and his ways are higher than ours. We may not understand, but that doesn't mean that he isn't walking with you. Doesn't mean that he doesn't feel everything that you're feeling. He's hurting alongside you. We just may not know what he's up to.

But I want to encourage you and to warn you, if you're following God just to have your prayers answered, you're missing God's heart. And you're missing the relationship that you could be having with him. Your relationship with him isn't what it needs to be. It's like in Luke 6, when the disciples are following Jesus right after he's fed the 5,000, and that whole crowd follows him. And Jesus turns at a certain point and says, "You guys are just following me for more food. That's all you really want, is more miracle food. You don't know that I'm the Messiah. You don't believe in me." We don't want to be like those disciples. We want to be true disciples abiding in him because we love him and we know him. Yes, we see what he does, but even when we don't, we know who he is. God is not a tool to use, not a means to an end. He's a king that we worship with all of our lives. We do this because God loves us and he is the very best thing there is.

Let's pray. God, thank you for your word, for your truth. And God, we need you. And I pray that you would forgive us for moments where we have a transactional faith, where we come to you and you know our hearts. You can see right through us and know that really we're just wanting something selfishly. God, thank you for the patience and the compassion that you have with us in those moments. God, I pray that you would help grow in us a faith that is true, that is based on who you are. Help us to know you more. And as we fall more in love with you and worship you, God, I pray that we would experience the blessing of walking with you in your presence and we would just come to appreciate your presence in our life. So God, we pray that simple prayer. God, I pray that we would know you and love you not just for what you do, but for who you are. May that be true in our lives today. Amen.

Christian-ish: Part 3

Christian-ish: Part 3

Exodus 34:14, 20:5, DeutERONOMY 4:24

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I've got another easy question for you, if you are a follower of Jesus, what should or who should come first in your life? Don't overthink it. Say it out loud, who is it? Yeah, God, Jesus, great, perfect, good job. Sunday School answer for the win. Yes, who should come first in our lives? It should be God. Jesus says in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God." He also says in Matthew 22, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” In that verse, he's actually quoting from the Old Testament, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.” And so we know that as believers, as people who have a relationship with God, God should come first. The sad reality is he often doesn't. We make the claim that he is, but the way we live our lives does not reflect that Jesus is number one. What are some other categories in our lives that are important? You guys can see the shout it out. What are some other things in life? Family, yes, good job. Yeah, anything else? Health, yeah, money we need. Yes, good. These are all good things. Yeah, very important.

I have a demonstration to help us with seeing this behind the magical door are things that, thank you, perfect. Alrighty then. I don't know if you can all see this. I'm bringing out chairs. If you cannot see, I'm bringing the thank you, sir. All right. We have here all sorts of different chairs. Maybe you know where I'm going with this. Let's imagine your life full of all your different priorities, all the aspects that you have are different chairs in your life. In real life, you probably have 10, 15, 20 different things that you're balancing, that you're prioritizing. I don't have room for 10 or 15, 20 different chairs. We're going to go with the four that I have right here. You have to prioritize your chairs with the importance. Chair number one, obviously, be the most important above everything else. Chair number two, very important, just not as important, and so on and so forth. If you're a father of Jesus, you guys don't fail me now. You guys are good. Who should go in chair number one? Yes, Jesus. Okay, it was a little weaker. Don't lose conviction now. We're only five minutes in. Like, God, Jesus. Okay, yes, God should be number one. And then if you're a believer, if you're a Christian... Oh, yeah, there we go. Yes, more chairs, five chairs. If you're a follower of Jesus, what should go in chair number two? Yeah, I think good. I think family is a good number two. And we could keep going, but you guys get the point. We'll stop there, and let's process together. If this is... I picked the biggest, nicest chair, right? This is the God, number one God chair. Is this a reflection of most... Okay, don't answer this one out loud. Self-reflection time, answer inside your head. Is this a reflection of most of your lives, that God is number one? And when I ask that, I mean not with what you intend, not with where your heart would be, but if you were to take an honest look at your life in the 24-hour day, day after day, week after week, is this a reflection of your life, that God is number one?

I can't speak for you, but I see in a lot of people, even in my own life, there is often something else that takes the number one seat in my life. One of the common things that I think takes the first chair is your job. Using just time alone, how much you have to work, it's a majority of your life. Your career takes up a lot of time. You come home, and with whatever energy you have left, you then try to be with family or do whatever else it is you're doing. But if you have kids, maybe you're interacting with your kids, and maybe, if we're honest, we're a little bit short because we're just exhausted and tired. Hopefully you have a healthy marriage, but maybe there's stress there and it's under duress. Do you have to pay bills? You got all these other things, projects that you have to do? You have to work hard to have a nice life, however you define that. You got to have money to, someone said that earlier, you got to have money to survive, but on top of that, to do anything casual at all, you still have to have money to do that. Maybe you have hobbies that are important, that you're passionate about, that you enjoy. You got to have money to do those. So maybe that's something like CrossFit or video games or watercoloring or competitive speed puzzling. That's a thing. And it's real, and I'm interested, so I'm looking for a partner and would love... Talk to me afterwards. And if we were to go in order, maybe it's job, and then it's family, and then it's hobbies, and then at the end is maybe God. Maybe. I think some weeks he's left out of the priority list altogether. What happens in our lives is we say God is first, but our actions say something different.

And so we're continuing our Christian-ish series, and today we're talking about a faith that puts God second. Or you could fill in third, fourth, fifth, just anything but where he should be. I want you guys to go ahead and pray with me one more time. God, thank you again for our chance to be together today. And I pray that through the preaching of your word, God, that you would, through your spirit, speak to each of us where we need to be realigned, where our hearts need to be brought to the right place. And God, I pray that we would be willing, that we'd be open, that we would not be defensive of how we're living our life, but we would allow for your spirit to work in us, to transform us, to make us more like you. God, I pray that you'd give us clear eyes to see how we are living our lives right now. And if there is room to improve, to grow closer to you, to shed some things that are not good, God, I pray that you would give us the strength to do that. So be with us right now, and again, speak through your word, God. We pray this in your name. Amen. So we have, we're in our Christian-ish, and Christian-ish is having a half-hearted faith, wearing the label of Christianity, without truly following Jesus. And one of the most common qualities of someone who is Christian-ish is that they have a faith that puts God second. Pastor Craig Groeschel says that a faith that puts God second reflects a divided heart, where God is first in your words, but not in your life. We have the heart, we have the intention, we have the desire to honor God, to live for God, to please God with everything that we have. And you might know that, you might say to yourself, "I know that Jesus gave his life for me, I want to live for him.”

But then you start to live your life, you go about your day, your job, your school, your family, and so quickly, Jesus gets dropped down the priority list. Did you know that the Bible has a term for when this happens? The Bible calls putting anything ahead of God "idolatry." It's a heavy word. It's an old school word, we don't use idolatry a lot, but it's idolatry. And I believe that idolatry is a common struggle that all Christians face. If you look at the Old Testament, it is like as soon as Adam and Eve fall in the garden, and through Israel, all the way till Jesus comes, idolatry is just a reoccurring thing. They just continue to struggle with it over and over and over again. And it has not gone away. We don't necessarily use it in our everyday language amongst each other, even as Christians, but it's still prevalent today. Let me show you some verses where God addresses idolatry. Exodus 23 says, "You shall have no other gods before me." This is the first commandment, if you know your 10 commandments. And so he's saying that there shouldn't be anything higher than him. Nothing. He's not just talking about other gods, it says other gods, but in that, if we were to unpack that, that would just mean anything that is in the place of God. Nothing should be higher than God in your life. We also see in the New Testament, 1 John 5:21 says, "Dear children, keep yourselves from idols." So this is thousands of years later of people having a relationship with God, and they're still struggling, and the need is still there for it to be said, "Keep yourselves away from idols. Do not put anything in the place of God.”

Now we hear idol today, and what do we think of? Maybe you think of a little wooden trinket, or like a statue of some sort, of something. Maybe you think of the biblical examples of like the golden calf. And to be sure, those are definitely idols. Maybe you think of idols in relation to other gods, and you think, "Well, we don't really have other gods here. That's a third world country thing. We don't have other gods here." Quick story, there was a missionary from another country that came to do the tours of America to speak to different churches, and someone brought that up of like, "What is it like to live with other gods? We don't have that here." And he said, "Oh, you do. You have other gods here. Consumerism, you have money." And he named all these things that we struggle with. We just don't view them as they're not embodied in some little thing that someone bows down to. But they are incensed in the place of God, and we worship them with our lives. Idolatry, according to God's word, isn't just bowing down to an idol. Idolatry is putting anything before God. Anything. Even good things. God is clear in his word. He wants to be first in our lives. If we look at it from his perspective, this makes sense. He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Creator, the Sustainer of all. And if he is who he says he is, then he deserves to be first, right? If we look at it from our perspective, that's a big ask from God to be number one. We could say, "God, don't you know how much I have going on? All the good things that I'm trying to do?" Like we already covered, we have a lot going on in our lives. We have a lot of priorities to balance. We have a routine. We have work. We have dreams and passions, things that we have to pay for. And that's why it's so common that many Christians agree in word and in theory, and I believe that they're genuine, that they want to put God first, but their lives just don't reflect it.

So we might ask, "Why is God being so demanding? Why does God want to be first? Couldn't he just be happy with simply being in my life?" Now, again, when we say that out loud, we start to feel some of the conviction of like, "Oh, that's not great. God shouldn't just be satisfied with being a part of my life." So why does God want to be first? Well, simply put, God is a jealous God. Now how many of you have heard that or when you read that in Scripture, it just doesn't settle well with you. God is a jealous God. That was me growing up. I grew up in the church. I grew up reading the Bible, and I was always taught, "I cannot be jealous. Jealousy is not good." And so I didn't get, "Why can God be jealous and I can't be jealous?" And I was jealous of God being like, "Oh, you can be jealous." When we look at Scripture, it's very clear. God is a jealous God. Exodus 34:14 says, "Do not worship any other God." We know that. God wants to be first. "For the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God." Oh, okay. That's referencing Exodus 20, again, the Ten Commandments, and he says, "You shall not bow down to them or worship them," talking about other gods, "For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God." This is where God is introducing himself to the Israelites. He's rescued them, but he hasn't had a lot of interaction with them. He's just rescued them. He sustained them. But then on the mountain, when Moses goes up, he gets to explain himself, and he gives himself to the nation by giving them these commandments and says, "This is who I am. This is how I want you to be in light of who I am." And he's saying, "I am a jealous God." Deuteronomy 4:24 says, "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." That adds a little bit more to the picture of God, consuming fire. That kind of gives us the idea that he's never satisfied. He wants more and more of us.

Scripture is very clear. God is a jealous God. So why does God get to be jealous? I'm going to nerd out for a second. I'm going to show you some Hebrew. Are you guys okay with that? Pastor, again, Pastor Craig Groeschel helps put this together. I think it's really helpful. I'm going to put up a Hebrew word here. It's called "kna." That's how you would say it. That's the Hebrew up top. You see that middle letter with the little dot in there? That is what the ends are. That's called a "nun." That's a Hebrew "nun." Usually when we found it, and it's regular, keep that up there for a long time. Okay. Usually when we see this word, "nun," there's no dot in the middle. Okay? Does that make sense? There's only one "n." So it would be Q-A-N-A. "Kna." In our passages that we're talking about... Let me back up. That "kna" is the word for jealous. We talk about human jealousy or the sin to be jealous. You're going to see it in that fancy thing, another fancy thing with no dot, and then another fancy thing. You're going to see "kna." Now... I'd be a terrible Hebrew teacher. This is not... Just realizing this now. Any dreams I had of being a Hebrew... They're out the window. Fancy thing, fancy thing. "Kna." So the dot in the middle represents the fact that there has been two ends. There's an extra end that's been added to "kna." And it's called an intensifier. It's meant to communicate to the reader that this is an exaggerated amount of jealousy. This is an even greater amount of jealousy. This is the most amount of jealousy possible by someone. So if you were to see it with the no dot, you're like, "All right, jealousy." You see it with the dot, you're like, "Oh my goodness, this is the most jealous that someone can be." Now what's cool is the Hebrew language, the language that God's people spoke, that "kna" that we see right here with the little dot with the two "nuns" is only used to describe God's jealousy. You will never see it in the Bible used to describe a human jealousy. It's only used for God's jealousy. So if you were to read that, you'd pick up like, "Oh my goodness, we're talking about God's jealousy right here." And it is a holy jealousy. Unlike our human jealousy, which is flawed and self-serving and speaks to insecurities, you think about the times that you're jealous. It reflects something of your heart that at the root is sinful.

When we talk about God's jealousy, it is a righteous consuming, covenant keeping jealousy that relentlessly pursues and protects his relationship with his people. It's a jealousy that is holy and pure and passionate and protective. And it comes from a place where God, who gave all of himself to you, wants you to give all of yourself back to him. Why? Because he loves you. And he wants what's best for you. And what's best for you is more of him. This gets back to living with God as the number one priority. We think of, again, Adam and Eve in the garden. And as soon as they flip that script and they put something else in the place of God, and all of sin entered the world, we realize that God intended humanity to live with him as number one. And anything else is a life that comes up short. It's a life that leads to problems and more sin and struggle. Anytime you put something, anything before him, it ends up hurting you. And it may not mean like an actual hurt that you're feeling, but you're just not living life the way that God intended. He knows this, and he wants better for you. Psalm 16:4 says, "Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more." Psalm puts it very plainly. If you continue to put something else in front of God, it will only lead to more and more pain, more and more brokenness. So if you are struggling, hurting, dissatisfied, maybe it's because something is out of place in your chairs, in your life, in your priorities. Something else is in the place of God. And maybe it's because idolatry is taking its toll on your life.

You may not have thought about it in that way before, but if you start to look at your life now with this context and with this conversation, maybe you do have an idol. You do have something in your number one chair that isn't God. If you often feel overwhelmed or anxious, if you feel a lot of tension in life, maybe you feel tension or disconnected from God. You just can't see his presence or feel his presence, or maybe from other people. Maybe there's just a distance that you can't ever seem to close with people, that you can't trust them. You can't bear your soul to them because you don't know if they're going to love you or support you. Maybe if you're lacking purpose or meaning in life right now, you might look at your chairs and say, "What's my order right now? What are my priorities?" Maybe if you find yourself spending a lot of money to fill a void in your life, or you look to different vices to avoid a numb pain, maybe you often get angry and lose your temper. Maybe you get bored and lonely, so you look at things that you shouldn't. Whatever it is you do, maybe it's an idolatry problem. I'm not saying that those things aren't bad. Those are problems that you should give to God and have God address in your life. But maybe the real problem, maybe that's just a symptom of a deeper problem, and maybe the deeper problem is idolatry. I want to reframe our minds right now to think of what is the biggest issue that we have going on in our life. Maybe the symptoms come to the surface really quick, and you're like, "Yeah, I got to work on that stuff." But I want you to push deeper and say, "Maybe below even that is something is just not where it should be." Maybe you're sitting there trying to justify whatever your thing is, whatever is in your number one chair, because it's not bad. Maybe it's not drinking or smoking or whatever that is. Maybe it's a pastime that is nice and good in theory. Maybe it's something like gaming, and you have an online community, and you're like, "I get to talk with people. I'm social. I even get to share the gospel with people." I don't know. Maybe it's your house. Maybe you put a lot of time into creating a home that is welcoming, and you want your family to enjoy it. You want other people to be there, and so you just put a lot of energy and focus into your living space. Maybe it's your image. You want to be presentable or fashionable or attractive, and so a lot of your time and life and thought and heart go into how you look. Maybe it's your kids and your family, and you give so much of your heart, your time, and mind revolving around your kids' schedules and their activities and their schoolwork and their development. And you're sitting there thinking, "I know I got some stuff, but those are good things. It's a good thing that's in the first chair." And I would agree.

Those are some of those are good things, but we have to remember anything in the place of God is an idol. It's idolatry. Even good things become idols when they take the place of God. Anything in this first chair that is not God is not where it should be. It has become more important in your life than God has, and I think we need to hear that. We need to slow down and hear that and really dwell on if that's true and what needs to happen. If anything is more important than God in your life, automatically we should say, "That's not okay, and I need to address that." So how do we know? How do you discern if things in your life have crossed that boundary into becoming an idol? Because again, maybe it's something you're good at. Maybe you have natural God-given skills, and you're exercising that. You're like, "Well, God gave me these things, God gave me this passion or this interest, so shouldn't I exercise that or use it and involve myself in it?" Or maybe it's something that you get joy from, you're passionate about. Maybe it's something good like your career. You're like, "I can't just stop working. I got to provide for my family." How do we know if something has become an idol? Well, instead of leaving it up to us to just say, "No, it's not," because again, we will. We'll just kind of like slough it off and be like, "Eh, we'll work on getting more Bible time in the morning, 10 minutes." God, you get 10 more minutes. Let's let the Holy Spirit assess our hearts and our lives and convict where necessary.

And I want to ask three questions, three idol identifier questions. And again, don't be slow to answer these. Let the Spirit answer these for you, reveal the truth for you. So first one, does this thing, whatever is in your first chair, maybe your first couple chairs, does this lead me closer to God or does it distract me from God? Again, think to yourself, whatever that is, is this activity, is this thing, is this whatever I'm giving myself to, my time, my energy, my thought life, is this bringing me closer to God or is it distracting me from God?

Number two, do I rely on this more than God for my comfort, my identity, and my worth? These are starting to get a little heavier now, a little more serious. Do I go to this thing in times when I'm hurting before I go to God? Is this something that I crave way more than I crave God? Do I find that when I am connecting with people, I cannot wait to share about this thing or should I talk endlessly about whatever that is more than my identity with God?

Number three, if God asked me to give this up, would I give it up without hesitation? Oh, that one kills. That one's hard. It's the last part, without hesitation, right? Some of us would always be like, yes, I would get there, God would help me, I would eventually give it up. But without hesitation is like, could I just do it right now and realize that God should be first and I'm just done with that thing?

So I'll share mine. And this may seem silly, and it kind of is, but my idol, one of the things that I've had in my past life, you've heard me share about some of my hobbies. It's a hobby for me, and that would be disc golf, okay? I'm already fearing the judgment. You guys can judge me, it's fine. I brought this up before, but I found it during COVID, right? I was like, oh, I want to get outside, my friend and I connected, and it was like, oh, let's get outside, let's play something in it. Just checked a lot of boxes for me. I grew up playing sports and I love competing and I could play by myself and just compete against myself. I'm just going to try to better my score next time. So I was like, oh, this is really fun. I just got hooked and I love being outside and I did the whole justification thing. I'm in God's nature. I'm spending time with God in the trees and walking around. This is so great. And there was truth to that. There were times where that was legit, but there were other times where I found myself trying to excuse why I was going out so often to be like, well, it's just more time with God. Obviously, God loves that for me and I love it for me. So God and I are both happy right now. And I played a lot. And when hard things, when I was going through challenges, I would notice that I was like, man, I just cannot wait to get out there. I want to escape. I want to go do my own thing. And before my desire was to talk to God or to pray with God to release, whatever that is, I found my identity and my worth in trying to be a good disc golf player. I was like, oh man, this is really fun when I'm good. So let's just try to be good. And I found a lot of pride. I'm like, man, I'm halfway decent. That's pretty cool. And so there were moments where I recognized in different stages where I had to give it up and it was that without hesitation that like it was not without, it was a lot of hesitation. And I realized like, man, this is a thing and it's not a good thing. Like disc golf is not evil, but this, what it has become in my life is not good. That's a more lighthearted one.

Another one that I'll share is maybe church. And I, as a pastor, I think it can be a thing. Church is obviously amazing. It's good, but church is not God. Right? And so I can, in my desires, I can find my worth. I can be putting God's second in place of church and what I do and how I care. Like all these things of the pastoral role should be second in my life compared to my relationship with God and even church, something so good as this, you guys can become first. And as great as you are, you can't be first in my life. So there's been times where we have idols and we have to, I've had to lay them down before Jesus and honestly have Jesus take them and so that he can, I can live more fully with Christ. Giving that thing up or that priority up. I haven't, I still play disc golf occasionally now, but I'm giving that up so that Christ can live more fully in me. And so in this time that I've been sharing, hopefully you have been thinking about your own life and what is God trying to reveal to you?

If God is showing you, revealing something, there's something out of place that there's an idol in your life. I want to encourage you to listen to him. Listen to the spirit and where he's trying to convict, where he's trying to show you where to change. Don't get defensive with God. It's just between you and God. You don't have to share with me or anyone else. In fact, our defensiveness is often a clue as to something that has a really strong hold in our hearts and lives. So that might be a place where you want to dig some more in your life. Say, okay, I'm getting really, I keep avoiding this one thing in my life when I think of my priorities. Why is that? Maybe it's in a place where it shouldn't be. When you realize and acknowledge and begin to understand that you're putting something before God, don't just fight the symptoms. Don't just say, all right, let's do a rearrangement of things. Also, you can't just take this thing out and just be done with it. That doesn't really work because more often than not, it'll just come back. It's like a weed. It'll just grow back in time. You have to fill that void with something else. So I would say, don't just remove the idol. Replace it with God. Put God first. Now let me ask you this question. Why haven't you done that already? If it's so easy, like let's just put God first. Just do that guys. End of sermon. Just go home. Do it. Now why haven't we put God first? Maybe because we naturally, as humans, we pursue what we want most. That's just in our nature. We want something. We will go do whatever it is to get that, involve ourselves with it. We want something. We pursue it.

So then the question becomes, why don't we want God as much as other things? If we were to want God the most, then he would be first in our lives. Why don't we? And I think, I reason that it's because we don't know how good God is. We don't know, we don't truly understand how amazing, how wonderful, how fulfilling, how incredible and loving and compassionate and kind and all the good things. We don't fully know how good God is. If we did, we'd be much more likely to keep him in our number one chair. Even then, just knowing isn't enough, knowing more information or an awareness of God's goodness isn't enough because information does not equal transformation. Just because you are informed does not mean that you will be transformed. It's helpful, it's good, but it's not everything. Just because you hear God on a Sunday does not mean that all of you are living perfectly the rest of the days of the week. You have to practice putting God first and living with him in the number one seat. When we do that, then we'll know and experience the goodness of God. Or as the psalmist says in Psalm 34, "Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him." It's not just knowing, it's living accordingly and living in God's goodness. It's when we live by faith with our trust in God, not because of what he can do for us, we don't do it as a transaction saying, "God, I'll live for you because I know that you're going to better my life." No, we live giving ourselves to him, again, because he gave all of who he is to us. That because without him, there is nothing good. And we are more likely to fight to keep him as the number one in our lives if we know and live in his goodness.

And that means that we have to submit to him. We have to yield to his will. That means going about every day intentionally with a heart that is aligned with his heart. And we enter every conversation, every work situation, whatever it is, you walk in and you're saying, "God, I want, help me right now. I want to live for you. I want to, as I talk with this person, help me to speak in a way that is honoring you, that is loving, that is kind. As I parent right now, as I just do something by myself, help me to do it in a way that is glorifying to you. Be with me. Invite him in to that situation." If something is distracting you from God, replace it with Jesus. And understand this, God's not trying to take something away from you as much as he's trying to give you something better himself. I think sometimes we get a little defensive, we get a little nervous because you're like, "God, I really like this thing. And I think ultimately it was from you, but I, yeah, sure, I messed it up a little bit, so don't take it away." And we get scared and then we kind of avoid it. We're like, "God, I'd just rather not. I'd rather keep my life the way it is." But if we understand it in a way that actually it's something better, again, then we're more likely to engage and say, "Yes, God, I do want that. I do want more of you." He's trying to give himself to us. Again, because he loves you, he cares about you. He's trying to give you the best thing that there is, himself. And again, this goes back to the garden in the Old Testament when Adam and Eve thought, "You know what? I think there's something better other than God, and right there is the mistake." And we would think, "Oh, guys, why'd you do that?" But we do it every day. We think this other thing is better than God. And so we need to put God first and understand and live and believe and know God is the best. He is the best. There is nothing better. He hasn't called you to be Christian-ish just by name, following Jesus when you feel like it, when it's convenient. And he isn't content to be just any one of your chairs. And we should love him for that. We should thank him that he is not content to just be in our lives. He wants to be in the right spot where he created himself to be. This chair is where God made for himself to sit in our lives. That's right relationship. That is living with God is when he is in that number one seat. We don't want to love him partially or halfway. God is a jealous God who wants all of us. And he's called us to love him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength. And he wants us to seek first his kingdom. So the question for you this week is, will you live each day with God first? First and foremost on your heart, your mind, your soul, will you live with all of who you are before him as a sacrifice to him? It says in Romans, live with your whole life for him. Are you ready to put God first?

Let's pray. God, we come before you Lord and we first want to just come before you with an apologetic heart. And God, we are sorry. We apologize for living a life where something else is in your place. For living and worshiping idols. Maybe they're good. Maybe they are things that are not good inherently. But God, we just acknowledge that, that we are living in a way that is not how you intended. And we also know that we can only live the way that you intended through your help, by your spirit. And so we pray that this week, today, now, as you reveal things to us that are out of place, that you would also provide the steps to take to then live with you in the number one seat. God, help us to see and know how good you are. God, I pray that for those of us who have been walking with God, I pray that you would bring those memories fresh to our mind of how good you are. That it would anchor us as we go forward. And for those who are newly following you, God, I pray that you would bring about experiences, that you would show your goodness to people. And so we both know with our head and our heart, your goodness, and we want to keep you as a priority in our life, that we would be Christians who live with you first and foremost. We need you, God. We depend on you. We want to love you with everything that we have. We pray this in your name. Amen.