Missional Community

Colossians 4:1-18

Missional Community

Matt Freeman

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All right, well, again, I'm glad you guys are with us for tonight because we're actually coming to the close of our summer-long series, Colossians. It's all about Jesus. And it has just been so good for us to walk through this as a church family. And if you're adding up, we've covered Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3. And so tonight we're actually going to be looking at all of Chapter 4. So if you've got your Bibles, go ahead and grab them.

We've got much ground to cover tonight. If you don't have a Bible, if you just look kind of in between the seats, we've got some of our blue and white Bibles for you. If you don't have a Bible, we'd love for you to have that one. Take that one. That's our gift to you. And church family, if you know someone who doesn't have a Bible and you'd like to take one to them, please, that's what those are for as well.

Okay, so again, we've got much ground to cover tonight. But it has been so good, so good for us to walk through this letter as a church family over the summer. Wouldn't you guys agree? It's been good just for us to study this because Paul is writing this letter to a relatively young church and a relatively healthy church. And so it's been great to walk through because he's legitimately pointing them to the fact that it's all about Jesus and how that plays out in their personal faith and in their relationships. And so for us as a young, healthy church, we've been able to look at that and see how can we continue to grow and continue to move forward.

And we've gotten to grow in a couple of different ways. First of all, we've been able to grow in our understanding of the gospel. So if you think back over the last, over the first chapter and the second chapter, we see beautiful language where Paul basically makes us drink from a fire hydrant in terms of trying to understand about Jesus. He's going to use beautiful language like Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He's the creator of all things. He's the son of God.

He's going to talk about what Jesus does, that he reconciles all things to himself, making peace by the blood of his cross. And in light of that, the gospel being who Jesus is and what he's done, what does that mean for us? Paul's going to write and say that we were a people who were alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. We're incapable of fixing that relationship on our own. But based off of what Jesus has done on our behalf, it's going to use language like redeemed, transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son, qualified, forgiven.

And so we've been able to walk through that and grow in our understanding of the gospel. And over the last four weeks, what we've done is we've transitioned a little bit. And we've moved from this vertical idea of focusing on Jesus. And in light of that, in light of who we are, we've transitioned and started to look at, okay, in light of that, how am I supposed to live? So in light of who I am in Jesus, how am I supposed to live?

And basically we've seen the way that our faith impacts relationships. Paul's going to say things like seek things that are above, put to death sinful practices. He's going to talk about the things that we should put on, characteristics, marks of a Christian should be that we love one another, that we forgive one another, we bear with one another, patience with one another, that we should be open and honest with one another. We should encourage each other with the word of God. We should let the word of God dwell richly in us. And this past week, what we looked at is how the gospel impacts some of our most important relationships.

We talked about husbands and wives. We talked about parents and children. And we talked about masters and bond servants, whereas the way we looked at it, we looked at employers and employees. And so what we're going to see in chapter four is that Paul ends this letter with a resounding call. And what we're going to see is that churches that are focused on the gospel and are living that out in community, the natural outflow of that is going to be mission. And that's what we're going to be talking about tonight.

We're going to be talking about mission. And so I'm really excited about it. We've got a lot of ground to cover. And so before we jump into the scripture, I'd like to pray for us. You guys join me. Let's pray.

God, thank you for inviting us into what you're doing. Thank you for bringing us into a relationship with you, for bringing us into a church family, into a community of believers. God, my prayer is tonight that you would teach us what it looks like to be a part of your mission, to live on mission. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so if you've got your Bibles, we're going to be in Colossians chapter four, beginning in verse two. And if you've got the blue and white ones, it's actually going to be page 639.

Here we go, 4-2. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. And again, we're going to start with the first couple of verses, so read it with me again.

Verse two, verse two and three. Once again, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison. I love this. I really do. All throughout the letter that Paul is writing to the church at Colossae, he is talking about prayer.

From the very beginning to the very end, he's encouraging them in what it looks like to pray. And he's encouraging them to be steadfast in prayer, and he's saying, pray for us. Now remember, Paul's currently in prison, and his prayer is not, Lord, help me get out of jail. What is he praying? Look at it again. He says, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ, to declare the gospel to those that are in.

I love that. Chapters one and two, we're going to use language where Paul says things like, I struggle and I labor in prayer. We're going to see that even later in this chapter. And every time I get there, it just strikes me. And I have to stop and think, man, when was the last time I struggled and labored for something in prayer? What about you?

And that just strikes me as odd, because I know that Paul and Epaphras and others that we're going to see later are in jail. And I'd be praying to get out of jail, but they're not. And the reason that they're not is they've realized that they get to still be part of the mission right where they are. They're not praying to get out of jail. They're praying that they would make the most of the opportunity that they have in jail to share the gospel. Because Paul, Epaphras, and some of these guys realize something that's hugely important for us as a church.

And I want us to grasp this. What we see in Matthew 16, Jesus says that he's going to build his church. And then he gives his mission to his church. And we're going to see that Jesus is going to send his Holy Spirit on the church to bring about repentance, to bring about change. And I'm going to use that word a lot tonight, so I want to make sure we unpack it. Repentance is realizing that we have sin.

It's confessing our sin, believing that Jesus can forgive it, and turning away from it. That is active repentance. So the Holy Spirit bringing about repentance. Paul realizes that he gets to be a part of the mission still. And he's asking for opportunities because he realizes that it's not about him. It's not his job to save people.

He just gets to be obedient. That's why he's praying for opportunities. And so Paul is pouring himself out for the gospel and for the mission. And since mission is what we're looking at tonight, I want us to have a good working definition of mission. I want us to really understand what it means. So think about it like this.

Paul is going to say in Colossians that it's all about Jesus. Everything. All of life is all about Jesus. It's all about the gospel. It's all about the Son of God who stepped out of heaven, who died on the cross for our sins, who was risen from the grave and gives his mission to his church. It's going to be all about the gospel.

And he gives the mission. Here's the mission. We see it in Matthew 28. He says, go and make disciples. So it's cool.

He looks at his disciples and he goes, go and make more. Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. So what we see is the mission is the people of God sharing the gospel in relationship with each other to make more disciples. It's relational. It's relational. It's disciples living in relationship with each other in community, going out and making more disciples.

So with that in mind, let's keep moving. Check out verse 4. And I'll tag it with a little bit of 3. That God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Okay. So what we're talking about is making disciples.

We're talking about sharing our faith, sharing the gospel. And for some reason, when we start talking about this in church, all of us begin to get anxious. Our heart rate begins to raise. We just get nervous. I don't know about you guys. It's just one of those things.

When I start thinking about telling somebody about Jesus or sharing my faith, I just get nervous sometimes. Because it's hard. And our culture says be tolerant. And I want to share my faith. And what we see here is that Paul is saying that he wants to declare the mystery of Christ. And in verse 4, his prayer, he's asking them to pray that he would make it clear which is how he ought to speak.

And so for us as we're moving forward, as we're talking about how do we actually share the gospel with people, I want to give us just a few quick things. And if you're a note taker, you're going to want to jot these down. A few quick things that we can think about that will help encourage us in terms of sharing the gospel. The first thing is this. Paul asks for prayer that he would make it clear. So we get to do the same.

So when you're thinking about sharing the gospel, Paul asks that he would be able to make it clear, which is how he ought to speak. And he's talking about the mystery of Christ. And so what he's talking about there is the gospel. He's talking about the gospel of Christ that he would be able to make it clear. So part of our prayer as Christians is asking God, help me to grow in the gospel so that when I have opportunities to share it, that I will be able to make it clear.

This is why we talk about our community groups all the time. Because that's actually where we get to grow in how we share the gospel, how we speak the gospel to each other. Think about your community groups. When somebody has a prayer, we're going to encourage them with the gospel. When somebody's struggling with a sin issue, we're going to point them to what's true in the gospel. When people are making life decisions, we're not just going to give them wisdom or advice.

We're going to give them the gospel. So in our community groups, we get to grow in the first stage of sharing our faith, which is knowing, knowing the gospel, growing in it. So the second thing is this. We're going to mess this up. We're going to mess this up. There are going to be times when you're intentionally building a relationship with somebody, and you go to start telling them about Jesus, and you're going to get about two minutes in.

It's going to be great, and then a dog's going to start barking, and then your 12-year-old cousin with braces is going to walk over, and it's just going to, like, dissipate in front of you to the ground in a pile of ashes. And it's just going to be, oh, okay, well, that was good. Even in those circumstances, when it doesn't go the way you want it to go, you get to grow in your understanding of the gospel, that it's not about you. It's about the fact that Jesus does the work, and as you think about it, it's not over. You get to go back and have another conversation with that person. You get to try again.

The gospel is true for you. Third thing is the gospel is true for you. On all accounts, the gospel is true. It's Jesus that builds his church, and it's the Holy Spirit that brings about repentance. We're just, whoa, yes, resounding. We're just called to be obedient.

So realize that we get to grow in our understanding of the gospel. There's going to be times that we mess that up, but ultimately, we're just called to be obedient. And one of the most encouraging things for us is that as we begin to grow in our understanding of the gospel, the Holy Spirit will begin to use that and teach us what to say in conversations. Now, that's not always going to be this warm, hair-tingling experience where the Holy Spirit just takes over. It's not always going to be like that. Sometimes, yes.

Sometimes, no. Now, I'll give you a couple examples. I remember walking into work, and the first person I came in contact with, I just asked them how they were doing. And five minutes later, they have tears rolling down their face, and I just walked over, and I just shut the door. And we kept talking, and we talked for probably 30 minutes. And I got to, he talked about his family and about his job, and I just encouraged him.

I told him what was true for him in the gospel. I had been praying for this opportunity for months. I got to pray with him. It was unbelievable. And I walked out, and I can't tell you. I can't tell you what I said.

I cannot tell you parts of that whole conversation because the Holy Spirit just took over. It was amazing. On the other side, around that same time, I was having a conversation with a guy, and he was talking about his girlfriend and how, well, it wasn't his girlfriend. They were talking, as the kids say. They were talking, and she wasn't returning his phone calls, and he was texting her all the time. At the same time, he was getting passed over for promotions at work.

And the whole time he's talking, I'm sitting there praying, God, help me encourage him in the gospel. Give me the words to say. And we literally got to the end of the conversation, and he's looking at me, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, man, that stinks. That stinks. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'll pray for you. That's all I had. That's all I had. I got to the end of that conversation, and that's all I had was I'll pray for you. And I did. And I got to come back and have more conversations.

But the pressure's off. The pressure's off for us as believers because we get to live our normal, everyday lives asking for opportunities and watching Jesus do work. What Paul teaches us here is as we ask for open doors that we can speak the gospel into, that we would speak it clearly, he's going to start doing work. We just get to be obedient. And he's going to turn a little bit. Look with me in verse 5.

So there's going to be a little bit of a change. He says, walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time. Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time. What is the best use of our time? What is it? One of the best ways we can think about this is what was the best use of Jesus' time?

Jesus spent time with people. All people. And Jesus didn't sit around waiting for people to come to him. He went out to them. He went to the lonely, to the rejected, to the hurting, to those that were sick. And at the same time, he went to those that were religious, those that were wealthy, those that were popular.

And Jesus, as he walked through normal everyday life, he took the opportunity to pour into others. Normal everyday life, he did the extraordinary. Walking. Fishing. Sharing meals. Having conversations.

And that's what he's calling us to do. That's what it looks like, church, for us to make disciples, is to use our normal, ordinary, everyday lives that he's given us with the gospel being of first importance. And letting that impact our conversations, our relationships, our activities. And I want us to catch the beauty of this. That's ordinary, but not insignificant. Ordinary, but not insignificant.

And as we begin to pray for open doors, asking for the Holy Spirit to work, no day will ever be small. Think about that. No conversation will ever be a waste of time. No family meal will ever be a drudgery. No day at work will ever be just a day at work. Everything has meaning.

Everything has purpose. And so this is actually a really good gauge for us as Christians to see how we're walking in wisdom towards outsiders is, how are you spending your time? I want you to think back on this last week. This is the easiest way to do it. Think back over your last week. I'm going to keep talking to this.

Start thinking back. In our day and age, we have more time than any generation on the face of the earth has ever had. With the advancement in technology, we've got microwaves and fast food restaurants and dishwashers. We've just got more time to do things, which means two things. One, we can waste more time. All right?

So we've got more time to waste. And the second thing is, with all these advancements in technology, we've got more to distract us. So a really good diagnostic for us as Christians is, how are we spending our time specifically towards outsiders, towards those who don't know Jesus? How are we doing there? Because what we start to think is, did I go out? Man, I didn't go walk.

Okay. No. Think normal, everyday life. Normal, everyday life. How are you walking in wisdom towards outsiders? How are you making the best use of your time?

Think about your family. This is kind of what we talked about last week. Husbands and wives, are you making the best use of your time? Are you spending time together? Are you pouring into each other? Are you encouraging each other in the gospel?

Parents and children, are you spending time together? Are you spending more time staring at the TV than you are staring at each other's faces? It's a good gauge. It's a good gauge for us, especially for those of you who have family members who don't know Jesus. How are you leveraging your time so that you can be around them in normal, everyday life? Loving them, serving them, helping them, encouraging them.

What about at work? This is a big one for us. Think about work. Think about this last week. You at work. How well did you work when your boss was around versus when your boss wasn't around?

How about this? When you finished your tasks at work, did you just do your own thing or did you look to go help somebody else? When you were on break at work, did you sit and look at Facebook for 30 minutes? Or did you have a conversation with people that were in the break room? Who's having a tough time at work that you know about and just needs some encouragement? Who's lonely, isolated, just needs somebody to love them?

That's what it means to make disciples. It's to live like the gospel is true in every relationship, in every conversation, in every action. No action, nothing that we ever do is without meaning. And it's everything. This is your waitress. This is the lady at the bank when you go to deposit your check.

It's everywhere. It's every circumstance. Let me let you guys in on me a little bit. I'm not standing up here saying I'm perfect at this. Not. It's hard.

And you guys know me. I think you know me well enough that I love people. I do. I love you guys. If you don't know it, I'll hug you afterwards. But I do.

I genuinely love people. But I'm slightly introverted. I know. You wouldn't know it. But being around people drains me big time.

It just sucks the life out of me. It just makes me really, really tired. And so there are days when I wake up and I'm excited about spending time with people. And every person I meet, every conversation, I just want to encourage them. I want to point them towards the gospel. And then there are days that I wake up and I just want it to be about me.

I don't want to answer my phone when people call. And so this is hard. This is something that we've got to learn and grow in and realize that we get to be a part of Jesus' mission of saving the world in our normal, everyday lives. Like I said, I'm not perfect at this, but let me give you a couple of good stories. Over the last two weeks, excuse me, not two weeks. Over the last two years, I've had the opportunity to work at Dick's Sporting Goods.

And it's been incredible. So much I have learned there. And I'll give you a couple of stories. I remember walking into the break room one night and there was a girl on the phone. She was talking to her grandma and she was visibly upset. They were arguing, you could tell.

She hung up the phone. And I just, I remember what I was having to eat that night. I was having spaghetti. That's important. I would remember that detail. And I asked her, I said, you okay?

Everything okay? She goes, well, my grandma and my whole family, everybody's putting all this pressure on me to get married because I'm the last of my sisters to get married. And I mean, I've got a boyfriend. I guess he's my boyfriend. He cheats on me all the time. And if he just wise up, he could be my, she just went off.

And she just went on. And I finally stopped. I said, hey, can I encourage you for a second? She's like, you know, she was just letting it go. I said, can I encourage you for a second? I said, your boyfriend sounds like a jerk.

I said, I'm really sorry. I said, I'm really sorry that your family's putting this weird pressure on you. But let me tell you what's true for you. You have a father in heaven who loves you very much. So much so that he sent his son, Jesus, to die on a cross to forgive you of your sin, to bring you into a relationship because he loves you and because he pursues you.

And your identity and your value don't have to be wrapped up in some guy. It can be in him. Tears just welled up in her eyes. Thank you. You're welcome. Hope you break up your boyfriend.

He's a jerk. That was great. It was just a really cool opportunity. Here's another one. When somebody new shows up at work, you have a full license to play the 20-question game daily for a month at least. So this guy named David Hoewaler shows up at Dick's Sporting Goods.

And he's a recent graduate from Clemson University. And so I knew he was great, obviously. And so I just took that chance to build a relationship. I started asking him questions. We figured out that we had a lot in common, that we had a lot of the same interests. We started hanging out outside of work.

I invited David and his wife to come hang out with the first community group of Mill City Church. When it came time to multiply, David and his wife came with our group and started meeting in our house. It came time to multiply that group again. And the guy who was going to be leading the group was in the military and was going to have to do some training. And he was going to have to go overseas. And so David stepped up.

David said, I'll lead. And so we trained him as an apprentice. David started leading a group. In the spring of this year, David did an internship with our church where he got to be a part of our teaching team. And he got to learn more and be over kind of what happens on Sunday in terms of sound and music and videos. We got to the end of that semester and he wanted to keep doing everything that he was doing.

David just took a job this week and we asked him, David, what do you need to pull back on? He said, nothing. He said, I'll keep working my job. I want to keep doing the things that I'm doing. That guy's a leader in our church. And it started with a conversation of, when did you graduate from Clinton?

Normal, ordinary life. And eternity's impacted by that. But it's not just work. Don't think work. Katie and I lived in an apartment when we first moved here. And the last weekend we were there, they threw a pool party.

So it's like, oh, great. Now that we're leaving, you're throwing a party. It's like, bye, guys. There, Katie struck up a conversation with a lady. And they were about our age. And so we invited them to come hang out with us.

They came and had a meal at our house. We invited them to start hanging out with our community group. And five months later, Daniel Gillen became a Christian and was baptized. The Gillens were so pumped up about what was going on, they invited their friends, the C's. The C's started coming. And two months later, DJ met Jesus.

And DJ's going to be baptized in the fall. Started with a conversation by a pool over a hot dog. Normal, everyday life. Ordinary, but not insignificant. We begin praying for open doors and we get to see what God does. We start looking at every conversation, every relationship as an opportunity to encourage people in the gospel.

And we get to watch the Holy Spirit begin to change people. When Jesus calls us to go and to make disciples, this is what he's talking about. Everyday mission. No second of any day is ever a waste of time when it's lived to the glory of Jesus to see his mission go forward. Verse 6. May your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

The speech of a Christian should be generous and gracious. Not complaining. Not whining. Not cutting. Not cursing. But the speech of a Christian should be gracious.

And it should be seasoned with salt. It should be seasoned with the richness of the gospel. That for us as Christians, the gospel should be our native tongue. The gospel should be the lens through which we start to look at the world. How we start to analyze everything. So that when somebody comes to me and asks me for marriage advice, I can't help but tell them about Jesus.

Because I'm called to love my wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. When somebody comes to me and wants to talk about finances and how I handle my money, I get to tell them that Jesus gave everything for me. And so nothing that I have belongs to me. I have everything that I need in Jesus. So I'm going to handle my money a little bit differently.

When somebody comes to me talking about trials and struggles, I get to point them to a Savior who suffered for them on their behalf. Seasoned with salt. Not open the salt shaker and dump it out. Okay, so you don't have to walk around with your Bible at work being like, Oh, you look down. Can I encourage you? And just seasoned.

Seasoned with salt. Asking for opportunities that you would make it clear. That's what it says. So that you may know how you want to answer each person. Seasoned with salt. The gospel impacts everything that we do.

And salt's cool. The fact that he uses this is interesting. Salt brings out flavor. It preserves. Salt can also irritate. So don't be that characteristic of salt.

But what's cool about salt is it doesn't necessarily have a flavor in and of itself. But if you take salt and you put it on five different types of food, it's going to bring out the flavor in different ways in all five of those different foods. It's going to bring out five different types of flavors. And so when he says be seasoned with salt, he's saying be you changed by the gospel. You. You in love with Jesus.

Your personality. So some of you in the room are introverts, even more introverted than me. And you're freaking out right now. You're like, oh, he's talking about people. And I just, I want to go sit in the corner and read a book. No, no, no.

Be, be you in love with Jesus. You have been uniquely and wonderfully designed by Jesus to make disciples just the way you are. So you get to pray and look for those opportunities as well, just like all of us. See, church, that's the mission. People that have been changed by the gospel, that are living that out in community, begin praying for opportunities. They begin looking at their lives, looking for every day, every second opportunities that they can encourage someone.

Speak the truth of the gospel to them. That's what mission looks like. Get this. Disciples begin to live like the gospel's true, letting it impact their relationships. They begin inviting their friends into community. Their friends meet Jesus.

Their friends become disciples of Jesus. We're back here. Those people begin to make more disciples. It's cycles of disciples. We go make disciple after disciple after disciple. That's what the mission of the church is.

It's to go and to make disciples. So let's keep going. Look at verse 7. We're going to walk through this kind of quickly, and I'm going to try to highlight who all these people are, because there's a lot of different names in here. But what we're going to see is a lot of different names, a lot of different people, and what that means for the mission of Jesus.

Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. Okay, so Tychicus, the first time we're going to see him is actually in Acts chapter 20. We see him in Acts chapter 20. Paul picks him up in Asia Minor, and now he's with Paul in Rome, and he gets the honor of delivering the letter, just like the video showed, to Ephesus, to Colossae, and to a person.

And he gets to deliver the letter to Philemon. So he's a part of the mission. It continues. Verse 9, And with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. Now, from the video, Onesimus was a runaway slave. Onesimus ran away from Philemon, and he's found himself in Rome.

And then Rome, he hears the gospel, and he becomes a Christian, faithful brother. And Paul is now entrusting to him also the letters. Go back to Ephesus, to Colossae, and to Philemon. So you can see this playing out, right? Onesimus is walking with the letters. Okay, all right.

Ephesus, Colossae, Philemon. That one wasn't so comfortable for him. But Paul sends him back. So a runaway slave gets to be a part of the mission. Keeps going. Verse 10, Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you.

Aristarchus. We see that Paul picks him up in Acts 17 in Thessalonica, and that he's with him in Rome. It continues on. Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions. If he comes to you, welcome him. Mark got to be a part of one of the first missionary journeys.

And during the journey, Mark leaves. Mark leaves in the middle of the journey. And so Paul and Mark are actually at odds. And what we see here is years later that they've been reconciled because the gospel is true. And now they're together in Rome. A prison is a pretty good place to get over your differences, right?

So Mark is a part of the mission too. And Jesus, who is called Justice. All we know about him is the next part. These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. All we know is that he was a Jew who converted to Christianity. He became a follower of Jesus.

That's all we know. And now it starts talking about people who didn't have a Jewish background. They were Gentiles. Epaphras. We know this guy. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Herapolis. So this is Epaphras. Epaphras who planted the church of Colossae and is now in prison with Paul in Rome. And again, we get to see that struggling. He's struggling for them on their behalf in his prayers. I love that.

Luke, the beloved physician, greets you. We see him pick up. He's picked up in Acts. I think it's Acts 18. Luke. Dr.

Luke. Namesake of the Gospel of Luke. Author of the book, The Acts of the Apostles. And Demas. All we know about Demas is that he's with them now and later we're going to see Paul and Luke together and Demas isn't there anymore. It's gotten hard and Demas has left.

It says, I think he chased after worldly things. Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, another church that's in the area, and to Nympha and the church in her house. Nympha got to host her church family in her home. How cool is that? And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans. And see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.

All these names, all these people, what we get to see is that the mission is big. That we get to go and to make disciples, but it's a team sport. It's fishermen. It's slaves. It's men. It's women.

It's all of us working together. It's a bunch of people that have been changed by Jesus and joined together in his mission. And it's not a super special team. It's a bunch of people that have been changed by Jesus and invited in. It's a team sport. We all get to make disciples as a part of a team because the mission's big.

Continues on. I'll read 16 again and keep going. And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans. And see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.

Remember my chains. Grace be with you. One of the major things that we've talked about all throughout Colossians is that anytime you see the word you, it's actually kind of the Greek translation of y'all. So Paul's writing this to the church. And so they would have understood this not just as individuals, but as a collective, as a body of believers. And this is one of the only times in the letter where it's the singular version of you.

Look at it. Verse 17. And Paul writes for them to tell this guy, Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you received in the Lord. Archippus, this random guy who is not a major character in this story at all, has a specific ministry that he's been given in the Lord just for him and for him alone. He has a personal ministry as a part of the team. And I want us to realize tonight that just like Archippus had a specific ministry in the Lord just for him, Jesus has a specific ministry for each one of us as a part of the team.

That he has uniquely and creatively designed each one of us to be right where we are doing the things that we're doing with the gifts and abilities that we have for the gospel so that we can go out and make disciples. And in doing so, we grow in our relationship with him. You see, the epic, grand narrative of the history of the world has been given to us. Jesus promises to build his church and to send his Holy Spirit to bring about repentance in people that the church can move forward and make disciples. And 2,000 years later, we're still doing the same thing. It gets better.

I've read the end of the book. Jesus comes back to get his church. We ain't going nowhere. We're not going anywhere. The mission is big and it's going to continue until Jesus comes back. That's a big promise because you've been invited into a mission where the victory has already been won.

And that's huge for us. So this epic, grand narrative of saving the world is accomplished in the ordinary. In the ordinary, but not insignificant. Every one of us has a mission. Every one of us as part of the mission of Mill City Church has a role. Let me help you see it.

I want you to ask yourself these questions. This is how you start seeing it. What are the gifts and abilities that you have? What are you passionate about? Where has the Lord placed you currently in this stage of your life? Where do you work?

Where do you go to school? Who is your family? What are the names of your neighbors? What are the worst areas in our city? You see, each one of us has a part in the ministry. Don't miss this.

Jesus calls us to make disciples. And the way that we do that is we begin praying for open doors with our family and our friends, with the people that we serve so that Jesus would build his church. The Holy Spirit would bring people to repentance. And the gospel would move forward. And what we see in the narrative, in the letter of Colossians, is that Paul is going to say that people that have been changed by Jesus, living that out in the context of community, led by the Holy Spirit, the mission is going to move forward. And every one of us has a different Job and a different role.

Each person has a role as a part of the team. And this means that we've got to constantly remind ourselves that the church is people. The church is not a building. The church is not an activity. It's not a club or an organization. It's a group of people that have been rescued by Jesus, transferred from death to life.

The church is people. And the church is God's chosen vessel to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, and there is no plan B. We are the mission. We get to take the mission forward. In the 1940s, around the time of World War II, there was a ship that was commissioned to be built. It was the SS United States.

And it was supposed to be the biggest and baddest ship on the ocean. It was a troop carrier. The SS United States was built to carry 15,000 soldiers at 51 miles per hour and make it to any destination in the world in less than 10 days. That means she was faster than any ship on the ocean at the time. But see, by the time it was finished in 1952, World War II had ended.

And in the 17 years of service that the SS United States had, it was only put on standby one time, and that was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And so at the end of 17 years, a ship that had been designed to carry troops into battle was retired and was converted into a luxury liner. The SS United States, which could carry 15,000 people, had its barracks converted to state rooms that could carry 2,000. It became a luxury liner for presidents and for heads of states and for celebrities who wanted to make it across the ocean in style. Mess halls were converted into four restaurants, three bars, two movie theaters.

The deck was kept open, but they put in a heated swimming pool. They installed 19 elevators. And people that rode on the SS United States got the luxury of being on the first air-conditioned ship on the ocean. The SS United States was designed to be a troop carrier and was converted into a luxury liner. You see, the faces of soldiers that are preparing for battle and their conversations are much different on a troop carrier than they are sitting by a pool eating bonbons. The allocation of resources on a troop carrier are different than that of the opulent wealth of a luxury liner.

The troop carrier is going to go as fast as it can because it's got an urgent mission where the luxury liner just takes its time. It just goes at its own pace. And what Paul is going to consistently say throughout this letter, he's pointing to the church at Colossae that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, that all things were created by Him and for Him, that He spoke creation into existence, including us, humankind, and we rebelled. We decided we wanted to be like God, and we broke the relationship. We brought sin into the world, a relationship that we were incapable of fixing, that the Old Testament sacrificial system and the laws were a mere shadow of the atonement and the reconciliation that needed to be done.

But God promised that He would rescue, that He would redeem, that He would save, that He would accomplish salvation for His glory, and Jesus steps into history. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life. He trained up His disciples. He did miracles. He taught. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and I'm going to give my life as a ransom for many.

And Jesus goes to the cross. And on the cross, the wrath of God is poured out on Jesus so that we could be forgiven of our sins, so that we could be offered redemption. And Jesus dies, and they place Him in a tomb. And three days later, Jesus walks out victorious, showing that He conquered sin, death, Satan, and hell. And He hung around with His disciples for 40 days. And He told them, I'm giving you the mission.

Go and make disciples until the end of the age. And I'm ascending into heaven, but one day I'm coming back. But don't worry, I'm going to send my Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit descends on 120 ragtag believers, and the gospel moves forward. The believers go from 120 to 3,000. The gospel begins to move from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.

And now Paul and Epaphras are in prison. And 2,000 years later, the mission is still moving forward. The church is a troop carrier, not a luxury liner. We have been designed for mission. We have been invited into the mission of Jesus. The ministry of the church is not designed to be a blessing to the body just as a means of itself.

But we're to be the agent through which Jesus works by His Holy Spirit to save the world. We're the mission. And so as Paul comes to the end of this letter, he's shown them that the gospel is the most beautiful thing in the world, and changed by it as people who are living in community. We get to use our ordinary, everyday lives on mission as we make disciples. That people who have been changed by the gospel and choose to live that out in community will change the world on mission. Mill City Church is a gospel-centered community that has been called into the greatest mission the world has ever seen.

Mill City Church is you and you and you and you, y'all, us. And we've been called into it. The band's going to come back up. This summer's been great for us. We've grown. We've been able to grow in health and what it looks like to be healthy.

And when I say healthy, I mean we've grown in our understanding of the gospel. We've begun confessing and repenting of sin. We've grown in what it looks like to live in relationship with each other and community. And we are at one of the most beautiful places in our church history that is a people that have grown to understand the gospel and are living that out in community. It's time to go all in. The church is a troop carrier and we've been designed for mission.

And I just want to tell you a little bit about our future. Here's where we're going. That because of those things, we get to, over the next couple of months, we're going to be focusing on mission. Next Sunday will actually be our last Sunday here at FBC West Columbia. And then we're moving our gatherings to Glen Forest School. And the reason we're doing it is we're doing it for mission.

We've got the opportunity to go into a school that is underloved, underappreciated, underfunded, that has very little volunteers. And we get to go in. We get to go from a place that's free to where we're actually going to pay to use the space because it's going to help the school. We're going to go from a church to a school. We're going to get to serve them. We're going to adopt them.

We're going to be moving our gathering time from the evening to the morning for mission. We're leveraging ourselves for mission because what we're saying is we want our church family to get up and to worship together on Sunday mornings and then to use the rest of the day to live normal, everyday life with people on mission in the afternoons and evenings. So that means that to see the mission of Jesus go forward, you might have to invite people over to your house to watch the Broncos play. It may be that you need to go play a round of golf. Or invite your neighbors over for a cookout. That's what it looks like to live on mission.

We're going to get into that neighborhood. We're going to get into the neighborhoods around Glen Forest. Not only that, the teaching of our church is going to be very missional over the next couple of months. Dawn of the church is Acts 1 and 2. It's the beginning of the mission. And then the Sunday in between, we're going to be throwing a party.

We're going to be inviting people from the surrounding neighborhoods. And we're going to be inviting our friends. Then on September 7th, we're launching Kingdom Come. It's a series where we look at how the kingdom of God moves forward in the lives of people. Our community groups are going to be focusing on a who. We're going to be focusing on areas like West Hill, like Glen Forest School, USC, and Midlands Tech.

And all along the way, we're going to continue to see our church family make disciples and bring people into community. We're going to continue to see group leaders trained and groups multiplied out. We're going to see our church continue to grow. And then we're going to multiply more churches. We're going to continue to have an impact in the city because we want to see marriages mended. We want to see children and parents relating to each other the right way.

We want to see darkness driven back in our city. And so in a second, we're going to sing. We're going to sing and pray that God would give us the courage that we need to step up and to step out. The mission's big and we've been invited in. And so I'm going to ask you that as you sing, pray for courage. Pray that God would lead us.

Jesus has called us into a mission that he's already won. And we need everybody to get on board the truth carrier. It's time to go all in. And it's time for each one of us to fulfill the ministry that Jesus has given to us. Let's pray.

God, we are humbled by the fact that you would call us in. That we would get the opportunity to be a part of your mission of saving the world. In normal, everyday life. God, when it's about the mission, when it's all about Jesus, we put our preferences to the side. We put our wants and desires to the side. And we chase after you with everything.

Because the gospel's true. Or teach us what it looks like to live on mission. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand as we respond and sing. That we, when we yap. If we love others.

Amen. Amen.

Gospel Culture

Colossians 3:12-17

Gospel Culture

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

One of the things we've been looking at as we've gone through Colossians is in the first two chapters is very much a vertical look that Paul's giving us. So he's saying, here's who Jesus is, here's who God is, here's what he's done for you, and so this is how that affects you. He's the creator of the world. He's the creator of the universe. He's accomplished everything on your behalf. He's reconciled you back to God.

He's paid your debt. He's covered your sins. He's made you new. So he's going to say all of this in Colossians, and then in chapters 3 and 4, he's going to turn from a vertical look of what it looks like between God and us to how that applies to us in normal life. So he's going to turn from a vertical look to a horizontal.

So if that's true, if that's who Jesus is, if that's what he's done, if that's who he's made you, here's what it's going to look like now as you walk in normal life with other people. And so one of the things we've looked at as we've looked at that is that the book of Colossians was written to y'all. So if there was a y'all version of the Bible, every you you see in the book of Colossians except for maybe one at the end of chapter 4 where he's addressing a specific person would be the plural Greek word y'all. And so that's what we're looking at is who are we as a church? How do we interact with one another?

So if this is true about who Jesus is, and that's true for us because he's accomplished that for us, then what does it look like as we interact with other people? And usually we get that backwards. So we think, okay, if I'm good to other people, if I'm generous, if I'm gracious, if I'm moral, and it's always this outside action, then I'll have a right relationship with God. Then God and I will be okay. But what Paul is going to say is that it's no.

Here's who Jesus is. Here's what he's done. And that's going to apply to who you are and how you live. So I'm going to pray, and we're going to hop in and look at a really beautiful section of Scripture that I'm super excited that we get to talk about tonight. God, we pray that you would just teach this to us tonight, that you would show it to us as we study your word, that your Holy Spirit would move and reveal to us the beauty of what this gets to look like as your people, who we get to be. So, God, we praise you.

We thank you. And we ask that we'd be able to make much of your name tonight. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, Colossians chapter 3, we're going to be in verse, we'll start in verse 11.

So we read verse 11 last week, finished with it, and we're going to pick back up there today. So he says, here, and here means among you, among the church. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. So all the categories we're used to have been thrown out the window. Jesus is all. He's what's important.

He's where hope comes from, value comes from, worth comes from, and he's in all. So we have hope, value, and worth because of Jesus. And so categories thrown out the window. We have worth and value because of Jesus. And then he says this, put on then. And so what we looked at last week was stuff he said that he said, if this is true, if Jesus has rescued you, if he's paid your debt, get rid of this.

Put this away. And now he's saying, put this on. This is what we get to look like because of who Jesus is. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. I want to help us see how we ought to think about it as we walk through the rest of this passage. So first of all, what Paul's saying is, as God's chosen ones, as the ones Jesus has already rescued.

So this is written to the church, those who place their faith in Jesus, holy and beloved, holy and loved. So what we said as we read the word holy earlier in the book of Colossians is that that's a really horrible descriptive word for everyone in the room. None of us are holy. Earlier in Colossians it said we're holy, blameless, and above reproach. That's incorrect outside of Jesus. But in Jesus he's made us holy, which means we have a right standing with God.

So he says, because of who you are, because of what Jesus has done, because you're chosen, holy, and loved. And then he's going to say, this is what you get to look like. And here's what I want us to see. I want to tell us this to help us frame up how we're going to read through the rest of this. My wife, her name's Anna. She loves to play a game.

She says it's a game. She'll say, the game is basically pretend vacation game, if I could describe it. She gets on the internet and she'll say, all right, let's play a game. And she'll look at me and go, okay, Groupon or Living Social? Which apparently are two things on the internet that help you choose vacations and stuff. And so I'm supposed to pick one and I'll be like, Living Social.

She'll go, okay. She'll open it up and be like, all right, the mountains, the Caribbean, or tropical paradise. And I'll be like, mountains. And she'll be like, tropical paradise. And I'm like, I don't know the rules of this game. Like, I don't know how I'm supposed to be playing this.

And so then as we go through tropical paradise, she'll be like, okay, Mexico, the Bahamas, or Bermuda. And I'll be like, the Bahamas. And she'll go, you're not really good at this. I'll be like, I don't know. You said it's a game. I feel like I'm losing and I don't know the rules.

And then she'll pick Mexico. And she looks through and shows me pictures. Okay, this is what our vacation would have been. And I'm like, I don't even know why I need to be here for this. She thoroughly enjoys looking at these pictures of places that we most likely will never go. I'd rather she poked me in the eye and let me go away.

Like, I have no desire to look at pictures of somewhere I'm never going to go. And the truth is, as we read through scripture, as we read through this section, we're going to see that it's beautiful. That it's beautiful who Paul's going to say the church gets to be. And I want us to look at it not as people who say, yeah, that's really pretty, but we're never going to get there. I want us to look at it as people who realize this gets to be true for us. So when I actually get to go on vacation, oh, I love looking at pictures of that stuff.

If I know I'm going to be there soon, I'll get on TripAdvisor and figure out where I'm going to eat. I'll be looking at pictures of, like, biscuits. This place says I've got really good biscuits. Like, I don't know. I'm, like, weighing out restaurants and that kind of thing. And the truth is, we get to look at it that way.

So don't look at this beautiful picture of where the church gets to be and go, yeah, that'd be nice. Look at it and realize, no, we're going to get to go there. We're going to get to stick our feet in the sand. We're going to get to smell the salt air. We're going to get the sunburn from being at this place. So as we talk through this, realize this is who we get to be because of Jesus.

So don't just look at it and say, yeah, that's nice. Yeah, that's beautiful. And walk out of here. Realize that we get to have this because of what Jesus has already accomplished. Because we are holy and beloved. Because we're chosen.

Because he's already done this for us. That Jesus on the cross has already done all the work necessary for this to happen for us. And we just get to put this on and walk this out as this church. So here's what we get to be. So he said, put on them as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

So Paul says that the church gets to have compassionate hearts. That when we gather together in our community groups, we actually get to care about each other. Not only just do we have compassion, but our hearts are compassionate hearts. Which means just our general posture of the people in the church is we care about each other. We want good things for each other. And not just compassion, but compassion that drives us to action.

So that when the church gets together, we listen to each other. We pray for one another. We serve one another. We help pay bills for each other. We have compassion. It says kindness.

Compassionate hearts, kindness. Just genuinely enjoyable people to be around. The church gets to be fun, pleasant, gracious, generous. Humility. Man, our society says that you need pride. It says that you need to have your own self-worth.

It says that you need to assert yourself. And what Paul says is no. Jesus didn't assert himself, but he came and he died for us. And so that the church gets to have humility and meekness. Which means that we genuinely, as we get together, we want others to go first. We want to hear other people out.

We don't want to assert our opinion all the time. We want to listen. We just get to gather together as Jesus' people changed by the cross. And have a flavorful, rich community of people. Then he says this.

So we get to have compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness. And then I love this next section. And you'll see why in a minute. It's one of my favorite passages in Scripture. And patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.

As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Quickly, let me tell you a story about, let me explain patience to you. Raz was talking. He's one of our community group leaders. And he was talking about when he used to lead a group in Australia. That he had a guy in his community group that just drove him crazy.

Raz, and he didn't say this, but I know Raz well enough to know he was really close to choking him. And so Raz said that this guy just drove him crazy. And he was talking to his group's coach. And he was saying, how do I? He said, I've been praying for patience. And I don't know how to handle this anymore.

And his coach looked at him and said, you know what patience is, right? He's like, patience doesn't mean the problem goes away. It means the problem stays. That's how you grow in patience. I love that patience is in this list. What Paul's saying is, he says, patience bearing with one another.

What he's saying is, if you're going to walk in relationships with each other as the family that Jesus has made us, you're going to get on each other's nerves. It's going to happen. You're going to be annoyed. You're going to be frustrated. Let me tell you something. We talk all the time about our community groups.

I can guarantee you something. We want you to be a part of a community group. And we want you to go ahead and be prepared to be hurt, to be frustrated, to be annoyed. When I went to get married, I did not think, okay, my wife and I are going to get married. And now we'll have happy, glitter, rainbow bliss for the rest of forever. I had better sense than that.

I knew that one sinner plus another sinner doesn't equal Rainbow Skittle's unicorn ride. Like, that's not what happens. I know that marriage is, I'm going to argue with someone for the rest of my life. I just made a cognitive decision to have it be Anna. She knew someone was going to get on her nerves for the rest of her life. She knew she was going to have to deal with someone's sin and someone else was going to have to deal with her sin for the rest of her life.

And she just chose to let that be me. And the truth is, when you take the church, which is just a group of people who were the first to raise their hand and say, I'm messed up. I need Jesus. I'm broken. I'm off. I'm not going to straighten this out.

I'm not going to fix this. But Jesus will. When you take that group of people and you say, we're going to walk through life together, that's not happy, rainbow, glitter bliss. That's not how that works. We're going to have frustration. We're going to have problems.

And so Paul says, put on patience. Bearing with one another. That we get to have grace for each other because it's not always going to go swimmingly. It's not always going to work out perfectly. The truth is, you are going to annoy people for the rest of your life. We're just inviting you to annoy us.

I'm going to annoy and sin against people for the rest of my life. And I couldn't think of a better group of people to do that to. That's all church family is. That's what it is. That's what it gets to be. So he says, have patience.

Put it on. Bear with one another because you're going to have problems and frustrations. And here's the thing. This is so beautiful. So when I'm by myself and I sin, I'm the only one who has to deal with it.

When I'm in community, everyone has to deal with my sin. And I have to deal with everyone else's. And so you'd say, isn't that worse? Yes. Yes. Yes, it is.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But it's so much better. It's so much better because we actually get to grow in it. We actually get to walk through it.

And here's what Paul says. And this is why I love this section. He says, patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord. That's Jesus has forgiven you. So you also must forgive.

So Jesus came and died for our sin. He took our brokenness, our sin upon himself. And he died for it and forgave us of everything. And so we get to forgive each other the same way that he forgave us. We get to walk in forgiveness the same way that Jesus has forgiven us. And so what's really cool about this is that the church is a group of people that you know have to forgive you.

You know it's a group of people that you get to walk through life together and you're going to forgive each other. You're going to walk in forgiveness for one another. And so the basic process here is that we bear with one another. First step in this process is bear with one another. So Paul says that the way we're going to walk through this is to bear with one another.

And what that means is the Bible uses the word forbearance, which just means we overlook sin. So that would be like if my wife over and over again told me to clean my dishes in the sink, put my dishes in the sink, clean them off, and then stick them in the dishwasher. I thought I said washing machine, which would have been weird, but it didn't. But then I brought it up anyway, so there you go. Take my dishes and put them in the dishwasher. And then she finds them sitting on the table in front of the television.

Forbearance is her picking it up, cleaning it off, putting it in the dishwasher, and choosing to forgive me even though I don't deserve it. That's what forbearance is. And so when it says bear with one another, what that means is that in your community groups you actually say, well, that was annoying and that was frustrating. But I'm going to forgive you, and we're not ever going to have to talk about it. I'm just going to choose to forgive as Christ has forgiven me, and we won't ever have to bring it up. When you cease to bear with one another is when those issues have piled up so much that you can no longer relate to the person the same way.

So bearing with one another is, yeah, some people in my community group have borrowed my DVDs, and I haven't seen them back yet. And I don't know if I'm going to get these back. And bearing with them is me choosing to forgive and let it go. And when I cease to be able to bear with them is when I need to say, hey, man, we need to talk about this DVD situation because it's starting to bother me that this is going on. It's not me not addressing the issue. And so what Paul says is you bear with one another, and then if one has a complaint against another, you talk about it.

This destroys southerness. I'm sorry. Destroys it. What that means is this. Like I'm hanging out with somebody, and you're talking to them, and you're all having a conversation. Someone else walks up, and they'll be like, hey, buddy, how you doing?

How's your mom and them? Yeah, everything good? All right, cool. And then they talk for a little bit, and they'll walk off. And you go, who's that? And he goes, that's right.

I hate that guy. I don't personally know a whole lot about hate, but I think you're doing it wrong because you, like, asked about his mom, and y'all talked a lot, and it was like a bro hug at the end of it. The truth is we do that. We think as southerners that bringing up an issue causes more problems, and what Paul says is no, because of the gospel, we have a way to resolve them, so we have to bring them up. So we forbear.

So we forbear, and then when we can no longer forbear, when we're no longer actually forgiving, we're just allowing something to bother us, we talk to the person. We don't talk about the person. We talk to the person. Which means that just so you know, as our church family, this is our response, and I want y'all to pay attention. When someone comes to you to talk about a third party and tell you something they did that got on their nerves or bothered them, your response is what they say when you told them. That is your response.

That is how we respond as church family, because biblically, the Bible says if we have a problem with someone or someone has a problem with us, it's on us to talk to them. And so if they don't repent, if you can't work it out, then you bring more church family into it. So if you're talking to me about an issue you have with someone else, I'm just assuming we're on step two, which is you already talked to them and y'all couldn't work it out. So church family, do that. Just assume we're on step two if someone's talking to you about someone else. The response is, well, what did they say when you talked to them?

And I've said that to people, and they looked at me like a lobster just fell out of my mouth. What did you say when you talked to them? I don't know. The best part is they didn't go, oh, you didn't talk to them? They're right over here. Let's go talk to them.

People would be behind you going, no, I just, I didn't have a, and you just walk right over and say, hey, y'all, there's an issue here. Let's talk about it. And it's the most awkward thing, and you just get to be a part of it. It's the best. It's the worst when someone does it to you, but it's really good when you do it to someone else. The truth is, one of two things will happen there.

You will help work that situation out, and that will be good. Or in the least, that person will never complain to you about anyone else ever. And you'll at least have fixed the issue when it comes to you and them. You won't have helped it continue. So what Paul says is, bear with one another, which is just choose to forgive and don't let an issue arise.

Once an issue has arisen, once there's something in between you two and you can no longer operate normally, you talk about it. And here's why we talk about it. Bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. When we won't talk about issues inside of the church, when we allowed weirdness to develop, when we allowed little petty things grow up in between us, what we are saying is that we assume the gospel isn't true. When I won't talk to you about some sort of a conflict between us, I'm assuming that we have no way to fix it.

And what Paul is saying is, no, we're going to talk about conflict because we have the way to fix it. I'm sinful. You're sinful. Jesus paid for our sin. We can work this out. I've been reconciled to God.

I can certainly be reconciled to you. I've been forgiven of everything. I can certainly forgive you of this. And you can forgive me. So we actually walk functionally in the truth of the gospel when we talk to each other about conflict.

We just assume we're going to work it out because Jesus has worked out everything on our behalf, and we are Jesus' people. So we get to work it out. And let me tell you what that means. You're going to have to have some conversations with people. First of all, you're going to have to forgive people of things that you shouldn't be mad about. You just get to forgive them.

Second of all, you're going to have to have some conversations with people about some stuff that seems petty, and y'all get to talk about it. I know this is weird. It really bothers me when you do this. Let's figure this out. It means that you have to get yourself prepared for someone to come tell you something. Go ahead and get mentally prepared for someone to have a problem with you about something.

People come tell me stuff all the time. You know this is annoying. You know that was offensive. Why did you say that? This hurt my feelings. I've just gotten used to the fact that I'm sinful.

I know what's coming. I never enjoy those conversations, but I'm ready for it. Someone tells me I did something wrong. I'm like, all right, probably did. Explain it to me. Let's talk it out.

So we get to, and we get to apply the gospel because it is true. We get to forgive one another. Then he says this, Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. So that the church actually gets to be a group of people who forgive, who walk in flavorful community, and who have a love for one another. Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.

And be thankful that we just get to be people who have peace because of Jesus. We get to have rest. We get to have peace ruling in our hearts as we relate to one another. Don't just look at this and think, yeah, that'd be nice. Realize that this is who we get to be because of what Jesus has already accomplished for us. That we get to walk this out.

Here's a, Charles Spurgeon has a quote when it comes to the church. He says this. He says, give yourself to the church. You that are members of the church have not found it perfect. And I hope that you feel almost glad that you have not. If I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I would never have joined one at all.

And the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should have spoiled it. For it would not have been perfect church after I had become a member of it. Still imperfect as it is, it is the dearest place on earth to us. That we get to, because of Jesus, have genuine, long-lasting, real relationships. Because sin breaks relationships down and Jesus has already conquered sin. We get to forgive.

We get to walk in life. We get to have peace ruling our hearts. And so here's what happens. We look at this and we start saying, okay, well, how do we do that? Functionally, how are we going to walk that way? How are we going to actually live that out, play that out?

And here's what Paul says. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. That you is y'all. Let the word of Christ dwell in y'all richly. For this to happen, we have to be Bible people. We have to have the gospel penetrating who we are.

We have to have it sinking down into how we view the world. That's why we're going to study the Bible. That's why every time we get together, we're going to open the Bible together. That's why in our community groups, we're going to study the Bible together on a regular basis. Because we want the word of Christ dwelling in us richly. So that we can actually have everything that Jesus has already given us.

See, relationships like this don't happen outside of the gospel. They break down. And so we have to be gospel people. We have to have our culture as us as a church be affected by the gospel. And so we talk a lot about community groups. And we talk a lot about walking in church family and being in life with each other.

And so there's a lot of times you hang out for a while and you're like, okay, I get it. Community groups. That's how we be church. I get it. You've said that enough. Thanks.

And the truth is we've been made into church family by Jesus. We've been rescued and redeemed and made into a community. We have a way to walk this out. But I want to tell you something else that's a really one of the major reasons that we love community. You get to grow in the gospel in the context of community in a way that you never would by yourself. You get to grow in the gospel and how it applies and how you understand it and its depth and richness in your soul in relationship with other people that you never would by yourself.

See, when I'm by myself, I'm super easy to get along with. I'm really smart. All my ideas are good. My jokes are hilarious. Like I'm really generous. Like I'll think, man, I really like some chicken right about now.

And then I'll be like, you know what, man? I'll get you some chicken. I'll be like, thank you, man. You are so generous. Like when you're by yourself, when I get really angry by myself, there's not a whole lot of collateral damage unless I just start tearing up stuff. But for the most part, I'm just angry by myself.

I don't offend other people. I don't hurt other people. The truth is when I'm by myself, it's easy for me to believe that forgiveness is cheap, that forgiveness is easy, and that it's simple, that sin's not that big a deal. When I'm in the context of community, when I actually have to forgive somebody else, I realize that forgiveness is costly, and it's not easy, and it's not simple. And it's only inside the context of community that the weight of what Jesus did for me on the cross can be applied in a real way when I actually have to forgive someone else, when I have to dig deep into what Jesus has done for me, when I have to remind myself that the gospel is true, that I was forgiven of everything so that I can actually forgive someone else.

In the context of community, when I have to confess sin to somebody, I have to dig deep into the truth of the gospel, which is my worth doesn't come from my ability to behave. My worth doesn't come from my right moral action or what people think of me and how well I'm viewed. It comes from Jesus. My relationship with him is based off of the fact that I'm a sinner. And so when I have to confess sin to you, I've got to walk in the gospel to do that. When I'm going to be generous, when you're at my house, when my community group meets in my house and we have white carpet, we didn't choose the color of the carpet, our carpet looks terrible.

It looks like people just rolled in dirt and then rolled around on our carpet. Like, it gets new colors every week. So it's white now. A couple years, it'll be like technicolored. I'll be like, yeah, that's Kool-Aid. That's Dr.

Pepper. That looks like half a watermelon. Like, I have to grow in generosity when my community group is over at my house. I have to remind myself of what's important and what's valuable. And I have to walk in the light of the gospel as people are at my house breaking things, hiding things from me because they think it's funny. Like, I have to grow in forbearance and the truth of the gospel in a way in a community that I never would get to outside of it.

You see, the way we do our community groups is we have infants to grandparents in the same community group. That's odd. Y'all know that's odd, right? Like, a lot of churches don't do that. There's a couple of reasons why we do that. Two are biblical and one's just really practical.

The practical one is we're pretty small. So if we broke it up by age group, some of you would be by yourself. We'd just be like, if you start getting on your nerves, talk to us. We'll help you walk it out. If we broke it up by age group and gender, some of y'all just, your community group would be you. You'd probably get along well with yourself, I reckon.

The two practical ones are, biblically, the Bible says that we're supposed to let the older generations coach up the younger generations. So that those who've walked with the Lord for a while, those who've walked through life for a while, actually need to pour into those that are younger than them. And we just don't see how we'd do that well if we didn't have them actually being around each other, getting to coach up and say, Hey, man, I see the way you talk to your wife. This isn't healthy or helpful. I used to talk to my wife that way. This is going to be a problem for y'all.

We can't walk through life together if we're not around each other. The third reason is this. And we read it at verse 11. I just want to point it out. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. If we break up constantly by age group and gender, by affinity, which is we all like the same stuff, we'll begin to believe that that's what holds us together and that's what makes us a family.

We'll begin to believe that that's the bond we have with each other. We all like the same stuff. When we pile in barbarians, Scythians, Greeks, Jews, circumcised, uncircumcised, when that's what the community group looks like, age group across the board, income across the board, life stage across the board. You have to, what you like and don't like, the type of music you listen to, the type of food you like. We've got some people that are vegetarians and some people that only eat meat. We got, I mean, we pretty much, we're across the board when it comes to how we relate and interact.

We have to realize that Christ is all and he's in all and Jesus is what bonds us together because we have nothing else in common. Like I've had super awkward conversations with people before in my community group just because we have nothing in common. A couple of my favorites were, I was like, so you watch football? You don't watch football? Okay, what kind of hobbies you got? Tea?

Like sweet tea? Oh, hot tea? You like coffee? Mm-hmm. You like Jesus? Like that was, we just broke down.

You just hear conversations just like derail. We had a conversation about heavy metal music in my community group. I know nothing about it. I just got to watch people just shoot and miss all over the place. Like this? No, not like that.

Like this? No, not at all. Like this? And I would just throw in unhelpful things for fun. Like it's great because we had nothing in common outside of we're a group of people that have been rescued by Jesus. And when we walk through life across the board in non-affinity based, non-age group based, what we remind ourselves functionally is that it's Jesus that makes us family.

And it's Jesus that makes us work out. And it's Jesus, only Jesus, always Jesus. And if we're going to grow and if we're going to learn, if we're going to forbear and we're going to forgive and if we're going to have this type of relationship, we're going to need Jesus. And we're going to have to be gospel people. So something weird has happened in the American church where we can say with an amount of credibility, I just don't fit in there.

I'm the only one who's not married. I'm the only one in that group who's got little kids. I'm the only one there who likes this or we just don't have the same interests, we don't have the same hobbies. And we act like that's an okay excuse for something. And the truth is every time we say statements like that, not every time, most of the time, what we're actually declaring is that this is my best opportunity for growth. When we make statements like that, what we're saying is this is my best opportunity for growth because this is where I'm going to have to apply the gospel.

This is where I'm going to have to walk with Jesus. This is where I'm going to have to remember what's important for this to even work out. This is where I'm going to have to allow the gospel to dwell in me richly because we don't get along. And I'm going to have to forbear. And we're going to have to talk out issues. And we're going to have to forgive.

And we're going to have to be kind and humble and meek. I'm going to have to show up not wanting my will to be done but wanting to allow other people to get to the front. I remember having a conversation with – so we have to have the gospel apply. We have to have the gospel working in us for this to work out. We have to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. I remember having a conversation with a pastor when I was up at Liberty.

I was in seminary there talking about planning a church and talking about how we were going to do community groups and we wanted to just be in life with each other. And he told me, he said, he's a godly man, love Jesus, super smart. And I would talk with him several times just about different things. And he told me, he said, my dad, his dad was a professor who was older, had his own school of the Bible, really sharp guy. He said, my dad has been a Christian for a very long time. He said he's been a professor of theology for a very long time.

And he said he would not need to be a part of one of your community groups. Like if that's where discipleship is going to happen, if that's where people are going to grow closer to Jesus, he wouldn't need to be a part of one. So what would he do? How would he plug into your church? So I remember thinking, okay, that's a good point.

Let me think about that. And then I realized, no, that's contrary to the yallness of who we get to be in the New Testament. And it's contrary. If he is walking with Jesus that much, he may not need a community group, but his community needs him. His community group needs him to be training him up, to be pointing him towards Jesus, to be helping him understand how the Bible applies. Here's what it says.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. So you can know things and have no clue how it applies. Wisdom is knowing things and how it applies. And so as we walk in relationships with each other, we get to teach and admonish one another. We get to call each other out and point each other towards the gospel and how the gospel applies in relationships.

And here's another thing I can guarantee you about him. If he came down here and joined one of our community groups, he'd get to grow in patience, forbearance, and forgiveness. Guaranteed. And that's actually one of the ways that we grow in understanding the gospel. So as he gathered with some people who had just become believers and didn't really even understand how it applied.

I have conversations with people in our church family, and I love it because we've got a lot of young Christians and a lot of people who have just become believers and a lot of people who are tractor-beamed by Jesus and will be believers soon. It's one of my favorite group of people to talk with that just don't even understand. You'll talk to them about stuff from the Bible, and they're like, I didn't even realize that was like a thing that I wasn't supposed to be doing. I didn't understand that this even applied. And it's like, yeah. And so they've been offending people, and they've been hurting people's feelings, and they've been walking in sin because they didn't even realize that that was in here, that this is how they should walk with Jesus.

And so we get to, as we grow together, teach and admonish one another because the gospel dwells in us richly, because the word of Christ is in and among us. Community forces us to walk in the gospel in a way that we would never get to, and it allows us to have a richness and a fullness to life with Jesus that we never get to have outside of the relationships we get to have with one another. The joy that we get to celebrate together, the life that we get to walk through together, we'll miss out on if there isn't a y'all to us walking with Jesus. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. When we gather together on Sundays, this is not an event. It's a gathering of the church. And we sing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is one of the ways that we teach and admonish one another. When you're singing, yes, you're singing to Jesus, you're also singing to every other person in this room who can hear your voice. You're teaching and admonishing and helping everyone else realize that this is true.

This is who Jesus is. This is what he's done for us. This is what's happened for us in the gospel. So we gather our groups together to sing, to teach, to be thankful. And then we walk through life in the mess and joy of life together as we get to be Jesus's people. Realize that we don't just get to look at that and say, man, I'd love to be a part of a group of people who had compassion and kindness and humility and meekness.

Don't look and say, man, I'd love to be a part of a group of people that I knew had to forgive me. I'm going to cause problems for the rest of my life. I want to be around people who have to forgive me. Realize that gets to be us. We get to sit on that beach. We get to feel that breeze.

We get to inhale that salt air because of what Jesus has already done for us. Because for those of us in Christ, Jesus took our sin and he nailed it to a cross. And he paid our debt and he set us free. And we have the way to interact with one another because Jesus shows us what humility looks like when he stepped out of heaven. The king of the world, creator of all things, stepped out of heaven and took on our sin so that we could be free. He didn't assert his way.

He didn't destroy his enemies. He died for them. So we understand what meekness looks like. He forgave all of us of everything of those of us who placed our faith in Jesus. And he offers that to everyone to place your faith in Jesus and be forgiven. So we understand what forgiveness looks like.

And we know with the cross that it's costly, but it's possible. And so we allow the gospel to dwell among us richly as we study scripture and see what Jesus did for us. And then we walk through life together. Normal, everyday life. If you don't have people in our church family getting on your nerves, I will tell you something. You probably don't have, you haven't plugged in enough.

You haven't hopped in enough. That's how relationships with sinful people works. That's what we get to be with each other. We get to have genuine love, real love, and real life and relationships because of Jesus. So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to stand up and we're going to sing. We only sang one song when we came in here because we're going to sing a lot now. We're going to be thankful. We're going to praise Jesus for what he's done, for who we get to be. We're going to sing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts towards God because of what Jesus has done for us in the gospel. I'm going to pray.

We're going to sing. God, I thank you that this gets to be true for us. That we get to actually have these kind of relationships. That you've invited us into your family and your family is beautiful. That, God, we get to be a group of messed up people rescued and redeemed by Jesus and that your church gets to be the dearest place on earth to us. We thank you.

We praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Life in Jesus

Colossians 3:1-11

Life in Jesus

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

Apostle Paul has been writing this letter to a church in Colossae. And they, it's a relatively new church, relatively healthy, but they've kind of been having a bunch of nonsense pumped into their brains, both inside and outside of the church, as to what it looks like to follow Christ. And so Paul, for the first two chapters, has just been, here's who Jesus is, and here's what he's accomplished for us. So here's, he is the image of the invisible God. He's the firstborn among all creation. Before by him all things have been created in heaven and on earth.

I mean, he just goes in this massive, here's how glorious, how inconceivable, how uncomparable Jesus is. And then he goes into, and he died so that we could have a right relationship with God. We've been rescued and redeemed by him. That he's paid our debt. And so there's no more, no more work and effort that we have to put in and nothing else that we have to do that by which we are judged as to whether or not we're right or wrong. And so Paul's going to, in the first two chapters, he just, this is who Jesus is, and this is what he's done.

This is who Jesus is, and this is what he's done. This is who Jesus is, and this is what he's done. That's the first two chapters. And then in chapter three and four, he's going to turn and say, okay, so because that's true, here's what we get to look like. Here's what life gets to look like. Here's what it gets to look like as we interact and live life together.

And so the book of Colossians is written to a church. Every time he uses the word you, it's the word y'all. It's the Greek version of y'all. And so he's talking to a group of people, and he's saying, this is what it looks like for you to live in community, for you to be people affected by who Jesus is and what he's done. And so we get this backwards all the time. We almost feel like it has to be backwards.

And so what I mean by that is this. Every other religion and even what we try to operate in, the mode of operation we try to work in in our own souls is do these things, be this type of person, and then God will love you. So do these things, be this type of person, and then God will love you. So we try to work it out here. We try to try really hard here, and then we earn a goal here that God loves us, that God accomplishes us, or that he gives us worth or that we have worth because of what we've accomplished. And so every other religion is going to be don't do this, do this, don't dress this way, dress this way, talk this way, don't talk this way, have your hair this way.

All of these rules and regulations, and if we follow those, if we're good, if we're moral, if we're right, if we have the right nationality, whatever it is, then we'll earn nirvana or we'll be accepted by God or we'll be loved by God. And that's actually the way humans want to operate. We want to believe that I can do something, that it's within my power to make myself right with God. And so Paul, in the first two chapters of Colossians, has been crushing that. He's been saying, no, it's not inside your power, it's who Jesus is and what he's done, and now we live in light of that. So we operate in a certain way because he loves us, because he gives us worth, because he gives us value, not to earn it.

I heard it explained this way, and I thought it was helpful for my brain, so I'm going to share it with you all. If a king has a castle and an enemy is approaching, So the king brings all the people in around the castle, he brings them inside the city, he closes the gates, he sets up some military units and soldiers and archers, he sets them all up, and then he and most of the force, most of the military rides out to meet the enemy. So he wants to go meet the enemy on the battlefield, and he wants to have some units left to protect the city. And so what happens is one of two things. If the king wins, he gathers some men and he sends them back to give the good news.

He gathers some men to be heralds of what has been accomplished. And so these men just come back, and all they do is give good news. All they're good newsers, they're giving a report of, all right, so here's what happened. The battle went like this, the enemy came this way, we did this, which was awesome, and then like a bunch of them died, and then they ran away, and we won. King went out, and we won the victory. And so now you get to live in light of the good news.

So open the gates, bust out the mead, get the cheese and the meat, and let's have a party. We get to celebrate the fact that we don't have to be in here preparing for battle, we don't have to be huddled up in fear. Victory's already been won, we get to live in light of it. Or, king loses. And then he gathers some men, and he sends them back, and they are advisors. Military advisors, and they're there to give good advice.

So they ride up, and they say, okay, king said this many men are coming, we were able to stop this force, but we know what's headed our way, and so we need to have extra men here prepared to do this. And he said to line up all the men here, and all they can do is give good advice. And what they can say is if we do these things well, if we try hard enough, we may live. But there's no guarantee. It's one of two options. And what Christianity is, is the king already came.

The king already fought the battle. The king already won the victory. And we get to live in light of it. That's Christianity. It's not good advice that if we do these things, if we try hard enough, if we're prepared enough, we might live. It is no.

We now get to live in light of what has already been accomplished for us. And so that's what Paul said in the first two chapters. Here's what the king did. He left heaven. He lived on earth. He was crushed in our place for our sins.

Our debt was nailed to the cross when he was nailed to the cross. And we're free, and we have life in him. That's chapters 1 and 2. 3 and 4 is, so here's what it looks like for us to live in light of that. Here's what it looks like for us to open the gates and start the party. Here's what it looks like for us to be in relationship with one another.

And so that's what we're doing. That's what we're hopping into in chapter 3 and 4. And so it's going to be Paul telling us more. This is what you do. This is what this looks like. But at no point is it do these things, and then God will love you.

It's no. Here's what he's already done. So we live in light of that. I'm going to pray, and we're going to hop into chapter 3. God, we thank you that the battle has already been fought and the victory has already been won. That at no point as we talk through what it looks like for us to be your church are we trying to earn anything.

We're honestly just getting to live in light of what you've already done. So God, I pray that you would impress that on our souls, that you would make that real to us, that we would know it to be true. We love you, and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. So Colossians 3, verse 1.

If then you have been raised with Christ. So he's saying if you're a Christian, if you've placed your faith in Jesus. In chapter 2 he just said that you died with Christ, so your sin died with him, and you've been raised to life in Christ. So that the old you died with him, and the new you has life because of him. So he took our sin and gave us his righteousness.

He took our death and gave us his life. That's what Jesus did when he died on the cross and when he rose again. And so Paul says if you've been raised with Christ, if you've placed your faith in Jesus, if you have been given new life in him, this is what it looks like. So I know some of you may be in here hanging out and are just kind of checking this whole Jesus thing out. We think this is a really safe place to do that. Paul is talking specifically to those who've placed their faith in Jesus, what it looks like to follow him in that.

And for those of us who haven't placed faith in Jesus yet, you get to approach him knowing that he pays for your sin and gives you new life through faith. So if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is. Seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.

So what Paul says is if you've been raised with Christ, if you've placed your hope in Christ, set your mind on the things that are above. Live as if you understand what has happened. Live as if eternity is real for you because of Jesus. That Christ who is your life. That our life is in him. So we're not going to find it here.

Basically, Paul is saying that Jesus in his death and resurrection and when we placed our faith in him has reset the way we view the world. So like I remember middle school. There were some things that were super important and intense in middle school that when you got to high school, you were like, huh. That wasn't as big a deal as I thought it was going to be. I remember a couple stories. Anna told me that when she was in middle school, the first day she wore chapstick, she thought people were going to notice and it was going to be a big deal.

So that her lips were going to be more glisten-y and less chap-y than normal. And so she just felt like, because when you're in middle school, everything just feels like this is going to be way more intense than it is. And everything seems bigger than it is at that moment. And as you get older, you're like, that wasn't as big a deal. In middle school one time, I wore, I don't want to tell this story, but I've started. So I wasn't planning on telling it, but it popped down my mouth.

I wore some short, like gray, kind of cut-off sweatpants. And I was like, I don't know how I feel about these in middle school. Like people may give me a hard time. But I was like, whatever, I'm going to go for it. And they were comfortable. And so I was like, I'm going to do this.

And then at lunch that day, I sat in gravy. Brown rice gravy in the worst place possible. And so I was like trying to walk down halls up against the wall for the rest of the day and stuff. And the way I found out was one of my friends, I was walking down the hall. He was halfway away. And the way I found out was one of my friends yelled to me something that I'm not going to preach right now.

But just a question. He had a question that he had for me, giving him a pants situation. And I remember thinking, I don't know if you live this down. I think this may go with me forever. Like I may have earned a nickname. And it may stick with me forever.

Got to high school. People didn't remember. I didn't bring it up. Like it wasn't a thing. And I realized that it was less important than I thought it was. And the truth is, this happens to us all the time.

So you'll meet people that went on a trip to a third world country. And they come back and they just, they're like, oh, toilets are the best. It's like they just appreciate things that we don't appreciate anymore. Like we've gotten used to it. If you're watching a good movie, this can happen to you. Have you ever seen the movie Hidalgo?

It's like a guy rides a horse through the desert. There's this part where he's like crawling along in sand. His face is like cooked by the sun. His lips are split in half. And if you're drinking water while you watch that, you're just like, I love water. I forgot how wonderful this is.

And so what Paul is saying is that Jesus has given us the ability to see life differently. And that we get to set our minds on the things that are above. We get to realize that what is here is enjoyable. We get to realize that what is here is for his glory. And that we get to partake in it. And we get to enjoy it.

And we get to celebrate. And we get to have friends and family. And all of the good things that he's given. But it's not about that. And life isn't found in them. So he says that set your mind on the things above.

Not on the things that are on earth. For you have died. And your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. And so often we think that we're going to find life hidden somewhere. And for those who place their faith in Jesus, our life is hidden in Christ.

And when he appears, our life appears. I was trying to think about how that plays out. And I've got two separate examples that I'm going to kind of smush together just to try to give us a picture of what that's going to be like when our life appears. When Christ who our life is hidden in appears. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.

Tolkien and a couple other guys were in a, they hung out with each other. And so C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien wrote books like Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. Yeah, thanks. So they hung out together in this thing called the Inklings.

And at one point one of their friends named Charles died. And there's this quote by C.S. Lewis saying that not only does he miss Charles, but now he gets less of Ronald, which is what he called J.R.R. Tolkien. So I'm assuming his name was like John, Ronald, Ronald, Tolkien or something like that.

Named after both his granddads, both their names were Ronald. I don't know how that works. But he called him Ronald and he says, not only do I get, I don't get Charles. He said, but you would think that now I have Ronald all to myself. He said, but that's not true. I actually get less of Ronald.

Because there's only certain ways that he interacts with Charles that I'll never get to see again. He said, I'll never get to see Ronald laugh at a distinctly Charles joke. And he said, so you would think I get more of Ronald, but I actually now get less. Hold that in your brain. I've got another example that we're going to try to smoosh them together to help just paint a vague picture of what this looks like. Anna, sometimes when she would go out of town or when we hadn't seen each other for a while, she would ask me, like we'd be on the phone and she'd be like, do you miss me?

And I've since learned, but originally I would say, uh, no, not really. After I said that several times, I realized this isn't going well. That conversation never takes a good turn after I answer that way. And so I've learned how to answer better. But the truth was I never had moments because I always understood missing her as like having these moments where I was just like, oh, I wish she was here.

Like I just felt it. And that wasn't how it was. And that's what I thought missing was. So I was just like, nah. I'm busy. I got stuff going on.

Like I was working on something. So no. But the truth is every time I would see her and if she goes out of town now, every time when she comes back, it's there's this moment when she first shows up that it clicks in my brain. That's what was missing. That's what's been off for the past two days. And I didn't stop and think about it.

And I never really sat and allowed that to sink in. But it's just been something's been missing. And there's, in a very small way, some of my life, some of who I am is tied up in Anna, but not the way that it's hidden in Christ. And so what Paul's saying is that the fullness of who we are is brought out in Christ. And that when we see him, there's going to be this moment for all believers that we go. So that's what's been missing.

That's what's been off in me so often that I've thought I've needed something else to fill me up. That's the hunger inside of me that I've never been able to quite quiet down. That's where my life was. And I've been thinking that these cheap substitutes would replace it. And that he's going to bring out more of us. And we're going to get to, as we enjoy him in church family forever, see more of him than we'd ever get to see if it was just us and him.

And so there's this amount of life that's multiplied as he calls his church back up into him. And Paul says, your life is hidden with Christ. And so for believers, we're not looking for life other places. And so Paul's saying, chapters 1 and 2, here's what Jesus has done for you. Here's what he's accomplished on your behalf. He's taken away your sin.

He's paid your debt. And your life is in him. And now he's going to start saying, so this is what it looks like. For us to have our life in him, for us to be gospel people, here's what it looks like. Five. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you.

As Paul says, our minds are on the things above. Our minds are on eternity. We realize that what is here is enjoyable, but it's not the goal. It's not where our life is. There's more important things than just having comfort or amassing success. There's more important things.

Life isn't here. We get to see things from an eternal perspective. So put to death what's earthly in you. Paul says, put to death. You kind of read that and you're like, all right, Paul, tell us how you really feel. It's intense.

He says, put to death what is earthly in you. And then he's going to give us some examples. Sexual immorality. What we're going to do is we're going to walk through this list and just explain briefly what they mean. And then we're going to kind of zoom back and go back through them as Paul kind of puts them together in categories. Sexual immorality.

That's the Greek word pornea, which is the word we get pornography from. It is just a sexual junk drawer. It's a sexual junk drawer, which just means that he's not being specific here. He's saying all sexual sin. He's not going to give a big list of this is sexual sin and this is sexual sin and this is sexual sin. All of it.

So get rid of that. All sexual sin and sexual sin in the Bible is any sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage. So God invented sex. Made it enjoyable on purpose. Knew what he was doing. But it's for marriage to create oneness, to create unity for health and life and procreation.

Like it's it's a good thing, but not outside of marriage. And so he says sexual immorality. Put it to death. And so we immediately ask the question. Well, like what? How far is too far?

If it's this vague term. And he clarifies for us. Sexual immorality. Impurity. So he says it's not a line that we work our way towards.

It's purity or not purity. So like if you have water, it's H2O. It's water. And you can't be like, well, it's water with just the hint of battery acid. It's like, no. No.

That's impure water. It's no longer drinkable. That's not a good thing. It's water, but just a little bit of dead animal bacteria from up the creek here. It's like, no. And so what Paul is saying is the question isn't how close can we get before this becomes a problem?

The question is how can you be pure? How can you honor Jesus with the way you live and act? And so Paul says for those of us who've been rescued by Jesus and had our debt paid, get rid of this. Put it to death. Passion, evil desire. So we use passion in a good term, and so I don't think it's necessarily wrong.

What he's talking about here is overwhelming desire for reaching our goals, for having success. It's this passion and evil desire, this overwhelming, I have to have what I want. I have to achieve what I want. And he clarifies this further. But that's what he's, passion and evil desire.

And covetousness, which is just wanting things that aren't ours, desiring things that someone else has, greediness, which is idolatry. So idolatry is when we love anything more than God, when we worship anything that isn't God, when we seek in something what only God can give. So Paul says your life is hidden with Christ. So quit seeking life in these other things. It's idolatry. It's us pursuing this to give us something that we think it will fulfill us, we think it will give us worth, we think it will give us value, and it's not going to.

So he basically, when I was reading through this, I was like, dang, Paul. I feel like he read our mail a little bit when it comes to how we operate in American culture. So I'm going to put these into three kind of categories, and I think he kind of does as well. He talks about idolatry. So the God of sex, the God of success, passion and evil desire, and the God of more covetousness.

Tell me our culture doesn't tell us that joy and life and hope are found in sex. It does. That's how you know you have... If you watch any amount of film, television, the way you know you're successful is your sex life. The way you know you're okay, the way you know you're valuable, the way you know you have worth, the way you know... Sex.

It'll complete you. It'll fulfill you. You can look at magazines. Sex. This is what you need. Does your partner fill you up?

Do they complete you? Are they doing what they ought to? We have bought into the lie that sex is somehow going to fulfill us, make us whole, and give us worth and value, and that our life will be found in it. Paul says it's not. He says for Christians who've placed your life in Jesus, who's died for your sin, put it to death. Truth is, this shows up in the church as well.

This belief, this cultural belief that sex somehow will fix us, will fill us up. It shows up in the way we treat single people in the church. Like they have a disease or something. Where you can't be single in the church without having people constantly ask you like... Because we have this assumption. We know you can't be having sex now.

We're in the church, so stop it. But won't you like it later when you can? Like there's this... This you're not complete yet. You're not full yet. You're not fulfilled yet.

Your life will be found when you're married. The problem is... Paul says our life's in Jesus. Not future magic marriage. It doesn't exist, by the way. And Paul says our life's in Jesus.

And the truth is, biblically, it's okay to not be married. It's a perfectly acceptable way to honor Jesus and walk through life. Marriage is good too. It's a gift. But Paul says that not being married is a gift and that he wished more people had it.

The God of sex. Paul says, put it to death. Live as if the gospel is true. The God of success. This is another one that we buy into. Passion and evil desire.

That our life will be found when we've made something out of ourselves. So we have the concept of the self-made man. That when we've become successful enough. When we've earned enough. When we've achieved our goals. So we pump this into little kids' brains.

Like every little cartoon ever. Some animal shows up. Like a grasshopper or something. And it's like, follow your heart. Live your dreams. It's like, kill that grasshopper.

He's lying to you. I go to children's movies just so I can yell, No, don't do it! I don't, but that would be fun. But we believe that. We believe that if I earn, if I achieve, if I get the things I desire. Then I'll have life.

Then I'll know I'm complete. Then I'll know I'm fulfilled. If that were true. The happiest people in our society. Would be movie stars. Musicians.

That have made it to the top. Got everything they ever dreamt of. So just as a brief case study. Is that true? No. The reason we can continue to believe it's true is because we haven't succeeded and grasped everything that we've desired.

So we can still believe it holds the promise of life because we haven't found it, caught it, and seen that it comes up empty. And Paul says, put it to death. Your life is not going to be found in your ability to succeed. Your life is not going to be found in your ability to get everything that you want. Covetousness. Man, we've this hook, line, and sinker.

The God of more. That we need more. That life would be better if I could just have... Oh, this would work out well if I could just... If this would just... Our whole economic system is based off of the fact that you need more.

Because we produce way more than we actually need. So we have to buy more to keep our economic system going. So that advertisers have figured this out. They don't sell you on need. I saw a commercial the other day for a Buick. And all it did was inside of the car tell you features.

And it was like this old man talking really slowly. And it was like, plush leather seats. A knob that controls the radio. And I was like, this is the weirdest commercial I've ever seen. Because he's trying to sell me this car as opposed to something that the car will bring me. Because he's acting as if I need the car.

But we don't need the car. I think it was directed at really old people. But the better example of this and the way our society works... I used to work at the mall at Sears before they shut down. So I apparently wasn't crushing it or anything.

But I used to work at the mall at Sears. People would come in with Hollister bags. And that's the best. Hollister is a clothing store that sells clothing. And on their advertisements, on their bags, is a picture of a guy from about ribs up with no clothes on. That's how Hollister advertises their clothing store.

A clotheless guy. Now, if they're not selling me something other than their product, I don't know what they're selling me. Like, you look at that and you go, Oh, I need to buy my clothes at Hollister. So I'll be cool enough to not wear clothes. Maybe if I buy enough of those shirts, I'll get abs like that guy. I'm going to need a lot of those shirts.

But the truth is, we're sold on the idea that we need more. That we're incomplete. It's the absolute antithesis of the gospel. That Jesus has completed everything on our behalf, and we're sold on the idea that if we could just have a little more. That we'd be better off if we just had a little more. And Paul says it's idolatry and put it to death.

But all of us walk around saying, Life will be good if. I'll know I'm okay if. I won't have to worry anymore if. And Paul says, Christ is your life. He's already done everything for you. So put it to death.

And the truth is, for some of us who have placed our faith in Jesus, we're still operating. Paul says this is earthly in us. We're still operating as if this were true. And Paul says, Get the guillotine out in your soul. Have an execution. And put it to death.

And for some of us, that's going to be a daily process of taking this and putting it to death. And reminding ourselves that Jesus already died. We died with him. He already rose and gave us life. And this does not hold the promise of life. And we don't have to live up to it or be enslaved to it to know that we have worth and value.

Jesus has already done it. So we can put this to death. That this died with us when we died with Christ. He keeps going. He says, On account of these, so on account of idolatry, on account of rebellion, the wrath of God is coming. We, I think, often like to believe that the wrath of God is not coming.

Or that God does not have wrath. And he does. He has wrath for sin, rebellion against him, worship of anything other than him. So we read in chapter 1 how magnificent, how holy, how exalted, how worthy he is, and how he created everything. And that his little creation turned around and said, nope, we want to worship ourselves. And we want to chase after smaller things.

And it says, on account of these, the wrath of God is coming. And the truth is, God has wrath and love. And that's what we see in the cross. Where God loves us enough to take wrath for us. So that he can bring wrath towards rebellion and not have to destroy everyone.

So that we who placed our faith in Jesus, he took our wrath on our account. Some of you in here have been hurt by evil people. God has wrath. He loves too much to not have wrath. The God who is love cannot sit in heaven and watch molestation, murder, lying, pain, heartache, rape, and not have wrath. If you show me a God who doesn't have wrath, I'll show you a God who doesn't love.

God is love, and he has wrath. And he loves enough to take our wrath for us. But those of you in here who have been hurt, and who have seen those who hurt you, go free. You don't have to pick up wrath. You don't have to take up the sword. God does.

And those who harmed you will have one of two things happen to them. They'll receive the same overwhelming, undeniable, undeserved grace that we've received. Because Jesus will have paid for their wrath. Or they'll receive the wrath of God. Sin will be paid for. The question is, will Jesus pay for it or will we?

So Paul says, On the count of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these two you once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Jesus at one point says that, that from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so some of us just have anger, and wrath, and malice, and bitterness inside of us. I've heard the example, and it's a simple one, but if I was holding a cup up here, you wouldn't know what was in it until I shook it.

And so some of us like to pretend like we're pretty nice people, but the truth is, we don't really know what's in our heart until it begins to overflow. Until we're pressed. And then we realize that, man, we're angrier than we thought. We have more wrath and slander and malice than we thought because of what I just shouted at my wife. Because of what I just yelled at my roommate. Because of what I'm saying about my parents behind their back.

Paul says, put it away. That we've been rescued and redeemed. We don't have to dwell with that anymore. Like, I know that there have been times in my life, people have told me before I'm not super emotional. And I used to be like, yeah, I'm emotional. I get angry and hungry.

Like, I have emotions. But there's been times where, that's all, that was really all I operated in was anger. Malice and wrath and slander. Paul says it doesn't fit with a Christian who's been forgiven. So put it away.

And we don't have to walk around with that. And we don't have to, because his wrath is coming, we don't have to be wrathful. We get to know that we're forgiven, so we get to forgive, and we get to know that God's sovereign, and that he'll take care of it. Then he says this, do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge, after the image of its creator. It feels to me, so he goes through this list of major idolatry, and then he goes through this heart level anger, and then he goes, and don't lie to each other.

And it's like, okay, that's helpful. That's good advice. And I know it's in a list of how we ought to exist with one another, but it's the first time he says one another, and he's not just kind of talking about what we pursue. And so it feels a little bit like he's showing us something more, and trying to help us more than just saying, hey, lying's not going to be helpful for you. See, what he says is, do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge, after the image of its creator. we're being made to look more like Jesus.

And so Paul says, just be honest. He's taking a very real look at sin here. You see, he's not condemning us at any point, because condemnation would mean that we're judged based off of our ability to behave, and chapters 1 and 2 says that that's not true. That we couldn't behave, we couldn't get it together, we aren't moral enough, we aren't going to control our sexual desires, our desire for success, we're not going to be able to get rid of all the idols in our soul, and that Jesus had to die so that we could have life. And so, and then Paul goes right into chapter 2, right before he gets here, he says, you're not judged by morality, spirituality, effort.

You're judged by Jesus paying your debt. And then he says, so he says, put to death what is earthly in you. In these two you once walked, when you were living in them, now, now you must put them all away. So what he's saying is, look, I know this is in you. Paul's a human, he knows it's in him. At no point is he taking an unrealistic view of this, and acting as if you're judged or condemned by it.

And so what he says is, don't lie about it. Be real. We get to be real about the fact that we're broken. About the fact that we often pursue things that we think are going to give us life and that they aren't. Everyone in this room who's a Christian knows that value comes from Jesus, not from us. And so that when I stand up and tell you, here's how I messed up, we're not surprised.

People often would, non-Christians that were friends of mine, would be like, I can't believe you did that, you're a Christian. And I'd be like, whoa, entry exam to Christianity. I'm a horrible person. Listen, Jesus is awesome. It's not about our ability to behave. But that means we get to live like we're free.

We get to live in light of what's already happened. We get to live in light of the victory. So we get to throw open the gates and start the party. We don't have to live as slaves to chasing after other things and seeking life and small things anymore. As Paul says, don't lie. Be real about it.

John says this. He's one of Jesus' disciples. John says in 1 John, and we're going to put it up on the screen. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So John says, look guys, if you're going to say you're not sinful, if you're going to say you're not broken, you're going to say you've deceived yourself.

And I think you've deceived yourself in one of two ways. Either you believe that you're not sinful or you've actually deceived yourself enough to believe that you've got it together or you're deceived in thinking that we believe it. But I'm a Christian. I know everybody in this room is messed up. And I know that we all need Jesus. So Paul says this.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is no Jew, here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. What Paul just said is, all the categories that we use to assign worth are gone. He's talking to a society that just knew that there were certain people that inherently had value and certain people didn't. That certain races were just worse than other ones. That certain types of people, certain people were just born to be slaves than they were supposed to be.

They had less value than the people who were supposed to be not slaves. Paul says, all the categories that you use to gauge whether or not you have value and worth are gone. Paul says, there's no good people and bad people. There's no moral churchgoers and heathens. There's no people who get it together and act right and those people that keep falling short. He says, Christ is all, which means that everything is about Jesus.

All worth and value and joy and hope are found in him. And he says he's in all, which means that Christ, as he dwells in us, gives us worth and value and joy and hope. So if Christ is all, all that matters, he's the only category that matters and he's in all, then we don't have to lie to each other. We get to be real about where we are, where we're struggling. We get to confess and repent and we get to put to death what's evil inside of us, what's earthly inside of us, where we're trying to pursue life, where we're angry and slanderous and off. So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to play some music so that we don't have a band up here that can't also do this and can't also operate as church family. We're going to play some music and we're going to repent, which is just that we confess that we're off, that we've been chasing other things and that we begin to change because the gospel gives us the freedom to do that. We're not repenting. We're not turning away from the sins so that we can have life. We're getting to live in light of what's already been accomplished. Every time I don't want to share and confess sin, all I'm saying is that deep down inside of me, I still believe that my value comes from me.

Deep down inside of me, functionally, I can say all I want to. I can stand up in front of you as much as I want and say that Jesus paid everything for me. If I'm not willing to be open with where I'm off and where I'm broken, what I'm saying is I don't really believe it. So Paul says, put it to death. I know it's there. Put it to death and live in light of what's already happened.

All Paul's saying is fling open the gates and start the party. No longer live in the slavery of my value comes from what I do. My value comes from what I can accomplish. No longer live in the slavery of if I could just have more, if I could just, I would find life. No longer live in the slavery. He's saying, you don't need to be huddled up in fear anymore.

The enemy's defeated. You don't need to be gathering weapons and coming up with plans of how you're going to succeed. The enemy's been defeated. Fling open the gates and start the party. And what that looks like as we put it to death is that we confess and we're open with where we're off and we're open with where we need Jesus to rescue and to fix and to redeem and to change us and to pay for a debt that we can't pay. So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to repent. We're going to play some music. We're going to sit in here and we're going to, as church family, we're going to move around. Some of us are going to need to talk to Jesus about some areas in our lives and our hearts, areas where we've been pursuing something else to give us value when our life's actually in heaven. Some of us who don't know Jesus, haven't placed our faith in Jesus, is open for you to repent, to ask Him to rescue and to redeem because life is only in Him. You're not going to find it anywhere else.

Some of us are going to need to talk to each other because there's been wrath and malice and slander. We're going to need to confess. We're going to ask for forgiveness. We're going to forgive because Jesus forgives. We're going to live in light of what's already been accomplished, that our worth and our value doesn't come from us, but it comes from Him. That we get to be real.

Some of us are going to need to step outside and make phone calls. We're going to do that. Some of us are going to start a conversation off like this. I'm going to want to lie to you the entire time we talk. I'm going to need you to ask me some real questions because I want so badly for the gospel to functionally dwell in me like it's true and the whole time I'm going to fight against that and try to hide. But I don't want to lie.

I don't want to hide. I don't need your help. Some of us are going to invite people in our church family to just end on what we're struggling with. I've been believing this is going to give me life and I just want a teammate. I just want somebody to pray with me. I don't want to pursue this anymore.

I want to live like the gospel is true. I want to fling open the gates and start the party. Then we're going to take communion. After we confess, after we talk, after we repent, Jesus says if we're at the altar and we realize that someone has something against us or we have something against someone else that's on us to go talk to them. So we're going to talk.

We're going to pray. We're going to actively live as if the gospel is true. We're going to do chapter 3 because we know chapter 1 and 2 are true. That Jesus paid our debt. He disarmed the enemy. The victory has been won.

We're going to fling open the gates. We're going to be honest. We're going to be real. And then we're going to party. We're going to sing and make much of Jesus and celebrate the fact that we get to be church family because of what he's done for us. I'm going to pray.

We're going to move around. We're going to talk to each other. We're going to live like the gospel is true. God, I thank you that at no point does my value come from my ability to behave. I thank you that at no point does my value come from my good morals, my wise decisions, my pure heart. God, we so often in this room believe that other things hold our life, that our life is hidden in something other than you.

God, and I pray that through your Holy Spirit you would convict us, that you would lead us to repentance and to the joy that comes from the freedom from slavery to sin. God, so impress upon us the victory that's already been won that we will come out of the darkness, out of fear, fling open the gates, and live in light of the fact that you give us worth by your death, that you give us life by your resurrection, that our value and our hope is not seated in us, that our life is not hidden in us, but it's hidden in you. Lead us now. In Jesus' name.