LEGALISM
ASCETICISM
ANGEL WORSHIP
GLORIFICATION of KNOWLEDGE (Colossians 1:1-3)
Why We are Thankful For the Work of the Gospel:
- The Gospel is TRANSFORMING LIVES (Colossians 1:4-5, 8)
- The Gospel is CHANGING the WORLD (Colossians 1:6a)
- The Gospel is GROWING the CHURCH (Colossians 1:6b)
- The Gospel is BROADCASTING through PEOPLE (Colossians 1:7-8)
FAITH
LOVE
1 John 3:14 - We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
HOPE
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:02
Let's have a prayer before we get into the Word.
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Our Father in Heaven, we ask that you pause before we get into your Word today.
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We want to lift up our children who are being discipled right now through our children's ministry, rather than through our assistance of the parents and the disciples.
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We also lift up the offering.
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Father we just pray that you prepare us to receive the Word.
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The Word actually tells us that there are things that we can do to prepare to receive it.
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Sometimes we come not ready.
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I pray that you make us ready now.
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To receive it, to be doers of it.
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The greatest things in Jesus' name.
01:04-01:04
Amen.
01:06-01:12
As promised last week, we are starting our series on the book of Colossians.
01:12-01:15
If you want to turn there, we are going to be starting in Colossians 1 today.
01:17-01:46
And as you've seen with maybe some of the stuff we have around here, and some of the emails that I've sent out, like I said with the t-shirt, our theme this year is "Jesus is first." You're like, "What do you mean by a theme?" Well, a theme is sort of a big handle that, you know, by the end of the year, we say, "Well, what did we talk about last year at Harvest?" Everything is going to center around this truth.
01:46-01:50
that Jesus is first.
01:51-01:53
That wasn't something that I made up, actually.
01:53-01:54
It's in the Bible.
01:54-02:08
Colossians 1.18 says, "In everything ye," meaning Jesus Christ, "must have the preeminence, or the first place." So the Bible makes a claim that Jesus is first over everything.
02:11-02:12
And that's what we're going for here.
02:13-02:23
I guess you heard me before, this church isn't about gimmicks, we don't have some kind of slick marketing campaign, or...
02:23-02:25
We want Jesus Christ to be first.
02:26-02:27
That's our plan.
02:28-02:29
That's our plan.
02:29-02:35
So let's turn the cloche and before we actually get into the text, I want to give you a little background.
02:37-02:47
If you want to jot some notes down, if you don't have writer's cramp from designing your bulletin, which I do want to see those after service, by the way, because somebody here might be getting a job.
02:47-02:53
Sammies is so nice, though, but, you know, competition, that's what keeps capitalism alive.
02:54-02:54
[laughter]
02:57-03:03
Well, the book of Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul, and you can read his story in the book of Acts.
03:03-03:08
He was the man who went from being a church persecutor to the church plan-server.
03:10-03:18
And the book of Colossians was written, this is actually a letter that was written to a church in a town called Colossae.
03:19-03:22
You're like, "Well, where's that at?" "Where's that at?" Excuse me.
03:23-03:24
Well, that was in Phrygia.
03:24-03:29
You're like, "Well, where's that at?" Well, that was in, actually, modern-day Turkey.
03:31-03:40
And before you get any travel plans, just say, "I'm going to, since we're doing the sermon series, I'm going to go there." and like check it out and get some brownie points with Pastor Jeff.
03:40-03:41
There's nothing there right now.
03:42-03:48
Okay, the city was sort of on the decline even while Paul wrote this letter, and today there's nothing on that site.
03:49-03:50
But I appreciate your enthusiasm.
03:51-03:57
This was written about 61 AD, when the Apostle Paul was imprisoned in Rome.
03:59-04:00
And here's an interesting thing.
04:02-04:05
When Paul wrote this letter, he had met the people in this church.
04:06-04:07
And he indicates that in the letter.
04:10-04:13
The church was actually founded by a man, we're going to see him in the text today.
04:14-04:15
His name was Epaphras.
04:18-04:27
And Colossians really is a preventative letter, which is another reason that for our first year at Harvest Bible Chapel, that's one of the reasons I wanted to go through Colossians.
04:27-04:28
The purpose is preventative.
04:29-04:33
You know that old saying, what's it, how do you pronounce it?
04:35-04:38
Prevention is... yeah, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?
04:39-04:41
Well, that's sort of what Colossians is.
04:42-04:46
Colossians is... it's a little book, but it's an ounce of prevention, you could say.
04:48-04:50
Because, you see, there were some heresies coming to town.
04:51-04:53
And Epaphras was concerned about them.
04:55-04:59
So he, like, goes racing to Paul, and he's like, "Paul, the church is doing great.
05:00-05:06
I think we might have some problems coming." You know, there's these heresies coming to town.
05:06-05:07
And I want to talk about that.
05:07-05:11
In your outline, I have a few points here.
05:11-05:13
Now, again, Sammy's bullet was so nice.
05:13-05:18
You can tell that I did this one because I just have a frowny face by these things.
05:18-05:22
To indicate how gloomy you should be at the prospect of these things.
05:23-05:41
But it was sort of this heresy that was coming to town was sort of a mix between Gnosticism and Judaism and some Greek philosophies, but I don't want to give you a bad old story.
05:41-05:46
I just want to give you the main points of what the concern was coming to the church.
05:46-05:47
These were some of the false teachings.
05:48-05:52
And these are the things that we need to be looking out for in Harvest Bible Chapel.
05:53-05:54
The first one is legalism.
05:56-05:57
What is legalism?
05:58-06:09
Legalism is when we put man-imposed rules and regulations, saying that these are the things that make you more spiritual.
06:09-06:11
These are the things that make you more holy.
06:14-06:15
That's legalism.
06:17-06:24
If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, how holy are you according to God?
06:26-06:38
holy. 80%? 60%? What do you think? 100%. In Christ, you have been pronounced holy.
06:40-06:54
But you see, the whole idea of legalism is, well, you're sort of a second-class Christian unless you do certain things. We're going to talk about some of these things, but some of them are just, you know, I don't want to offend anybody, but some of these things I I think you're just really kind of goofy.
06:55-06:59
Like, you know, there's some people that teach that if you're a Christian, you can't play cards.
07:01-07:14
I don't encourage people to gamble, but some people take that to the extreme that if I sit down, you know, with some of my friends and we're just playing some, you know, cards, that that's evil.
07:15-07:25
And unless you have that same conviction about those things that I do, And then your salvation is seriously in question and you're not nearly spiritual as I am.
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That's legalism.
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And there are churches that are built around legalism.
07:33-07:37
You have to do this, you can't do this, you must do this, you should never do this, but you should always do this.
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And it's just rule after rule after rule after rule after rule.
07:40-07:43
And you're like, where's this stuff in the Bible, man?
07:45-07:46
That's a danger.
07:48-07:49
That is a huge danger.
07:49-07:51
Like, why is that such a danger?
07:56-08:06
Because if you start trusting in things that you do, thinking that those are the things that make you right in God's eyes, then you're not going to see your need for Jesus Christ.
08:08-08:10
See, legalist, Satan loves legalist.
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You know, because we have our little checklist.
08:12-08:15
So, you know, God's very happy with me because these are the things I did today.
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You know, I went to church and I, you know, I read my Bible for exactly 10 minutes and I prayed for exactly 15 and anything under that is, you know, lesser.
08:25-08:26
Satan loves that.
08:27-08:31
When we start putting our faith into things that we can do.
08:32-08:37
When the truth is we need to put our faith in the one who's already done everything for us.
08:40-08:44
Okay, so legalism is a concern and we're going to be talking about that because it's in Colossians.
08:45-08:46
We're going to be hitting that stuff head on.
08:48-08:51
What can you do to make yourself more holy or more spiritual?
08:52-08:53
The answer is nothing.
08:54-08:56
That comes from Christ.
08:56-09:02
Certainly we can put ourselves in a position, you know, being in the Word and being in prayer, we grow in Christ.
09:02-09:04
That's absolutely true, we do grow in Christ.
09:06-09:13
Let's dispel this notion that we get brownie points with God because we do or don't do certain things.
09:13-09:17
Some religiously imposed regulations.
09:18-09:18
Incorrect.
09:19-09:23
So legalism, we're going to be talking about that, but that was a problem coming to the Colossian Church.
09:24-09:26
Another one is asceticism.
09:27-09:28
Asceticism.
09:29-09:30
What is that?
09:30-09:35
That is denial of self in an extreme way.
09:36-09:37
It's...
09:37-09:52
Certainly the gospel calls us to deny ourself, but asceticism, you know, you actually see people that whip themselves, literally, saying, "This is something that I have to do "to get," again, brownie points, "with God." You ever see that?
09:52-10:00
I remember as a kid watching a documentary about where these people were, you know, walking up and down the streets, whipping each other, whipping themselves in the name of the Lord.
10:01-10:05
That was one of their religious works.
10:07-10:11
And there's people even today in our culture And take that to the extreme.
10:13-10:18
And say, you know, it has to be extreme self-denial.
10:22-10:27
You know, we're going to be talking a lot about this. We're just going to get an overview here.
10:27-10:32
But asceticism, beat down yourself because that's what makes God happy.
10:33-10:34
Another one is angel worship.
10:36-10:39
That was part of the heresy that the Colossians were going to be facing.
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Angels, are they real? Yes. Are they powerful? Yes. Should they be worshipped? No.
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That belongs to Christ's love.
10:52-10:54
Then the last thing is glorification of knowledge.
10:56-11:08
What that means is, you're getting some Greek mindset in here, but the glorification of knowledge, You know, just the belief that the more you know the better of a person that you are.
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And they would philosophize and come up with all these, you know, really new and really cool concepts.
11:15-11:18
Oh, that just sounds so great, man, that's really deep.
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And to the point where that became nothing.
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Now, is there anything wrong with knowledge?
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Of course not.
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But when we start putting our glory in that, then there is a problem.
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So our goal is to get ahead of these things.
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But the biggest problem that this heresy had, I guess you could say maybe this was the root problem, is it denied the deity and the humanity of Jesus Christ.
11:47-11:51
And you're like, "Well, how can it deny both?" It's weird.
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But the point is, there was the denial that Jesus Christ is who he said he is.
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Fully God and fully man.
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And because of that denial of the deity and humanity of Jesus, there is also the denial of the sufficiency of Christ.
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And see, really that's what this all about.
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I don't give you a lot of information. I'm trying to sum up some things.
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I don't want to just dump an encyclopedia on you.
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Here's the main thing.
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Is Jesus enough?
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Is Jesus Christ enough for your salvation?
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For your fulfillment?
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For your satisfaction?
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And the answer is yes.
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But when people come in and start saying, "Well, yeah, Jesus plus, you know, Jesus you're going to do these things.
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Or Jesus plus, you're going to be whipping yourself.
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Or Jesus plus, let's say a little worship for the angels.
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Or Jesus plus knowledge.
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The answer is, it's Jesus plus what?
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Jesus plus nothing.
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He is sufficient.
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And we're going to be hammering that nail over and over and over again these next few months.
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Why?
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Because that's the point of Colossians.
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Christ is enough. And may God help every one of us to get to that place where we can stand and sing and uninhibited just praise the Lord and say Jesus Christ you are enough. You are my sufficiency.
13:42-14:11
So that's a little bit about Colossians. There's so much more I could say but we're going to get So, Clause 1 says, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother." And in his first verse he says, "He was an apostle by the will of God." I can kind of relate to Paul in that sense, in that I didn't exactly sign up for this job.
14:12-14:19
I wasn't a little five year old Jeff going, "You know, when I grow up, I want to be a preacher." And that was at the bottom of my list.
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And so why are you here?
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Well, this was God's assignment.
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And I'm happy about that.
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But this was God's.
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And Paul's saying here, he's an apostle by the will of God.
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And Timothy, our brother, Timothy, his son of the gospel.
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Verse two, "To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossum.
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Grace to you and peace from God, our Father.
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So again, this is a letter that Paul wrote to a church.
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And notice he puts his name at the top of the letter.
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That always made sense to me.
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I never really understood our custom of signing your name at the end of a letter, because when I get a letter, what's the first thing that I do?
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Is I look for the name at the bottom to see who it's from before I start reading it, right?
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Well, this just makes more sense to me.
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But Paul's identifying himself and again, Timothy's with him and he's writing to this church.
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Look what he has to say.
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Verse three, he says, We always thank God.
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The father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.
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OK, so stop it here, Paul saying, first thing I got to tell you is I'm so thankful to God for you people.
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I'm so thankful for you people.
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I'm so thankful.
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And also notice he's praying for them.
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And Paul's gonna go on here.
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We're gonna break this down.
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The whole theme of this chapter is...
15:58-16:03
I'm sorry, this section, is he's talking about the gospel at work.
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And what he's saying is, "I'm so thankful to see how the gospel of Jesus Christ is at work." That's what we're going to see in these next few verses.
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So if you're taking notes.
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First of all, why we are thankful for the work of the gospel.
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Are you thankful for the gospel?
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Are you thankful for the gospel?
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This Thanksgiving, when you go around the table, is it saying what are you thankful for?
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Is it cornbread?
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Cranberry sauce?
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Anything else?
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No, that's about it.
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You better say the gospel.
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I'm thankful for the gospel.
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Are you excited about this gospel?
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we've been talking about this for the past, you know, five weeks we've been here.
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The gospel of Jesus Christ is amazing.
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And here, as Paul's writing this letter, he said, "I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful for what the gospel is doing." What exactly is the gospel doing? Well, we're going to echo this today, because I'm thankful for the work of the gospel and what it's doing.
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The first thing is this. Number one, the gospel is transforming lives.
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The gospel is transforming lives.
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Like we could end the service right here, and you're thinking, "He's probably not going to, and I'm not." But this alone is enough to... it's changing lives.
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Look at verses 4 and 5.
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He says, "Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, "Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel." Okay, so he's talking...
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This is what the gospel's doing to you.
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You heard the gospel and it's doing these things.
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Look down at verse 8.
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He says it again.
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He says it...
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He's talking about a pastor's report.
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And he says, "It has made known to us your love in the Spirit." So there it is again.
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So why are we thankful for the gospel?
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Well, the first thing we're thankful for is the way that the gospel changes people.
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That's what we're thankful for.
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The gospel is not, is not, everybody say is not.
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No conviction.
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Come on here.
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Let's let me hear you say the gospel is not.
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Okay, much better.
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The gospel is not trying Jesus.
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You hear somebody say that?
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I tried Jesus.
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I used to do prison ministry for 10 years at Butler County Prison.
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You hear people say that, "Well, I'm here to try Jesus." Listen, you don't try Jesus.
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You don't try Him.
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He's not something you sample.
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He's not an item of the buffet.
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As if, "Well, if Jesus doesn't work out, maybe I'll find my thing somewhere else." Jesus Christ is sufficient for everything.
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You don't try Him out.
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What do you do is you bow your knee to Him.
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Because He is the King of Kings and He is the Lord of Lords.
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He is merciful and He is holy and He is awesome, but you don't try enough.
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Okay? So the Gospel is not about trying, Jesus.
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Secondly, the Gospel is not about becoming a churchgoer.
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The Gospel is not about becoming a churchgoer.
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We can make somebody a churchgoer and send them off to hell if we did them no good.
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The gospel is not about making church goers.
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It's not about trying Jesus.
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And the gospel is not about founding some kind of a benevolence club.
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You know, a lot of churches are going that way now.
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Where, "Oh, we don't really need to preach the Bible.
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We just need to do nice things for people.
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And, you know, we'll feed hungry people.
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And we'll get clothes for people that, you know, need clothes.
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And we'll do this and we'll do that." All those things are great things.
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But when that becomes the replacement for the gospel, there's a problem.
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What replaces the gospel?
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Nothing.
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Nothing.
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So the gospel's not about trying Jesus, becoming a church goer, founding a benevolence club.
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We're gonna see later Colossians.
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It's about dying to self and living in Christ.
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That's what Paul says, the gospel's about.
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The gospel's changing lives.
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And we see here right in these verses, How do you know that your life has been changed?
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Or you could say, "Well, what's the fruit of the gospel?" Well, the Bible talks about a lot of fruit that comes when Jesus Christ saves you, when the Holy Spirit indwells you.
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A lot of changes take place.
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That's why I'm concerned.
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I've talked to people that are like, "You know what?
20:42-20:46
I gave my life to Jesus and, you know, that was like 20 years ago.
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My life really hasn't changed at all." Like, really?
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You're telling me that the God of the universe came and involved you and your life didn't change?
20:55-21:03
The God who spoke all of this into existence said, "I'm going to take up residency inside you and you're no different than you were?" That's a concern.
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Let's go back and revisit, did you really understand what it means to give your life to Christ?
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We're going to talk about that here in a second.
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So what does it look like?
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Well, he uses three words, three very familiar words.
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I want you to circle them in your Bible.
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You'll be like, "Well, I don't circle things in my Bible." We'll circle them in the Bible in the verse next to you.
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Okay?
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What is the fruit of the gospel?
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What does the gospel look like in me?
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How do I know my life has been changed?
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The first one is faith.
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Do you see that there?
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Since we heard of your faith.
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Your faith in what?
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Your faith in the church at Colossae, your faith in the apostle Paul, your faith in, now notice, faith in Christ Jesus.
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That's where the faith is.
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It's in a person.
21:54-21:57
To jot this down, I call that the fruit from the past.
21:57-21:58
Why do I call that the fruit from the past?
21:59-22:02
Well, he has sort of a past, present, and future thing going on here.
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The reason I say that is look at the end of verse 5.
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He says, "Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel." Okay, so he's talking about you heard this gospel before.
22:18-22:20
message and you put your faith in it.
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So the first root, the fruit from the past is the faith.
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What that means is, you're looking back to that point that you put your faith in Jesus Christ.
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You look back, is there a time in your life that you can point to where you can say, that's when I made the decision to follow Jesus Christ?
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Is there a time in your life like that?
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Now listen, some people are really weird about that.
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They're like, "Oh, I can tell you, "it was, you know, it was September 13th at 10.03 a.m.
23:00-23:11
"and I remember there were three groundhogs "in my yard at the time that I was watching "and the radio was on, it was that old gray radio." And they just like give you way too much deep.
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And that was the moment, like, "All right, too much information.
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I can't tell you the exact second that I gave my life to Christ.
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But I can take you back to 1995.
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There was a season where somebody was sharing God's word with me and I was coming to understand it.
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And I gave my life to Christ that summer.
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But the point is you have to be able to look back at a place in your life where you're like, "That was then. That was the season of my life where I gave my life to Christ." Some people say, "Well, I don't really have a season like that.
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I've just always been a Christian." And that's incorrect.
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You have not always been a Christian.
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The Bible says that we are born with a sin nature.
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So when you were freshly born in the delivery room, you came into the world as a sinner.
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At some point you had to make the decision that you were going to turn from your sin and you were going to receive the gift of eternal life from Jesus Christ.
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That had to happen at some point in your life.
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Nobody is Christian by default.
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When you stand before God, your mama's not going to be there with you.
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So you've got to let him in.
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He's such a good boy.
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That's not going to happen.
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At some point, you had to make that decision.
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This word faith, the Greek word is "histos" which means, it will come from the root, which means to obey.
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Here's what that means.
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I trusted the gospel and I've acted upon it.
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I've built my life upon it.
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It means to obey.
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Look down again at verse 6.
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It talks about how the gospel is working among you.
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He says, "Since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth." Here's how the gospel works.
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The first thing is, believe it or not I get paid to show these things, but it just seems so simple.
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The first thing you have to do to come to Christ is hear the gospel.
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Like really, thank you for that.
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But that's the first thing you have to do. You have to hear the gospel.
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That's step one.
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And step two is, you see that in the text in verse six? You have to understand.
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If to hear the gospel you have to understand the gospel.
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See my job is to try to help you with those two things.
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To say here's what the gospel is, if you have ears you can hear it.
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Physically and spiritually.
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My job is also to help you understand it.
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You're like, hey I, you know, I hear what you're saying about Jesus and the gospel, but there's some things that are just a little fuzzy.
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Come over to my house, or I'll come over to your house, we'll meet somewhere and we'll talk about it.
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I'm not going to faith in Jesus Christ.
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Nobody can do that for you but you.
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Did you do that?
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Did you do that?
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And you look back and it sees your life and say, "Here it is.
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There's when I went from being dead in my sins to being made alive in Christ." Can you point to that time in your life?
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So faith is the first word.
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That's from the past. He said, "You heard it, and you acted upon it, and The second fruit is love.
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Circle the word love.
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He says the love that you have for all the saints.
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I call that the fruit of the present.
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Again down in verse 8.
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What did Epaphras report on?
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He shows up to Paul and Paul's like how's things going in the church?
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And what was Epaphras's report on the Colossian church?
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Did you see that in verse 8?
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He's made known to us what?
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Your, what's your Bible say?
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He, Paphos, made known to us your love.
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Your love.
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Paphos didn't get to Paul and be like, "Oh, those people are just such a pain in the neck." And like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." He's like, "Paul, those people "are the most loving people you're ever gonna meet." What a report that is.
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That's exactly what he reported on, but love for the saints, that's true to the present.
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1 John 3.14 says, "We know that we have passed out of death into life." That means we know we got saved.
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How? I'm just going to stop here and you're like, "I totally know this verse." But if you don't, how would you fill in the blank?
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He says, "We know that we passed out of death into life." Some would say, "Because I said the sinner's prayer." Or, "Because I filled out a card." Or, "I went to the promise keeper." Or, "The Billy Graham crusade." Or, "I watched Joel Osteen on TV every week." That's how I know that I've passed out of death into life.
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That really isn't the evidence.
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He says the evidence, John says the evidence is we know we've passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.
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Whoever does not love abides in death.
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That's fruit of the present.
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You can just take a look around the room here.
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Go ahead and take a look around then.
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Everybody else can get to it.
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We need to be loving these people.
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Be like, "I haven't met them yet." Meet them!
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They're really cool.
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And you will love them.
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But that's the proof.
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You see, you can take any evaluation that you want on your walk with the Lord.
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Or any kind of spiritual gift, inventory, or you know, give signs.
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There's certainly validity to all that, but the Bible is so black and white about this.
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Do you know how you know that you're alive in Christ?
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Is that when you love your brothers and your sisters in the Lord.
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That's how you know.
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If it's a chore for you to go to church, like, "I really don't like those people," or, "I can't stand this person, I hate that, I really don't like anybody at that church," that's a concern.
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Big concern.
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Notice he says, "You're loved for all the saints." I think, "Well, Pastor Jeff, what if I just love some of the people there?" Your love for all the saints.
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You see, that's why small groups should be a natural attraction.
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You're talking about small group sign-up.
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That should be a natural attraction to you if you're in Christ, you love the brothers, you're going to want to spend time with them.
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You're not going to be with those people two times a week, not one.
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We know that we passed out of death into life.
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Because we love our brothers.
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I want to spend time with them. I want to get to know them more.
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I want to invest myself in people and let people invest themselves in me.
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That's why you gotta sign up for a small group.
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See that's why I'm really concerned when people want to fly under the radar into church.
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I'm not going to be the radar out The third in this trinity.
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Because of the hope.
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Circle that word in your Bible.
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Circle faith, circle love, circle hope, and then just draw a line connecting them all.
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Because the hope laid up for you in heaven.
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And obviously that's the fruit for the future.
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And the fruit of the past, I put my faith in Christ.
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The fruit of the present is I know that I'm in Christ because I love the brothers.
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But what about the fruit of the future?
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The fruit of the present is I know that I'm in Christ because I love the brothers.
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That's hope.
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He says it's laid out, literally it's reserved.
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God has this reserved for you.
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When you show up the day that you leave the earth, God says, "Oh, I see that you're here.
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I have your reservation for you." That's literally what this means.
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He has something laid out for us in heaven.
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This hope.
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But here's the problem, when we talk about hope, we don't use the word in our day the way that the Bible uses it.
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Right? Like I'm sure somebody this week has used the word hope in a way that's just not the way the Bible talks about it.
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I have. Like if I say, "I hope it doesn't rain." What do I mean by that?
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What I mean is my wish is that it will operate, right?
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Or, you know, I hope I get a dune buggy for Christmas.
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There, did you hear that?
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She's ready to get down.
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What that means is I have this strong, wishful thinking that, you know, It's probably not going to happen, but I'm sure that's not the way the Bible uses the word hope at all.
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When the Bible uses the word hope, it means it's a sure thing.
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That I don't have it now, but I have absolute assurance that I will have it.
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That's what hope is.
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It's sort of like, you ever order something online, you ever buy something online, and the first thing they do is they send you that email confirmation with that number.
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And I save that. Why do I save that? Because if anybody ever comes back and says, "No, no, you didn't buy this," I can be like, "I have the confirmation number right here. This is evidence that I purchased this product." See, that's kind of what hope is, biblically. I don't have the thing yet, but I have this confirmation that the thing is coming.
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It's at the bank. It's there. It's on the way. It might be in the UPS truck. It's coming.
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But until I get it, I'm holding on to that confirmation number.
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See, that's sort of what hope is like, vividly.
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I'm not in heaven yet.
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I haven't realized the full culmination of my salvation, as it were.
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Being removed from this body of flesh forever, amen.
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But I'm so looking forward to that.
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Well, how do you know you're going to heaven?
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Because I get this confirmation number.
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God says, "Here it is." So hopefully, don't force it down.
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Sometimes we live as if this is all there is.
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So how's the gospel affecting you?
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How's the gospel affecting you?
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Can you look back at the fruit of your past?
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As I remember the day I gave my life to Christ.
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Can you look at your life now and say, "I do love my brothers and sisters in the Lord. I do." And the last thing is, what are you looking forward to?
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Steal your game, yeah, me too.
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I'm thinking longer term.
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Retirement, I'm thinking longer term.
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Let's not live as if this is all there is.
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As many of you know, I have a six year old that doesn't talk.
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And there have been many days that I've either said to myself or to the Lord or to my wife, "I just wish I could have a conversation with him." "Oh, I just wish I could have a conversation." Every day.
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And sometimes I... there were times that I really... so torn up.
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"Oh, I just... it stinks, okay? It stinks. He's right here, but it's like he's not right here. He's autistic." But you know, I'm going to be able to talk to him in heaven for all of eternity.
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Then we're going to get to the point where he's going to be like, "Okay, dad, can we just stop talking for a minute?" Like, "No, this is all I wanted while we were in here!" We're going to have all of eternity for that, right?
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So why do we get so caught up that this is all there is?
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Life stinks.
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There's a hope laid up for us in heaven.
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And when we're in heaven, we're going to look back and this is going to seem like just a blip on the radar.
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So what are you looking forward to?
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Faith, love, and hope. He mentions those same three things in 1 Corinthians 13.
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Faith, hope, and love. He says the greatest of these is what?
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You better know this one, right?
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Faith, hope, and love, now these two are your main.
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The greatest of these is, multiple choice.
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Is it faith, is that the greatest one?
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Okay, I see some people saying no, we're gonna rule that one out.
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Hope, is that the greatest one?
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So it must be love.
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All right, bonus essay question, why is love the greatest one?
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Why is love the greatest one?
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I'll tell you why.
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Because love is the only thing that's going to endure forever.
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Do you realize there's going to come a day that we're not going to need faith?
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Because when you're standing in front of the Lord, you're not going to need to have faith the way that we need to have faith on the earth, right?
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We have faith now in an invisible God.
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Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
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That's not heaven.
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Heaven is things seen and the fulfillment of things hoped for.
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So we're not going to need faith in heaven, and we're not going to need hope in heaven, again, because we're going to be there.
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Like, "Well, my hope is in being in the presence of the Lord." Like, yeah, you're here.
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But do you know what's going to carry out in heaven for all eternity?
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It's love.
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That's why it's the greatest.
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Okay?
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So yeah, I'm pretty fired up about the Gospel, because it's transforming people.
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Three more.
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The Gospel is changing the world.
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The Gospel is changing the world.
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Look at the first part of verse 6.
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"Which has come to you as a deed in the whole world, and is bearing fruit and growing." It's bearing fruit and growing.
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Internal and external effect in that order.
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That's how the Gospel works.
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It affects you and I internally.
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And as the Lord's working in us, He works through us and then it affects things externally.
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Do you know, I was kind of examining this week, places that I've either preached or been in services.
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Pennsylvania, duh. Ohio, Chicago, Texas, South Carolina.
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How about Thailand, Burma, Brazil, and Romania?
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I've either preached services there or attended services there.
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You know what's amazing about that?
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As we're seeing the gospel of Jesus Christ save lives every corner of the globe.
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And that's one of the reasons I'm so excited about Barber's Bible Chapel.
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Some of you know our story.
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It's in the year 2000, James McDonald said, I want to plant 10 churches in 10 years.
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10 years passed and Barber's planted 77 churches.
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Well, as of this year, there's 77 churches.
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all over the world.
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So in 11 years, 77 churches all over the world, and we're seeing people come to Christ and get baptized at an astonishing rate.
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Astonishing is a great word, Scribe said.
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Take that from me, take it.
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Amazing.
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We're seeing people come to the Lord.
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And that's what I love.
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This time last year, I was in the Harvest Bible Chapel Training Center, and we would Skype with all these pastors from all over the world, they were telling us, you know, their experience.
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And I was like in the hub of hearing all these reports of what God is doing all over the world, and it is awesome.
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You know, you have so many reports of, you know, 80 to 85% of the church is being in decline, and you know, concerned over the state of the church, and that is a concern, but there's a lot of exciting things happening too.
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And we're part of a church that is growing like wildfire.
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It's just spreading all over the world.
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If you want more information about that, go to Harvest Bible Fellowship.org.
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And just click on that and be amazed at what the Lord is doing.
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It's incredible.
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The number three in the Gospel is growing the church.
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It's transforming lives, changing the world.
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It's growing the church.
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6b he says you know it's the whole world is very driven by looking at the next race as it also does among you since the day you heard it understood the gracing God in truth it's growing the church we're seeing amazing growth in people already right here I just want to make a a comment about this, you know, sometimes we tend to idealize what God is doing over there.
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We've all done that.
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Like I mentioned John MacArthur's church, John Piper's church, James McDonald's church in Chicago, the church in China.
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That's where God's really important.
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And he isn't working.
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Do you notice he says, "As it also does among you." You know, it's the same God, the same Holy Spirit, the same Jesus, the same Gospel.
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How excited are you about what God's doing right here?
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Are you excited about that?
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I am.
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Do you realize people lost and dying in their sin are just as dead right here as they are in China?
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If you realize that people are heading to the same hell here, than they are in Los Angeles, far from the Lord.
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There's a harvest right here.
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He says God's doing something all over the world, but don't ever miss the fact that God's doing something right here.
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See, that's always more extremist.
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It's people who either idealize everything outside the walls, or idealize everything inside the walls.
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And let's avoid both of those extremes.
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God is doing awesome things all over the world, and He's doing awesome things right here.
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Amen?
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One more here.
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The Gospel is broadcasted through people.
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The Gospel is broadcasted through people.
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He says, "Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit." Again, Epaphras was the man who probably planted this church in Colossae.
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He was the pastor, Paul calls him a faithful minister of Christ.
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You see we have an amazing privilege, we talked about this last week.
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God could do the work of the gospel any way that he wanted.
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He chooses to broadcast it through who?
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Through you.
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Through you.
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And when you read Colossians, understand that Paul, again he didn't even meet these people.
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But God did.
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Through Epaphras.
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You see, the pastor can't do the work of ministry.
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Actually, it's the pastor's job to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
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But ministry can't fall on the pastor alone.
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You see, you're going to meet people that I'm never going to meet.
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where you work, where you hang out, you're going to meet people that I would never meet.
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So whose job is it to get the gospel to them?
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That's yours.
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See, Epaphras' mindset wasn't, "Oh, I sure hope Paul gets to Colossae, might as well go to the churches." He says hey God's given me he's been his steward of the gospel. I'm going to be faithful with it Now maybe you're sitting here saying you know this lady I work with she really needs the Lord and it is so obvious My son's baseball coach really needs the Lord is so obvious my neighbor was across the street. He really needs the Lord Question how's God gonna reach those people?
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Are you going to reach them through you?
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Whether it's you sitting down with them and talking with them about the Lord, or you inviting them to come here to hear the gospel, understand the means is through you.
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God has the same plan.
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They need to hear the gospel, they need to understand the gospel, and they need to put their faith in the gospel, but the means is going to be through you.
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That was like the whole sermon last week, so I'm not going to go on.
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But as I close, say to me, "Lord, if you want to make your way up, if you want to make your And like those, I want us to look at one more thing.
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We touched on this earlier, but 1st Saint says that "Papyrus has made known to us from love and the Spirit." And you know something that every church has, despite worship style, despite what type of building they meet in, despite what the doctrinal statement is, despite how many people go there, You know all churches, all churches have one thing for sure.
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And that's a reputation.
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All churches have a reputation.
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And being in pastoral ministry in this area for as long as I have been, you start to hear these things.
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Oh, that's the church that, that's the church that, have you heard some of those?
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That's the church that's intolerant.
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That's the church that's legalistic.
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That's the church that's shallow.
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That's the church that's showy.
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That's the church that they're always bickering.
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But you know, other churches' reputation concerns me not at all.
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You know which church's reputation I'm concerned about?
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This one.
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You know, the Church of Colossians was known as the church that was full of love.
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I want that to be the reputation of this church.
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Like, hey, you went to that church meeting in the middle school, what's it like?
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Maybe the thing that you remember the most about your visit here on a Sunday morning We do want to be a church that is about the four pillars.
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And as I was looking through this text this week, did you see how four of those pillars are in the text?
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He talked about the gospel, that's God's word.
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He's talking about thanking God, praising God for the work that He's doing, that's worship.
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He's talking about praying for them, there's prayer.
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and then he talks about the faithfulness of the Catholics.
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This is what we want the reputation of Harvest Bible Chapel to be about.
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Will you bow your heads with me as we pray?
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We bow our heads, let's be thankful for what the gospel is doing.
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What God is doing through the gospel.
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Taking time to examine ourselves.
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Our Father in heaven, as we're about to leave here, let us never lose the wonder of being of the gospel.
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We have a tendency to reduce it.
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Let us magnify your name and what you're doing.
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We see that you're still in the business of resurrection.
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We see that you're still in the business of turning the whole world upside down and doing it locally.
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You still make the awesome privilege Father, we are just now at the beginning of a road, going through your word in Colossians.
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And again Father, I pray that every one of us would find our sufficiency in Christ.
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This is going to be a season of tearing some things down.
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This is going to be a season of building relationships.
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This is going to be a season of finding out everything that I am, everything that I need.
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It's in Jesus Christ.
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and send His glorious, awesome, and mighty name.
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Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Colossians 1:1-8
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.