Stories of Grace (Col 4:7-14)
Tychicus -
Onesimus -
Aristarchus -
Mark -
Acts 13:13 - Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem,
Acts 15:36-40 - And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, "Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are." Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.
Justus -
Epaphras -
Luke -
Demas -
p.s. - (Col 4:15-18)
Scripture: JUST READ IT!
Ministry: JUST DO IT!
Grace: JUST LIVE IT!
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:04
Let's pray for our children, for our offering, before we turn to the Word.
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Father, just now as we prepare ourselves to hear from You, again, Father, we know that we've come here this morning needing to hear from You.
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It's not my words. I just pray, Father, that I would decrease, that You would increase.
00:29-01:27
But we also want to pray for the children For our children's workers The father you are pouring into them during this time We pray for the offering father we know that everything we have is yours and like David All we can say is we're just blessed to be able to give back to you. What was yours in the first place and Thank you father for taking such good care of us We just pray that you would continue to use these things to grow this church Bring glory to your name we pray Through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior Amen I brought my high school yearbook.
01:32-01:35
I was leafing through it for a couple of minutes yesterday.
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A lot of thoughts came to my mind.
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One is, I've always hated getting my picture taken.
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Anybody else?
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Anybody else?
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OK, thank you.
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I've grown in that area.
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I have.
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I hate getting my picture taken.
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It's just like, am I supposed to look serious?
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Am I supposed to smile?
02:00-02:04
It always ends up looking goofy, like somebody catches me in the middle of a sneeze or something.
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Sorry, that joke might have been in poor taste about the sneeze.
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Ask Sam and Laura about that.
02:14-02:15
That's an interesting story.
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But I graduated high school in 1994.
02:21-02:26
And I was looking through this and again, some thoughts came to my mind.
02:26-02:31
One was, there must have been a crazy sale on hairspray in the '90s.
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That's all I can tell you.
02:34-02:34
Wow.
02:37-02:47
And I was talking with Jay Naur and some of our people from Worship Before Service and showing pictures of my high school gym teacher, Mr. Simenko.
02:47-02:56
And I could go through here and just tell you stories about a lot of these characters.
02:58-03:00
Say, oh, here's what this person was like.
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And I'm still in touch with this person and this is what this person means to me.
03:04-03:11
And the one page though, is this giant group picture.
03:12-03:15
And if you look real close, I'm right here.
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Can you see me?
03:17-03:22
But there's this giant group picture of everybody together.
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And when we turn to Colossians today, that's actually what we're going to be seeing, is a group picture.
03:31-03:31
All right.
03:31-03:33
So open up your Bibles to Colossians chapter 4.
03:33-03:38
This is our last sermon in the book of Colossians.
03:40-03:47
And I brought that yearbook just to show us, You know, we can take the picture or the yearbook and the pictures and kind of look back and.
03:49-03:55
You know, in Paul's day, it wasn't as if he could exactly snap a Polaroid and send it with the letter.
03:56-04:01
So when we get to the end of Paul's epistles, he usually mentioned some names.
04:02-04:08
And it's usually the part of the epistle that the pastor spends the week before going, how am I going to preach this?
04:09-04:12
Right. We get into all this, you know, Titchick says hi kind of stuff.
04:12-04:13
How do we preach it? But.
04:15-04:25
I don't believe that the Lord wasted any words, I believe that it's in the Bible for a reason, and the more I got digging into it, the more I saw that there's some things that the Lord is going to teach us from this.
04:27-04:34
But Colossians, chapter four and verse seven, where we're going to pick up, but I'd like to remind you, as we look at these names.
04:36-04:38
Ministry is not a one man show.
04:41-04:44
You know, sometimes we associate ministry with the pastor.
04:45-04:51
And we think of our favorite pastors, whether it's John McArthur or John Piper or James McDonald.
04:51-04:54
And we think, you know, I love their ministry.
04:56-04:58
But, you know, it's not just a one man show, right?
04:58-05:00
That was a big eye opener for me.
05:00-05:01
I mean, I already knew that.
05:01-05:07
But, you know, my time out at Harvest Bible Chapel with James McDonald, a remarkable human being.
05:07-05:11
but equally so are the people that work with him.
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I understand when we think of his books and his radio ministry, you know, walk in the word.
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He has a whole crew of people that are faithful to the Lord and working with him.
05:24-05:30
When you turn to God's word, you see that Moses had Aaron and Joshua and a whole slew of people helping him.
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And David, even when he was on the run, he was surrounded by people that were helping him.
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Jesus Christ had 12 people that he poured into and did ministry with him.
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And here we're going to see that Paul had his team. A lot of times, as I said, the pastor is usually the face of the ministry, but really ministry happens behind the scenes by people that usually aren't recognized and don't get the accolades. And that's true in this church as well.
06:07-06:09
Real ministry happens in small groups.
06:11-06:18
You know, we do our service on Sunday, we worship and we get in the word, but this isn't where real ministry happens.
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And I was talking with Sammy a couple of days ago about some exciting things that were happening in their small group.
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That's where ministry happens.
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And I can tell you stories about our small group.
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That's where ministry happens.
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And it's done by the behind the scenes people, so to speak.
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It's interesting from my perspective because it's my job to teach, but the truth is, I learned so much from each of you.
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Like, well, Pastor Jeff, I don't remember sitting down and sharing any doctrine with you.
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It's the way you live.
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It's your example.
06:54-06:59
You see, we get to this portion of Colossians, we've gone through some serious theology, haven't we?
06:59-07:01
serious theology.
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But when we get to the end here, we see that this isn't just conceptual.
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Here are people that are living proof.
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Of what it means when Jesus is first.
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And we're going to go through this list here, but I want to ask you, as we do.
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Are you living proof?
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Are you serving as an example?
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To others.
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Because Paul doesn't just list them, he doesn't just say, you know, this guy says hi, this guy says hi.
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You'll notice that he has some very personal remarks about each one of them.
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Where would you fit in here?
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The other thing that's encouraging about this list is there's just something about being around godly examples that really push us.
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isn't there? You know, when you're around somebody that is really a prayer, that's an encouragement for you to pray, isn't it? And when you're around somebody that's just a natural evangelist, that just makes you, you know, that much more want to be a natural evangelist. So here we see some great examples, some living proof or as I put on your outline, these are stories of grace is really what they are. He's talked about the grace of God through Jesus Christ and how it can change a life. Well here he's giving a list of people whose lives have been changed. So let's just look through this list. I'm going to go through the the names here and stop and make some comments as we go through.
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But verse seven, he says, Tichicus.
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Will tell you all about my activities.
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He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord.
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I've sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know.
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How we are. And that he may encourage your hearts on your outline beside Titicus, I want you to write a word, I want you to write the word reliable, reliable.
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Did you see that in the text?
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Paul is seriously gushing over Titicus, beloved brother, faithful minister, fellow servant, encourager.
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He's mentioned five times in the New Testament.
09:37-09:43
In fact, when the apostle Paul made the dangerous journey to Jerusalem, guess who was with him?
09:43-09:47
Take a guess. Titchicus, good, good.
09:48-09:49
I guess the only guy we talked about so far, right?
09:50-09:51
Well, that's who was with them.
09:53-10:02
And when temporary replacements were being considered for both Titus and Timothy at different points in ministry, Paul was like, hey, we're going to have to call in a sub here.
10:04-10:06
Do you know who was in consideration for both?
10:08-10:09
Any idea?
10:10-10:11
Titchicus, right?
10:11-10:13
Yeah, he was in consideration for both.
10:14-10:15
This is no lightweight.
10:16-10:21
And when the mail needed to be delivered, understand this wasn't this wasn't a postcard.
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You know, this was Holy Spirit inspired writing.
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That this letter to the Colossians and actually Ephesians and the letter to Philemon.
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would have been with Colossians to be delivered.
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Guess who was entrusted to deliver this mail?
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Tychicus was.
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This is urgent stuff.
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And Paul's like, I'm going to put this most urgent stuff in the hands of Mr. Reliable.
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You see that?
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Reliable.
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You know, it's a lost characteristic today that I'm just gonna tell you, we are so blessed to have an abundance here.
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And I'm really, really, really, really fighting the temptation to start saying names because I don't want to keep you here all afternoon.
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And I don't want to leave anybody out.
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So I'm really fighting the temptation to just start like-- but I could so do that all day.
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There are a group of people here that I can just say, you know what, reliable.
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Reliable.
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You know, I'll pick on Sammy here for a second.
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And he does more than just play the guitar and sing.
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He does so much with the website and, you know, developing the videos.
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He printed those invitation cards.
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But that's one of the things I think about when I think of Sammy.
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Reliable.
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Like, when I say, "Sammy, this needs done," and he's like, "All right, I'm on it," it's off my mind.
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I don't think about it.
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I'm not worried about it.
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Is he going to do it?
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Is it going to be good?
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Is it going to stink?
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He's reliable.
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And that's what Titicus was to Paul.
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He's like he's he's reliable.
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Faithful brother.
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Moving on, he says, and with him, verse nine, and with him, Onesimus.
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Onesimus, do you know anybody named Onesimus?
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Yeah, I do.
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Seriously, Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you.
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They will tell you of everything that has taken place here.
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It's not a Nessimus I want you to write the word forgiven.
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Forgiven.
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Who's a Nessimus, you might have heard that name in scripture before, he was actually the runaway slave of Philemon.
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Now, check this story out.
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OK, so a Nessimus runs from Philemon, from Colossae and runs all the way to Rome to get away from Philemon.
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And who does he run into?
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He runs into the apostle Paul and comes to Christ.
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And now Paul is like sending him back.
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That's what the whole book of Philemon is about.
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It's about forgiving and restoring Onesimus.
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And again, that book of Philemon.
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Would have been in Titicus's mailbag, but I want you to notice what Paul says about Onesimus.
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He calls him a faithful and beloved brother, and he says he's one of you.
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Notice that Paul doesn't label him as a thief or a sinner.
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Do you notice that he could have said, oh, no, Nessimus, you might you might know Anessimus, he was the guy that ripped off Philemon.
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You heard of him, ran from him.
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Dirty guy can't be trusted.
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What's your back?
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Anessimus, you know, Anessimus.
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What did he say about him?
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He's forgiven.
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Forgiven.
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And what a wonderful reminder that in Christ, the past is no longer an issue.
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Forgiven. A few months ago, I had a couple of different men approach me.
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Still struggling with this issue, and I've shared this with you before, you know, about things that have happened in the past.
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And am I forgiven?
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What is the answer in Christ?
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Are you forgiven in Christ?
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But I but I did some horrible things and. Yeah, me too.
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Forgiven. And I had to sit down with these men and share with them the truth of God's word that.
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If you've given your life to Jesus Christ, the past is no longer an issue, right?
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We've talked about this, the past is no longer an issue.
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I've threatened and someday I'm going to do it in our last new members class.
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I said, some Sunday I'm just going to stand up and read Romans 8 1 for a half hour.
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I'm just going to keep reading it over and over because people are still going to leave this morning wondering, am I really forgiven in Christ?
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If you are a born again believer in Christ, you are forgiven.
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Forgiven.
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Romans 8 1, there is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Well, someday God, I'm really going to have to answer for some things that I've done.
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Really? There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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But I mess things up bad.
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You know, I just really think God's going to.
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There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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All right. And.
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Church, sometimes, even if it's not us personally that are, you know, having a hard time letting that go, sometimes we do that to each other.
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We have a hard time letting go of somebody else's past, right?
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Like, OK, you can come to church here, but we're going to be keeping our eye on you.
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But, you know, you have to sit with Dale every week just so we can make sure that somebody's babysitting you, you can come to, but you know, remember the time you did.
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The past is no longer an issue. If it's not an issue with God, it should not be an issue with me and it should not be an issue with you. The past is forgiven. And that's what Onesimus is a reminder of. Paul doesn't bring up any of the dirt. He just says he's a faithful and beloved brother. He's one of us. He's like, He's one of us now.
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He's one of us.
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Next on your list, look at verse 10, Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greet you.
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Beside Aristarchus, in my notes, I wrote this down, you jot this down in yours.
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No matter what, just jot that down, no matter what.
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No matter what, he says, my fellow prisoner, literally in the Greek, that means one caught with a spear.
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In Acts chapter 19 and verse 29, Aristarchus was arrested with Paul in a riot in Ephesus.
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And now he's in jail with Paul in Rome, willing to suffer.
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No matter what.
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See, there's nothing that encourages a pastor more than a guy like Aristarchus.
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The guy that says, I am with you until the end.
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I am with you, man.
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Yeah, but like what if persecution comes?
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And like, what if we, you know, what if people like start attacking that?
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I'm with you, man.
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You know, what if it comes to the point that we, you know, become arrested for preaching the gospel?
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Like, I'm with you, man.
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That was Aristarchus to the end, no matter what.
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I believe in the mission.
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I'm with you.
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an encouragement that is. When the going gets tough, sometimes people bail. But Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, you can imagine him and Paul sometimes just looking at each other going, another fine mess you've gotten me into. But that was Aristarchus. Next, he says, Mark and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you've received instructions.
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If he comes to you, welcome him.
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Beside Mark, jot down the word second chance, jot those words down, second chance.
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I have these scriptures on your outline so you don't have to turn to them, but what's the story with Mark?
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Well, in Acts chapter 13 and verse 13.
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Paul and his companions were about to set sail and, you know, we're going to carry out the ministry and John Mark says, not me, I'm done, guys.
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I quit. And like deserts the group.
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Right. Well, then you get to Acts chapter 15.
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Says after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are.
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Paul's like, let's just kind of do a little circuit and just see how everybody's doing.
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Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John, called Mark, but Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.
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And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.
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Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.
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Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. So here we go again. We're going out on another mission trip and Barnabas is like, "Hey, can Mark come?" And Paul's like, "What?
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No?" Could you imagine getting into a disagreement with the Apostle Paul? What do you think that was like? Seriously, what do you think that was like?
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This wasn't exactly a weak man or a man who was unable to debate or argue, right? Can we take Mark and what did Paul say? What did he say? Yeah, thank you, Laura. Everybody else? What did he say?
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No! Right? No! What did Paul say? No! And Barnabas was like, "Yes!" And Paul was like, "No!" It said there was a sharp disagreement. I don't think they sat down and were discussing this over cards, okay? It was a sharp disagreement. I say we take him. I guy's going to ditch the team. He shouldn't be on the team.
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And as big disagreement broke out and they split up.
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But look at what Paul says about him now.
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If he comes to you, what does he say?
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Welcome him. Welcome him.
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Second chance. Listen, sometimes you have to let go of some things and move on.
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Sometimes you have to let go of some things and move on.
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We get hurt and we hold on to that hurt and relationships are broken.
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I've been guilty of that.
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Sharp disagreements arise from people that I've been very close to and we can't reconcile it.
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So I'm like, OK, you're not on the team and the relationship is broken.
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And then the Lord, by his grace, brings me back to that point.
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that I'd like to encourage you if you're in that situation, the relationship should be more important to you than that hurt, than that offense.
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And sometimes we have to move on.
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So who is it in your life that needs the second chance?
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Do you have anybody like that in your life?
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Like, you know what, man, we had this falling out and we've never really reconciled.
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Do you have somebody like that in your life?
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I'd encourage you, you know, like Paul, to not just forgive from your heart as Jesus commanded us to do, but send that email to them.
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Send them a letter.
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Do people still write letters?
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Send them a letter.
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Give them a phone call.
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Say, "Hey, you know what?
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"I was thinking about you "and I know we had our disagreements, "but our relationship's more important "than that disagreement.
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"And I'd like to just forget about all that." Second chance, we all need a second chance sometimes, don't we?
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You might have heard of this Mark character, he actually wrote a book.
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You know what the name of the book is?
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Yes, he wrote the gospel, according to Mark, you know, as I was working through this this passage, I was thinking, you know, if.
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This is just like one of those what if things, but what if Mark was never restored?
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What if he spent like the rest of his life feeling like a failure?
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Do you think he would have ever written Mark?
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I don't know. That's not how it turns out.
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But I have to wonder, you know, if he constantly felt beat up and he was walking around.
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Paul hates me. I stink.
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I'll never amount to anything.
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Paul won't even talk to me.
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Paul gave him a second chance.
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Welcome him. Moving on through the text, verse 11, and Jesus, like, oh, I know him.
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Hang on. Who is called Justice?
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Yeah, like if I totally lived in the first century and my name was Jesus, I'd go by something else, too, for real.
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That's a hard one to live up to.
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Right.
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Jesus, who is called Justice.
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These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God.
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And they've been a comfort to me.
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Along with Mark and Aristarchus, these were the only Jews that were ministering with Paul.
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And if you read through the book of Acts, you know that the apostle Paul faced a lot of Jewish opposition.
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And if you happen to know any Messianic Jews, you know that their heart breaks for their people.
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There's just a strong desire.
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The Jews carry for fellow Jews who don't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and that's why people like justice would have been such a comfort to Paul, you know, constantly attacked by the Jews for him to say, I got I got some Jewish brethren here who still stand with me.
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But this this word for comfort, jot that down beside justice, comforter.
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This is an interesting word in the Greek, this is the only place in the New Testament where it's used.
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But what it literally means is this, it's exhortation, comfort.
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Exhortation, comfort, what that means is, you know, sometimes it's a comfort when people just show up, you know what I mean?
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The people just show up.
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You know, there's been a tragedy or a death in the family and some people show up and maybe they don't really say anything.
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They're just like there. You know what I'm talking about?
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I'm just there. This is a different word, though, it means that this is this is a person who had a word to say.
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He was the kind of guy that knew the the right thing to say at the right moment to comfort.
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That's what he was talking about here. Do you know somebody like that in your life?
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I have people like that in my life that know exactly the right thing to say.
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At the right time.
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The biggest one in my life is probably Aaron, my wife, I have to be careful, there's several errands here talking about my wife, Aaron, the beautiful lady in the third row here.
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OK, but I think back several years ago in ministry, it just seemed like stuff was getting piled on and people were disgruntled and it was, you know, roast the pastor kind of time and I was just kind of like, man, I felt like, felt like the world was against me and she said, hey, I'm on your team.
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And that meant so much to me.
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It was the right word at the right time spoken in the right way.
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Encouragement.
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Encouragement.
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Moving on through our list, verse 12, "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 Hierapolis. Epaphras, write down the word "prayer." Prayer. He was a prayer. Actually, we found out in the beginning of Colossians that he was the founder of the Colossian Church. And Philemon, Epaphras is called a fellow prisoner, so it looks like he was also an inmate with Paul. He was a prayer, did you see there in verse 12, struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that Greek word for struggle is where we get the English word agonize.
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He agonized in prayer.
27:58-27:59
You see, there's a difference.
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You can say your prayers.
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And you can pray.
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And you can agonize in prayer, you know, the difference.
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We probably all do all three at different times.
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But this was the kind of guy on his face, crying out to the Lord passionately for his people.
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I just encourage you, you know, when was the last time you agonized in prayer?
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Like, you know, I said my prayers and I've been praying.
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When was the last time you agonized in prayer?
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I'm setting everything else aside and I'm just getting on my face before the Lord.
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for the church and for my family and for people that I know who don't know the Lord and agonizing in prayer.
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Verse 14, Luke, the beloved physician, greets you.
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Luke, the beloved physician, greets you.
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Beside Luke, write down the word sacrifice.
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Sacrifice.
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In fact, in 2 Timothy, the Apostle Paul's last letter, the only person still with Paul, do you know who it was?
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It was Dr. Luke.
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He's a reminder that mission work needs more than just preachers, right?
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When Luke was a little boy and he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up, what do you think he imagined it'd be like to be a doctor?
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What do you think?
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He probably imagined, you know, someday I'm going to make a lot of money and I'm going to be successful and I'm going to have notoriety.
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I'm going to make a mark in history.
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Could you imagine if you pulled him aside as a little boy, if you could see the future, pull him aside and say, "Hey, Luke, when you grow up, you are going to be a doctor and what's going to happen. You're going to follow around this ragged, beat up preacher that everybody's going to take a shot at. You're going to hang out with him in prison. Like what? That was Luke's service. Sacrifice. Did Luke leave a mark? I'm sure he wanted to make a difference in people's lives.
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Did Luke make a mark in history?
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You could say so, he wrote about half of your New Testament, did you know that he wrote the gospel according to Luke in the book of Acts, which looking at the volume of that material. Sizable chunk of the New Testament, he made his mark.
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But your mind, you know, God's definition of success is different than the world's.
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And if you've ever given anything up for the sake of the kingdom, you're going to look back on that someday and you're going to proclaim, "It was worth it." "It was worth it." And then look at the end of verse 14.
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He says, "Luke, the beloved physician, greets you, as does Demas." Now, did you notice something there?
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To paraphrase, he says, I have faithful Tichicus, I have comforting Barnabas.
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I have the beloved Luke.
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And Demas, to catch that, Pastor Jeff, how's your church going?
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Do you know I have the sensational Sam Yacoub?
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I have the dashing Dan Thompson.
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I have magnificent Mark Bloomingdale.
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And Jane our.
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That's kind of what's going on here, right?
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He doesn't say anything about Demas, does he?
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Why is that?
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Well, second Timothy 410, again, a little further down the road timeline wise, he says, "For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica." Beside Demas, jot down the word betrayal.
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Betrayal. Jesus had Judas.
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Paul had Demas.
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I hate to tell you this, but you're probably going to have somebody like that in your life, too.
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The person that you thought you could count on, the person you thought was legit.
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That ends up deserting you.
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I could give you a list of people like that, right, Aaron?
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We could give you a list of people like that in our lives that were like, yeah, you know what?
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This guy's going to be a titchicus.
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This guy's going to be a titchicus.
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And that guy ended up being a demis.
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So the Apostle Paul speaks volumes about Demas by what he doesn't say.
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And you just have to wonder, kind of reading between the lines, right?
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You wonder if Paul kind of had his eye on Demas.
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Like Demas is here and under his breath, he's like, not quite sure about him.
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Haven't quite figured him out, I'm not really not really sure about Demas quite yet.
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So. I think it's commendable he didn't make any judgmental statements, you know, Demas is here, I think he's going to bail.
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He doesn't make any judgmental statements, but his silence speaks volumes, right?
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So Paul closes with three great reminders.
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He says, give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea and to Nympha and the church and her house.
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And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read to the church of the Laodiceans, and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.
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And say to Archippus, "See that you fulfill the ministry that you've received in the Lord." I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.
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Remember my chains.
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Grace be with you.
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So Paul closes this letter and we close this series.
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With three great reminders.
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This is one on one type stuff, but this is so important.
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Which is why Paul circles back to it one more time, but number one, scripture, just read it.
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Just read it.
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Did you catch that in verse 16?
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He says, "Make sure this is read.
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Make sure the other churches are reading it.
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Get the letter from Laodicea, have it read." What's the letter from Laodicea?
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Well, many scholars believe that that's actually the book of Ephesians.
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So let me ask you, are you in the Bible right now?
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And you're like, "Yeah, see, it's open." I don't just mean a church.
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I mean, through the week, are you getting a steady diet of God's word?
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Because here's the plan, just read it.
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Just read it, getting God's word for yourself, just read it, you know, there's some things in here that are hard to understand.
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Yeah, true. And the Bible even admits that sometimes there are some things we come across.
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I'm not I'm having a hard time understanding.
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Just read it. Just read it.
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You know, that's how your faith grows.
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Sure, if we did a survey in this room and I asked, you know, who wants to have more faith?
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Probably everyone in here would raise their hand.
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Well, what does Romans 10 say?
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Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
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This is how your faith is going to grow, being in God's word, being in God's word, so getting God's word.
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So scripture, just read it.
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That's what Paul says.
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Make sure this stuff's being read. Don't take it home, stick it on a shelf, read it.
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And then verse 17 on your outline, ministry, just do it.
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Sorry, I stole that one from Nike.
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Verse 17 and say to Archippus, Archippus.
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See that you fulfill the ministry that you've received in the Lord.
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The Holy Spirit gave you a job to do for the church.
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Do you notice that he says that this is a ministry that you have received in the Lord?
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And I'd encourage you to never lose sight of that.
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You know, in the church, it's not well, this is what I do because this is what Jeff asked me to do or I do this down at the church because nobody else will.
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That's a lame view.
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Your ministry is something that you have been given by the Lord.
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The Lord says, I have a job for you.
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And Paul says, by the way, when you see Archie.
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Tell Archie, you know, get on it, bud.
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You know, I'm sure that's what he called Archippus.
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Had to be had to be.
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But you have a job that you've been given.
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And, you know, it's easy to bail.
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It's easy to bail.
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It's easy to be a demis.
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So you know what I'm done.
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You can have a list of reasons to bail.
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I've been offended.
37:59-38:01
Somebody said something at the church I didn't like.
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There's too much other stuff going on in my life.
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You don't understand.
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I got other stuff going on.
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You know, someone else can do it.
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You've been given a ministry from the Lord, just do it.
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And if I can just confess before you, just to be totally transparent, how many times over the past...
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How long have I been in ministry now, Aaron?
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Like...
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I don't know, it's been a lot of years, since like '97, so however many years that's been.
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How many years is that? Fifteen? Okay, we'll go with fifteen.
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I've been in pastoral ministry for fifteen years, and oh, how many times I've just felt like, You know what?
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I'm just going to go back to selling magazines.
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That was a whole lot easier than being involved in this.
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Do you know the thing? That keeps me from doing that.
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Do you know what it is? It's the constant reminder from the Lord.
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God called me to this.
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God called me to this.
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That's what keeps me here.
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God called me to this.
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I can't quit.
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I can't. God told me to do this.
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All right. And that's what Paul is reminding Archie here.
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Tell him, see that you fulfilled a ministry that you received in the Lord.
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Just do it, man.
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No excuses, God gave you a job, just do it.
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But then finally, grace, just live it.
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You know, that's the very last thing he says, he said a lot of things, so obviously you want to end on a high note, right?
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He ends on the highest. Grace. Just live it.
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What's grace?
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What's the definition of grace?
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Yes, I am so impressed.
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Grace is God giving to you.
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What he requires from you, that's what grace is, right?
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God giving to you what he requires from you, that's grace.
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Another definition of grace is unmerited favor.
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And he closes by saying, Grace be with you.
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When we receive the grace of God.
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We reflect his grace to others, we become people who are quick to forgive.
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We become people who are quick to forget.
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We become people who have a desire to see relationships restored.
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Instead of hurts linger on, as we talked about previously.
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So God gave you his grace.
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Live in it, God gave you a job in the church, just do it.
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And God gave you his word.
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Just read it.
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You know, this passage has many stories of God's grace in His people.
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And do you know right now, He's writing yours.
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Let's live it.
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Will you bow your heads and pray with me, please?
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Our Father in heaven, as we come to the end of this book, we thank you for the testimony of faithful lives.
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It's an encouragement to me just to read through this list and see that that's how the church works.
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That there are prayers, and there are encouragers, and there are the reliable people, There are the forgiven people and the people that need a second chance.
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I know the names might seem a little strange to us, Father.
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We know that those same characters are sitting in this room right now.
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There are people sitting in this room right now who have been so faithful to carry out the ministry that You've given them, and have been so reliable, everything from children to small groups, to worship, to hospitality, and to see more people coming on to that number and joining that team.
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It's so exciting to see, Father.
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There have been so many people in this room who've been such an encouragement to me in the times that I've been discouraged, that seem to know the right thing to say, to keep pushing me forward.
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And there are prayers in this room, Father, and I pray that You would raise up more of them, that we would agonize in prayer.
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Father, there are people in this room that maybe have had a horrible past.
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And it's time to move on in Christ.
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There are people in this room, Father, who maybe need to give someone a second chance.
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Maybe have been holding somebody at arm's distance for too long.
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And like the Apostle Paul had to do with John Mark, realize that the relationship is more important than the hurt.
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Father, as we close this series again, we want to be people who are in Your Word, who are in our ministries, and who revel in Your grace.
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We praise you and we thank you in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior.
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Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Colossians 4:7-18
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.