Jeff Miller

November 20, 2011

Jesus First In My Church

Jesus is First

Jeff Miller

November 20, 2011

Jesus First In My Church

Because:

Jesus is All GOD (Col 1:15a-19a)

Jesus is SUPREME over all (Col 1:15b)

Jesus is CREATOR of all (Col 1:16a)

Jesus is the PURPOSE of all (Col 1:16b)

Jesus is All ETERNAL (Col 1:17a)

Jesus is All SUSTAINER (Col 1:17b)

Jesus is All LORD of His Church (Col 1:18)

Jesus is All of SALVATION (Col 1:19-20)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:10
What you're going to find in this passage, there are seven "alls" and one "everything." And you're going to see in your sermon online, there's eight points in the message.
00:11-00:13
And that's really what we're going to do.
00:14-00:16
Let's look at these "alls" and "everythings," okay?
00:18-00:30
Colossians 1, verses 15-20, says, "He is the image of the invisible God." the firstborn of all creation.
00:33-00:43
For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
00:44-00:49
All things were created through Him and for Him.
00:51-00:54
And He is before all things.
00:54-00:57
and in Him all things hold together.
00:59-01:01
He is the head of the body, the Church.
01:02-01:09
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be pre-eminent.
01:12-01:32
For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.
01:34-01:36
So did you see that? There's a recurring theme there.
01:38-01:45
Talking about the greatness of Jesus Christ over all, over all, over all, over all, over what? Tell me church.
01:46-01:47
All. Did you catch that?
01:48-01:51
So Jesus is what?
01:51-01:56
Well number one, first of all, Jesus is all God. We've got to get that down.
01:57-02:04
You know, so many cults and religions think, well Jesus was just like a really good prophet, or he was a great teacher.
02:05-02:15
But to say he's God... Actually, when I was involved in prison ministry, in my previous ministry I had a couple of muscles come in.
02:15-02:30
And I started preaching, and one guy said, in a very threatening tone, he said, "The Bible doesn't say that Jesus is God." Like, what are you going to say about that?
02:30-02:36
And I said, "Well, let's look at what the Bible does say." We're going to look at just a couple of verses here today.
02:38-02:43
You can't read the New Testament seriously and objectively without coming to one conclusion.
02:43-02:45
Jesus is all God.
02:45-02:47
Look again back in the text with me.
02:47-02:51
First of all in verse 15 it says, He is the image of the invisible God.
02:54-03:01
And then down in verse 19, For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
03:01-03:02
Let's talk about these verses.
03:03-03:10
First of all, image comes from the Greek "Ekon" which is likeness.
03:10-03:47
In fact, Jesus used this word in Matthew chapter 22, in verse 20, when Jesus was challenged, "Should you pay taxes to Caesar?" Jesus said, "Pull out a coin." He says, "Pull out a coin." He says, "Whose image is on that?" They said, "Well, Caesar's." And Jesus said, "Well, give to Caesar what is Caesar's. Give to God what is God's." Caesar's image, or in this case, George Washington's image, is stamped on this coin.
03:48-03:52
And that's what the Apostle Paul says about Jesus Christ.
03:53-03:58
He is the image of God. God is invisible. Nobody has seen God.
04:00-04:04
The Scripture tells us He's revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
04:05-04:08
Jesus says, "You've seen me, you've seen the Father." Why?
04:08-04:16
Why? Because that image or likeness that Acon is stamped on Jesus Christ.
04:17-04:23
You may be sitting here saying, "You know, the Bible says we're made in the image of God, right? Doesn't the Bible say that?
04:24-04:32
God created man in His image? So how is that any different than Jesus?" Jesus is the perfect image of God.
04:34-04:38
Jesus is the perfect image of God.
04:39-04:41
If you would like to walk by him, first of all morally.
04:43-04:46
Jesus is inherently holy.
04:47-04:48
Anybody here inherently holy?
04:50-04:51
None of us.
04:52-05:03
You see, we have imputed holiness, but when God pronounces us righteous in Jesus Christ, He gives us His righteousness, but we're not inherently holy ourselves.
05:04-05:06
That's a quality that only God has.
05:07-05:07
Right?
05:08-05:24
The other way that Jesus is the perfect image of God, you consider the incommunicable attributes, Meaning the things about God, the characteristics of God that we don't have, but that Jesus had.
05:25-05:29
You might be like, "What are those?" Like the four mirrors.
05:30-05:36
Only God can do that, and Jesus did that, proving He was God, but we can't do that, you see.
05:36-05:44
So, yes, we're made in God's image, but Jesus is the perfect image of God.
05:44-05:56
That's why verse 19, "All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Jesus." Like, how much of Jesus is God?
05:57-05:58
Paul says 100%.
05:59-06:02
Everything that God is, is in the person of Jesus Christ.
06:02-06:03
We can take great comfort in that.
06:04-06:09
Because we can say, "Well, what do you think God's like?" Do you think God's loving?
06:11-06:12
Do you think God's merciful?
06:13-06:14
Do you think God is gracious?
06:16-06:22
Well, we know exactly what God is like because all we need to do is look at Jesus.
06:24-06:25
Does God care?
06:26-06:27
Is God compassionate?
06:28-06:29
Look at Jesus.
06:32-06:36
Jesus answers the question once and for all about the nature of God.
06:39-06:41
The Bible tells us that Jesus is all God.
06:42-06:45
Secondly, Jesus is supreme over all.
06:46-06:48
Jesus is supreme over all.
06:50-06:51
Look at the second half of verse 15.
06:52-07:00
It says that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation.
07:02-07:04
That's "proto-tokos" in the Greek.
07:05-07:07
That word "firstborn".
07:07-07:08
And I want to talk to you about that for a second.
07:09-07:13
Because firstborn, biblically, is sort of a figure of speech.
07:15-07:22
That has diverted some people in a true belief of who Jesus Christ is.
07:23-07:28
You see, for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses will, if you sit down and talk to them, they'll take you to this passage.
07:29-07:34
And say, look, Jesus isn't God. It says right here, He's the firstborn of all creation.
07:34-07:40
So that means that God created Jesus first, and then Jesus created everything else.
07:40-07:42
That's what they'll tell you. And they're incorrect.
07:43-07:51
They'll say, "Well, firstborn means chronologically the first one created." That's not at all the case.
07:52-07:54
Can it mean that? Yes, it can.
07:56-08:01
But more often than not, what we see in the Scripture is that word is a figure of speech.
08:01-08:08
Actually, in the Greek, there is a word that means "the first created" and it's not the word that the Apostle Paul uses here.
08:09-08:15
In the Scripture, that concept of "firstborn" means somebody that has the highest position or rank.
08:16-08:18
That's what that means. Listen to these verses.
08:19-08:21
To kind of prove that point.
08:21-08:25
Exodus 4 and verse 22.
08:27-08:38
Thus says the Lord, "Israel is my firstborn son." Now let me ask you, was Israel the first group of people that God created?
08:40-08:41
Was Israel first?
08:43-08:44
Well, who was first?
08:46-08:47
Adam and Eve, right?
08:48-08:50
So, was God confused?
08:50-08:57
Now what he meant was, Israel I have exalted you to a position, the highest position over all the nations.
08:58-09:01
You have the highest rank because I have exalted you there.
09:02-09:03
That's what the Lord said to Moses.
09:05-09:28
Still unconvinced, well speaking of the Messiah, Psalm 89 verse 27, "And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth." So you see how that expression is used, "I will make him the firstborn." If the word "firstborn" always means chronologically the first one that's born, to make somebody the firstborn doesn't make any sense.
09:31-09:40
That'd be like me saying to my two sons, "Well, Kade, you were born second, but somehow I'm going to make you chronologically born first.
09:41-09:45
I'll put Owen in a time machine or something." You can't do that.
09:46-09:48
It has to do with position of the problems, right?
09:49-09:57
And actually the word "firstborn" is used about other concepts in scripture, even outside of people.
09:57-10:02
And I just want you to see that this is a big year of speech, because it helps us understand who Jesus is.
10:03-10:04
But jump this reference down.
10:04-10:07
Job 18.13, talking about disease.
10:08-10:22
It says, "It consumes the parts of his skin, the firstborn of death consumes his limbs." So here is talking about a disease and this disease is so horrible it is called the first born of death.
10:24-10:28
Now does that mean it was the first disease that came upon the earth chronologically?
10:29-10:29
No.
10:30-10:39
What it means is as you look at the landscape of diseases, viruses, bacteria, this was the worst and had the highest rank.
10:41-11:40
Isaiah 14 30 talks about the firstborn of the poor will raise meaning the poorest of the poor the highest in rank of the poor so to speak there again you see this concept of firstborn over and over and over in scripture means highest in rank highest in position that's so important it's going to come up again here in this text. Remember the great commission? Jesus says that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. Here in your Bible it tells us once again, Jesus is the firstborn, the highest in rank over all creation. We have no problem with that. Because in our Right? Nobody tells me what to do.
11:41-11:43
Did you ever have that attitude towards your spouse?
11:44-11:45
Towards your boss?
11:47-11:49
Towards the government or towards the police?
11:50-11:52
Nobody tells me what to do.
11:54-11:56
I mean, we are so inherently sinful.
11:58-11:59
Nobody tells me what to do.
11:59-12:06
You're walking through the park, and there's a sign that says, "Keep off the grass." What do you do?
12:07-12:09
I'm walking on the grass. Why?
12:09-12:12
Not me. Nobody tells me what to do.
12:13-12:14
It happened to me a few weeks ago.
12:15-12:17
At the hospital with my one son.
12:18-12:21
And, uh, there was a paper towel dispenser.
12:21-12:30
And it said, "Pull the paper towel with both hands." So I grabbed it with one hand and just ripped it off.
12:31-12:36
Dried my hands that way. And I said, Nobody tells me what to do.
12:38-12:38
Right?
12:38-12:40
We all have that in us, don't we?
12:41-12:43
The speed limit is this.
12:43-12:44
Nobody tells me what to do.
12:47-12:51
Well, somebody ultimately does tell you what to do.
12:53-12:58
Jesus Christ is the highest rank of all creation.
13:00-13:30
So let me ask you, what area of your life have you Jesus. Is there any area of your life that you're like, "Oh, this is sort of my little quarter, okay? I have this little addiction, or I have this little secret thing, or you know, my finances, I really haven't got God's agenda with my finances. That's kind of my little thing." Is there any area at all of your life that you haven't known Jesus?
13:33-13:51
I said, "Jesus is the Lord of this. What about our choice of entertainment, or the music we listen to?" Or, "Is there any area of your life that you're like, 'Jesus, just kind of stay out of that area. This is mine. I'll go to church. I'll do this. I'll do that.'" But, Jesus, you can be Lord of most things.
13:51-13:56
Listen, Jesus is Lord of all, or He's not Lord at all to you.
13:57-14:04
And if there's any area of your life, maybe it's stepping out of ministry.
14:04-14:22
Maybe there's people here saying, "Well, I know that God's called me to do something in ministry, and I'm just not going to do it." Well, then you have a deal with the Christ, who is, by the way, the firstborn of all creation, the highest rank.
14:25-14:32
So thirdly, look at verse 16, Jesus is, easy one, creator of all.
14:35-14:38
For by Him, how much has been created?
14:40-14:40
What's your Bible say?
14:42-14:42
All?
14:43-14:43
Do you have an all?
14:43-14:44
Anybody has an all?
14:44-14:46
Anybody have anything different in your Bible?
14:48-14:50
So what was created by Jesus Christ?
14:50-14:51
Tell me.
14:51-14:55
All things. All things.
14:58-14:59
Can you get specific about that?
15:01-15:04
Okay. All things in heaven and on earth.
15:05-15:08
Well, maybe he doesn't want to mean everything.
15:08-15:09
How about this?
15:10-15:11
Visible and invisible.
15:14-15:14
Here's a test.
15:16-15:22
If you can see it, That means Jesus Christ created it.
15:24-15:28
If it exists and you can't see it, it means what?
15:29-15:30
Jesus Christ created it.
15:30-15:31
Did you catch that?
15:32-15:33
Visible and invisible.
15:33-15:34
What's he talking about the invisible things?
15:35-15:36
Well he goes on to clarify here.
15:38-15:40
Thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities.
15:41-15:43
That's talking about angels.
15:44-15:46
That's talking about everything in the heavenly realm.
15:48-15:49
Who created it?
15:50-15:51
Jesus Christ did.
15:54-16:02
Now let me ask you, off quiz, what do you think are the two most attacked books in the Bible?
16:02-16:07
Critics attack the Bible, which two do you think are the most attacked?
16:08-16:09
The most criticized?
16:09-16:10
The most disbelieved?
16:13-16:15
Actually, it's Genesis and Revelation.
16:18-16:21
Revelation is just very real stuff.
16:23-16:24
It corrects.
16:25-16:27
It is as much the word of God as the beginning is.
16:27-16:29
It is just as true.
16:31-16:33
It is just forward history, not past history.
16:34-16:38
But the book of Genesis is always, always, always under fire.
16:38-16:38
Always.
16:40-16:41
Why is that?
16:42-16:57
Because you see, the enemy knows that if he can get you into a mindset where you've come up with this story of why we're here that excludes God, that keeps Jesus Christ out of the equation, you're going to be a lot less inclined to pursue Him.
16:58-16:59
So that's why it's being propagated.
17:00-17:09
We're here by accident, big bang, and you know, from the, how's it go, from the goo to you via the zoo, right?
17:09-17:16
how macroevolution works? That you weren't created? This is all an accident.
17:18-17:39
Promoting this atheistic, godless account of why we're here. That's why you need to sign up for small groups. The first thing we're going to tackle is a series called Foundations. And I want every single person that comes here to be able to leave saying, "You know, I believe that the Bible is true first of all because God said so.
17:39-17:42
But second of all, we have reasons to believe.
17:42-17:44
We have scientific reasons to believe.
17:44-17:47
We have, you know, the archaeological reasons to believe.
17:49-17:52
This isn't fairytale. You have reasons to believe that the Word of God is true.
17:53-17:59
Okay? You need to be ready to give a reason for the hope that's within you.
18:00-18:07
But sadly, there's a lot of Christians that are retreating from this doctrine of creation.
18:10-18:19
Well, the scientific evidence for a six-day creation somewhere between 6 and 10,000 years ago, the scientific evidence is astounding.
18:19-18:23
The Earth is very young, as opposed to billions or billions of years old.
18:25-18:31
So like, okay, well, there's so much scientific information, as you say, why don't people go to it?
18:33-18:36
I just dropped this reference down, Romans 1.18.
18:38-19:00
Romans 1.18, really all of the latter portion of Romans chapter 1 talks about when people would rather choose to sin instead of choosing to pursue the Lord, one of the things they have to do in order to do that is to suppress the truth.
19:02-19:12
You see, it's not as if we have all the scientific evidence that we can step back and look at objectively and say, well, billions and billions of years makes more sense.
19:13-19:14
Macroevolution makes more sense.
19:15-19:17
That's not the case at all.
19:17-19:45
Actually, when you look at the evidence, you would say, well, the Bible makes more sense about how we got here, younger you know complexity the issue is that the issue is yes I see what the Bible says I just don't want to believe it I'm going to bark up other trees He's Creator of all.
19:47-19:49
Number four, Jesus is the purpose of all.
19:53-19:57
Not only is He the Creator of all, but look at verse 16, He's the purpose of all.
19:57-20:04
All things were created through Him and for Him.
20:06-20:09
So why are we here? Why is any of us here? Why are you here?
20:12-20:19
The answer is always, "This is for Jesus." Okay?
20:19-20:21
And this is a truth that you need to personalize.
20:22-20:24
You need to personalize this.
20:24-20:25
Write this down.
20:26-20:32
"I am here because of Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ." Write that down.
20:33-20:33
Why are you here?
20:34-20:35
You're here because of Him.
20:37-20:39
He created all things.
20:39-20:41
You're here because of Him, but you're also here for Him.
20:43-20:46
It's not as if Jesus created you and you say, "Well, thanks.
20:47-20:48
Thanks for the creation thing.
20:48-20:52
I'll see you in heaven." We're here for Him now.
20:57-20:58
There again, sinful flesh.
20:59-20:59
I'm my own man.
20:59-21:01
Nobody tells me what to do.
21:01-21:02
I did it my way.
21:03-21:04
Well, here's what I found out.
21:05-21:05
I'm not going to tell you what to do.
21:05-21:11
I'm not going to tell you what to When people insist on doing it their way instead of God's way, I've always just told people, "You know what?
21:13-21:26
Just go do things your way for a while. Okay? Call me in a year and let me know how that goes out." I guarantee you, every time, you're going to be disappointed in me.
21:31-21:35
All things created through him and for him.
21:38-21:41
As he is not there for us.
21:42-21:48
And I think that's one of the biggest problems plaguing the church today is the mindset that Jesus is there for us.
21:51-21:52
And we're so used to that.
21:52-21:54
We're just so used to that in our culture.
21:54-21:56
You know, consumer mentality.
21:56-22:01
And we can order things off, you know, Amazon.com, or we, you know, go to the store.
22:01-22:06
And we're just so used to, "You're here for me. You're here to serve me." And we treat God like that.
22:07-22:11
Like, "God, you're there for me. I'm fine. I'll call you if I need you.
22:12-22:20
Otherwise, you don't tell me how to live." And we get this attitude that He's there for us.
22:20-22:22
If we need Him, He's there for us.
22:24-22:25
That is so backwards.
22:26-22:38
that it's sick. He is not there for us like a bellhop. Actually we are here for Him.
22:40-22:49
And true, He blesses us and He's at work through us and in us and as we've already seen in Colossians, Our strength comes from Him.
22:49-22:56
But let's dispel this notion that He's just a phone call away when we need Him.
22:56-22:58
But the truth is we are here for Him.
22:59-23:05
We should be seeking what we can yield in our lives to better represent Him, to better serve Him.
23:06-23:10
So let's get off of this, "Jesus is there for..." No, we're here for Him.
23:12-23:13
Okay? He is the purpose.
23:15-23:16
He is the purpose.
23:17-23:20
Number 5, Jesus is all eternal.
23:21-23:30
Look at verse 17, it says, "And He is before all things." He is before all things.
23:32-23:36
Before anything was here, Jesus was there because He is God.
23:36-23:41
And we totally get the concept, don't we, in our culture, especially, of being first.
23:42-23:44
Giving you a place of privacy, right?
23:44-23:45
We get that.
23:47-23:57
When I was a kid, there were four kids in our house, and the rule was always, whoever turned the TV on first got to choose what you watched.
23:58-23:59
Right?
23:59-24:00
Did anybody else have a rule like that in your house?
24:01-24:02
Just our house?
24:03-24:05
It was a great rule because you know what we would do?
24:06-24:13
Was, you know, first out of bed, you run to the TV and just turn it on before you go get your calchocolate or whatever.
24:13-24:13
Why?
24:13-24:17
Because if you're the guy that turned the TV on, you got to determine what you watched.
24:18-24:19
So that's what I do.
24:20-24:23
I just, I get out of bed, I turn the TV on, and I make myself breakfast.
24:24-24:26
Then a little brother came out and went to turn the channel.
24:27-24:27
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
24:28-24:30
I was there, tell me.
24:30-24:32
I was there first, right?
24:33-24:34
I was there first.
24:38-24:41
Some of us never offered that, like me.
24:44-24:52
Aaron will tell you, I have a short temper when it comes to... I don't know, you can always cry at me. Don't judge me.
24:54-25:01
But there's times that I struggle when you're waiting in line for a long time and somebody comes and cuts in front of you and gets served.
25:01-25:10
Does that ever happen to you? I'm just like, "Ugh." I mean, I don't like hit the person or anything like that, but Aaron can always tell, like, inside I'm just like boiling.
25:10-25:12
I was here first!
25:40-25:42
In Him all things hold together.
25:43-25:44
Now this isn't a metaphor.
25:44-25:48
Understand that this isn't a metaphor like in some Hallmark concept.
25:48-26:02
"He's just the... Jesus is just the straw that stirs the grape." Or, "Jesus is just kind of the glue of love that binds us." No, that's not really what that means.
26:03-26:04
This is actually literal.
26:05-26:06
Did you know?
26:08-26:21
If you look at the nucleus of an oxygen atom, there are eight protons, which have a positive charge, and eight neutrons, which have no charge.
26:24-26:26
Okay? Now, what's the problem with that?
26:26-26:33
Well, like charges of electricity and magnetic poles repel each other, right?
26:34-26:35
Here's what I think of when I was in elementary school.
26:36-26:38
They'd get the magnets out and play with the magnets.
26:38-26:40
I remember being so amazed.
26:40-26:43
When you try to put the two pluses together, what would happen?
26:44-26:45
They wouldn't stick.
26:45-26:47
There was a force repelling them.
26:47-26:50
Because the light poles repel each other.
26:50-26:52
You had to stick the negative with the positive.
26:53-26:54
Well, here's the point.
26:55-26:57
Scientists are completely baffled.
26:58-26:59
Completely baffled.
27:01-27:04
that every atom in the universe is just exploding.
27:05-27:07
What's holding the atom together?
27:08-27:15
I mean, if it's consisting of eight positively charged, you know, the ones with no charge are affecting anything.
27:15-27:20
What's keeping those eight positively charged protons from just flying apart?
27:21-27:22
In everything.
27:23-27:24
What's holding it together?
27:24-27:25
Scientists have no idea.
27:26-27:26
Did you know that?
27:26-27:27
They have no idea.
27:27-27:30
They call it a, quote, strong nuclear force.
27:30-27:33
What holds it together? What's holding everything together?
27:36-27:38
Well, I'm not saying I'm smarter than that.
27:39-27:43
But the literature that I read actually gave me the answer to that question.
27:44-27:45
What's holding everything together? Tell me.
27:47-27:50
Jesus. Jesus Christ is holding everything together.
27:52-27:55
And do you know someday He's going to release His grip?
27:55-28:00
2 Peter 3.10 talks about how this heaven and earth are going to be burned up in fire.
28:01-28:04
Someday that's what Jesus is going to do. He's going to let go of his grip.
28:05-28:11
And you're going to see nuclear reaction on a cosmic scale.
28:13-28:15
Right before he creates the new heaven and the new earth.
28:17-28:19
So Jesus is all sustainable.
28:20-28:23
Number 7. Jesus is all Lord of His Church.
28:24-28:29
1 Theta says, "He is the head of the body, the church.
28:31-28:43
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, and in everything he might be preeminent." Now when it says Jesus is the head of the body, it's not like the head of a company.
28:45-28:48
See the church is actually a body. Each part doing its own function.
28:49-28:51
What do you call a body without a head?
28:59-28:59
Dead.
29:00-29:02
What's a body without a head?
29:04-29:05
It's dead.
29:05-29:06
It's the same for the church.
29:06-29:10
If Jesus Christ isn't the head of the church, the church is what?
29:11-29:13
The church is dead.
29:15-29:26
I had a senior pastor, they told Aaron and I, they said, "You know what really, the church is really all about the senior pastor, you know that?
29:28-29:34
The church is all about the senior pastor." And Aaron and I were like, "Ha!
29:35-29:45
The church is not about the senior pastor." I can give you a clue. If I dropped over a dead disciple today, you know what's going to happen next week?
29:45-29:48
There's going to be some other guy up here doing the same thing.
29:48-29:52
God's got like millions of them out there. Somebody else to jump in.
29:52-29:55
The church is not about me. At all.
29:57-30:00
The church is about who? Jesus Christ.
30:00-30:06
This is a bit of a concern, but there is a secret pastor that says the church is really all about the secret pastor.
30:06-30:07
That's a problem.
30:08-30:09
You better check yourself.
30:11-30:12
Jesus is the head.
30:12-30:13
He's the beginning.
30:14-30:16
He also says he's the firstborn from the dead.
30:16-30:19
What rules out of the firstborn from the dead?
30:19-30:21
Well, the church is all about resurrection, right?
30:22-30:24
Jesus making dead people alive people.
30:25-30:32
And of everyone who's ever risen from the dead or ever will rise from the dead, who has the highest position of credit?
30:33-30:35
Again, it's Jesus Christ.
30:36-30:38
1 Cor 9, there it is again.
30:42-30:52
A theme verse this year comes from verse 18 where it says, "that everything He might be preeminent." Jesus first in everything.
30:54-30:56
Why does he throw that last phrase in there?
30:57-31:06
Well, in Philippians chapter 2, verses 8-11, Paul tells us that because of Jesus' sacrifice, God has highly exalted him and gave him the name above all names.
31:08-31:10
So Jesus is the head of this church.
31:11-31:14
And that's what we're praying for in Heart of the Bible chapter Pittsburgh.
31:15-31:22
It's not about me, it's not about Santa Flora, it's not about the Lipids, it's not about the Groves or the Oral Truth.
31:23-31:26
You know, you put anybody in any type of position of leadership, it's not about us.
31:27-31:29
We're here to serve Jesus Christ.
31:29-31:32
That's why I was so blessed this past week.
31:34-31:38
We went to the Christian bookstore and picked some stuff up.
31:38-31:45
And this lady who worked there said, "I know you from somewhere." And I didn't recognize her at all.
31:45-31:49
I was like, "Oh?" She looked at me for a second.
31:51-31:58
"I know where I know you." She said, "I've been to your website." You're that Jesus is first guy.
32:00-32:01
That made my week.
32:02-32:02
She had no idea.
32:02-32:05
My name or the name of the church.
32:05-32:09
She's like, the only thing I know about you is you're like Jesus is first.
32:10-32:16
I told Sam, like when I die, like just put that on my headstone.
32:16-32:19
Like here lies some guy, I'm not sure who he was, but Jesus is first.
32:19-32:22
Sam said he's going to put one of those stickers on my coffin.
32:23-32:23
Okay.
32:23-32:25
But that's how I want to be remembered.
32:26-32:26
Like you want to be remembered.
32:28-32:33
So I'll tell you what, Jesus is first. He always said that. That was like his thing, "Jesus is first".
32:34-32:35
And oh, I'm so blessed.
32:38-32:42
So, finally, Jesus is all of salvation.
32:44-32:46
Jesus is all of salvation.
32:47-33:04
For in him all the fullness of God is released from the world, and through him directeth himself to himself all things, but on earth he provides everything for peace." And understand that this is the climax.
33:07-33:15
If you would say, "Which is the high point in this text?" Well, Creator has to be high point. It's not.
33:15-33:21
Well, "sustainer" has to be high point. It's not. Here's the high point.
33:23-33:36
The high point is, this God who rules, who created, is the purpose of all things, is eternal, who sustains all things, this God did this.
33:38-33:46
This God who rules everything, allowed Himself to be nailed to the cross.
33:47-33:48
That's the climax of this passage.
33:50-33:52
Do you know Jesus Christ?
33:54-33:57
Have you stopped to consider how awesome He is?
33:58-33:59
And how sovereign He is?
33:59-34:03
And this whole concept that He has a birthplace over all things?
34:03-34:11
Yet, did He willingly allow Himself to be nailed to a cross?
34:13-34:38
Don't tell me for a second that this God-man who rose other people from the dead, and who walked on water and healed blind people and lame people, don't tell me for a second that He couldn't have any time while He was hanging on the cross, said, "Enough of this. Enough suffering. Enough pain. Enough ridicule. I am done." And just walked off the cross and walked to heaven at that point.
34:39-34:44
He said, "I'm done with it." Could he have done that? Answer me. Could he have done that?
34:45-34:48
Yeah. He could have done that any time.
34:50-34:51
But see, this is the climax of the passage.
34:51-34:57
This God records out all things to Himself.
34:59-35:10
Last phrase, "making peace by the blood of His cross." To remind us that God became a man who was willing to bleed and die for us.
35:12-35:14
This is the power of salvation.
35:14-35:16
This is why this church is here.
35:18-35:24
You see, salvation is not a dollar amount for which a check could be written.
35:26-35:30
Salvation is not earned by works for which years of service could ripen.
35:31-35:36
Only Almighty Infinite Holy God can do this.
35:37-35:45
So as I close, everybody worships something.
35:46-35:47
That's true.
35:51-35:57
Whether it's yourself, whether it's another person, whether it's whatever.
35:57-35:58
Everybody worships something.
36:00-36:02
The question is, who has the first place in your life?
36:05-36:11
You see, every one of us, just imagine, on your heart is a throne.
36:13-36:17
And by nature, we're sitting on the throne of our own lives.
36:17-36:25
We say, "I rule. I reign." Coming to Jesus Christ means getting off of that throne.
36:25-36:43
It's saying, "Jesus Christ, since you have the first place in all things, you have the first place to reign in the throne of my life." So Jesus Christ, we've seen in our text today, has the first place in all things. How about it?
36:46-36:51
How about it, you? Or we could ask, "Who's your King?"

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Colossians 1:15-20

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

November 13, 2011

Jesus First In My Church

God's Will for the Church

Jeff Miller

November 13, 2011

Jesus First In My Church

God's Will for Me:

SAVED (1 Timothy 2:4)

SANCTIFIED (1 Thessalonians 4:3)

SUBMISSIVE TO THE GOVERNMENT (1 Peter 2:13,15)

SUFFERING (1 Peter 4:19)

THANKFUL (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

What do you want for this church? I want what God wants.

God's Will for Harvest Bible Chapel:

WALK WORTHY in the Lord

BEAR FRUIT for the Lord

GROW in the KNOWLEDGE of the Lord

GET my STRENGTH from the Lord

Endurance
Patience
Joy

GIVE THANKS to the Lord

Qualified

What is My Inheritance?

ETERNAL life (Matthew 10:29)

EARTH (Matthew 5:5, Revelation 20:6)

EVERY promise of God (Hebrews 6:12)

Delivered

Transferred

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:08
Alright, let's get to the Word. Last week we talked about the Gospel at work as we started our series in Colossians.
00:09-00:19
And the Apostle Paul was talking about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ is at work all over the world as it is among you and the effect that it's having on each of us.
00:20-00:27
Now last week I said that when some people talk about their conversion experience, I said something like they're weird about the details.
00:27-00:29
I want to clarify something with that.
00:30-00:37
What I meant by that was, since that wasn't my experience, it's always weird to me to hear somebody know all those details.
00:37-00:46
But I don't want you to think that having that experience is weird, or that I think you're weird if you have that experience.
00:46-00:48
That is not what I meant at all.
00:48-00:54
I just meant that wasn't my experience, so that's always outside of my box when I hear that from people.
00:56-00:59
So don't misunderstand me, I wasn't calling anyone weird.
01:03-01:07
So let's turn our Bible to Colossians chapter 1.
01:13-01:17
My wife Erin and I have been married for 9 years, right? 9 years?
01:18-01:23
And I've learned a couple of things being married to Erin for 9 years.
01:24-01:26
I'm going to share a couple of them with you today.
01:26-01:27
One is I married up.
01:28-01:32
If you're like, "It didn't take you very long to figure that out." It didn't. I married up.
01:32-01:33
Thank you for noticing.
01:34-01:37
I also learned that I'm clueless when it comes to raising kids.
01:41-01:51
Here's something else that I've learned, and I'm not going to necessarily say if I've learned this from Eric, or if I've learned this from other married people that I've talked to, maybe because she's sitting right here this morning.
01:52-01:54
But here's something that I've learned.
01:55-01:57
And men, I'm going to have to ask you to back me up here.
01:58-02:04
Because if you leave me hanging on the drive, I might need somebody to be marriage counselor for us next week.
02:05-02:07
But here's something I've learned in marriage.
02:08-02:15
Men, do you find that a lot of times when your wife asks you a question, she's not necessarily looking for information?
02:17-02:20
What she really wants to know is if you know the answer to the question.
02:21-02:21
Amen?
02:22-02:22
Amen.
02:23-02:23
Amen. Come on.
02:24-02:24
Amen?
02:25-02:25
Yes.
02:25-02:27
Amen. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
02:27-02:49
So it's not just Everyone here is focusing. It's not just me, okay? But a lot of times, you know, when Aaron asks a question, and it took me a while to get this because I'm a little slow, but I thought that she was wanting information. I'm going to inform her, but what I found out is she already knows the answer. She wants to know if I know the answer.
02:49-02:53
And today we're going to be talking about God's will.
02:55-03:01
The reason I bring all this up about my wife, who's far greater than I deserve, is that some people think of God's will that way.
03:02-03:06
That God has this one specific path that I've got to find.
03:08-03:15
And if I don't find exactly what God's looking for, for me, then I'm off track.
03:16-03:17
I'm completely off base.
03:17-03:19
Some people compare it to a dot.
03:19-03:21
Like, you know, there's a dot on the floor.
03:21-03:25
You know, being on that dot means you're at the center of God's will.
03:26-03:29
But maybe making some wrong decisions gets you off that dot.
03:29-03:36
And make enough wrong decisions, you'll never get back to being perfectly in God's will for your life.
03:37-03:52
Almost as if some native stood before God, and God will say, "Well, you know, you're going to heaven, but your life wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be." some kind of a second level Christian experience, I don't agree with that.
03:53-04:01
I don't believe that God's will is some mystical thing that we better find that exact thing.
04:05-04:16
The reason it concerns me, I've done a lot of counseling over the years, I think of two people in particular that have come to me, misunderstanding the will of God.
04:18-04:22
I remember one young lady who came to me, who was just, she would beside herself.
04:24-04:42
She would say, "Well, you know, I just feel like I need to stay home, because, you know, what if, what if I leave the house, if it's God's will that I would be staying home and praying, and being in the Word, but if I leave the house, I'm out of God's will." But then I think, "Well, what if it's God's will that I'm out ministering to somebody, and...
04:44-04:47
Maybe, you know, staying at home would be wrong.
04:48-04:51
And she was just, she was like in tears.
04:51-04:53
I don't know what God wants me to do.
04:53-04:57
To the point of, I don't know if I should leave the house or not.
04:57-04:58
Is it God's will that I leave the house?
05:01-05:11
Sadly, I've met another person that, um, for years, with their life just sat and did nothing.
05:13-05:15
saying I'm waiting for God to show me what to do.
05:15-05:16
For years!
05:18-05:20
Get out of the house, man. Take a mission trip.
05:21-05:22
You know, get called to the church.
05:22-05:26
I'm just going to stand there until God shows me exactly what He wants me to do.
05:27-05:30
So there's all this, you know, what's God's will for me?
05:31-05:33
Does God have a will for my life?
05:34-05:37
Well, the answer is yes, God has a will for me.
05:38-05:42
Okay, now, the outline on the back of your book is teeny tiny.
05:42-05:47
And unless you're one of those people that can draw pictures on Christ, you ever see those people?
05:48-05:50
You might need to use the margins.
05:51-05:53
Well, we're going to get this bigger, okay?
05:54-05:56
Does God have a will for me?
05:56-05:57
The answer is yes, God has a will for me.
05:58-06:05
You're like, "Well, wait, how do you know what God's will is for my life?" Because He's told us in His Word what His will is for your life.
06:05-06:10
I'm just going to go through these quickly, in case you're wondering what God's will for you is.
06:11-06:13
Here's God's will for every person.
06:13-06:16
First of all, the Bible very clearly says this is God's will for each day.
06:17-06:17
Right?
06:18-06:19
Like, God, what do you want?
06:20-06:21
What do you want?
06:21-06:26
God says, "The first thing I want you to do is to be born again." That's the first thing.
06:27-06:28
Second thing is sanctify.
06:29-06:32
God wants you growing in Christ.
06:33-06:35
You're maturing in Christ.
06:35-06:36
We're going to talk about that today.
06:40-06:42
What else do you want me to do, God?
06:42-06:44
Well, God's will is that you be submissive to the government.
06:44-06:45
He's very clear about that.
06:49-06:51
But I don't necessarily like the government.
06:51-06:52
That's not the issue.
06:53-06:56
But I'm not crazy about the president of this political party.
06:57-06:57
That's not the issue.
06:57-07:03
The Bible says we're to pray for our leaders, and we're to be submissive to the government.
07:04-07:09
So long as the government doesn't tell us to violate the word of God, you're submissive to the government.
07:11-07:27
And if we were told, you know, "Hey, you guys can't be preaching from the Bible anymore, we'll let you go to the higher authority, which is God." And we would say, "Well, that's better, please God, leave me in." And so long as the government doesn't violate the Word of God, we're going to be submissive to the government.
07:30-07:34
Sometimes it's God's will, 1 Peter 4, verse 18, sometimes it's God's will that we suffer.
07:36-07:38
Okay, that's a whole, like, Serving the serious.
08:09-08:11
I'll just be big as far as number of people.
08:11-08:13
Does God have a will for the church?
08:15-08:17
Does God have a will for the church?
08:17-08:27
We'll look at Colossians chapter 1, in verse 9, and we'll see that God absolutely does have a will for the church.
08:29-08:35
"And so from the day we heard," Heard about what?
08:37-08:47
He just said in the previous verses, Epaphras and one of the ministers of this church came and told Paul, "Hey look, that church of Colossae, they are a mockery church.
08:47-09:15
Those people love each other and they're really maintaining that unity and love." Paul says, "Since we heard that report," he said, "we have not ceased to pray for you." Now what was Paul praying for the church? Well here it is, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will.
09:15-09:23
That was the prayer. Paul says, I want, God please fill that church with the knowledge of Your will.
09:26-09:27
But then look at this next statement.
09:28-09:41
He says, "In all spiritual wisdom and understanding." So Paul says, "I'm praying for you guys." Just a quick pause here.
09:41-09:44
Isn't it great when somebody tells you how they're praying for you?
09:46-09:46
Isn't that wonderful?
09:46-09:50
I was talking to my brother David here a couple of weeks ago.
09:50-10:01
I remember we were talking on the phone and he said, "I'm praying for your marriage." He says, "Because I know how difficult ministry can be on a marriage." And that really blessed me.
10:02-10:06
To say, "If it wasn't for Paul praying for it." He's being very specific about how he's praying.
10:06-10:09
"Thank you for that." And that's what Paul's doing here.
10:09-10:16
He says, "I'm praying for some specific things for you, church." What was he praying for?
10:16-10:18
He's praying for God's will for the church.
10:21-10:24
So let me ask you, what do you want for this church?
10:24-10:26
Maybe some of you are visiting for the first time.
10:26-10:29
You're like, "Oh, I've only been here like all 44 minutes.
10:30-10:35
How should I know what I want for the church?" Well, let me ask you, what do you want for the church?
10:37-10:42
If I would say, "What do you want for Harvest Bible Chapel?" What do you want?
10:46-10:50
I want to be the church that has the coolest technology, or the loudest band, or the...
10:51-10:56
What do you want in the church? I've seen churches that do some crazy things in the name of the gospel.
10:58-11:00
I thought about naming some of these up.
11:01-11:10
It was just off the top of my head. I remember one church was giving everybody $10 to keep the church.
11:10-11:13
It will be $10 to come to church.
11:15-11:16
Yeah, the church down the street offers $20.
11:17-11:21
I mean, what's the hell?
11:23-11:26
My brother sent me this article a couple years ago.
11:26-11:26
Did you see this?
11:26-11:37
This one church, and their sort of protested Easter, the secular Easter, I mean, you know, the bodies of the dead and all that stuff.
11:37-11:41
They had people come out with sticks and beat up the Easter Bunny.
11:42-11:43
That was a big stage thing.
11:44-11:58
And that was their way of saying, "We're done with the secular form of Easter." And the children were crying, and the parents were like, "I gasped." Churches, we can go on and on and on.
12:00-12:02
What do you want from the church?
12:03-12:06
And here's the answer. Here's the right answer.
12:08-12:09
I want what God wants.
12:10-12:11
Right? All in favor?
12:12-12:13
I want what God wants. All in favor?
12:14-12:16
Okay, that's the right side to put it on.
12:17-12:21
Okay, we're not going to tell you how to vote politically, but we will tell you how to put it on that one.
12:22-12:24
So what do you want for the church?
12:26-12:28
I want what God wants.
12:28-12:29
What do you want for this church?
12:31-12:32
What do you want for this church?
12:34-12:36
Yeah, me too. So let's find out what that is, right?
12:36-12:39
Well, as we get through this, let's not depersonalize it.
12:40-12:46
You know, don't walk away from this going, "Yep, I hope that's the kind of church Harvest is." Do you know how Harvest becomes this kind of church?
12:47-12:50
Is that we're all doing this individually.
12:50-12:58
You see, Paul's giving some things that happen individually that have to happen corporately, and that way we'll be the kind of church that God wants.
13:01-13:02
So what do you want for this church?
13:03-13:05
I want what God wants.
13:06-13:09
First time, it's not my will, it's His will.
13:09-13:14
And Paul says to the church of Colossae, I want you to be filled with the knowledge of God's will.
13:18-13:21
The knowledge of God's will is not enough.
13:23-13:24
Okay.
13:25-13:29
That's why he says we have to know it in, first of all, he says, wisdom.
13:30-13:31
In all spiritual wisdom.
13:31-13:34
So you just know in gospel, that's not enough.
13:35-13:37
You have to know it in wisdom.
13:39-13:40
And what is wisdom?
13:43-13:44
Spiritual wisdom and understanding.
13:45-13:47
He says, first of all, wisdom is applying God's work.
13:48-13:49
That's what wisdom is.
13:50-13:51
There's a difference between knowledge and wisdom.
13:51-13:53
Knowledge is just knowing something.
13:54-14:00
Knowledge is, yep, I know the Bible says this, yep, I know the Bible says that, Yet with the lever on Jeopardy, a New Testament is a category.
14:00-14:03
I still got it nailed because I know what the Bible says.
14:04-14:10
That's knowledge. Wisdom is, I know how to apply knowledge.
14:10-14:16
Because God said this, here's how my life should look as a result of what God had said.
14:16-14:17
That's wisdom.
14:18-14:19
Okay, it's applying knowledge.
14:20-14:24
And he says also, not only about spiritual wisdom, but understanding.
14:24-14:27
of this word up in the Greek.
14:28-14:32
But what it literally means is a spiritual putting together.
14:33-14:35
It's almost like there's a puzzle, right?
14:35-14:40
There's these pieces, or you're trying to figure out, how does this all kind of fit together?
14:42-14:44
And that's what he's praying for in the church.
14:45-14:51
We would take the knowledge of God and kind of step back and say, OK, this is what God's called us to do.
14:51-14:52
Let's do it.
14:52-14:57
Let's apply this and let's figure out how this all goes together.
14:59-15:01
So God told for harvest Bible chapter.
15:03-15:04
We have five things here.
15:05-15:06
What do you want for this church?
15:08-15:08
God.
15:10-15:14
We can be more like it, you realize God's listening.
15:15-15:17
Did you know? He's listening.
15:18-15:19
So let's tell Him.
15:19-15:21
What do you want for this church?
15:21-15:22
God.
15:22-15:25
God, I want to do this church work, you want to do this church work.
15:25-15:34
And enough of, "Here's what Jeff thinks, and this is Jeff's agenda, and Jeff thinks..." No. I want what God wants for this church, and here it is.
15:36-15:42
God's will. First of all, that we walk worthy in the Lord. Look at verse 10.
15:46-15:51
He says, "So as to." Now notice, this is how we know, this is the list, right?
15:52-15:57
He filled with the knowledge of his will, so as to.
15:58-16:03
When you have the knowledge of God's will, these are the things that you're gonna do.
16:03-16:10
The first thing is, walk worthy in the Lord, forgive me, I don't have my verse reference in your outline, I'd like to certain it's so small I can't see it anyway.
16:11-16:13
But walk worthy in the Lord, that's the first thing.
16:14-16:21
So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him.
16:23-16:28
You see, as you pursue knowing the Lord, you're going to experience God changing you.
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You're not going to be able to help Him.
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Seeking God day by day will affect the way that you walk.
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Now this statement in and of itself is always a bad one to me.
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"Walk worthy of the Lord." When I hear that, I'm just like, "Well, I'm not worthy." How can I walk worthy of the Lord?
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As if I'm worthy?
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Well, you know, Paul said in the Genefishes 4.1, 1 Thessalonians 2.12, Olympians 1.27.
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What does it mean to walk worthy of the Lord?
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What's that mean?
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Well, as I said before, we've been married now...
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I don't know how many years has it been, a half year?
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I don't know.
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We've been married now, years have changed.
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And, uh...
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Before Aaron and I got married, I gave you a list.
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Aaron, do you remember the list?
17:27-17:29
I said, "If you're going to be a miller,
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(laughter)
17:33-17:36
Here are some things that millers do not do.
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Millers do not use bad language.
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Millers do not steal jeeps.
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Millers do not bite.
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And I know you guys are thinking there's going to be a back story to this stuff.
17:52-17:53
You can ask Eric about that.
17:54-18:00
Well, obviously it was a joke, and it's still kind of a joke that we play back and forth today.
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But understand, you know, the point of the joke is you're going to carry my name.
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So you're going to represent something.
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That's a joke, but what the Bible says it is not.
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How can we walk in a manner worthy of the Lord?
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Well, you see, God says, "You are made righteous and perfect." You are born again, you are alive in a dead world, you carry my name and represent me.
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God is saying, "Be who I say you are." And really that's what being a Christian is.
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Being a Christian is being who God says you are.
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You know I know a man that every time in the church service we'd pray he'd say, "God we're just nothing but a bunch of sinners." And I would talk to a brother of mine about that, "That bothers us." "Really?" Does God regard you as a sinner when you are in Christ?
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The answer is no.
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But you see, your identity is there.
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If you go around saying, "I'm just a sinner, I'm just a sinner." Guess what you are going to do? Anyone?
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You are going to sin. Why?
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Because I'm just a sinner.
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God is like, "No, that's not who you are.
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You're my son.
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You're my daughter.
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You carry the name.
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You go be who I said you are.
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You're one who is dead to sin.
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You're one who's been made alive in Christ.
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You're one who's crucified the old nature, the old flesh.
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God says, "You be who I say you are." Okay, so that's what Paul's saying here.
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Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him.
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He's saying, "You're a child of God, act like it." Be who God says that you are.
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So what's God's will for the church?
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First of all, He wants us to walk worthy.
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He wants us to identify with Him.
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Secondly, bear fruit for the Lord.
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So we walk worthy in the Lord, but we bear fruit for the Lord.
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He says, "Bear fruit in every good work." God's will for the Church is that we are effective in every ministry that we do.
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And if you were witness when we launched, this was our sermon.
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You know, what's the mission of this Church?
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Our mission is to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
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The rest of the mission statement is in the spirit of the Great Commandment.
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You see, as we're pursuing the Lord, as a body working together to this mission, we should see some fruit.
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We're going for excellence, we're going for effectiveness.
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That's one of the things I love about Sammy and Laura.
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They're not just like, "Okay, we're going to roll out of bed on Sunday, and oh, what songs do we know?
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I don't know.
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We'll just do those ones." They're working very hard.
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And Sammy has said over and over and over, anytime we talk about worship, he says, "It needs to be done with excellence." Not because he's putting up a show, but because Jesus Christ is worthy.
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But you see, that translates in every ministry, whether it's hospitality, or the children's ministry, we're striving for excellence.
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Why?
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Because God has called us to "bear fruit in every good work." That's why Harvest is constantly evaluating things.
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That's why my wife would tell you, you know, Sunday afternoon, how did this come across?
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What do you think about this?
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And I probably annoy her sometimes with that.
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We're constantly evaluating.
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Again, it's not for show.
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It's, can we be doing things better unto the Lord?
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Our goal isn't to see how many people we can have come.
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Or again, how high tech we are. Did you see the size of this TV that we have? Wow.
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That's not our goal.
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So what do you want from this church?
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I want what God wants.
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Yeah, me too. I want what God wants.
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So what does God want? Well, we need to ask ourselves, are people here coming to Christ?
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And people have already made a decision to follow Jesus Christ.
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And we are completely hung on the floor, all ready to see that coming through.
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Are people growing in Christ?
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And the answer is yes.
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So you see, when we step back and evaluate the big picture, are people coming to Christ, are people growing in the Lord? That's the goal.
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Are we doing what Jesus told us to do?
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"And do this.
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We want to help you do this. And our goal in Mark 5 is not that you would go out and say, "Jeff said this, Jeff said that, Pastor Jeff said this today, you know what Pastor Jeff said today? This is what Pastor Jeff said today." Don't care. Our goal is that you would go out and say, "Do you know what God said? Do you know what God's word says?" That you would come here and you're going to learn some things about the Lord and His word.
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We want to help you.
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It's about him.
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That's about his work.
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So if you're going to walk worthy, if you're going to be fruitful, you have to know the word of God, you know, Proverbs chapter 2 and verse 4, you know, for people that they'd be like, I don't really know the Bible that well.
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It's always been kind of a struggle for me to learn the Bible.
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I don't really know if I can understand the Bible.
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Proverbs 2, verse 4 says that you should search for the wisdom of God like you would look for hidden treasure.
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So let me ask you a question.
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If I came up to you and said, "Hey, I have a treasure map right here.
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And if you follow this treasure map, you'll find a treasure chest with $3 billion worth of gold and jewels, and here it is.
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Guaranteed it'll take you to this treasure.
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So you take the map and you look at it, and there's one problem.
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The map's written in Spanish.
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Let me ask you, how many people learn Spanish quick.
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Somebody here already does.
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We'll just go ask Jenny.
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No, come on, she's not around.
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Would you go learn Spanish really quick?
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Yeah, you would.
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You see, that's what God's saying.
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You should be pursuing this like you look for hidden treasure.
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Get after this.
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Grow in the knowledge of the Lord.
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So how can I do that?
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I've got these things done.
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How can I do that?
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How can I grow in knowledge of the Lord?
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The first thing is you need to read the Bible.
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You need to read the Bible.
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And I have in parentheses in my address, not just read the Bible, but study the Bible.
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I really appreciate David and Chris Whitcomb, who we've talked about.
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They want to help the church, helping people learn how to study the Bible.
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I think that's tremendous.
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Because the Bible is not exactly like a newspaper.
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We don't want to flip through it like a Good Housekeeping magazine.
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You know, God's given us eternal truths in His Word.
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And we need help sometimes learning how to study it.
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We want to be students of the Word.
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So you've got to be in the Word.
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I have a book called "The Gospel of John" and I have a book called "The Gospel of John" that I have been reading for a long time.
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And when you read, here's my angelic analogy, when you read, look for specific application points.
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And pray over them and do them.
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See, when you read God's word, again, you don't just set it down and go, "Oh, that was interesting." "I learned a little tidbit about Jehoiachin today." "I learned some things about Achan today, very interesting." "Not sure if it's going to come up in conversation, but I learned some things today." Now, is there anything that God's trying to teach me in this?
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Or how should my life be different because of what God said?
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I agree with that.
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Look for specific applications for it.
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And the third thing to have in mind is to sign up for a small group.
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Like I said, we're launching in January.
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That's one of the great things about a small group.
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You can get with people like me, you can get with Thomson, you can get with people that want to pour into you and people that, you know, there's mutual ministry going on and you're sitting and talking about the Word of God and growing in the knowledge of the Lord.
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Those are just a few things to get you started.
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See, that's God's will for the church.
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He wants us to understand more and more and deeper and deeper who he is, who his son is, meaning the interpreter, to grow in knowledge of the Lord.
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So what do you want for the church?
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"I want what God wants." Yeah, me too. I want what God wants.
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What else is God want for the church?
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Well, let's just go to verse 11, number 4 in your outline.
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"Get my strength from the Lord." I'm not sure And all those people said, "Wow." Alright, let me explain some things to you, and it will really be wild.
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We're to be empowered in His strength.
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Now, in the Greek, this word "empowered," the Greek tense of the word is "continuous action." It's a continuous action.
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It's ongoing.
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Being the deep theological thinker that I am, I thought how can I illustrate continual energy, continual strength?
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Who can I keep up with?
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Not like Popeye.
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Okay, drop that down in the comments.
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If this is not like Popeye, you know the story of Popeye, right?
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Popeye basically gets beat up by Dodo.
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Unmerciful, they're both fighting over all of the world.
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That's a whole other issue.
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But, I am the beholder, right?
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And, well basically Popeye gets whooped and whooped and whooped until what happens?
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What does he do?
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He pulls out his tennis finish, he keeps it, and then he flexes and usually there's a little picture of his arm on his arm like a rocket juggler, like a locomotive or something.
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And then you realize the cartoon is about 15 seconds away from being over.
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Okay, well, some Christians sort of look at the Lord like that.
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Like, you know, we're weak, we're weak, we're weak, and oh look, let me see if I can try to tap into the strength.
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I'll give you strength just for now, and then it's over.
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And, like I said, this is continual.
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He says that we need to be strengthened according to His might.
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Now, that word "might" is used 12 times in the New Testament, and 11 times it refers to God.
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So, here's the point.
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God is empowering you with His strength.
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Do you get that?
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God is giving you His strength.
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A continual flow of His strength.
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Your power cord is plugged in to this outlet that God has provided.
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It's continual strength.
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And church, if you're trying to do things in your own strength, eventually you are going to be a practitioner.
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Trust me.
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Amen.
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I've been there.
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When I've tried to do things in my own strength and I haven't waited on the Lord, you'll crash.
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You'll get to the point that you realize, I need to be abiding in the vine.
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I need to be getting my strength in the Lord.
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And understand that this strength is God's strength and He's making it available to you.
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So many times people come to me and say, "Pastor Jeff, this is going on and this is going on and you need to pray for me." And I say, "Well how can I pray for you?" And they'll say, "Just pray for strength." That's an excellent prayer, but I think a lot of us people don't realize what that really means.
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What does it look like when we experience God's strength?
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Well look in your verse here.
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4. All endurance and patience with joy.
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What's the difference between endurance and patience here?
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Well really the difference is, endurance has to deal with circumstances.
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Maybe it's a job loss.
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Maybe it's an illness.
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Maybe it's some other kind of financial problem.
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It's a, you know, God give me the strength as I'm going through this circumstance.
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Patience has to do with peeping.
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Do you know somebody that makes you sort of require a little bit of patience?
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Anybody? Anybody?
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Yeah, I've had some people like that in my life.
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I've had to get on my face and say, "God, you're impatient." See, that's where the strength comes in. Endurance and patience.
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Getting us, not just squeaking by.
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You see, God's attention isn't that we're crawling through this.
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Isn't that what he says?
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For all endurance and patience with what?
34:31-34:33
What does your Bible say in the end of verse 11?
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All endurance and patience with?
34:36-34:37
With joy.
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Certainly, let there be joy in your Bible.
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That's how you know.
34:43-34:45
How do I know that I have God's strength?
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There's how you know.
34:47-34:52
If you're going through incredibly difficult circumstances, and you can say, "My hope is in heaven.
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I'm thankful for everything God has provided me.
34:55-34:57
I am too blessed to be depressed.
34:58-35:03
When you can carry joy with you despite hard circumstances, you'll know that that's when you're getting your strength.
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And finally, once God's willed for the church, God's will is to believe, give thanks Giving thanks, first of all, giving thanks to the Father.
35:31-35:32
Thank Him for what?
35:35-35:42
Some people say, "Oh, thank you for my family, and thank you that I'm able to work and provide, and thank you." All those things are great.
35:43-35:44
And He's looking much bigger picture.
35:45-35:46
Much bigger picture.
35:46-35:47
Thank Him for what?
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Those things are great.
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be thankful for those things, but never, ever, ever, ever miss this.
35:56-36:09
Give thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
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Last week's sermon was all about being thankful for the gospel.
36:18-36:22
All sort of this passage circles back to this.
36:23-36:39
If you ask me what I think is the most baffling truth in the Bible, you know, some people are like, you know, "Party in the Red Sea," or, you know, "Creation itself," or, you know, "Man in Heaven." What do you think is the most baffling thing in the Bible? Do you know what I think it is?
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I think it's this.
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That God would qualify me.
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That God would take someone who is a rebellious, spit in the face of God's sinner, and say, "I'm going to make you alive, I'm going to change you, I'm going to put my spirit in you, You're perfect.
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Qualified.
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We often say, "The sin issues are not an issue anymore when you're in Christ." Qualified.
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You see, that's why when we say as Christians, "I'm going to heaven," some say, "Well, what gives you the right to say that? Or how did you go to heaven?" It's not a bragging thing.
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I'm like, "I earned my way, and you should look up to me because I did all these really amazing things." And God says, "Okay, now you are qualified to go to heaven." Notice your Bible says, "God has qualified you." Isnít that awesome?
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Isnít that awesome?
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By nature, I'm a piece of dirt.
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I'm like the dirt on the piece of dirt.
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Right?
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By nature.
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And God says not anymore.
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You are my son and I have qualified you.
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I don't have any inherent quality about myself.
38:13-38:14
God has qualified me.
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So if you're sitting here this morning and this heaven issue may be rolling through your head, please listen.
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I've shared this with you before.
38:28-38:32
The gospel is so much more than a ticket to heaven.
38:34-38:36
Some people treat the Gospels that way, like it's God's ticket.
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Like, "Oh, you want to go to heaven? Well, repeat this magic phrase. Okay, you did that? Okay, here's your ticket.
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Make sure you present it to Peter at the front entrance and the front of the gate." No.
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That is not what the Gospel is about.
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The Gospel is about being born again.
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The Gospels about Ephesians 2 says, "You were dead in your trespasses and sins, and we've been made alive in Christ." Jesus said you won't see the Kingdom of God unless you've been born again.
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I've had people ask, "Are you one of those born-again Christians?" And the answer is, there's no other kind.
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I'm not saying that these are you. Qualified you to what? He says to share in the inheritance of these things. What's the inheritance? Very quickly here, three things. What's my inheritance? The Bible says that we inherit some things. The first thing is eternal life. Jesus said you inherit eternal life. It's not something that you're going to get someday. I can't get into heaven until eternal life. The Bible says that in Christ you have to bow. It starts now, which is going to carry us all into eternity.
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The strictness of the body and the flesh. The single flesh.
40:27-40:29
But eternal life starts now with the people.
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What else is binary is the earth.
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Jesus said Matthew 5, "We meet you on the earth." Revelation chapter 20 says that we will reign with Christ.
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Welcome to Baffling Truth, according to Mark's Bible chapter.
40:50-40:52
We're going to reign with Jesus Christ.
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I don't deserve to be in His presence by nature.
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He's not only qualified me.
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God says, "Now you're going to reign with My Son." That's what God says you are.
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What is my inheritance?
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Oh, this lesson is going to catch on.
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Every promise of God.
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Hebrews 6, verse 12 says, God has made a lot of promises in His Word.
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If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you have received Him as your Lord and Savior, if you have been born again, God says, "All these promises in My Word, they are all yours." They are there, and they are yours.
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So how are we qualified?
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He gives a couple notes of explanation here.
41:38-42:10
Verses 13-14 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness Let's pause there for a second. Delivered us Rescued from darkness, dead and set, rescued ultimately from hell Now you've seen the latest crazy last few years Actually go back I'd say the last 12 years Superhero movies are on the rocks.
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Do you notice that?
42:11-42:13
We love our superhero movies.
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Like, what's your favorite?
42:14-42:16
What's your favorite superhero movie?
42:18-42:18
The Green Lantern.
42:19-42:20
Okay, I haven't seen that one yet.
42:20-42:21
Is it good? I haven't watched that one.
42:21-42:22
Okay, Green Lantern.
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Somebody else, what's your favorite superhero?
42:24-42:25
Sam, what's your favorite?
42:26-42:28
Oh, he's actually wearing a Batman shirt.
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I'm gonna give him that.
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Paul Furson, what's your favorite superhero movie?
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I haven't seen that one, but I know that one.
42:35-42:35
Oh!
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I'm not making light of it.
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I would understand that, but that's the flavor that this world has.
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That we are literally headed to hell, and God comes in and rescues us from a real danger.
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It's a real danger to be rescued from this hell.
43:17-43:18
Hell is but the boogie man.
43:19-43:20
It's a real danger.
43:22-43:34
When I was a kid, at my grandma's house, she'd always say, "Don't go upstairs, the boogie man's over there." But I found out a couple of years ago that the boogeyman wasn't there.
43:35-43:40
He just did more little Jeffy getting up and getting into the medicine cabinet and messing with her stuff.
43:40-43:45
But I remember as a little kid I'd sit on the floor at the grandma's house and I'd look up.
43:46-43:52
And in the dark, I used to sit there to see if I could see the boogeyman walking from room to room.
43:52-43:53
True story.
43:54-43:56
But then I found out it was all fabricated.
43:59-44:04
closed that tent across these doors, I guess it won't be a totally bad thing.
44:05-44:08
But understand, that wasn't real, but hell is real.
44:10-44:17
So when the Bible says that He delivered us, that's literally what that means. He rescued us.
44:20-44:28
And finally, please note that He didn't just rescue us from something, He rescued us to something.
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It wasn't like God swooped down and grabbed us from one burning building and put us in another burning building.
44:36-44:43
And it wasn't even God that swooped down and rescued us from a burning building and put us in a regular place.
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Look at what it says.
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He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.
44:59-45:06
The kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have condemnation and forgiveness of sins.
45:10-45:14
God really didn't explain as a church why we should be thankful.
45:16-45:17
But you truly understand.
45:20-45:21
We've been rescued from something.
45:24-45:26
And we've been rescued to something.
45:30-45:30
Out of darkness.
45:32-45:35
Out of misfare. Out of hopelessness. Out of ultimately hell.
45:40-45:47
Instead of experiencing the worst, God gave us the best.
45:48-45:55
He transferred us not just in a kingdom, but in THE kingdom of His Beloved Son.
45:57-45:58
So what do you want from this church?
46:00-46:01
I want the Blessed Ones.
46:02-46:05
The last thing we saw in this text is the darkness is to give thanks.
46:05-46:09
So just now we're going to receive the Lord's Supper as we close out our service.
46:11-46:14
And the Lord's Supper means so many things.
46:17-46:21
It's a time of self-examination, the Bible says.
46:22-46:25
It's a time of worship.
46:27-46:28
It's a time of remembrance.
46:30-46:34
That last verse we read, verse 14, talks about the forgiveness of sin.
46:35-46:38
Jesus said to do this in remembrance of Him.
46:40-46:42
And this is to give thanks.
46:44-46:45
So we're going to pray.
46:47-46:51
And as our ushers, we'll be coming down in a second and passing out communion.
46:52-46:57
You'll see in the tray, in each slot there's actually two cups.
46:57-47:02
The top one has the juice in it, and the bottom one has the bread in it.
47:03-47:11
If you just take one of those and hold on to it, after our song adapters get distributed, we'll take one of those songs together.
47:12-47:12
Okay?
47:13-47:14
That's right.
47:30-47:37
Oh, Father, to really stop and consider where we were headed.
47:39-47:42
To really stop and consider what our true condition was.
47:47-47:50
And to realize that you pressed on us, you delivered us.
47:54-47:58
From the domain of darkness, you transferred us into the kingdom of your beloved Son.
48:03-48:05
Father, just now we're coming to your table.
48:12-48:14
Father, as a church, we want what you want.
48:16-48:21
We want to be a church that finds our identity in Jesus Christ.
48:24-48:26
A church that is fruitful.
48:30-48:38
Father, we want to be a church that grows in the knowledge of you.
48:38-48:41
A church that we find our strength in you.
48:42-48:44
A church that we are thankful to you.
48:44-48:47
Father, there are so many things to be thankful about.
48:48-48:50
Just now what we are going to do is Jesus commanded.
48:54-48:55
And focus on Redemption.
48:58-48:59
And forgiveness of sins.
49:05-49:06
Oh Father thank you.
49:09-49:11
Oh Father thank you.
49:17-49:25
Your grace is staggering.
49:28-49:31
Thank you for qualifying us.
49:37-49:40
I pray these things in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Colossians 1:9-14

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

November 6, 2011

Jesus First In My Church

Gospel at Work

Jeff Miller

November 6, 2011

Jesus First In My Church

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)

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

The Gospel is CHANGING the WORLD (Colossians 1:6a)

Harvest Bible Fellowship

The Gospel is GROWING the CHURCH (Colossians 1:6b)

The Gospel is BROADCASTING through PEOPLE (Colossians 1:7-8)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:02
Let's have a prayer before we get into the Word.
00:03-00:10
Our Father in Heaven, we ask that you pause before we get into your Word today.
00:13-00:24
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.
00:28-00:30
We also lift up the offering.
00:35-00:40
Father we just pray that you prepare us to receive the Word.
00:42-00:46
The Word actually tells us that there are things that we can do to prepare to receive it.
00:46-00:47
Sometimes we come not ready.
00:50-00:51
I pray that you make us ready now.
00:53-00:57
To receive it, to be doers of it.
01:01-01:03
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.
07:25-07:26
That's legalism.
07:28-07:31
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.
07:37-07:40
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.
08:11-08:12
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.
08:15-08:25
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.
10:42-10:46
Angels, are they real? Yes. Are they powerful? Yes. Should they be worshipped? No.
10:48-10:49
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.
11:09-11:15
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.
11:18-11:21
And to the point where that became nothing.
11:24-11:26
Now, is there anything wrong with knowledge?
11:26-11:26
Of course not.
11:28-11:33
But when we start putting our glory in that, then there is a problem.
11:34-11:36
So our goal is to get ahead of these things.
11:37-11:47
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.
11:52-11:56
But the point is, there was the denial that Jesus Christ is who he said he is.
11:56-11:58
Fully God and fully man.
12:00-12:09
And because of that denial of the deity and humanity of Jesus, there is also the denial of the sufficiency of Christ.
12:10-12:11
And see, really that's what this all about.
12:13-12:17
I don't give you a lot of information. I'm trying to sum up some things.
12:17-12:19
I don't want to just dump an encyclopedia on you.
12:20-12:22
Here's the main thing.
12:26-12:28
Is Jesus enough?
12:30-12:35
Is Jesus Christ enough for your salvation?
12:38-12:38
For your fulfillment?
12:38-12:40
For your satisfaction?
12:44-12:45
And the answer is yes.
12:47-12:53
But when people come in and start saying, "Well, yeah, Jesus plus, you know, Jesus you're going to do these things.
12:53-12:56
Or Jesus plus, you're going to be whipping yourself.
12:57-13:00
Or Jesus plus, let's say a little worship for the angels.
13:02-13:04
Or Jesus plus knowledge.
13:05-13:07
The answer is, it's Jesus plus what?
13:08-13:09
Jesus plus nothing.
13:11-13:12
He is sufficient.
13:12-13:17
And we're going to be hammering that nail over and over and over again these next few months.
13:17-13:17
Why?
13:18-13:19
Because that's the point of Colossians.
13:20-13:39
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.
14:19-14:21
And so why are you here?
14:21-14:23
Well, this was God's assignment.
14:23-14:26
And I'm happy about that.
14:27-14:27
But this was God's.
14:27-14:30
And Paul's saying here, he's an apostle by the will of God.
14:30-14:34
And Timothy, our brother, Timothy, his son of the gospel.
14:36-14:42
Verse two, "To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossum.
14:44-14:47
Grace to you and peace from God, our Father.
14:49-14:52
So again, this is a letter that Paul wrote to a church.
14:54-14:57
And notice he puts his name at the top of the letter.
14:57-14:59
That always made sense to me.
14:59-15:05
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?
15:06-15:09
Is I look for the name at the bottom to see who it's from before I start reading it, right?
15:10-15:12
Well, this just makes more sense to me.
15:12-15:18
But Paul's identifying himself and again, Timothy's with him and he's writing to this church.
15:19-15:20
Look what he has to say.
15:21-15:23
Verse three, he says, We always thank God.
15:26-15:29
The father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.
15:32-15:39
OK, so stop it here, Paul saying, first thing I got to tell you is I'm so thankful to God for you people.
15:40-15:41
I'm so thankful for you people.
15:43-15:44
I'm so thankful.
15:45-15:48
And also notice he's praying for them.
15:50-15:52
And Paul's gonna go on here.
15:53-15:54
We're gonna break this down.
15:55-15:57
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.
16:05-16:13
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.
16:14-16:14
So if you're taking notes.
16:14-16:18
First of all, why we are thankful for the work of the gospel.
16:18-16:19
Are you thankful for the gospel?
16:20-16:21
Are you thankful for the gospel?
16:22-16:26
This Thanksgiving, when you go around the table, is it saying what are you thankful for?
16:28-16:28
Is it cornbread?
16:30-16:30
Cranberry sauce?
16:31-16:31
Anything else?
16:32-16:32
No, that's about it.
16:33-16:34
You better say the gospel.
16:34-16:36
I'm thankful for the gospel.
16:37-16:38
Are you excited about this gospel?
16:38-16:41
we've been talking about this for the past, you know, five weeks we've been here.
16:42-16:44
The gospel of Jesus Christ is amazing.
16:47-17:01
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.
17:02-17:05
The first thing is this. Number one, the gospel is transforming lives.
17:06-17:08
The gospel is transforming lives.
17:09-17:17
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.
17:18-17:19
Look at verses 4 and 5.
17:20-17:39
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...
17:40-17:42
This is what the gospel's doing to you.
17:42-17:45
You heard the gospel and it's doing these things.
17:47-17:48
Look down at verse 8.
17:50-17:50
He says it again.
17:51-17:51
He says it...
17:51-17:53
He's talking about a pastor's report.
17:54-17:59
And he says, "It has made known to us your love in the Spirit." So there it is again.
18:00-18:01
So why are we thankful for the gospel?
18:01-18:05
Well, the first thing we're thankful for is the way that the gospel changes people.
18:06-18:07
That's what we're thankful for.
18:09-18:13
The gospel is not, is not, everybody say is not.
18:14-18:14
No conviction.
18:14-18:15
Come on here.
18:15-18:17
Let's let me hear you say the gospel is not.
18:19-18:20
Okay, much better.
18:20-18:23
The gospel is not trying Jesus.
18:24-18:26
You hear somebody say that?
18:26-18:27
I tried Jesus.
18:29-18:32
I used to do prison ministry for 10 years at Butler County Prison.
18:33-18:40
You hear people say that, "Well, I'm here to try Jesus." Listen, you don't try Jesus.
18:41-18:42
You don't try Him.
18:43-18:44
He's not something you sample.
18:44-18:45
He's not an item of the buffet.
18:46-18:52
As if, "Well, if Jesus doesn't work out, maybe I'll find my thing somewhere else." Jesus Christ is sufficient for everything.
18:52-18:54
You don't try Him out.
18:54-18:56
What do you do is you bow your knee to Him.
18:57-18:59
Because He is the King of Kings and He is the Lord of Lords.
19:00-19:06
He is merciful and He is holy and He is awesome, but you don't try enough.
19:08-19:11
Okay? So the Gospel is not about trying, Jesus.
19:13-19:16
Secondly, the Gospel is not about becoming a churchgoer.
19:17-19:19
The Gospel is not about becoming a churchgoer.
19:20-19:24
We can make somebody a churchgoer and send them off to hell if we did them no good.
19:26-19:28
The gospel is not about making church goers.
19:28-19:30
It's not about trying Jesus.
19:30-19:34
And the gospel is not about founding some kind of a benevolence club.
19:34-19:36
You know, a lot of churches are going that way now.
19:38-19:41
Where, "Oh, we don't really need to preach the Bible.
19:41-19:43
We just need to do nice things for people.
19:43-19:46
And, you know, we'll feed hungry people.
19:46-19:50
And we'll get clothes for people that, you know, need clothes.
19:50-19:53
And we'll do this and we'll do that." All those things are great things.
19:53-19:57
But when that becomes the replacement for the gospel, there's a problem.
19:59-20:00
What replaces the gospel?
20:01-20:01
Nothing.
20:03-20:04
Nothing.
20:05-20:09
So the gospel's not about trying Jesus, becoming a church goer, founding a benevolence club.
20:10-20:11
We're gonna see later Colossians.
20:11-20:14
It's about dying to self and living in Christ.
20:14-20:16
That's what Paul says, the gospel's about.
20:18-20:19
The gospel's changing lives.
20:20-20:25
And we see here right in these verses, How do you know that your life has been changed?
20:28-20:37
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.
20:37-20:39
A lot of changes take place.
20:40-20:40
That's why I'm concerned.
20:41-20:42
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.
20:46-20:49
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?
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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.
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To jot this down, I call that the fruit from the past.
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Why do I call that the fruit from the past?
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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.
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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.
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"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.
46:13-46:42
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.
46:45-46:46
And that's a reputation.
46:49-46:51
All churches have a reputation.
46:53-46:59
And being in pastoral ministry in this area for as long as I have been, you start to hear these things.
47:00-47:05
Oh, that's the church that, that's the church that, have you heard some of those?
47:08-47:10
That's the church that's intolerant.
47:12-47:13
That's the church that's legalistic.
47:15-47:17
That's the church that's shallow.
47:18-47:20
That's the church that's showy.
47:21-47:23
That's the church that they're always bickering.
47:27-47:33
But you know, other churches' reputation concerns me not at all.
47:35-47:37
You know which church's reputation I'm concerned about?
47:38-47:39
This one.
47:43-47:46
You know, the Church of Colossians was known as the church that was full of love.
47:46-47:49
I want that to be the reputation of this church.
47:50-47:53
Like, hey, you went to that church meeting in the middle school, what's it like?
48:00-48:13
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.
48:13-48:20
And as I was looking through this text this week, did you see how four of those pillars are in the text?
48:20-48:22
He talked about the gospel, that's God's word.
48:23-48:29
He's talking about thanking God, praising God for the work that He's doing, that's worship.
48:30-48:32
He's talking about praying for them, there's prayer.
48:32-48:35
and then he talks about the faithfulness of the Catholics.
48:36-48:42
This is what we want the reputation of Harvest Bible Chapel to be about.
48:43-48:46
Will you bow your heads with me as we pray?
48:52-48:55
We bow our heads, let's be thankful for what the gospel is doing.
48:56-48:58
What God is doing through the gospel.
49:05-49:07
Taking time to examine ourselves.
49:15-49:30
Our Father in heaven, as we're about to leave here, let us never lose the wonder of being of the gospel.
49:34-49:35
We have a tendency to reduce it.
49:39-49:41
Let us magnify your name and what you're doing.
49:43-49:45
We see that you're still in the business of resurrection.
49:47-49:54
We see that you're still in the business of turning the whole world upside down and doing it locally.
49:56-50:14
You still make the awesome privilege Father, we are just now at the beginning of a road, going through your word in Colossians.
50:18-50:22
And again Father, I pray that every one of us would find our sufficiency in Christ.
50:24-50:27
This is going to be a season of tearing some things down.
50:28-50:31
This is going to be a season of building relationships.
50:36-50:43
This is going to be a season of finding out everything that I am, everything that I need.
50:46-50:47
It's in Jesus Christ.
50:51-50:54
and send His glorious, awesome, and mighty name.
50:55-50:55
Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Colossians 1:1-8

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

October 30, 2011

Pillars of Harvest

Pillar 4: Sharing the Good News of the Gospel with Boldness

Jeff Miller

October 30, 2011

Pillars of Harvest

Excuses why I don’t share the Gospel with people:

"That's not my GIFT."

"Preacher's JOB."

"I don't know what to SAY to people"

"What if they ask hard QUESTIONS?"

"Don't want to OFFEND anyone."

Why we share the Good News with Boldness...

Because I am CONTROLLED by the LOVE of Christ (2 Cor 5:14-15)

What moves you?

Because people are ETERNAL beings (2 Cor 5:16)

Because the gospel has CHANGED me (2 Cor 5:16, 21)

Because this assignment is directly FROM GOD (2 Cor 5:18-20)

As a MINISTER: This is God's Work! (2 Cor 5:18)

As a STEWARD: This is God's Word! (2 Cor 5:19)

As a REPRESENTATIVE: This is God's Passion (2 Cor 5:20)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:10
We're concluding our series today on the four pillars of Harvest Bible Chapel.
00:11-00:18
And today we're talking about sharing the good news of Jesus with boldness.
00:22-00:41
I came to Christ in 1995 and very shortly thereafter was called into ministry so I threw everything that I had in a little two-door Cavalier and drove to Bible College out near Columbus, Ohio.
00:44-00:45
Didn't know a soul out there.
00:48-00:58
And I went to a local county fair, and they had all these rides set up and games and the whole fair scene.
00:59-01:02
I saw they had my favorite ride there, and that was the Zipper.
01:02-01:04
Did you ever go to the fair and ride the Zipper?
01:05-01:06
Did you ever ride that?
01:06-01:16
It's basically like on a Ferris wheel, but each individual car is like a cage, and it It goes really fast and the little cars spin while the whole thing is spinning.
01:17-01:18
You know the thing I'm talking about?
01:19-01:21
You know that contraction?
01:21-01:32
Well, I was really excited to ride the zipper and I get up to the front of the line and they said, "You can't ride this alone.
01:32-01:48
You need to have a partner." I'm like, "I don't know anybody in Ohio." "Okay, I don't have a partner." and they're like, "Well, what do you got to jump in with him?" Again, I was a brand new Christian.
01:50-01:52
And I only knew one thing.
01:53-01:58
And that was, Jesus Christ died for my sins.
01:59-02:00
And He rose from the dead.
02:01-02:04
That was like, all I knew. That's why I was going to Bible college.
02:04-02:05
Maybe I could learn a little bit more than that.
02:06-02:09
But I'm locked in this cage with this complete stranger.
02:11-02:14
And I'm thinking, I'm going to share the gospel with this guy.
02:15-02:22
While we're on the ride, okay, so this whole thing's spinning, our little car's spinning, and we're flying around, and...
02:25-02:29
Baby Christian, I just was trying to start the conversation on this ride.
02:29-02:31
I figured I only had, like, what, 30 seconds?
02:32-03:02
So as a good leading question, as we're flipping and spinning and the thing's creaking, I lean over to the guy and I'm like, "You know where you're going when you die?" I imagine he might have thought, "We're probably going to die before we get off this machine." But I'll never forget his response. For as long as I live, I'll never forget the man's response.
03:03-03:27
He said something like, "Woo! I don't care! Woo!" So I'm sitting in the cave with the guy, and like the whole rest of the ride was awkward, because like, I go, "What do you say now?" "I don't care." I'm like, "Oh." "Well, you should care," and I totally lost him. Totally lost him.
03:29-03:39
So needless to say, my first time up the plate for evangelism, I don't know, I would say maybe it wasn't so great.
03:40-03:44
Who knows, maybe that guy left that night and got thinking about what's going to happen.
03:44-03:47
Maybe he's preaching in a church of 20,000 today, I don't know.
03:47-03:49
Good idea, I like to think that.
03:49-03:52
But, what comes to your mind when you think of evangelism?
03:54-03:56
When you hear that word, what do you think about?
03:57-03:57
Evangelism.
03:59-04:09
You think of that guy on TV with the white suit, and he's brushing himself off, "What the heck, David?
04:09-04:11
David!" You thinking of that guy?
04:16-04:28
Or are you thinking of like the guy in the street corner that's just standing and telling they're going to hell. You thinking of that guy? What do you think of when you think of evangelism?
04:30-04:55
Like, nah, I've been to church. I know the caricatures. Evangelism is when you take a short-term mission trip. Or, you know, like maybe you go overseas. Or, you know, we send the youth to a place where they can reach out. Maybe it's not even overseas. Maybe just a place in the the house or something and maybe give the people a track while you're there.
04:55-04:56
That's evangelism.
04:58-05:03
Right now you're thinking, "Oh no, I hope this isn't paid." We're all evangelists, sir.
05:04-05:05
Well, guess what?
05:07-05:07
Guess what?
05:08-05:08
It is.
05:10-05:11
It is.
05:13-05:26
Now you're thinking, "All right, pack your bags because here comes the guilt trip." I just want us to be honest with where we are with evangelism.
05:28-05:34
Remember the very first sermon when the church launched October 2nd, we talked about the Great Commission.
05:35-05:43
And the mission of Harvest Bible Chapel is to glorify God for the fulfillment of the Great Commission in the spirit of the Great Commandment.
05:43-05:45
Somebody grab a sharpie and write that at the bottom.
05:45-05:49
But in the spirit of the great commandment, our job is to make disciples.
05:49-05:51
Jesus' last commandment is our first priority.
05:55-06:03
And part of making disciples is sharing the good news of Jesus with moldness.
06:04-06:09
Again, this is not a guilt trip, like he's going to guilt us into telling people about Jesus.
06:09-06:11
That's not the case at all.
06:12-06:12
At all.
06:15-06:22
We're going to take an honest look at the situation and see what God's word has to say about why we should share in boldness.
06:23-06:28
Here's some excuses why I don't share the gospel with people.
06:30-06:33
I've wrestled through some of these things, maybe you have too.
06:34-06:36
Top 5 reasons I don't share the gospel with people.
06:36-06:37
Here's number 5.
06:38-06:39
People say that's not my gift.
06:40-06:43
Like, BAM! That's like a spiritual trump card, right?
06:44-06:47
I need you to work in children's ministry. That's not my gift.
06:47-06:51
UGH! Yeah, I need you to help with setting up and tearing down.
06:51-06:54
Yeah, that's not my gift either. BAM! I'll get out of doing nothing!
06:55-06:58
You need to be sharing Christ with people. That's not my gift.
06:58-07:00
Dang, I could use that all day.
07:00-07:05
Well, I think that's an often misused statement in the church. That's not my gift.
07:05-07:09
Is it true that the Holy Spirit gives us each a gift to use in ministry?
07:09-07:09
Yes.
07:10-07:13
But that doesn't mean that we get off the hook on things like this.
07:13-07:15
Whose job is it to share Christ with people?
07:16-07:16
Whose job is it?
07:18-07:19
Whose job?
07:19-07:20
Me and Dale, basically.
07:22-07:22
Anybody else?
07:23-07:25
Whose job is it to share Christ?
07:25-07:26
All Christians.
07:26-07:27
All Christians.
07:27-07:28
Yes, thank you, Gordon.
07:28-07:29
It's all of our job to share Christ.
07:30-07:32
You're going to encounter people that I will never see.
07:33-07:34
And vice versa.
07:35-07:35
Who's going to share the gospel?
07:35-07:42
gospel with them. You are. Okay, so this can't be, that's not my gift thing.
07:44-07:50
Number four, excuse me, well that's the preacher's job. That's a preacher's job.
07:50-08:05
I grew up in a church like that. I'm not supposed to do ministry, that's what the preacher's job is. We pay him to do the work. Interestingly, if you read Ephesians 4, You pay the preacher to get you to do the work.
08:06-08:07
How's that for a racket?
08:09-08:13
It's the job of the pastor to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
08:14-08:17
So basically, you pay the pastor to equip you to do the work.
08:19-08:20
That's the way it works.
08:21-08:23
So that's the preacher job. Incorrect.
08:24-08:24
Number three.
08:27-08:29
Excuses. Why don't you have gospel with people?
08:29-08:30
I don't know what to say to you.
08:31-08:32
I just don't know what to say.
08:33-08:38
You're like, you know, being on that ride with that guy and asking him where he's going, that's like me.
08:38-08:39
I don't know what to say to people.
08:41-08:42
Just not sure what to say.
08:45-08:46
We'll talk about that.
08:49-08:51
Number two is what if they ask hard questions?
08:52-08:54
I've heard that so many times.
08:54-08:57
People say, I wanna share with people, but what if they ask hard questions?
08:58-09:00
I'm gonna do a real quick seminar on that.
09:00-09:00
You ready?
09:01-09:05
You're sharing the gospel with somebody and they ask you a question that you don't know the answer to.
09:05-09:06
Here's what you say.
09:07-09:08
I don't know.
09:09-09:09
That's a good question.
09:11-09:13
Let me look it up and I'll get back to you in a minute.
09:15-09:16
What's wrong with that?
09:18-09:19
I've had to do that.
09:21-09:22
Many times.
09:24-09:25
People bring questions.
09:25-09:26
I don't know the answer to that.
09:27-09:28
I'll find out.
09:30-09:31
Don't worry about the hard questions.
09:32-09:34
And number one, you know what it is?
09:34-09:36
It's, I don't want to offend anyone.
09:37-09:38
I don't want to offend anyone.
09:41-09:43
I don't want to offend anyone.
09:43-09:56
You know, I was looking at this list and I thought, if your neighbor's house was on fire and you could see in their window that they were like laying on the floor, would you apply these excuses to that?
09:58-09:59
I can't go rescue my neighbor.
09:59-10:00
That's not my gift.
10:01-10:02
You wouldn't say that.
10:03-10:05
I hope you wouldn't say, well, that's the preacher's job.
10:06-10:08
Jeff, my neighbor's house is on fire.
10:08-10:09
Would you come drag him out?
10:11-10:14
Well, I'm just not sure what to do.
10:15-10:16
I'm just not sure what to do.
10:16-10:17
I see him laying there.
10:17-10:18
I see the house.
10:18-10:19
I'm not sure what to do.
10:19-10:21
In a situation like that, you figure it out pretty quick.
10:23-10:25
Or what if things get hard?
10:25-10:26
What if it's hard?
10:26-10:27
What if the fire's hot?
10:28-10:30
I mean, think about that.
10:34-10:34
And...
10:34-10:36
The last one just seems kind of silly. I don't want to offend him.
10:37-10:44
What if I go in there and drag him out and he's all offended that I might have kicked his door in when I dragged him out?
10:46-10:51
Like, well that seems silly. Well, you realize people are in a real danger apart from Jesus Christ. Did you know that?
10:52-10:56
And it's a lot worse than your house being on fire.
10:56-11:02
You're facing a godless eternity apart from Christ.
11:03-11:06
So let's talk about why we share the good news with boldness.
11:08-11:11
And I want you to turn to your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 5.
11:14-11:16
2 Corinthians chapter 5.
11:27-11:29
It's really quiet in here this morning.
11:31-11:33
Can you like flip the pages in your Bible and cough or something?
11:36-11:37
Thank you.
11:39-11:40
Alright, that's enough.
11:41-11:42
Quiet down. We're in church.
11:44-11:47
Let's talk about sharing the good news of Jesus with boldness.
11:50-11:52
First of all, let's get this on the table. What boldness is not.
11:53-11:54
We're going to get to the word here in a second.
11:55-11:58
Boldness is not obnoxiousness. Let's get that on the table.
11:58-12:05
Boldness doesn't mean that we go up to people, "Hi, how are you doing? Do you know Jesus?
12:05-13:00
If not, you're going to hell. You godless pagan. Repent." true but that's sort of obnoxious way boldness is not obnoxious we tell you how to hold this is not I wrote down my outline boldness is not kitten emails what are kitten emails we've all got you ever get those emails there's all these pictures of like kittens and It's just so adorable and then there might be a little Bible verse at the bottom, but then it says the statement that just creates a meal like nails on a chalkboard.
13:02-13:05
Jesus said if you're ashamed of him, he'll be ashamed of you.
13:05-13:10
Therefore, if you're not ashamed of Jesus, forward this to twenty people in your email list.
13:11-13:17
Really, Jesus is up in heaven evaluating whether I love him or not based on how many kitten emails I forward to people.
13:20-13:22
The kittens are cute. They are.
13:23-13:25
I have never forwarded one of those emails.
13:27-13:30
I wonder if Pastor Jeff loves Jesus.
13:31-13:33
It's a question of... You didn't send it to 20?
13:35-13:36
I've gotten every one of those.
13:37-13:39
Every. One. Of. Those.
13:40-13:42
several times.
13:43-13:49
So, I'm at the point now when I get an email that looks like it might be that way, I scroll to the bottom and if it says that, I just delete it.
13:50-13:57
Like, I do love Christ, but that's not measured by how many of these precious emails I send out.
13:58-14:04
So, the reason I put that down is I think for some people they think, "Well, that's my evangelism.
14:05-14:15
I'm going to send this to Becky because I know Becky doesn't know the Lord." And nothing speaks to the love of God more than a kid that stuffs a tea kettle or something.
14:18-14:24
Well, here's what boldness is. When God gives me opportunity, I'm going to speak of Him.
14:25-14:26
That's what boldness is.
14:26-14:30
Jot that down. When God gives me opportunity, I'm going to speak of Him.
14:32-14:35
I'm going to take advantage of every opportunity that God gives me.
14:36-14:37
That's boldness.
14:42-14:48
Now God doesn't tell us who, when, or where exactly to share the gospel.
14:51-14:53
He's not as specific about those things.
14:55-14:59
But when you look at God's Word, He is very specific about how the good news is to be shared.
15:00-15:01
It is to be shared with boldness.
15:02-15:06
Over and over and over again in Scripture, it's sharing the news with boldness.
15:07-15:10
So why do we share the good news with boldness?
15:11-15:12
Let's look at 2 Corinthians chapter 5.
15:13-15:22
Your Bible may have a heading that says something like mine, "The Ministry of Reconciliation." We're going to pick up in verse 14.
15:25-15:27
So why do we share the good news with boldness?
15:27-15:31
Number one is because I am controlled by the love of Christ.
15:32-15:34
Look at verse 14 and 15.
15:36-15:44
Paul says, "For the love of Christ controls us, "because we have concluded this, "that one has died for all, therefore all have died.
15:46-16:03
"And he died for all that those who live "might no longer live for themselves, "but for him and for their sake died and was raised." He's gonna talk in a second here about the ministry of reconciliation that we have.
16:03-16:06
But we have to see where this all starts.
16:06-16:09
It starts with being controlled by the love of Christ.
16:10-16:14
And you see right here in the verses, why are we controlled by the love of Christ?
16:14-16:17
Because one has died for all, therefore all have died.
16:17-16:21
It's an identification with Jesus Christ.
16:23-16:25
Paul says, "When Christ died, I died with him.
16:27-16:30
"My old man has been crucified with Christ.
16:31-16:36
"And when Christ rose from the dead, I identify with Him in that too. I've been raised with Him.
16:37-16:49
That's why He says, "I don't live for myself anymore." "I live for Jesus Christ." My desires, my wants, my this, my that, it's not about that anymore.
16:50-16:52
My life belongs to Jesus Christ.
16:56-16:59
Because I identify with Christ, I'm controlled by the love of Christ.
17:01-17:10
The Greek, very interesting, it implies to compress forcibly the energies into one channel.
17:11-17:14
To compress forcibly the energies into one channel. What does that mean?
17:15-17:16
Well it means it's like toothpaste.
17:18-17:24
Why is it that when you get your toothpaste out and squeeze the tube it doesn't just go flying all over the bathroom?
17:25-17:30
Because it has that little nozzle on the end of it, so that when the force is applied, that controls where it goes.
17:30-17:32
And that's how you get a grain on the end of the toothbrush.
17:33-17:36
What did you learn in church today? How to put toothpaste on a toothbrush.
17:37-17:41
But that's the picture here, of being controlled.
17:42-17:50
He's saying, the force is Jesus Christ, so to speak. It's Him in us, and He controls us.
17:53-17:56
Another way of looking at it is it's like a curve.
17:57-18:04
If you're driving and there's a high curve and you're not paying attention, and you hit that curve, it'll direct you where you need to go.
18:06-18:12
But it's the idea of compressing forcibly the energies into one channel.
18:14-18:16
Jesus Christ is controlling me.
18:17-18:20
Specifically, He says I'm controlled by the love of Christ.
18:21-18:28
Have you ever been controlled by love? How many people here at one point in your life would say I've been controlled by love?
18:29-18:33
You married guys better put your hands up. Come on. You've never been controlled by love?
18:35-18:48
Man, I have Aaron. I have. You can tell I have. I have been controlled. I have done some goofy things Because I love this woman so much Jeff why are you doing that? Because I love her!
18:50-18:52
We'll tell you some stories about that sometime.
18:52-18:56
But I love her so much, and because I love her, I can control what I do.
18:59-19:05
And if my love for my wife won't control what I do, she will, personally.
19:08-19:11
But you understand what it means to be controlled by love.
19:11-19:12
Why are you doing this?
19:14-19:14
Because I love Jesus.
19:15-19:17
Why are we planting a Harvest Bible shop?
19:18-19:21
Why are we doing this? Because we love Jesus.
19:24-19:25
Because the love of Christ is in us.
19:27-19:29
It would be a lot easier to do other things, wouldn't it?
19:29-19:31
Well, let's join up with another church.
19:31-19:36
It would be a lot easier to just get away from the whole church thing and not go back to being a magazine vendor.
19:36-19:38
Life was a lot easier back then.
19:39-19:42
So why are we doing this if it's so much harder?
19:42-19:46
I can't help it. I can't help it. I can't help it.
19:46-19:48
Samuel gave you testimony about that too.
19:49-19:50
Tried to get a worship ministry, didn't you pal?
19:51-19:53
Why are you back up here leading worship?
19:53-19:54
You can't help it.
19:55-19:59
Because the love of Christ is controlling you.
19:59-20:13
He said, "I tried to get out of it. I swore I was done." "You're going to make a million dollars and buy a Beamer?" "Hopefully make another million and buy me one." But he said, "I just couldn't get away from this." The love of Christ controls us.
20:14-20:15
What moves you?
20:17-20:18
What moves you?
20:19-20:20
Or let's make it blank.
20:21-20:22
Or blank controls me.
20:23-20:25
Does the love of Christ control you?
20:26-20:27
Something controls you.
20:30-20:32
We're sad that the pig was lost last night.
20:34-20:35
We're sad that it stood yesterday.
20:37-20:40
We're sad that the store ran out of waffles.
20:41-20:42
moved about all these things.
20:45-20:48
And as we talk about evangelism, when was the last time you were moved?
20:50-20:52
Because somebody doesn't have the word.
20:53-20:57
When was the last time you were moved by something that moved Jesus Christ?
20:59-21:04
If the love of Christ doesn't move you, then you probably don't know.
21:07-21:19
I saw a video one time, I'm watching these YouTube videos about evangelism, and I think it was the Way of the Master, you know, Ray Comfort and Kurt Cameron, they were doing this street witnessing thing.
21:19-21:35
Well, they grabbed this guy, and they said, "Here's a track, an gospel track." They said, "Go give it to those people over there." What is a profession?
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What are you thinking?
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Profession of faith.
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I don't know.
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They said, "Well, did you do it for $100?" They pulled out $100 bills.
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"Did you give that tract to somebody for $100?" He grabbed that tract, ran right over there.
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There's these girls walking by.
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He goes, "Here, here, here.
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"Here, take this and read it.
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"There's good stuff on there." Comes back, gets his money.
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He's like, "It's a chain, $100." I was like, "Here you go, here's your money." He's like, "Like on a crisis rate?" I was like, "Yeah." He sticks the money in his pocket.
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And then the person said, "Well, can I ask you a question?" "Jesus said you love God and you love money. Does it concern you that you wouldn't do that because you love God, but you didn't for money?" And the guy was like, "You can like see the wave of conviction coming." And he was like, "Oh." But it's true, isn't it?
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You do it because you love Jesus.
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Or...
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Why do you do it? The love of Christ controls us.
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So that's why we share the good news with the bold, is we just, like, can't help it.
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Secondly, because people are eternal beings.
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Look at verse 16 with me. People are eternal beings.
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He says, "From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.
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Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer." Why do we share the good news with Paul?
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Just because people are eternal beings.
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What's this "regarding people in the flesh" thing? What's that all about?
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What he's saying is, we used to think of Christ that way, but we don't anymore.
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He's saying we used to look at Jesus from a purely human perspective.
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That he's just some guy.
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Jesus is just some guy. He's like some charismatic guy.
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He's got a lot of followers kind of guy.
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He's kind of a religious guy, but he's just a guy.
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He says, you know, then the lights came on.
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Jesus Christ isn't just some guy.
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He is God in the flesh.
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He says we don't look at Jesus from a merely human perspective anymore.
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He says we don't look at anybody from a merely human perspective anymore.
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What that means is that person that you absolutely can't stand is an eternal being.
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The President sitting in the White House is an eternal soul.
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The hopeless guy standing down by the bridge, that's an eternal soul.
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We don't look at people as just, well that's just some guy.
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Eternal souls.
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We don't look at people from an earthly point of view anymore.
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I was dead in my sin.
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They are as I was.
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I was heading to hell, as they are.
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Because you see, we talk about sharing the gospel with boldness.
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This isn't about getting people on your team.
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The Methodists have a really good team, and the Lutherans have a really good team, and we're starting this harvest team up. We want to join our team.
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It's not about that. This is about deliverance.
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This is about God changing the course of a person's eternal destiny.
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It's a serious business.
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So we don't regard people according to the flesh.
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You're annoying, you're ugly, I don't want to be around this person.
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Every single person, eternal value.
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Eternal value.
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I just love how lights come on about that.
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William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, I love this quote.
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He said, "When people became candidates for officership in the Salvation Army, he said what he'd like to do more than anything is send them to hell for 24 hours." I thought that is fantastic.
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I would love that.
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People come on to Harvey's Prayer Room membership class, first thing you're going to do, we're going to send you to hell for 24 hours.
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We're not really going to do that very quickly.
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But think about, how would your zeal be for lost people?
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If you spent 24 hours in the absolute worst misery, torment, anguish for 24 hours, apart from the presence of God for 24 hours, and then you came out of that, what would your zeal be like for rewarding people then?
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We become lazy in evangelism because we choose not to think about the condition, the destination of the lost.
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People are eternal beings.
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So we share the good news and the fullness first of all because we're controlled by the love of Christ.
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Secondly because people are eternal.
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because the gospel has changed me because the gospel has changed me look at verse 17 therefore anyone is in Christ he is a new creation the old has passed away behold the new has come And then down to verse 21, I want to talk about this verse too, where Paul writes, "For our sake He made Him," that's God the Father made God the Son, "to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in Him we may become the righteousness of God." Why are we so bold? Well, the Gospel has changed us.
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I want to talk about the gospel for a second.
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The gospel of Jesus Christ is not about getting religion.
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Okay?
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It's not...
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Yeah, you know, he started going to church.
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Ever since he got religion, he's been a pretty nice fellow.
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It's not about getting religion.
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The gospel of Jesus Christ is not about cleaning up your act.
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Because, truth be told, you cannot clean up your act.
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You can try and you can try and you can try and you can fail repeatedly because by nature you're a sinner.
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By nature.
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You were born with a sin nature.
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And apart from divine intervention you'll die with a sin nature.
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In fact, what does a person have to do to be condemned and to go to hell?
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What does a person have to do?
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The answer is nothing.
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Because we're born in that situation.
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The Bible tells us that when Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, Romans chapter 5, that sin nature is passed down from generation to generation to generation.
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You're a sinner because your parents are sinners.
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Like, you don't talk that way about my mom.
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Well, your mom is a sinner because her parents are sinners.
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I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, now you don't even know my grandmama. Now you're bringing her into this." Well, hang on. The reason your grandmama's a sinner, guess what?
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Because her parents were sinners.
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You can trace that all the way back to Adam and Eve.
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The Bible says they brought sin and death into the world by their transgression and then spread the awe.
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That's why children are born with a nature bent towards doing wrong.
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Nobody teaches a child how to lie, how to steal, how to cheat.
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Children know that inherently. Why? Because they're born sinners.
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So understand the gospel is not about cleaning up your acts.
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The gospel of Jesus Christ is about pulses here in new creation.
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Where Jesus said in John chapter 3, it's about being born again.
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It's about being born again.
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I heard the radio this past week because of Halloween and people were talking about zombies.
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And they said, "Did you know zombies originated right here in Pittsburgh?" Is that true?
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I see some people nodding their heads. I heard that this week.
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That zombies originated and they had this whole spiel, "Zombies are the working class monster." Because Dracula is kind of highfalutin, rich, European kind of guy.
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But, you know, seriously, they have this whole psychology of monsters.
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But the zombies, they're just a working class.
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They get out there, they hit the streets, they do the work, they get down and dirty.
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Like, wow, somebody's putting a lot of thought into this, and I'm wasting a lot of time listening to it.
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But here's the interesting thing about zombies.
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Zombies walk around and look alive, but really, what's their gimmick?
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Their death.
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That's how we all are, apart from Jesus Christ.
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We look alive, and we're moving around, but we're dead.
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We are spiritually dead.
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See, that's why in Christ we can become a new creation.
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So understand, I've said this so many times over the years, but jot this down.
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You're going to hear this again.
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Jesus Christ did not come into the world to turn bad people into good people.
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Jesus Christ came to turn dead people into alive people.
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Your problem, by nature, is you're dead.
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The solution must be you need to be made alive.
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In Ephesians 2, you were dead in your trespasses and sinned.
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You've been made alive in Christ.
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Look at verse 21 again, I'm going to explain this quickly.
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For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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What's this verse about?
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This verse is about the divine swap.
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Understand that when Jesus Christ was on the cross, he wasn't just being a martyr.
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The Bible says that Jesus Christ, that's He who knew no sin, God put your sin on Jesus Christ.
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So when Jesus Christ was on the cross, God was pouring out His wrath on His Son.
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For all the stupid, sinful, knuckle-headed, foolish, evil, rebellious things that I've done, God was taking it out on His Son.
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Jesus for the things, not only the things that I've done, but the things that you've done.
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Putting the sin of the world on His Son and punishing His Son.
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Experiencing, you know, that's why Jesus was so worked up in the garden, you know that, right?
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Jesus wasn't afraid to die.
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He knew He was going to experience separation from His Father because Jesus became the embodiment of sin on the cross.
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He took him who knew no sin to become sin.
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When Jesus was on the cross, he became sin.
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And it's important that we understand that Jesus never sinned.
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Because if Jesus did sin, then people would say, "Well, they crucified him and he did something wrong. He just got what was coming to him." He was perfect and innocent.
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God poured out His wrath on His Son.
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And the next part of the verse says, "that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." So God, you know, puts our sin on Jesus, and Jesus gives us, what?
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He gives us His righteousness.
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That doesn't seem like a fair trade.
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That Jesus would take my sin, but he gives me his righteousness.
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But that's exactly what your Bible says.
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So how righteous are you in Jesus Christ?
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How righteous are you?
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The answer is, you're as righteous as God is.
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And I know that might sound hard to hear.
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That's what your Bible says.
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In Christ, God has pronounced you 100%.
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You are holy and righteous.
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So we need to dispel some myths.
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You know, there have been a lot of things that have kind of eeked their way into the church and mindsets and philosophies and false beliefs that we want to get ahead of.
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But get this, though.
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If you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are perfect in God's sight.
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"There is now therefore no condemnation," Romans 8:1, "for those who are in Christ Jesus." Jesus said in John 19 while he was on the cross, he said, "It is finished." Paid in full.
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Yet sometimes even Christians say, "Not good things." I had a friend of mine say to me, "Well, you know, I hope you're not lying behind me in heaven because I have a lot of things to explain for you, and I'm sure God's just going to chew me out.
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So I hope you're not lying behind me." And he was serious. I'm like, dude, that's not true.
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He goes, what do you mean it's not true? I've done a lot of bad stuff. You don't know the stuff that I've done. I've done a lot of bad stuff.
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There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Okay? No condemnation.
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So when you stand before God, in Jesus Christ, what is God going to condemn you for?
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God says, "You're perfect.
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We've got a place here prepared for you." But I've done some miserable things, and God took those things out of His Son.
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For our sake, He made Him who knew no sin to become sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.
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Apart from Jesus Christ, you don't have a chance.
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If you're sitting here this morning, you don't know Christ.
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There is no other religious leader or person anywhere who ever existed, anywhere ever, who could take your sin on themselves and pay the penalty for your sin.
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Nobody could have done that.
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Because they have a sin problem too.
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The only person that could do that is God in the flesh.
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Jesus Christ.
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He takes our sin, He gives us His righteousness.
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It's the divine swap.
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The Gospel has changed me.
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A new creation.
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A new creation.
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I gave my life to Christ in '95, I just remember the whole world a little different.
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And I don't mean it's been Disney World for the last 16 years or whatever.
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We've had some rough spells.
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But things have been different.
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Because all things have been made new in Christ.
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So that's why we share the gospel with boldness, because Christ has changed us.
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And then finally today, why do we share the message with boldness?
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Because this assignment is directly from God.
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Okay, look at verses 18-20.
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Take a note of how many times he says something is from God, or some kind of verb, like that.
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You ready? Here we go.
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All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
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That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting the trespasses against them.
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And entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
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Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
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God making His appeal to us, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
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This assignment is directly from God.
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Three things, first of all, as a minister, as a minister, this is God's work.
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Look at verse 18 again, all this is from God.
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Again, He through Christ, He reconciled the world to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
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God did not give us a checklist.
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God did not give us a job, a to-do list.
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Like, here's your list of 10 holy things that must be accomplished.
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Look at what He's given us.
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This is awesome.
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God's like, okay, so here's what I did.
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I looked down and saw a world who rebelled against me, spit in my face, and I was like, my face, rejected me, and chose to do their own thing.
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I came to the world, died, and rose from the dead, defeating death and sin, giving the promise of eternal life to anybody, anybody who would receive it.
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Isn't that awesome?
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Isn't that awesome?
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And I was like, okay, your job is just to tell people about that.
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I get to tell people about that?
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Cool, I get to tell people about that?
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That is awesome.
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That's why I signed up for this gig.
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I get to tell people what God did through Jesus Christ?
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This is a ministry.
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This isn't a job.
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This isn't like time to make the donuts.
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This is awesome.
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This is glorious.
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That God did this eternal work and would allow us to be a part of it.
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Wow.
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You saw it five times in these few verses.
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The word reconcile.
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Reconcile, reconcile, ministry of reconciliation.
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What that means is, it is very simply restore the relationship.
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That's what that means in the Greek.
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Just like in the English, you restore the relationship.
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We were God's enemies, now we are God's friends.
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He restored the relationship.
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As a minister, this is God's work. It's glorious.
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It's glorious.
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Secondly, as a steward, this is God's Word.
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This is God's Word.
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Look at verse 19.
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He says, "In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself without counting their trespasses against them." And look at this, "and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation." So as a steward, this is God's Word.
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God says, "This is what I've done.
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Go tell people I trusted you to get the message right.
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Here it is.
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Now I know you young people might not understand this illustration, but when I was a teenager, our phones, this is gonna be hard to describe.
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Some of you are gonna get this and some of you are not.
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But our phones were actually attached to the wall.
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And there was like a springy cord and attach to this thing on a headset or a handset.
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Or what do we call that thing?
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But anyways, it was attached to a cord.
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So what that meant was you could only go as far as that springy cord would reach, which meant we didn't always have our phones on us.
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So back in those days, after Paul would bring in the dinosaur for dinner, if you were out and somebody called, Somebody would have to write down the message with a pencil and pen.
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Now I can explain that.
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Anyways, you get the point.
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I used to get so frustrated when I didn't get a phone message.
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I used to get so frustrated.
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Like, "What? You didn't tell me they called!" Well, God has entrusted a message to you.
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Are you getting it out?
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You see that? It says, "He's entrusted this to us." Do you get that? Do you get what that means?
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He's entrusted us.
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God's like, "Here's my word. Here's my word. Go tell people I'm trusting you." Do you realize God could do this any way He wanted? Do you know that?
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He could write it in the clouds if He wanted to.
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He could open up heaven and just shout it down Himself.
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But how has God chosen to get His message out? How has He chosen?
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He says, "I'm trusting you with it." Here it is, here's my word, I'm trusting you to get it out.
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So the question is, are you trustworthy?
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Are you getting it out?
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God's entrusted this to us. I take that very seriously.
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You should too.
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God is trusting you with His message.
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His message!
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Our job is not to monkey with it.
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Or not to sugarcoat it or water it down. Our job is to broadcast.
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My job basically is just to be the megaphone. I don't make up the message. My job is to just stand up here and broadcast.
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Here's what God said. Here's what he said.
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Today I'm telling you here's what he said. He's entrusting this to us.
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So let's get it out.
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Let's get it out. As a steward, this is God's Word. And as a representative.
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As a representative, this is God's passion. Look at verse 20.
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Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.
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God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God.
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So not only are we ministers, not only are we stewards, we're also representatives.
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We represent Jesus Christ.
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I'm not really crazy about that idea, but guess what?
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It doesn't matter how you feel about it.
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When people find out that you're a Christian, they are evaluating the entirety of the Christian message on watching your life.
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I don't really like that. It doesn't matter. It's true.
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How you talk, the things you talk about, how you spend your time, they're watching that stuff.
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The words that you use, the way that you treat people, the way that you talk about your wife.
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Do you realize people are evaluating the gospel on you?
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Man, I'm so far from perfect.
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We are Christ's ambassadors.
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God is making his appeal to us.
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When you see God's passion there, he says, "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." How serious is God about reconciliation? How serious is he?
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Scale of 1 to 10, how serious do you think God is about people receiving his son?
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Scale of 1 to 10, what do you think?
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10.
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10, yeah. I think he's pretty serious about this.
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people coming to know his son. He's pretty serious. As his ambassador, how serious are you about it? You know, God's not sitting in heaven going, "Turn or burn, I don't really care. You don't want me, fine. You don't want me." That's not God. God desires that God should perish. That's why Paul writes here, "We you Don't even try to Google it.
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Like, I'll find that on eBay. No you won't.
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Jesus Christ is the only place you're going to find eternal life.
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If you received him as your Lord and Savior.
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If you have not, I am begging you.
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Don't let another second pass.
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As a good friend of mine always says, "Hell is too long to be wrong." Let's get fired up about what fires God up.
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I'm going to share a few words with you about how do I do it.
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You're like, I'm totally tracking with you.
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I feel like I'd be doing you a disservice now if I left you go.
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I want to share with people, but you never really go back on giving us good words on that.
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I'm going to jump these interest in spiritual things at that point in their life.
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They're just not ready. Some people aren't ready.
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It's not up to us to determine who's ready and who's not.
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We sort of bump on the doors and see which one's open.
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Some people aren't ready.
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In Harvest it's called "red apple evangelism." We're going to be talking more about this topic later, but here's what red apple evangelism means.
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The circumstances of life, ripen people to the gospel.
50:08-50:28
When you see people coming to Christ and being baptized, typically the story is, "You know, I found out that my thing wasn't working." "And I realized that there was a big emptiness inside me, and I realized that I needed Jesus Christ." That's right, I'm evangelist.
50:29-50:30
Some people just aren't ready.
50:30-50:32
So if you can't pick the fruit, don't bruise it.
50:35-50:37
Let's look for the people that God has prepared.
50:39-50:40
Here's another thing.
50:40-50:43
Ask questions to people about what they believe.
50:46-50:48
Ask questions to people about what they believe.
50:48-50:52
When you're talking to someone, hi, my name's Jeff.
50:52-50:54
Oh, hi, I'm Jeff, very nice to meet you, Jim.
50:54-50:58
You know, Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven apart from him, who prepared you.
50:58-51:02
Typically the conversation doesn't launch into a gospel presentation that quickly.
51:04-51:06
A lot of times when I'm meeting someone I'll get asked that.
51:07-51:09
Here's one of my favorite questions, easy one.
51:10-51:16
"Where do you go to church?" You can find out a lot about persons by the way they answer that question.
51:17-51:25
"Where do you go to church?" "Oh I really don't go to church, I really, you know, I believe in spiritual stuff but uh..." "Well what do you mean by that?
51:25-51:32
What do you mean you believe in spiritual stuff?" kind of looks out for us. You can find out a lot about people just by asking questions.
51:33-51:34
You know, what do you believe?
51:39-51:44
The same line, ask people if they'd like to hear what the Bible has to say about that.
51:48-51:51
You know, when you're discussing spiritual beliefs, say, "You know what, that's...
51:51-51:57
you bring up a good thing, you mentioned about evolution, and, you know, man evolving.
51:57-52:00
Would you like to sit down sometime and talk about what the Bible says about it?
52:01-52:04
Or you said something about you believe everybody ultimately ends up in heaven.
52:05-52:10
Would you like to sit down and actually look and see what the Bible says about how someone goes to heaven?
52:12-52:13
Just ask.
52:15-52:16
A couple more words.
52:19-52:33
Letter D on my outline is, "See your job as getting people one step closer to God than where they are." You know 1 Corinthians 3, "I have a land of the polished water, and when God gives, he agrees." This is all a work of the Lord.
52:35-52:39
But as the Lord is at work, He's using each of us in a different place.
52:43-52:50
And sometimes I do have the privilege of seeing people come to Christ, but not everybody I share the gospel with comes to Christ.
52:53-52:56
My job is to try to help people get one step closer than they are.
52:57-53:01
to that place where they come to that understanding who Jesus is and what he's done.
53:04-53:05
Lastly, here's an easy one.
53:07-53:08
Invite people to your church.
53:08-53:10
You want to be in small groups? Invite to the small groups.
53:10-53:18
Easy one. I am committed. I want to share the gospel in some way, shape, or form with clarity in every sermon.
53:20-53:21
I'm committed to that.
53:25-53:27
So just invite them to church.
53:28-53:31
Hey, we're starting this series on Colossians next week.
53:31-53:34
You know somebody that doesn't know the Lord, needs to know the Lord, bring them.
53:35-53:39
Love to meet them. Love to welcome them to our Harvest Bible Chat.
53:41-53:46
Or when we start small groups up, hey we have a group of people to get together at our house on Tuesday night.
53:46-53:47
We talk about the Bible. I'd like you to come over.
53:51-53:53
Just that invitation alone can go so far.
53:57-54:03
So as I close, Sammy and Laura, if you guys want to come up here, I know we went OT a little bit.
54:06-54:09
We're preaching in the four pillars, but I just never wanted it to end.
54:11-54:16
But the truth is, Paul tells us we are Christ's ambassadors.
54:20-54:28
Several years ago, many years ago, I had to drive to Ohio.
54:31-54:35
And weird circumstances, long story, but I ended up, I had to stay in a hotel.
54:37-54:41
Because I didn't have the energy or the physical strength to drive all the way back here.
54:42-54:44
But I didn't really have a place to stay out there.
54:45-54:51
So there was a night's in hotel.
54:52-54:54
I went in, checked in for the night.
54:54-54:58
The hotel was clean, the service was friendly.
54:59-55:03
And when I drove up the next day, I thought, good experience.
55:05-55:07
Laura said it like that was a lazy morning.
55:09-55:21
Well, the next time we were going to Ohio, I was with my wife and our 10 day old son at their new funeral for a friend out in Springfield, Alabama.
55:24-55:27
And I thought, well the night we stayed at Columbus was so nice.
55:31-55:32
We'll just take the night in Springfield.
55:34-55:35
Because it's probably nice, right?
55:37-55:37
Wrong.
55:39-55:40
It was a...
55:43-55:48
I was going to say dumb, but I don't want to insult somebody that hasn't done it.
55:48-55:49
It was horrible.
55:51-55:56
I mean, the ceiling, the ceiling was sagged and water stained.
55:56-56:06
And like, even the phone book was like, it looked like it was laying in a mud puddle and they're all kind of like filthy, like little bugs and stuff crawling all over the place.
56:07-56:13
So we walk in with our 10 day old son, and Aaron walks in, and I'm like, don't sit him down anywhere!
56:15-56:16
Aaron's like, what are we doing?
56:17-56:20
I'm like, Al, we're not staying here.
56:20-56:28
The place was absolutely crusty, cruddy, filthy, disgusting, nasty-astic.
56:32-56:33
So here's the point.
56:34-56:42
If you go to the corporate offices of the Knights Inn and ask them, which of these would you feel is a better ambassador for your company?
56:43-56:44
Which one do you think they're going to pick?
56:47-56:51
Knights Inn in Columbus or Knights Inn in Springfield? Which one?
56:53-56:57
You would think that they would say, "Well, the one in Columbus is really what we're about.
56:57-57:04
Clean, friendly, very few rodents." That's what we're about.
57:06-57:09
But you see the problem is both of those hotels have a magazine sign on.
57:12-57:18
They were both ambassadors for a company. One was very good. One?
57:23-57:26
You are carrying out the life of Christ.
57:28-57:45
You who are telling people That you have given yourself to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior You are an ambassador for Christ That's not the question The question is What type of ambassador for Christ?
57:49-58:31
Read by yourself Our Father in heaven I'm going to Father, I really think if we get that, we will better be your ambassadors.
58:31-58:34
To know that we're controlled by the love of Christ.
58:39-58:41
So Father, do a work in us and through us.
58:42-58:44
We know that you've started one.
58:45-58:48
Your word tells us that you're going to see it through to completion.
58:51-58:54
You're growing us, you're maturing us, you're changing us still.
58:56-59:06
And in this area of evangelism, Father, I pray that you would find us as faithful ambassadors, you have entrusted this to us.
59:09-59:17
May we become trustworthy, lovingly and clearly broadcasting your message.
59:19-59:23
We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

October 23, 2011

Pillars of Harvest

Pillar 3: A Firm Belief in the Power of Prayer

Jeff Miller

October 23, 2011

Pillars of Harvest

Excuses for not praying as we should:

WHY PRAY: Does it really change anything?

James 5:16 - The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

REPLACING COMMON (and bad) STATEMENTS ABOUT PRAYER

"All we can do is pray..."
"I'll pray for you..."

WHEN TO PRAY: Pray without CEASING. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

HOW TO PRAY: The Don'ts and Dos of Prayer (Matthew 6:5-15)

You don't pray as an ACTOR

You don't pray as a BROKEN RECORD

You do pray as a WORSHIPPER

You do pray as a DEPENDANT

Why don't we pray as we should?

The answer:

Best way to learn how to pray is by praying.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
Sermon Audio: (no recording)

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Matthew 6:5-14

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

Jesus is First

God's Will for the Church

Gospel at Work

Pillar 4: Sharing the Good News of the Gospel with Boldness

Pillar 3: A Firm Belief in the Power of Prayer

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

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