Community Bible Church Manchester Michigan Podcast

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Colossians 1:24-29

Just kind of piggybacking on Alex’s testimony, for those of you that have been maybe praying for a loved one that hasn’t come to know Christ yet and praying for a long time, maybe they’re an agnostic or an atheist, what an encouragement that after 30 years of being agnostic, Alex came to know Christ. So don’t stop praying. Don’t stop encouraging your loved ones and praying for them.

All right. Hey, we’ve been looking at the book of Colossians. So, we’re going to spend about 35 minutes here looking at Colossians chapter one. Just kind of brief review to get context, get us thinking about this letter that Paul wrote. So, where’s Paul? Paul’s in Rome.

Paul’s under house arrest. He’s awaiting trial. He doesn’t know if he’s going to live or die.

And while he’s waiting trial, a fellow makes a 1,300-mile journey to visit Paul. And that had to take him, obviously, several months back in the first century. His name was Epaphras.

Epaphras was the pastor of a church at Colossae. And the church was going through some challenging times. There were some false teachers there that were teaching false truth about who Jesus is and false truth about how to get to heaven.

And Epaphras was so concerned about that. He makes a 1,300-mile journey and shares that with the apostle Paul. And what does Paul do? Paul’s never been to Colossae, but he writes a letter to correct doctrinal error and to encourage the Colossian church to keep following Jesus.

And so, it’s called the Letter or the Book of Colossians. It’s one of four letters that Paul wrote in prison there under house arrest called the Prison Epistles, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and then Philemon was the other one that he had written. So, we’re going to look at verses 24 through 29, and we’re going to think about Paul’s identity, some insight into the apostle Paul that Paul shares with the Colossian church.

Because remember, they’ve never met him, and now they’re getting a letter from somebody in prison. That might raise a few, like, caution lights. I’ve shared with many of you that for the past 35 years, I’ve had a pen pal that’s been in the Michigan prison system.

His name’s Steve. He writes frequently, came to know the Lord after he got a life sentence in prison. He considers community Bible church his church home.

He’s never been here, but he considers you all his church family. He’s 71 years old. He’ll die in prison.

He quarterly sends a check to our church from his meager income that he gets. But when you get a letter from somebody in prison, it raises some questions, and listen to what Dr. Warren Wiersbe in his commentary writes just as introduction. If you received a letter from a man, you had never met, a man who was a prisoner, accused of being a troublemaker, how would you respond? The Colossian believers faced that exact problem.

They knew that Paul had been instrumental in leading their pastor, Epaphras, to faith in Christ. They also knew that Epaphras had gone to Rome to consult with Paul and had not returned. The church members had received Paul’s letter brought to them by Tychicus and Onesimus.

And so, Paul takes some time to tell them a little bit about himself and his background, his credentials. Or as my friend Ron Hutchcraft says, after he has gone through some very difficult times in his life, he says, I’ll share my credentials. Sometimes we go through hard stuff, and God brings us through that.

And then we have the ability to share with others what God has done. So that’s a little bit about the background. So, Paul’s talking about his identity.

Now, if I were to ask you, tell me a little bit about yourself, you might begin to share with me some of your relationships. You might say, well, I’m a husband, I’m a wife, I’m a father, I’m a mother, I’m a grandfather, grandmother, aunt, uncle. You also might talk in terms of your vocation.

I’m a carpenter, I’m a teacher, I’m a stay-at-home mom, I’m an engineer. But if you know Jesus as your Savior, I want to encourage you this morning, our ultimate identity is found in Jesus. Our ultimate identity is found in being a child of God and what he’s done for us, and that can never be taken away from us.

You see, our relationships can change, our employment can change, but our ultimate identity is found in Christ. In fact, I came across this article that talks about my identity in Christ. Let me just share eight or nine of these.

This is what the follower of Jesus looks like when you look into the mirror of God’s Word. This is who you are. I’m going to read them quickly.

I am God’s child. I’ve been justified and redeemed. I am no longer under condemnation.

I’m a fellow heir with Christ. I’ve been accepted by Christ. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives within me.

I’m a new creature in Christ. I’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. I am chosen, holy, blameless before God.

I am redeemed and forgiven by the grace of Christ. All right, we don’t often say amen in this church. We always say amen.

Amen is that good news? That’s who we are in Jesus. And so now Paul’s writing, and he wants the Colossian church to know who he is and his identity. And we’re going to look at four truths very quickly this morning.

First of all, Paul’s identity is found in one who suffers for Christ. It’s found in one who suffers for Christ. Look at verse 24, and here we have this oxymoron.

Now, I rejoice in what I am suffering for you. We usually don’t put those two words together, rejoice and suffering. But Paul is suffering for the cause of Christ, for the church at Colossae.

He’s in prison for preaching the gospel. He’s under house arrest. The ministry of the Apostle Paul is characterized by hardship and by suffering.

In fact, in Paul’s autobiographical section, when he writes to the church at Corinth, listen to what he has to say. This is his background, 2nd Corinthians. I’m in 1st Corinthians.

We need to get to 2nd Corinthians 11. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews, 40 lashes minus one.

Three times I was beaten by rods. Once I was pelted with stones. Three times I was shipwrecked.

I’ve been constantly on the move, in danger from rivers, bandits, fellow Jews, Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, in danger from false believers. I’ve labored and toiled and gone without sleep. I’ve known hunger and thirst, have gone without food.

I’ve been cold and naked. Besides else, I daily face the pressure of my constant concern for the churches. Who wants to be a missionary with Apostle Paul? Paul identifies with one.

He’s suffering for Christ. And he writes to the Philippian church, another prison epistle, Philippians 129, for it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also what to suffer for him. And so, Paul identifies as one who suffers for Christ.

Secondly, Paul’s identity is found in one who is a servant of Christ in the church. So, he says, I’m suffering for the cause of Christ. And I’m also a servant of Christ in the church.

So, when Paul writes his letters, he identifies himself at the very beginning of most of his pastoral epistles and all the letters that he wrote. Here’s to the church at Rome. Here’s how he starts his letter.

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus. Philippians chapter one, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. The word they’re servants there is the word Doulos, which means a bond slave.

One who is entirely at the disposal of their master. Under Roman law, a bond slave, a Doulos, was considered the owner’s personal property. Slaves essentially had no rights.

In fact, at the end of Colossians, Paul talks about Epaphras, their pastor, and he uses the same word, Epaphras, who is one of you and a bond slave of Christ Jesus. So, Paul’s identity is that he is a bond slave to Jesus, but he also identifies himself as a servant of the church. And that’s found in verse 25.

I have become its servant. He’s referring to the church in the previous verse. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness.

Now there, Paul doesn’t use the word Doulos. He uses the word diakonos, which is our word for deacon. Just simply means someone who serves.

And so, Paul identifies himself as a bond slave to Jesus and as a servant to the church. And you look at Paul’s life, and he certainly did serve the church, sharing God’s truth, writing letters, praying for them, leading people to Christ. Paul was a servant of the church.

And it’s interesting that Jesus talks about what it means to be great in his kingdom. When the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, known as the sons of thunder in Matthew chapter 20, she comes up to Jesus and says, Jesus, when you’re the king, when you come into your kingdom, would it be okay if my two sons are like, one’s on the right and one’s on the left? Would you give them the power positions in your kingdom? And Jesus uses that opportunity to teach what greatness is in God’s kingdom. Let me read it for you from Matthew chapter 20, beginning in verse 25.

Jesus calls his disciples together. You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you.

Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave. And here’s the example.

Just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Jesus modeled servanthood.

Remember in the upper room, he’s going to be on the cross in a couple days, and the disciples are there for the last supper, and there’s no servant there to do the customary washing of the feet. And there’s an awkward silence, and then Jesus stands up, takes off his outer garment, pours water into a basin, kneels down, and washes the feet of all 12 disciples, including Judas, who soon was going to betray him. Paul’s identity is found in one who is a servant of Christ and of the church.

Well, thirdly, identifies himself as a steward of the gospel. So, God’s given him the commission to present the word of God in its fullness. Let’s pick it up in verse 26.

The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. So, if you read the New Testament, there’s this word mystery. And the word mystery in the New Testament, as the authors use it, doesn’t mean something that we can’t figure out.

That’s how we use the word mystery. Well, it’s a mystery to me. I can’t figure it out.

No, the mystery in the New Testament is this, simply something that was hidden in times past but now has been revealed by God. And so, in times past, they didn’t know something, and now in the New Testament times, God’s revealed more truth to them. And the mystery has been revealed.

And so, there’s many references in the New Testament to various mysteries. One of them’s referred to as the rapture of the church, 1st Corinthians 15, very familiar passage, beginning in verse 51. Listen, I tell you a mystery.

We should not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. He’s talking about the rapture. So, this was a mystery, but now God’s revealed it.

And now Paul is talking about the fact that he’s a steward of the gospel, and he’s a steward of this mystery. Now, what’s the mystery he’s referring to? Well, we go to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 3, verse 6. The mystery, Paul’s writing to the Ephesian believers, is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body. Here’s the mystery, that the gospel is for everyone.

It’s not just a Jewish thing. You don’t have to be proselytized to Judaism to be a follower. The gospel is for everyone.

This was something that the apostles in the New Testament struggled with. This was something that they called the Jerusalem Council, because they’re like, is this just a Jewish thing, or is this for everyone? And that’s the mystery that Paul’s referring to here. He refers to it again in the book of Ephesians chapter 5, when he’s talking about marriage.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, be united as wife. The two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I’m talking about Christ and the church.

And so, it’s the mystery that Jew and Gentiles can come together and be one in the body of Christ. And so, Paul views himself as a steward of the gospel. The mystery that’s been kept hidden for ages and generations, now disclosed to the Lord’s people, to them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery.

What is that? Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Jew and Gentile together in one body.

And that phrase, hope of glory, refers to, there’s three tenses of salvation. Justification, when we put our faith in Christ, when God legally declares us as righteous. The righteousness of Christ gets imputed to our account.

Someone has to pay for sin. Either you’re going to pay for sin or you put your trust in Christ who’s already paid for sin. That’s justification.

Then there’s sanctification, that’s growing in Christ, becoming more like Christ. And then there’s a third part of our salvation called glorification, that’s future. We actually sung about it in one of our hymns about the fact that we’re one day closer to being with Christ someday.

And that’s when he takes us home to be with him and we eventually get a new glorified body like his body and our salvation is complete. And so, Paul’s identity is found in being a steward of the gospel. One more, and then we have some application questions.

So, here’s the fourth part of Paul’s identity. Paul’s identity is found in his single-minded purpose. I love these next two verses.

Paul’s talked about Christ in you, the hope of glory. Notice what he says, he is the one we proclaim. And so, what are we going to do on every Sunday morning here at Community Bible Church? We’re going to proclaim Jesus.

We’re going to uplift and honor and worship Jesus. He’s the reason we’re here. He’s the one we proclaim.

He goes on to say, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom. The word admonishing means correcting wrong belief and behavior. Teaching means guiding into correct belief and behavior.

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom. Now here’s the purpose of it all. Notice the so that.

Here’s the purpose. Why do we teach the Bible? Why do we preach Christ? So that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

So, what is Paul’s single-minded purpose as he pastors all these churches and his missionary journeys? Not only to lead people to Christ, but the heart of the apostle Paul is what? He wants; that’s just the beginning. You got your ticket to heaven, but that’s just the beginning. God wants to conform you to the image of his son.

He wants to make you to think like Jesus and to act like Jesus and to become a fully mature believer. Galatians 4:19, my dear children, the women will relate to this, the moms, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ be formed in you. Paul says, my goal is that you will become Christ-like.

Ephesians 4 talks about that, that God’s given spiritual gifts. He’s given pastors and teachers and apostles and prophets, what? To build up the body of Christ so they will come to maturity. And so, this is Paul’s single-minded purpose.

He says in verse 19, to this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me. So, Paul says, I’m not doing this alone. I’m doing this and ministering with what? The power of Christ in me, not self-sufficiency, but God-sufficiency.

So, Paul’s identity, Paul says, I’m one who suffers for Christ. I’m a servant of Christ in the church. I’m a steward of the gospel and I have a single-minded focus.

I want you to become more like Jesus. Well, as we think about those four identities that the apostle Paul just mentioned, I want you to know this morning that Paul’s identity and calling and our identity and calling are pretty much the same. And so, I’ve got four questions that we want to ask just by way of application here that kind of are based on Paul’s four identities.

And here’s the first one and probably the most important one. Am I in Christ? Am I in Christ? Or we could flip it as verse 27 says, is Christ in you? In other words, have you come to the point in your life where you know that you’re a sinner, you know that you can’t make it to heaven on your own? Andy Stanley’s book, How Good Do You Have to Be to Get into Heaven? The answer’s perfect because God’s holy. And so, none of us reach that standard.

That’s why Jesus came. He lived a perfect life. So, we understand who Jesus is.

He understands that the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, we turn from our sin, put our faith in Christ alone for salvation and receive the gift of eternal life. I did that when I was eight years old in Cleveland, Ohio, where my dad was pastoring a church and the Spirit of God convicted my heart and came home and chatted with my dad and he led me to Christ there in our home there in Cleveland, Ohio. I trust you know Jesus.

You know, there are many, many people that go to church every Sunday but they don’t know Jesus. So, I hope that you are in Christ, that your faith is in Him. Secondly, here’s another question to think about.

Am I willing and prepared to suffer for the cause of Christ? Oh, I mean, Paul went through a lot. Paul ended up in prison. Paul was misunderstood.

Paul was beaten in Lystra. He was pelted with stones, left for dead. They thought he was dead.

Paul went through all sorts of suffering. Quite frankly, there are many places where to be a Christian in our world today is putting your life on the line. But in our country, not so much.

We have freedom of religion. But I want to tell you, I think the days are coming when it’s comfortable to follow Jesus coming to an end. If not for my generation, older generation, certainly the next generation and the generation to come.

Paul wrote to his son in the faith, Timothy, and he says this, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So, I’m on the mailing list of an organization called Christian Law Association. They have a monthly mailing called The Legal Alert.

This is from a fellow by name of David Gibbs. And so, here’s what he writes about America today. Everywhere we look, we see evidence of spiritual decline.

He’s focusing on America. Church attendance has dropped. Biblical literacy has faded.

What once was common moral ground is now widely contested. Christians increasingly find themselves misunderstood, marginalized, or even opposed for holding the long-established truths. The culture seems to be moving rapidly and not in a direction that honors the Lord.

And so, my question to you is, and to the generations to come, are we willing and maybe prepared when it gets really difficult to become a Christian or to take a stand for our faith? And Paul did. And so, I think that’s something that we need to think about and be willing to take a stand for Christ. I love it what Jerry Bridges writes in his book, Trusting God Even When It Hurts.

Here’s what he has to say about suffering as a Christian. That which should distinguish the suffering of Christians from unbelievers is the confidence that our suffering is under the control of an all-powerful, all-loving God. Our suffering has meaning and purpose in God’s eternal plan, and he brings or allows suffering into our lives, in our lives, only that which is for his glory and our good.

And so, God allows suffering. Sometimes it’s physical, sometimes it’s emotional, sometimes it’s relational. But for the believer, it always has a purpose.

1st Peter 5:10, Peter writing to people who were refugees, they had to leave their homeland because of persecution. He writes, “…and the God of all grace, who called you into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.” And so oftentimes God uses and allows suffering to deepen our faith and to deepen our trust in him. And I love this saying.

This has helped me many times. I think it’s true. I know it’s true.

Nothing can happen to me today. Nothing good, nothing bad, without first passing through the Father’s hand. In other words, God is sovereign.

He knows the end from the beginning. Look at the book of Job. The only reason all those horrible things happen to Job is because what? Satan came into God’s presence and God said, okay, I’m going to let you do this. Only go this far. And so, am I willing and prepared to suffer for the cause of Christ?

Number three, am I involved in the stewardship of the gospel? And so, Paul says, hey, I’m a steward of the gospel, the mystery that God’s now revealed, Jew and Gentile in one body. And so, am I actively involved in the stewardship of the gospel? Am I using my time, talent, and treasure to advance God’s kingdom? Do I know how to share the plan of salvation? Lord, give us boldness in doing that.

Thank God for that person that wrapped their arms around Alex and boldly prayed for her. Key turning point. Thank God for that pastor that was willing to come and proclaim God’s truth to that gathering.

Am I actively involved in the stewardship of the gospel? And then lastly, number four, am I advancing, am I growing toward maturity in Christ? Am I growing in maturity in my faith in Christ? So, Paul had to write to the Corinthian church, 1st Corinthians 3. Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit, but as people who are still worldly, mere infants in Christ. You are still worldly, for since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? So, Paul says, I wish I could address you as mature believers. You’re still baby Christians.

And so, what God wants to do is he wants to grow us. Spiritual maturity isn’t just biblical knowledge, it’s not being able to answer Bible trivia questions, but a transformative ongoing process of becoming more like Christ. And so, what does that look like? Well, we should be able to look back, if we know Jesus from a couple years ago, and say, I think I’m a little more like Jesus than I was two years ago in my character.

The fruit of the Spirit, here’s the evidences of the Spirit living in us, nine evidences, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, meekness, self-control. Does that describe your life? That’s the character of the Spirit of God in our life, but it’s not just our character, it’s our conduct. A great question when we don’t know what to do is to think and ask the question, what would Jesus do? And not every instance is that answered in Scripture, but as you study the life of Christ, somebody said, we’ll never become Christ-like until we understand what is Christ like.

And so, as we study the Gospels and the life of Christ, it’s becoming more like Him in our character and in our conduct. So, this is a partnership of growing in Christ. Book of Philippians, Paul writes about that, and he says, therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but much more in my absence, Paul’s in prison, he says, continue to work out your salvation, not work for, that’s already been accomplished by Christ, work out with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you.

So, it’s this partnership. We have to do some things to progress in our Christian life to become more like Jesus. What are some of those things? Well, I made a list of eight of them.

We need to be reading this book. We need to know what Jesus is like. We need to be people of prayer who pray, not just when we’re in trouble, although that’s what James says, anybody in trouble, let them pray.

That’s a good thing to do, but we need to have a consistent prayer life. And our relationship with God grows. God speaks to us through His word.

We speak to Him through prayer. It’s a dynamic relationship. So, we grow by Bible study, by prayer, by worship, by serving others, through fellowship, by repentance of sin, by living in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We grow by suffering. We grow by sharing our faith. Sign of physical maturity, oftentimes, we’re able to reproduce.

We have kids, children, and that’s another sign of a fully mature Christian. Well, I want to challenge you this morning with these questions. I hope you know Jesus.

I hope you’ll give serious thought to what the future might hold and begin to take some stands for Jesus, even when it’s difficult. I hope you’ll be involved in sharing your story, sharing the gospel, and I hope as we journey together as a church family and encouraging each other’s lives, that we’ll go toward this goal of becoming more and more like Jesus.

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Bible Verses – Number 21:4-9

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Good morning, it’s a beautiful morning. My grandfather would love this because my grandpa had an ice house, born and raised in the southern Hillsdale County Waldron School District. He had an ice house and I couldn’t help but think that some of these past years it hasn’t gotten that cold, but this year is a nice cold year and he could have really got cut those ice chunks out and had them ready for those who didn’t have refrigerators.

But anyways, it’s good to be here. Some things I always want to know about a speaker, probably most of you know all this about me, but two things are the two most important decisions in my life. I was probably about seven, I was blessed to be raised in a Christian home and it was no doubt that I was a sinner and it was no doubt that Jesus loved me.

So, when I was about seven, I came to a personal faith in Christ and then I was, probably I was in junior high, started praying, God I’d like a girlfriend, I’d like a pretty girlfriend, I’d like one that really loved Jesus. And in 1980 on our senior trip, Dorothy and I started holding hands and the rest is history. So, I’m blessed.

And two, I was thinking it was about 36 years ago, did any of you ever get discouraged with churches or life or whatever? We came here to your church for a couple years and we’re members and we’re just blessed. Somebody, we’ve just been through some kind of discouraging things that somebody said, go to a good church that’s a little ways away and just sit in the back pew and be blessed. And that happened with us and we were blessed by you folks.

So, it’s good to be here this morning, so thank you. Have you ever had some miserable food to eat? Some of you have, now we don’t, don’t tell us the restaurant, don’t edge your spouse saying you remember that recipe, but most of us have. I was trying to think if we had time we could share some of those experiences, but we won’t for a couple reasons.

I was thinking probably mine, probably one of them goes back, oh, 55 years ago. So, I’m probably a ninth grader at camp and the cook had boiled celery with boiled sausage. My kitchen, maybe there was some salt, but that was it.

I mean that still impacts me, you know. I mean I like celery and I like sausage, but anyways. So, but we all have a miserable food experience and then do ever get discouraged with leaders? Yeah, we do, you know.

Whether it’s the manager at work, whether it’s the local township council, whether it’s the state government, whether it’s in Washington, you know, we get discouraged with leaders. And what do we often do? Complain, you know. Whether it’s a two-year-old complaining about the food or somebody that’s 92 complaining about the food or the leaders, sometimes we fall into the trap of complaining.

I mean we’ve been blessed to have our grandkids with us for the past nine days and it’s been wonderful. But you know, even a two-year-old can say, I don’t like this or I don’t want this. And then the other day I was in the living room and I was just, Dorothy and I were at home and I was talking and she said, David, she said enough of that about complaining about some political leader.

She’s speaking the truth to me. Yeah. So, this morning we want to be reminded about the importance in life’s journey of not being complainers.

Whether that’s about food, whether that’s about leaders, or whatever the case, is we’re in the journey of life, we’ll do things that we won’t like, but not to be complainers, but in the journey of life, be shiners. Shining, looking to Jesus and being a light in this dark crooked world. So, open up your Bibles to Numbers 21.

Okay, Numbers 21:4 through 9. They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea to go around Edom, but the people grew impatient on the way. They spoke against God and against Moses and said, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread, there is no water, and we detest this miserable food. Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them.

They bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, we have sinned. We spoke against the Lord and against you.

Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us. So, Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, make a snake and put it up on a pole.

Anyone who’s bitten can look at it and live. So, Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

So, the Israelites had been wandering, they’d been on a trip for about how long? 40 years. I don’t know about you, but 40 years sounds like a long trip. But they were heading toward the land of milk and honey, the promised land.

I can remember probably the longest trip we’ve taken is a few trips to India, 15 hours, you know. That seemed long, but 40 years just traveling on a trip, long trip. So, we remember that when we’re checking them out.

But anyways, the complaint, verses 4 and 5, they became impatient. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit; Galatians 5 tell us. And the Israelites, they weren’t patient, they were impatient.

Any of you know the song, what does it go? Something like, have patience, have patience, don’t be in such a hurry. When you get impatient, you only start to worry. Remember, remember, that God is patient too.

And I forgot the rest of the words, so we’ll end right there. But so often we are impatient, and that usually doesn’t lead to good things. So, they became impatient, they spoke against God, they spoke against His leader Moses, and about the miserable food.

I don’t know, but if you notice that complaining is often contagious, it’s often contagious. I mean, sometimes you can’t hang around certain people, you know, just because if they start complaining about the church, about their spouse, about things, you just, you know, whether that’s at work or some people, but it’s often contagious. So, then we see that they were complaining.

But let’s look at the consequences of their complaining. Verse 6, the Lord sent venomous snakes and many Israelites died. Even today, this area of the world is known for, this particular place is known for its venomous snakes.

But why was God so strict about complaining? Why? I mean, nobody’s perfect. Why do you think He was so harsh on them for their complaining? Yeah, thank you. He took them out of slavery.

What else? Yeah, He took them out of slavery. Man, they could just go back and remember what his God has done for them. Thank you, amen.

Any other ideas come to mind? He took them out of slavery and we, how many miracles? How did Moses cross the Red Sea, right? Yeah, the miracles He provided for them. Their complaining against God and their leaders and complaining about the miserable food really showed they weren’t trusting in God. They were distrusting.

They weren’t recalling to his mind all those wonderful miracles he’d done in the past. I hope that you are recalling the miracles, how God showed up for you and you’re telling those to the next generations, how you prayed for things and God responded. And it is no secret what God can do, what He’s done for others, He can do for you.

And if we’re praising God, it’s going to be hard to be complaining. Well, anyways, they were complaining and sin brings judgment. Not always immediately, but it does.

Numbers 32:23 says, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. So, they complained, then we see the consequences, the snakes. Oh, let’s back up there a little bit about those snakes, right? A lot of people, a lot of people were bitten.

And what was the cure? God told Moses to put up a bronze snake. And what did they have to do? Just look at it. Just look at it.

Just have faith and look at it. Realize that they were bitten and look at it. Yeah, that’s all they had to do.

The people said we SINNED

But the confession, oops, I guess I was jumping ahead of myself, wasn’t I? Sorry about that. You can tell, you can tell I don’t preach every Sunday. Anyway, the confession, look at verse 7. They said, we have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.

The people said we’ve sinned. We’ve sinned. They said we were wrong.

No excuses. They just said we were wrong. We missed the mark.

We sinned. We did wrong. It was a serious thing.

They complained, the consequences, but then the confession. They said they’re wrong. I hope confession is part of your life.

First John 1:9 says if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In James 5:16 it says, therefore confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed. I hope, I think it needs to be part of our practice to say we were wrong.

I’ve done wrong. And part of our practice, confess our sins to God and one another so that we can be healed. So, they confessed their sin.

They said we sinned. We sinned. And then we see compassion shown in verse 7. What was Moses’ response after the people said they sinned? Did he say, well, let me think on it for a while? Or did he say, well, I saw this coming, you know, you’ve really been disobedient.

Did he give them a big lecture? It’s not here, at least in the text. What did he do? He prayed for the people. He prayed for the people.

Moses prayed for the people. You know what, whether it’s your little children, your grandkids, your next-door neighbor, or whatever, I hope you’re praying for people. I hope you are.

I hope each one of you are praying for each neighbor that’s around you. You might be busy. They might be busy.

Moses PRAYED for the people

But are you praying for them? Whether it’s as you drink your coffee, as you drive to work, as you drive to church, are you praying for other people? Moses showed compassion. He prayed for the people. But now we go to the cure provided, verses 8 and 9. A bronze snake on a pole.

God told Moses to put it up so that anyone who wanted to be cured, if they look at it. Who could be cured? Anyone that looked at it. Anyone.

You might say how silly or weird, but it worked. Just a simple thing. Realize you were bitten and look at the bronze snake.

So, we see the complaint. They were complainers. The consequences of complaining.

They confessed. They said, we’ve been bitten. Moses showed compassion.

But a cure was provided. And now a choice is required. Verse 9. Anyone who was bitten could look at that snake and be healed, but they had to look at it.

They had to look at that. A cure was provided. So, what is in there as passage for us? All kinds of things, isn’t there? Application.

Christ is the ultimate cure. You know, sometimes we think, oh, if I just had, if that recipe would have just turned out perfect, or if I would just have a better governor, or better city council member, or better president. Our ultimate cure in life is Jesus.

It’s Jesus and it’s got to be Him. It’s got to be Him. Let’s go to John chapter 3. John chapter 3, when Jesus referred to this story, John chapter 3.

John chapter 3, verses 14 through 17. In Brazil we say amen if you found it, say mercy if you need more time. So, John 3, verses 14 through 17.

Have any amens? Any mercies? Yeah, I appreciate the honesty. Yeah, because we believe this is God’s inspired word. It’s great to be going to a church where the Bible is centered, because God’s word always speaks, doesn’t it? I mean, we can all remember some sermons that, man, they didn’t click with us, but God’s word clicks.

It speaks. John 3:14 through 17. Amen? All right.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

Jesus takes us to a story that happened over a thousand years before. John 3, a man, Nicodemus, a Pharisee, came to Jesus at night. Wanted to know, he’d seen the miracles.

He said, man, only God could do something like this. And he asked Jesus some questions, and Jesus told him, you must be born again, and then a second illustration is in this passage. Why do you think Jesus used this story? Why do you think Jesus referred to the bronze snake, the story that happened a thousand years before? Speaking to Jews, thank you, yes.

So, Nicodemus would have been aware of this story, excellent, yeah. Anything else come to mind? Yeah, yes, yeah, absolutely. Only one way.

There’s only one way for those people in Numbers 21 to be healed of the snakebite, right? There wasn’t a doctor running around saying, let me give you this antibiotic, or let me do this. No! There’s one way. He was looking to Jesus.

There’s only one way you can go to heaven. John 14:6, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Only one way. It’s not by works. Everybody got bit by the snake.

It’s not by works. It’s by that snake. They couldn’t say, well, I didn’t get bit by that snake because I was such a good person, you know.

I was nice to the wife. I paid my taxes. No! Everybody was getting bit.

Ephesians 2:8 and 9 says, for by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. How about you? Have you accepted that gift? Have you accepted that gift? It’s open to all.

Open to all. Based on faith, looking to Jesus or the bronze snake to be cured of the snakebites, it’s open to all. Open to all.

Romans 10:13 says, for everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Will be saved. Yeah.

My hospital chaplain in Dearborn, full-time hospital chaplain, it’s a job God provided, a ministry provided. I really enjoy it. And I’m kind of slow to think.

You probably detected that. I’m slow to think. And I remember being in the emergency room once and a patient went by me on the gurney really quickly, said, chaplain, think I’m going to heaven.

I’ll see all my relatives. Now, what do you say in a situation like that? You know, you don’t have any chance to talk to them. You have no idea what they believe.

But God is so gracious. He brought this verse to mind. He says, well, the scriptures do say, for whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Yeah. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Have you called upon His name? And are you praying for your family members, your classmates, your neighbors, that they will call upon the name of the Lord? You can invite people and tell people, and maybe they won’t believe, but you can always pray for them.

You can always pray for them. Do you know anybody that has been bitten by the snake? Or do you know anybody that’s struggling with sin? That’s a sinner? Yeah. Yeah.

You could look at some of your faces right now. That’d be great. Yeah.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. We are sinners.

Romans 3:23 said, for all have sinned. One more hospital story. I was in the ICU and a lady said, chaplain, you have to go to church to go to heaven.

And I knew I had limited time. There was family that was getting ready to come, medical staff. And I said, can I just share a few verses with you? She said, sure.

Romans 3:23 says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 6:23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 5:8, but God demonstrates His love toward us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Shared Romans 10:9 and 10, that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be. Yeah. It’s by faith.

It’s about what Jesus has done. Are you praying for people around you and telling them where they can find hope? And our last segment of the message, complain of application, complain not, but shine, but shine. 2nd Philippians. Let’s go to 2nd Philippians. Where was Paul when he wrote Philippians? In jail.

Yeah. Why was he in jail? It wasn’t a speeding ticket. It wasn’t he didn’t pay his taxes.

Yeah. Preaching about Jesus. 2nd Philippians, in the Bible.

In verse 5, it says, may your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Is that what my attitude is known for? Is your attitude known for being, wow, that’s just the attitude Jesus would have in relationship to the problems, to the struggles.

But then let’s look at verses 14 and 15. I’d like us to read those together. Okay.

I prefer English, but we’ll do with, I never know. Frequently, Dorothy, do you have a Portuguese Bible with you today? Yeah.

My wife, is fluent in English and Portuguese, and growing up with Portuguese, she frequently has her Portuguese Bible with her. But even if she wants to read it in Portuguese, we’ll let her, but let’s read it together. Philippians 2:14 and 15.

Do everything without grumbling or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.

It says to do everything without complaining. Not do some things about complaining, but do everything without complaining. What is it? Steve Green, who has the hide them in your heart series did a long time ago.

It says, and one of the songs on there is do everything without complaining, do everything without arguing so that you may become blameless and true children of God. Is that true of you? Is that true of me? It’s 1980. I was a freshman at Grand Rapids Baptist College, which now is Cornerstone, had three roommates and the roommate that I respected.

I mean, he was honest. He was Jesus loving. He lived out his faith.

One morning he said, David, I look forward every day to your complaint of the day. You’re laughing, but it can be a struggle and hopefully I’ve improved on it. But complaining, do everything without complaining.

And it also says, because you’re living in a crooked and depraved, messed up generation. I don’t know, maybe our society is a lot better than when Paul wrote this. Or would some of you say that still we could, maybe we’re kind of crooked or depraved or degenerated? Yeah.

So, will we complain or will we shine? Sometimes in our life we get discouraged though. Our journey we get discouraged. And probably we’re not complaining, probably none of us on our big list is miserable food.

But we might be complaining about politics, about some family member, some things at work. And I’m not saying they’re right, but will we take them to Jesus who died and rose again and is the Prince of Peace, the great judge who’s got things in His hands? Will we take them to Him or will we be known for complaint of the day? You know, it could be about health, wealth, relationships. It could even be about the referee for your basketball game or your kids or your grandkids.

I remember I used to enjoy playing church basketball. I still remember playing a game and the ref was one of my high school teachers and somebody chewed him out. I thought, man, I’m praying for my teacher to come to know Jesus.

And at a church basketball game somebody’s chewing the ref out. I talked to that person though and they said, yeah, thanks David. Maybe I need to hang up my jersey for a while.

Because I got the wrong perspective. How about you? Are you complaining? Someone told a story about the devil having a garage sale. And they said they had some things up there, you know, like all gossip and the price on that and sexual immorality and all different laziness.

But clear in the back was one with a really high price. It was complaining. Because the devil said, if I can get Christians complaining, oh, that’ll be their focus.

That’ll be the thing that they’re thinking about all the time. They’re talking about all the time and they won’t be shining. He said, if that, yeah.

How about you? How about me? Are we complainers or are we counting our blessings? Are we counting our blessings?

You know nobody’s perfect and surely not in my family either, but can I tell you about my youngest relative I pray for and my oldest? I took my two-year-old granddaughter to visit my 94-year-old mother who’s in retirement place in Adrian. And mom’s mind is like most of ours isn’t as what it used to be, you know. Matter of fact, I’ve told her all week that I was going to take her out to we’re going to take her out to lunch today and she phoned me this morning, David, is it today you’re doing? You know, anyways, but mom is thankful.

Mom doesn’t remember everything, but she’s counting her blessings. So anyway, I took my two-year-old granddaughter up to see her great-grandma and my mom frequently says the word special. She said, David, it’s so special that you came to visit me.

It’s special that we can go out to eat. It’s special that I have a nice place to live. It’s special that my kids phone me.

It’s special, you know, that’s her word. On the way home from visiting her, my two-year-old granddaughter always was talking about special. She said, grandpa, it’s special that you’re going today.

Grandpa, you’re a special grandpa. Grandpa, it’s special that we had lunch. It was contagious.

Being thankful, being grateful can be contagious. Will you be one of those people or will you be a complainer? The Gaither’s had a song called Give It Away. It says there are two kinds of folks, takers and givers.

There are gripers and complainers and big-hearted livers. Depends on how you choose to spend your days. How will we spend our days? How will we spend our days? Whatever year it was, we have an Ann Arbor address.

We’re in the Saline School District and have a corner lot. And it was a Sunday and somebody came by and asked if they could put up a Joe Biden sign in our lot. And I said, I don’t know if it was during, I think it was during COVID or something.

I can’t remember. Anyways, we were home. We were having a Bible study on a Sunday morning because there wasn’t church.

Can’t remember. But anyways, he said, can I put a Biden sign? I said, well, you know what? I said, I just got done praying for Donald Trump and Joe Biden. I’m not going to put either sign on my front yard.

But I said, thank you. He said, never heard that response. He said, sounds good though.

You know, but we’ll be known for praying for people. How will we spend our days? So going back to our passage in Numbers 21, the complaint. Are you a complainer? You want the honest truth? Ask your kids.

Ask your roommate. Ask your spouse. Only if you want to know.

And then what are you complaining about? Whether it’s the spouse or the kids or the neighbor. Will we take it to the Lord in prayer? You know, He can handle it. You know, He can, we can tell Him, you know, you can journal your prayers.

God, I don’t like this because, you know, we can type them away or on that long walk or nobody can hear us. We can even say it out loud. We can tell Him, He cares.

We were church planners in Brazil for 15 years and you faithfully supported us. And it was about 2003 that you had a part of Cloud Jew coming to know Christ. I’d say he’s probably in his forties at the time, late thirties.

Came radical conversion, came to know Christ. I still remember it was a Tuesday morning prayer meeting and people were talking at prayer meeting about how horrible the roads were. You know, the interstate highway would have great big holes.

And I mean, nothing, you know, I don’t know how many hundred times worse than the Michigan roads and the potholes. But anyway, huge potholes, just problems. People were complaining.

And he said, yeah, he said the problem where people were talking, they said, you know, the government gives so much money to the contractor and the contractor puts part of it in his pocket and then just uses half the amount of cement or the asphalt or the gravel. Anyways, the roads were horrible. And Brother Cloud Jew, a young convert, young follower of Jesus said, yeah, he said, it makes me so angry.

He said, all I can do is pray. All I can do is pray. Also, I can remember 36 years ago being at a prayer meeting in the Parsonage.

And I remember being, yeah, and I remember the prayer meeting because there’s so much happening here. Prayer meeting in the Parsonage basement and somebody was talking about a political situation in the world and about a corrupt leader and problems. And they said, it gets me so disturbed.

I don’t know what to do. I just pray they’ll come to know Jesus. Amen.

Yeah. Are you praying that for Putin? Are you praying that for Zelensky? Are you praying that for world leaders? Are you doing that? Then when you do sin, when you get bitten by a snake, when we do sin, do you confess it? Is confession part of your life with God and then confessing our sins one to another so that we’ll be healed? I’d say you have to grab the microphone, but, you know, it’s so cool to see you’ve got men’s things, ladies’ things. You’ve got so many good activities here at church.

You know, some of those you could, you know, grab somebody and say, hey, I’ve talked to you. Pray for me. I messed up this week with something I said to my spouse or my kids or my neighbor or something I did on the internet or something I did with my car or, you know, confess your sin one to another so that you’ll be healed.

And then how about Moses? He showed compassion. Will you be compassionate? Compassionate praying for people. And God wants to provide, wants to provide, he’s provided Jesus and He wants to use each one of us to shine.

We all agreed we lived in a wicked, messed up generation. Will we shine? Will we shine? If the Holy Spirit has spoken to you today, I encourage you to spend some time, maybe get a piece of paper and there’s some people that you need to be praying for, that you’ve complained about, and you need to expand your prayer list. I hope you’ve used a prayer list.

Not like, do you have to? No. It doesn’t say in the Bible on certain pages or prayer lists. No.

But I don’t know. When my wife asked me to go to Aldi’s, if I don’t have a list, I can’t help but forget something. So, I have a list, whether it’s a paper list or on my phone or something.

So, I encourage people, it’s a good idea to have some type of, you know, whether it’s on your phone or paper, some list so that you can be praying for your kids, your grandkids, your parents, your grandparents, your neighbors, your church leaders, your world leaders. Yeah, so you can make a difference. And so, this morning, Father, thank you that you want to use us to be a light until you come. Thank you that you are the Prince of Peace. You’ll never leave us or forsake us, so help us to shine and not whine.

The post Complaining appeared first on Community Bible Church.

01-25-2026 Bible Verses

Filled in Outline

Scroll to 22:34 for beginning of sermon

We’re going to read some scripture, and this is from Matthew chapter 16, verses 13 through 16. You can follow along as I read these verses. Matthew writes, when Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, who do people say the Son of Man is? And they replied, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others, Jeremiah, one of the prophets.

What about you, He asked, who do you say I am? Simon, and Peter said, you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

All right, Book of Colossians.

If you want to turn your Bibles there, Colossians chapter 1. We gave an introductory message a couple weeks ago. And then last week, we looked at three principles of prayer from Colossians chapter 1. That gratitude should be at the core of our prayers and our worship. That our prayer life should be persistent and consistent.

Paul’s praying for the Colossian church, and he says, I thank God every day for you. These are people that he’s never met before. And he’s praying for them on a daily basis.

And then thirdly, that the focus of our prayer life should be on the spiritual welfare and growth of others. This morning, we’re going to look at Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 through 23. And we sang that great song about it this morning as we opened up.

We’re going to think about life’s most important question. Life’s most important question. There are a lot of mundane questions that we ask.

The last few days, we’ve been asking, well, how much snow are we going to get? I don’t know about you, but I get a little frustrated with my weather app. It says 1 to 3, and then the next day, it goes to 3 to 5. And then this morning, I saw one weather report, 1 to 9 inches is what you’re going to get. How much snow are we going to get? Mundane questions like, and maybe this is male brain.

And guys, maybe you can relate to this. But I have to admit, when I’m finished with breakfast, I start thinking about, what am I going to have for lunch? What’s for lunch? There are a lot of important questions that we ask that are much more important than that. Especially as we get a little further on in our life’s journey and graduate from high school and we face questions like vocation, military, college.

If I go to college, what major? Where are we going to live? Are we going to buy? Are we going to rent? God’s will for my life, marriage or single? What about kids? What about education of kids? All these important questions that are vital to our life. But by far, the most important question in life is the one that we read in Matthew 16, where Jesus is up in Caesarea Philippi. It’s as far north as He ever got in His ministry.

And He says, who do people say that I am here? What’s the word on the street? Who is Jesus? Maybe He’s Jeremiah, maybe He’s Elijah, maybe He’s one of the prophets. And then Peter gives that right answer. No, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Jesus says, flesh and blood hasn’t revealed that to you, but my spirit has. And on this rock, which we believe is on this confession that you made, Peter, I’m going to build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And so, we’re going to think about life’s most important question, and it really is, who is Jesus? Dr. Erwin Lutzer, pastor emeritus of Moody Church in Chicago, a number of years ago wrote a book entitled Christ Among Other Gods.

He attended the World Parliament of Religions in 1993, that people came from all over the world to Chicago, and they had like a week-long conference of the world’s religions, and it was really kind of an ecumenical movement to have all the world religions unite. And Dr. Lutzer attended that, and this is what he wrote about that convention from 1993 of the Parliament of World Religions. Let me read a couple paragraphs for you here.

What place did Christ have in the more than 700 workshops that were available during the eight-day conference? At times, Christ was variously admired, quoted, and favorably compared to other religious teachers, ancient and modern. He was seen as one more stage in the evolutionary development of religion. Indeed, He was a very necessary and important stage, but He was only one enlightened man among many.

And he goes on to say things have not changed since then. If anything, we’ve even become more religiously tolerant than we used to. What I saw and heard at that conference is a microcosm of your school, your business, and your community.

The people who left next door and your associates at work most likely believe that it doesn’t matter what God you pray to, because every deity is ultimately the same deity shrouded in a different name. A Pew Research Center survey indicated that most Americans agree with this statement, that many religions, not just their own, can lead to eternal life. Among those who are affiliated with a religious tradition, seven in ten say many religions lead to eternal life.

In one sense, that problem of who is Jesus is what led the Apostle Paul to write the book of Colossians. And if you’re hearing our introductory message, you remember that the church at Colossae wasn’t started by the Apostle Paul, it was started by a man by the name of Epaphras. And Epaphras is in Colossae, and there’s this new fledgling church, and in comes false teachers who begin to teach false doctrine about the person of Christ and the way of salvation.

And so Epaphras travels 1,100 miles from Colossae to Rome, whose Paul’s under house arrest in Rome, to talk to Paul and to get some advice and to tell him what’s going on in the church. And then Paul, in response to that, writes the book of Colossians. Dr. Warren Wiersbe in his commentary says, the false teachers in Colossae, like false teachers of our day, would not deny the importance of Jesus.

They simply would dethrone Him, giving Him prominence, but not preeminence. Probably no paragraph in the New Testament contains more concentrated doctrine about who Jesus is than Colossians 1:15 through 23. And so why is Paul addressing this? Paul’s addressing this, who Jesus is, because he’s trying to combat the false teachers that had infiltrated the church at Colossae, who was saying, well, Jesus is just like one more step of enlightenment in the way to eternal life.

And Paul writes and tells us who Jesus is. So, this morning, and we won’t do this justice, because we’re going to just simply run through this passage and think about eight truths that the Apostle Paul says about who Jesus is, eight truths about the person of Christ. So, let’s work our way through, beginning in verse 15.

We’ll just make a comment briefly on a couple of these, on most of these. Here’s what Paul says. The Son, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God.

And so, Jesus is the exact image. The Greek word is eikón, from which we get the English word icon. He is the image of the invisible God.

The likeness of Jesus is the perfect image of who God the Father is. And that’s all through Scripture. John chapter 14, Jesus is talking to His disciples, and He’s at the end of His three-year ministry, and He’s asked a question by Philip, Lord, show us the Father, that will be enough for us.

What does Jesus say? Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I’ve been among you for a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. He’s saying, if you’ve seen me, Jesus, God in the flesh, that’s the exact representation of God the Father. And so, Paul begins his defense of who Jesus is by telling us that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

And the author of Hebrews drives that point home for us in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being. So, if you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father. Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

Notice what else the apostle Paul writes about the person of Christ. He’s the firstborn over all creation. Now, don’t think about the word firstborn in the thinking about chronology.

He’s talking about importance, the firstborn, importance, talking about the preeminent one. Jesus is the firstborn over all creation. Psalm 89:27, I will appoint Him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.

And so, Jesus is the preeminent one over all creation, and that’s why we worship Him. Because He’s the firstborn over all creation. But then notice what he says in verse 16.

I love the Scriptures because it answers for us life’s three most important questions. Where did I come from? Why am I here? And where am I going? And here Paul answers that first question, verse 16. For in Him, in Christ, all things were created.

So, the third thing he tells us about who Jesus is, that He is the creator of everything. If you go back to Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, notice the verbiage. It says, let us make man in our own image.

And so, the Trinity was involved in creation. And Jesus is the creator of all things. The Apostle John emphasizes that in the opening verses of his gospel.

For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made.

Without Him nothing was made that has been made. And so, we see that Jesus is the creator of all things. Everything you look at, this pulpit, this piano, this table, the pew, everything you look at has a designer.

Someone designed it. That’s true of creation as well. Jesus is the designer.

Jesus is the creator. He is the creator of all things. And so therefore when we see the beauty of creation, when we see that beautiful sunrise or that beautiful sunset, one of our responses needs to be to worship and thank God for that.

Jesus is the creator of all things. The fourth truth he tells us about who Jesus is in this text, verse 17. Let me read the rest of verse 16 because it’s a great verse.

For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him. Don’t skip that next phrase. And for Him.

So, I was created for God. I was created to bring God glory and bring God pleasure. That’s the very purpose of creation.

But verse 17 says He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. So, Paul says Jesus sustains everything. The reason we woke up this morning is because God woke us up.

The reason our heart’s still beating is because God’s keeping that heart pumping. God’s sustaining the universe and the order of the universe. And again, that’s the last part of Hebrews 1:3. Jesus is the exact representation of God’s glory, of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word.

Apart from Christ, this world and universe would disintegrate. Jesus is the sustainer of all things.

I think that maybe you’ve seen this before. It’s an older clip by Louie Giglio.

And he was giving a conference speech to a lot of young people. And I hope you’re familiar with Louie Giglio, but he is giving a speech about Colossians 1, about Jesus being the sustainer of everything.

Maybe you’ve seen it before, but it’ll be good to be reminded of what Louie has to tell us. Louie got excited about laminin, and maybe you’ll get excited about it too, that Jesus Christ is the one who sustains the universe.

Well, we’ve got four more to run through before we’re done this morning, so we’ll keep moving along. And fifth truth about Christ here in this passage on who Jesus is, verse 18, and He, Jesus, is the head of the body, the church. So, Paul reminds us who the head of the church is.

It’s not the pastor. It’s not the church board. It’s not some ecclesiastical structure.

It’s not the pope. It’s not some hierarchy. Jesus Christ is the head of the church.

That’s all through the book of Colossians, Ephesians, where Paul’s talking about the family, and he says Christ is the head of the church. In 1st Peter 5, He is the chief shepherd. So, Jesus Christ is the head of the church, the body.

The sixth truth, he goes on to say, verse 18, He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead. Now again, firstborn, don’t think chronology. He’s talking about importance.

And so, the most important person that was ever raised from the dead is Jesus. Jesus was not the first person to be raised from the dead. If you read through the Old Testament, Elijah raised the son of a widow in Zarephath.

Elisha raised the son of a Shunammite woman. Jesus raised the son of a widow in Nain. Of course, He raised the daughter of Jairus.

He raised Lazarus in John chapter 11. So, He’s not the first one in chronology to be raised from the dead, but He is of first importance. Why is that? Because the resurrection of Jesus from the dead guarantees our future resurrection.

Because I live, you shall live also. Because I conquered death and the grave, someday your bodies will be resurrected again. And if you know Jesus, they’ll be created into a body that is just like His physical body.

It’ll be a wonderful, remarkable body. No more sickness, no more pain, no more sorrow. It will be just like Him.

Jesus is the firstborn from among the dead. Well, two more in Paul’s description of who Jesus is. He’s the head of the body, the church.

He’s the beginning of the firstborn. He’s the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. So, Paul’s emphasizing the supremacy of Jesus, the preeminence of Christ.

Then he goes on to tell us and remind us that in Jesus dwells all of God’s fullness. He’s emphasizing this over and over again because the Colossian false teachers were saying that Jesus is just one step to God. And no, he’s saying, no, Jesus in Him dwells all of God’s fullness.

Verse 19, for God was pleased to have all of His fullness dwell in Him. The word fullness is the Greek word pléróma. It’s used eight times in the book of Colossians because Paul’s emphasizing the fullness of Christ and who He is, and He’s the exact representation of God.

In chapter 2, verse 9, he repeats this truth, for in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. So, one of the false teachings that crept into Colossae and became very popular in the decades to follow was Gnosticism. The Gnostics said that anything physical was sinful and anything that was immaterial was spiritual.

And so therefore God could not have a physical body because physical things represent sin. And so, Paul emphasizes that in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. Now here’s how Paul concludes this passage, and Louis just summarized it in his brief talk that we listened to.

Number eight, Jesus is the reconciler of all things by making peace through His blood, verses 20 through 22. And through Him, through Jesus, He’s to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth, in heaven, how by making peace through His blood shed on the cross. And he reminds us before we came to know Christ, our before-Christ situation.

Once you were alienated from God, and you were enemies in your mind because of your evil behavior, but now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight without blemish and free from accusation. In other words, when Christ died on the cross, when He became our sin substitute, 2nd Corinthians 5:19 through 21 says the righteousness of Christ, the perfection of Christ gets credited to our account. So, when we receive Christ as our Savior, He looks at us positionally as justified, just as if I’ve never sinned, because Christ’s righteousness is credited to our account.

Andy Stanley asked the question; how good do you have to be to get to heaven? The answer is perfect. God is holy. Therefore, there’s the problem.

That’s why Jesus came. That’s why He lived a perfect life. That’s why He went to the cross.

That’s why He took on our sin, your sin, my sin. And when we put our faith in Him, His perfection, His righteousness is credited to our account, and those of us that were separated from God can now be reconciled to God and made at peace with Him through His shed blood on the cross. Quite frankly, He’s not only reconciling people to Himself, but if you read scriptures, you discover that ultimately all of creation is going to be reconciled.

We’re living between Genesis 1 and 2, and the fall of man in Genesis 3, and Revelation 21 and 22, when there’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and all of creation is going to be renewed, and the lion’s going to lay down with the lamb, and we’re going to go back to what it was in the Garden of Eden. That’s why Paul says all of creation is groaning, waiting for that day. So, Jesus is the reconciler of all.

So, who is Jesus? Well, Paul tells us eight truths this morning. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Jesus is firstborn over creation.

He’s the creator of all things. He’s the sustainer of all things. He’s the head of the body, the church, the firstborn from among the dead.

In Him dwells all of God’s fullness, and He’s the reconciler, not only of you and me to God, but all of creation. Well, as we think about who Jesus is and what He’s done for us, we think about what it means to be in Christ. So, if you’ve received Christ Jesus as your Savior this morning, and you’ve been reconciled to Him, let me remind you of 12 statements that describe your identity.

If you’re in Christ, and I won’t quote the Scripture verses here at all, just read the phrases, you’re a new creation in Christ. God has chosen you to be His very own. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You can have the peace of God that passes all understanding. You have living in you the one who is greater than he who is in the world. You can have the mind of Christ and can live free from anxiety and depression.

Your God will supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory. You can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. You will be firmly rooted and built up and established in your faith and overflowing with gratitude.

You are strengthened with all might according to God’s power. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. And lastly, you are an overcomer by the blood of the lamb and the word of His.

That’s just a little bit of what it means to be in Christ. But what is life’s most important question? Who is Jesus? And as Josh McDowell writes in his book, and evidence that demands a verdict, calls it the trilemma entitled, Lord, Lunatic, or Liar? When you examine who Jesus is, who He claimed to be, you are put into three different categories. You either say He is who He claimed to be, He’s the Lord, He’s a lunatic who went around claiming to be God, or He’s a liar.

And when we examine the claims of Christ, there’s one right response. It’s to receive Him, receive the gift of His salvation, and it is to worship. So, I’m going to close by reading one of the great verses in all Scripture, and it’s from Philippians chapter 1, and then we’re going to close with prayer.

Here’s what Paul writes, again, about who Jesus is. He says, therefore, God has exalted Him to the highest place and given Him a name above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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01/18/2026 Blank Outline

01/18/2026 Filled in Outline

01/18/2026 Bible Verses

Scroll to 22:45 for beginning of sermon

We’re going to read some Scripture, and this is part of Paul’s prayer for the Colossian believers, and we’re going to unpack that in a little bit. 

But I’m just going to read the last five verses of his prayer. This is Colossians 1, 9-14. This is Paul writing to the believers at Colossae,

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you might live a life worthy of the Lord, and please Him in every way, bearing fruit in good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light, for He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

Well, we’re going to look at the book of Colossians. So, I love to get into book studies, and we introduced this last week. 

And I’ll always ask a bunch of questions at the beginning of studying a book that kind of set the introduction and the background. And so, we looked at five of them last week. I’m going to go over that really quickly, and then we’re going to jump into this passage. 

So, the first question we ask is, who wrote the book? And of course this is from the Apostle Paul, who wrote many of the letters in the New Testament, either to individuals or mostly to churches. What’s interesting about the book of Colossians is that Paul had never been there. There’s no record in the Bible that Paul visited Colossae, but one of his friends, converts by the name of Epaphras, came to know Christ, went back to his hometown of Colossae, and started a church. 

So, Paul wrote the book, and he wrote it to the Colossian church that got established through Epaphras. And when was it written? That’s another question that we ask. And this was written about 61 A.D., and Paul wrote it from Rome. 

He’s under house arrest. He’s awaiting trial. And Epaphras makes an almost 1,200-mile journey from Colossae to Rome to visit Paul. 

Why did he make that long journey that would have taken him probably a couple of months? Because this is the purpose of the book. There was false teachers that came in and were teaching false doctrine and leading those believers astray. And so Epaphras is concerned about the church and the stability of the church, and so he makes a trip to Paul in Rome, and he visits him, and he tells Paul about what’s going on, and then Paul sends this letter back to the Colossian believers.

And then we also looked at the outline of the book. So, with that having said, we’re going to jump into the section here, Principles for Prayer from Paul. So, a couple weeks ago on our first message of the year for 2026, we had a message entitled, 525,600 minutes. 

That’s how many minutes there are in a year. And the challenge was, how can we invest our time to make a difference with the 525,600 minutes that God gives us? And so, we came up with three Ps. We talked about being more intentional in prayer, how vital prayer is in our life.

We talked about parenting and really discipleship, how important it is to put God’s Word into the lives of the next generation, and that they’ll come to know Jesus and learn what it means to walk with Him. And then lastly, proselytizing, which is a fancy word for being intentional in sharing our faith. So, this morning, we’re going to come back to one of those challenges about prayer and look at three principles for prayer from Paul.

And so, here’s the first thing, a definition of prayer. It’s really, there’s many, but it’s pretty simple. Prayer is talking to God, and it’s His invitation to us to talk to Him. 

And the good thing is, He’s there 24-7, never going to get a busy signal, don’t have to make an appointment. He never sleeps. He never slumbers. 

He’s always there. And so, our spiritual life, our journey with Jesus involves communication. God speaks to us through His Word. 

That’s 66 books of His message to us, and we speak to Him through prayer. So, prayer is simply talking to God. How do we learn to pray? I’m sure in Christian colleges and seminaries, there are classes you can take on prayer, but practically speaking, I look back on my life growing up in a pastor’s home, being in church every single Sunday of my life since I was two weeks old, I began to learn to pray by listening to other people pray. 

So, I had the privilege of growing up in this wonderful church in Cleveland, Ohio, where my dad pastored and was there all the time, and I began to learn how to pray by kind of listening to other people pray growing up in the church. I’m sure there are books we can read on prayer, but we can also learn how to pray by studying the prayers in the Bible. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them one thing, not better evangelism techniques or how to have victory over sin, but the one question they said, will you teach us something? They said, will you teach us to pray? And so, we have in the Bible the Lord’s Prayer. 

Some people call it the disciples’ prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

Give us this day our daily bread. You know the prayer, and Jesus used that, and it’s okay to recite that prayer. He also used it as a model prayer, so we can learn how to pray by studying the Lord’s Prayer, but there are also great prayers in the Bible that we can study and learn from.

A lot of them in the Old Testament, the prayer of Elijah. Remember on Mount Carmel and there’s this big contest like who’s the true God, and it’s going to be the God who answers by fire, and it was one prophet of God, Elijah, versus 450 prophets of Baal, and there’s a great prayer that Elijah prays, and God answers that prayer and sends fire from heaven. There’s the prayer of Nehemiah when he was heartbroken about the condition of his hometown Jerusalem that had been ravished.

The walls had been torn down, and Nehemiah gives a great prayer in the book of Nehemiah. David has some great prayers of repentance, Psalm 32, Psalm 51. The prayer of King Solomon at the dedication of the temple. 

The prayer of Jonah from the belly of a fish. That’s an interesting prayer to study, but what we want to do is we want to look at another great prayer, and it’s Paul’s prayer for the Colossian believers here in Colossians chapter 1, and we’re going to look basically at three principles, truths, from Paul’s prayer that will help us in our prayer life. So that’s where we’re headed, and as I’ve heard my friend Dr. Lutzer say many, many times, he’s pastor emeritus of Moody Church, he says, my job is to speak and your job is to listen, and hopefully we finish at the same time. 

Here’s our first principle for prayer, is that gratitude or thankfulness should be at the core of our prayer life. Gratitude and thankfulness to God should be at the very core of our prayer life and of our worship. And we see that in Paul’s prayer, he kind of bookends his prayer by starting out with thanks and ending with thanks. And so, look at how he starts this prayer in verse three of Colossians 1, we always thank God. 

So, he starts out with what? Gratitude and thankfulness. And how does he end his prayer? Well, toward the end in verse 12, giving joyful thanks to the Father. And so, Paul’s prayers are always characterized by gratitude and thankfulness. 

And when you look at all of his letters in the New Testament, almost every one of them starts with gratitude and praise. And so, I’m just going to illustrate that, and I’ll just read a bunch of the beginnings of Paul’s prayers to the Roman believers, Romans 1:8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you. 1st Corinthians 1:4, I always thank God for you. 

Ephesians 1:16, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Philippians 1:3, I thank my God every time I remember you and all my prayers for you. As we mentioned in 1st Thessalonians 1:2, to the Thessalonian church, we always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in all of our prayers. 

To Timothy, 2nd Timothy 1, I thank God whom I serve as day and night. I constantly remember you in my prayers. To Philemon, verse 4, I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers. 

And so, you study the prayers of Paul, and he always starts with thankfulness and gratitude to God. So, there’s not only a pattern there when we look at the prayers of the Bible, but the Bible is also prescriptive in telling us to give thanks. In other words, there’s some commands, there’s some imperatives. 

You read the book of Psalms, and you see this phrase over and over again, give thanks to God. Give thanks to God. And so, the writers of the Psalms are always imploring us, encouraging us to what? Give God praise and thanksgiving. 

In fact, I looked it up, it’s there 74 times in the book of Psalms. It tells us give thanks to God. We see it in another one of Paul’s letters from prison.

The prison epistle, Colossians is a prison epistle, Philippians is written from prison, Philippians 4:6, do not be anxious about anything. We could preach a whole sermon on that this morning, can’t we? Because if you’re like me, you might have some things in your life that tend to keep you awake at night. Join the club, some worries, some concerns. 

And what does Paul tell us here? It’s an imperative, again, don’t worry. Stop worrying. Somebody said worrying is like a rocking chair. 

It gives us something to do, but it gets us nowhere. But then Paul tells us what to do. Instead of worrying, he says, in every situation, by prayer and petition, here it is, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. 

1st Thessalonians 5, rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in everything. And so, there’s not just a pattern in the Bible that says we need to give thanks, it’s prescribed for us. We’re to give God thanks. 

So, gratitude should be at the core of our prayer life. Now back to Colossians 1, what is Paul thankful for? What is he giving thanks for? And there’s really five truths that we’re going to look at that are the object or the reason for Paul’s gratitude. So let me read the text here again.

We always thank God, verse 3, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, here’s the first reason, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people, the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel. Did you pick up three key words there that are the three key words of our Christian faith? Paul says, now abides faith, hope, and love. Paul is thankful for the faith of the Colossian church, the love that they have, and the hope that they have in Jesus. 

Faith, hope, and love, the foundational truths of the gospel. And that’s where he starts. And notice that he says, I’ve heard of your faith. 

So, he hasn’t been there, he hasn’t physically been with these people, but he hears about their faith, hope, and love, and he’s grateful for the Colossian church and their faith, hope, and love. He’s also grateful for the expansion of the gospel, the expansion of the gospel. Verse 6, the gospel that has come to you in the same way the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 

So, he says, I’m thankful for your faith, hope, and love. I’m also thankful that the gospel is spreading, that the gospel is spreading throughout the world. And we know that Paul’s ministry was an important part of that. 

He took these three journeys. That’s one of the ways that the gospel spread. So, he’s thankful for the spread of the gospel. 

If I were to ask you this morning, where in the world do you think the gospel is impacting and spreading the fastest? I don’t know what would be the answer to that question in your mind, but I’ll tell you where it is, and it’s in the continent of Africa. The gospel in the continent of Africa is far outpacing the growth of Christianity in any other place in the world. Let me just give you some statistics here. 

Africa stands at the forefront of global Christian growth, now having more Christians than in North America. Nigeria ranks first in Christian growth. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to see its Christian population nearly double in the next 30 years. 

Some more statistics from, this is from the Christian Post article, November 2025. They’re looking at the definition of evangelical Christians. So, they’re studying evangelical Christians. 

You see, when you take a survey and it asks if you’re a Christian, that is a very broad term, and there are many, many people, and this is what I talked to some of the middle schoolers at Clinton about, there are many, many people in our country today that call themselves Christian that aren’t Christians. They don’t know Jesus personally, but they’ll say they’re a Christian. And so perhaps the term evangelical Christian is a little more accurate.

Around 70% of evangelical Christians today live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Describing evangelical churches in Africa as vibrant and quickly growing, nearly 70% of all Christian growth around the world is occurring in Africa. And so, when we get to heaven, there’s going to be a lot of people that look a lot different from us in heaven. 

And Paul’s thanking God for the advance of the church worldwide, and today it is growing very, very quickly in Africa. Now one of the challenges of Christian growth in Africa is that most of the pastors that are pastoring these churches have very little education. 90% of them have never had the chance to take a course in theology or anything, and so that’s a great problem that Christian leaders are trying to bring training to those pastors in Africa to give them some theological foundation. 

So, gratitude should be at the core of our prayer life. Paul’s thankful for the faith, hope, and love of the believers. He’s also thankful that the gospel is spreading throughout the world. 

He gives another reason why he’s thankful, and it’s found in verse 13, toward the end of his prayer, for God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. We need to remember what God’s done for us. We used to live in the kingdom of darkness, and now He’s brought us into the kingdom of light.

We used to be dead in our transgressions and sins, and God, through Jesus, has made us alive in Jesus Christ. If God did nothing other for you in your entire life other than rescue you from the kingdom of darkness, we should be eternally grateful to Him for what He’s done. So, Paul’s thankful for the rescue from Satan’s kingdom. 

Then he goes on to give us a couple more reasons what he’s thankful for in verse 14, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. In whom we have redemption. Now the word redemption literally means to buy back.

It’s release on the payment of a ransom. That’s what redemption means. Here’s a poster that probably many of you have not seen before, but maybe you’ve heard about. This is from Charles Llindbergh, Jr. Let me give you the background of this. This is from a long time ago. Here’s the background story. 

I don’t know if we can read the fine print there, but here’s the story. On March 1st, 1932, the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped from their home in Hopewell, New Jersey. Imagine the horror of that, that your 20-month-old son is gone. 

A ransom note was discovered by Charles on the windowsill of the nursery shortly after the child was reported as missing. The note demanded a ransom of $50,000 for the safe return of the child. In today’s economy, that’s about $900,000 equivalent. 

So, they’re asking for $50,000 or you’re not getting your son back. Following the initial note, several additional notes were sent with demands increasing to $70,000. This was dubbed the crime of the century.  The case ultimately led to the arrest of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was executed for the crime in 1936. The ransom was paid, but the child was never returned. Tragically, Charles Lindbergh Jr.’s body was found less than five miles from the Lindbergh home on May 12th, 1932.

A ransom, a ransom. And the Bible says that we were held under ransom. We were in the depths of slavery to sin and to the devil.  And Jesus paid the ransom. The blood of Jesus that paid our sin debt makes us part of His kingdom. And so, Paul’s thankful for the faith, hope, and love of the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light that we’ve been redeemed. 

We’ve been bought back through the blood of Jesus and our sins are forgiven, Romans 8:1. There’s no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. When Jesus looks at us, when God looks at us positionally, He sees us through, when we put our faith in Christ, He sees us in Christ. And what has happened is the righteousness of Christ, His perfection gets credited to our account. Jesus sees us as forgiven. I will remember your sins no more. It doesn’t mean that He forgets them. I’ll never hold them against you again. And what’s amazing is that there’s no sin that’s beyond the grace and forgiveness of God. So, here’s our first point, is that we need to be thankful. 

It needs to be at the core of our prayer life and at the core of our worship. Here’s the second one, second truth from this passage. Our prayer life should be consistent and persistent.  Our prayer life needs to be consistent and persistent. Look at verse 9. We read it in our scripture reading, for this reason, because all that God’s done for us since the day we heard about you. Now remember, Paul’s never met these people personally.

Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will. And he goes on to ask some more requests.  And so, here’s our second truth that, and if you’re like me, sometimes prayer life is start, stop, start, stop, jump start. But the Bible says we need to be consistent and persistent in our prayer life. Paul challenged the Ephesian believers with these words, pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. 

With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. And then Paul says, pray for me as well. So where can we start? Let’s pray for all of God’s people.  Let’s pray for one another. Paul said, pray for me, your missionary. Pray for me, your pastor.  Our prayer life should be consistent and persistent. Matthew chapter 7 says, keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. In Luke chapter 11, after Dr. Luke records the Lord’s prayer in the first four verses of Luke 11, then Jesus tells a story about persistence in prayer. 

Now just keep on asking and keep on seeking. Here’s the story that he told. Suppose you have a friend and you go to him at midnight. Now, unless it’s an absolute emergency, I’ll be in bed by 9:30. So, I mean, you could call me at midnight, but make it an emergency. So, a friend comes at midnight and he says, friend, lend me three loaves of bread. 

A friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have no food to offer him. So, he’s at his friend’s house at midnight. He says, I had some unexpected company and I don’t have any food to feed him, which was Mideastern hospitality. And so, could you lend me some bread? Can you lend me some food? And suppose the one inside says, don’t bother me. The doors already locked. Some of you can relate to this. 

And my children and I are in bed. Remember that stage. Maybe some of you are still in it.  I can’t get up and give you anything. Jesus says, I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity, the New Living Translation says, shameless persistence. In other words, they’re not leaving. 

They just keep knocking at that door. He will surely get up and give you as much as you need. And then Jesus says, ask and it will be given you. 

Keep seeking, keep asking, keep knocking. And so, the matter is that our prayer life needs to be consistent. Sometimes when we pray about something, and if you’re like me, you pray about something for a few weeks, maybe a couple months, and then it’s like, I guess God’s not going to answer that one, and so we give up. The Bible says, no, keep on praying, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking.

Let’s look at our third point from Colossians chapter 1, our third truth that we can learn from Paul’s prayer, and it’s this, our prayer life should focus on the spiritual welfare and growth of other people. This should be the focus of our prayer life, it’s spiritual welfare and warfare, both would fit, but the spiritual welfare and spiritual growth of others. So, what’s Paul praying about here? We continually ask God to fill you with all the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, so that you might have great endurance and patience. So, when you study the prayers of Paul, they’re almost exclusively focused on other people coming to Christ and people growing in their spiritual walk. 

Now, not that it’s wrong to pray for those that have other needs, it’s not wrong to pray for financial needs. God wants us to bring every one of our needs to Him. It’s not wrong to pray for people that are sick and have physical problems and need our prayers. 

James tells us to do that. Let those that are sick call the elders of the church and have them come pray over you. Now, that’s biblical, but as we mentioned a number of months ago, our prayer life needs to be balanced, and sometimes our prayer life is just a long list of kind of organ recital of physical needs, and what we’re saying here is Paul’s focus was on the spiritual wealth and welfare and growth of others. 

So, there’s two main requests here as we read this passage, and I think we have them on the screen. Here’s the first one that we read. His first main request for the Colossian believers is that they would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will.

So, I’m praying that your life would be filled with what God’s will is for your life, and if there’s one main question, especially young people, teenagers, college age, that they ask a lot of times, and all of us are wondering this, what’s God’s will for my life? I want to do God’s will, but I don’t know what it is. What is God’s will for my life? And here’s perhaps some guidance here. The more you know God, the more you know the scriptures, the more you will know God’s will for your life. 

The more you know God, the more you know God’s word, which is where God’s will is revealed in many, many areas, the more you’ll know God’s will for your life. And so, the request is, I want you to know and be filled with God’s will for your life. Well, that request is not just for head knowledge then, it’s that for life transformation. 

And so, he says, so that. So, God’s will for our life should lead us to these four things, and they’re found in verse 10, so that you might live a life worthy of the Lord. So, I want you to live a life that is worthy of the Lord. 

If I were to paraphrase that, let’s say, Paul says, I want you to be a good advertisement for a Christian. I want you to be able to live a life that others would look at you and say, man, I’d like to model my life, my Christian walk after that person. And I never preach on Colossians chapter 1, verse 10, without bringing in my little wedding band here. 

I haven’t worn it lately because I can’t get it over my knuckles. But 48 and a half years ago, Diane and I stood before a church family in Fort Wayne, Indiana. My dad was the pastor, and we exchanged wedding vows. 

We were both 21 years old. But while we were dating, we picked a life verse that we could kind of implement as our verse and our prayer for our lives and our marriage. It’s actually engraved inside my wedding band. 

And that life verse is Colossians 1:9, and 10. God, would you fill us with your will, the knowledge of what your plan is for our life, so that we will live a life that is worthy of you. There’s a second so that, so that we will please God in every way. 

So, we’re looking, what, with our lives, to please God. How do you know how to please God? Again, it’s got to be from God’s Word. Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 5:7, we make it our aim to please God, so that our lives will be worthy of Him, that we will please Him, that we will bear fruit in every good work. 

So, we are not saved by good works, but the Bible very clearly says, Ephesians 2:10, we’re saved to do good works. And the apostle Paul’s prayer is that the church in Colossae will bear fruit in every good work. In other words, that we’ll be productive lives. 

What does that fruit look like? There’s a number of things in the Bible that’s characterized by fruit. Number one is our character. Go to Galossions, I mean Galatians, Galossions? 

I’m combining Colossians and Galatians. It’s Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit. What’s the character of our life? Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, meekness, self-control. 

That’s the fruit of the Spirit, of the Spirit working in our lives, but then it’s evidenced by our conduct. What else is fruit? Converts, leading people to Christ, continual praise to God. Hebrews talks about the fruit of our lips, praise to God, what we’re doing this morning, and singing songs of praise to Him.

And the last, so that is growing in the knowledge of God. Well, the second main prayer request then that Paul asks, first of all, that you’ll know God’s will, revealed in God’s Word. Here’s the second one, strengthened with God’s power, strengthened with God’s power. 

Do not try to live the Christian life in your own strength. That’s a formula for failure. So, what do we need every day? We need a dependence upon God and His strength, not self-sufficient, but God-dependency.

I love the hymn, I Need Thee, every hour I need thee. We need God in our life every day, and so we need His strength and His power in our lives. Strengthened with God’s power, so that, now here’s the results of this, strengthened with God’s power so that you have great endurance and patience. 

So those are two words that are different words in the Greek. One of them has to do with patience during trying circumstances. The word is hupomoné, and when we get in crisis, when we get in difficult circumstances, if you’re like me, the first thing you ask God is like, can you get me out of here, please? God sometimes does that, but oftentimes He wants us to remain under that pressure and that trial because James tells us, what does trials work in our life? It works endurance, and endurance works patience, and it develops character and trust in God. 

So, one of the words has to do, hupomoné, patience with circumstance. The other word is makrothumeó, and that has to do with patience with people. I know you don’t have any challenging people in your life, but some of us do, most of us do, and makrothumeó literally is a Greek word that makros means long, thumos is anger.

In other words, we need to have a long fuse, don’t we? We need to have our anger under control and be very, very, very patient with people. I’ve watched the ends of a couple NFL games during this big NFL weekend. I noticed the one fellow on the Buffalo Bills didn’t agree with a call that let the other team win, and he takes his helmet off, and he slams it down to the ground in front of the ref.

And then there was another fellow that takes his helmet, and he threw it against the wall down the runway. It could have bounced off and injured somebody. They were angry.

And I said, we need to have a long-term patience with circumstances and with people. And then what are the other results of this? Joyfulness and gratitude and giving joyful thanks to the Father who’s qualified you to share in the inheritance of His people in the kingdom of life. I like one author who kind of summarized this passage in terms of how to pray for other Christians. 

This is from the Life Application Bible. It’s how to pray for other Christians right out of Colossians 1. There’s seven things. He says, be thankful for their faith and change lives. 

Ask God to help them know His will. Ask God to give them spiritual wisdom and understanding. Ask God to help them live to honor and please Him. 

Ask God to give them more knowledge of Himself. Ask God to give them strength for endurance and patience. Ask God to fill them with joy and thankfulness. 

So, three prayer principles for us that we can learn from Paul is that gratitude needs to be at the core of our prayer life and of our worship, thanking God for all that He’s done, that He’s rescued us, that He’s redeemed us, that our prayer life needs to be consistent and persistent. I love what the late Dr. George Sweeting, who died in the last year or so, just a few months before his 100th birthday, and he used to say, the Christian life is a series of new beginnings. And I’ve had very many new beginnings and things that I’ve started and disciplines that I’ve let go by the wayside, and guess what? What are we going to do? Just say, well, I’ve tried that, that doesn’t work. 

No, God wants us to what? Start again. And so, our prayer life needs to be consistent and persistent. And then thirdly, focus on the spiritual welfare and the growth of others. 

We prayed for each of our kids, and I even do alliteration in my prayers, but here’s how I prayed from when they were young. Salvation, that they come to know Jesus. Sanctification, that they grow in their faith.

And then thirdly, service, that they understand God’s gift to them and how they can serve God with their life. And so, I trust those are helpful prayers and that that’ll challenge you in your prayer life.

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Intro to Colossians – Blank Outline

Intro to Colossians – Filled in Outline

Bible Verses – Colossians 1:1-6

Scroll to 22:31 for beginning of sermon

All right, we’re going to read from Colossians chapter 1 and this is the first six verses and we’re going to kind of introduce the book of Colossians this morning and then in the succeeding weeks we’re going to dive into this book. So let me read Colossians 1 through 6, you can follow as I read.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you. In this same way the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understand God’s grace.

Well, as you picked up from our scripture reading this morning, we’re going to jump into a book study, and that’s where I’m more comfortable. I like to get into books and just go right through and see what God has for us.

So, we’re going to look at the book of Colossians this morning. And if I were to ask you this morning, what do we know about the book of Colossians? It’s a letter, a letter written by Paul, found in the New Testament. Written to the people of Colossae. That’s all true.

So, here’s how I always approach a book at the beginning. I like to ask lots of questions. This is kind of like an investigative reporter.

So, this morning we’re going to ask five questions, and then we’re going to look at some application of what this book can mean for us. So here are the five questions, and some of them you’ve already answered, but we’ll go over them again. Who wrote the book? Secondly, to whom was it written? When was it written? Why was it written? And then what’s the content of the book? What’s the book all about? And so that’s where we are headed this morning.

And then as I mentioned, we’ll conclude with some application questions. So, when we ask the question, who wrote the book? And of course, we read that this morning. There are really two answers to that question, and the big picture answer is God did, right? All 66 books of the Bible, we read in 2nd Timothy 3, verse 16, all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

Did you get those four purposes? God’s Word is for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. And so, in one sense, the job of the person opening up God’s Word isn’t always to make us feel good. Someone has said the job of the pastor is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and there are times where the truth of God’s Word should correct us and rebuke us.

But ultimately, God wrote the book, all 66 books, and 2nd Peter 1, verse 21, reaffirms that. Prophecy, or God’s Word, never had its origin in the human will. These aren’t man’s ideas.

But prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And so, the words in this book are literally God-breathed, every word. Therefore, the Bible is inspired by God, the Holy Spirit.

He used the writer’s personalities, but He spoke through them. So, it’s inspired. In the original writings, it is inerrant.

There are no errors. And therefore, it is infallible. It will never lead us astray or point us in the wrong direction.

And so, God wrote it, but the human author was the apostle, Paul. The Bible was written by 40 different authors over 1,500 years. That’s a long time.

We’re going to celebrate birthday number 250 in the United States on July 4th. The Bible was written over 1,500 years by 40 different authors. And the amazing thing is there’s one central theme.

It’s the theme of salvation. J. Sidlow Baxter wrote a book, The Master Theme of the Bible, and he said, the master theme of the Bible is the Lamb of God, the Lamb. And almost in every book of the Bible, Old Testament to New Testament, there’s the theme of the Lamb, the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, Jesus arrives, behold the Lamb of God.

And so, the apostle Paul wrote the book inspired by God. Now when we ask the question, who wrote most of the New Testament? There’s a couple answers to that as well. The apostle Paul wrote most of the books, but by volume, the most prolific human author in the New Testament is Dr. Luke.

He wrote the Gospel of Luke, a long gospel. He wrote the book of Acts, a long book. And so, if you look at volume, Luke wrote more of the New Testament by volume than Paul did, although Paul wrote many more letters.

All right, so there’s question number one. Question number two, to whom was it written? And again, that was in our Scripture reading. It’s written to God’s holy people in Colossae. Paul refers to them as the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.

Colossae is about 100 miles away from the city of Ephesus, located in modern-day Turkey, if you were to go there today, although the city of Colossae doesn’t exist today. But that is the city of Colossae there, as I mentioned, about 100 miles east of Ephesus. And here’s the interesting thing.

I think I knew this, but I must have forgotten. Paul never visited Colossae. He might have passed through it, maybe on one of his missionary journeys, but when you read the book of Acts, there is no mention of the apostle Paul on any of his missionary journeys visiting Colossae.

And so, you might think, well, then how did this all develop? Well, we’ll get into that in… well, let’s get into it right now. In our Scripture reading, if we would have gone one verse further, Colossians 1:7, Paul’s talking about the gospel and how it’s impacting the world. Verse 7, you learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf.

Ah, so the Colossian church wasn’t founded by the apostle Paul, but they heard the gospel from Epaphras. And now there’s a little bit of sanctified speculation here, but how did Epaphras hear the gospel? Well, Paul was in Ephesus for a long time. He ministered there two, I think three years, and so scholars think that Epaphras may have come to faith in Christ at Ephesus through Paul’s ministry, and then Epaphras makes his way back home to Colossae, and what does he do? He begins to share the gospel, and people come to faith in Christ, and a church is established.

And so, at the end of this book, Paul gives greetings to the church at Colossae from Epaphras. This is, I’m going to read Colossians 4:12, Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you that you may stand firm in the will of God, mature and assured.

And so, there’s the city of Colossae. The church wasn’t founded by Paul. It was founded perhaps through one of Paul’s converts.

His name was Epaphras. Let me just read a little more background about the city of Colossae. Back in the first century, the city of Colossae was an important economic hub for much of its history.

Renowned for its textile production, it was located in the region of Phrygia, which is now a section of modern-day Turkey. Scholars throughout history have generally agreed that the city had declined sharply by Paul’s time, retaining only a shadow of its former glory. It was ravished by an earthquake around A.D. 60 and eventually faded from prominence, with most of its population slowly drifting into more favorable locations.

And so, at one time, Colossae was a very prominent city, but because of some things that changed and really some geographical roads that were now no longer going through Colossae, it has kind of sharply declined. And as I said today, the city does not exist. Well, question number three then, when was it written? When was this written? And most scholars think between 60 and 62 A.D., so we’re going to just plug in halfway between those two.

Let’s say it was written about 61 A.D. So, what we’re looking at this morning is a letter written by Paul to the church that’s well over 2,000 years old, two millennium. And so, Paul wrote it in 61 A.D., and it’s one of the prison epistles.

So, Paul’s in Rome under house arrest, and he’s going to go to trial, and he’s awaiting trial. And so, he’s under house arrest. He’s able to have visitors come and go, but he’s awaiting trial, and he doesn’t know what the outcome of that trial is going to be.

And so, Paul’s under house arrest for two years. But Paul makes some wise use of his time. He has visitors, he ministers them, and then he writes four letters.

They’re called the prison epistles. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, all written by the apostle Paul when he was in prison. So, it was written in 61 A.D. during Paul’s house arrest in Rome.

All right, question number four. We’ll spend a little more time on this one. Why was the book written? Why did Paul…what was the motivation, what was the impetus for Paul to write this letter? And here it is.

It’s to warn believers of false doctrine and to encourage them to grow spiritually. So, Paul writes this letter to warn this church, these new believers, about false doctrine, wrong teaching, and he wants to encourage them in their spiritual walk, in their Christian growth. Now, you might say, well, how did Paul find out about what was going on at the church of Colossae? And here’s what happened.

Because, as I just read in the end of the book here, Colossians chapter 4, verse 12, Epaphras, who is one of you, sends greetings. So Epaphras is with Paul in Rome. Epaphras is the key person in the church of Colossae.

And when I looked at the map to see where Colossae is, where Rome is, 1,180 miles. Now, Epaphras didn’t hop on a plane and fly to Colossae, did he? He had to travel by land, probably by sea, 1,180 miles to go visit the apostle, Paul. It had to take him probably a couple of months.

I mean, back then, there’s no communication, there’s no cell phones, there’s no texting, there’s no emailing. And so, what is motivating Epaphras to make that kind of journey for that amount of time to talk to the apostle Paul? And what’s motivating him is false teaching. Epaphras is concerned about the very essence and life of the church at Colossae because of false doctrine, and Epaphras needs to talk to somebody who is more versed and knows a lot more than he does.

And so, he goes a long way to talk to the apostle Paul. And so, he kind of tells the apostle Paul what’s going on, who these false teachers are, what some of these issues are, and then Paul uses that information to correct it and to write the book of Colossians. And here’s what I’ve learned.

When you’re in crisis, and I think Epaphras probably was, and the church probably was, when you’re in crisis, whether individually or as a church, you will go a long way to get some help. You will go to great lengths. When you are in pain, when we’re in physical pain, we’ll get that taken care of.

When we’re in emotional pain or a crisis in our life, we’ll go a long way to get some help. And that’s what motivated Epaphras. He’s concerned about the church and its future direction.

When you’re in crisis, you’ll go a long-ways to try to get some help and encouragement, and I think this is what Epaphras is doing. And so, he makes that 1,100-1,200-mile journey to meet with the Apostle Paul because of some false teaching, and the future of the church was at stake. So, what is some of the false teaching that had begun to infiltrate the church at Colossae? Let me just give you a quick overview.

There was false teachers with a defective view of Christ. They were denying His real and true humanity and not accepting His full deity. There was a false belief in the first century called Gnosticism that believed anything that was physical was evil.

And so, how could God be human flesh? And so, there was a false teaching about who Jesus was. Paul also appears to dispute the Jewish emphasis on circumcision and traditions. As with all early churches, the issue of Jewish legalism in Colossae was a great concern to Paul.

So radical was the concept of salvation by grace apart from works that those steeped in Old Testament law found it very difficult to grasp, very difficult to let go of their old traditions that were in the Old Testament. Consequently, there was a continuing movement among legalists to add certain requirements from the law to salvation. Primarily among them was the requirement of circumcision, which was still practiced among the Jewish converts.

And so, Epaphras tells the apostle Paul what’s going on and what these false teachers are trying to promote, and that’s the impetus to write the letter of Colossians. He wants to correct some doctrinal error. He also wants to encourage them in spiritual growth, and that’s the second part of the book.

Chapters 3 and 4, he writes about how it worked to live the Christian life. And so, the first part is primarily some doctrinal things, and then chapters 3 and 4, the second part has to do with application. All right, last question, and then we’ll look at some three application truths.

What is the outline? What’s the content of the book? So, as I mentioned, part one, the first two chapters, Paul writes about the supremacy of Christ, that Christ is preeminent, and he wants to correct this error, this false understanding of who Jesus is. And so, that’s chapters 1 and 2.

There’s an introduction, there’s the preeminence of Christ, 1:15, through chapter 2, verse 3, and then Paul talks about freedom in Christ.

And then the second part of the book, part 2, chapters 3 and 4, has to do with submission to Christ. And so, this is the practical aspect, and the apostle Paul talks about the position of the believer, the practice of the believer, and then he concludes the book.

So, that’s kind of the outline that we’ll follow as we study the book of Colossians. So, I’d like us to think about what are some application truths from this this morning? Because the purpose of Scripture is not like, okay, now maybe I have some more knowledge of the book of Colossians. Now maybe I know that, you know, Paul never visited there.

Now maybe I know that it was probably started by his convert Epaphras, and now I know that there’s some doctrinal errors. But what can we learn this morning that can challenge our lives? And so, I want to share three things. And here’s the first one that I want to draw from our background study here overview.

Number one is that every believer is a minister of the gospel. Every believer, if you know Jesus, you’re a minister of the gospel. And I take that point, that application from Colossians 1:7, that the church of Colossians wasn’t started by what we think of as a clergy person or a missionary.

It was started by a layman. It was started by somebody just like you, sitting in the pew, who heard the gospel and went to his hometown and shared it. And so, we need to realize that if we know Jesus, we are a minister of the gospel.

Someone wrote this, whenever we hear the word minister or ministry, people often think of the pastor. But it’s important to know and remember that every believer is called to minister. And so, all through the New Testament, the apostle Paul writes to different believers about this point that, hey, we all have a spiritual gift, at least one, and we have a responsibility to use that gift.

And so, Romans 12, verse 6, we have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophecy, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve.

If your gift is teaching, then teach. This is not an exclusive list, by the way. If it is to encourage, then give.

Maybe you’ve got the gift of encouragement. I know some people like that. And every time I’m around them, I leave them feeling encouraged.

If it is giving, then give generously. Many people have been blessed with the gift of giving who give generously to meet the needs of other people and to spread the gospel. If it is to lead, do it diligently.

If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. And so, every one of us, if we know Jesus, is called to minister. Ephesians chapter 4, same principle, that God gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip God’s people for what? Works of service, to do the work of the ministry.

Then we read in verse 16, from Christ, the whole body grows and builds itself up in love. How does that happen? As each heart does its work. So, as everybody in the body finds out what their gift is and begins to use it, what happens? The body grows. And so, every person is a minister if you know Jesus as your Savior.

And I really believe that, I mean, if you’ve known Jesus for more than a couple of years, you ought to be able to answer this question, what’s your spiritual gift? And the second question is, am I using that to advance God’s kingdom? I really believe it’s a question that when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, God’s not only given us the gift of salvation, but he’s equipped us and he’s given us a spiritual gift, and I’m like, what’d you do with it? And so, every believer is a minister, and the church at Colossae was established because Epaphras used his giftedness and he shared the gospel. He maybe had the gift of evangelism, that’s another one of the gifts, and the gospel spread. So, truth number one, every believer is a minister of the gospel.

Here’s the second one, as part of God’s family, I always like to refer to our church as the church family, because that’s really what brothers, what Christians are, they’re brothers and sisters in Christ. You pick that up all through the letter, it’s written to the faithful, brothers and sisters in Christ. In chapter one, verse one, Paul refers to Timothy, our brother, at the end of the book, he’s sending some greetings, Tychicus, our brother, greets you, Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, give my greetings to the brothers and sisters at Laodicea.

And so, as part of God’s family, we can impact the lives of people who we’ve never met. That’s application truth number two, as part of God’s family, we can impact people that we’ve never met. And that was true for Paul.

Colossians 2:1, haven’t read this yet, but just to give more emphasis here, I want you to know, how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, nearby city, and for all who have not met me personally. Paul says, I’m striving for your church and the Laodicean church, and I’ve never met you. And so, here’s Paul, he’s writing this letter to people he’s never met.

He’s faithfully praying for people he has never met, and as part of God’s family, as ministers of the gospel, we can impact the lives of people that we’ve never met, and maybe we’ll never meet them until heaven someday. So, how does that work? How do we do that? Well, there’s a couple of basic ways. One’s through financial giving.

So, as we… And let me just say to all of you, thank you for your faithful giving as part of Community Bible Church. You know, years ago, like most churches, we had an offertory and passed an offering plate, then COVID hit, and so we kind of came up with different ways. And so, I’ve had visitors come ask me, like, don’t you guys ever take an offering? Well, we kind of do.

We just got that box back there. What I learned during COVID, because people began to mail in their gifts, is that our giving increased during COVID. And then we just put that box back there and say, well, as long as God’s meeting our needs, we’re just going to keep that box back there and trust Him to meet our needs.

And so, as we give, it impacts lives in the Dominican Republic, in Haiti, the Van Tiems serving in Scotland, the Woodards have ministered in Papua New Guinea, the Jenks with Awana Ministry in South Central Michigan. And then, through our Celebration Sundays, we just invested $10,000 in Tactica Ministry. And believe me, that ministry is touching hundreds of lives in law enforcement, in Costa Rica, in the United States, in many places around the world.

As you give, that enables the gospel to meet their needs, and someday you’ll meet some people in heaven that you’ve never met, and maybe they’ll say, hey, thank you for your generous giving. Same thing’s true of prayer, the same principle. Paul’s praying for these people that he’s never met.

Verse 9 of chapter 1, for this reason, since the day we heard about you, we’ve not stopped praying for you. I’m sure Paul had a long prayer list, you know, with all of his ministries and churches that he was involved with, but here he’s writing to people he’s never met, and they’re on his prayer list.

So, through our prayers, through giving, through witnessing, maybe leading a person to Christ who will lead other people to Christ, we can impact the lives of people we’ve never met. And someday, I think in heaven, we might hear those words.

There was that song by Ray Boltz a number of years ago, thank you for giving to the Lord, I’m a life that was changed. And so, I don’t think until we get to heaven, we’ll know the full extent of the impact of faithfulness here in giving, in praying, and in sharing the gospel. All right, one more this morning, and then we’re done.

Every believer’s a minister of the gospel, as a part of God’s family, we can impact the lives of people we’ve never met. Number three is the importance of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Now those are just big words that really mean right belief and right behavior.

The importance of right belief, of knowing the truth, and the importance of right behavior. Because we live out what we believe. Our doctrine, what we believe, explains our duty.

Our belief should impact our behavior. And so, we go to 2nd Timothy chapter 2, verse 15, a very, very familiar verse in the New Testament, and the apostle Paul writing to his son in the face, Timothy, do your best, Timothy, to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman that does not need to be ashamed, who correctly handles the word of truth. The other translations say rightly dividing the word of truth.

It means cutting it straight. It means we get orthodoxy; we go to the orthodontist to get straight teeth. It’s right doctrine, right belief.

And what was the problem in Colossae? Well, if they don’t understand who Jesus is, if they don’t know who Christ is, you’re not going to heaven. You’re not going to understand the gospel. And so, the vital importance of the true gospel, by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.

This is why Paul wrote harsh words to the Galatian church because he says if you or an angel or anybody else preaches a gospel of a different kind than the true gospel, let them be accursed because you’re leading people astray. So, we understand from the book of Colossians how important right doctrine is. There’s five fundamentals of faith, and I won’t go over them this morning.

Are there areas of disagreement between Christians and some other doctrines that aren’t the fundamentals of faith? There certainly are. There’s lots of disagreements about eschatology, when the rapture occurs. There’s a pre-tribulational rapture, mid-tribulational rapture position, post-tribulational rapture, pre-wrath rapture position.

We can disagree about those. But there’s certain key doctrines, and certainly who Jesus is, is central to salvation. And so, we learn from the book of Colossians the importance of right doctrine.

Here’s what Paul said to the Ephesian elders when he met them for the last time, and they met at the end of the book of Acts. This is Paul’s farewell to the leaders of the Ephesian church, and he writes these words, I’ve not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.

Be shepherds of the church of God. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw disciples after them.

He’s giving them a warning like, hey, you Ephesian elders, we founded this church, but you need to be careful and make sure that doctrinally you stay on the right path, the correct path of Scripture. And so, orthodoxy is right belief. Orthopraxy is just a fancy word for right behavior.

And so, we behave based on what we believe. And so that’s important as well. And when we get into the second part of the book, Paul begins to give some instructions about how to live the Christian life.

See then that since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Verse 5, put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, which is idolatry.

Verse 12, therefore as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, close yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. On and on Paul goes like, hey, this is how you need to behave now. And it’s all based on our belief.

And so, three truths that we can apply from our overview of the book of Colossians is that every believer, if you know Jesus, you’re a minister, you have a gift. And we’re all ministers of the gospel of Christ. As we use that faithfully, someday I believe we’re going to in heaven be introduced or meet some people that we’ve never met before.

They’re going to say, thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your faithfulness in sharing Jesus. Thank you for your faithfulness in giving.

Thank you for your faithfulness in praying. And then lastly, how important it is to know the truth. Jesus said the truth will set you free.

And not only to know the truth, but our goal isn’t just more knowledge, it’s what? Transformation of life and living in the truth of God. And then God will be honored by that.

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525,600 Minutes Blank Outline

525,600 Filled In Outline

Bible Verses – Ephesians 5:15-20

Scroll to 28:30 for beginning of sermon

We’re going to read some Scripture. And this is Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 through 20. Here’s part of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

He says, Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.

Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms and hymns and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But so, we want to think about this morning and we want to think about what can we do with those 525,600 minutes? And how can we invest our time and make wise use of that time? And certainly, the suggestion, the seasons of love is a biblical suggestion. John 1:34, and 35, by this all men will know that we’re just disciples by how we love one another. But this morning we want to think about making the most of our 525,600 minutes.

So, here’s our main truth, and then we’re going to detail this. Here’s what we want to think about this morning from Scripture. It’s going to give us some guidance here.

Because life is brief, we must make the most of every opportunity that God gives us. Because life is brief, we must make the most of every season or opportunity that God gives us. There’s a lot of Scripture verses that back that up.

I think of Psalm 90. We studied Psalm 90 about three months ago, a Psalm of Moses. It’s the oldest Psalm written during the wilderness wanderings when Moses and the Israelites were surrounded by death every day.

And Moses writes Psalm 90, and he reminds us in verse 10, our days may come to 70 years or 80 if our strength endures, yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass and fly away. Now, if you’re over 40 this morning, you know the truth of that, that life goes by so very, very fast. Life is brief.

In fact, James says, what is our life? It’s a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. So, James compares our life here on planet earth to like that exhale of breath that comes out on a cold winter morning. It’s there for a moment, and then it’s gone.

And so, life is short, and life is brief. And because of that, God wants us to make the most of every opportunity. That’s what Ephesians 5, the Scripture passage that we read this morning as our Scripture reading.

Be very careful how you live, not as unwise but as wise. What’s wise living look like? The King James Version says, redeem the time. The NIV gives a more accurate translation, making the most of every opportunity.

The word there for time or opportunity is not the Greek word Chronos. That is chronological time, it’s the word Kairos, which means a season or an opportunity in your life, a window of opportunity. And Paul says we need to make the most of every opportunity.

And so, Moses in his Psalm 90 at the end of his psalm makes a prayer. Because life is short, Moses prays, Lord, teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Lord, teach us to know that life is short and help us to live wisely.

Someone has paraphrased that to say, Lord, help us to count our days so we can make our days count. So, this morning we want to think about how we can do that. I’m not going to talk about New Year’s resolutions.

I don’t know if you make New Year’s resolutions. I don’t. The studies say most New Year’s resolutions last about six weeks.

But I also think it is important in times in our life, and certainly the end of the year, the beginning of a new year, is a good opportunity what to take some inventory in our lives, and to think about what are our priorities, and to think about how we can make a difference in our lives. Paul wrote to Timothy, most New Year’s resolutions have to do with exercise and eating well, and that’s good. That’s great.

We need to do that. But I’m reminded of what Paul wrote to Timothy. This is 2nd Timothy chapter 4 verse 7. He says, train yourself to be godly.

The word there for train is the Greek word gymnós. We get our word gymnasium from that. And so, Paul says, I want you to focus on godliness, because there is value in physical exercise, and Paul acknowledges that.

But he says godliness is good not only for this life, but for the life to come. And so, if you have to choose between a physical workout and spending some time in godliness, and training, and Bible reading, and he says we need to choose, to train ourselves to be godly. So, this morning, I’m going to make three suggestions.

They’re really spiritual disciplines that we can focus on in the coming year that will help us use our 525,600 minutes well. And to no surprise, they all start with the letter P. So, let’s think of the first one. The first one’s this, the priority of prayer.

The priority of prayer. Now, if you read the Bible, this is very, very clear that prayer needs to be a priority in our lives. It’s simply a matter of obedience.

All through Scripture, we’re commanded to what? To pray. Matthew 7:7, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says, ask and it shall be given. Seek and you will find.

Knock and the door will be opened to you. The tense of those verbs is keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. The end of that passage says just as moms and dads like to give good gifts to their children, God the Father likes to give good gifts to you and I. And so, this whole matter of prayer.

1st Thessalonians 5:17, pray without ceasing. Ephesians 6:18, keep on praying always for all of God’s people, all the saints. 1st Timothy chapter 2, Paul writes to his son in the faith, Timothy, and he writes these words, I urge you then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in godliness and holiness.

When you go to the New Testament, the early church in the first century, Acts 2:42, they devoted themselves to four things. They devoted themselves to the apostle’s doctrine, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, the communion table, and they devoted themselves to prayer. So, I don’t know about you, but as I take inventory of my own prayer life, I find it lacking.

And God wants us to communicate with, God wants us, Revelation 3:20 says, Jesus says, I stand at the door and knock. If anybody’s hear my voice and open the door, I’ll come in and have fellowship with them. It’s a picture of saying that Jesus wants to have fellowship with you.

And so, we need to make prayer a priority and it needs to be consistent and it needs to be daily and it needs to be pointed and purposeful and passionate. It doesn’t describe my prayer life. It’s lacking in all those things.

And so, as I would suggest, one area that we can focus on individually and collectively as a church is prayer. Now there’s some roadblocks to why we don’t pray, and some of it is misunderstanding of prayer. And so, here’s three of them.

Number one, we misunderstand the purpose of prayer. Someone has said, prayer is not about getting our will done in heaven, but God’s will done on earth. That’s the purpose of prayer.

Jesus, when His disciples asked Him, teach us to pray, gave us the Lord’s prayer. Part of that prayer is, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God, I want your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so, the purpose of prayer is not us twisting God’s arm to get our desires, but it’s to get God’s will accomplished on earth as it is in heaven. And so, we misunderstand the purpose of prayer. In fact, James mentions that in James chapter four.

These words, you do not have because you do not ask God, and when you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. James says, a lot of times our prayers are selfish prayers. I remember as a teenager and got together with a couple of guys and took a verse out of context in the New Testament that said, if two or three in agreement on something, God will give it to you.

And so, we got together and said, let’s pray for a million dollars. And so, we’re praying that God’s going to somehow give us all this money. And well, God did answer that one.

He said, no. And we misunderstand the purpose of prayer. Also, we misunderstand the importance of purity in prayer.

The little acrostic, A-C-T-S, is a great way to pray. Adoration, start out by giving God thanks and praise for the character of God, for who He is. He’s holy, he’s just, he’s merciful, he’s loving.

C is confession, confess our sins. T is thanksgiving, and S is supplication, our requests. And so, the book of Psalms, in Psalm 66:18, the psalmist says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

And so sometimes we feel like our prayers are just kind of like bouncing off the ceiling and not doing anything. And one reason might be is that God wants us to look at our own lives. And when we’re living continuously in sin or rebellion to Him, we need to take care of that.

And so, we misunderstand that God wants us to, as David prayed, Lord, create in me a clean heart, God. 1st John 1:9, if we confess our sins, agree with God about sin in our life, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so, we misunderstand the purity of prayer.

Thirdly, we don’t really believe in the power of prayer. James 5, verse 16, says, the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Oftentimes we don’t pray because we really don’t believe in the power of prayer.

Does prayer make a difference? It does. God uses our prayers to accomplish His purposes. And so, one area that we could all probably grow in is in the priority of prayer.

Now I found in life that if you want to get something done, you have to plan it. You have to put it on a schedule. And prayer can be a constant conversation with God all day.

That’s great. But I think we also need those concentrated times of spending time with God in prayer, whether it’s in the morning, whether we’re an evening person in the evening, whether you have a long drive to work and you just pray on your drive to work.

But we need to make prayer a priority. So, I’d challenge you, this won’t sound like much of a challenge, but hey, schedule 15 minutes in prayer. That doesn’t sound like much, but I timed myself this week and I prayed and I thought like, that had to be like 20 or 25 minutes, it was seven and a half.

So that’s a good place to start and just pour your heart out to God and spend some time worshiping Him and praying. And anybody said, what do you pray for? Well, the Bible is full of things to pray for. I think a good place to start is our family.

That was what Job did in Job chapter 1. It’s a picture of intercessory prayer. He was offering sacrifices daily. He says, perhaps my children have sinned.

He was interceding on behalf of his own children. And certainly, where does prayer start? It starts in praying for your own family, your kids and your grandkids and your extended family. We need to pray as Paul wrote in 2nd Timothy 2 for those in leadership positions.

We had some of our church leaders up here this morning. We need to pray for them. We need to pray for our church.

We need to pray for the lost. We need to pray for our country. We need to pray for those that are sick.

We need to pray for missionaries that are connected to our church. For lasting smiles, Uganda. There are many, many suggestions, commands really in the Bible of what to pray for.

So that’s the first P. But here’s the second one, purposeful parenting and discipleship. Purposeful parenting, I had to kind of make a little stretch here to get my P in, but I want to talk first of all to parents. But if your kids have grown, don’t tune out because the Bible calls us all to make disciples, and that’s really spiritual parenting.

Paul had a son in the faith, Timothy, that he poured his life into. And so even perhaps our kids are gone and out of the nest, boy, God’s called us to make disciples, and there’s opportunities to do that right here in our own church. So, to focus on parenting, we talked about how quickly time passes.

Years ago, someone talked to me about the 216 principle. I’m like, what’s the 216 principle? He said, well, between birth and 18 years, there’s 216 months with your kids. Not that you can’t influence on them after 18, but between birth and 18 years, it’s 216 months.

And if there’s one area where we need to be focused and intentional, it’s in parenting and the spiritual discipleship of our own children. What is the goal of parenting for a Christian? Quite frankly, when we had our three kids, it was probably like to get through the day. I understand that.

But there’s got to be a bigger picture. The old saying, if you aim at nothing, you’re sure to hit it. And so about 20 years ago, maybe a little longer than that, I came across a series by Chip Ingram called Effective Parenting in a Defective World.

And it was like a six-part series. And for the first time, I heard a definition of parenting that kind of like, I think he’s on target. Here’s how he defines the goal in parenting.

Success in parenting is when my child transfers his or her primary love, submission, and obedience from me to Jesus Christ. Let me read that again. Success in parenting is when my child transfers his or her primary love, submission, and obedience from me to Jesus Christ.

Because guess what? We’re not going to be there after they’re gone. And we need to train them to transfer their ultimate obedience and love from, their primary obedience and love from us as a parent to Jesus Christ. And that takes a lot of time.

It takes a lot of purposeful energy. You’ve heard of the 5-13 window? Research says 85% of people come to faith in Christ between the ages of 5 and 13. Not that it can’t be done a little earlier, not that a person can’t come to Christ later, but most people come to faith in Jesus between the ages of 5 and 13.

And so, we need to be purposeful in parenting and discipling our kids and those that God has given us in our own church family. I say, well, when do you start the spiritual training of children? And that’s an interesting question. The AWANA program that we have here, we start out with Cubbies.

That’s ages three to five. They do have an earlier program called Puggles. I looked up the Puggles program, and it’s for two-year-olds to three-year-olds.

I call it the Puddles rather than Puggles, but there is a program for those really young ones. But if you look to Paul’s writing to Timothy, his son in the faith in 2nd Timothy 3:14, and 15, here’s what he says to Timothy. Timothy, from infancy, you have known the Holy Scriptures.

From a young baby, you’ve been exposed to the Scriptures. And we know that Timothy had a godly grandmother and mother, Eunice and Lois, that built God’s truth into him. And so, it’s never too early to start exposing our kids to God’s truth and discipling them.

There’s a couple of great passages in the Bible about it. Probably the key passage in all of Scripture is in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 through 9. It’s called the Shema. This is what the Jewish people recited at the beginning of this section of Scripture every day.

It begins, “‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.'” And so, where does this begin? First of all, begins with us as parents having a passionate love for. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this person or this conference, but a fellow by the name of Louie Giglio has a passion conference every…I don’t know if it’s every year or every other year, but it’s at the beginning of the year. So, it was in Dallas, Texas.

It just finished up. It was January 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, where 46,000 young people ages for 18 and 25 came together in a football stadium and for three days heard God’s truth proclaimed and worshiped Him. What a great, great thing.

So, it needs to be in our heart and life, and then it goes on to say, “‘These commands that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Pass them on to your children.'” And I say, well, how do you do that? Well, the next part of the verse tells us a formula for doing that or a pattern, four key teachable moments.

Talk about God’s truth when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. So, right there for parents, there’s four key teachable moments in life. The first one, when you sit at home, mealtime is a great time to have some spiritual conversations.

And I know this has to be age-related, depending on the ages of your kids. Today’s life is so busy that most families don’t spend a lot of time around the dinner table. We did in our home growing up, my dad was a pastor, and we had this little wooden box in the shape of a loaf of bread.

Kind of based on our daily bread. And inside that box were just Scripture verses, and we would just pick out Scripture verses, and one person would read it, and the other person, my dad would try to explain it, and then would pray. Just very, very simple.

But we spent time discussing God’s Word together. When you sit at home, when you walk by the road, that’s travel time. So, when you got your kids in the car, what a great opportunity to spend some time with them and build God’s truth into them and have some discussions.

It goes on to say, when you lie down for bedtime, it’s key time, to check in with your kids and to make sure to listen to them and maybe to pray together. And then the fourth key moment talks about when you get up and morning time and sending them off to school. And so, those are four key, key times.

But what we found successful the most for us was an organization out of Grand Rapids called Keys for Kids. And they got these booklets, I think they’re free, if you go to keysforkids.org, they give a very simple age-graded devotional. You read it, there’s one key principle, talk about it, pray together.

And I’ve got samples of them on the back table there if you’re interested in what these things look like, but that is extremely, extremely important. Spiritual, purposeful, parenting, and discipleship. And this goes beyond having, when our kids are raised, it’s a matter of also looking for others in the church to connect with and to pass on God’s truth.

Well, here’s the third P, to make wise use of our 525,600 minutes, focusing on the priority of prayer, of being intentional and purposeful in parenting and discipling others. Number three is the priority of proselytizing. That’s just a big word that means sharing God’s truth, witnessing the good news. Angels to the shepherds, Luke chapter 2, I bring you good news that shall be for all people.

What’s the good news? Today in the town of David, the Savior has been born to you. He’s Messiah, the Lord. And again, this is another imperative, isn’t it? This is not something that’s optional for us.

I have the great commission, going to all the world and make disciples, teaching them, training them, baptizing them. That’s the command given to the church, Acts chapter 1 verse 8, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. Second Corinthians 5, Paul writes to the Corinthian believers, and he reminds them of this truth in 2nd Corinthians 5:19, God has committed to us the message of reconciliation, salvation.

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors. As though God were making His appeal through us, we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. And then here’s maybe my favorite verse in all the Bible.

God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become, what? The righteousness of God. That’s the great exchange. Our filthy, horrible sin, when we put our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior and payment for that sin and repent of our sin, He gives us what? The righteousness of Christ.

And so, the question is, how good do you have to be to get into heaven? The answer is perfect, because God’s holy, therefore we have a problem. Nobody’s perfect, except one person, Jesus, who became our sacrifice and paid our sin. Sin must be paid for.

Either we’re going to trust Jesus, what He did on the cross, and have Him pay for it, or we’re going to pay for our sin, an eternal separation from God. And so, this is the message that God has given to us, the message of reconciliation. Greg Laurie, in his book, Tell Someone, You Can Share the Good News, writes this, there’s one thing that Christians and non-Christians both have in common.

They are both nervous and uptight about evangelism. That’s true. Maybe that’s why statistics indicate that 95% of all Christians have never led another person to Christ.

And so, the priority of proselytizing, of witnessing, the importance of sharing the good news of the gospel.

Now, years ago, 1967, there was a film called The Gospel Blimp. I don’t know if anybody even knows anything about that Christian video that came out. Here’s what it was about, a satirical story about a group of who, after a social gathering, decided to use a blimp to reach their non-Christian neighbors.

They arranged for the blimp to fly over their neighborhood and drop hundreds of gospel tracts on their neighborhood. They also had a loud public address system so everybody would hear the good news. You can imagine that wasn’t very well received.

Effective sharing begins with caring. It is true, people don’t care what you know until they know that you care. And so, relational evangelism, we need to be intentional in sharing the good news of the gospel in our sphere of influence.

So, I love the little chorus that’s in our hymn book, we’re not going to sing it this morning, but it’s, Lord, lay some soul upon my heart and love that soul through me, and may I nobly do my part to win that soul for thee. I want you to give some thought, maybe this afternoon, of who is it in your sphere of influence that doesn’t know Jesus. How can I build a relational bridge to them and care about them and love them and earn the right to share the greatest news in all the world with them? And that would be a great, great way to make wise use of 525,600 minutes.

How do you measure a year? This morning, I think we need to be intentional about making wise use of that time. So, what I just want to challenge you in the area of your prayer life is to discipline yourself and plan just to spend some time talking with God and praying, having that wonderful time of communion with Him, in purposeful parenting and discipling those that God has blessed us with in our kids and our grandkids and those in our church family. And ask God to put someone on your heart that you can share the good news with.

We had about 60 of those Steps to Peace with God tracts over the holidays. I think about 50 of them were taken at various services and Christmas Eve and Awana family celebration. We’ve got a few left.

Tried to order some more, and they’re kind of on back order until March, but don’t let that stop you from thinking and praying about how you can share the good news of Jesus with other people. And as we do that, I think God will be blessed, we’ll grow, our church will grow, and God will be honored.

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James 4 13-17

We’re going to read some Scripture. This is James chapter 4. This is what James writes. Now, listen, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You appear as a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.

As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes, all such boasting is evil. If anyone then knows the good, they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

We made it through another year. Well, almost, not quite gone yet. But it’s amazing how quickly time seems to fly by.

And so here we are in the precipice of another year. And as we stand on the new year, it brings questions to our hearts, doesn’t it? Minds like, what does the new year hold for our nation, our country, the United States of America? We’re going to celebrate birthday number 250 on July 4th of 2026.

We ask the question, well, what does 2026 hold for our church? And what does 2026 hold for our family, our immediate family, or our extended family? What does 2026 hold for us individually? The fact of the matter is we don’t know. We think some things might happen, and we can plan.

That section read in James, it does not forbid planning. The message of James there in James 4 is like, hold your plans loosely because only God knows what tomorrow will bring. And so, as we go into 2026, I want to share some certain truths for uncertain times because we really don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

Here’s our main statement that we want to focus on, and this is from Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom. She said, never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

And so, we’re going to think about two anchor truths this morning. This is Hebrews chapter 6, verse 19, and let me just read those verses. Hebrews 6:19 says, we have this hope, it’s talking about God and His Word and His promises.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. So, what’s going to give us confidence to choose faith over fear with the unknown of 2026? And it’s going to be the truth that we’re going to think about this morning. So, here’s the two anchor truths.

The first one is the person of God, the person of God, who God is. And then we’re going to look at four promises, and there’s many more than this, but four promises that God gives you and me as we think about the unknown and a new year. And so first of all, the person of God.

Who is this God, Emmanuel God with us? Titus 1:2 says, He is a God who cannot lie. So, He is a God whose words are true. He is a God who is faithful and true.

And in 2nd Timothy 2, verse 13, we read, if we are faithless, He remains faithful. So even when we’re not faithful, God is faithful. And we sing that song, don’t we? We’re going to sing it as we close the service this morning.

Great is your faithfulness, O God my Father. There’s no shadow of turning with Thee. You change not, your compassions they fail not.

As you have been, thou forever will be. And so, the first anchor truth that can help give us confidence as we go into the unknown of a new year is that we can entrust our lives to the person of God who is faithful in our lives even when we’re not. Malachi 3:6, for I the Lord do not change.

Hebrews 13, verse 8, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so, God’s faithfulness extends not only to our lives, but to our kids’ lives and our grandkids’ lives and all the generations behind us. So, we can enter into 2026 with confidence because God is faithful.

Jeremiah writes those familiar verses in Lamentations chapter 3, verses 22 and 23. Let me start back in verse 20. Here’s Jeremiah writing to the Jewish people and they’re lamenting they’ve been in Babylonian captivity and the city of Jerusalem is destroyed.

And Jeremiah writes, and my soul is downcast within me, yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Where is my hope? He writes; because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed. His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. And so, the first anchor truth as we go into 2026 is the person of God.

He’s faithful. He’s true. His words are true.

His compassions are new every morning. Great is God’s faithfulness. But beyond that, the second anchor truth is not just the character of God, the person of God, but it’s the promises of God.

And we could list many, many of the promises of God, but we’ll just simply think about four of them that I want you to carry with you into 2026. But first of all, when we think about the promises that are in the Word of God, we need to get a little context here because context is important when we think about promises. There’s an old song that says, every promise in the book is mine.

Every chapter, every verse, every line. All are blessings of his love divine. Every promise in the book is mine.

I’m sure this hymn writer was well-intended, but that’s not true. Not every promise in the book is to you. Some of the promises are to the nation of Israel.

Some of the promises are to the church in general. Some are individual promises. Jeremiah 29:11 is a great, great verse.

For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and give you hope in the future. That promise was given to the nation of Israel when they were in Babylonian captivity for 70 years, and God’s saying, I’m not done with you yet. Now, can we apply that to our lives? Yes, we can apply that principle to our lives.

God has a plan for us, but we need to understand who these promises are given to. The second thing when it comes to a promise is we need to understand, is this a conditional promise or an unconditional promise? In other words, is this a promise that all I have to do is claim it, or do I have to do something to claim the promise? An example of a conditional promise is in Philippians chapter 4 verses 6 and 7. That’s the promise of the peace of God that guards our hearts. But first of all, we have to do something to get that promise in our life.

Be anxious for nothing. It starts out like that. It’s really an imperative.

It says, stop worrying, and then here’s what I want you to do. In everything with praise and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Pray.

In other words, if we were to paraphrase, don’t worry about anything, pray about everything, and here’s the promise, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts, that’s our emotions, our minds in Christ Jesus. And so, anchor truths, the first one is the character of God, the person of God. The second one is the promises of God, and we’re going to simply look at four of them this morning as we think about entering a new year.

So, here’s the first one, is the promise of God’s presence, God’s presence. And the Scripture teaches us that God is present. Now, the Bible says He’s omnipresent. That means you cannot go anywhere and escape from God.

Jonah tried to get on a boat and go a thousand miles away and get away from God, and no, you can’t do that. You can’t flee from God. That’s Psalm 139, some of the great verses from Psalm 139.

Let me just read a few of them. The psalmist writes these words, Psalm 139 verse 7, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, go to the east. If I settle on the far side of the sea, the west, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. There’s nowhere you can go away from God.

And so, God, yes, is everywhere, but this promise for the believer is even more encouraging because the Bible tells us that when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, guess what? The Spirit of God lives inside of us. What? Don’t you know that your body is what? The temple of the Holy Spirit. God literally indwells us.

And so, there is no way we can escape from God, and God is always, always with us, Emmanuel, God with us. His name shall be called Emmanuel. And so, for the believer, God is always present.

Now, when do we need that the most, the recognition of that the most? Well, we need it all the time. The hymn says, I need thee every hour. But we especially need to recognize the presence of God in our life during times of change and transition in our life.

That was true in the Old Testament. Moses has been the leader of the nation of Israel for 40 years, and now Moses is getting ready to pass the baton of leadership to another person. For 40 years, Israel’s depended on Moses as their leader, and now Moses is ready to pass off the scene.

And so, in Deuteronomy chapter 31, Moses is in front of the whole nation, and Moses went out and spoke these words to all Israel, I’m now 120 years old, and I’m no longer able to lead you. Moses says, I think it’s time to retire. He’s 120, and he’s been their leader for 40 years.

And so, the nation’s like, oh no, our leader is leaving us. He says, verse 2, he says, the Lord has said to me, you shall not cross the Jordan, but here’s the promise that he gives to the nation, be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or terrified because of the enemies, the Canaanites, for the Lord your God goes before you, He will never leave you nor forsake you. So, Moses takes time to reassure the nation of Israel that was about 2 million strong at this time, even though I’m leaving, I’ve been your leader for 40 years, there’s going to be a new leader, and guess what? God’s not leaving you.

In fact, when Joshua is the new leader, the same promise was given to Joshua, Joshua, be strong and courageous. Joshua, you’re going to lead the nation into battle, you’re going to conquer the promised land, a central campaign, a northern campaign, a southern campaign, and guess what? I’m going to be with you. And so, this promise of God’s presence, we know that in our heads, but it really becomes important during times of transition in our life and change.

And so, the promise of God’s presence, it’s also important in ministry. The Great Commission, Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, going to all the world and preach the gospel, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I’ve commanded you, and then what? And I will be with you always. And so, as we go into 2026, we don’t go in alone.

We go, if you know Jesus as your Savior, the Spirit of God dwells within you. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you.

Well, there’s a second promise, and it’s the promise of God’s provision, God’s provision. Philippians 4:19, often quoted verse, but my God will supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now, that’s a promise that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian church who had sent him a gift and met his needs, and now he’s writing this thank you note, the book of Philippians, and he says, just as you gave to meet my need, my God will supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Now, this is what Jesus said on the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6. He says three times in Matthew chapter 6, don’t worry, don’t worry, do not worry, verse 25, verse 31, verse 34, don’t worry about what you’re going to eat, what you’re going to drink, don’t worry about food, don’t worry about clothing. Hey, if I clothe the lilies of the field, if I provide food for the birds, how much more will I provide for you? And the instruction is, seek first God’s kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you. God’s provision, He has promised to meet all of our needs.

One of the great ways for that to be accomplished is through being a part of a local church. And one of the things that we strive for here at Community Bible Church is that we don’t want anybody to have a genuine need and not have that need being met. And so, we have a benevolent fund, and it’s quite active throughout the year to meet people’s needs.

And so, God can meet needs in any way, but being a part of a local church that is committed to meeting the needs of one another is a great way to do that. That was the early church in Acts 4:34 it says, there were no needy people among them.

They were so committed to each other that some people sold property and houses, and they brought the proceeds to the apostles and said, hey, give the money to anybody that has a need. And so, there was no needy people. God’s provision, and I found this to be true over and over again in my life.

And so, two anchor truths, the person of God, the promises of God, God’s presence, God’s provision, God will meet all of your needs. Here’s the third one. It’s God’s plan.

God’s plan. Proverbs chapter 19, verse 21, many are the plans in a person’s heart. Nothing wrong with planning.

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 16:9, in their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. And so, here’s the truth that we need to hang on to, is that God has a plan and a purpose for our life in 2026.

And God already knows everything that is going to happen in 2026, because He knows the future, He knows the past, He knows the present. There will be no surprises for God in 2026. Something that God never says is, well, I didn’t see that coming.

Well, that was a surprise to me. God never says, uh-oh. No, God knows He’s sovereign.

He knows everything that’s going to come our way in 2026, and He has a plan for your life and my life. One author writes, in our daily lives, we often make plans and set goals based on our desires and ambitions. However, as we walk in faith, we must remember that God is ultimately in control.

His sovereignty means that He can intervene and alter our plans for a greater purpose. We can find comfort in knowing that even when we feel lost or uncertain, God’s guidance will lead us to a path filled with His blessings. And so, those familiar verses in Proverbs 3:5, and 6, the author of Proverbs says, trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and what God’s going to do, He’s going to direct your paths. And so, we can rest in the fact that God has a plan for our life, and we can trust Him with that.

And a lot of His plan for you and me is revealed right in this book, His will for our life. And so, the promises of God, I’ll be with you. I’ll provide for your needs.

I’ve got a plan for your life. Trust me. Here’s the fourth one, and the last one is this, the promise of God’s power, of God’s power.

I love Zechariah 4, verse 6 says, not by might, not by power, but by God’s spirit. God promises to us His power. So, we’re either living a self-sufficient life, I’m in control, or a God-dependent life, where we depend every day on what? God’s strength, God’s power.

The apostle Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 3:5, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, God’s power working in and through us. Philippians 2, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in accordance with His good purpose. Galatians 2:20, I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet God lives in me, and I’m trusting in His power and His strength.

And so, I don’t know what task God’s called you to do, what He puts before you is for His plan for your life, but I want you to realize that h He makes His strength and His power available to you through the spirit and through the Word of God. This is something that I need to be reminded of all the time, because I’ve been delivering sermons for about 40 years now. And I can, after 40 years, kind of whip up a sermon on my own very easily.

But I don’t want that sermon to be in my strength. I want that sermon to come through what God’s power and God speaking through His Word. I want to be dependent on Him for strength and wisdom and insight.

And so, God promises to each of us His power. What does Acts 1:8 say? That great day when the church was born and the promise that you will receive power when what the Holy Spirit comes on you. And so, don’t try to live in the Christian life in your own strength and your ability, but rest on His strength and His power and His plan and His promises, and God will enable you to do that.

So, I don’t know what your thoughts are for 2026, whether some of you are eagerly looking forward to it or maybe a little fear and anxiety. What I want you to do is choose faith over fear and enter 2026 confidently, trusting in the character of God and His faithfulness, trusting in the person of God and His promises. You’re never going to walk alone in 2026.

He’ll be with you no matter what you’re facing. And He has promised to provide for your every need, not only financial need, but other needs as well. And God has a plan for you for 2026.

Ephesians 2:10 says that we’re His workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. We’re not saved by good works, but we’re saved what? To do good works. So, God wants you to be involved in doing good deeds and good works to the glory of God.

He’s got a plan for your life, and don’t do that in your own strength, but do that in God’s power. As you do that, you will enter into 2026 with confidence and assurance. I love the saying, and it’s true, nothing can happen to me today, nothing good, nothing bad, without first passing through the Father’s hand.

Whatever happens to you in 2026, God’s got a plan to use even the difficult things for our good and His glory as we trust Him.

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Luke 2 8-14

We’re going to read some scripture this morning, and this is from Luke chapter two, familiar portion of scripture at Christmas season, verses eight through 14.

This is what Dr. Luke writes about that night when Christ was born. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were terrified.

And the angel said to them, do not be afraid, I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord.

And this will be a sign to you; you will find a baby wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger. Suddenly a great company, the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest heaven. And on earth, peace to those on whom His favor rests.

Well, this morning we’re going to think about embracing the Christmas spirit. And I don’t know about you, if you’re feeling the Christmas spirit or not. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t, depending on where we are in our life circumstances.

I don’t know if you had to read the famous work by author Charles Dickens called A Tale of Two Cities. Very familiar book. And here’s what the opening line of Dickens writes in A Tale of Two Cities.

It was published in 1859, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. And Charles Dickens writes, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Now the rest of the quote is this.

It was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief and the epoch of incredulity. It was a season of light and a season of darkness.

It was the winter of despair. We had everything before us; we had nothing before us. We were all going to heaven, we were all going to hell.

Charles Dickens is writing about the current situation. The aristocracy of the French people were living in luxury and privilege while the normal people, the peasants in that time and age, were struggling under crushing poverty, oppression, and starvation. And so, Dickens says, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I want you to know this morning that sometimes that phrase describes Christmas. I don’t know where you are in your Christmas journey and your life circumstances. For many people, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year.

But I also want you to know that for many, many people, Christmas is one of the hardest times of the year. It can be the best of times; it could be the worst of times. It’s the most wonderful time of year when we’re surrounded by family from perhaps near and far, when we’re enjoying good health, when we’re gainfully employed, when we get that Christmas bonus or love gift from the congregation.

The wonderful blessings of children and how children and grandchildren just seem to bring the magic of Christmas to us during this season as well. But I want you to know it also can be the worst of times. Families that are separated, servicemen and women all around the world that are thousands of miles from home at Christmas time, people that are struggling with their health, with unemployment, with relational stress that kind of bubbles to the top at Christmas time, people who are missing a loved one for the very first time at Christmas season.

I remember the Christmas of 1979, long time ago. My mom was a pastor’s wife, developed cancer in her 40s, at the age of 50 in October of 1979, passed away. I remember celebrating Christmas with our family that Christmas season, two months after my mom passed away.

And believe me, we were not in the Christmas spirit. It was just a matter of going through the motions and of getting through Christmas. So, I don’t know where you are this morning, but we’re going to want to think about embracing the Christmas spirit.

I came across a Facebook post about 10 days ago, kind of speaks to this. The post said this, can’t lie, I’m not feeling the Christmas spirit whatsoever. Kind of caught my attention.

I normally don’t do this, but I thought there’s like hundreds of comments under that. And I started to read through the comments. Let me read to you some of the comments replying to that post.

I have the same feeling every year. I haven’t figured out how to get into the spirit. Someone else said, I think when your little ones grow up, it does take away from the Christmas spirit.

Someone else trying to push through, but the holidays are rough, especially when you’ve lost your spouse. Just putting on the pretend for the kids. I have the same issue.

All the kids are grown and it doesn’t feel like Christmas anymore. Someone else, I felt it last year, but this year it’s just not there. And then someone said, we’ve been Christmas free for 11 years.

Best decision we’ve made. Christmas is better now that we have decided to un-celebrate Christmas. So, they said, we’re just not even going to acknowledge and celebrate Christmas.

Well, I want you to know this morning, no matter where you are in embracing the Christmas spirit, that the true spirit of Christmas is not found in our feelings. And it’s not found on our circumstances, whatever they may be, whether joyful or perhaps a little bit sorrowful. And so, this morning, I want us to think about five biblical reminders that no matter where we are in our journey and Christmas season, that we can embrace and enter into the true spirit of Christmas.

And it’s going to take a decision to take some action. And so, let’s think about five biblical reminders, choices, action steps to embrace the true spirit of Christmas. Well, here’s the first one.

And it’s this. Remember that trials, trouble… Yeah, let me go with the premise that’s up there first. The true spirit of Christmas is not based on our feelings or circumstances.

And so how can we overcome that? Here’s the first step. Remember that trouble, trials and heartache are temporary. And so, no matter what you’re feeling, no matter what you’re going through this Christmas season, whether good or challenging and difficult, your situation is temporary.

Jesus said in John 16:33, in this world, you will have trouble. You’ll have trouble. We live in a fallen, sinful world that’s filled with difficulty and filled with sickness and filled with challenges.

But then Jesus said, but take heart, I’ve overcome the world. And so, it’s Mark Lowry who said that his favorite verse in all the Bible is, and it came to pass. In other words, whatever you’re experiencing this Christmas season, it’s temporary.

Our troubles and trials are temporary. This is what the Apostle Paul was referring to in 2nd Corinthians 4:17, as Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers. And this is what the Apostle Paul had to say.

2nd Corinthians 4:16 through 17, I’ll read it as soon as I can find it. Here it is.

Paul says, therefore, don’t lose heart. Don’t be discouraged. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we’re being renewed day by day for our light and momentary troubles.

Now, don’t rush through that phrase, light and momentary troubles. If you were to go to Paul’s autobiographical section in later on in 2nd Corinthians, he talks about all the things that he went through, shipwrecked, stoned and left for dead, beaten, left in prison time and time again. All those difficulties, he says, they’re light and they’re momentary, they’re temporary.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, he says, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, because what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal. And so, no matter what your experience today, remember that troubles and trials and heartaches are temporary.

Here’s the second thing we need to keep in our forefront of our minds to embrace the true spirit of Christmas. And this is to remember that Jesus is the reason for the season. Now that’s sometimes something that we say quite frequently, but we really need to focus on that, don’t we? Because our culture is pushing us in just the opposite direction.

That Jesus is the reason for the season. And so, we need to keep our eyes and our minds focused on Him. That’s Hebrews chapter 12.

It says, fixing our eyes on Jesus, let’s run the race that’s set before us. And so especially in this Christmas season, when commercialization of Christmas and all the extra things are pulling us in the other direction, we need to remember that Jesus is the reason for the season. It’s not really about us.

It’s not about our personal comfort. It’s not about whether we got everything on our Christmas list. And sometimes we joke, and I know it’s a conversation starter.

Well, how was your Christmas? Was Santa good to you? Did you get everything on your list? And the focus needs to be on Jesus. Somebody once said, if it’s Jesus’ birthday, how come we get all the presents? That’s an interesting thing to think about, isn’t it? So, we need to give gifts to Him. We need to acknowledge that the celebration is about Him.

Matthew 1:21, His name shall be called Jesus. He shall save His people from their sins. Luke 19:10, Jesus came to rescue, to seek and to save the lost.

And so, we need to do everything we can to keep our focus on Him. Whether it’s doing Advent readings during the Christmas season, whether it’s doing what we’re doing here this morning, worshiping together as a church family, attending a candlelight Christmas Eve service, whatever it takes, we need to keep Jesus as the central focus of the Christmas season.

Well, here’s a third thing we can do if we’re going to embrace the true spirit of Christmas, and this is all through the scriptures, but especially at this time of year, choose a daily attitude of gratitude. Choose a daily attitude of gratitude, not just for the Christmas season all year long, but especially during Christmas, that we need to express our thanks to God for His gift to us, the gift of Jesus, His Son. And so, 1st Thessalonians 5:18, Paul writes, in everything, give thanks, in all circumstances.

Now, as believers, we can do that, even in the good and even in the bad, because the scriptures teach us that even the difficult things that happen in our life are there for a purpose, that God has a plan and a purpose in the good and the bad. And Romans 8:28 says, God will work all things together for good to those that love Him, to those that are called according to His purpose. And so, Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 9:15, thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.

Thank you, God, for sending Jesus, the ultimate gift of your Son, Jesus. James 1:17 says, every good and perfect gift is from the Father above. Matthew 7:11 says, if you who are human know how to give good gifts, and we love giving gifts to our kids and our grandkids, how much more does your Father in heaven enjoy giving good gifts to those that love Him? And of course, the greatest gift is the gift of salvation.

And so, choose a daily attitude of gratitude. Author R.T. Kendall wrote a book called Pure Joy. Here’s what he writes, how do you rejoice when you don’t feel like it? The answer is, you find things for which you certainly should be thankful for, and then you discipline yourself to voice that gratitude.

He quotes a study by the University of Miami, the Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness. It was based on 2,000 people over three years, found that the most grateful people tend to be the most-happiest. Most grateful people have low rates of depression and negative moods, but high self-esteem.

Grateful people are more likely to be resilient, and they seem to have an easier time overcoming obstacles. And so, R.T. Kendall writes, I can only conclude that if a research project done by a secular university like the University of Miami came to such conclusion, how much more should we, who are believers, be determined to voice gratitude every day to our Heavenly Father? There is nothing better for overcoming depression or turning a negative mood away than thanking God and simply praising Him. That’s why all through Scripture, especially when you read the Psalms, what does it say over and over? Give thanks to Him, praise God, give Him thanks and praise, and we need to do that every day.

I have a discipline that I’ve done for years, and I do it every morning, and I have my daily five. When I wake up in the first part of the day, I pray and I thank God for five things. I thank God for life, I thank God for health, I thank God for my family, I thank God for ministry and the opportunity to serve, and I thank God for salvation, for the gift of Jesus.

Every day, I do my daily five. So, we need to choose a daily attitude of gratitude, and especially during this season, give thanks for who God is. Here’s number four.

Engage in the true spirit of Christmas, regardless of our circumstances. And it’s no surprise, engage in the joy of giving. Engage in the joy of giving.

Dr. Luke records the words of Jesus, Acts 20, verse 35. I hope you found this to be true, because it is. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Tell you what, we’ve all been on both ends, and maybe this is something that we learn as we kind of mature and grow as the years go by, but Jesus says, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Proverbs 11:25, a generous person will prosper, whoever refreshes others will himself be refreshed. In other words, as you give, as you minister, as you help someone else, there’s a boomerang effect, and the blessing comes right back to you.

It is more blessed to give than to receive. And so, during this Christmas season, we need to look for opportunities to minister to others and to give, and it’s not just finances, its time, talent, and treasure. It’s perhaps finding a need in our church family or our community and making a gift to meet that need.

Maybe it’s going to a retirement home or a nursing home where there are people who are in those homes who are very, very lonely. Maybe it’s just making a visit. Maybe it’s singing some songs. Maybe it’s baking some cookies. Maybe it’s just calling up your loved ones and telling them that you love them, but we need to engage in the joy of giving.

Well, here’s a fifth and last principle, perhaps, to embrace the true spirit of Christmas. Number five, it’s to share the good news with somebody. This is what the gospel is all about.

The gospel means good news. The passage we read in Luke chapter 2, the angel said we have good news of great joy for everyone, and part of our job and part of our responsibility is to spread the good news. One of my favorite verses in the Bible, I call it the great exchange, 2nd Corinthians 5:21.

He who knew no sin, Jesus, became sin for us so that in Him, when we put our faith and trust in Him for our salvation, we become the righteousness of God. In other words, His perfection, His whole doingness gets credited to our account, paid in full. When Jesus was on the cross, this is the reason that He came.

One of His last words was a victory cry. It was one word in Aramaic. To tell us that, it means it is finished.

The sin death’s been paid by the perfect blood of Jesus, paid in full. I have a picture in my office from a long time ago, a number of years ago, when we built this fellowship hall and classrooms onto the church building, and it was the Sunday that we paid that off, and we burned the mortgage. I don’t know if you’ve had this experience in paying off a car, paying off your home, but what a great feeling, paid in full.

Diane and I had a very interesting experience on Monday. As we were checking out, two young ladies come up to us, and one of them said, we’re from blank credit union, and she said, we’d like to pay for all the groceries in your grocery cart today.

I said, what did you say? She said, yeah, everything that’s in there, it’s no strings attached. They had a credit card there from the credit union, like we would like to pay for everything in your grocery cart today, and believe me, it was overflowing. And I’m like, wow, I could have said no. I said, that’s very gracious of you, and so those beeps kept going, and $266 later, the credit union paid for our basket full.

That’s what salvation is. It’s paid in full. All we have to do is what? Receive it, accept the gift, and one of the great parts of the Christmas season is to have the joy of sharing the good news of salvation, therefore being justified by faith, we have what? Peace with God.

Romans 5:8, God demonstrated His love toward us while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 8:1, therefore now there’s no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ. We were on death row spiritually.

Now when we receive Christ, there’s no condemnation. We have the gift of eternal life, and so one of the joys of the Christmas season is to look for opportunities to share the good news of the gospel. I use these little tracts called Step to Peace with God that kind of lays out for people really the gospel message.

I’ve given hundreds of them away over the years. I’ve got some on a little table in the back if you want to pick one up on your way out. I had the privilege to share the gospel with our Awana celebration on Wednesday, and I had about 20 of these on the table and encouraged people to pick them up or either read it for yourself or pass it to somebody, and I was pleasantly surprised that they were all gone at the end of the night.

But this is a great way to share the good news, whether you mail it to a loved one and a friend or leave it at a restaurant for a tip and leave a generous tip and then leave this. It’s a way of embracing the Christmas spirit. So, I don’t know where you are this Christmas season.

Maybe you’re experiencing joy and all’s right in your world, but for those, and that’s really more than we think, that are struggling this Christmas season, and we don’t get out of life’s journey probably without being in this situation at some point in our life, we can still embrace the true spirit of Christmas because whatever you’re going through is temporary by focusing on the fact that Jesus is the reason we’re celebrating, by choosing gratitude and thankfulness, by engaging in giving to others, and sharing the good news of the gospel.

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Luke 1 46-56

We’re going to read some Scripture. This is from Luke chapter 1, verses 46 through 50, a very familiar passage. So, words are on the screen and you can follow along as I read.

This is Mary’s song, Mary’s Magnificent, as it’s sometimes called, and I’m just going to read a portion of it, and then we’ll look at Luke chapter 1. And Mary said, and my soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed.

For the Mighty One has done great things for me, holy is His name. His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation. Well, this morning we’re going to look at Luke chapter 1 and think about Mary’s story, Mary’s story. I like meeting people, and I like listening to their story.

Everybody has a story of their life, and for me, it’s just fascinating to listen to a person’s story. I actually even enjoy, in a weird sense, reading obituaries because if they’re well-written, it tells a person’s story. And one of the things that we realize as we look into Scripture, and this is from Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10, it tells us that God is writing a story in our lives.

Ephesians 2:10 says, for we are God’s workmanship. Some translations say handiwork. The New Living Translation says we’re God’s masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

The word there translated masterpiece or handiwork is really a Greek word poiéma. It really, we could say we’re God’s poem, we’re God’s story, and God wants to write a beautiful story in the canvas of each of our lives. And we’re going to see that in Mary’s case and Mary’s life this morning as we look at Luke chapter 1. One commentator made this statement, if we want to have a merry Christmas, M-E-R-R-Y, we have to understand Mary’s Christmas, M-A-R-Y apostrophe S. And so, this morning we’re going to look at the Christmas story through the lens of Mary from Luke chapter 1. Now let me set the context for you, because as we look at Scripture, remember that at the close of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi, until Matthew chapter 1, Luke chapter 1, there’s 400 silent years.

400 years go by where there’s no prophets, there’s no revelation, and the nation of Israel is what? They’re waiting for their Messiah. That’s a long time to wait. I mean, this next year, 2026, July 4th, we’ll celebrate 275 years as a country, as a nation, United States of America.

Imagine waiting 400 years where it seems like God’s not doing anything, like God’s silent until Matthew chapter 1, Luke chapter 1, the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth and the message that in their old age they’re going to have a baby, and then of course is John the Baptist. And so that’s the setting of Luke chapter 1. God now is beginning to move after 400 years of silence, seemingly silence. And the angel Gabriel is being sent, and God’s in motion, working out the arrival of the Messiah, as Galatians 4:4 says, in the fullness of time, at just the right time in human history, God sent forth His Son.

So, we’re going to look at our outline this morning and then think of a couple application truths from Luke chapter 1. So, let’s start with the facts about Mary, the facts about Mary. This will be review for most of us, but we need to understand who Mary was. And so, let’s pick it up in Luke chapter 1, verse 26.

Dr. Luke, physician Luke, writes, in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. So now he’s giving us the time frame here. Elizabeth is six months along, six months pregnant with John the Baptist.

And what happens? God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth. So, God sends Gabriel, His messenger, there’s only two angels that are mentioned by name in the Bible, Michael and Gabriel. So, God sends Gabriel to a city of Galilee named Nazareth.

Now here’s fact number one about Mary. Mary came from a very small town. Mary came from a little small town called Nazareth.

I looked it up and historians and researchers discover that the population of Nazareth at this point in time, some say between 125 and 200 people. That makes Manchester about 15 times bigger than Nazareth. So, the town that Mary lived in, everybody knew one another.

I mean, there’s only like 150, 200 people. I looked up the smallest town in Michigan, the smallest city in Michigan is called Omer, O-M-E-R. The 2020 census had 274 residents.

It’s up near Standish, Michigan. That’s the smallest city in Michigan. This town that the angel Gabriel went to, Nazareth, was much smaller than that.

And so, Mary comes from a very, very small town. Fact number two that we’re all aware of is that Mary was a virgin. That’s the next statement here in Luke 1, verse 26.

So, Gabriel sent to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin, pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. Before we even find out this young girl’s name, Dr. Luke tells us the fact that she was a virgin.

Why is that so important? 700 years previous to Luke 1, the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 7:14 gives a prophecy about the Messiah, and it’s a passage that we’re all familiar with from the book of Isaiah, verse 14. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us.

And so, Mary was from this tiny little town, insignificant town called Nazareth. And secondly, Dr. Luke lets us know that Mary was a virgin, and this is going to be in fulfillment to Isaiah’s prophecy. Fact number three.

We already read it, but let’s go over it again. To a virgin, pledged, or some of your translations will say betrothed, to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. Now, that’s important as well, isn’t it? That Joseph was a descendant of David because that’s a fulfillment of the Davidic covenant found in 2nd Samuel 7:14, that the Messiah is going to come through what? The line of David.

And the promise to David is that one of your descendants will sit on God’s throne and rule forever. That’s fulfilled in Jesus. And so, it’s very significant and important that Joseph was from the line of David.

Now, we need to understand this word betrothed or pledged to. So let me just share a couple of paragraphs here that is kind of similar to being engaged in our culture, but much more binding, actually legally binding. So, if you were betrothed and that relationship broke up, you would have to legally go through a divorce.

Here’s what Alyssa Morgan in her book, Christmas Changes Everything, writes, in the first century Jewish culture, marriages were often arranged by families at birth or in childhood. Young girls became betrothed early in puberty, sometimes as young as 12 years old. Some of you parents are kind of like freaking out a little bit right now thinking about that.

Betrothal was only dissolvable by legal divorce. While the betrothal period usually lasted a year and consummation of the marriage was deferred until after the wedding, the couple was considered husband and wife from the moment of betrothal. So, it’s a much more legally binding arrangement.

And so, here’s Mary. She’s from this little town. She’s a virgin.

She’s betrothed. She’s engaged to Joseph, a descendant of David. Well, let’s also throw in, as we think about this and we think about Mary, that therefore in the story of Luke chapter 1, Mary is probably 13 years old, maybe 14 years old.

This is a young teenage Jewish girl in a small, small town in Galilee, and her life is about to dramatically change. And so, the angel Gabriel comes to Nazareth and comes to Mary. And in verse 28, the angel went to Mary and said, “‘Greetings, you who are highly favored.

The Lord is with you.'” Well, there’s a few facts about Mary, but now we’re going to look at Mary’s fear. And we would probably experience these same emotions if we were in Mary’s shoes or Mary’s sandals. And I don’t know how it works when God sends Gabriel to give a message to Mary.

Does Gabriel come and knock on the front door and say, I’d like to speak to Mary? Or does Gabriel just like, poof, appear, and there he is? I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t tell us how that works. But here’s this angel who appears to this young teenage girl, and it says in verse 29, Mary was greatly troubled at his words, as well as you and I probably would have been.

Mary is frightened. Mary is wondering what is going on here. Mary is afraid.

She’s greatly troubled, confused, perplexed, distressed. And so, she’s wondering what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.

And so, Gabriel’s trying to bring some calmness to this dramatic event that’s happening in Mary’s life. So, Mary’s greatly troubled. And so, let’s think about the next thought here is Mary’s future.

Now the angel is going to tell her what her future is, what this appearance is all about. And we pick that up in verse 31. Here’s the message, God’s incredible plan for young Mary.

You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call His name Jesus. He’s already been named. Matthew 1:21 tells us that means He shall save His people from their sins.

He’s going to be the Savior. His name is Jesus. He will be great.

He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord will give him the throne of his father David. That’s the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant that we mentioned.

And He will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever. His kingdom will never end. He’s going to be a pretty important person.

This is the Messiah that the Israelites and the world has been longing for centuries and centuries. Mary, you’re going to have a baby. No wonder Mary was confused and troubled though at this.

Let me read again from Alyssa Morgan’s book, Christmas Changed Everything. Mary had plenty to be stressed about and plenty to ponder. There were the obvious concerns of the biological obstacle of her being a virgin and the scandal of being an unwed mother.

But Mary also would have known that pregnancy itself was a dangerous state for women in her day. Further, a large percentage of newborns did not survive their first month, and 50% did not live beyond the age of five. Such pondering or processing served Mary well through her life as she carefully pieced together all God was doing in and through her and all God would allow in the life of her beloved son.

Gabriel offers some facts about the baby she will conceive. As we mentioned, He’ll be called Jesus, which means God saves. He will be great, a reference to the status of His importance.

He would be called the Son of the Most High. And so, here’s this message that’s going to change Mary’s life. You’re going to be the mother of the Messiah, Savior of the world.

I love that song by Mark Lowry, Mary, did you know that the baby you delivered will soon deliver you. Mary, did you know that when you kiss your baby’s cheek, you kiss the face of God? And so, this is Mary. No wonder she’s overwhelmed with God’s plan for her future.

Well, that leads us to try to stay with our alliteration, Mary’s frank question. It’s a question we all would have asked if we were in Mary’s shoes. I’m a virgin.

How am I going to have a baby? This has never happened before in the history of the planet. And so that’s the question that she asks. How will this be? Verse 34, Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin.

And so now Gabriel takes the opportunity to answer that question and explain to Mary how this is going to happen. And so, we think about Mary’s faith. That’s the next section here, beginning in verse 35.

Here’s the answer to your question, Mary. The angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come on you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So, the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.

Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age. And she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her six months. Verse 37, the NIV says, for no word from God will ever fail.

Some of your translations say, for with God, nothing is impossible. Mary, this seems impossible to you. Let me tell you, that with God, nothing is impossible.

Let me ask you this morning, do you believe that? That with God, nothing is impossible? That was the message of Gabriel to Mary. I don’t know what seemingly difficult circumstances you’re facing in your life right now, but we need to be remembered this truth, that with God, nothing is impossible. Feeling lonely this Christmas season? With God, nothing’s impossible.

A marriage that’s in stress and in trouble, with God, nothing is impossible. A prodigal son or a prodigal grandchild that’s far away from God, with God, nothing is impossible. You have some financial trouble, some financial difficulty, with God, nothing is impossible.

And so, Mary is faced with this awesome responsibility and challenge of God’s plan for her life. It’s really a crisis. Mary, are you going to choose faith in what God has said, or are you going to choose fear? That’s a choice that we often have to make in our lives.

Our oldest grandson has a t-shirt that he wears frequently, and it just simply has the word faith and a line over fear. There’s many times in our lives, especially when life is difficult and challenging and uncertain, where we have to make a similar choice that Mary made, and we’re going to see her choice in a little bit, where we’re going to choose obeying God and not listening to fear. Because when we’re afraid, we don’t make very good decisions.

That’s why 2nd Timothy 1:7 says, God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear, of being afraid, but of love and power and a sound mind. And so, here is Mary, and she asks the question, how is this going to be? And Gabriel explains what the virgin birthed to her, that God’s going to come over you, and you’re going to conceive and bear the Messiah. For with God, nothing is impossible.

And Mary could have responded and said, hmm, I don’t think so. She didn’t. Notice her faith.

Notice her response. I am the Lord’s servant. Mary answered, may your word to me be fulfilled.

So, God, I’m going to take you at your word. I’m going to say yes to your plan for my life. Even though I don’t understand all of it right now, I’m going to say yes by faith.

I’m going to take one step at a time. Oftentimes, we want to see the whole staircase, don’t we? We want to see the whole plan laid out, and God says, trust me, one step at a time. In fact, the scripture says, not only are we saved by faith, but the just shall live by faith.

So, the Christian life after we’re saved is also a life of faith. In fact, Hebrews says, without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And so, Mary says yes to God’s plan for her life, even though it sounds very challenging, confusing how this is all going to work.

Mary says yes. So, just a little summary here. Mary was a woman who trusted.

In the moments between Gabriel’s pronouncement and her agreement, Mary likely considered a huge gap of reality that would need to be bridged. How would her beloved Joseph respond to the news she was pregnant? How is she supposed to explain this to Joseph? Would he divorce her? Would he step away? How would her community and family receive the news and then treat her as a result? Mary had much to lose, and yet she evidenced a soul sold out to God, the God she had come to understand through her training and upbringing, the one true God, Yahweh. And so, Mary says yes.

Now, what’s interesting in the storyline, and we know this in the text here, the angel Gabriel leaves Mary. And what does Mary do? Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. Mary goes to a town in the hill country of Judea, verse 39, and she enters Zacharias and Elizabeth’s home.

And we know this story, when she entered and greeted Elizabeth, verse 41, when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, John the Baptist, six months old. She hears the greeting, and John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth’s womb. In a loud voice, Elizabeth exclaimed, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear.

But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord would come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill the promises to her. And so, Mary leaves that little town of Nazareth.

She goes to Elizabeth’s and Zacharias’ house, and the scriptures tell she stays there for three months. And she spends some time away from Nazareth. What would it have been like for Mary to come back to Nazareth? Maybe at three months along, maybe showing a little bit, certainly as time went on, and you imagine the rumor mill in this little town of Nazareth about, okay, here’s Mary, and what happened to Mary? And so, Mary spends those three months with Elizabeth.

But the last part of our section here is what we call Mary’s famous song. And this was our scripture reading this morning. And I’m just going to take time to read it.

It’s verses 46 through 55. So, Mary is what? She’s worshiping. She’s giving praise and glory to God that she is the one who is chosen to be Messiah’s mother.

So, Mary says, my soul glorifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior. Don’t gloss over those words, God my Savior.

Guess what Mary needed? Mary needed a Savior because Mary was a sinful person just like you and I. And so, Mary acknowledges, I need a Savior. For He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed.

For the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is His name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with His arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from thrones, but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped His servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever. Abraham was 2,000 years before this song was sung, just as He promised our ancestors.

And Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home. So just a summary statement. Mary was a deeply committed young Jewish girl. She said yes to what she understood and then leaned into what she did not understand, yielding to God’s invitation.

Her yeses weren’t easier for her than they would be for any of us. Mary said yes, one yes at a time, to God’s invitation in her life. And so, there’s a little overview of the mother of the Messiah, Mary.

This morning, we just want to think about a couple of application questions from Luke chapter 1, two of them. So, here’s the first one as we think about Mary and specifically the fact that Mary was greatly troubled and Mary was afraid. So, my question to you this morning is, what in your life has you greatly troubled? What is it that’s keeping you awake in the middle of the night or when you wake up in the morning and you’re troubled and you’re concerned and you’re wondering about the future, God’s plan for your life? That’s what Mary faced.

It’s interesting that Jesus informed us in John chapter 16 verse 33, in this world you will have trouble. But the last part of the verse says, but take heart because I’ve overcome the world. And so, Jesus tells us we live in a fallen world.

We live in a world full of difficulty and challenges and trouble. Jesus gives some very encouraging words to a room full of troubled disciples in John chapter 14 when right before He was going to go to the cross and they were experiencing some great trouble in their lives because Jesus just told them, hey, I’m leaving, you can’t come with me. By the way, one of the 12 is going to betray me very soon.

And also, one of you is going to deny me three times in the very near future. And all of a sudden, the disciples’ world is rocked. And so, Jesus comes to them with words of comfort.

And if you’re troubled this morning, whatever is troubling you, these are great words to hang on to. Jesus talks about a person, a place, and a promise. Do not let your hearts be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me. And so, He’s saying, trust me. And then He talks about a place.

In my Father’s house are many mansions, many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go there to prepare a place for you.

So, He’s saying, hey, get your focus on eternity, on heaven. And then He says, and if I prepare a place for you, I’m going to come back and take you home to be with me forever. So, what’s Jesus doing? Jesus is trying to get His disciples to get their eyes off of their troubles, their fallen world, and to think about the future, to think about heaven, to think about the promises of God.

And it’s similar to what the Apostle Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4. Therefore, don’t lose heart, though outwardly we’re wasting away. Yet inwardly we’re being renewed day by day, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, because what is seen is temporary.

What is unseen is eternal. Jesus is wanting us, and the Apostle Paul is wanting us to focus on the future, to focus on the promises of God, to focus on heaven. Well, the second question is this, and it really relates more to Mary’s story that we just looked at.

Where is God inviting you to say yes to His plan and purpose in your life? Where is God inviting you to take that next step of faith? Just like He asked Mary, Mary, you don’t understand all this, but I’m going to ask you to trust Me with this plan for your life. Where is God inviting you to trust Me with your life? We might say this morning, well, you know what, if an angel, Gabriel from heaven, or some other angel came down and had a word for me and asked me to do something, if that happened, I think I’d probably be more likely to say yes. I remember in our previous ministry, there was a fellow in our church, and he worked for University of Michigan, and he was a very smart fellow, researcher, scientist.

His wife came to the church. He very rarely did, maybe Christmas and Easter, but he really didn’t believe in God. He didn’t believe anything from the Bible.

I remember somebody asking him once, what would it take for you to believe? And he basically said, well, Jesus came down and appeared in front of me and spoke to me. Then maybe I’d believe. Well, we don’t have probably an angel that’s going to come and ask us to do something, but we have something that Mary did not have.

We have 66 books of God’s letter to us and instructions to us. And so, where is God asking you to say yes to His plan for your life? So, what are some of God’s invitations? Well, Romans 10:13, for whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, you’ll be saved. Isaiah chapter 55, the great invitation from the prophet Isaiah, come all who are thirsty, come to the waters, you who have no money, come buy, eat, come buy wine and milk without money, without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread, on your labor, on what does not satisfy? It’s an invitation to what? Come to God. It doesn’t cost anything. And so, the first invitation to all of us is to say yes to salvation, putting your faith in Christ, in Christ alone, that salvation is by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, and His payment on the cross for our sins.

And that’s part of the reason we celebrate His arrival, that Christmas and Easter are tied deeply together. God’s invitation is salvation. There’s another invitation in Scripture, and it’s the invitation to follow Him in the waters of baptism.

It’s interesting, you read the New Testament and the day of Pentecost, 3,000 people come to faith in Jesus. What happens next? They’re baptized, not to be saved, but to make a public proclamation of faith in Jesus. Part of the Great Commission, go into all the world and preach the gospel, make disciples, but baptizing them, maybe that’s a step that you’ve not taken in your Christian life and you need to say yes to.

How about daily fellowship with God? Revelation 3, verse 20, written to one of the seven churches in Asia, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and I will, what, have fellowship with him. Now, that verse is written to Christians, and it’s a picture that God is wanting, what, to have daily fellowship with us.

And maybe that’s the yes that you need to say yes to God this morning. We need to get in God’s Word and have fellowship with Him on a daily basis. What about being involved in the Great Commission? You know, not all of us are called to go cross-culturally to different places in the world.

Thank God for those that do, but there are goers and there are senders, just as we experienced last week of investing money into missions because it costs money to do this, to take the message out. And so, it’s being involved in missionary work and the Great Commission by personally witnessing, by investing funds that support missionaries by praying for those that are involved in missions. Maybe that’s the yes that you need to say yes to.

Tell you what, we are greatly encouraged because every year we have a nominating committee that meets, and we just had our annual meeting last month, and so on any year we have about eight or nine positions, offices, that we need filled. And we need, obviously, people who are part of our church family and members to say yes to those positions. You know, as we went through that process, I think there was five of us on the committee, and we’d divvy up assignments, and there were nine people that we needed to ask initially whether they’d be willing to serve, perhaps another term, or perhaps you’re new to this position, and we asked nine people.

You know how many yeses we got? Nine yeses. Every person we asked said, yes, I’m willing to serve. I tell you, without that we don’t have a church.

It takes what? Willing workers. And so, the question is, and as you investigate your heart, where is God asking you to say yes? I heard one speaker at Maranatha, and this is the way he put it, here’s the way we usually approach God. We get our blank sheet of paper, and dear God, you know, here’s my plans, and I’m going to do this, I’m going to go to college, I’m going to get this degree, hope to be married someday, you know, two children, white picket fence, this is my plan for my life.

God, will you sign it? He says, that’s not the way it needs to work. We need to take a blank sheet of paper and give it to God and say, God, I’m willing to do whatever, whenever you ask me to do. God gives us that blank sheet of paper and says, are you willing to sign that blank sheet of paper and trust me with your heart? And so, are we going to be a Mary who said, yes, Lord, that’s your plan, I’m your servant? Or are we going to be like Moses who, when God asked him to be the leader of Israel, what did he do? He’s like, excuse number one, excuse number two, excuse number three, excuse number four, I can’t speak very well.

God says, well, hey, who made your mouth? I did; I can help you with that. And God shot down every one of his excuses. And God wants us to be Mary.

Whatever He’s asking us to do with the next step of His life, of your life, when you get to the end of your life, you can look back and you can see that God has written a beautiful story in your life because you’ve trusted him and followed him, just like Mary did. Think of Jeremiah 29:11, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, to give you hope in a future as we conclude.

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Psalm 96: 1-9

Blank Outline

Filled in Outline

We’re going to read Psalm 96, the first nine verses, and then we’re going to look at Psalm 100 this morning. This is what the psalmist says, Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth.

Sing to the Lord and praise His name. Proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples.

For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. For He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nation are idols.

But the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him. Strength and glory are His sanctuary.

Ascribe to the Lord all you families of nations. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name.

Bring an offering and come into His courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness. Tremble before Him all the earth.

 Well, I don’t know about you, but I would say Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. One of the reasons for that is it seems to be one of the last holidays that has not yet been commercialized.

It’s pretty pure, pretty simple, and I enjoy Thanksgiving. Let me tell you a little about how our culture has changed. Because 60 years ago, when I was growing up in a pastor’s home, in my elementary years, junior high years, my dad was pastor in Cleveland, Ohio.

And back then, we had a Thanksgiving service on Thanksgiving morning, about 11 o’clock. Now, if we tried that today, I won’t ask for a survey, but if we had a service on Thanksgiving morning, anybody willing to show up? Probably not. But that wasn’t the case 60 years ago.

And so, it was actually well-attended. People would come and would sing songs, praise, worship, testimony time. And then our family would get in the car after that Thanksgiving service.

And my paternal grandparents lived in Buffalo, New York. And three boys in our family, my mom and dad, would jump in the car, would drive around the southeastern portion of Lake Erie, and would go visit my grandparents in Buffalo, New York, and stay for Thanksgiving Day, and then come back the next day. Well, if you know anything about weather in Buffalo and around Lake Erie late November, we had some very interesting trips to Buffalo, New York.

There’s a couple times we got stuck there, because, you know, these winter storms that come across Lake Erie. But that’s my memory of Thanksgiving as a kid. And this morning we’re going to look at Psalm 100, probably the most familiar Psalm other than Psalm 23 in all of Scripture.

And we’re going to take a look at some biblical instructions for worship. Here’s the first thing we need to understand as we think about biblical instructions for worship. And here’s the premise.

Everyone worships someone or something. The question is not, are we a worshiper? The question is, every person is a worshiper. Who or what do you worship? And so, we want to think about that this morning.

Everyone is a worshiper. You know, missionaries with Ethnos360 will tell you that they will go to a place around the world where there’s an unreached people group. They’ve not had any exposure to Western civilization, Western society.

And guess what? They have some sort of worship form that they’re worshiping. It’s not the God that we know, the God of the Bible, but that’s because worship is innate into our soul. We were created to worship.

And so, everybody worships someone or something. And so, we need to think, well, what do we worship? About three weeks ago, some friends on the other side of the state graciously gave me some tickets to the University of Michigan football game. And so, I took our son and our two grandsons, and there we were.

It was on a Saturday night against Purdue University. Michigan won by two points, but there was 110,000 people there. And they were passionate about what they were watching.

I like to watch football on TV, and sometimes I see these games where it is like pouring rain. And they’re, you know, rain gear on, and they’re sitting there for three hours and pay a lot of money to do it. Some people worship sports.

I have to tell you, at one point in time in my life, sports was too important in my own life. I had some inverted priorities. Some people worship money.

Some people worship the health, the human body, nature, work. There’s a good way to kind of think about and evaluate who do we worship, what do we worship? And if we were to take a spreadsheet and examine our weekly planner, if we were to take a spreadsheet and look at where we invest our funds and our money and our budget, if we were to look at where we spend our discretionary time and evaluate all that, you’d probably have a good idea of what’s most important to you. And the psalmist this morning joins us and says we need to worship the true God of the universe.

There’s only one verse in the Bible where it says God is seeking something. It’s found in John 4, verses 23 and 24, a conversation that Jesus had with the woman at the well. And this is what Jesus says, yet a time is coming, and now has come, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father is seeking.

It’s only one time in the Bible where it says God is seeking something from us and He’s seeking our worship. And Psalm 100 gives us some great thoughts about what we need to do as far as biblical worship. Let me just give you a couple definitions of worship.

There are many, just to set the table here. The Hebrew word translated worship is shachah and it literally denotes the act of bowing down. Psalm 95:6. Come let us bow down in worship.

Let us kneel before the Lord God our maker. So, it’s a picture of bowing down and worship. The Greek word means to encounter God and to praise Him.

Some other definitions. Worship is the believer’s response of all that He is, mind, emotions, will, and body to all that God is, says, and does. Someone else defines worship as a response to God in adoration, exaltation, humility, submission, and obedience to God.

Well, this morning we’re going to look at Psalm 100 and think about three instructions for worship from Psalm 100. Here’s the first one. You can follow along in the outline in your bulletin if you care to.

Here’s what Psalm 100 verses 1 and 2 says. Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness.

Come before Him with joyful songs. So, the psalmist starts out and tells us that we need to worship the Lord with joy, with gladness, and with singing. I hope that characterizes your heart this morning.

Joy, gladness, and singing. Notice it says shout to the LORD. Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That’s the name for God, the covenant name for God, Yahweh.

The covenant God. Worship the Lord with gladness, joy, and singing. This is all through the Psalms.

Psalm 98 verse 4. Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth. Burst into jubilant song with music. What was the angelic announcement when Jesus was born? I have good news that will bring what? Great joy for all people.

And so, we come to worship God and God wants us to come with hearts that are filled with joy, with gladness, and with singing. There are so many verses in the Psalms that talk about singing with joy and gladness and there’s dozens and dozens but it’s repeated over and over in the Psalms. I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever.

Psalm 101:1, I will sing of your love and justice to you Lord. I will sing praise. Psalm 105 verse 2. Sing to the Lord. Sing praise to Him.

Tell of all of His wonderful acts. Psalm 144 verse 9. I will sing a new song to you, my God. Psalm 146:2. I will praise the Lord all of my life.

I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. And this concept is picked up in the New Testament as well. Colossians chapter 3 verse 16.

We read these words from the Apostle Paul. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms and hymns and songs from the Spirit singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And so, this is repeated in the New Testament over and over.

We’re to sing to God with joy and gladness. I know some of you are sitting here thinking and this used to be me. I can’t sing.

I can’t sing very well. In my journey growing up in a pastor’s home of course I was in church from two weeks on every Sunday. I remember probably about fourth or fifth grade in the worship service every Sunday I’m like I’m going to try to participate.

And so, I started to sing the songs that were part of the worship service and try to learn them. And even though I couldn’t sing very well I began to participate because it’s really not an option. It’s a command to sing and worship to God.

But still did not have a very good voice. So, I have to tell you a quick story. I went to a Christian school in Cleveland, Ohio.

Graduated from there a long, long time ago and in this Christian school one of the required courses that you had to take was you had to be in the choir. They had a choir. There were a lot of kids in the choir and so for one semester I had to join the choir and but I still couldn’t sing and they’re asking me are you a tenor or a bass? I have no clue.

So, I guess I’ll sing bass. That sounds really manly so I said I’m a bass. Well granted now picture there’s like 50 or 60 teenagers in this choir and our choir director was a very gifted musical person and I thought that a bass meant like you sing every note really low and so I’m singing like and one of the guys next to me is like get your voice up.

I’m like okay and then the choir director literally stopped the whole practice and she said who is singing in that gravelly voice? And I’m looking around like who is that? And they’re like it’s you. Well over the years I’ve worked at it and but singing now is a joy and the scriptures tell us we’re to sing with joy and gladness and worship with joy gladness and singing. Here’s instruction number two regarding biblical worship and it’s found in verses three and five.

So, worship the Lord for who He is and what He has done. So, what is basically worship about? It’s about acknowledging who God is and acknowledging and worshiping him for what He has done. And so, in order to worship properly there’s some things that we need to know about God.

Look at verse three. Know that the Lord Yahweh is God. First of all, this one that we’re worshiping is the God of the universe.

Where has our culture gone wrong today? Well, the apostle Paul nailed it in Romans chapter one and some verses there in Romans chapter one. Let me read verse 21. For although they knew God.

This is talking about the culture. They neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. So, they knew of God but they didn’t acknowledge him.

They didn’t give thanks to him. Their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Well Paul says in their culture they rejected the true God. They wanted to worship nature. They wanted to worship something that they could tangibly put their hands on.

And that’s true in our world today. That people in America have rejected who God is and they’re worshipping something else. And so, we need to know who God is.

And in verse five the psalmist mentions three attributes of God. So, who God is? He is Yahweh is God. Notice verse five.

For the Lord is good. His love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations.

And so, there’s a popular saying in Christianity today. God is good all the time. All the time God is good.

Do you believe that? That God is good? Sometimes when we go through challenging times in our life it’s difficult to embrace that and believe that. But the scriptures teach us that God is good. Again, that’s all through the Bible.

We could read dozens of verses in the Psalms that proclaim the goodness of God. James chapter 1 verse 17 every good and perfect gift comes from what? The Father above who doesn’t change. He’s immutable.

God is good. So, the fact that you have a house to live in a roof over your head a warm bed to sleep in clothes every blessing comes from a good God. Our Father who Jesus says in Matthew 7 if you who are evil, fallen, nature know how to give good gifts to your children how much more our heavenly Father in heaven.

There’s a father and a parent as we delight in in bringing joy to our kids and our grandkids and doing good things for them. God the Father delights to do good for us. And there’s a wonderful promise if you know Jesus as your Savior it’s often quoted but it’s true for we know that in all things God works together for good for those that love God to those who are called according to His purpose.

God specializes in taking the difficult things in our lives even the bad part of life the evil part of life and if you know Jesus as your Savior, he will use that ultimately for our spiritual good. And so, we need to worship the Lord because He is good. Secondly the psalmist says His love endures forever.

Some translations say His mercy endures forever. It’s the Hebrew word Chesed. The Hebrew word Chesed found 250 times in the Old Testament.

It’s such a complicated word to try to define that there’s probably a half a dozen words in the Old Testament that translate the word Chesed because not one word capsulizes it. Chesed means mercy. Chesed means compassionate.

Chesed means kindness. Chesed means love. And the Bible says God’s mercy and love is unending.

It will never run out. His mercy and love will last forever. There’s a limitless supply.

Back when we were growing up in Cleveland, Ohio it was our family tradition once a year we would go to a Cleveland Indians baseball game. They’re now called the Cleveland Guardians. But my dad would take us three boys once a year to a Cleveland Indians baseball game and this is back when years ago when they had a municipal stadium.

This large stadium sat 78,000 people. There would usually be about 8,000 people there. But one year when we went it was bat day.

In other words, if you showed up to the game you were going to get a baseball bat. And we were so excited to do our annual trip with our dad to the baseball game to watch the Cleveland Indians. But we were excited because we were going to get a bat from the Cleveland team.

We got there early. There was this long, long line. We stood in line for about an hour and a half and they ran out of bats.

Maybe the fine print said for the first 20,000 people. We were deeply disappointed and this is what moms do. My mom didn’t go with us.

Our dad did. But when we told the story he says, I’m writing the Cleveland Indians and complaining. That’s what moms do, right? It didn’t get us a bat but it made her feel better, I think.

They ran out. Well, the psalmist says, God’s mercy and love is unending. And then the last part of verse 5 not only is God good, not only is His mercy unending but the psalmist says, His faithfulness continues throughout all generations.

This is Lamentations 3:23. Every morning God’s faithfulness is new. Great is your faithfulness.

Why did we wake up this morning? Because God’s faithful. Why do we have our health and ability to be here today? Because God is faithful. God’s faithfulness continues throughout all generations.

I love 2nd Timothy 2:13. The first part of verse says if we are faithless, which sometimes happens, He remains faithful. We’re not always faithful but God will always be faithful.

So, God is good. His mercy endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations.

Now that gives me great comfort not only for today but for the future. I think I’ve shared that in our family the spiritual heritage of walking with Jesus began with my great-great grandmother, Chal. What happened is my great-grandfather’s wife died at the age of 23 and left him with two boys, two young boys, my grandfather and his brother.

So, what does a 23-year-old do with two young boys? He needs help. And so, his mother-in-law actually moved in with them and raised those two boys. But my mother-in-law was a follower of Jesus.

She says, I’m going to do this. We’re going to go to church. We’re going to raise these boys in knowing God’s Word and God’s truth.

And so, God’s faithfulness started with my great-great-grandmother and then it extended to my great-grandfather who was widowed at 23. We called him Gramps. He lived in the upstairs apartment of my grandparents’ home in Buffalo, New York.

And he smoked a pipe all the time. And one of my memories when we would visit like, I love the smell of that tobacco. I don’t know what it was, what he used in his pipe but yeah, it smelled really, really good.

But God was faithful to him and then God was faithful to my grandfather. My grandfather had four boys, my dad being the oldest. And all four of them came to know Jesus as Savior and my dad became a pastor.

God was faithful then to the next generation. Myself and my two brothers. And now as we project into the future, God’s been faithful to our sons.

We have eight grandchildren. God will be faithful to those grandchildren. And until the Lord comes, God’s faithfulness will be to every generation until He returns.

So, the psalmist says, worship the Lord for who He is, but worship the Lord for what He’s done. Very quickly here, back to verse 3. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who has made us and we are His.

We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. So, God is good, God is merciful, God is faithful, but then the psalmist talks about what God has done. He has two claims on us.

He created us, Genesis chapter 2 and 3, and He redeemed us. So, there it is in verse 3. He made us. We belong to him.

We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. He’s redeemed us. He’s given His Son, Jesus, to be our savior, to be our redeemer so that we can have what? The joy of eternal life and knowing that our sins are forgiven, that assurance of salvation that Shelby talked about this morning, and so that we can go out and tell other people the good news, the gift of life.

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and Cleveland sports fans, although that’s beginning to wane, but quarterback for the Cleveland Browns when I was growing up, one of them was a man by the name of Bernie Kosar. Bernie Kosar was a great quarterback, but lived a challenging post-career life, and he found himself, I think 61 years of age, dying because he needed a liver. He’s posted this on social media quite a bit, and so here’s Bernie Kosar.

He’s been on the list for 15 months. A couple weeks ago, he thought he was going to get a liver, and it didn’t work out, and then finally, a week later, he got the call. We’ve got a liver for you.

Here’s the story of the gift of life. Bernie Kosar is recovering well after his liver transplant, and the story behind the gift is extraordinary. Bryce, his 21-year-old organ donor, spent his final moments surrounded by loved ones in Cleveland Browns jerseys, the team he cherished. His family made a directed donation to Bernie because Bryce admired him and loved the Cleveland Browns with his whole heart. His mother said that knowing his son saved a life brings her comfort.

Bryce continues to touch lives through the hope he has given, and so here’s this 21-year-old. The family decided that they were going to donate his liver to save Bernie Kosa. It’s a touching story.

It’s a reminder of what God has done for us. He willingly gave His Son Jesus to take our place, to pay for our sin debt, and to worship him so that we could worship him and have the gift of eternal life. Well, the psalmist says we need to worship the Lord with joy and gladness and singing.

We need to worship the Lord for who He is and what He has done. Lastly, gratitude and praise are key components of worship. Gratitude and praise are key components of worship.

Verse 4, enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise His name. So, 73 times in the Bible, it tells us to give thanks to God.

The command to praise him is 250 times or more. So, worship is not about getting. Worship is about giving.

And sometimes I’ve heard, not here at Community Bible Church, but other churches, people say, well, I didn’t get anything out of the worship service. Well, maybe our primary purpose is not to get something, but to give, to give glory and honor and praise to God. And let me remind you that worship is not based on our personal circumstances, but on the character of God and what He has done.

And God’s character never changes. One of the most amazing verses in all the Bible, Job chapter 1. Job just lost everything. It says in Job 1, beginning in verse 20, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head.

And this doesn’t make sense to me. Then he fell to the ground in worship. He’s lost everything, including his 10 children.

Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised.

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. Habakkuk chapter 3, verse 17 is a similar response from the prophet Habakkuk. If I can find Habakkuk, here it is.

Habakkuk, here’s how the book closes. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, and the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, and there’s no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stall. He’s basically saying my bank account is empty.

They live in an agrarian culture. My bank account is empty. The next verse, but I will rejoice in the Lord.

I will be joyful in God, my Savior. The sovereign Lord is my strength. And Habakkuk chooses to praise and worship in the midst of very difficult circumstances.

So biblical instructions for worship. Psalm 100, the psalmist says, worship the Lord with joy and gladness and singing. Worship the Lord for who He is.

He’s good. His mercy and love will last forever. His faithfulness to not only our generation, but every generation to come, God will be faithful.

And then enter into His courts with thanksgiving and praise. Be thankful unto him. Gratitude and praise are key components of worship.

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