Colossians 2:6-15

We're going to be continuing our teaching, preaching through the book of Colossians.

Seth taught last week on Colossians 2, 1 through 6.

I'm going to pick up where he left off, 6 through 15.

So if you guys want to open your Bibles up to Colossians chapter 2, if you've got them.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

And we'll look at the text here.

But before I read through 6 through 15, I kind of wanted to give a little bit of a review, kind of backdrop.

So Paul in Colossians is writing this letter likely to believers that he's never even met before.

Epaphras is likely the one who planted the church.

He preached the gospel.

And then a group of people formed into what would be the church at Colossae.

And then Paul writes two letters, one to the Colossians here, which is the letter to the Colossians.

And then one to Philemon, which is going to the church at Colossae.

And you can really feel as you read him that his heart is for these people.

And I think that's a crazy thing because he likely has never even seen them.

He says in verse 1 that he has a struggle and he wants to see them, to come to them face to face, that their hearts might be encouraged.

So from the get-go, he's affectionately aimed towards them, that their hearts may be built up and encouraged.

He says that they might be knit together in love.

And I was reading that and thinking like, man, I don't know if I've ever felt that way or been directed with an affection like that towards someone I've never met.

And he's trusting Epaphras, who planted and preached, you know, and cultivated this group of people that they're being built up.

He's hearing about them and their faith.

And his heart's starting to get in it with them.

So he's writing this letter from that place, which is a good backdrop to what we're about to read in 6 through 15.

And in Philemon, which is also a letter that will go to the church at Colossae.

It's to Philemon, but Philemon is at the church at Colossae.

He says that he's sending Onesimus, and with him he's sending his very heart.

So again, he's not really, he hasn't seen these people face to face, but he's sending Onesimus.

And with Onesimus, he's sending his very heart.

You know, that's a very apostolic kind of thing to say.

He's poured into Onesimus.

He said that he's become his father.

He was once useless, but now he's useful to you.

So you can hear Paul's earnestness to this church.

He's encouraged by what he hears about them.

And he writes this from that place.

That's the backdrop.

So Paul is zealous for them.

Let's get this square here.

So before we go into the text, I'm going to pray.

And I was praying specifically for this time last night and this morning that you guys would be refreshed.

That you would be built up.

That something would happen and be stirred up in you guys.

Like in Philemon, he says that Philemon was used to refresh the saints.

And so I pray and was praying that this morning something like that would happen today.

So I'm going to pray and then we'll go into the text.

I'll read it.

And then hopefully my aim is to walk through it, explain certain things.

And at the very end, I've got some points, but we can do that together as we go.

So, Lord, I pray that you would fill me with your spirit to speak right now.

Pray, Lord, that you would refresh us in your presence today.

Pray, Lord, that this text, Lord, as we walk through it, you would shine, Lord, your gospel.

Pray, Lord, and equip us, Lord, for what we need to do, how we need to walk.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Okay.

So Colossians 2, verses 6 and starting.

Colossians 2:6

It says,

It says,

I love this passage.

When Seth assigned it to me, it was kind of hilarious because that was like hours before he sent the text.

I was in this passage loving it.

So I was like, oh, this works out pretty good.

But there's so much here.

There's so much gospel kind of fundamentals in here that we're going to hear about.

But me in particular, especially last night as I was preparing, I was really getting affected and drawn back to the basic principles of the gospel,

which Paul, I think, is trying to encourage the church at Colossae with to keep.

Keep this at the forefront of your minds.

Keep this as something that you're standing on.

So before we start working through the text, I'd like to point out something.

In most of your Bibles, if you have an ESV, they put a title, a headline that says,

Alive in Christ.

If you have different translations, you probably won't see it or maybe it's a different title or something.

But I particularly love this title because it describes what a Christian actually is at its core.

Someone who is alive, someone who is living.

And there is, you know, you go through, you know, your Christian walk and you hear that all the time.

But how many of us have, you know, gone to meetings and gatherings and been around other Christians and felt maybe dead,

you know, or a sense of dullness, gone into different churches and had this lingering feeling.

And the truth is that a Christian is someone who is alive.

That is somebody who is alive with the life force, not of their own, but is living with someone else's life force.

And so I really felt the resonance of this title, Alive in Christ, fleshed out through this text.

I think it's appropriate.

And Seth actually spoke last week about how a Christian is someone who has Jesus living in them.

And that is felt as we read this.

So I made a note of this.

I stumbled across an article a day or two ago on LinkedIn.

I never go on LinkedIn because I'm not really a professional or have no need to be on LinkedIn.

But I read this guy's article, which caught my eye.

It said, titled, Are you living or being lived?

And I decided to read a little bit of what he meant by that.

But what he was saying is essentially like, do you have your own goals?

Are you self-motivated?

Are you self-disciplined?

Or are you just trying to accomplish your company's goals and work for somebody else?

Because if you are, my friend, you're being lived.

You know, kind of a negative.

Like, you need to get your own goals.

Although there's some truth to that, I couldn't help but feel like in the inverse, as a Christian, we are a people who are being lived.

Because our goals are now subordinated when we come to Christ.

They're subjected to the king's goals.

And we're being lived actually through God.

And our life, we don't live anymore, Paul says, but we live by faith.

And so I felt like maybe I should write an article called Living by Being Lived in response.

But then I was like, that's whatever.

So, alive in Christ, living in Christ, being lived, seeing that, is what the aim is.

And as we walk through this, I think noticing Paul's aliveness to this church, even though he hasn't even seen them, can be felt.

So, we want to start in verse 6.

We'll start to work through how Paul speaks to them.

It says,

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

So, two things right away.

Just as they received Christ Jesus the Lord, he tells them to walk in him.

Okay?

Don't walk by yourself, walk in Christ.

And then he says how to do that.

And he's got a couple distinctives.

One, you need to walk rooted and built up.

Okay?

And this language is the language of like a tree being rooted.

And think about being built up, the language of a house or a structure, right?

Okay?

And if you think about being rooted, immediately what I went to is being secure.

It's a secure foundation underneath you.

And so, he says you've got to have some roots that can support the upper weight of the tree, the trunk going up.

Okay?

So, he wants them, just as they receive Christ, to walk in a way that's like that.

That's like rooted and being built up.

Having pieces that fit together correctly, not disjointed and kind of supported halfly, you know.

But rooted and built up and established in the faith.

Like, you know, established in the faith, I immediately just think not tossed.

You know?

Not shifting.

Like, we had a really bad storm a couple weeks ago.

We had a lot of rain recently.

But we had a storm where a ton of trees came down.

And most of them were diseased and hollowed out.

And it was pretty easy to tell why they came down.

But during the storm, you would look outside and you see all these trees bending and bowing.

And then they would just, you know, stay up there.

And it's like, well, these guys are solid.

Something about this tree is different than the tree that just crashed through my neighbor's roof.

You know?

And because the roots go down deep.

I heard somewhere that the roots of a tree are as deep as like how high the tree is.

Which I thought, man, that's crazy.

Not only that, but it says something about the necessity for what is underneath us.

And it's got to be something that's secure.

It's got to be something that's established.

And so as we are doing this church plant, we're at the beginning stages.

Sometimes it can feel like we're just a little sprout out of the ground.

You know, not really fully established by any means yet.

And a lot of times we need something like a little stake to hold us up, you know, by us.

And I think that this truth or these truths that Paul is laying out are those things that we're going to hold fast to.

That's going to be the thing that makes it solid.

So he wants them to be rooted and built up and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

So he kind of ends it and tags it with this phrase, abounding in thanksgiving, which is important for us to know because it's easy to grow weary in giving thanks.

And it's even more easy to grumble when there's many things to grumble about.

You know, sometimes it feels like there's nothing to be thankful for, which is just really just a lie, you know.

And when we're tempted, we can remember Paul speaking to the Colossians, not just telling them to be thankful, but to abound in it.

You know, not grumbling when we get frustrated about, you know, how someone's bad at facilitating family or group things or, you know, grumbling about whatever in our life is just inconvenient, you know.

But constantly abounding, Godward, you know, not looking at our circumstances or other people by the flesh, but being thankful.

Paul says to abound in it.

With that, in verse 8, kind of leads them into a little bit of a warning or telling them to guard against something.

He says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

So although Paul is speaking to believers, he's, or believers that are standing firm in their faith, he's still giving them a sober warning.

He says, watch out for the things that will sneak in, like this strange philosophy or a type of empty deceit, something that might be appealing, but its end is just emptiness.

It's not going to, it won't help you, won't aid you.

And I think the thing about, you know, this particular church and this group of people, I don't think like, okay, we're like really susceptible by these things or to like philosophy, you know, attacks or human tradition maybe.

But the thing about how one can be led astray is you're led.

You don't all of a sudden fall away or fall astray.

You're slowly led.

Things can lead us.

So Paul is warning, don't be led by different things like philosophies, humanistic ideas.

And we see how non-humanistic it gets way down in verse 13 through 15 when he kind of goes through the gospel in detail.

But he wants them to guard against it.

And, you know, the thing about Satan is he's really crafty.

You know, in Genesis, he says that the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field.

And I think in Timothy it says that he disguises himself as an angel of light.

So there's going to be things that look one way, that appear beautiful, but they're full of darkness, you know.

And in a church, we have to be on guard against those things.

Because there are many churches who are following different things, different philosophies in conjunction with the gospel.

But actually, it's distorting the gospel, and it isn't that at all.

It's being twisted.

And so Paul's warning against that.

He's saying don't be led astray by it.

You know, it seems like sometimes that when you talk about the philosophies, the empty deceit, the human tradition, it exposes them right away.

It brings them right out.

And you're just like, oh, yeah, that's wrong.

You know, like if I got up here and I was just like, you guys, adultery, that's not really that bad.

You know, or like divorce is a viable option if any problems come up in the marriage.

Like you guys would be like, I need to talk to Sam.

He's off his rocker, right?

It's like right in your face.

That's wrong, right?

But if you put a little music to it, you know, make it sound beautiful, we'll listen to it.

You know, don't we do that?

We turn the radio on, and all of a sudden you listen to the lyrics, and you're like, I think this is Satan's music.

You know, like trying to speak to me, you know.

He's crafty, and he wants to sneak in anywhere he can, and we have to be on guard against it.

So Paul warns against that.

In Proverbs 4, 23, it says, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Jesus himself says to watch out that no one deceives you.

In Mark 13, 5, so we've got to guard against the things and not grow lax, you know.

I think it's another proverb that says a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty comes upon you, you know.

A little relaxation, and all of a sudden, you know, after a while, you're in a place that you never thought you would be.

Going down to verse 9, 9 through 10, it says, for in him, that's in Christ, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

I read that, and I'm like, what an incredible statement.

Like, the entire fullness of God dwells bodily.

You know, that's, I mean, it'd be one thing to see that, you know, if you were one of his disciples.

And maybe some of us, at some points, have a little bit of longing, like, man, I wish I could see the, you know, the fullness of deity dwelling in Jesus.

Well, there's a little bit of an encouragement here after that.

It says, I lost my place.

Where are we at?

It says, and you have been filled in him.

So it says, for in him the fullness of deity dwells bodily.

And then it says, and you have been filled in him.

So the guy, so the guy, so he's been filled with the whole fullness of deity bodily.

And then we also have been filled in him who is full.

It's like a trifecta of fullness.

What does it actually mean to believe that?

You know, what does it actually mean to believe that the same spirit who raised Christ from the dead dwells in us?

You know, that's what Paul is portraying.

He's saying, all of God dwelt in Jesus, and you have been filled in him.

You know, that for sure encouraged me when I read it.

Because I'd mosey on through my day thinking, like, I'm just a normal Joe Schmo.

You know, but not only in that respect.

God's fullness, his spirit has been given to me.

You know, the one who has been full completely from the Father has filled me.

That's powerful.

And so oftentimes we can forget the inheritance we've been given.

The immeasurable riches of his grace, the Bible says, that has been granted to us in Christ Jesus.

And remembering that God looked upon us with mercy and didn't just spare us, but he filled us also.

We've been filled in him.

Verse 11.

It says,

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands,

by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,

having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him

through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

So Paul is saying that in him you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands,

by putting off the body, essentially saying that actually it's true that you have actual power

to say no to the flesh now.

To cut off the flesh, whereas before you didn't, you were a slave to it.

No power at all.

Even if you tried to, you could only use more flesh to try and crucify the flesh, which would never work.

So Paul says,

In him you have been given power to cut off the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

And in what way do you get this power?

It says,

Having been buried with him, going down underneath the ground with him,

and rising up through death, rising up to life,

you now have power to say no to sin.

In Philippians 3 it says, or Paul says,

We are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and put no confidence in the flesh.

He says we Christians are the circumcision.

It means we actually have the power.

All you people who look like you do, don't.

Because you haven't come to Christ.

You haven't been buried with him,

and have been also raised to receive power to say no to sin.

He says that we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God

and put no confidence in the flesh.

No confidence.

This word confidence,

I was thinking about this in relationship to faith.

I watched a debate earlier this week,

and this atheist was pretty heated against these Christian guys talking.

And the Christian guys were asking him,

Do you have confidence in your view?

Like, this is your view.

God, no God, you know, only materialism.

And he's like, well, yeah, of course.

He's like, well, then you have faith.

And he's like, that's not what faith is.

You know, faith is something else, like you Christians believe.

At the very end of the debate,

the Christian was giving his closing statement,

and he defined confidence,

which has its root in Latin that actually confide,

meaning with faith.

So when we talk about faith,

it's helpful to think in terms of confidence.

You know, Hebrews 11 says that faith is the assurance,

synonym to confidence.

So in Philippians 3, Paul says that we worship by the Spirit of God

and put no confidence in the flesh.

No faith in the flesh.

You know, we put faith in the flesh, we'll die.

And so when we have confidence in God,

through the gospel, we have power to say no to sin.

Titus 2, 11 through 12 says,

for the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people,

and it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions.

So this is the grace of God appears and gives us confidence to say no,

but no confidence in the flesh.

And Paul drives that home here in the last verses of the text,

when he kind of goes in, starting in verse 13,

explaining how a Christian went from death to life.

And it's really kind of the precipice or the peak of what it means to truly be a Christian.

It's really what we're standing on.

Here at the end of his couple verses here,

he divulges into the roots underneath us,

how I talked about earlier, a tree being built up.

You know, as Christchurch grows and Lord willing, we see more people saved.

We want to save them into not just a kind of tree above ground,

but also show them what the roots are beneath the tree

and how to be built up into a house.

And if we ourselves are not aware of those roots,

trusting in those roots, leaning on those things,

then we shouldn't believe that anyone would be caught up into that either.

We need to be fit together as being built up.

You know, I think about being built up and I work in many different houses,

a lot of new construction houses,

and there's all the structure exposed and you're just looking around,

seeing like, okay, if that wasn't there, you know, that's a problem.

You know, everything fits into its place and works together.

So for us to be built up, we have to fit together rightly

and also fellowship on the same truth.

Look at the same roots.

And so Paul in this last line gets the fundamentals of that.

This is the line between whether you have a dead church

or a living church.

Whenever Aidy and I travel,

especially long distances,

we see a bunch of different churches off the side of the highway

with a bunch of different names, different kinds of buildings.

And I always wondered to myself, I'm like,

is this a dead church or a living church?

You know, nobody didn't know,

but there's a lot of them out there.

And the ones that are alive are the ones that have their lampstands burning.

You know, they're continually being filled with this truth

that Paul is speaking to the church at Colossae about

that has heard Epaphras pouring into them.

And it needs to be the same confidence that we have at Christchurch

that will make us alive in the world.

And so I'm going to read this,

but before I do,

I want to give a quick note.

A lot of times when we read passages of Scripture,

especially like big truth gospel passages,

it can be easy to just gloss them over

and treat them as kind of every other verse and vowel.

It's like, oh yeah, I've heard that.

Yeah, it's good.

It's like, oh yeah, gospel.

Yeah, got it.

Move along, you know.

But if you guys can,

I want you to focus as I read this,

maybe in a different way,

and receive the words that Paul is speaking to the church at Colossae

as a past tense sealed promise over your life.

Meaning something that's more of like a declaration,

like this is true over your life and believe it.

Because a lot of times we just read the Bible

in a way that,

you know, is for the next guy,

or maybe that will apply to us at some point,

rather than looking to God to be filled then,

when we read it.

And so,

read it as something that's been sealed.

Ephesians 4 verse 30 says,

Ephesians 4:30

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit

by whom you were sealed

for the day of redemption.

You know, that's a heavy thing.

You know, you've been sealed up.

You've been snatched up from hell.

And God has sealed you for a specific day

that is already fixed.

So,

this is a declaration of the solidity of that seal,

the solidity of the roots underneath us,

of the truth that we're reading through.

And as I read this,

believe that.

So,

in verse,

starting in 13,

it says,

And you who were dead

in your trespasses

and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

God made alive together with him,

having forgiven us

all our trespasses,

by canceling the record of debt

that stood against us

with its legal demands.

This he set aside,

nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the rulers

and the authorities

and put them to open shame

by triumphing over them

in him.

So,

this is just like hardcore,

this is how

God safely brought you

out of death

and into life.

You were dead at one point.

That's a pretty controversial thing

to say nowadays,

although

I think in former days

it probably wasn't.

Many people don't want to hear

that they were dead

or are dead,

you know,

having no hope

and without God.

You know,

that's what Ephesians says.

It says that

at one time

you were dead.

Didn't have any hope.

You know?

And then God did something.

God made you alive.

All of a sudden

you were just brought to life

and you're like,

where the heck am I?

All because of someone else.

And so,

when he says we're dead,

it directly confronts,

remember those philosophies

that Paul was born against?

It directly confronts humanism,

you know,

which has an optimistic view on man

and says that

man is just,

you know,

kind of sick in his sins.

He's really,

deep down,

he's good.

And all he needs

is just a little bit

of help from God,

a little bit of medicine

for the illness.

And,

you know,

Scripture directly confronts

these philosophies

and says that man

is not sick

in his sins.

Man is spiritually dead

in his sins.

And if it is not for God

to raise the dead man

to life,

then he would be dead

forever.

And we need to realize that.

We need to realize that

we were once that.

We were once dead

in our sins.

And had it not been

for God's resurrection power,

that we would be

still dead.

So we were dead

in our trespasses.

We broke the law.

We were dead

in the uncircumcision

of our flesh,

meaning we had no power

to keep the law.

We had no power

to say no to sin.

Excuse me.

We only could sin more.

We can only

take more flesh

and patch it on

to kind of save ourselves

and it will never do.

And so it says,

while we were dead

in that,

God made us alive

together with him.

By what means?

The means of having

forgiven us

those things.

So God demanded

righteous atonement

for our sins.

And instead,

in substitute,

he forgives us

our sins,

wipes the slate clean,

and cancels

the record of debt

that stood against us

with its legal demands.

That's one of the most

awesome parts

of this passage.

I love how

he speaks

in legal terms.

He calls it

legal demands.

You know,

we had a debt.

I'm sure many

of you guys

have had debt

before of some kind.

And the worst

is when

you forget about it

and all of a sudden

you remember it.

And you're just like,

oh,

that debt.

You know,

it's the record

that haunts you.

Record of debt.

You know,

Paul says,

the record of the debt

that stood against us.

We remember it

and it's just like

haunting us.

And so,

it has legal demands

that go to a courtroom

and stand before a judge.

And in Christ Jesus,

God met these demands

by living a perfect life.

The demands

we fell incredibly short

to meet,

God himself

met them

and then paid

the penalty

for us

breaking

the demands

that he asked of us

and satisfy them

on the cross.

And in what way

did he

meet these demands?

It says,

this he set aside

nailing it

to the cross.

So,

it was satisfied

with nailing.

It was satisfied

with his own body

being

torn apart

and during

the agonies

of hell

for us,

the cross

we should have been up on,

Jesus was up on

for our sins.

Our sins

were nailed

to him

it says

that this

he set aside.

You know,

setting aside,

I always think

of

David

and Bathsheba

and after that

whole fiasco

Nathan comes to him

and says

you know,

that there are

consequences

basically for your sin,

David.

But then Nathan

says a peculiar thing,

he says,

but the Lord

has put your sin away.

And

if I was David

I'd be like,

wait,

what?

my sin's been put away?

You know,

you kind of hear that

when Paul says

this he set aside.

You know,

and in Hebrews

it says

at the end of the age

one day

he will put away sin

for good.

And so he did this

by nailing it

to the cross

and also tricking

the rulers

and the authorities.

He triumphed

over them

in him.

It's kind of

an interesting phrase

that I haven't

really thought about much.

It says

by triumphing

over them

in him.

I would,

if I were going to say

I think I would just say

by triumphing

you know,

himself.

But

we know that there's

there's multiple people

at work here.

There's God

the Father

working

through Jesus.

So God

shows his love

for the world

by sending his son

to triumph.

You know,

God the Father

works that

through the son

and the son

accomplishes it.

Seeing kind of

the effectiveness

of the Trinity there.

And so

we were dead,

we had a debt,

it was met

and satisfied

with Jesus being

nailed to the cross.

Romans 8.3

says that

he condemns

sin in the flesh.

If you break it down

that's

your sin

in his flesh

being condemned

which is

you know,

oftentimes

what we can miss

which is

a fundamental

gospel truth

that our sin

has been taken away.

The sting of death

is removed

and that one day

we will stand

before God

blameless

the Bible says.

2 Corinthians 5.21

says that

for our sake

he made him

to be sin

who knew no sin

so that in him

we might become

the righteousness

of God.

1 Peter 2.24

says that

he himself

bore our sins

in his body

on the tree

that we might

die to sin

and live to righteousness.

So the Lord

triumphed

over these authorities

and

substituted

himself

in our place

to raise us

to life.

So

when we think

about

the gospel

when we think

about

relating to

one another

maybe sometimes

the things

that we don't

have a ton

in common

about

it's good

to constantly

be reflecting

on what's

underneath us

you know

that really

binds us

together

that really

gives nutrient

to the

trunk of this

tree

that's above

us

you know

and

it's the gospel

it's that God

did something

that still

stands today

and seals

us

and so

um

it's

in the third

chapter of

Colossians

if we haven't

got to yet

uh

Paul says

that we're

hiding in

Christ

we've been

hidden

we've been

caught away

from

uh

the uh

threat of

this world

and from

hell

we're snatched

up and we're

hidden in

Christ

which is

which is a

safe place

for us

to be

so that

the uh

the sting

of death

the haunting

of death

the haunting

of hell

won't affect

us as we

walk through

this life

and look

forward to

the very

end

in eternity

a lot of

times

one way

to solve

the issue

of kind

of just

a drudgery

in our

Christian life

is by

looking to

the rewards

at the end

looking at

the very

uh

face of

God

one day

which we

will see

you know

with our

eyes

of faith

and uh

believing

that one

day we'll

we'll

meet him

um

I was

reminded of

that when

I when

I heard

uh

Dietrich

Bonhoeffer's

last words

when he

was caught

and uh

he was

actually in

prison for

a handful

of time

uh

by the

Nazi

Gestapo

and then

eventually

he was

hung

to death

but his

last words

right before

his Nazi

executioner

delivered him

over

uh

in

Flossenburg

Germany

was

this is

the end

he says

for me

the beginning

of life

you know

man that would

be so cool

to say that

to uh

you know

your executioner

you know

for you

this might

seem like

the end

of me

but for me

it's just

the beginning

you know

that's a

that's a

picture of

eternity

you know

that's somebody

who

who's

looking past

this life

and uh

getting their

eyes set

on eternity

so um

do we have

confidence

in these

gospel truths

you know

do we have

confidence

in what God

has done

for us

in Christ

you know

to support

us

are we trusting

in that

is our

faith in

that

and um

that's what

Paul's

speaking to

the church

at

Belasi

about

encouraging

Epaphras

he's speaking

to Philemon

and saying

um

you know

hold fast

to these

these fundamental

things

and so

um

to wrap

it up

just

a couple

points

of

exhortation

that I

was thinking

about

for Christ

church

um

to not

grow weary

in doing

good

to keep

our heads

up

and just

hold fast

to the truth

you know

if

if we're

going to be

a church

that has

a burning

lamp stand

you know

we got to

have these

roots

we can't

just

jump on

to other

things

um

when these

roots

aren't

established

you know

cultivating

that

among

each

other

you know

in

regular

life

and um

and putting

our hearts

in it

you know

just like

Paul

again

like

maybe

didn't

even

know

these

people

at

Colossi

his heart

was already

for them

wanting

them to be

knit

together

you know

how often

do we go

throughout

our day

uh

you know

thinking

about

the other

people

in this

room

uh

and how

we need

to be

more

or could

be more

knit

together

wanting

that

you know

like

Paul

and

we know

each

other

you know

Paul

didn't

even

do

these

people

likely

so

that's

one

thing

and then

uh

it's

gonna

sound

classic

and basic

but

resting

in the

finished

work

of

the

cross

is

gonna

be

the

thing

that

will

sustain

each

one

of

us

individually

and

when

we

come

together

it's

gonna

be

the

thing

that

we

all

fellowship

around

is

that

rest

I

don't

know

if

you

guys

have

any

friends

or

I'm

sure

you

do

at

some

point

where

you

know

they

carry

a

presence

about

them

that

you

love

being

around

it's

like

almost

like

a

fire

that

you

draw

near

to

and

get

warned

walk

away

warned

by

you

know

in

Acts

it

says

that

the

members

of

the

council

recognized

that

Peter

and

John

had

been

with

Jesus

you

know

something

about

them

so

if

we're

not

resting

in

the

finished

work

not

only

will

we

ourselves

suffer

but

we

can't

even

give

to

other

people

we

need

to

be

filled

!

up

we

!

need

to

there's

not

a ton

right

now

that's

big

ticket

rebuke

items

among

us

but

there

is

always

a need

to

encourage

each

other

to

be

knit

together

and

to

be

thankful

if

there's

anything

that

we're

not

thankful

enough

or

maybe

worse

maybe

we're

just

grumbling

about

stupid

things

the

way

that

someone's

gifted

or

not

gifted

how

so

and

so

is

whatever

you guys

know

your

own

grumbling

tendencies

but

but

to

abound

in

thanksgiving

that's

what

he

says

be

grateful

you

know

and

so

in

closing

I

wanted

to

give

a little

bit

of a

benediction

from

Hebrews

10

which

says

or

sorry

13

Hebrews

13

20

which

says

now

may

the

God

of

peace

who

brought

again

from

the

dead

our

Lord

Jesus

the

great

shepherd

of

the

sheep

by

the

blood

of

the

eternal

covenant

equip

you

with

every

good

that

you

may

do

his

will

working

in

us

that

which

is

pleasing

in

his

sight

through

Jesus

Christ

to

whom

be

glory

!

forever

!