The Extraordinary Journey: From the Colossian Letters to Shackleton's Adventures

Lead in to what we're talking about today in Colossians, chapter two.

You may want to get your Bible out Thank you for bringing it, and or your device, whatever you need to and out there.

Thank you for viewing in.

If you're in the area and you're able to, we'd love to have you come in person and meet you here.

There's people I would like to introduce you to, and so those of you watching all over the place, though we're just always thankful that you're viewing some of your own vacation and you're out on a fishing dock or something watching us, and so we're always appreciative of that.

We are in what was described last week as the core of this letter of Colossians.

It's in chapter two and the first part of chapter three.

We're going to be in 16 through 23,.

Those verses Also every few weeks.

I told you the beginning of this year I'm going to give you a quick financial update, because you are the ones giving and you are the ones supporting what God's doing around here, so I just want to give you a real quick one here.

We're right at about the mid-season point as far as accounting.

So as of the close of maybe the first week of July, our budget needs are right at $1.5 million.

You have given more than $1.5 million.

That is an awesome benefit, Blessing, Thank you very much.

That continues to allow us to do ministry and not worry about that whatsoever.

We also are in a capital campaign called Kingdom Comm and it's a three-year pledge and thank those of you who pledged and are already starting to give.

We're like in month four or five of that.

We have right now $1.4 million in the bank toward that of the 3.6 that was pledged.

So that's awesome and I appreciate that If you're new to the church or you weren't around when we went through that series.

And now this is for our second location, Pinewood, to find a permanent place, but it's also for renovations that are needed here downtown.

So both folks, both groups, are asked to give toward that.

If you've not had an opportunity to pledge, that just means in the next almost three years, whatever amount you pledged anytime within there, that's when we need the contribution.

You don't have to pledge to contribute, you just mark your giving toward Kingdom Comm.

We also have an offering called a category, called Unified Giving, that goes straight out the door or goes into a place here for nothing but missions career missionaries all over the world, in North America, here in the state, and right now you have given $58,000 toward that, which is great.

We're on track to be $120,000, $125,000 for the year.

With that too, that goes toward our mission's emphasis there and I think that pretty much wraps it up.

I told the nine o'clock group I hesitate to even say this, but one concern that always happens when we do a capital campaign is are people going to stop giving to the regular budget to do well?

You, because of your generosity, you're on track to give enough that by the end of this year it will be the most ever given at this church in a capital campaign.

That's incredible and so glory to God for all of that, because that means that God is working in your hearts and that you are going to be used by God, continue to be used by God to reach a bunch of people who are moving here that we don't know yet, but one day we probably will know them.

So let's say we need to pray, Father.

May we today just simply confess that we need you.

We don't need programs, we don't need religious practices, we need the Savior, we need Christ, God.

If we gain the whole world, but we miss that point, we have lost, Lord, even if we see everything unwined in our lives.

Except for that, we have been a success.

So, Lord, when we leave here today, if we have a tighter, closer, more vital walk with you, today has been an absolute victory.

For those that are in the room or watching in location, that do not yet know you personally, would you give them the freedom, the eagerness, the surrender to simply say I need Jesus and I need that relationship to begin today.

We'll give you the glory for that.

So please now come, Holy Spirit, amen.

If you're like me, you are somewhat of a person of habits and routines and there's things that daily you're pretty secure if you do them every day.

Right.

Families have those, Whole families have systems that, whether you realize it or not, you operate.

They're normal to you.

They might be weird to somebody else, but they'reso.

Think back those of you who are married remember the first time you went to her house for dinner, or the first time that you invited her to your house for dinner.

That's when you collide with theI can't believe y'all do it that way.

I can't believe.

First time I brought Sherry to my house for dinner it's a big deal.

We got to eat in the fancy room, you know in the dining room and everything.

And on the way out of the driveway we hadn't even hardly got into the road yet Sherry said your daddy doesn't like me.

I know he doesn't like me, and it was just that we were a little bit different and she had already translated that into.

You know, this is not going to go well whatsoever.

We all have those churches, have those, don't they?

We're famous.

We're famous for our traditions and our rituals and our habits and they make all the sense in the world to us.

But to an outside person coming in who's not familiar with them, they might seem strange.

One practice that went on, even in our group of churches, and I think in others too, a long time ago I don't remember it, but the practice of when someone died in your family, somebody would sit up with the dead.

You've been heard of that.

Uncle Frank dies and there'd be a group of cousins and nephews and whatnot that would sit up all night and they would.

He would be propped up.

They're in the room in the house.

I don't know why that was the case, but it's like we're not going to leave Uncle Frank.

I'm like well, he hadn't been here in quite a while now.

He doesn't know, but that's kind of gone by the wayside, I think too, and probably a good reason.

We visited a church one time, and not too long ago, and I'd never seen this and at first I thought, man, this is weird, because we go to church and we had not even hardly gotten home yet and I noticed in the front place where we were staying at that time, there was something there with a note on it and I picked it up and it's a jar of something inside and it was cookie dough and I'm like what in the world?

But when you make the cookies out of that cookie dough I saw, oh, this is like the best gift ever.

So watch out for that church, right, they just want to tell you they care, they acknowledge you were here and they want you to come back.

That's what that means.

Okay, so don't be offended by that.

You know we can rationalize what we do, but social scientists tell us that the reason we're such creatures of habit and routines is we want to feel like we're in control of something.

I control this part of my life, even if we're not really in control, because y'all know we're one phone call away.

We're one event, we're one accident away from not being in control of much of anything, and today I want to talk about that.

Paul is trying to say in the normal times, let's don't get so complacent, but in the challenging times and there will be coming if you're not already in them, that ain't going to the traditions and the routines will not get you there.

So, like I said, we're in Colossians 2.

Colossians 2, 16 through 23,.

Paul is writing.

He's writing from prison, so he knows a little bit about challenges and opposition and people who thought he was like way too controversial.

I'm going to give you a couple of points of why we need to simply do this.

Here's the big point don't let religion get in the way of Jesus For the sake of doing church or doing spiritual practices that you decide are routines and they're valuable and they probably are and they're just saying don't let that become your relationship instead of the relationship with Jesus.

That's all Paul is saying, because a group was coming in after him after the gospel in Colossae and they had been saying well, that's all good and well, but there's a little couple more things you don't know about that God revealed only to me and because of that.

You know, I'm going to share that with you.

And Paul was a good guy, but he didn't know this, and all they were doing was pulling them back into the ritual life of what the Jews and Israel practiced all the way since Moses day.

They called it the law, and so that's why we get this.

We're not going to let that get in the way of Jesus.

So the first let's look at verse 16 and 17 together in chapter 2, and it's simply this truth, if it's true, truth begins with Jesus.

Our world needs that stronger than ever.

You need something solid to put your feet on and put your family on.

Well, if it is true, then it's a connection with Jesus.

16,.

Therefore, don't let anyone judge you, think less of you or condemn you by what you eat or drink or with regard to a religious festival, a new means celebration or a Sabbath day.

These are a shadow or a partial part of the things that were to come.

He's thinking about the Old Testament, looking forward to a Messiah.

The reality, however, is found in who Christ.

So he's saying Jesus is that Messiah.

Jesus is the Savior, so we don't have to rely on now.

It's strange to us because we're not in that first century culture when he talks about stuff, what you eat and drink.

The Jews believed that one way you were righteous and you were worthy of God was by not eating some foods and eating other types, and the same with what you drank and everything.

They believed that what was coming into your body helped make you so.

It was all about diet.

It was all about dates on the calendar too, because they would select these festivals and that's what the new moon celebrations all about.

If you were faithful and you went to church extra on those festivals and you made a sacrifice or you gave money, especially during those times, and you did not eat certain things, guess what?

Oh man, you're really a holy person and we smile at that today.

But we have our rituals too.

We have our practices that we believe that make us better.

Whether we know that they do or not, Paul's coming along and he's saying that's not going to change your life.

So I always give you a little bit of devotional reading in addition to this if you want to read it this week.

So if you want to jot this down Galatians 2, 11 through 21.

Paul wrote Galatians.

It's a very similar book to a different church Galatians 2, 11 through 21.

That's where he says when everything gets stripped away, you better be knowing where the truth of your problem or your adventure is, and you better know who is the author of that truth, like Christ.

That's where that famous verse I have been crucified with Christ is.

I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I've been crucified with Christ.

That's what baptism means.

So I don't live, but he lives inside of me.

And if we really take that in internally, we know that he will focus our lives.

Well, what if we don't?

What if we just continue to rely on our practices and our methods and all like this?

Here's where that road leads.

It opens the door for people.

They might be good people, good ladies, good guys, but they're strong personalities, they have a sense of ambition.

They will walk into that arena and they will start to lead the group in a certain direction.

May not be a bad direction, but very likely, if we continue on in that group, it will lead in a direction that the Holy Spirit is not any longer present and when that happens, typically the only people who don't see it are the people in the group, People who fit people on the outside.

Looking in they can tell God's just not in this.

And then we're only one step away from idolatry.

And many times the people in the room are the most unsuspecting and we just can't go there.

Because when we base our life on rituals or just attendance or doing, not doing certain things, then when the crisis comes, when you're suddenly told after 30 years you're no longer needed A gentleman after the first service told me that right out front been in a certain career for 30 something years, same company, 30 something years Just got told hey, can't use you anymore, and you're like starting over at what should be almost retirement age.

Or when that person you have loved for two, three decades says don't want to be here anymore, what do you do then?

Or when you're sitting in an examination room and the doctor comes in and your spouse has had every test known to man and you see the look on your doctor's face and you don't even have to hear what he's about to say because you already know it's cancer.

What are we going to do in those moments when the storm comes?

All the practices and the systems and the programs in the world are not going to help you.

It better be a person and it better be Jesus that walks in.

It's got to be Edwin Shackleford.

A long time ago I didn't really know anything about him until a couple of weeks ago.

There's his picture.

That's from 1913 and 1914.

He had been an explorer in the Antarctic region.

He had done trips there and was quite accomplished.

He knew his stuff, he knew how to do that stuff.

But he felt like a failure because he had been trying to be the first man to get to the South Pole and somebody had beat him to it.

But rather than stop there, Shackleton, I'm sorry decided I'm going to one up them.

I am going to lead an expedition to be the first people to go trans-Antarctic.

That means you walk or you ride dog sleds from one coast to the other in Antarctica in 1914.

Wow, how long could that be?

1800 miles by dog sled or by foot.

And he gets a boat, they train, they get their supplies, they get sponsors, they set sail.

Hey y'all, to go from Europe to Antarctica, just the trip could kill you in 1914.

But they're bound and determined to go.

22 men, they get there.

They get into the mouth of the bay, to where they were going to go in, and land, and something they did not plan on happened.

There was an ice pack that had formed around their boat, trapped them.

They could not go any further.

Well, no problem, their well supplied will just wait it out and when it thaws, will go on in.

Well, it only grew, it did not thaw.

And at some point the boat, the hull, starts to crack up.

The ice is crushing them.

They abandon ship, they get off on the ice floes, they save some life rafts.

They set up their camp on the ice floes and they're floating around.

Well, no problem, we'll wait it out.

Oh yeah, we have a problem.

The ice floes starts to crack up and break in too, and now they're desperate.

They have to get in the life rafts.

All 22 men somehow row and find their ways by what primitive means they had to an uninhabited island a couple hundred miles away called Elephant Island.

There's nobody on it.

This is 1914 Antarctica.

There's not a lot of traffic in and out, Nobody knows they're there, but they're on solid ground for the first time in a year by now, and they're all still alive.

Can't stay here.

What do we do so.

Shackleton handpicks five other men.

They get in the best life raft and he says the closest civilization is another island called South Georgia.

It's like a needle in the haystack.

It's way up there in the Pacific Ocean.

There's nothing around it.

They're here.

We don't even know exactly how to navigate to get there.

It's Antarctica, it's 1914.

But we got to try it.

He puts 40 days rations in there because he said, if we're not there in 40 days we're going to die anyway.

So you might as well have more of the food than we do.

He leaves his party behind.

At this point he breaks every rule of arctic and arctic navigation survival skills.

He breaks all the maritime rules because now he's operating on instinct and intuition and just trying to hold morale up.

For 22 people, against all odds, A miracle might happen.

So how far could it be to that next island?

720 miles.

They made it.

Four months later they scrapped together enough whaling ships and other vessels small vessels to come back down.

They find elephant island.

The men are still alive.

They get them.

They bring them back.

Two plus years later, all 22 men live.

To tell the tale, Forty years later, at a big banquet, posthumously, they gave a big award to Shackleton and the speaker I think his last name was Priestly said man if you want science and technology, Scott was your man in Antarctica.

If you wanted speed and efficiency, Amundsen was your man.

If everything goes wrong and the storm comes up and you are about to die, you better get on your knees and pray that Shackleton walks in.

I would amend that a little bit and say you better get on your knees and pray that Jesus walks in, because I believe that's what happened.

I believe that he supernaturally arranged that.

That's the only explanation there is.

We don't need traditions, we don't need rituals and routines.

They serve their place.

We need Jesus and we need to not get in His way.

So where do you go in the storm?

The second thing how about look at verses 18 and 19,.

True followers elevate Christ, not themselves.

There's not a person in the room that doesn't like encouragement.

There's not a person of us in this room that don't like a pat on the back and like hey man, how'd you do that?

That's so good and all, but that's not what we live for.

Look at verse 18, do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify for a youth price.

What do you mean?

They worshiped angels in those days.

Yep, some of them did.

They elevated angels to a position almost like deity and they thought that angels would protect them, and it was more superstition than anything.

What's he mean by false humility?

False humility is what Pharisees would do.

They would fast, but they would look pitiful as they were doing it and they'd make sure they tell everybody that they were suffering for Jesus.

And when they prayed, they'd make sure they got out in public and yelled.

So everybody said, man, that guy's a good prayer right there.

And then they would let you know that they tithed because they were so generous to everybody who was underserved and all like that.

That's what you call false humility and that's one reason they were blind to a guy that would walk in and walk among them, and he didn't look all that special, he didn't dress good like they did, His vocabulary wasn't quite like theirs, he didn't have any degrees behind his name, but when he taught, everybody was either coming to tears or they were celebrating and saying we've never heard teaching like this before.

His name was Jesus and he led by being a servant.

And he led by not thinking less of himself, but just not thinking of himself.

And every room he walked into he looked around and says I wonder who I can bless in this room.

Maybe I'll just bless the rest of them.

And he was so different that they were suspicious and they ended up executing him.

But he had what is called true humility.

And in 19 he says the danger is we lose connection with the head of the organization.

The head of the body, of course, is talking about the church.

Who's the head of this body?

Jesus is.

This is not an organization that's about the accomplishments of people.

It's an organization that praises and worships the accomplishment of God.

We come in here on Sundays to celebrate what God's doing the rest of the week, or what God will be doing.

That's called faith.

Well, how do you know what he's going to be doing?

We read try to read this thing a lot, because there's some promises in here that you can take to the bank and so it's not all that hard to believe Him.

He's pretty much 100 percent in what he's done in honoring those promises.

You know, in church work we can get so tied up into efficiency that we lose sight of is it effective or not.

We can do things for the next 20 years that nobody's coming to Christ about and nobody's developing stronger faith about.

But we think we're super successful because we know how to do them and we do it extremely well.

And at some point we've got to have the courage to say is Jesus in this?

If he is, there's got to be some fruit.

If he's not, why are we still doing it?

Our preferences and our experience, which paints everything as either good or bad, that's not what God uses.

Well, what does he guide us?

By the Holy Spirit and by our prayer life and by our search of the Scriptures.

Titus, chapter 1, he says to the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupt and don't believe in anything, then nothing is pure.

Titus 1 · chapter mention

Their minds are corrupted.

We can have corrupt minds and we're not even aware of it.

And here's how you know.

It can be like something obviously dysfunctional in your family or in our church or in our company, and everybody knows it, but nobody will call it out and everybody acts like it doesn't exist.

You following me, An outsider walks in and they say why don't they address this?

That's obvious.

It's a program, what.

I don't see any problem Because if we don't acknowledge it, what, it must not exist.

A few weeks ago was Father's Day.

It was a rare occasion that Sherry and I my wife, we rode together to go back home after the services.

We're usually in separate vehicles and we're kind of in different places.

That day, though, there wasn't anything here as Father's Day.

So we're going back and we're going to go to lunch at our house.

So I'm driving her car and I love my garage door because that little remote thing I've realized I can push that like a block away and it starts to raise Is yours like that, and I don't even have to hardly slow down.

I'm boom, I can go right in there, you know, if you time it.

So I hit that thing and I look at.

It comes in, you know.

Then I see the driveway and I see up ahead and my driveways are stick laying there.

I'm thinking, where'd that stick come from?

Only, it was not a stick, it was a snake, and so before I could get the door back down, guess what, that snake turns and goes right in my garage.

Now I've got stuff everywhere in that garage.

There's a place for a thousand of them to hide, and I hate snakes.

Those are the worst inventions that God ever made.

Now I'm sorry, if you're with PETA and you're with the animal, I'm with you on every species except this one, okay.

And so now I've got a problem.

So I stop and that door's down and I know what's in there.

And my first thought was you know what?

I can just raise that door and maybe he'll just eventually go away on his own.

And if I don't, if I pretend he's not in there, doesn't bother me none.

If I don't go in there, it's not going to bother me none either.

I said I couldn't get comfortable with that.

So plan B was I turned to my wife and I said Sherry, you know it is Father's Day.

Sherry turned to me and she said you're not my father, so they're strike two.

Now what I actually had in my garage was one of these.

Put that picture up there.

It was a black snake, maybe four feet long, and that's somewhat what it was.

But I was too far away, I could not see what kind it was.

In my mind, the fear, fear, barny, fight, fear magnifies the size of things.

I thought this is what's in my garage.

I'm convinced he gonna eat me and her.

And so we go to work and I'm pulling things out, you know and you're kind of, he's not in there, he's not in there.

I get more and more anxious the further I get to the back of that garage.

So finally I pull something and there he is, and I've got my shovel and I'm all amped up by now and I go to, I start, I start smacking him with that shovel and I hit him.

I hit him, I chopped, I chopped, I chopped and I didn't realize there's pieces laying everywhere, you know, and at some point Sherry says I think he's dead.

I think he's dead, you got the head.

You got all this From my point being how many times do we choose to ignore that snake in our garage?

If I don't acknowledge him, he must not exist.

How many times do we ignore the snake in us and God's telling us about every other day?

You know the best way to deal with him is to cut the head off, and the quicker you do it, the quicker you will be more useful to me.

But until you do it, oh yeah, you can lean on all your good works and all your smarts and all your Bible studies and you can go to five Bible studies this week.

It won't get the job done.

The third thing is surrender has to replace earning your way.

That's what legalists do.

Lawists earn their way by keeping all the rules and they realize that even all the biblical commandments are not enough to give us eternal life.

And so we start making up human rules.

They got so good at it in the Jewish religion that they had 613 of them and the leaders of the rules, the keeper of the rules.

They could not even keep the rules all, and it didn't stop them from ignoring the snake in the garage and saying, oh no, we'll just continue on Because I'm in the club if I do that and you're out, obviously because you don't keep the rules as well as I do.

Can I boil something down for you?

I'm one of the pastors of this church, but I'm a carnal man.

That means I will go to the flesh.

That means I have a sinful nature in me that if I don't fight against that, I will choose what is the selfish, egotistical, prideful thing that Randy will enjoy.

And I'll still know all the Bible.

I'll still know how to lead church.

I'll still know what.

I'll still know how to tell you what to do.

But I will be judging you about how you behave, not who you are.

And the Bible says that y'all are the same way.

All the rulekeeping in the world won't make you holy.

So what do we do?

Galatians 5, 16 through 24 is a good start.

Galatians 5, 16 begins you got to walk in the Spirit, capital S, and not gratify the desires of the flesh.

I have to surrender to Jesus so that he can run my life and he will do a better job than I will.

So the question is what is the number one thing in you and what is the number one thing in me I'm not talking about in your family, I'm not talking about at work, I'm not talking about in this church.

What is the number one thing in you that if God will stand in here instead of me today, he would say oh, you know what it is.

It is.

This Next question is what are you going to do about it?

Are you going to continue to let it live in your garage or are you going to deal with it Until that head comes off the snake?

We will continue to live a deceived, distrustful, disillusioned life, and the world is full of those Christians.

What the world needs are Christ followers who walk into the problem and announce I'm here to take authority over this, not because I'm special, but because he is, and I have no clue what to do next.

But he does, and in the process of waiting on Him, I'll tell you what he's like and I'll tell you how I should be until that happens.

Oh, and let me tell you this Even if he does not rescue me, even if cancer takes me out, even if something happens and the worst case happens, I still will win and he will still be Jesus and he will still be worthy of all my praise.

That's called walking by faith.

And you know, we can be good people and stifle the gospel.

We can come together as a group every single week and we can check on each other and we can pray for our illnesses and we can encourage people who are struggling and we can even give some money to some people and be generous there.

But if we are not in relationship, fully surrendered to Christ, we are wasting our time.

Wasting our time when my life is nearly over and yours is.

And if we're aware of it, we're not going to be asking for our stock portfolio, we're not going to be wanting to pull our degrees off the wall and our licenses and we're not going to pull out the scrapbook of all.

What a great athlete we were in high school.

Our, all our, the beautiful grandkids we have all of those are great.

The only thing that will matter in those hours is where is Jesus and what does he think of me?

Because if you die alone and broke but Jesus is on your fan list, then you have lived a successful life.

If you're a billionaire and you cure cancer but you have no clue what a relationship with Christ is, I'm sorry, you've been a failure.

Paul is trying as hard as he can to get through to this group of people hundreds of miles away with a simple letter to say if you stop eating around the edges of the good news of Jesus and you go straight into the heart of the good news of Jesus, come hell or high water, you will be the winner and they'll be singing about you in heaven, not to glorify you, but to glorify Jesus about you.

How do I do this?

Here's where I'm a world expert, y'all.

I'm an expert on fighting and running and struggling and arguing and negotiating with God until he finally broke me and put me on my knees.

And if you're in that mode right now, I just Can I give you a little advice, you can make it a lot easier to surrender to Him today like now, because you're not going to win.

You're not going to win that battle.

There are people in the ditches all along this journey that we have this path, we call it that opted to do it their way and they refused to allow God to break them and they're still suffering today.

So what's Paul going to offer as the solution?

We'll have to come back next week.

For the rest, that's in Colossians 3, 1-4.

My opinion, one of the most gripping, vital, dramatic four verses in the whole New Testament is Colossians 3, 1-4, where Paul says oh, it's simple, you got to die so he can live.

You got to be hidden so he can be visible.

And we'll talk more about what that means.

I would encourage you, as you're among friends today, if there's something, someone, you need to surrender.

That's why we have this altar call.

I would ask you to not leave the room during the invitation time because there's people struggling with some decisions both here and in the balcony.

I mean, we'd love to have you come down here and let's pray for you, or you can come to the steps, but if you need Jesus, I don't know how much pride you have to have to choose your path over his path, knowing that your path leads to destruction and his path leads to life.

So I would encourage you to drop the pride, the false humility, and come to know Jesus.

If you need a church and God's made that pretty clear through the Holy Spirit we'll celebrate that together too.

Why don't you stand and let me pray for you, Lord?

It's not our great intellect, it's not our great abilities, it's not our talents, Not our amazing personality.

It is our brokenness that you need.

It is our sinfulness that you want to deal with.

It is the snake in the garage that will keep us from truly being men and women of God if we don't deal with it.

And so I, for one, am grateful for the grace of God that you have given us, that is always ready and willing and eager to forgive us of our sins and put us on a new setting.

So do that now, please.

Amen.