#Being Rooted changes everything

This morning after that slightly, I feel like everyone's

looking at me like, oh, this morning we're kicking off a new

series and I hear some of you say, hey, didn't we just kick

off a new series? We did.

We have kicked off the series on Axe or Impact series, but we're

actually kicking off a second new series on Colossians.

And we're going to be weaving these two series together over

the next couple of months. And they're quite dynamic

actually, when we look at the topics of the Holy Spirit and

who we are in God, who He is and who we are in him as we look at

our impact through the power of the Holy Spirit into our world.

So we're in for a dynamic few months of really digging into

the Word and we're excited for what God is going to do in us.

But I'm going to pray and then we're going to open the Word

together. In fact, I'm going to ask you to

just hold out your hands if you're open in this room to hear

from the Lord today. Holy Spirit, we simply ask you

to come. We thank you that it's you who

breathes life to the words of Scripture.

You open our hearts and we invite you to open our hearts

right now that not one of us would walk out of this room

within an encounter with you this morning through your living

active word, man, man. So turn with me and we're going

to be looking at Colossians. We're actually going to be

working through Colossians essentially few verses at a time

in this series. And this morning we're going to

be looking at Colossians one versus 1 to 8, and we're going

to read it together. 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 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 the same way, the gospel is

bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just

it has, as it has been doing among you since the day you

heard it and truly understood God's grace.

You learned it from a Pafras, our dear fellow servant, who was

a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and who also told us

of your love in the Spirit, love the word of God.

So to give us a little bit of context as we head into this

series, you know, the book of Colossians is a letter written

by a man called Paul to a young church in a place called

Colossae, which is a small city that you'd find in modern day

Turkey. Paul is likely and probably most

certainly is in prison for his faith at the time that he's

writing this letter, alongside a guy called Timothy, who was

another respected leader in the early church.

To this body of believers who were living in a world at the

time that was shaped by a lot of competing worldviews, you had

Greek philosophy, you had Eastern mysticism, Roman

culture, and Jewish tradition all wrapped up and swirling

around everywhere they went. And the danger for believers

wasn't that they were rejecting Jesus, it was that they were

slowly and potentially subtly drifting if they didn't stay

alert to a faith where Christ was no longer supreme, the

highest in their life, he was no longer fully sufficient that

everything, it was like Jesus and a bit of extra stuff.

And I think in some ways, if we're honest, we can probably

resonate with that a little bit, right in our own noisy

information opinion aided drenched world.

You know, even in the last week, we were listening to the team

that had been out to the Himalayas.

And they they saw this like really apparent as they were

ministering in those in the nation that they went to where

Christians could say yes to, where believers would say yes to

Jesus, but they'd love to mix in with all the other spiritual

things that they're open to. And there was this real need to

acknowledge that Jesus was lured not just another God in their

life. And so when this letter opens

with the phrase, that first phrase, Paul, an apostle of

Christ Jesus by the will of God, you know how easy it is to read

a sentence like that and throw it away.

When we read our Bibles, we're like, let's skip to the good

stuff. But that was a deeply

intentional statement of identity and authority because

Paul is saying into this mixed up world, I'm not bringing my

own ideas here to the mixing pot.

I'm speaking as someone who's sent by Christ Jesus, which is

confirmed in Galatians 11. It says that Paul was sent from

God, not from a man who is rooted in Christ, having

encountered him himself. And he was speaking under the

authority of Christ Jesus. And it's really poignant that we

recognize that because it's what he's saying is this is a heads

up, everybody. The stuff I'm about to say is

really important, not because of who Paul is in his own merit,

but because of who Christ Jesus is.

And what a timely reminder for us church.

We not only live in a noisy world, we actually live in a

really noisy Christian world where the insta reels and the

access to endless sermons and podcasts and people's latest

commentary on scripture can be all really helpful.

But you know what? They do not replace this right?

Picking up the scripture for ourselves, not taking our

theology second hand because in here is the truth and the truth

anchors us and it's not just an idea about who Jesus is.

This reveals who He really is and the Spirit in helps us more

and more. The more we drench ourselves in

here, the more the Spirit is going to make Jesus real in our

lives. And so this passage is off to a

super intentional start. And actually, interestingly, I

think it reveals a lot in that first sentence about what is to

come about being rooted in Christ Jesus.

And this morning I just want to unpack 3 things that the Lord

just highlighted to me as I sat in these few verses about what

happens in us when we are rooted in Christ Jesus.

And they're kind of like an introduction to the rest of the

amazing speakers that are going to come after me who are

unpacking the rest of this book. But but I want to start this

morning with these three things and maybe whet your appetite for

what is to come. And the first one is this, that

being rooted in Jesus means that we get a new identity.

Look at verse 2 with me. It says to God's holy people in

Colosse, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and

peace to you from God our Father.

Before Paul addresses anything that this church needs to watch

out for, before he corrects any off track possible theology,

before he addresses any behaviour or gives an

exhortation for their growth and maturity, what does he do?

He speaks out their identity in Christ.

Notice it. How does he describe this

Colossian church? God's holy people, faithful

brothers and sisters in Christ. And that's pretty remarkable if

you think about the context that we know this church is living in

and what he's about to address in them.

And if I'm honest, deeply reassuring, right?

Because Paul doesn't start by saying because you're getting it

wrong or because of the dangers surrounding you or the mixed

messages in the world, you need to listen up carefully.

He starts by saying church, this is who you are in Christ.

And I want us to slow down for a minute and just notice it

because we hear these phrases. God's people holy all the time.

If we're in church a lot and I think we sometimes we don't let

them just resonate in us a little bit more.

You know, maybe even now you just want to close your eyes so

you're not distracted and hear it.

God's people, we belong to him, our incredible Father in heaven,

the one who is full of love and joy and delight over you.

You belong to him, you are his. I belong to Him.

And as believers, as those who have acknowledged our need of a

Saviour Jesus, we have been saved and adopted into his

family as his kids into this new life, as Co heirs alongside

Jesus, his Son. Let me show you how.

I am his Son, I am his daughter. Hear it this morning in your

heart. And that means that you have

unhindered access to him at all times.

You know, just like my kids used to.

They didn't care whether their dad was sat in a meeting at work

or in our lounge with friends or anything.

If they saw him when he was a toddler, they would run at him

unhindered because they knew that he was their dad.

We get this new life church completely forgiven, the chance

to be free from the power of sin and death that wants to entangle

us through the blood of Jesus, created with purpose and

intention and meaning. To live a life full of joy as

overcomers with the promise of a life eternal.

To enjoy endless beautiful relationship, communion with God

forever and all because of Him. All because of his deep,

unconditional, radical, undeserved love for each one of

us. It's mind blowing.

That's how we can sing. Yes, you are.

You're the most beautiful. There is no one like you.

And that's why Paul was able to go on and call this body of

believers holy and why we are declared in this room holy

because it's our inheritance. And yet if I asked any one of us

in this room this morning before I got to speak and I said to

you, you could you describe yourself?

I can't see none of us would have put our hand up and be

like, I am holy. Because when we hear the word

holy, our sub, our subconscious translates that into I've got to

be doing everything right? But you're called holy this

morning because you're God's child.

And not because of anything you've done or you're doing

anything special, but because he is holy.

And now you've been grafted into his family and it's like you

carry his DNA, so to speak. Like my kids, my girls look like

my triplets. So you often know, there's no

denying that my twin girls belong to me, right?

They look like me. We look like our Father in

heaven, and Paul calls them faithful, drumming home this

truth because he definitely did not mean that this church was

flawless, as we uncover reading the rest of this letter.

But even in their mess, they were postured with a desire to

follow Christ while they were still working out and learning

and stumbling and coming back to Jesus and asking for the Holy

Spirit help again and again and again.

And this morning I just felt in my spirit, the Lord wants to

remind us in this room who we are.

He is who he says He is, and you are who He says you are in him.

And perhaps this morning you're in the room and you've never met

Jesus before. Perhaps you're like, what is

this girl talking about? I thought church was about rules

and doing the right things. This is what's on offer for you.

Jesus is for every human being on this earth, including you and

his invitation to you this morning.

If you would love to give His life, give your life to Him and

let him lead you, recognizing that you can't do this life on

your own. He's saying, I want you to

become one of my God's kids and this life of joy and freedom

and, and just being accepted and loved and adopted can be yours.

But some of us have already done that in this room.

We love Jesus and but we forget, right?

We forget the reality of the truth because we get so

distracted in how we aren't adding up to what we think we

need to be. And it's why Paul goes on to

confidently declare that grace and peace come to you from God,

our Father, because he's reminding us that he knew that

even in their imperfect journey, that we have a Father in heaven

who loves to pour out his free gifts upon us.

This gift of a beautiful life in him, not out of us performing to

acquire it. And I just think it's really

poignant that Paul does this before he goes into the rest of

this letter, because what he's speaking to us here is that when

we we have this new identity in Christ and it pierces into the

core of our human reality, into the world full of lies of the

accuser, who even as believers continues to try to convince us

that we have to live for acceptance.

But in Christ Church we no longer have to live for

acceptance or with an uncertainty that if we mess it

up somehow, we have the power to change God's mind, that somehow

we can make him reject us. And yet we sang it this morning

when he went sent Jesus to the cross, He said it is finished.

And when he said it is finished, he ended this for us.

We no longer live from for acceptance.

We live from acceptance in Christ and everything changes in

our future as a result. And that means that as we delve

into the rest of this book, God is reminding us this morning

when he calls us higher and deeper and convicts us and

challenges us in our discipleship.

It's never from a voice of do better.

It's always from a voice of saying you're mine, you belong

to me, and therefore you have access to the fullness of who I

am. And together we're going to go

at this thing, we're going to press into this area, we're

going to go on this adventure in the Spirit.

We're going to do this and that. We do it together, empowered by

God. Or as NT right puts it, Paul

does not tell people how to behave in order to become more

Christian. He tells them who they are

because they are a Christian in Christ, and then draws out the

implications for how they are to live.

So here at this morning church, you are in Christ.

You are adopted and accepted and loved in this place.

And I hope that gets you to sit up a little bit stronger this

morning, because you should, because you're in the presence

of your Father. Point #2 Being rooted in Jesus

changes us from the inside out. Verses 3 to 6 you know, in these

next few verses, we start to see some of the fruit of a life

grounded in Christ. We see it in poor we he in the

way that thankfulness, gratitude is overflowing in him, right.

We thank God always for our the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

when we pray for you his he is grounded in Christ and he's full

of thankfulness. And it's why we exhort us often

in this room that we have a reason to be thankful even when

it feels like we don't. Because we have Jesus and we can

thank him always for what he has done.

But Paul goes on to talk about faith and love and porn, only

names the fruit that we start to see growing in them.

But I noticed something. This is the moment when he

connects it back to the truth that the fruit of our life

springs up. It overflows from the reality of

a hope stored up, secured in heaven, the hope that Jesus

secured through his death and resurrection.

And it speaks to this eternal promise that we have that is a

part of our inheritance that we receive as one of his kids when

we say yes to Jesus. But let's have an honest moment.

You know me, I like an honest moment, right?

You know, as a pastor in this place, I've sat with many of you

and I know from my own journey with Jesus that we can hear all

these amazing statements about what our what is ours in Christ

Jesus. We can know we've got this hope

for the future. We can know that we're accepted

and loved, and then we can look at our lives and desperately

want to become more loving. I would love to become more

loving to everyone around me. I'd love to be more patient,

more gentle. All those fruits of the spirit

that we know. But we find ourselves, don't we?

Or maybe it's just me in moments of frustration or Dan Rabbit

Warrens wondering, like, why can't I seem to grasp it?

And then subtly in those places, we end up trying to fix it in

our own strength. We'll cover it up a little bit.

Gosh, if they knew what was really going on in here.

Uh oh. Almost like sticking like the

good fruit on the outside. We do all the right things.

You know, if I show up at all the prayer meetings, they'll

think I'm really prayerful. A bit like the day that one of

my boys brought me a dead branch in the garden and had attempted

to try to tie apples onto it and they declared that they now had

an apple tree for their den. And I had to smile like any good

mum does. And but I thought, gosh, how

easily we fall into that trap in our faith of trying to tie all

the good stuff on. And yet we know deep down, don't

we, that that's not what we really want or how it works?

We know that an apple tree is only a living apple tree if we

get the seed and we plant it and we it bears roots and they grow

and then it starts to form the trunk and the branches and the

apples come empowered with water and sunlight.

And I want us to notice something as I sat in the

Scripture going, OK, God, what? What are you saying here?

Let's look at this verse further down.

It says 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. And something struck me in this

little phrase at the end of verse 6.

Fruit had been growing in them since the day they heard it, the

good news of the gospel and truly understood God's grace.

And what we're reminded is that fruit doesn't just simply come

from simply hearing the good news.

How does it come? It says since the day you heard

it and truly understood God's grace.

And in another version, it says understood God's grace in truth

and the and is so important. And I want to unpick this little

sentence. So come with me on a little

journey, OK? Understanding God's grace.

What is God's grace? Well, essentially as his

unmerited favour. It's his is our and His his gift

to us. It's in the what we don't

deserve. He's giving it to us anyway, and

He's given it to us freely. This in the case of God's grace,

a new life in Him, a new identity.

But I loved when I looked at this word because there's also a

reflection in the original that this came with dynamics of

kindness and great joy. So God's grace is God giving us

this gift, delighted to give it to us.

He is joyful in giving it to us. And then the original word for

understood is I love it. I love a good word that I can't

pronounce, Epigenosco, which means if we break it down, EPI,

it means to come upon, which intensifies the word that

follows, which is genosco, which means to know.

And together they literally point to something being known

deeply, thoroughly, through personal, lived experience,

embodied knowledge. Not just hearing information,

just acknowledging the truth, but a truth that speaks to

receiving it, wrestling with it, engaging with it so that it's

life changing, heart shaping reality transforming,

understanding. And for that to happen, it's not

a one hit wonder and suddenly you're going to live and have

this amazing fruit in your life. It's an active, growing, never

ending journey to deeper and deeper understanding.

And there is the catalytic truth that the enemy fights for us not

to embrace. And my grandparents, my step

grandparents, they, they were foster parents.

In fact, they fostered over 50 children in their lifetime and

they received an award for it. And I got to meet some of the

foster kids because I was a teenager at the time.

And these children were coming to their home and they were in a

home that loved Jesus. But because their future was not

secure, and even though they were surrounded by love and

security, there was a guardedness in them.

And I think watching that unfold actually impacted me.

Because now whenever I see a picture or a video of an

adoption court where the judge puts the hammer down and he

tells a child that their new name, that they have a future

and a security in this family, it like gets me every time.

And I get really emotional watching it because in that

moment there is a truth that pierces into the reality of

their trauma, that they belong and there's big smiles.

But it struck me that even in that those children go home and

the parents have to keep making space for the truth that

happened in that moment to sink in and change their trust and

their behaviours for the long haul.

And the parents have to keep doing it on repeat.

And as believers, it's true of us too, right?

We can hear this truth that we're in God's family, that

we're accepted and loved, but we have to keep making space for

the Holy Spirit to just make it go deeper and deeper and deeper

until it sits in every cavern of our horror.

And it's why on Sundays, we're making space for the Holy Spirit

in here so that we can just say host.

But I need your help to know this is true of who I am in Him.

In fact, it's completely changed my approach to prayer.

I used to pray. Can you help me become more

loving? Can you help me become more

patient? And now when I'm impatient and

I'm unloving, I say, Holy Spirit, will you help me to know

the Father's heart for me? Will you help me to know who I

am in you? Would you help me to know that I

am loved, that I don't have to strive for His attention or His

affection? Would you help me to know when I

mess it up, that I can run unhindered to this Father in

heaven? Because there's nothing that I

can do that will change His mind for His love for me?

And it's why in these days church, we need each other.

We need to create spaces where we can wrestle it out.

We can get in the scriptures, we can hear the truth.

We can encourage one another and hear someone else's testimony

and pray with each other and stand next to each other and

say, Holy Spirit, come and help us know this truth of who we are

in Christ because that is where grace takes root.

And that is how fruit begins to grow in our lives.

We don't conjure up the fruit. We allow God's truth to resonate

in our heart. And from that place, the fruit

comes naturally. And so we need you.

We need you to make more spaces. We are going to see hundreds and

thousands of people saying yes to Jesus in this town and our

city, right? Do I hear ya?

And in order for us to help people know who they are, to

truly understand God's grace, we need spaces for people to come

in and walk beside us. And we do it together.

And so we're going to need more of you to, to run groups, to

open up your homes, to make spaces to disciple each other,

not because you're a perfect leader and you have all the

answers, but we wrestle this side by side.

The Holy Spirit is the one that brings the revelation.

We just want to create spaces for that to happen, right?

And you don't do it because you're ticking a box in your

Christian faith like it's a good Christian thing to do to run a

group, right? We do it because we want the

Holy Spirit to bring a revelation of the truth in this

place so that we become more like him.

Amen. Because as Paul goes on to say,

when the gospel is alive, the gospel isn't just something to

admire or acknowledge is true. When it's alive in US, it

changes not just what we believe, it changes who we are

becoming from the inside out. And thirdly, being rooted in

Jesus enables us to be faithful followers.

Paul turns in verses 7 to 8 our attention to a name guy named

Epaphras. And at first glance, Epaphras

might seem like a pretty minor character in the Bible story.

You may never have even heard of him.

In fact, I bet if I'd asked at the start of this how many

people had heard of him, there would just be a few hands that

raised in the room. But when?

But this guy, he wasn't introduced as an apostle or a

big name leader, but he gave his life to Jesus in Ephesus when he

heard the good news. And then he faithfully went out

and carried the message to people, his people in Colossae

and day in and day out, even when he wasn't physically

present in the church. You read further on that he

fervently prayed and contended for them because he loved them,

because he loved God. And I absolutely love finding

individuals in the Bible like this because they're so

relatable, right? And it reminds us that

faithfulness is what we're all invited into as a follower of

Jesus, being available, willing, humble, ready, persistent, both

in the seen and the unseen, faithful in our homes and our

workplaces, just as I come in to end.

It reminded me of a her time our niece in the US when she was

born. Just a couple months after her

birth, she was diagnosed with something called Botulism, which

is a rare but seriously dangerous condition that affects

a baby's ability to breathe. And essentially it was life

threatening if untreated. And she needed a really specific

life saving, super expensive medicine that wasn't available

locally on the East Coast where we were.

In fact, it was only on the other side of America on the

West Coast, and it had to travel all across the US.

And I can remember being sat in this hospital room and we were

thanking Jesus for the medicine that was going to save my niece

life. We were thanking him for the

doctors that knew what to do. But as I was preparing this it

struck me that I don't think once we ever thank God for the

pilot that threw flew that medicine across the to the US.

So we didn't thank him for the Porter that brought the medicine

through the hospital building to get it into the right place or

the lab technicians that were making sure it remained active.

But each faithfully did their part so that that medicine could

reach her and most of them would never have been thanked or

remembered. But without their faithfulness

in the part that they were asked to do, that life giving medicine

would never have arrived and saved her life.

And that's what Epaphras minds us, reminds us of Paul would be

perhaps the first name that comes off our lips when we think

of Colossians. But it was Apaphras who

faithfully delivered the gospel, nurtured them as a church,

carried them in prayer when he couldn't be there.

And he was in many ways unseen, Yet God worked through him to

build a church marked by what spirit produced love.

And finally, I just want to say this, there's a verse.

So, you know, our heart is the everyone.

Everyone would have the opportunity to encounter Jesus,

not because we want a big church and be a big name in the nation,

but because we believe the body of Christ is marked by the Holy

Spirit. And that allows us to

demonstrate a love that literally changes everything.

And we want everyone to have the opportunity to know this love,

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whose presence is the

answer for every single human being on this planet.

And so from his love and in His love for one another, we walk

and steward all that He's placed in our hands to be faithful in.

Just like my niece's life that was saved by the many unfaith,

many unseen faithful hands, we Church are just a group of

ordinary humble people giving our yes to do our part

faithfully, prayerfully, persistently, to bring the life,

giving good news of Jesus to the whole world.

Amen.