Invested - Colossians 2:1-5 (Jan 17, 2016)

All right, well, that's awesome.

I love seeing that.

Hey, if you would uh grab your Bibles right now if uh if you've got them and uh turn in them to Colossians chapter two.

Colossians chapter two.

Excited to be with you here uh today preaching live uh at New Market.

Love doing that, and uh we've been working through uh the book of Colossians uh the last bunch of times that I've been uh uh preaching, and so we're starting up chapter two today.

Uh gonna be looking at uh the first five verses.

Um but hey, you ever had the benefit of uh of having someone kind of take you under your wing and uh and really just pour into you?

You ever had that before?

You think back over your life, some people that have really invested in you.

I've had a number of men that have been able to do that, have taken the time to invest in my life, and I was thinking about that and realizing, man, that's it's amazing.

It's amazing that I've had the privilege and the blessing of that, and to see the Lord's hand on my life kind of all the way through, and see how he's brought different guys into my life to really disciple me and do that.

And just this week I was thinking about the very first guy uh that ever did that.

I was uh 12 years old, and I was I got my uh first job ever.

We had my family had just moved out to Saskatchewan, and I got a job uh working at a driving range, being the kid, like picking up the balls at the end of the night uh every single time.

My best friend and I got uh this job.

And this guy, Greg Wilton, uh, was my boss and ended up becoming basically my first uh mentor.

And he really just took the time to invest in my uh myself and my friend Andy, and we would uh he taught us how to golf, he would take us golfing, we'd always go out for breakfast afterwards, and he would always be talking about the Lord, he would always be sharing about Christ.

And I remember he uh many times he had to rebuke us, he had to deal with us, trust me, we weren't easy to deal with.

Um but he would do that, he was so patient with us and spending time, and and uh it's kind of cool because even now I'm still connected to him.

Uh, he ended up becoming uh a missionary in uh in the Ukraine, and I still get his uh his newsletters, and we're still in touch through email and all of that.

So I look back on that, and I'm just so grateful uh for the way the Lord used uh Greg uh in my life for sure.

And uh what I love about Colossians 2, uh, 1 to 5 is that Paul models for us uh what it means to really invest in others.

That's what he models for us, and it's something that you and I as the church have the responsibility of, and I would also say the the privilege of doing in each other's lives.

You realize that?

Uh we do.

Hey, pouring ourselves out, uh pouring ourselves out for the sake of others' growth in Jesus Christ is essentially what discipleship is.

That's what it is.

And uh, I mean we see it all throughout uh the New Testament, right?

We see it with Jesus, he models this.

He gathers like 12 guys around him and he just starts to pour into them.

He starts to build into them, and then what do those guys do?

They start to go do it in other people, right?

And then you see that in the New Testament, in the letters, as they're written, you see the disciples have their own disciples.

And that's essentially how the church started through mentoring and uh these types of personal uh investments.

And I love that.

That's how the church gets started, and that model is just evidence, all uh evident all the way through the New Testament as the church grows.

Well, you know what?

Same thing goes for us today.

We're supposed to be doing the exact same thing as we move forward uh as a church here in Newmarket in uh 2016.

And so this is where we're uh going today.

You've got the outline in your notes, but um we're gonna throw it up on the screen so we can read it.

Uh but it basically is this it's when I invest in others, it will be a grind.

But they will be built up and protected from what's false while I'm blessed in return.

And so I really got a question for you today.

Uh, what kind of an investment are you put are you making in other people's lives?

What kind of an investment are you making?

And so what we're gonna do now is we're gonna read this.

Um you can stay seated for this, but it's uh it's Colossians 2, 1 to 5.

Follow along with me.

It says, For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding, and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Let's pray.

Lord, we come before you, uh, Lord, humbled and recognized that we need so much help from you, Lord.

And I pray that uh we would all catch uh the vision this morning here that uh to grow means we need to be looking for people to pour into, Lord.

Just the way, just like how you have done that uh to us.

You have done it by your Holy Spirit, but you have also uh brought people into our lives at a time that was so needy, and you have shaped us through that, Lord.

I pray that we would be eager to do that uh in others as well.

And so, Lord, give us a fire for this, Lord.

I pray that we would be excited about this as your church in Newmarket, Lord.

I pray that that uh it would not be for our fame again, it wouldn't be for so that we would look great, Lord, but that it would be so that you look great, and that you so that people would see Jesus Christ clearly uh in our lives.

And so, Lord, teach us and instruct us through all this.

We pray all these things in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, here's the first thing, again, as you're following along and you got notes there.

It's this when I invest in others, uh, it will be a grind.

Okay, it will be a grind.

And I think it's, listen, so, so important uh that we have our eyes wide open here as uh as we think about uh discipleship.

Because discipleship is tough business.

It really is.

It's not easy, it's not always this, you know, feel good rainbows and gun drops kind of experience.

It's not.

It's tough.

It can be messy, it can be uh painful, it can be discouraging and disappointing, it can even be uh maddening at times, and I mean that's why, that's why it's such a grind.

It can be it can be hard.

And uh I think we would do well if we had that expectation.

You know, if you expected it, you know, I I know it's gonna be hard.

I know that it's gonna be tough.

You know what?

That's that's the expectation, uh, expectation I have uh coming into it.

So don't be surprised.

Don't be surprised when you maybe take somebody under your wing a little bit, or or you're trying to encourage somebody and invest some time and some energy into them, and it doesn't quite go the way that you thought it would.

Right?

It might not.

Um, they might push back against that, they may not like it, they may be slow to catch on, um, and hey, so are we uh quite often as well.

It won't always go smoothly.

And just take a look at what Paul says here in verse 1, follow along.

Uh he says, For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face.

Now, one thing that's undeniable is that Paul had a deep love for the church.

He had a deep love for the church.

I don't think he can deny it.

And I believe it's one of the main reasons why he was able to be so long-suffering when it came to investing uh in them.

Right?

He was able to just go through it and and suffer through the grind as he served these local churches, and it brings up uh kind of an ultra-important question uh for us.

And that is do we love the church?

Do we love the church?

And I'm not just talking about like, you know, the services.

Do we like coming to services and maybe the way that the worship sounds or or that kind of thing?

But do we do we love the people?

Do we love the people?

Okay, big time question.

And I think we all know here how easy it is to be critical of the church.

Right?

How hard is it to shred a church?

Like, not at all.

We can do that in our sleep pretty much.

It's so easy to lob grenades at you know other denominations and and pastors and leaders and and even at each other.

And I would venture, I guess, to say that even some of you in here, as you've been here just in this short time this morning, have already been critical.

You know, why isn't it going this way?

Or why doesn't it look like this?

Or what's up with that person?

Right, you've been critical, it's it's easy.

But hey, do you love the church?

Do you love the church?

And if you don't, okay, if you don't, you're never gonna be willing to struggle alongside it like Paul does here.

You're never gonna be willing to put up with the nonsense that happens at times.

For those of you who have been involved in the church, you know there's lots of nonsense.

Right?

There can be.

You're never gonna be willing to stick it out to the end.

But that's really exactly what we're called to do as Christ followers.

And again, verse 1, Paul says this for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you.

That word struggle there literally means agony.

Agony.

He agonized over them.

He he endured the emotional ups and downs that happen in relationships.

He he received beatings, he endured prison and threats, he tangled with false teachers and critics, he he suffered through the disappointments of having invested in people and have them reject him and stab him in the back and turn away from him.

He dealt with all of it.

And when he uses that word struggle, he's not being melodramatic.

You're not like, okay, Paul, okay, get over it, man.

No, he he went through the fires here.

And he knew investing in people is just flattering, it's a grind.

A plain and simple.

And so the big question, again, to ask yourself as you think about the church here is am I willing to invest?

Am I willing to invest my time and my energy and my resources into the people here?

You know, I love it because just yesterday in this building, we had our very first kind of church-wide training day.

And we had a ton of people in here, and we set this whole thing up last night, and we're training, or yesterday, and we're training, you know, sound people and lighting people, and you know, the worship team had a rehearsal, and we're training harvest kids workers and welcome team and all of that.

And to me, that's that's a sign of a people who are willing to invest.

Right?

They're giving up a Saturday to come do that and to come pour in and buy into what God's doing here at the church.

I love that.

Right?

So encouraging.

And I love what God is doing here and how he's using you to do that.

And so I don't say any of this as like, hey, we're not a church that's investing.

No, we are.

And I want to encourage you with that and prod on maybe the people that haven't quite bought into all of that.

Are you willing to invest?

Understanding, yeah, there's gonna be a cost.

Right?

This isn't just easy.

There is a cost to you.

It's it's not always gonna go the way that you drew it up.

We were saying yesterday, it's gonna be tiring.

Right?

You're probably gonna lose some sleep.

Some relationships will have some friction.

There's gonna be that kind of thing.

It will be.

Uh it will be that way for sure.

Are you willing though?

Well, hey, you want to hear how we get to that place where we are willing?

Well, it's when we've we've really grasped that that's exactly what Jesus Christ has done for us.

Right?

When you get that, when you're like, well, that's well, Christ Christ poured it all out for me.

He's He's invested everything for me.

He endured it all for my sake.

Then you'll be willing to endure the grind.

Right?

And that's what he did.

He went to the cross, he gave up his very life in like the most gory and and awful way possible for our sake.

And even now he still endures the grind a little bit.

When he deals with our weaknesses and our failings and all of that, as we're slow to kind of figure this thing out and grow.

But the reason he can do that is because he sees the big picture.

He knows exactly what he's doing.

We only see like what's happening right this second, and we can be discouraged about all of that, and we can be down about it, but he knows, he's glorifying us, he's working us towards that place, and he's bringing us to the place of maturity where he can present us before the Father finally and fully.

Okay, so Jesus invested and he continues to invest in us, and that's why we do it in others.

That's the main reason.

And that really has to be our motive here today.

If that's not your motive, if your motive is, well, I think I'm gonna invest in people because it makes me feel good, or I'm gonna invest in people because they say nice things about me as a leader and as a person, or I'm gonna invest in people even just because there's a need and someone stuck me in that spot.

Right, if those are your reasons, those aren't all bad reasons, but if those are your main motives, you're gonna flame out at some point.

Because at some point it's gonna get hard, and you're like, this isn't worth it.

I'd rather like sit down and do nothing than do this.

Right?

That's just the way it goes.

Remember, Jesus invests, so we invest.

We have to remember that it's a joy for us to be able to do that.

Okay, now a quick question for you.

Okay, who are the who are the others that we're supposed to struggle on behalf of here?

It says it in the text, and take a look at verse 1 there, the rest of it.

Okay, he says that he's struggling for the Colossians, and he says, and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face.

Now, he mentions Laodicea there because uh they were a church, they were a little town just like nine miles away.

And so the two churches, the two towns had had a really close relationship there, and that's why he kind of ties the two of them uh in together.

But he says, for all who have not seen me face to face.

Now I love how Paul just doesn't play favorites.

He doesn't say, well, for some who have not seen me face to face.

Right?

He doesn't say that.

He's he's like all in for uh for everybody.

He's not like us.

Sometimes we play favorites, don't we?

We tend to be drawn to people who are who are just like us or who act like us or who have the same interests as us, those kinds of things.

And we kind of develop these kind of clicks a little bit, right?

And we don't like that person's different arm's length, right?

I I don't I don't really want to go there.

But Paul doesn't do that, and he shows us that we should be willing to invest in all different types of people.

And I think there's just something so amazing about churches that are filled with with different types of people, different, different ages, different, different backgrounds, different ethnicities, like all of that.

There's something really special about that because I think as we rub shoulders with all of those people, we're we're challenged more readily, right?

We were challenged more.

If we just hang out with people that are the exact same as us, just because that's comfortable, we don't get challenged, we don't change as much, do we?

I love that.

We're gonna grow more.

So let's try, let's let's let's embrace that mentality of getting to know and reaching out to everybody.

That's why we talk about that a lot here.

Not just talking to the people we're comfortable talking to.

Alright, second thing here.

When I invest in others, it'll be a grind for sure, uh, but they will be built up.

They'll be built up.

Okay, it's not all difficulty and heartbreak.

Okay, so if your like throat is in your your heart's in your stomach right now, uh you can take a deep breath here.

Okay, it's not all terrible, it's not all a grind by no means.

Okay, there's a ton of benefits about being invested uh in other people, and they, I would say, outweigh the challenges uh that um that sometimes come along with it.

But take a look at verse two here.

Verse two says that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Again, so what we see here is what really happens to people that we invest in.

These are kind of the results, the things that God forms in their lives that we should at some point be able to see as they are built up into maturity.

Remember, and we just looked in our the last time we looked in uh Colossians in chapter 1, verse 28, that's what Paul's talking about.

He's talking about maturity, that we would be able to present everyone mature in Christ in verse 28 and chapter 1.

And so these are some of the signs of maturity.

And in the text here, our verses 2 and 3 show us three things that happen to a person as they are built up.

The first one is that their hearts are encouraged.

You see that there?

Their hearts are encouraged.

It says it in verse 2.

Now, have you ever found that it's just so easy to get discouraged in your walk with the Lord?

Like, oh, right?

It's it's so easy to get that way.

And I mean, I think it has to do with, you know, the prominence of our flesh.

Right?

Our flesh goes against the Holy Spirit.

It just wants what pleases us, and it wants my way, not God's way.

And so we're we're wrestling with that.

We're also wrestling with the world's system.

The world has a system and the way that it operates, and it's constantly trying to suck us into that vortex and spit us out as much at the other end of it.

Right?

The world system, we're fighting against that.

We're also fighting against our enemy, right?

Against Satan and his forces.

He hates God.

He hates us too.

And it's a battle out there.

I think all of this contributes to us really being beat up like a lot of the time.

But a lot of the time.

But when we, hey, when we invest in others, when we do that and we pour ourselves out and build them up, we find the encouragement that we need to continue.

And I find that maybe the most beneficial thing about small groups.

Right?

You hear us talk about small groups quite a bit.

We want to get people in small groups.

We're trying to multiply them and find room to fit everybody in and all that kind of thing, and raise up leaders.

But hey, small groups are amazing because they encourage you.

They encourage you.

And I know that I find that, you know, most weeks I'm kind of dragging myself, it's at my own house, but I'm like dragging myself to small group, like down the stairs, just like feel like I've just been kicked in the face over and over and over all week, so discouraged sometimes.

And uh by the end of it, though, as we've spent some time talking about what's going on in your life and the guys praying for each other and lifting those things up, I find that at the end I'm just like, oh yeah, like God's amazing.

Right?

And in Him, I can do this.

And I find myself encouraged again and ready to face the day and to tackle the week ahead.

Okay, don't ever underestimate the power of encouragement and how the Lord can use you.

That can that can totally, totally change your week.

It's one of my favorite things that I love about the prayer time that we do at the very end of the service here at the end of church.

People come up and they've got burdens, and you're able to just encourage them and pray for them, and you can tell they're different when they when they walk away than when they walked up to you.

Encouragement is powerful.

That's the first thing we see as a person's built up.

Second thing we see is that the church is knit together in love.

It's knit together in love, verse 2 says that.

Now, building others up, it you unifies the church and it brings us together.

Now, true unity in a church is so much more than just like, hey, everyone seems really nice there and seems to get along.

Right?

That that's that's maybe part of unity.

Um, but really it's it's a lot more uh than all of that.

Real uh depth of unity uh requires the hard work of investment and and this kind of thing, and it doesn't happen overnight.

It really doesn't.

And if you've ever been a part of a church that's that's gotten to that place where, man, we are so unified and we are clicking right now, you know that that's a special place to be.

This is amazing.

But you look back on it and you're like, were there bumps along the road?

Totally.

Was it hard?

Yes, it was.

But was it worth it?

Yes.

This is incredible what the Lord is doing.

We're knit together in love, and it's a powerful thing.

And you know that it took it took time to season, it took blood, sweat, and tears and patience, but again, worth it.

And I would just say, let's work towards that here as a church, where we would be so invested in building each other up in the various ways that we can do that.

Because God's gonna do something awesome with it.

Again, it's work, but it's good, it's awesome, it's worth the sacrifice.

Okay, third thing we see here is someone's built up is uh they come to a full assurance of understanding.

You see that in the verse?

Uh part way down verse two, it says, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, and whom are the hidden, uh are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

And listen, as we as we build others up here, uh what happens is that they grow, and so do we, but they grow in assurance and and in knowledge of who Christ is and what he's done for them.

It means that that the doubts that people have, and we sometimes have as well, right, about about our faith, maybe it's about what the Bible has to say, or it's doubts in the Lord, or maybe it's even doubts in our salvation.

As we build into each other, those doubts start to melt away as we become stronger, as we grow in knowledge and wisdom, it says here, we get to the place of full assurance.

We have confidence in the Lord.

Not cocky, not arrogant in ourselves, but assured in the Lord and who he is and what he's done.

And that confidence uh is an amazing and powerful and awesome thing.

I love that.

And it really comes from Christ and the gospel.

And that verse right there says uh God's mystery, uh, which is Christ.

We talked about this uh last time, right?

That word mystery there really refers to something that was once hidden but has now been revealed.

And the verse tells us it's it's Jesus Christ, right?

And that's that's referring to God's redemptive plan for mankind.

The fact that God redeemed us.

And the whole idea here is that mankind was created by a loving God, but we sinned against him.

And it started with Adam and Eve in the garden.

And they disobeyed, and because of that, their natures were corrupted.

And because we're all descendants of Adam and Eve, we have these corrupt natures now.

We were born that way, which means that we're born separated from a God who created us to know him and be actually really close to him.

And because we have this sin in our lives, the Bible says that we deserve an eternity in hell.

We deserve punishment.

Now, the awesome thing about the gospel that we can have full assurance of is that God said, You know what, I don't want to, I don't want to see my creation just go off a cliff and live in eternity in hell forever.

I don't want to see that.

So I'm going to rescue them.

I'm going to send my son Jesus Christ to pay the penalty that they could never pay.

They can't do it.

They're not righteous.

My son is.

He's going to pay the price.

He's going to take care of it in their place.

That's what the gospel is.

That's what we have to have locked in our hearts and minds.

And maybe you're sitting here today and you don't have that figured out yet, or you've never made a decision to follow Jesus Christ as your Savior.

And I'm telling you here today, it's not super complicated.

What it comes down to, if you want to know the God of the universe, it comes down to realizing that, hey, I've got sin in my life and all of that is against the Lord.

All of it is.

But you know what?

I believe, I trust that what Jesus did on the cross was enough to clean me out, to take care of all of my sins.

So, God, would you forgive me?

Would you be my Savior?

And you can do that just in a simple prayer as you're sitting here today.

You don't need to pray with a leader or a priest or someone special.

You can do that just in the quietness of your own heart between you and God.

I would challenge you to do that today.

And of course, we're available afterwards.

If you have any questions at all, you can talk to the person that you came with.

They would love to tell you as well what it means to know God, to be saved from sin.

And listen, as we grow from that moment onwards that we trust Christ as our Savior, we grow not just in understanding what the gospel message is, but we grow in our ability to apply its truth to our hearts and to our minds and to our actions.

Right?

That's the point.

That's the mission for a Christ follower.

And as we do that, the more secure we're going to become.

Sounds like a pretty sweet place to be.

I mean, it really does.

And I mean, when we read a verse like that, we should totally want to put in the effort into other people so that they would come to that place as well.

We shouldn't want to mail it in and be lazy about that.

We should want them to experience what we've experienced and are still continuing to experience.

I love that.

Paul was all about it.

That's what he committed his life to.

And I want us to be careful here as we read these kinds of passages, not to not to just sit back and become admirers of Paul, where we're just like, wow, Paul was great.

That's neat.

And then leave.

No, we want to be we want to be like that.

We're supposed to have the same approach.

And when we build others up, awesome things happen.

And the Lord accomplishes supernatural acts in people's lives.

And then try and think beyond that.

The people that you're investing in.

And even if it's hard right now and doesn't seem to be going the way you want, think about how the Lord will use them in the future.

Right?

You think Greg Wilton, my original uh mentor, was probably thinking ahead to how we could be used?

I think he probably was.

He was a mature and godly man.

But think about that for yourself as you invest in other people.

How they might be the next pastors.

They might be the next leaders of the church going forward.

The Lord could use them for awesome and amazing things.

They're going to build others up as you're doing it to them.

The whole thing starts to multiply.

That's how God carries out his mission and his plan in the world.

Think about how amazing it is that we get to be a part of all of that.

That he would call us into that.

Let's learn to see that as a joy.

Let's learn to see that as a privilege and something that we get to do, not something that we have to do.

Right?

We get to.

Alright, third thing here.

When I invest in others, it'll be a grind, but they'll be built up and protected from what's false.

Protected from what's false.

One of the greatest things that happens is you pour yourself out to others and they start growing in Christ is that they become safeguarded against being deceived.

Just take a look at verse 4 there.

It says, I say this.

I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

Listen, believing what's false, believing a lie, it always leads, always leads in some way, shape, or form to wrong action.

It always does.

We need to believe what is true.

And I'm going to give you just a couple examples of this.

These are faulty beliefs, these are faulty wrong values, lies that the culture will tell us all the time.

How about this first one here?

Just follow your heart.

I feel like you gotta say it really syrupy when you say it too, right?

Just follow your heart.

You know, you gotta say it like that.

But that's what the culture says.

Do you believe that?

Do you believe that we should just be following our heart?

You hear it all the time, don't you?

See it on t-shirts, you see it everywhere.

Well, here's what Jeremiah 17, verse 9 has to say about this.

Jeremiah 17:9

It blows a hole in that whole idea.

It says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

Who can understand it?

So, good idea to follow your heart or bad idea?

Right?

Bad idea.

Don't be following the heart.

The problem is that when you follow your heart, your heart's messed up.

Right?

It's gonna lead you into all kinds of problems and sin and destruction and despair and all of that.

We're to follow Christ, we're to follow his ways.

Okay, here's another one, and it's pretty related to the follow your heart thing.

But uh, if it feels good, do it.

If it feels good, do it.

Or just do what makes you happy.

These are all different ways of kind of framing up the same thing.

Here's the thing, though.

What if being a serial killer is what makes me happy?

I thought I'd get like some kind of laugh out of that.

You guys creeped out by it?

No?

Okay.

Like obviously that's a that that's an extreme example.

Right?

But but the point is, what makes us happy can be sometimes like the worst debauchery ever.

And what's happen what makes one person happy isn't what makes another person happy.

And so the the logic behind all of that is is awful.

It's so full of holes, it's it's terrible.

This is what 2 Timothy 2.22 says.

So flee youthful passions, flee them.

Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.

Those are the things that we're supposed to go after.

Not what makes us happy.

Follow the Lord.

Here's another one.

You just need to love yourself more.

You need to love yourself more.

I heard someone say that in a Bible study once.

I was like, ooh.

Right?

Really, are we supposed to love ourselves more?

Is that what the Bible says?

Is that what the Bible teaches?

I don't know.

What do you think?

Well, Luke 12, verse 7, this is what it says.

Luke 12:7

It teaches that we have value.

We need to understand that.

Okay?

It says this why even the hairs of your head are numbered.

Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows.

Okay, so we are of value.

We're not dust, we're not dirt, we're not the scum of the earth.

We need to not see ourselves that way.

We do need to see ourselves as having value because that's how the Lord sees us.

We need to not get cocky about it and be all about self-love and all of those things.

Because Mark 12, 31 says this.

It says, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Okay, this is a command to love others, not ourselves, a command to love others in a way that we would like to just naturally care about ourselves, our own well-being.

Okay, but the Bible doesn't teach us that we need to love ourselves.

If you think about the Ten Commandments, the whole, all of them are aimed towards getting ourselves away from self-love and loving God and loving neighbor.

Right?

The last thing in the world we need to do is love ourselves and be more inward focused.

Really?

Okay, it's a lie.

We need to be able to spot those things.

Next one here, last one.

It's a lie, the culture says.

Look good, feel good.

Look good, feel good.

Right?

Does that maybe kind of feel true a little bit?

First time I was like, I don't know, I feel pretty good when I look good.

I don't know.

Maybe some half-truth, but here's what it suggests.

It suggests that unless you look a certain way, you can't possibly be satisfied.

Right?

And then, of course, culture has their own standard of beauty.

If you don't match up to this, you're less than whatever.

Right?

And so that's what that really is here.

And the Bible teaches us that our identity and that our security really should come from Christ.

Psalm 17, 15, but as for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness.

When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.

Matthew 5, verse 6.

Matthew 5:6

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

That's where we find our satisfaction from, from Jesus Christ and righteousness that comes from Him.

Okay, and these are just a few examples of some of the ways that we hear, or some of the wisdom of the day that we hear.

Right?

Wisdom in quotations for sure.

We need to be careful of this, that we that we safeguard ourselves to keep us from falling prey to what's false.

And I love how Paul says in verse 4 here, he says that no one may delude you with plausible arguments, with plausible arguments.

I love that word plausible.

And it kind of reminds me of something that I read from a pastor in a book, and he essentially said, and I'm just kind of paraphrasing, but he said, the challenge for Christians today is not so much discerning truth from error, but rather discerning truth from half-truth.

That becomes the challenge for us in this day.

And what he's really getting at here is it's fairly easy for us, especially as you start to grow, it's fairly easy for us to spot the outright lies.

I can see those.

I can tell that that goes like 100% against what the Bible's trying to say, 100% of what God's trying to get me to do.

But what's challenging for us is not getting suckered by the plausible arguments.

Right?

The ones that sound like they're like they're pretty good.

It's kind of the believable opinions of others.

Kind of the the slippery words a little bit that sound that sound kinda right, or or maybe even mostly right.

Have many of you ever had that before?

You ever listened to somebody or read a book or or seen something where you're like, what that what that guy's saying or what she's saying, it's pretty good, but but something's off.

Maybe you can't quite put your finger on it.

You had that before for sure.

Well, as others grow as a result of your investment in them, they're gonna become more adept at spotting uh the lies and these half-truths that are that are actually very slippery lies.

What happens is they'll be protected from what's false.

That's what your investment does to them.

It girds them up and it makes them strong.

And again, the fact that the Lord wants to use you and I to do that in someone else's life is nothing short of incredible.

I mean, it really it really is.

What an honor that we would that we would be called into that and that the Lord would want to use us like that.

What a gift of grace.

It really is.

And that's really kind of aiming towards the last thing here.

When I invest in others, I'm blessed in return.

I'm blessed in return.

And you know, you kind of almost need to laugh a little bit when you think about it.

Only the Lord could take something like us pouring our hearts out and pouring our lives into somebody else, and somehow God squeezes out blessing for us in all of that.

It's kind of amazing, right?

We we shouldn't be aiming for that necessarily.

Our aim is towards other people and glorifying the Lord.

But we find that we get blessed in return.

I know many of you uh have experienced that, uh, which and I just think it's one of those really cool things that God does.

Just listen to what Paul says here in verse 5.

He says, For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Okay, Paul, and you've got to remember, he's writing this from prison, mind you.

He's rejoicing.

Okay, he's rejoicing, and it's because the Lord's strengthening his church.

Because the Lord's making them uh strong.

And I think again, it shows us that, yeah, there's gonna be difficulties.

We talked about all of that, of course.

Um, when you disciple people, that's gonna be the case.

We need to be aware of all of that, we need to even expect it.

Uh but when you look at the the grand scheme of things, and when you keep eternity in mind, especially, there's just way more joy, way more blessing that comes out of it.

The blessing far outweighs the difficulty.

But we need to have that mindset, don't we?

To be able to aid in in someone's maturity is awesome because they receive blessing and and so do we.

I mean, that's the headspace that we need to be in here as a church.

If we want to have any longevity as a church, if we want to really be used, if we want the Lord to do amazing things here, that needs to be our approach.

That needs to be the attitude that we have.

Is that your attitude?

Is that what you're all about?

Or are you just all about showing up here?

No, let's let's buy in here.

We want the Lord to use us.

And this whole thing kind of reminds me of uh of being a parent a little bit.

Right?

I know my kids are young, you know, I've got a long ways to go in still really grasping this, I think.

Um but you know, you go through all of the sleepless nights.

Right?

Like we actually had one last night.

Karis was like puking.

And uh, you know, we had one of those sleepless kind of nights.

But you go through those kind of things, and you know, all of the all of the diaper changes and and the runny noses and and and the you know, the praying for wisdom and the constant discipline and and the money spent and and the con and the moments of banging your head against the wall and and report cards and praying for more wisdom and more banging your head against the wall, and and and crazy friends, and enduring the dating years, and and daddy, can I have the keys to the car?

And blowing all of your savings to pay for the wedding, and I mean, on and on it goes.

The investment, the time spent, all of the energy, and then at points along the way, though.

Don't you realize it's totally worth it?

Right?

Totally worth it.

And I would do this again if I could start all over.

And why?

Why is that?

Well, it's because you you see there that your kids surprise you along the way.

And and they start to get it.

Slowly.

But they start to get it, and and they begin to grow in like all these fascinating ways.

And the Lord answers your prayers, and somehow he gives you energy.

And you and you receive so much blessing in return.

Right?

I think that's what it's like to pour yourselves out for a church.

Right?

It's not just for me, the pastor, it's not just for Greg on worship or all the various leaders that we have here, it's for everybody here to be pouring ourselves out.

That's what being the church is.

And if your idea of church is just kind of get in and get out the second I hear that you are loved, or, you know, or why isn't this church meeting all of my needs, or or what's up with him, and why did he look at me weird, and you know, all of that kind of stuff.

I'm just here to get my spouse off my back.

Listen, if any of that is you, and that that is what you think church is, you're missing it.

You're missing it entirely.

It's about so much more.

So it's a blessing of being of investing in others, and then, hey, being invested in yourself by other people.

It's awesome.

And so again, the question is are you pouring yourselves out for the people here at our church?

Are you doing it?

Now, maybe maybe you've got some some hesitations about that.

Listen, I get it.

Maybe you've been burned before in another situation.

Or maybe you've never been challenged to really do this before.

Or maybe this whole thing is brand new, and you're like, I'm not really sure how this how this all goes.

And you talked about it being a grind, and now I'm just kind of freaked out, man.

Right?

Like, I get it.

Like, it can be tough.

Well, listen, you can trust the Lord.

But I think that's what we need to remember.

At the end of the day, bottom line, we can trust the Lord with this.

And if we invest in people, we're showing that we do trust the Lord.

If we don't invest in people, what are we showing?

We don't trust him.

And we're not obeying him.

But this is what he does.

This is how he builds his church.

I would encourage you to let your hearts be open to this as he is maybe poking away, jabbing away at you, even here this morning.

Think about the different ways that you can get involved just investing in others.

We've got a lot of official ways that you can do that here.

Serving and greeting and all that kind of stuff.

But maybe for you, it's just like I'm just gonna have a conversation with one person before I leave.

Maybe you've never talked to anybody.

Maybe you come late and then maybe leave early.

I don't know.

Maybe start there.

Some of you just need to start small.

Some of you, you just need to go big.

You need to go for it.

You're tempted to be like, oh, I just need to go s I just need to go small.

But like, no, you're capable of way more.

Time to get off the bench, man.

Time to start investing.

Time to start doing this.

This is what the Lord's gonna do in this church.

I believe it.

This is what we're praying for.

This is what we're going for.

I'm excited for this year.

But I can't I can't wait to see what God's gonna do and harvest new market.

I think it's gonna be awesome.

We're gonna pray for that.

Would you join me as we pray?

Let's do that.

God, we thank you again.

We've talked about it a lot already today, but Lord, we thank you for the privilege and the honor that it is to be involved with uh investing in other people's lives.

Lord, I pray that you would give us great strength, Lord, by your spirit.

I pray that you would encourage us as we go along with this.

Lord, I pray that we would have eternity in mind, understanding that you are doing a work, Lord, and you're not finished that work, but you've asked us to be a part of it.

You've commanded us to be a part of it, Lord.

So I pray that we would do that with joy and with exuberance.

Lord, I pray that we would that we would sense that the days are short and not put this off any longer.

Lord, I pray that we would get involved, and I pray that we would do this, Lord.

Lord, I pray that we would do this for the fame of your name.

We pray that a lot, Lord, but we mean it.

It's not just words that we say.

So, Lord, would you do it by your spirit?

Encourage our hearts, Lord, build us up.

You build your church, Lord.

Protect us, Lord, from the enemy, protect us from the lies that are out there that are so easy to give into, Lord.

We're all giving into lies in various ways in our hearts, on a heart level.

Things that we believe are true that are not true.

Lord, bring these things to mind through the power of the gospel.

Lord, would you do this?

We pray it all in Christ's name.

Amen.