Graduation Not Required | Pastor Chris Kouba

Grab your Bibles, Colossians chapter one, Colossians chapter one.

I hope that you'll get familiar with where this is going to be as we begin to go through the book of Colossians over the course of the next eight weeks.

I want to show you something.

This is a periodic table of the books of the Bible.

I know for some of you that may have failed chemistry, this brings back some flashbacks that you're not really excited about.

Okay.

Work through that.

It's going to be okay.

But this is the books of the Bible that are calling all this down in a pretty interesting and creative way.

I've had the privilege of being here at the UNA City for seven and a half years.

And over the course of these seven and a half years, I've either preached all the way through or significant portions of now 16 of those books, which is pretty cool.

These are the ones that we've can gray out, okay?

Doesn't mean they're not important.

It just means that we've already done them here.

And if God willing, if he allows me to be here, the pastor as long as I want to be, I want to get through the whole chart at some point.

Uh and today we're starting another book on the chart, which is the book of Colossians, uh, which is an amazing book.

Again, it's one of those that you could read uh in one sitting.

In fact, uh on my sabbatical, I read it every day, all the way through for 30 days, and just still found there's so much richness and depth that there is to be able to find from it.

It's a great way for you to learn and study this book as we're gonna walk through together over the next eight weeks.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Uh it was the summer after my junior year of college.

I was working at a church in Florida, and Hillary, my girlfriend at the time, was gonna be coming to visit me.

We've been dating for two years at that point, uh, and we were gonna be graduating, uh, both of us in just a short amount of time, 10 months or so after that.

And I knew that as I was thinking about my future, I had a lot of decisions that I needed to make.

That summer was gonna be a pivotal one in terms of what I was gonna be doing after college, but I did know this beyond a doubt.

I wanted whatever my future to be to include her in it.

Like I wanted to marry this girl.

But we never really had the conversation totally yet.

We'd kind of gone there a little bit and talked around it, but we never really kind of like said, hey, I want to marry you, let's talk this thing through.

And so when she was coming to visit me in Florida, I had ulterior motives for that trip.

Uh in fact, we were went shopping one day, we were in the mall walking around, and we walked by a jewelry store, and I'm like, hey, let's let's go check out the jewelry in the jewelry store.

And all of a sudden we start looking at rings, which is basically our way of bringing it up, okay?

Like, oh, okay, we're having this conversation.

Now, what Hillary did not know is that I had already previously had a conversation with her mom about the fact that she had a family diamond that she wanted to give me that I could use to use for Hillary's engagement ring, which was great news because I was broke at the time.

I was going into ministry and I wanted to marry this girl, but it wasn't in the budget to figure out what a wedding ring would look like.

So here I am with a diamond that's been given to me.

I didn't purchase it, I didn't pick it out, but it's a beautiful diamond that's handed to me.

So we go in there and we're doing the whole ring shopping thing, but there's two parts to a wedding ring.

There's the diamond that sits on top, and then there's the setting that goes underneath, right?

So we're looking at these rings, and all the while I'm taking mental notes about what the setting needs to look like.

Because I already know, oh, I got the diamond, it's coming.

I just need to figure out what I need to do to enhance it.

Now, let me tell you, for a lot of reasons, I did not walk in there and think, how can I buy the most expensive setting that's ever existed?

All right.

One, because I couldn't afford it, all right?

But two, because no one says that.

Whenever you look for a setting, the goal of the setting is never to overshadow the diamond.

The goal of the setting is to enhance your eye towards the main attraction, which is the diamond.

You never want to have a setting that is so grand or that is so bright or that is so beautiful that people look at the setting and not the diamond.

I wanted to do whatever I could to find something that would enhance the diamond that her mom was giving to me.

Why do I tell you that?

It's what we're gonna do for the next eight weeks in the study of the book of Colossians.

It's why the title of this series is Behold.

We're gonna look at a church that the Apostle Paul writes a letter to that he had never actually visited before.

In fact, it was a church that he was writing to while he was in prison around A.D.

60.

There's a man named Epaphras who actually planted the church.

Epaphoros was a guy who was actually converted under Paul's ministry in the town of Ephesus.

And he and he goes home and tells the people back in his hometown about what he had learned about the gospel, and they started church, and so now Epaphras is coming to Paul while he's in jail in Rome to give him an update about the church.

The church had some good and bad things going on.

On the one hand, a lot of people started giving their faith, giving their lives to Jesus, and people started being converted.

It was awesome.

On the other hand, false teachers started to come into the church and they began to teach some things that didn't line up with the true gospel.

They weren't there saying that the Jesus is not good, or Jesus is a liar, or Jesus is not somebody to be followed.

They in fact would say, Hey, Jesus is awesome, but Jesus is only the start.

What you really need is Jesus and something else.

What you really need is Jesus and the new next greatest thing that's gonna enhance Jesus.

And so here's Paul, he hears about this, and so he writes a letter to the to the people of Colossae to deal with this.

And what we find is that the church is arguing over settings.

What they're doing is they're trying to figure out how they can put some sort of teaching in front that's gonna so enhance everything that you care more about the setting than you do the diamond.

The diamond in this case is the person of Jesus Christ.

The way that Paul attacks these false teachers is not by systematically, line by line, giving an apologetic for the faith, showing why they're wrong and why the gospel is right.

The way that he deals with the false teachers in the city of Colossae is to pull out the diamond of Jesus, to hold it up and just look at it.

What he's gonna do is in each one of his paragraphs, he's gonna turn the diamond just a little bit so you can see a new version of it.

And then once you've been amazed and mesmerized by the beauty of that angle, he's gonna turn it again and you're gonna see a whole new thing that you didn't see before.

And then once you do that, he's gonna turn it yet again.

My prayer for us as a church over the next eight weeks is not that you would hear these messages and learn the book of Colossians and want to do more.

My prayer over these next eight weeks is that as we look at the diamond, the person of Jesus, you would stare longer and longer and longer at its beauty.

And the moment that you're mesmerized by it, you just turn it just a little bit and realize, oh, there's like a whole new view that I get to see and appreciate in who Jesus is.

We're gonna read Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

I want to read the first 14 verses, and I'm gonna ask that if you would please stand with me in the honor of the reading of God's word together.

It says Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you as indeed in the whole world, is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among you since the day that you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant.

He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and has made known to us your love in the spirit.

Verse 9 begins the prayer that he prays.

Josh just led us through this, and so from the day that we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints of in light.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

You may be seated.

Paul opens this letter in a pretty customary way that he does in his letter.

The beginning is sort of the who it's to and who it's from and where it's going.

Then he does the next section, which is his prayer of thanksgiving, and then he mentions his prayer that he prays in 9 through 14 of towards the church.

I want you to notice a little bit about this prayer of thanksgiving.

In verse 4, he thanks God for their faith.

In verse 5, he thinks he excuse me, in verse 4, he thanks them for their love.

And he does the same thing in verse 8.

He tells them in verse 5 that their hope is not in wishful thinking, but it's laid up for them in heaven.

And they heard about it in what is called the word of truth, the gospel.

What is the gospel?

It's simply this Jesus Christ died on the cross and he rose from the dead.

Then verse 6 ought to stop us.

It says, the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing in the whole world as it has been since the day that they heard it.

Not since the day that they upgraded from it, not since the day that, yeah, they got it, but then they got the 2.0 version when they went through the right Bible study and then they were really saved.

He says, I I the day that you heard it, don't miss it.

It has kept growing even since then.

Folks, don't miss this.

If I could summarize all of Colossians in one phrase, it'd be this you don't grow past Jesus, you grow into him.

You don't grow past Jesus.

There's not a and then this.

Like you instead grow into him.

You're gonna see this all throughout the book of Colossians.

It uses this phrase or a variance of it all over the place.

We are in Christ if we're believers in Jesus.

We walk in light of who he is because that is now who we are.

Paul's point is not that you need something extra because you're not complete.

His point is that you need to know who you are already growing into.

He's writing this to a group of believers, which leads us to the question: okay, if he's telling them about the gospel who've already believed the gospel, what are we supposed to do with the gospel?

Let me give you three things, and I want you to write these down.

Number one, you never outgrow the gospel.

You never outgrow the gospel.

Jesus Christ died on the cross and he rose from the dead.

Think about it.

We are wired as people to look for the next best thing.

Like just think about your physical life.

Okay?

There's always a new protein.

There's always a new drink that's supposed to all of a sudden change everything.

There's always a new weight loss strategy or weight loss shot or whatever it is that's out there.

There's always a new diet that's supposed to literally unlock all the things that have been wrong with us.

There's always a new cream that for$80 can stop all the effects of aging in all of your life.

Folks, we're always trying to crack the code.

And it's easy to take that same mentality and drag it into our spiritual lives.

You do a Bible study, it changes your life.

So now everybody has to do that Bible study.

Because really, I know you have the Bible and I know you have Jesus, but you don't have this.

Folks, look, I'm not against tools.

They're discipleship tools that I genuinely think are incredibly useful, and I will gladly recommend to you.

But somewhere along the way, we started treating the simple gospel like it's the sixth grade of the Christian life, something that you pass on and you move up from.

Paul is telling a church that has been believing for years that what they heard on day one is still bearing fruit today, much many years later.

Listen to how Paul says it in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 3 and 4.

1 Corinthians 15:3

He says, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.

That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scripture.

Paul calls this message of first importance, not foundational, like you build on it and then you leave it.

Like here's where I started, and now I go and build on the real stuff.

He instead says, This is first as in preeminent, meaning this, there is nothing that ever gets more important than this.

Jesus Christ died on the cross and he rose from the dead.

I'm standing before you right now today.

I went to Baylor University and I got a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion.

I studied religion at Baylor.

And then after that, I went to Dallas Theological Seminary for four years and I got a Masters of Theology degree.

After completing that Master's of Theology degree, I went to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and I got a doctorate of ministry degree.

The only degree that I do not have in my particular field is a PhD in theology.

I have literally studied for many, many years about the Bible.

I've also been in ministry for 25 years.

If I could sum up all that I've learned and all that I've experienced, here's what I would tell you is the most important thing out of all of it.

Jesus loves me.

This I know.

Come on, sing it with me.

For the Bible tells me so little ones to him belong.

They are weak, but he is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me.

Yes, Jesus loves me.

Yes, Jesus loves me.

The Bible tells me so.

You never outgrow the gospel.

We used to sing that to our kids when we put them down to bed.

Scratch their backs and we'd sing that to them.

It's still true today.

Folks, there's no deeper thing that you're you gotta get into, and then you've arrived.

Jesus died on the cross, and he rose from the dead, and he loves you.

Like all the other stuff is just ways for you to understand that.

What Paul is trying to say is not, hey, here's why this argument's wrong, and here's why this argument's wrong.

He's just saying, look at the diamond, look how beautiful it is.

You never outgrow the gaze of just looking at the beauty of who Jesus is.

Some of you have found yourself at a place where you're looking for that extra thing because you're bored.

You've done church for so long.

The gospel has gone quiet on you, and you're quietly looking for something with a little more pop.

That may be why you bounced around from church to church to church because you're looking for the church that feeds you.

You want something that's gonna impress you, you want something that's gonna move you, you want something that's gonna motivate you.

Please hear me.

The diamond didn't get smaller, you just stopped looking at it.

You're not gonna find what you're looking for.

Don't allow yourself to be bored by the diamond.

You just figure out how to get a better setting to make your eyes look right at it.

Because I promise you, when you look and you study the person of Jesus, what you will discover is that you can turn it a little bit more, and there's a whole new level of beauty that you can see.

Check out verse 7 again before we move on.

Because there's a name in verse 7 that most people just kind of move past.

I know I did when I first read it.

His name's Epaphras.

We literally know nothing about Epaphras other than what's mentioned here in verse 7.

He's not an apostle, he didn't write a book, he's just a guy who heard the gospel from Paul in Ephesus, and then he went home and told people.

Don't miss this though.

One ordinary man told the truth in his own hometown, and because he did that, we've got a book of the Bible called Colossians.

The gospel has never needed someone impressive to share it.

What I want you to see is that you have somebody in your life who needs to hear this simple message.

Jesus Christ died on the cross and he rose from the dead, and you're scared because you think I'm inadequate.

You are.

It shows that you are not the point.

You just tell the message and then it does the work.

So our that we are crazy to think that we should send people overseas into Brazil where we planted a compassion church that you can find more about in the lobby and somehow think that we're so arrogant, that we're so great, that we could show up, and because we're there, we can save people.

That is crazy.

We instead go because we know that we, if we don't even speak the language to a culture that we don't even understand, can show up and we just simply say, Jesus Christ died on the cross and he rose from the day, and people get saved.

And churches get planted.

Folks, please hear me.

You can be an apaphrist too.

By just hearing about the gospel and telling your people back home what you heard.

Look at verse 8.

After verse 8, Paul transitions in verses 9 through 12 and the rest of through 14, really, talking about what he prays for them.

And by seeing what he prays for them, we we learn some things else about the gospel.

Number two, you never stop growing in the gospel.

You never stop growing in the gospel.

Look at verse 9.

He says he prays that they would be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

This means this word filled, it's like filled all the way to the top.

It's like no air bubbles at the top of this thing, right?

Like no little bit of wiggle room.

It's like overflowing, filled all the way to the top, no gaps.

And notice he's praying this prayer for people who were already believers.

Which means if the gospel were something that you graduated from, this prayer would make no sense.

It shows that you like, for instance, you would never pray that a college graduate would be able to do the alphabet, right?

Like you don't you never pray that.

Why?

Because you know that a college graduate is long past that.

But it shows here the fact that he's praying that they would be filled to the knowledge of his spiritual will and understanding about the gospel shows us that there's always more to know.

Verse 10 tells you why, so that you can walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

Don't miss the order.

The filling comes first, the walking comes out of it.

You're not manufacturing a Christian life.

You instead are being filled, and then it shows.

Let's break this down.

He says it shows up in two places.

The first one, verse 10, it shows up in how you live and what you know.

It shows up in how you live and what you know.

Verse 10 gives both halves in one breath, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Paul didn't separate those two things.

Let's start with the first one, the bearing fruit piece.

It looks like being the same person at the office that you are in the room today.

It means that you're the same person on Wednesday night that you are in your school.

It means you're the same person in the group text that you are at the retreat that you go to.

I was visiting another church a few years back, and I met a high school buddy of mine.

His name was Brandon Barker.

And uh, I really knew Brandon's brother.

Or more so, but I didn't know Brandon, he was a little bit older than me.

And uh Brandon was on staff at this church, and so we were just talking ministry a little bit, and and we were talking just um about high school connections and friends and all that kind of stuff, and then Brandon said something to me that man has stuck with me ever since.

He said, Bro, it is so good to see you.

I had no idea you were a believer, I had no idea you were in ministry.

This is really encouraging.

I would have told you that I was a really strong, outspoken believer in high school.

But they will know you by your fruit.

Instead, we are to have evidence that we've been looking at the diamond.

It's supposed to be obvious to others in the way that we live, and that fruit shows up in what comes out of your mouth, in the words that you use, in the words that you don't use, and the things that you watch, and who you spend your time with, and what you do on a Saturday, what you do whenever you're around people that nobody in this room is gonna see you.

Not whether you've walked an aisle, not whether you've signed a card, but whether your life carries the mark.

And then it says that we can increase in the knowledge of God.

The other half of verse 10, Hebrews 4:12 says this the word of God is living and active.

Hebrews 4:12

Second Timothy chapter 3, verse 16 says that we this scripture is breathed out by God.

2 Timothy 3:16

It's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

It's the reason why this morning I can open up John chapter 6 and read the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, a story I have read hundreds of times and preached on dozens of times, and I found something new this morning.

John 6 · chapter mention

Folks, please hear me.

I beg of you, open God's word.

Not your calendar, not your favorite app, not AI, not some program.

Open the book.

Get in a room where the book is being taught.

Get in a small group where you're breaking down what the word is saying.

Do it knowing that you will never reach the bottom of the depths that are found in it.

It is a well that never runs dry.

It shows up as well in what you survive.

In what you survive.

Verse 11 is a frustrating verse.

It starts off so good and then it ends so bad.

It says, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might.

Like we love that part.

And then he tells you what it's for.

The last half for all endurance with patience, with joy.

We assume the power is so that we can move a mountain, we can stand in front of a king, we can bring down an enemy.

Instead, it says that the power that you receive is for endurance and patience and joy while you wait.

Sometimes the staying is harder than doing.

Let's be honest.

For most people, their life comes apart when they get bad news.

Like the wheels shoot right off.

They don't know what they're going to do.

It leads them to depression or anxiety.

And I'm not trying to somehow say that if you're a believer in Jesus and you feel that right now, that somehow that means that you're you're you're off.

I but we there's no question about it.

Things are hard, things are difficult, things are challenging, but you also know what it's like whenever you see someone who's walking through something that seems unspeakably hard and they keep their faith in Jesus.

It's inspiring.

It's almost like you're like, how do they do that?

I think about people who's in our 830 service, Joe Stilby.

I've gotten to know Joe and Julie recently as they've started to come back to our church.

Joe and Julie were part of our church many, many years before.

They actually went on a mission trip out of our church, and God called them to go serve almost a decade in Slovakia as international mission board missionaries sent out from our church.

Praise God for that.

They ended up coming back, they've been back here for just a little bit, a couple different places stateside, and they moved here uh just a few years ago, and Joe was recently diagnosed with ALS, Lou Garrick's disease.

The signs are already starting to show for Joe, but I had an opportunity to have coffee with them just a couple of weeks ago.

And as I'm sitting there with this couple who's walking through unspeakable difficulty, all they could talk to me about was God's faithfulness.

How good he was, how much he's met every single one of their needs.

Verse uh 11 shows you how the strength is coming from outside of him, like like according to his glorious might.

That's why I'm not telling you to be tough.

Some of you are hanging on by a thread.

Can I show you what that thread is?

Go back to verse 5.

Your hope is laid up in heaven.

Meaning, for some of you, you may be doing good, and you got two fingers on that thread.

And for some of you, you may be hanging on by your fingernail.

But here's the beauty: it's not dependent upon you for the hope to exist.

The hope is from him.

And in light of that, that fingernail is all you gotta have.

And God will begin to give you the hope to get through yet another day.

It doesn't mean it's not gonna be easy.

It doesn't mean it's not gonna be really, really hard, but what it does mean is this God's gonna keep you.

He's your refuge, he's your strength, he's your ever-present help in time of need.

This brings us to verse 12, where Paul tells them what he's thankful for.

Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Here's the third thing you do with the gospel.

Number three, you never stop needing the gospel.

You never stop needing the gospel.

Let's break down these next few verses.

He does four things.

He qualifies you.

Because of what Jesus did on the cross, you have a share in the inheritance of the saints and light, not a probationary share, not a we'll see how it works out share, not a hope the family doesn't argue and they they made the executor of the will somebody who doesn't like you, and so therefore you're gonna get cut out.

Like none of that.

Like you're in.

You're in.

He's qualified you, and he, according to Ephesians, his Holy Spirit is the seal that when you get up there, your name's gonna be on the list.

He rescued you.

It says he delivered you from the domain of darkness.

The word is a rescue word.

It's what you do for a wounded man that's on the battlefield.

You don't coach him, you don't talk to him, you go and get him.

That's what he did for us.

He didn't just tell us, do better, try harder.

He went and got us because we couldn't save ourselves.

He transferred you.

It says he transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son.

In the ancient world, when one emperor conquered another, the whole population got moved, not visited, but moved.

You do not live where you used to live.

We've been transferred from our kingdom, praise God, into his kingdom.

His kingdom is a lot more unknown, but his kingdom is a lot better than our kingdom.

And the problem we face the most is when we fight to keep our kingdom, when all along his kingdom's better.

He redeemed you.

He gave you the forgiveness of sins.

A price was paid, but please hear me, it wasn't paid by you.

Here's why that matters this morning.

I talked to someone recently who became a U.S.

citizen and they told me the naturalization ceremony, like the final thing that you do, it takes less than an hour.

People stand in a room in ordinary clothes, they raise their hands, they repeat an oath that they practiced, then they sit back down.

Nothing visible actually changes.

The same person who walked in wearing the same clothes and the same shoes goes back to the same car that they drove into the parking lot to go into the ceremony.

But something happens in that room that is total and cannot be undone.

Their legal standing changed.

Their passport changed.

Their children's standing changed.

Rights they did not have that morning when they woke up, they now have that afternoon because even if they don't, even if they don't feel it, the law says they have it.

Here's what people say afterward.

It take took years to feel like a citizen.

It took less than an hour to become one.

Colossians 1, 13 and 14 gives us a picture.

Some of you are trying to feel your way into a standing that God has already granted to you, given to you, transferred to you, qualified you for, redeemed you, and rescued you in a moment.

Paul wrote to a church he'd never met from a prison cell, and he does not open with correction, he opens with thanks.

Then he prays that the people who already believe would be keep getting filled because the answer to a church arguing over settings was never to get a better setting.

You never outgrow the gospel.

You never stop growing in the gospel.

You never stop needing the gospel.

I started this message by telling you that I about ring shopping for Hillary.

That diamond that she still wears today was handed to me.

I remember I almost dropped it when she when her mom gave it to me.

I was so nervous holding that thing.

I didn't earn it.

I didn't pay for it.

And all I needed to do was buy something that could enhance it so that whenever she showed off that ring, people stared at that diamond.

Jesus is the diamond.

Your standing has been settled, and these people were burning energy trying to earn something that was already handed to them.

That's what I want for us in these next eight weeks.

Not we have a church that knows more about Jesus, but a church who is more mesmerized and beholding his beauty in eight weeks than we do right now.

So before you add one more thing to the pile of religious stuff, let me ask you a question.

Is your standing with God already settled in Christ?

You can do that today.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me?

Bible says all of us are sinners.

All of us fall short of God's standard and his glory.

Says that the consequence for our sin is death.

But God sent his one and only Son, Jesus, who lived the perfect life that we could never live completely without sin.

He died on the cross for our sins.

The Bible tells us that he rose from the dead, and if we will turn from our sins and turn to him, will qualify us, he will rescue us, he will transfer us, he will forgive us.

Some of you have been looking for something to fill you.

You've tried religion, you've tried spiritual stuff, you've tried relying on yourself, and it's not working.

It's because you've not received the thing that is the point, and that is Jesus.

Let me ask, do you have a relationship with him?

If not, would you right now pray a simple prayer of faith and receive Jesus as your Savior?

You say, Dear God, I want to know you.

I believe you sent your son Jesus to die on a cross for me.

I believe that he rose from the dead, and right now I receive his forgiveness of all of my sins.

And I invite him to come into my life, to be my Lord, to be my Savior.

Man, what an amazing time that we had today.

Hey, if you know of someone that needs to hear this message, we'd love for you to share that on socials.

We'd love for you to actually go and check out our socials so you can stay up to date on everything happening in the life of United City.

And if you need to take the next step, we'd love to help you do that as well.

Love you guys so much, and we'll see you next week.