A Life Worthy

Last Sunday was so sweet. I

think we had 23 baptisms last week.

I love watching God move. I love the

way that he surprises us with— whether it's a white dog or 4

extra baptisms. I love that he moves the way that he

moves. Amen. I

have to go all Pastor Wayne on you for just a second. He used to

do this all the time. He would go, something would hit him, and

he would stop in the middle of what he was doing and just give us

a sidebar, a teaching. When we have moments like what just

happened in our worship, where we just kind of want to live and

dwell in that Jesus be the name, there's such a sweet

anointing in that. And sometimes you don't really know what

to do with that. And it isn't that you have to do anything in it.

We don't always have to do something. But what I would

encourage you to think about in thushe moments, there is a

word in scripture in Hebrew, and it's H-O-S, and it's hush.

And it is a time between times. And by definition, it is a

place where we can lay before him. We can lay before him.

And one of the specific reasons for that time, like when

that pregnant pause, when you don't really know what— it

says that we can go before him and we can ask questions. And

we can ponder, and we can get answers from him in thushe

moments. And so I encourage you, when the Holy Spirit

begins to move like that, and you begin to feel that

quietness in your spirit, take just a moment and go, God,

what are you trying to say to me? Lord, I really need an

answer here. I need your direction in this. And trust that

if you will get before him in thushe moments, in that

silence, and allow him to speak, you just might get the

answers that you've been looking for. He offers

us a time between times when we don't necessarily know what

to do, but he does. So I encourage you in

that, just to grab hold of that, because I do believe that there's a

teaching spirit in this house today. I believe that there is an

anointing in this house to learn and go deeper and to

grow in today. And so we're gonna step into that in just a

second. I just wanted to thank the Lord for the 23 that

were back there Thank you to all of you who were baptized last week for

your participation in that. I wanted to share with you that I'm no

longer angry with all of the people who are posting their beach pictures

right now. And I expect,

since I'm sure all of them are watching the service this morning, 'cause we—

bring me a seashell and that will be proof that you

watched today.

And it can't say Walmart.

There needs to be some sand on it, people. Anyway, the

other thing I wanted to share with you, a lot of people already know this,

but I felt like I should share it with you. We are not going to

have Fall Fest this year, not the way that we have in the past.

I'm not a huge proponent of Halloween or

all of that. Y'all do whatever the Lord convicts. But for me, you know

what I wanna celebrate? I wanna celebrate the family. So on the

24th, rather than on Halloween night, Yeah. On the

24th of October, it's a Saturday, from 10 to 2, we are

gonna have Family Fest. And we are going to have—

Rob and Critter are digging a pit out there. They're gonna kill something and cook

it. And it's gonna be fabulous. We're gonna

have a plethora of desserts brought in by the ladies of

the church. We're gonna have inflatables for the kids. There's gonna be a

basketball tournament. There is, because Justin loves competition,

he is doing a— What's it called, guys? A tailgate

competition. And there are prizes in that. He's gonna share

more about that next week. But I just wanted to encourage you to mark

that day. Come spend time with the family, and let's just enjoy

one another because that's my heart. I would love to spend some time

with you sitting across, preferably across a

coconut pie, but we'll just put that out there. Anyways, a

couple of Wednesday nights ago, Pastor Ronnie brought a message in

on the Wednesday gathering. And when he had finished, And when he finished teaching,

I could not wait to get up to him and go, I want you to

teach that again. I need you to teach that again.

It was water to me. And speaking of a teaching

spirit, may he make our hearts— the Word says that he awakens

us morning by morning to be taught of him. May this be one of

thushe mornings this morning, Pastor Ronnie.

Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning. I'm glad all of you are here

since you, like me, were not invited to go with the rest of

the family for Fall Fest.

We call this season at our house Left Behind.

And yes, in case you're wondering, I have Dropped a few

pounds of hair.

I actually, considering how much hair I had to begin with, I should

maybe say a few grams. But yeah, Friday the gal

was going, well, let's try it. Would you like to try it a little tighter

this time? And I went, well, sure, why not? I did not know what

tight was. Now I

do, but I've been assured that it will grow back. So we'll

see. What are you doing, Doug? Yeah,

I'm— Doug is down there bragging about his beard.

All of his hair fell down here.

Yeah.

I don't even know what that was, and I don't want to hear it.

Yes, Barbie was referring to a couple of Wednesday nights ago

when I taught. What she failed to say was

she also said, you won't even have to study.

It doesn't work that way.

And I'm glad it doesn't work that way. Yeah.

And as I was Yeah, I was

teaching in the 2nd chapter of

Colossians and I got hung up. I got hung up on a

passage that we'll look at briefly here.

But rather than it being the launching point, as I was

looking through the scriptures and studying the scripture about

unity, I came across

another place that I got hung up.

Unity has always been a key for me.

I don't know exactly. I can't point back to the point where it went,

oh, this is going to be a theme for your life and for your

ministry. But it basically always has. And certainly for

the 32 and a half years that I was the pastor here,

unity was really a goal, was really a focus

with me. But as I went

through Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1

Ephesians 4:1–6

through 6, where it talks about unity, I

was caught up by another phrase. And the

phrase that I was caught up by— well, I'm

going to put the passage up here. And

normally I ask you to stand, but I don't

want to— don't want you to do that today. I

want you to read through it with me, but in

your mind. Don't necessarily say it out

loud, okay? As a prisoner for the Lord,

then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the

calling you have received. Be completely

humble and gentle; be patient, bearing

with one another in love. Make every

effort to keep the unity of the Spirit

through the bond of peace. There is one

body and one Spirit, just as you were

called to one hope when you were called,

one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God

and Father of all, who is over all and

through all and in all. Father, I thank You for Your

presence in this place. I thank You for the Holy Spirit

who brings life where there's death. And

I pray that today You would touch dead

places in us and breathe life

on them. In Jesus' name.

Amen. I grew up with the teaching— and some of you may have as well

depending on if you were brought up in church and if you were brought up

in the certain kind of church. I grew up with the teaching that

the opposite of a kingdom life is a

worldly life. Worldly was about as

bad as you could get in the camp

that I grew up in. And the first thing that

I began to think once I read this passage, and I'll connect it here in

just a minute, was, what does it mean to be worldly?

What does that even mean?

And we tend to think of worldliness

in terms of outward issues.

Sexual immorality is the first thing that comes to mind in our culture and in

many cultures, maybe not all, but certainly in ours, first thing that

comes to mind. But there are other things as well

that are outward. When I was growing up, I

grew up in a place where I was taught, you know,

if you're smoking, you're going to hell. Smoking will send you to hell. Now

about 20 years later when I came back to the Lord and quit

smoking,

the teaching had shifted a little, you know. Oh, can you

smoke and go to heaven? Yes, you can, and you'll get there quicker.

Yeah, exactly.

But smoking, drinking alcohol,

not soda, but alcohol,

bad language. I was telling Michelle

this week, I said, my— I never really heard my dad cuss.

Never really heard him use any of those kind of words.

But I did often wonder what she

meant. Because we all

have things that happen to us.

Worldly amusements. I can't roller

skate because I couldn't go to that

worldly place and learn how to roller skate.

Remember, I did finally get to go bowling and I'm pretty

good. Not that good.

But, and let's see, there was something else I was going to

say about worldly amusements. Hmm? Movies.

Movies, yeah. First, I wasn't ever allowed to go to the

movies. I could watch the Million Dollar Movie at 10

o'clock on TV, but I wasn't ever allowed to go to movies

until John Wayne came out with The Alamo. And my dad took me

and we put on our coats and our ties and we went to the— I

don't even remember what it was called, but it was

downtown on Fifth Avenue. And as we were sitting there

waiting for the movie to start, I'll never forget my dad

sitting next to me and going, Ronnie Allen, we're never

going to do this again. It's the only time this is ever

going to happen. I've never heard a sermon that went quite

this far, but a former elder who used to go here named

Rodney Boyd, I remember before they started coming here,

the last church he had been to, and I think probably the

last sermon he heard at the last church, and this may be why

it was— they stopped going there, was a sermon about men

wearing short sleeves. It was a sermon about, you know,

these men, they needed to cover those arms up.

Muscles. These muscles. Sorry, gals. Yeah,

I don't know what that was all about. Some of these

things are debatable as to whether or not they are

worldly.

But what is not debatable is that just

because one doesn't do these things doesn't mean that they're not worldly.

'Cause you can do those— you cannot do those things and you can,

you can still be quite worldly. Yeah. I

grew up thinking being a Christian was about what you did not do.

But as I got older and began to read the Bible more, I began to

learn that there was a whole lot in there about what you're supposed to do,

what you actually should do. And if you actually do the things that you're

supposed to do, it's a whole lot easier to not do the things that you

don't do— not supposed to do because You don't have time to do

it. Right.

Yeah.

Jesus made it very clear that there are internal— that it's the

internal matters that matters the most.

And so we'll go deeper about what's worldly and identify such things as

greed. You can't look at somebody outwardly and know if they're greedy or not.

Rich people are greedy. Poor people are greedy. Yeah. In-between

people are greedy. You can't tell.

Anger. I mean, we all get angry, but there—

Paul talks about fits of anger. And

we'll have fits of anger and not control them. That's

the way the world settles things. That's not how God does

it. Anger that we hold on to.

Paul said, don't let the sun go down on your anger.

Jealousy. You know, sometimes people

think of pastors as they got it all together and they really,

really got that. And of course, a pastor would never be jealous.

Go to a pastors conference and see how

they talk in the side rooms about the guy who's got the biggest church. Right.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Divisiveness often disguised as

holiness.

Well, I don't know if anybody heard me say that.

But divisiveness often disguised as holiness.

We don't need them here. We don't want— one

part of the body saying to another, I don't need you.

Yeah. Proverbs— in fact, Proverbs 6:19 says

Proverbs 6:19

divisive— a person who is divisive is one of the 6

things that God hates.

Slander often wrapped up in gossip, often

wrapped up in prayer requests.

You know, if you know that Somebody needs prayer,

pray for them. Why don't you just pray for them?

You know, and gossip, how do you stop gossip? You stop gossip by

stopping it. When it comes to

you, don't take it to somebody else. What do you

think about this? You know, this is— you just stop it.

That's how that works.

Hard-heartedness. I'm not going to spend too much time on

this. These are things that can in fact

point to being worldly. But God—

those are the don'ts. God has called us to

something so utterly other

than being worldly. Something called

kingdom life. And it's defined by what we—

by what we are and by what we do.

And God has called us to experience and practice something that

in the Greek is called koinonia. Now that's an

Anglicized version of the Greek word.

So you want— you're not going to find it in your New

Testament likely unless you've got a Greek New Testament. Yeah.

But the word is usually translated over into English and it's mentioned

some 20 times in the New Testament. And it's usually translated

as fellowship. But this fellowship

goes far beyond hot dogs and

hugs in the foyer and high fives and

ballgame scores. It goes far beyond that. Most of the

fellowship we know is defined by a common

cause. You know, go Vols!

Roll Tide!

Oh, I thought you said, go God. You said, roll Tide.

My hearing. Yeah. But

those are the kinds of things that we have as a

common cause or common belief, especially if we've

got a belief that's a minority opinion and we find another

clump of people who have that same belief. I mean, we've got our tribe now.

Wow. Because we believe that. Yeah. Or

an interest. A golf fellowship is a

fellowship. It actually is.

But it's not koinonia. None of these things are

koinonia because they will all

pass away. The hot dog will

pass away. Don't think about that much.

The balls, the tide, the

teams all pass away.

Yeah. Golf will even pass away

someday. Koinonia actually has a

couple of ways that it works. On a vertical plane,

it is a deep communion with Christ,

with Jesus. Do you know Jesus?

Not, do you know about Jesus? Or do

you not smoke and chew? You know,

do you know Jesus? That's the essence

of things.

Not, I'm not religious, I just love

the Lord. Well, that's a great phrase and hopefully it's true, but you're

probably religious. Hmm. As well.

Because it's true that Christianity is supposed to be a relationship, not a religion.

But the thing is, religion is a lot easier than relationship.

We prefer religion because when it

comes to religion, all I got to do is take care of my stuff.

That's all I got to do. Take care of my stuff. When it comes to

relationship, that's a

lot harder. That's work.

The word koinonia is not used in the Old Testament, and it's not because

it's— the Old Testament wasn't written in Greek. It's not

used because it wasn't available before Christ.

Right. This is something that opened up and was

made available to us, to have koinonia. And like I say,

on a vertical plane, it's deep communion with God, with Christ.

On a horizontal plane, it is the

bond between believers, a

bond based firmly on Christ. Christ is my firm

foundation, the rock on which I stand, something

that does not pass away.

And it is made perfect by love. Amen.

It is the prime outworking of a kingdom

life. It is

what Jesus meant when He said, they will know

you're My disciples because you love each other,

because you love one another.

If asked to list the most important elements in

the Christian life, Aside from

Christ, he's obviously where it all starts. But if asked to

list the most important elements in the Christian life after Jesus,

many would list matters related to doctrine,

what you're supposed to believe,

standing on current issues. I can't believe that

person is a Christian and they and they

vote for that person that I didn't vote for. Or, I can't

believe that that person is a Christian and they don't think that's wrong.

Or, they do think that's wrong.

Or they might list certain areas of focus

in terms of what we're supposed to do as

Christians. Or maybe they'd list

fulfilling religious duties, etc. Ephesians

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4 is one of the foundational

chapters that defines what the church is supposed to be,

how we're supposed to be, what it's all about.

This is how you live a life worthy of the calling

that you have received.

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

Okay. If that's all He said, then we'd be left to our own

devices to go, oh, this is a worthy life, or, this is

not a worthy life, and this is— No, He didn't leave it to

chance. He said, let me tell you what that is. Let me tell you how

you do that. Be completely humble

and gentle.

That's something I've got to work on. Something I've been working

on. Yeah. You know, I've been told

a number of times in my life that I

intimidate people. And I think,

I'm 5'8. How could I

intimidate somebody? But apparently, you know, I have

a certain way of speaking sometimes and I have a

certain look. You know, maybe give people sometimes.

And Michelle has pointed out to me

that I need to do something about that. And I'm trying.

I really am. I mean, I've been thinking about it

and trying.

Humble, gentle, be patient.

Bearing with one another in love. Make every

effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

That's how you live a life worthy of the calling that you have

received. And now when it

comes to yourself, you know, it's kind of easy to

maybe fool yourself into thinking, hey, I got this. I'm humble.

Let me tell you how humble I am.

I'm gentle. What do you mean I'm not gentle? You know,

I'm patient. I gave you 12

seconds to change your mind.

But of course, these things only matter and they only come

out in relation to others. Yeah.

Bear, bear with one another in love and make every

effort to live in the unity of the Spirit.

I think I'd rather just be religious.

This is hard. Right.

But why? Why should we do this? Because there is one body

and one Spirit. And one

faith, one baptism, one Lord, one

hope that you were called to when you were

called. One God and Father of all,

who is over all and in all and through all. And one

isn't always the loneliest number. That's right. And if you don't

get that reference, ask your parents or your grandparents.

One is the number of unity.

Well, okay, we heard that. That was pretty intimidating.

What's the value though? I mean, what do you get?

Well, unity— when I taught on this

a couple of Wednesday nights ago, I told I told the

people, I said, I was going to say unity is very

underrated. I wrote that down in my notes and then I went,

very is such a lame word. I mean, you know,

nobody uses that anymore. I will use extremely.

And I went, that is exactly the same word as very.

And then the Lord dropped a meaningful adjective

in my heart. Wow. Unity is foolishly

underrated. Foolishly.

We hear sermon after sermon about everything from

evangelism to purity to how to get your miracle.

And I'm not saying that any of those are wrong,

but we rarely hear on a

sermon about how to biblically live a life worthy

of the calling that you've received,

which seems to be a pretty important thing.

And therefore, because I think in large part

because of the imbalance in that teaching-wise,

we willingly sacrifice unity for these other things. Yes.

We willingly sacrifice and will cast aside those who

aren't with us on these other things.

And we're like Esau who will— who sold his

birthright, something he couldn't see, for a bowl of

stew, something I want right now.

Yes. And the Scripture calls him ungodly. So

what is unity worth? Okay, we may not be able to necessarily

see it. And let me just say that when I say unity, I'm not talking

about unanimity. I'm not talking about agreeing about everything.

I'm talking about a life lived with others that is humble,

gentle, patient, bearing with one another

in love, making every effort to keep the

unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Psalm

133: Behold how

good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. For there

the Lord has commanded His blessing, life forevermore.

Eternal life resides in unity.

And what is eternal life? Well, Jesus defined it in

John chapter 17, verse 3. He said, Now this is

John 17:3

eternal life. This is pretty clear as you can

get. This is eternal life, to know You.

The only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. And

the psalmist says that resides where we dwell

together in unity.

The chapter I was teaching out of on that night, Colossians

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2, I got hung up. I got hung—

actually, Wayne had taught a couple of weeks earlier and he got hung up

and didn't get very far in his chapter. And I thought, well, cool, I can

do that. And so I got— and we're both

from the '60s, so we understand hung up. And we—

but I got hung up, and I got hung up on this. Paul says, my

goal, my goal in writing

to the Colossians and all of the people that I've not met personally,

my goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and

united in love so that they

may have the full riches of complete understanding

in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ,

in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and

knowledge. I kind of went,

wow! Wow! Being brought together in complete

unity, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That's

worth something! Yes. I do believe.

And later on in Colossians 3, Wayne taught that

chapter this last Wednesday. I'm going to go there in just a minute,

but it says

in verse 14, it says that regarding the

virtues, all of the virtues, the things that we go, okay,

that's good stuff. It says that love

binds them all together in perfect

unity.

One more. John chapter 17. Jesus praying on

John 17 · chapter mention

the night before He went to the cross, praying for us. He says, I'm not

just praying for the people in this room, Father. I'm praying for

those who are going to come to believe on Me through

their message. I have given them the glory that You

gave Me, that they may be one as We are one, I in them

and You in Me, so that they may be brought to

complete unity then the world will know that you

sent me and have loved them even as you've loved me.

How many of you know someone who won't have

anything to do with the faith or with Christianity

or won't go to church or just is an unbeliever

because of what they saw in the church? Yes.

Because of something that happened in church. I'm not asking you to raise

your hand, but I'm— because I know all of you know somebody who

fits in that description. And Jesus says, if we'll

live a life worthy of the life we've been called to, if

we'll do what He's talking about here, then the

world will know. They'll know Jesus came from God.

They'll know that God loves them. Amen.

Well, now wait a minute, preacher. Are you asking us to compromise

what we believe?

Hmm. Yes

and no. And it also

depends on what you're talking about. Because you see, there are

certain things that are essential

in the faith. And all of them connect

directly to Jesus Christ. Yeah. The essentials

all connect directly to Him. Who He

was, who He is, why He came, that He died on

the cross for our sins, that God raised Him from the dead

for our justification. Those are essential

things. Other things are important.

But— and I did write this down because this is

something that hopefully will get written in here.

Important does not equal essential. Right.

We don't do well in this country, in our culture with

nuance. We want a soundbite.

We want something that we can just go, oh yeah, there it is. I got

that. You know, how many of you had a What Would

Jesus Do bracelet?

I had one. Yeah. How many did you

have? Many. Many.

Yeah. You know, the only issue with— the only problem that I found

with that is that when I would look at that bracelet and think, oh, what

would Jesus do? More often than not, what I came up with was,

What do I really want to do? Yeah, I could see Jesus doing that, you

know. And then

I do that because, hey, what would

Jesus do? You know.

We like sound bites. And

rather than necessarily thinking things through. And what is

important, what is essential, we all have to.

That's right. Yeah. But what is important

to one may not be important to another.

You say, well, now Paul said to watch your life and doctrine closely.

Yeah, let me give you that complete quote. Watch your life and

doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do,

you will save both yourself and your hearers. Well, there it is right there. Well,

but you know what's not right there? Watch their life

and doctrine closely. Watch their

life and doctrine closely. It's watch your life and doctrine closely.

Jesus had a lot to say about people who felt like it was

their job to watch their life and doctrine closely.

You know this passage. You know where I'm going. Do not judge or you too

will be judged. For in the same way you

judge others, you will be judged. And with the

measure that you use, it will be measured to you. If those last

2 phrases don't just scare you straight,

then there's no straight in you. Yeah.

The way you judge is how you're going to be

judged. And I, you know,

this has kind of 2 sides to it. Because I—

it's not just a warning that says, well, don't be

judgmental because you're going to get that back at you, but it's also

another side that says, hey, if you don't judge—

that's what I want. That's what I need.

I don't know about you, but I need that. Amen.

With the measure that you use, it'll be measured to you. Nowhere

does God rebuke anyone for being too merciful!

Right. Nowhere does God rebuke

anyone for being too forgiving, for being

too tenderhearted, for being too kind! And

then as soon as Jesus said this, He also went

on to talk about, well, you know, it's pretty

easy to see that speck in your your brother's

eye, but you're looking through a log in your

own. It might be one of your specks. I don't

know. Romans 14, that chapter is

foundational in my walk with God, has been

foundational in my life and my walk with God.

And I would encourage you to read Romans 14.

and go through it. I'm not going to unpack it

this morning. I'm going to mention one

verse, but I would encourage you to do that.

And now it's talking about issues of the day and

issues of the culture. And so it might be things that we could just

pass off as, oh, well, that was for then. This is— but I believe

that the principle that Romans 14 is bringing

is an eternal principle. And

it's contained in this one verse.

Who are you to judge someone else's servant? This is Paul talking!

To their own master servants stand or fall, and they will

stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. If the Lord

can make me stand, He can make anybody stand.

Because I know Right. I know me.

As an adult, hopefully you can understand that

you can only control the decisions and

actions of one person.

Even as a parent, I mean, as a parent, we kind of think for a

while that we can control some others, but we find out we're disabused of that

notion pretty quickly.

Yeah. And children consider it appropriate to complain.

Well, Johnny gets to do it. Mary gets

to do it. Why is it that I'm

not the one who gets any of that?

Paul says over in 1 Corinthians 13 when he's talking

about love, I used to act like a child.

But now that I've become a man, I put away

childish ways. Yes.

Yet we're willing to take a stand on

certain issues or positions to the exclusion

of others who are not where we are

and not about what we are about

and such things. You know, when I was younger, I used to

think that anyone who disagreed with me was wrong.

And now that I have gotten older, I know that anyone

who disagrees with me is someone who disagrees

with me.

Right. And it may be that I'm right and they're wrong. It

may be that they're right and I'm wrong. It may be that we're both right.

I don't know how that works, but, you know, there's the

sovereignty of God and free will of man. You know, there are a lot of

things I don't understand. And probably the most likely thing is

we're both wrong. Hello.

But we're willing to take these things and we're willing to

exclude others. And so we forfeit

unity. We forfeit koinonia.

We forfeit the life to which we are

called, something so completely

other than worldliness.

You should, of course, not compromise on any conviction

God has given you. If God has

convicted you of something— I remember Wayne telling a story

about Don Finto one One time the pastor up at

Belmont was preaching

one Sunday night and he

apparently after Sunday evenings, he would go home and have ice cream. My

kind of man. He'd go home and have ice cream.

And one Sunday night he went home and he

started to get his ice cream and the Holy Spirit said, what are you doing?

He said, well, I'm I'm having ice cream. You don't,

you don't really care if I— do you?

Caused a conviction in his heart. Now that didn't make

me stop eating ice cream. But if it

made— but if Romans 14 at the end

says, whatever is not from faith is sin. Right.

So for Don, that was going to be a sin.

I could give other examples, but that's enough. If you have a

conviction, it's for you. It is for you, and

you need to keep— and it may be something that nobody else thinks, well, what

in the world's wrong with that? Whatever is not from faith is

sin. So it's for you. And I'm not saying

compromise that. What I'm saying is don't tie it up in a package and put

it on your brother's back and go, here, you carry this too. That's right.

That's right. There are

conflicts that exist. I'm getting close to closing

here, guys. So there are conflicts that exist in our world

that are completely irreconcilable.

There is no way to bring them together.

And I used to think, how's this going to work,

God? I mean, we get to heaven and there are going

to be people there who

killed other people's loved ones who are

there, or, you know, you bulldozed my house,

you ruined my life. How is that going to get reconciled?

And yet When we are before the throne,

all of those matters will just be forgotten.

The answer to how they're going to get reconciled

is the answer: Jesus.

He's how they'll get reconciled.

Wayne taught last Wednesday from Colossians 3, and he focused on

on 2 verses. And these are the 2 verses he

focused on. Since then you have been raised

with Christ, set your hearts on things above,

where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds

on things above, not on earthly

things. And then he

emphasized, you do it! You do it! This isn't

something That the Holy Spirit makes you do. It's

something you do. You take your mind and set it up there.

Down here we have differences that seem so important,

but there our minds are set on things

that cause these divides to just, just fade away.

And we can already, we can

already be there if we will do that, if we'll set our

minds there rather than on this

here. My mom and dad are over there.

My dad was a pastor. He couldn't do anything without my

mom. Uh,

And through the years, I saw them,

uh, I saw them be despised.

I saw them be, uh,

betrayed. I saw them be

hurt a bunch of different levels,

most of it in church. Uh,

But I also saw them deal with

those things. I mean, they had

their moments for sure, but

them deal with those things

with humility, with

kindness, with patience,

bearing with those who

offended. Seeking the unity

of the Spirit in the bond of

peace.. And when my dad died,

it was— it's been 18 years ago

now. Whew. My

mom passed away before that, but when my dad died, I put together a

slideshow for the viewing. And the last

slide that I put on there had a picture of my dad

He had a haircut about like mine.

And he had 1916 to

2008. And then I, for

some reason, I wrote, a life well lived.

And I think that's kind of the same thing as a

life worthy. Yeah.

What a glorious day that will be. We

used to sing an old hymn, Sing the wondrous love of

Jesus, of his mercy and his grace. In

the mansions bright and blessed, he's prepared for us a place.

Let us then be true and faithful.

Something serving every day. Just

one glimpse of Him in glory will the

toils of life repay.

What a glorious day that will be. But if we are willing

to not impose our personal convictions, our personal

ideas, our personal— the important things—

On others and be completely humble and gentle,

patient, and bear with one another in

love, then

we can come to complete unity. And the blessings

that are over there, we can bring down here.

Amen. The healing that's

over there, Can be brought down here. That's,

that's something worth doing. That's a life

worth living. Would you stand with me? Those

who are going to pray with people, come.

Whether you're worldly or whether you're

kingdom-minded, life in a fallen world is

hard. And if you have something that you need

Prayer with, prayer for these brothers and

sisters are here. And I want you to just come and

ask them to pray with you. Engage in some

fellowship. Okay? We're going to worship.

If you don't need to come, worship with us for a few minutes.