Paul’s Final Greetings Show What Real Christianity Looks Like | Thomas Grocki | March 29th, 2026

The last lines of Colossians look like a throwaway list of names until you realize Paul is doing something intentional: he’s putting faces to the gospel. We walk through Colossians 4:7–18 like end credits, showing how Christian doctrine becomes a lived, shared reality through people who serve, encourage, pray, forgive, and keep going when it costs them.

We talk about Onesimus, a runaway slave who meets Jesus and then walks straight back into the hardest conversation of his life as a “beloved brother.” We trace Mark’s arc from quitting and causing a painful split to being welcomed again as “useful,” a concrete picture of forgiveness without an asterisk. We don’t skip the quiet hero, Nympha, who hosts a church in her home, reminding us that faithfulness in ordinary work is still worship.

The tone sharpens with Demas, who starts near Paul and later deserts him “in love with this present world.” That warning leads into Epaphras’ prayer for spiritual maturity and full assurance in the will of God, plus a clear, grounding answer to the question “What is the chief end of man?” To glorify God and enjoy Him forever, learning to delight in Him instead of using Him. If you want to grow, encourage others, and finish well, this one is for you.

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Transcript

Scripture Reading And Opening Notes

Amber Williams 0:46

Good morning. Please turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter four. If you're using one of the Pew Bibles, that's going to be on page 985. And follow along as I read God's Word. Colossians chapter 4, starting in verse 7. Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts. And with his with I'm sorry, with him, Anesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you, they will tell you of everything that has taken place here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you, and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions, if he comes to you, welcome him, and Jesus, who is called justice. These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers of the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea in Hieropolis. Luke, the beloved physician, greets you, as does Damas. Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea and Nympha in the church in her house. And when this letter has been read among you, have it read also among the church of the Laodiceans, and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea, and say to Archipus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains, grace be with you. This is the word of the Lord.

Trivia Night And The End Credits

Onesimus And Costly Obedience

Mark And The Power Of Forgiveness

Nympha And Ordinary Faithfulness

Demas And The Danger Of Drifting

Epaphras Prays For Maturity

Grace In Chains And A Challenge

Thomas Grocki 2:45

Demos, huh? Demos? He comes up later. I'm gonna go Demas. I don't like how most people go, but they're all names and they're all dead, so it doesn't matter anyway. Good crowd today. Um yeah, so this is my second time preaching in Colossians. The first time that I preached was on the circumcision passage on President Say weekend. My second time preaching is the list of names where circumcision comes up again on spring break weekend. And so some people might see some low-level bullying from Will. I see opportunity from him to grow me. And so, um, yeah, we basically are closing out the end of Colossians this morning together. Next week is Easter. We're gonna look at a passage in Hebrews, but today concludes this kind of three-month journey that we've been on together in the book of Colossians. And so if today feels like tying up loose ends, that's kind of what it is. We're tying up loose ends to this letter. We're seeing how Paul kind of punctuates what he has said all throughout these four chapters that has taken us a good long while to examine, to work through, to study, and to pour ourselves over. One of the things just about me at the beginning of this to kind of frame where we're going is I love trivia. I love playing trivia. If we are having a meeting or at a restaurant and there's trivia on the TV, you can rest assured I'm probably not listening to you intently because I'm playing trivia in my mind with what's on the screen. I love just the art of it. It's an art. It is it is so fun to me to be able to do. But more than playing, and I know this is not gonna be most of you guys, I love hosting trivia. Um, for about seven years at Midtown Coffee House, I would host Trivia just about every Friday night to the point where even during COVID, I would go outside and people would drive through and I would ask them a question through their car and they'd give me a dollar. And that was a real thing that we did during COVID because every Friday night was trivia night at Midtown. And one of the best ways to ask a question at Trivia is to not just ask the question and ask for an answer. That's a quiz, that's boring, that's no fun. But it's to ask questions in a way that makes people try to connect dots in their minds, to try to use uh learned knowledge and connect them in maybe uh interactive way to get to the correct answer. And so one of the things that I would like to do on occasion is ask a question where I would give a number of actors that worked on a movie together. I would say, these actors, and I would say, what was the same movie that they all worked on? Here's one example. You don't have to say it, whisper it to someone next to you. We've got Michael Cain, Hugh Jackman, David Bowie, Christian Bale. What was the movie that they all worked on together? Whisper it to someone. I don't need anyone to shout. Josiah in the back, I see you. It is not Interstellar, which you thought it was, it is the prestige. It's taking these names where I didn't say the name of the movie, I didn't say anything about the movie, but just with those names, if you know the movie and you know those actors, you were able to piece together what was kind of the group project, the movie that they all worked on. Here in this ending of Colossians, we can see this as kind of an end credits. We can see this as kind of the movie of Colossians is coming to an end. All of Paul's teachings, his encouragements, his prayers are coming to an end. And these are the list of names that help support the mission that have helped make all of these things happen. Why does Paul include this list of names? It's 10 names, at the end of a letter of teaching. It's what this has been about. This isn't necessarily a personal letter. Um, Paul has some of those, Philip and Timothy. This is mostly a letter for the church to be read. And he lists, this is one of Paul's shortest letters and one of the longest end credits that he gives. And if I can remind you, he's never even been to this church. He didn't plant this church. He he he oversaw kind of the sending of the guys that planted it. He's in prison right now. He has not been to this church, and he gives one of the longest lists of hey, this guy says hey, this lady says hey, hey, serve in your ministry well type personal greetings. Why does Paul include this list? If I could summarize it this way, because Christianity is not just on paper doctrine, but it's seen in people's lives. So we're gonna we're gonna unpack kind of this idea where it is on paper, it's doctrine, it's ideas, it's knowledge, it's um theology. But if it just lives on paper, it's not real Christianity. Real Christianity is seen in the lives of people all around you, and I think that is why Paul gives us this list. We're not gonna unpack all of these ten, that would be a super boring sermon, but these are just taken out of the passage, all their names. And so you might recognize one or two, probably not more than three of these names. But what we're gonna do is I'm gonna highlight a couple of these names, um, talk about a little bit who they are, and I think why Paul mentions them at the end of this letter, because he probably could have mentioned other people or a lot more. And so my encouragement to you guys would be to have an open Bible uh in your lap, turn to Colossians chapter 4, because I'm gonna I'm gonna have other verses and I'm just gonna point back to the text. Um, we're not gonna go verse by verse in this text, it's it's more summary form, but I want you to be able to see kind of who these people are and what they're doing as Paul concludes. And so we're gonna look at a couple of people. Here is the first one, Onesimus. Onisimus. This is from Philemon chapter one, it's one chapter only. He says, I appeal to you for my child, Onisimus. Receive him no longer as a bondservant, but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother. What we learn in the letter to Philemon, he's a Philemon is a Christian man, uh, we're guessing fairly wealthy, uh, maybe a leader of the church of either Ephesus or Colossae. He's a leader of the church, and he has a slave that ran away, maybe taking some stuff with him. We don't really know why Onesimus ran away, but he did. And as Onesimus ran, probably to Rome, which is where Paul was, he meets Paul, and we don't have a record of the conversation, whether it was meeting one-on-one or if it was in open air preaching or whatnot, but Onesimus becomes converted. He hears that Christ is Lord and he says, Yeah, like I think that's true. I want to stop living in my own ways. I want to start living for the Lord. And Onisimus becomes a Christian, and he basically goes up to Paul and says, What do you want me to do? My life is in the Lord's service. You are an apostle of him. Give me a task and I'll do it. And what Paul says is, I want you to go back to Philemon. I want you to go back to Colossae, the church where Philemon attends, and I want you to deliver these letters to them. If Paul is in Rome, which many think he is, it is a 1,300 mile journey from Rome to Colossae. And Onesimus, this runaway slave who ran, let's say, 1,300 miles away from his master, becomes a Christian and is sent right back to him. And Paul says, Greet him, not as a bondservant. Don't lure this over his head because he's not a bondservant anymore. He is a brother in Christ. And I want you to receive him as such. The next person that Paul mentions, or at least that we'll look at, is Mark, John Mark. This is Acts chapter 15. Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, but Paul thought it best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to do the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement so that they both separated from each other. If you know anything about Paul's missionary journeys, there's kind of three major ones. And on the first one, Mark, John Mark, accompanies Paul. They go on the mission, they share about Jesus, they heal, they preach, they do all of these miraculous things. And when the mission comes to an end, Mark says, Hey, I'm gonna wave the white flag, I'm kind of done, uh, I'm gonna go home. We don't know why. It could have been that he was homesick, it could have been that he was afraid, he could have been tired. We don't really know why, but what we do know is that whatever reason it was, Paul didn't think it was a good one. Paul basically says he abandoned us, he deserted us, he was flaky. When he goes up on his neck on his next missionary journey, Barnabas is like, hey, Mark is ready to go, he's got his bags packed, and Paul says, I think we're good. We don't need him to come with us. We don't need anyone who has proven themselves to be a little flaky. And I don't want to I don't want to take the emotion out of it because it says in 39 that a sharp disagreement arose between Paul and Barnabas, to the point where they split, to the point where Paul went this way and Barnabas and Mark went that way, and Paul said, If you are going to bring him, that's fine, but I'm going to go in a different direction from you guys because I don't want to do ministry with this guy, it seems like. And in this letter in Colossians, which is written after Acts, Paul basically says, Hey, if Mark, this Mark, if he comes to you, greet him, welcome him. I know he defected, but he's been restored. And the third one for us is a church hostess. Her name's Nympha. Colossians 4, verse 15. Give greetings to the brothers of Laodicea and to Nympha and the church in her house. Whether it was a network of churches or if there was one church in Laodicea, we don't really know, but she hosted it. Again, she's probably a wealthy lady who has room, fields, the ability to host a lot of people, and she is using that. She's exercising that. She's doing what she should with the resources that the Lord gives us. Do you know what else we know about Nympha from the New Testament? Nothing. This is the only verse that she gets. She's not mentioned in Acts. She's not mentioned in any of the other letters. This is the only kind of shout out that she gets in the New Testament. And so we've got three people here mentioned at the end of Paul's letter. Onesimus, a slave, turned brother, Mark, a quitter, but restored, and Nympha, I think maybe the most interesting, one of the most interesting. She's just ordinary, but she's faithful. She does what she's appointed to. She she hosts the church and she does her business without putt much credit elsewhere in the Bible. These are three of the people that Paul mentions. And again, we're going to ask why. I think Paul is putting his teaching into practice. Um last night I was tweaking some stuff, I was moving some stuff around in the sermon, and it dawned on me. I was like, this is the end of Colossians. This is the last bit of Colossians. Um, I'm just gonna read it. It took about 10 to 15 minutes. I sat on my couch and I read through all of Colossians, and it was just a light bulb moment. Some of these people, a lot of these people, probably more than we know, are examples of the way that Paul taught us to be. If I may, all of these verses are gonna come from Colossians previously in the book. Onesimus, a slave-turned brother. This is what Paul said earlier that we've already unpacked. You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Onesimus gets converted and he says, Not my will but yours be done, Lord. I want to be made into the image of you. Paul says, Go back home, give them the news of my teachings, give them good news to encourage their hearts. And Onisimus says, Okay, I'm not a slave anymore, but I am a brother. Mark, he's a quitter, but restored. Colossians 3 13. Paul teaches us, bear with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgive one another, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Paul told us this is what we need to do. We looked at this a couple of weeks ago, and I think in the letter we see a picture of Paul doing this. In 2 Timothy chapter 4, um, Paul's last letter before he died, he writes at the end of that letter, get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me in ministry. Mark went from being useless to the point of I don't I won't even come on that missionary journey if he comes. He went from useless to useful in Paul's eyes, because he forgave him. Paul forgave him. And he did not hold a grudge against him. The way the Lord does not hold a grudge against us, the way the Lord does not hold a grudge against you. He doesn't say Mark is coming to you, asterisk asterisk, be careful. He says, When Mark comes, greet him, welcome him, be with him, encourage him, all of that stuff. There's no asterisk when it comes to Mark, just like it is with us, because he has forgiven Mark. And then Nympha. Ordinary but faithful, Colossians 3:17. Um, I think this one was on the wristbands, and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Whether it's preaching on a Sunday morning, hosting an MCG, welcoming someone in the parking lot, sweeping the floor after someone makes a mess, whatever you do, even if it's ordinary, be faithful in it. Give honor and glory to the Lord. We see different people and different roles, but the same mission to make Christ over all. We may have gotten inoculated to it, but in all of these slides, throughout all of Colossians, is that little phrase at the top of the slides, Christ over all. I'm going to point us back to it because that's what Colossians is largely about. And it's what we see all of these different people doing, the kind of actors in the movie, they're all creating this picture of what Christian life looks like. Not just Christian knowledge, but Christian life. They're forgiving, bearing with one another, encouraging one another, being faithful in the small things. Which leads us to kind of a poignant question. Are there areas of your life that Christ is not Lord over? And this isn't uh youth pastors got to turn the screws somehow. Let's just ask them if they're doing this right. This isn't that. But I want you guys to seriously ask yourself to think about, maybe even after the service at home, whatever, to think about are there any areas of your life where Christ is high, he's mentioned, he's noticeable, but he may not be Lord over. And the reason I ask this is because one member of the list does not finish well. Gives us Demas. He ends up being a deserter. In chapter 4, uh verse 14, Luke says, or Paul says, Luke, the beloved physician, greets you as does Demas. Demas is a guy saying hey to the church. I'm not there, but I'm with you in spirit. Want you guys to know I'm here. Demas is mentioned in two other books of the Bible, two other letters of Paul. Demas is here with me. Demas is saying hey. Demas wants to encourage you. But it's in 2 Timothy 4 that we get kind of a picture of who Demas ends up being. 2 Timothy, um, if you guys know or are curious chronologically, 2 Timothy is the last letter that Paul ever wrote. Paul wrote it in prison in Rome, and he wrote it in a prison that he knew that he probably wasn't gonna get out of. I think many times he knew there's a good chance I'm gonna be able to get out. The Lord's gonna provide an open door, um, whether it be physical or metaphorical for the gospel, but you know, I'm gonna keep doing ministry. It seems as though in 2 Timothy, Paul knows he's in the twilight of his life, whether it be because of age or because of persecution. Paul, it's thought to be uh murdered under Nero after he kind of became emperor of Rome and started a large-scale persecution of the church. Paul's in prison in 2 Timothy, and this is what he writes in the last chapter of his last letter in life to Timothy. Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. I've got this kind of app on my phone that will show you kind of the Greek when you click on it, um, the Hebrew and the Old Testament. And when you click on deserted, this is kind of like the um just nuts and bolts definition of it, uh, is to abandon or desert, to leave in straits, or to leave helpless, drop down to the bottom, right, to leave surviving. You almost get the picture that they were rounding up Christians. Paul gets captured, and Demas kind of has a Peter Jesus moment where I'm speculating here, but almost where they lock eyes, and Demas could help, but Demas says, too scared, too worried, I'm gonna go my way. I'm gonna leave you, Paul, in the dust, I'm gonna leave you in chains, I'm gonna leave you where you are because I just I just don't want to deal with it. For whatever reason, and actually we get the reason in verse 9 or in verse 10 for Demas in love with this present world. He loves the world too much, he loves his comfort, he loves his security, he loves whatever it is that happened uh in Thessalonica, he loved it too much to continue to put his hand to the plow. Demas eventually leaves his gospel, his community, and his mission because he loved this present world more than he loved Christ. Is there anything that you love more than Christ? Is it comfort, wealth, pleasure, prestige? Is there there is real danger in drifting away from the Lord? Hebrews 2, chapter chapter 2, verse 1 says, Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. Friends, I think if we just come on Sunday mornings, if we just hear Bible studies, if we just hear sermons, we are so much more prone to drift away from what we've heard because we only hear it once a week, twice a week at best. If you go to MCG, check in and check out. We need to hold fast to the things that we have heard, and we do so in a community of people. It is important to start well. It is equally important to finish well. Some of you guys started your Christian walk, Christian race 30 years ago. Praise God for that. Finish well. Some of you guys may possibly start your Christian walk today. Something from the Word may strike a chord in you, and you hear the gospel for the first time, and you say, I want to repent, I want to put my faith and trust in Jesus who went to the cross for sinners, and I want him to be Christ over me. I want him to be the Lord over my life. You may start today. It is important that you finish well. Demas was a companion who deserted, but I think Paul even had a theology for when people frustrate you. He says in Colossians 3, for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Paul didn't have to sweat or worry about retribution. Later, actually, in that 2 Timothy passage, he says, Demas deserted me, but let it not be counted against him. I think with the goal of restoration, but Paul is able to say, That guy wronged me, that guy left me, that lady said something wrong about me, and Paul is able to put his hands up and say, The wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he's done. It's not up to me. I trust the Lord with it. So I don't think Paul loses sleep over Demas. Maybe he does, but he knows that the Lord is in control and the Lord cares for his people. And it may look differently for different people in different situations, but the Lord is in control of it all. And so here is the list again with just kind of what they do in the letter. This isn't what they do full time, this isn't their jobs. This is just what Paul ascribes. Again, if you guys have open Bibles, you can see kind of just what they're doing. There's a a number of different ways to break this list of ten up. This is this is how I did it. The first two are the people who kind of bring the letter. Titicus and Onesimus are with Paul and they're sent with the letters. The middle folks are people who are not in colossae. They are people either spread throughout or they're with Paul where he is, but they're not in colossae, and they're all just saying, hey, hey, we hope mid tree's going well. Hey, we hope this church in Kenya is going well. They're not there. And they're encouraging the believers in Colossae. And the last two, Nympha and Archipis, they are in Colossae and they're doing ministry. Nympha's hosting the church. Archibis gets this quote where Paul says, hey, remind Archibis. And if you look in the text, there's these quotes, like, fulfill the ministry that you've been called to. Uh, me and Will were joking that probably was kids' ministry, which is why he needed a reminder. Do the ministry that you were called to, don't give up. Um, but they, those two are in Colossae doing the hard work. And so um, as we kind of round out Colossians as a whole, as we uh look at mid-tree, I've got a question. What should we as mid-tree strive for? Together as a whole, as a people group, what are some things that we can put in our target, in our bullseye that says we want to go this way so that not everyone's going this way or that way? And um of the things that I think is helpful is in the text, we get a prayer that is prayed by Epaphras. If you look at Colossians 4 12, um, this is a prayer, and generally speaking, thought Scott, that was excellent leading us through that initial prayer. Generally speaking, if you want to know kind of the heart of the New Testament where you should go, listen to the prayers of the people. Listen to the prayers of Paul, the prayers of Peter, the prayers of Jesus, and in this case, the prayer of Epaphras. This is what it says. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, so that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. If I may one more time point to someone, Ephras is constantly praying. Scott mentioned this verse, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. This verse, 4-2, is something that Paul commanded us to do, told us to do, and it's something that we get to see someone do in the story, in the narrative of what's happening. It's not just doctrine, it's people living out doctrine. And so the collective mission in this prayer is twofold. One is the maturity of each person. Each person, young, old, rich, poor, longtime church member, new person, whatever they may look like. One of the goals of the church ought to be the maturity of each individual person. This is at the beginning, Colossians 1. Him we proclaim, this is Paul speaking, warning everyone and teaching him, teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. By including this list of names in chapter four, Paul is essentially saying, it's not just me toiling for them. It's not just me. There's a team of people, a group of people, a host of people that are toiling for the Colossians. Paul isn't the main preacher at Colossians. He's not on sabbatical. This isn't, he planted and left, and he knows all of them, and he says, I'm toiling for you each week. I'm just not there right now. Paul's never even been there. And he's toiling over them so that they would be mature. Maturity is a process. You can't force it, you can't formulate it. It has to be nurtured. In our youth room, there's a neon sign above kind of the TV in the back, like right there. Um, and it says trust the process. Like that, that's my life motto. Um, if I could have one that wasn't biblical, but I think it is, it just says trust the process, where like when we get middle school boys into youth group that are dinguses, I'm like, yeah, they're supposed to be. They are dinguses. Now, if they graduate as a senior and are still dinguses, there may have gone something wrong in the ministry or the household, we're not sure, but it hasn't happened yet. Um, but trust the process. It's not gonna happen overnight. It's not a, hey, if you read this book, you're gonna be set straight. You have to nurture it. It's taking what is young, unsupported, weak, and helping them turn into something that is strong, stable, and reliable. This is what happened, this is why we learn theology so that we can do theology. It cannot just sit in our brains, and we can't really do ministry work without good theology behind it. First Timothy Paul says, practice these things. Basically, practice being a Christian. He gave a list of things to do and things not to do. He says, practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. People should be able to see where you are right now emotionally, spiritually, even if you feel vulnerable, even if you feel insecure, even if you feel like I'm not where I'm supposed to be. This verse would say, yeah, that's kind of the point. So that in six months or a year, or Lord willing, 20 years from now, we can look back and say, man, she has really grown in her faith. He has really taken steps forward in his walk with Christ. We don't become Christians and then super Christians overnight. We have to walk in them and grow in maturity. And the second thing is the assurance of the will of God. Both of these two things were also mentioned in chapter one. Will did preach on these, so if you want to go back and listen to those more in depth, we're just doing more of a summary type thing. But Paul says he's praying that you guys would be mature and that you would know what the will of God is, that you would be assured, confident, stand firm in the will of God for you. What does that look like? What is the will of God? There are many ways to slice it, um, but essentially what you're asking, I think, is why do I exist? What's the purpose of me? What's the purpose of man? What's the purpose of all of this? What's the will of God on a large scale? Why do we exist? A couple of handful of pastors as they sat down and thought about this question, what's the will of God? They they came up, many of you guys know this, some of you guys don't, and that's okay. What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. If I could say wholesale, blanket, humongous umbrella, the will of God is to be glorified by you, and for you to enjoy him forever. This was a catechism, which is like a book that they would train people with, um, usually students, sometimes adult converts. This is question one, meaning if someone picked up the book, read question one, and gave up, they wanted them to get this straight that your goal, your mission, your chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. I'd say, in the top five of questions that I get from youth students is how do I glorify something? How do I glorify God? I want to do it, I think I know what it means. I think it means, you know, singing with my hands up. I don't know. What does it mean to glorify something or to glorify God? I'd say, with the help of um John Piper, that you glorify something by enjoying it. That's how you glorify something or someone. Think about uh a movie that you walked out of the theater watching and it was a really good movie. My first instinct usually is to pull up my phone and text someone and say, dude, you have got to see this movie. This was really good. You gotta see it. I don't know when. One time I pay the guy money to go see a movie so that we could talk about it. I was glorifying that. That's what we're doing when we enjoy something, when we tell others, when you jump up and cheer at a walk-off home run or a buzzer beater in March Madness, when you get excited to watch it, you're glorifying it. And these aren't wrong, I'm just using these as examples. You're saying, I'm excited to watch this. This brings me joy. I love to see this. When a parent or a grandparent has to show you a picture of their kid because they are so darn cute, what they are doing is they are glorifying the kid. They're saying, I take pleasure in this and I want to share it with you. That is glorifying something. John Piper puts it this way in his book, Desiring God. God is most glorified in us when we are the most satisfied in him. If you want to glorify God, start enjoying him. Start finding satisfaction in him. Don't use God as a tool to get what you really want. That job, that spouse, whatever it may be. Start enjoying God for who he is. Um, here is a picture. This is one of my least favorite pictures in the world. Um, this is Josiah, met John Piper while we were at the pastor's conference, and you can see in his face, he's not even in this room. Good, good for him. You can see in his face just the joy, the elation, the glory beaming from him. But it's I don't think it's that he got to meet John Piper. We were waiting on John Piper. I know that he looked so happy because I was in the bathroom. And I'm telling you, I was washing my hands. I was, I got done. We were we, this is the end of the conference. We were about to go on a six-hour road trip home, and I was like, I gotta go to the bathroom. We gotta make sure that the tank is empty, and we go, I go by myself, and ding! I look, and I saw this, and I was like, fake, it's fake. Photoshop, AI, whatever you want to call it. This is not real. I won't, I can't do it here, but it's a live picture. You can see them walking, and I was like, dang it, it's real, it's real. Josiah is so excited to meet John Piper because I couldn't, that he is beaming. This is how we should look. I'm gonna zoom in a little bit. This is look, we're youth group now. This is this is spring break. I I dare you to look at his wedding pictures and compare Kevin DeYoung in the background, but he is glorying in the fact that he got to meet this person who is kind of just a spiritual hero to many of us, and that I got to miss out on it. And so he is enjoying it. Piper changes um this kind of Westminster thing, which isn't recommended, but I do like the way he does it. He changes one word of it. He says, Man's chief end is to glorify God by enjoying him. If the first one's a little abstract, a little hard to wrap your mind around, this version may be more accessible. This one, I think, is a great thing to put in your kitchen, on a coffee mug, in your car, on a sticky note, that we glorify God by enjoying God, and we will do so forever. It doesn't end, it won't end ever. Those are the two things that a Paphrist prays for for the church, and I think for us. Things that we should be praying for each other. And so, two questions for us. Do you see your maturity and assurance as something the church is pursuing together? Or do you see it as a lone wolf thing, solo time? I got my books in my den, in my living room, in my study. I don't need anyone else. I got all the help I need right here, Jonathan Edwards. Do you see this as kind of a group project that you can name other people the way Paul does in the bookends of your life? It says he helped me, he encouraged me, he came alongside me, she um nurtured me in that way. Do you look forward to spending time with people at MCG? Or is it something that you look for any excuse not to go to, like pickleball or other bad excuses? And vice versa, do you see others' maturity and assurance as something you are pursuing personally? Do you look at people in the sanctuary, at MCG, in the lobby, and take any sort of ownership over and say, I want to invest in that person. I want to look for opportunities to help develop them. I want to intentionally spend time out of my calendar, my busy schedule, and sit down with someone for an hour once a week. Do you feel the ownership of the faith of younger believers and not an ownership where it hinges on you, but an ownership that brings the ability to speak into and to have joy in and with? Part of my testimony, um, I won't share all of it, but it is this this concept. Um, when I moved here for kind of the last time, I grew up in the military, bounced around a good bit, came back here. When our family moved here, it was the summer before my junior year of high school. It was at a different church, been sure he didn't exist. And there was a guy that just heard, hey, there's a single mom with four kids coming into the church. Um, and from my understanding, no one asked him to. There wasn't a program, it wasn't a be a buddy program, but he just said, Hey, I want to reach out to him. He texted me and he said, Hey, do you want to come over watch the movie at my house? It's Gladiator. I said, Sure. You know, I'm new here, he's in the church, kind of cool. Didn't even help with the youth. He was just a good disciple of Christ. And he said, Hey, I want to invest in you. So we I went over to his house, watched the movie. Maybe happened again. We just started hanging out. Then, after about two or three times, he bought me a book. I forget what book it was. I wish I could remember, but he bought me a book and he said, Hey, I'm gonna read this personally. If you want to read it too, we can talk about it and go through this together. And I, being a young man, without a father figure at the time, I just ate that up. I was like, Yes, please give me 10 books. I'll read them all. Um, I wanted to spend time with him, I wanted to be invested in it, and I didn't even have categories for these yet. I was so young in my faith, and he just took it upon himself. He saw my maturity as something worth toiling over himself. It was really neat to be able to see just the fruit that he was able to produce, and now his kids are in the youth group. Isn't that cool? Um, his youngest son and daughter come to the church and um they're they're in the youth group, and so I get to pour into them. It's really a full circle type thing. And so we'll close with Colossians chapter 4, verse 18. This is the last verse of the letter. He says, I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, remember my chains. But he doesn't end there. He doesn't let the last note of the letter be a negative one or a sour one or even an inverted one about himself. Paul has this ability to recognize um the true brokenness of situations while also having true gospel lenses for things. It doesn't say, I don't get better, these kind of idioms to soothe over hard things. He recognizes, remember my chains. As I write these, I'm getting chain rash. They're clinking as I write these things. My legs are getting itchy from having these chains and these shackles on me. Remember where I am. But the very last thing he says is, Grace be with you. As Paul closes his letter in prison, as he's thinking about all of the people that have impacted him and are impacting the church, the last bit of encouragement, the last bit of thing that he has to say to them is, Grace be with you. Which gets us to the last one. Paul, an example of himself suffering well, Colossians 1 24. He says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. This isn't something that Paul just said to do. Hey guys, it would be good if you guys could do this. He is practicing it. He's not wallowing in his sorrows, he is suffering well for the sake of the church. And so I've got one challenge for us as a church. It's not going to be on a slide. I really thought of it while we were doing prayer this morning. But as we think about the the Christian life outlined in Colossians, here's kind of a challenge and encouragement to you guys. Go back through. It's about a 10-minute read. Pick out some of the commands. Pick out some of the times that Paul says, hey, do this. Don't do this. It could be um pray constantly, be rooted and built up. It could be let the word of God dwell in you richly, put to death sin continuously. Pick out two or three of those commands and just try to think about if there's anyone in your life that really embodies those. Anyone in your life that you could point to and say, Hey, when I think about the word of God dwelling in you richly, I think about that person. And maybe shoot them a text. Um Titicus was sent to inform the church of Paul's well being and to encourage their hearts. Maybe it's a good challenge for us to do the same, to encourage the hearts of Of our members of our people in our community, with just, hey, I think you really embody this well. Praise be to God. Um so just a little challenge for you guys. Um, I'm gonna pray and then we can stand and worship. Um, here's kind of a reflective question, but the baskets are gonna be passed again. Um, if you have one of those childcare forms, you can put that in there. If you have a tithe or an offering, you can always drop those in. Prayer cards are always welcome. And if you miss the basket, there's buckets kind of out front. But let's just sit for a moment and think about these things. What are some things from Colossians that you learned that you took good notes on that you need to put into practice for the sake of yourself and maybe even more so for the sake of others around you? I'm gonna pray, and then Stokes can lead everyone to stand and sing. But Lord, Lord, we love you. Help us to love you more. Help us to glorify you, help us to find our satisfaction in you and you alone. Help us to behold you for who you are, Christ the King, Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, but also the humble servant who came not to be served, but to serve. I pray that as we look upon you, as we behold you, that we would desire earnestly to look like you, to be like you, to be the way that we were designed and created to be made in the image of you. And so, Lord, I pray that we would seek every opportunity to encourage others, to speak life into the lives of others, to take time out of our days and our schedules, to toil over other people and allow others to pour into us. Lord, we thank you for your word. And it's in Christ's name that I pray. Amen.