SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for a sermon from Sojourn North.
SPEAKER_00: Well, one thing I noticed over the years is that whatever is biggest at the moment in life seems the biggest to everything.
SPEAKER_00: It affects the way I see life, it affects the way I'm tempted to move and act.
SPEAKER_00: And it's when work feels biggest that can just cramp my ability to see the rest of life.
SPEAKER_00: When anxiety feels biggest, it affects everything.
SPEAKER_00: When conflict feels biggest, it can just cripple my mind, and it affects even me being present with someone else.
SPEAKER_00: When money feels biggest, like our giving platform shuts down, that's it's like, oh, that takes our attention.
SPEAKER_00: When suffering feels biggest, all these things are big.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought about it like this, and I've used this analogy before.
SPEAKER_00: It's like this sheet of paper, it's not the biggest thing in this sanctuary, is it?
SPEAKER_00: But when I put it in front of my face, it affects how I see.
SPEAKER_00: It affects how I walk, because I'd have to be ducking down.
SPEAKER_00: And these are the things that happen in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of things that come in and affect how we see and do life.
SPEAKER_00: And this week we're beginning our final series in our called into a bigger story, going through the book of Colossians.
SPEAKER_00: And Colossians is going to ask this question: What if Christ became the biggest reality in your life?
SPEAKER_00: What if Christ became the biggest reality in your life?
SPEAKER_00: And truthfully, we all have room to grow in this because the eternality, the hugeness of Jesus, of his eternal sacrifice, of all that he's done, we can grow in our vision of him.
SPEAKER_00: And we talked through, as we went through this series, we started with Galatians and we saw that Christ frees us from a smaller story.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that we're going to have a tendency to drift and we're called to come back on to the path that God has for us.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at Philippians and said, Christ forms us into a people that live together, that have joy together, and we have sorrow together, and we do this together.
SPEAKER_00: And we spent three weeks created for community series just talking about that we are created to be in relationship with God and with each other now and forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: And here as we go through Colossians over the next 12 weeks, I want us to say, how can we get a bigger vision of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: It's even like what we saw in Philippians 2, when we saw that have the same mindset as this, that Christ, he came, humbled himself, poured out all that he had.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to look to Jesus over and over again throughout the series and see that it affects every aspect of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So as we come into this series, as I've done with the other letters that we've looked at, we're going to do an overview of the book of Colossians.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to do an airplane view, just look at some major themes and just kind of wet our appetites to say that these are the things we'll be looking for as we come next week and over the next 11 weeks that follow that.
SPEAKER_00: That we are looking at all of Christ and how it affects every aspect.
SPEAKER_00: And so how big is your Jesus is what we're going to ask.
SPEAKER_00: So you're outline today, it's in your in your notes, we're going to look at a bigger Christ changes our vision, a bigger Christ changes our story, and a bigger Christ changes our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So as we look into the book of Colossians, let's get a little groundwork about who Paul is writing to, what time period, and I have a map that will jump up.
SPEAKER_00: This is Colossae, and you can see it over there, middle right side.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to give you some information about it.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's writing at the same time that he writes Philippians, between 60 and 62 A.D., he's in prison in Rome under house arrest.
SPEAKER_00: So keep in mind that it's an older apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He's probably four or five years from his death.
SPEAKER_00: And Colossae is, I'll probably say Colossae and Colossae synonymously because I didn't live there back in the day, but I've heard it both ways.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard it both ways.
SPEAKER_00: And so in fact, it's become kind of a forgotten town.
SPEAKER_00: So you see it's between Laodicea and Hierarpolis, and those are wealthy cities.
SPEAKER_00: And Laodicea was wealthy, prosperous, politically important.
SPEAKER_00: Hierapolis was famous for its hot springs and religious activity.
SPEAKER_00: And Colasse had been on an important trade route in the past, but it had ceased being important anymore.
SPEAKER_00: So it was just a normal, multicultural city.
SPEAKER_00: It was very diverse, had Greeks, Romans, native Phrygians, a significant Jewish population.
SPEAKER_00: And what that means is in this place where so many people had come, that tons of worldviews.
SPEAKER_00: Tons of different worldviews.
SPEAKER_00: And so when people are talking about Jesus, there's so many different opinions, so many different thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound like our culture today?
SPEAKER_00: So many different thoughts about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so it was a young church, and one of my favorite observations is that Paul never visited the church at Colossae, as far as we know.
SPEAKER_00: We know he hadn't up until this time, but it was planted through Epaphras, who was a convert as Paul planted Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's just a local church, local group of churches in Colossae that are doing local things, ordinary things.
SPEAKER_00: And it reminded me of Goshen.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, that's us, Sojourn North.
SPEAKER_00: Ordinary church, we're not the most massive, we're not the church of Laodicea, we're not the wealthiest church, we have a generous church.
SPEAKER_00: But it's the gospel is needed, the vision for Christ is needed to live our lives in the ordinary, and that's what we're called to do.
SPEAKER_00: So the challenge, false teaching had begun creeping into the church.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't people rejecting Jesus, and we see this theme all throughout different letters, and uh we see it all throughout the last 2,000 years, is that it's the temptation for humanity to always add something or to have some secret special knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: So it's like Jesus is good, but this is what you need to do.
SPEAKER_00: And so they'd add different things.
SPEAKER_00: So they wanted to add different false teachers, came in, Jewish regulations, special religious experiences.
SPEAKER_00: Have you been part of a church where it says it's cool what you've got, but you need this, where your left toe tingles when you sing this song, and then you know God really loves you.
SPEAKER_00: I just made that example up.
SPEAKER_00: But it's like we don't believe in the second filling of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: God can do amazing things in us, and maybe we have periods of growth and different things, but once you receive the Holy Spirit, you receive it, and you are sealed in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So people keep on adding mysticism, ascetic practices, human philosophy.
SPEAKER_00: All of these things are added.
SPEAKER_00: So they're not saying forget Jesus, they're saying add something to it.
SPEAKER_00: And now here's what I want to I want to hit really big here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm humored as you are, if you just experience that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh very, very humorous.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I've told the story before when I was been at Sojourn close preaching for 20 years or so.
SPEAKER_00: I had a homeless man in at Sojourn Midtown raise his hand during a sermon.
SPEAKER_00: He was just waving me, and I just was like, I'm gonna ignore it, I'm gonna ignore it.
SPEAKER_00: And it just kept going.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yes, sir, what do you have to say?
SPEAKER_00: And he went, I just want to say everything that man's saying's true.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that's a good that that worked out well.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't even a plant, I didn't even pay him.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, all right.
SPEAKER_00: But this is a huge main point is that when all of these things were happening, what does Paul do?
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't come and just attack the false teachers, he doesn't come dismantle them with logic.
SPEAKER_00: He does that, and he can do that, does it in other places, but what he does is he does the most amazing thing.
SPEAKER_00: He says, let's look to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Be reminded who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul's response is beautiful, and he spends four chapters here magnifying Christ, and he's saying, if you see Jesus, then everything will change.
SPEAKER_00: The best antidote for a small view of Jesus is a bigger view of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's the heartbeat of the whole letter.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look quickly through our outline.
SPEAKER_00: A bigger Christ changes our vision.
SPEAKER_00: Just a sample of Colossians 1 that we'll go more detail in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes this about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He, Jesus, is the visible, I'm sorry, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
SPEAKER_00: For everything was created by him in heaven and earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers or authorities.
SPEAKER_00: All things have been created through him and for him.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just take some of these phrases from what Paul writes here about looking at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: One of the first things he says is that he is the image of the invisible God.
SPEAKER_00: And we say if you see Jesus, you see his heart, you see the character of God, you see how he responds to those who are hurting with mercy and invitation and love and just invitation.
SPEAKER_00: And there's just so many invitations, and there's challenges all along the way, but this is God's heart because Jesus is part of our triune God.
SPEAKER_00: And so he is the visible image of the invisible God.
SPEAKER_00: So you see him, you see God's heart.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul speaks this.
SPEAKER_00: He says he's the firstborn over all creation, and you might think, well, that's an interesting phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that Jesus was created?
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, Jesus is eternal.
SPEAKER_00: The firstborn that Paul's speaking about here is that he's in a position of authority, of supremacy, of inheritance, because the firstborn would get the supreme inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: He's in the place of highest honor.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying Jesus reigns and he rules.
SPEAKER_00: And why is he supreme?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he goes on to tell us because all things, everything was created through him.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like John chapter 1, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
SPEAKER_00: And so nothing is created without Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's interesting, we have to take in consideration, just a theological note, looking through the whole of Scripture, is that it's our triune God that's present at creation.
SPEAKER_00: And I heard it explained like this this week as we as we look at the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: It's one what, it's it's God, three whose, it's God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Three and one in fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: And just as we are complex as humans, think about the complexity of God, and that kind of blows our mind, like what that is.
SPEAKER_00: But we we trust it as it is three distinct persons, one God.
SPEAKER_00: And so creation is work of the one triune God, the Father creating through the Son by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Even in Genesis 1, the Spirit hovers over the waters.
SPEAKER_00: And so let us create man in our own image.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see this fellowship even before things are created.
SPEAKER_00: So all things, remember, this is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so other teachers might come in and say, Jesus was a good teacher, he was a prophet, he's this, he's this.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's saying, he is a good teacher, he's the greatest teacher ever, but he's God.
SPEAKER_00: All things were created through him, but also all things were created for him.
SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: He is before all things because he's eternal.
SPEAKER_00: He holds all things together.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Think of the cosmos.
SPEAKER_00: As we see another passage, he holds all things together by the power of his word.
SPEAKER_00: That all things have order because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So as Paul comes out swinging, I want you to do this for me this week.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a point of application.
SPEAKER_00: For that Jesus is bigger than we can dream or imagine.
SPEAKER_00: He's more amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this: the eternal Son of God, creator, Almighty, all-knowing, all-powerful.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And as an agent of creation, all things created through him and for him.
SPEAKER_00: Do this for me this week.
SPEAKER_00: Look at a flower.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the intricacies of a petal.
SPEAKER_00: Pick up a leaf that's fallen from the ground.
SPEAKER_00: See the veins where water travels to its extremities.
SPEAKER_00: Look at a blade of grass.
SPEAKER_00: Our God created that.
SPEAKER_00: Thought about it this week.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the movements of your hand.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I just, I just, as I was preparing the sermon, I just thought about my hand.
SPEAKER_00: And thought about the skin, how it has to be as it is so that it can stretch open and close.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the lines on the palm of my hand.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking about my fingerprints, your fingerprints, all of our fingerprints are unique.
SPEAKER_00: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Creator God.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the complexity of the human eye, look at a diagram, look in the mirror at your eye.
SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can read about it and it's I can't remember.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's got a lot of things, cones and nerves and flipped images, and I'll stop.
SPEAKER_00: You plumb the depth of my knowledge on it right there.
SPEAKER_00: If you're an adult, watch a flame.
SPEAKER_00: Light a candle.
SPEAKER_00: Fire.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Creator God.
SPEAKER_00: Pause and listen to a child's laughter.
SPEAKER_00: That humor exists in our world when there's so much sadness and different things.
SPEAKER_00: What a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Our Creator God, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Through Him, for Him.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the night sky.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things to do is periodically look at new discoveries in the universe, different galaxies, the massiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Not only are there hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, they say there's over a hundred billion galaxies, and they don't even know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think newer numbers are way higher than that, but we don't know the extent of the galaxy.
SPEAKER_00: It's just mind-boggling.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 19.1, the heavens are declaring the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they are.
SPEAKER_00: And this is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Is this how you see Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Is this how I see Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Not every moment of the day.
SPEAKER_00: I have to be reminded.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to continue to grow in that.
SPEAKER_00: I see him bigger than I did 20 years ago, 30, 40 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to continue to see more and more because it affects every aspect of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We all have a tendency to shrink Jesus into our helper, our example.
SPEAKER_00: Is he our helper?
SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
SPEAKER_00: But he's much more than that.
SPEAKER_00: Does he show us how to live life in a fallen world?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: But it's much more than that.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians says it's infinitely more.
SPEAKER_00: Second point, as we look at the book of Colossians over the next several weeks, I want us to remember that a bigger Christ changes our story.
SPEAKER_00: It changes how we see our story.
SPEAKER_00: This past week I got a text from an old friend I hadn't talked to in 18 years.
SPEAKER_00: But he used to be one of my dearest friends.
SPEAKER_00: His name was Pete Stone.
SPEAKER_00: We played basketball together, worked at Lake Forest Ranch at different times.
SPEAKER_00: But dear, dear friend, and he's an Army chaplain, been doing it for 18 years.
SPEAKER_00: And he texted me, he said, Hey, Chad, is this?
SPEAKER_00: He'd sent a picture of me on my web on the website, and he said, Is this you?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, that's me when I was a little heavier and a little sicker, and but yeah, and he's like, Can we get together halfway between Fort Knox?
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So we met at a Heine Brothers, miraculously 35 minutes from each of us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it wasn't miraculously.
SPEAKER_00: Google Maps got us there.
SPEAKER_00: But we sat together, and he's one of those special guys, it's very rare in life, where you sit with someone you haven't talked to in so many years, and you just pick up where you left off.
SPEAKER_00: And it was kind of surreal because we filled each other in on the last 18 years of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And he had many tears in his eyes, and it was just so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: But we saw the importance of our stories, and we're reminded again that God's been at work through our whole lives, through the ups and through the downs, through our sickness and trials and through victories and through so many different things.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is saying is that a bigger Christ changes our story, and we talked about how the good news of the gospel is that God invites us into this eternal redemption story.
SPEAKER_00: And it affects everything about our lives.
SPEAKER_00: If you think your story is just boring and it's too ordinary, it's a miraculous story.
SPEAKER_00: For years at Sojourn Midtown, we'd have amazing stories at baptism because it's a rougher area.
SPEAKER_00: It was in Germantown and then Shelby Park area.
SPEAKER_00: And we'd have people that had been drug addicted, drug dealers, just uh parts of gangs, just amazing testimonies.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I'd be sitting with someone who would feel just kind of heartbroken.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, Chad, I don't have an amazing testimony to share from my baptism.
SPEAKER_00: I've lived a normal life.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, let's talk about how amazing your testimony is.
SPEAKER_00: And I would say, any of those people you talk to, they wish they had your testimony that they hadn't lived through all that.
SPEAKER_00: But let's look at it.
SPEAKER_00: You were dead in your sins and transgressions.
SPEAKER_00: You've been made alive in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You were part of the domain of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're part of the kingdom of light.
SPEAKER_00: But that is your testimony.
SPEAKER_00: That's just a little bit of it.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're part of God's eternal redemption story.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Colossians 2, 6 and 7.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes, so then, just as you've received Christ, Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him, being rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught and overflowing with gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: So just a little bit about phrase by phrase here.
SPEAKER_00: So we've received Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's something we'll celebrate for all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: But he's saying that's just the beginning of your new life with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Continue to walk with him.
SPEAKER_00: It's a daily walk, it's daily participation.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we say we need each other in this.
SPEAKER_00: It's not get saved and then wait till you pass away.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, this is the life we're called to live with Christ, is today.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, being rooted and built up, established in faith.
SPEAKER_00: So we're being built up, and this is part of our participation with God.
SPEAKER_00: So we receive Christ, we walk in Christ, we root ourselves in Christ, and it changes all of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So everything changes because your life is now found in Him.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians isn't asking us just to admire Christ, it's saying Jesus is inviting you to build your entire life on Him.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's some application for you.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout this entire series, be reminded of the good news of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Be reminded, hear this.
SPEAKER_00: This letter reminds us that I no longer have to make myself the center of the story.
SPEAKER_00: Christ already is.
SPEAKER_00: You can take the pressure off.
SPEAKER_00: To be the center, you're not the center of your story.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I can trust him with my past, with my present, with my future.
SPEAKER_00: Because look at who he is.
SPEAKER_00: Through him and for him, all things have been created.
SPEAKER_00: He's our sovereign God, he's in control.
SPEAKER_00: I can trust him with my mistakes in the past, my regrets.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to live in guilt because those things are covered and paid for.
SPEAKER_00: I can't change them anyway.
SPEAKER_00: But here in the moment, I can try to seek his face and trust that he is for me and know that he holds my future, even when it feels so uncertain and shaky.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's where you are today, where you don't know what the future holds.
SPEAKER_00: None of us know what the future holds, but maybe you're just very anxious about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's not comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Not comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: But that's a reality.
SPEAKER_00: I'm anxious throughout most days at different times.
SPEAKER_00: And it can be small or it can rage very large, and it can be about this or this or family or work or whatever else.
SPEAKER_00: I found myself in the last couple weeks, I had this inner motor just revving up, and I had to come back to a realization of like, whoo, I'm living life like it's up to me.
SPEAKER_00: And I need to slow down.
SPEAKER_00: I need to slow down in my heart and my soul.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm still gonna work hard, but God, I can't live like I'm in charge.
SPEAKER_00: As we hear Colossians, we say we can receive our identity as God's beloved because we don't earn it.
SPEAKER_00: It's given to us freely.
SPEAKER_00: We can say, I can live in authentic community because Christ is forming a people, not just individuals.
SPEAKER_00: And I can walk faithfully in ordinary days, knowing that Jesus Christ is Lord over every part of my life.
SPEAKER_00: And we're called to live in ordinary days.
SPEAKER_00: That's the norm for the Christian life, an ordinary day.
SPEAKER_00: And all of this is true for the final point, because a bigger Christ changes our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So let's close by looking at Colossians 3.
SPEAKER_00: I love this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just look at the first few verses here, 12 through 14.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, as God's chosen ones, Paul writes, holy and dearly love, put on, this idea of getting dressed, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against you.
SPEAKER_00: Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so also you are to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Above all of that, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
SPEAKER_00: So we see in the book of Colossians the massiveness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We see that it affects everything about our story and that it affects everything about our lives, because we see our identity, even in these few verses, as God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved.
SPEAKER_00: Before he says, put on all this stuff, he's reminding them who they are because what we do flows from who we are.
SPEAKER_00: As God's chosen ones, holy ones, dearly loved.
SPEAKER_00: So it changes, our identity has been changed.
SPEAKER_00: It produces in us Christ-like character.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds, he's he's stating some of the fruit of the Spirit right here, right?
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, get dressed with this.
SPEAKER_00: And this is this action of our lives daily coming and saying, today I want to put on compassion.
SPEAKER_00: I want to put on humility.
SPEAKER_00: I say it quite often, at least think it quite often.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, man, our world would be so different if everyone was a humble person.
SPEAKER_00: Man, humility is very scarce in our world.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's not as scarce as we think because the humble people aren't building up themselves.
SPEAKER_00: But it's sometimes scarce in the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's scarce in church leaders.
SPEAKER_00: But put on humility.
SPEAKER_00: And we look back to Philippians 2 to do that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Compassion, kindness.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be a people of kindness, people of gentleness and patience.
SPEAKER_00: It affects every relationship.
SPEAKER_00: It says, bear with one another, forgive one another.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you will have grievances against each other.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: It's messy people, messy lives.
SPEAKER_00: We do it together.
SPEAKER_00: This is not for you to turn in, but this is the other handout in your bulletin.
SPEAKER_00: Just a summary of some of the action steps for next week.
SPEAKER_00: And our desire as leaders in the church is not for you to check every box.
SPEAKER_00: Really, our desire, the reason it has an other right there, is like we want you to be an intentional Christian community.
SPEAKER_00: We want you to be in the world and loving on people, sharing Christ, but we know you need intentional Christian community.
SPEAKER_00: So we're asking, what's your next step?
SPEAKER_00: Next intentional step.
SPEAKER_00: Is it joining this church?
SPEAKER_00: If you want to join the church, just come talk to me and I'll set up a time to meet with you.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you information about the church, our bylaws, membership covenant, and I'll come to your house, we can sit in my office, anything.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of my greatest joys is meeting new people and hearing their stories.
SPEAKER_00: And my interview with you is just to hear your faith story.
SPEAKER_00: And I only have like 72 systematic theology questions that I ask.
SPEAKER_00: Just kidding.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to hear your story and talk through like what God's leading you to.
SPEAKER_00: And if it's to this family, we'd love it.
SPEAKER_00: And if it's not, we'd love to help you see another church that might be a better fit.
SPEAKER_00: But we know you need to be rooted in a local church.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's to join or host a community group.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's women's ministry, men's ministry.
SPEAKER_00: The Rockin' Adult Sunday morning Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's in there in the fellowship hall from 9 to 10 every week, and it's the coolest group of people you would see.
SPEAKER_00: Just so great.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's to serve with a ministry team.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's like spiritual friendship.
SPEAKER_00: It's just you saying, I want to invite someone to have conversations about our spiritual lives for coffee every other week.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's inviting someone to pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can go through that.
SPEAKER_00: And I put a ver uh, I mean a prayer and then a reminder that gardens grow slowly and you're just taking your next step and trusting God.
SPEAKER_00: So next week I'll have some cards that you can check so we can, as leaders, gather them and pray for your next step and help you with whatever your next step may be as well.
SPEAKER_00: But we're called to do this in relationship, and we want to say, hey, this is a church where we value community and relationships.
SPEAKER_00: We already do, but we're taking more intentional steps towards them.
SPEAKER_00: So Colossians 3, those verses also talk about living in unity.
SPEAKER_00: It affects our worship, it affects our outlook on life because it says with gratitude, with thankfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to remember what we are to be grateful for.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just stop and do it right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful for you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful that the red carpet's gone.
SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful that uh Brian Schrock was led here to lead worship.
SPEAKER_00: He's doing an amazing job.
SPEAKER_00: Talk about humility right there.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm thankful for my beautiful wife and how she supported me all these years.
SPEAKER_00: Can't imagine doing.
SPEAKER_00: I I wouldn't have made it apart from that.
SPEAKER_00: Thankful for Jason Jones, how much of an encouragement it is he is to me.
SPEAKER_00: Hugging a tall man is a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mind hugging shorter people.
SPEAKER_00: But this dude, he's like a Pied Piper teaching sojourn kids.
SPEAKER_00: He can just relate to anybody, like it's like a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Thankful for Phil back in the back.
SPEAKER_00: Elder at Christchurch at Goshen, Rita in the back.
SPEAKER_00: Melissa, I could go on and on.
SPEAKER_00: The Berkeleys, I'll stop.
SPEAKER_00: That makes me thankful.
SPEAKER_00: The Driscolls, I'm gonna stop.
SPEAKER_00: Jalobinkos are in the house.
SPEAKER_00: I'll stop.
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did that.
SPEAKER_00: Let us together.
SPEAKER_00: And this is our sentence to carry for the week.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd invite you to jump into Colossians.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much to mine in the depths of beauty.
SPEAKER_00: The more clearly we see Christ, the more everything else begins to find its proper place.
SPEAKER_00: We'll leave it up just for a moment here.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking about the solar system we have is that the sun has the gravitational pole.
SPEAKER_00: It's massive.
SPEAKER_00: Gravitational pole, it's the center of our little solar system.
SPEAKER_00: Everything revolves around that.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine if the tiny Earth tried to be the gravitational center?
SPEAKER_00: Nothing would, everything would spin off its axis into the universe, freeze, or go into a black hole or into a star.
SPEAKER_00: Like it wouldn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is the son of our solar system.
SPEAKER_00: We revolve around that.
SPEAKER_00: And when he's in the center, everything finds its proper place.
SPEAKER_00: When he's not, it just doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't created to work like that.
SPEAKER_00: So let's remember the question: how big is your Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: How big is my Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And say, as we come to take communion today, I would like the prayer on our lips to be, Jesus, help me see you more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Because the truth is, if you see him more clearly, you'll see him bigger than you do right now.
SPEAKER_00: And this is our sacred symbol we celebrate every week that we come up.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian, you've surrendered your life to Christ, you come, if you're visiting with us, come on and partake if you'd like.
SPEAKER_00: But you can come on up and grab some bread and juice, take it back and hold it at your seat, and then I'll come up after everyone has received the elements and I'll lead us to partake in communion together.
SPEAKER_00: But the eternal sacrifice of Jesus, the massiveness of the sacrifice, made our way to be in the new heavens and new earth, to be in this eternal family.
SPEAKER_00: This is our Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So on your lips, Lord Jesus, help me see you more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you so much for this book of Colossians, and I'm so excited to jump into it just to see the richness and the beauty of who you are, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I desire for my vision of you to become more clear, to see your beauty, to see how amazing you are to a greater degree.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that for myself and I pray that for my brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that as we journey in and as we seek to do community together, that there would be a work in our hearts in this church.
SPEAKER_00: And we acknowledge that you are the one who does this, but you're inviting us to participate with you.
SPEAKER_00: So continue to move in our midst, and we ask this in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.