You Were Made For More (Colossians 1:1-2)

This episode covers Colossians 1:1-2 and the powerful truths found in the opening words of Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae. Though only two verses, they reveal what it means to be changed by Jesus, called according to God’s will, committed to His mission, connected to His Church, and growing in grace and peace.

Paul begins by identifying himself as “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” His story is a reminder that you are no longer what you were. Paul went from opposing Jesus and persecuting His followers to becoming an apostle proclaiming the Gospel. Salvation by Jesus changes people—He forgives, reconciles, gives His Spirit, and makes us new. Jesus always moves us in the direction of grace, not guilt.

We also explore what it means to live according to the will of God. God calls, gifts, and places people for His purposes, and Jesus is the reason for our calling—not our own satisfaction. The question we should ask first and most is, “What does God want?”

Paul’s mention of Timothy shows us how the mission moves forward: everybody uses their gifts, no one sees themselves as lesser by comparison, and we bring other people into the mission with us.

Finally, Paul addresses God’s holy people—the Church. The Church is not a common community and cannot be treated commonly. It is spiritual family, a people God is making holy together. As we grow in Christ, we walk toward giving more grace, receiving more grace, receiving more peace, and making more peace.

These two verses challenge us to leave behind our old identity, pursue God’s will, use what He has given us, value His Church, and live as people transformed by Jesus.

Additional Resources

• Watch or listen to Past Sermons
• Start With 7 (Daily Audio Devotionals)
• GOOD.GOD.GOSPEL. (How to Have Conversations Toward Salvation)
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• Read this book by Jason: “A Church of House Churches: An Articulated and Applied Ecclesiology”
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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Thanks for joining us again on the Rethink and Return Podcast. It's been a minute. It's been a while. It's been months. But we're glad to be back with you. And I've missed uh having a conversation about the scriptures with my friend Dave. Good to see you, Dave.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Good to see you. Good to be back. Good to walk through the word with you. Yeah, man. Kind of want to say now where were we?

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Let's just get back to it.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Well, you know, I mean, people would would know for years that you and I, I mean, yeah, you and I have known each other 25 30 years, and we've been talking about the word together a lot. And so, like, I I love talking about church with you, but also the scriptures with you, and you teach the word. So fantastic. You taught me the word over the years. So I we just hope that this podcast is just helping people take a minute from the sir Sunday sermon that we had and like just dig a little bit deeper.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah, just to get to the nuance, and we always pray that people, as they listen to it when they drive or use it as part of their time with the Lord, just to think more deeply. Yeah. One of the things that happened when we started this, uh, however long ago it was, was that people were always curious about your tea and your love for iced tea. And so I just I noticed today this is tea with lemonade. So is that is that is that just something to get you by, or is that a yeah you prefer that?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

No, man. I mean, I don't I like talking about that about as much as I like talking about cats. And I don't like talking about cats.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Well, that was gonna be my next subject. Well, it's cats. Yeah, well cats and tea.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Get your own podcast. Anyway, I won't be on it. But yeah, it's tea with lemonade citrus, you know. It's got yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Your pursuit of tea is like people uh text about it and they send messages about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

We don't talk a little too much about it, but people are curious about if you go to a restaurant and you can get good brewed tea, I'm happy.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Bottled stuff, uh distant second.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I got a few uh few places that serve tea that like yeah, that's my deal. I mean, I drink water until noon, tea until dinner, water after that. That's pretty much what I do.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

That's a great rhythm. I think that's good for our listeners.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Well, you know, we'll see. I do intermittent fasting. I don't eat late, I don't eat till noon. So that's that's and I drink tea. That's pretty much my life. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

It's pretty good. So it just comes up every once in a while, like when you have a new tea. I always feel compelled to ask about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Well, I feel compelled to move on.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

I think we should. I feel the Lord leading us.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

I always feel compelled to move on, but hey, we're both feeling compelled. So thanks for asking. Absolutely, I care. And um, yeah, this is my tea. Well, hey, we're in Colossians. We started a new book of the Bible yesterday, and I love that. What I love at our church is cool that like uh we introduce a new book of the Bible, people clap. Yeah. And uh just because they're I love that people love the word here. It's part of our culture. We have always taught through books of the Bible. In between that, we'll take breaks or we'll do things, which is great, and study different things from the word, but I really love walking through the scriptures together, and we're gonna walk through Colossians. I I think that this is a great book for our church in this moment. Every book of the Bible would be good and relevant and helpful, spirit-led.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

But uh, what led you to Colossians? What made you pick that up?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Well, you know, I mean, one of the things I love about Colossians is it just gets back to everything's about Jesus, like he's the supreme. I mean, the supremacy and the sufficiency of Christ. And like that's what we need to look at in life. We we always need to be reminded of that, especially in certain seasons. Like, man, we our focus has got to be on Jesus, the supremacy of Christ. And so, and I love a letter to a local church, and uh I love I love Paul's love for a local church, especially one that he hadn't been to and planted, and so he he still loved this church deeply. So we're gonna get into it and see, you know, some things like when we looked at the introduction, the brief introduction to Colossians yesterday, we realized Paul wrote this from a prison cell in Rome. He didn't plant it, but uh the dude who planted it would soon likely be in prison with him. Well uh and he would send a letter back because he's like, tell me about what's going on in Colossae. Uh when John in the book of Revelation wrote uh to the seven churches, several of those churches are mentioned here in this letter of Colossae. It its geographical importance and the spread of the gospel was huge. And so it was a hundred miles away from Ephesus, so Paul spent about three and a half years in Ephesus. Uh and so the Colossians knew about Paul, and Paul knew about them. So I love his affection for the body of believers uh well beyond the own local church that he planted and pastored for a long time. So let's jump into it.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, let's do it. I I said, you know, we talked about this earlier, but uh I one of the things I love about the word is how rich it is. Like you we really you really discovered the first two verses yesterday. Yeah, but yet it has so much in it that is so important to people. I I think uh slowing down and looking at it line by line helps people to discover these topics that you dealt with just in these two verses and how important they are to our life and living for Christ faithfully.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah, I mean, a lady talked to me in the four year yesterday, she's new to our church, like just weeks, and she's saying, you know, what I'm getting here is I'm I'm getting I'm learning how to teach myself the word. Another lady visits her kids here, she's from out of state, she comes in when she can't, but she listens to sermons from here all the time because it's taught her how to teach herself the Bible. Wow. And I'm like, sometimes a sermon can be a good talk, but like what we want to do over an extended period of time is teach people how to teach themselves from the way we teach them. And so all we're doing is is reading it and pausing and thinking about it. It's like the Selah word in the in the Psalms. Just pause and think about that. Yeah, that's right. So, really, that's what we're doing in our preaching. We're just gonna, you know, take this phrase and we're gonna pause and we're gonna think about it and see what God's saying. So we'll take the first word, first verse of Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. And just you know, Paul, we we stopped on him for a minute. I mean, that this dude would call himself an apostle, wild man. Yeah, I mean, he was the antithesis of that before. I mean, this guy's an apostle of Christ Jesus now. That's his introduction to this letter to a church, right? But beforehand, it would have been Paul, a murderer, maybe mass murder, killed the first martyr. I mean, this dude just, you know, everything we would say would make a human being horrible. I mean, beyond our own theological understanding that we're all born sinners, I mean, not all of us are murdering people for what they believe. Right. This dude was.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Right. And he wasn't apathetic towards Christianity. He wasn't apathetic about it, was he?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

No, I mean, you know, like we said yesterday, this dude, you know, we know a lot of people who don't believe in Jesus. But many of them, most of them likely are apathetic. This guy wasn't apathetic at all. He was anti-Christian, anti-Jesus. Like he he knew everything that a Christian claimed about Jesus, and he hated people for it. And so this guy was full of belief. He was full of theology, he was full of doctrine, and all of it led him to hate Jesus and Jesus' followers to the point that he would kill them, burn down their houses, separate families. I mean, this guy had no compassion for a Christ's follower, and now all of a sudden, boom, you know, he's calling himself an apostle of Jesus. So we have to go, what yeah, what in the world happened? Like this wasn't a decision of the will. I'd like to change. I want to get better at that. I want to quit killing people, you know. Right, right. Like something radical happened. And he went from knowledge, he knew all about the prophecies they said Jesus fulfilled. He would have known the word better than almost every Christian. Um, he would have memorized the first five books of the Bible. I mean, this dude knew the word, and so his knowledge didn't lead him to Jesus. He had he had this encounter with Jesus. And the knowledge isn't going to save us. That's why Paul writes against knowledge saving us, Gnosticism in his letters, because he's like, I had all the knowledge in the world. It did, it didn't do it for me. And so it it's this faith, and he had this faith encounter with Jesus, and once he crossed this line into belief, everything changed about it.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

It's powerful because it's it to me, it points out the truth that information doesn't always lead to transformation. Yeah, and our you know, we're churchmen in our lifetime. I traveled for 25 years, I met a lot of people that were deeply theological and incredibly mean to other people because they're they're what they knew hadn't changed them. And I think that this is a wake-up call because you can know stuff about Jesus without knowing him. That's right. That's where to me, I think that was the real wake-up call in this particular you just looking at this line in terms of that's right. Paul has this radical encounter with Jesus. And I think don't you think that we all we uh our salvation story may not be as radical as Paul's, but we all need a Paul story. We all need a a time where we have an encounter with Christ.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

We need a I mean, you know, Jesus called it being born again. Like there's this moment where we move from not being alive to being alive. Yeah, from lost to found to blind to see, from dead to alive. And so Paul had that encounter. And the cool thing is he was at some point he was no longer what he once was.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

And that's right. For Paul to be able to identify himself as an apostle, I think is a really powerful thing because he had a lot of guilt to get over by in his own flesh. Like he had a lot of reasons to keep carrying guilt, but he didn't. Like his identity wasn't what I used to do. Although sometimes he would talk about it, he didn't even feel it, didn't even seem like he was carrying guilt about it because he was just so he understood grace so fully that he wasn't walking around feeling guilty. Right. He acknowledged his sin, but man, this guy lived in grace and he didn't abuse it, but he totally used it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

And it really points up to the fact that grace, there's a dynamic to grace. Like one of the things you said yesterday is that Jesus is always moving in the direction of grace, not guilt. Yeah, and I think that's a powerful I think a lot of people think, well, you know, Jesus accepts me, but just barely. He loves me, but almost. That's right. You know, and this idea that here's this guy that has all of this could have all this baggage and guilt and memories and all this stuff, and yet encounters Jesus, and then the grace just propels him into a different direction that he thought he could never go. And I think everyone needs to be aware that that can happen to them. It's not just for super Christians and the New Testament.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

For like apostles. Yeah, I mean, it the same grace that saved Paul and lived inside Paul, yeah, made Paul understand who he was, is the same grace that lives in us, that saved us, the same spirit that lives in us. And so, yeah, I mean, we've been saved by grace. And Paul himself is the one who's telling us this the most, you know. He's like, Hey, grace has saved you. So it's a beautiful thing to the more we know grace, the less we're gonna be carrying guilt in our life because we know we're guilty, right? But and we all are, that Jesus has saved us, and so we must believe what Jesus tells us if we believe in Jesus. And he says, You're a new creation.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yeah. And I mean, and you said that you know the struggle doesn't undo the reality of salvation. I think a lot of people think, well, if I struggle, that means I don't have enough faith, or I'm or I'm not sincere enough, and yet that doesn't undo the security of Jesus' saving power. I think a lot of people, maybe that's a good thing for you to say something to people about it.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

No, I mean you're exactly right. I mean, we have to think about what happened in Paul to change him and make him different. What happened in him was well, Jesus by his grace stepped in and saved him, interrupted his path, gave him his spirit, and his spirit came in. The Bible says, his spirit came in and reconciled him to God, forgave him of his sin, inhabited us to give us power to be his witnesses. The Spirit of God brought gifts into our life, sealed us for eternity. And so the Spirit of God came to live inside of us, and so that's why we're being changed. But we're still alive on earth, man. We're still somehow affected by the flesh of this world, and that's what we look forward to in heaven. There's no sin residue getting in there at all. That's right. You know, but here Paul even said, like Romans 7, he's like, I will do things that I don't even want to do. Right. But that for him didn't negate what he knew to be true. Man, I I'm a new creation.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Really good.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

So you're no longer what you were. Paul's an apostle of Jesus Christ. And I I I think it's a really beautiful thing to to look, you know, the next thing, God has a plan for his appointment in your life. Yeah. Like Paul, Jesus saved him, yes, but he also appointed him for something.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

That comes along with our salvation. Like we get not just invited, we get implanted into the kingdom work.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

I mean, we're yeah, we're Jesus isn't going, we're gonna see how he works out, and if so, I'm gonna give him a spot on my team. No, immediately it's like you you got work to do alongside of me in the kingdom. That comes along with your salvation. Like the Spirit of God comes bringing gifts into our spirit, and those gifts, like Ephesians says, Ephesians 4 11, so Christ himself gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up. So that's why Paul's spending his whole life caring about the body of Christ. That's why he's writing a letter in jail to Colossius. Right. You know, I mean, sometimes when I'm with a group of people, I will pray a prayer that is something like, God, thank you for making me care about what I care about. Like the fact that I care about your church and your kingdom, yeah, that's not natural. Right. It's supernatural. Yeah, it wasn't natural for Paul to be caring about a church far away when he he might be about to have his head cut off, but he the Spirit of God is living in him and made him an apostle. And I think it's a beautiful thing as a follower of Jesus to get to a place to where we realize man, Jesus has gifted me and called me and equipped me to and required of me really to build up the church. So I got to get after it.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

So good. And you have really you have one principle about getting involved in the church and where to start and how how how you keep going.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

You know, you always say it's your next yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, I mean, you gotta say you gotta say the next yes. And I like to tell people sometimes when I'm discipling them about maybe walking in their calling, I'll say, look, the last thing you're gonna be doing is not the next thing you're gonna be doing. Yeah. So just do the do the next thing. Say the next yes. And as you're doing that, you're gonna start to it may be something that you think it's so far beneath me or so far out of my comfort zone, or it doesn't matter. But the little whatever you're doing for the gospel, for the kingdom with other believers, you're gonna start to see your gifts in action. So I would just say, you know, get in a local body of believers and build it up. And you build it up by seeing a need or seeing where your gifts are and getting after it, man. There's just no place. If you go to another church, do it there. Just get in and serve the body. Right, do it. Just get in and build it up. If you go here, build up the body with your gifts. And if you don't know what your gifts are, just say yes to something. You'll know at some point. Paul knew at some point. That's right. I don't know if Paul knew immediately that well, even what the word apostle was, yeah, or what it meant for him. Um, but he would soon find out. Oh, this is what God's called me to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And you really see that progression in Paul's life. Like I don't ever imagine that you know he popped up off the road to Damascus and said, I'm gonna write Romans. You know, that came later in life. It came later as he he he journeys through all these small towns and spends years and uh wherever I forget where it was.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah, Ephesus in the desert.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

I just drew I just drew a blank anyway. Uh, you know, uh, but it there's there is a it puts you a believer into a process where, like you said, if you just do what's next, say give God your next yes. That's right, and uh it doesn't matter if it's big or small, it'll lead you to someplace else. That's right. And you know, uh you you know you said that there's not really anything better than that last Sunday, um yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah, I mean, an apostle of Christ Jesus, what else what else will we be living for? I mean, you want to be an apostle of Caesar, an apostle of Rome, an apostle of Jerusalem. Right, right. I mean, that's right, you know, and so that's why I just said, look, whatever, whatever you do, do it for Jesus. Like be a banker, builder, businessman, or woman, be a professor, plumber, politician, be a doctor, engineer. Whatever you do, just do it for Jesus. Be wealthy for Jesus, be poor for Jesus, be outgoing for Jesus, be shy for Jesus. Like whatever it is, be known, be unknown, like just be it for Jesus. There's just nothing right better. That's why Paul's like, I'm an apostle of Christ Jesus. Like this, I'm living my life and so I'm serving in this way, I'm doing it for Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

I think that's so powerful because he found his identity. Not he never says I'm an apostle of all these churches. That's right. He says, I found my identity in Jesus. That's right. And everything else made sense when I found my purpose in him.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

That's right. I mean, that is Jesus was the reason he was doing what he did. Yeah. And so he still did what he did, he still identified himself as an apostle, right? But it was all about all for all because of Jesus. And so Paul said, I'm an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Right. I mean, this phrase, the will of God, is rich. You know, there's so much depth to it. And you know, I mean, one of the biggest questions that we really wrestle with is God, how could this be your will? Or what is your will?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

You know, and a will is the will, the will of God and the will of man. I mean, this is what makes us in the image of God. This is what moves us from, you know, plant kingdom to animal kingdom to humans.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

I mean, animals have, you know, they have sleeping and eating patterns, they have rhythms of life, they have appetites, they have urges and desires, but they don't have a human, they don't have a will. Right. This is where we move into being made in God's women's image in the in the will of God. The will of God, that's right. And so we we move from natural instincts to will, and it's a big word in the word. I mean, you know, Jesus, as he's teaching, you know, in Matthew, he would say the Lord's prayer. He's like, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as is in heaven. And then when he's at the cross in Luke chapter 22, Jesus says, uh, I mean, he's sweating and his his sweat is so intense. He's wrestling so much with the, you know, as a human, as as human as he was so fully human but without sin. So wherever that intersection got to, yeah, you know, I mean, we don't we can't fully reconcile it because we're fully human with sin. But Jesus was fully human without sin, but he he's getting to just the apex of that intersection before the cross, yeah, and it's causing you know particles of blood to form in a sweat. I mean, whatever's happening here, the will doing something with his body, and he prays this prayer, the ultimate submission of his will. Yeah. He says, Not my will, but your will be done. So our will is this place in us where we have to we get to ultimately decide to submit our will to his will.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah. Well, don't you think that what Jesus called the discipleship when he says if you and anyone who wants to follow me must deny themselves to take their cross and follow me? Like that's the submission of the will.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

That's right. You're denying, I'm denying my own will and placing it in submission to the will of God. And so we have you know what becomes the greatest question in our life is what is your will? Right. Like, what is your will for me in this season? What is your will for me? Ultimately, we we do know that God's will is found in his word. Like we don't, we because the Spirit of God wrote the scriptures of God, we know that God's will can't be separated from his word. Right. And so God's never gonna call something, somebody to do something that's outside of his word. So if we want to walk in the will of God, we have to walk in the word of God.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

That's right. So I mean, when you're talking about how how when you talk about the the the will of God, there's nothing better, and then how to find it, you'd say the first starting place is the word, and then what else? What else can people know use to know the will of God?

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Yeah, I mean, you know, old school experiencing God, Henry Blackaby study helped me. I mean, when I was a teenager ago, how do you discover God's will? And there are like five things that pointed out, but just at least four or five of them now. But the word of God and then, you know, wise counsel. Yeah. I mean, I I have some of the best counsel in the world in my own life, personally, that I'm very close to, have access to. I use it, I mean, a lot. I need I need a lot of wise counsel. Yeah, thankfully, I've had it over the years. So uh the word of God, wise counsel, circumstances. Sometimes God will open doors, close doors. Paul himself would say, God opened the door for me here or close the door for me here. Or even Satan, he said, prevented me from committing at some point. That's right. Wild stuff. I mean, I remember many years ago when I was trying to figure out how does God speak and how do he determine his will. I just did a study like when I was in college on my own, just yeah, like how did Paul discover the will of God? I mean, how did he decide where he went and where he was going to go next and where he was not gonna go? Right. And I was enthralled by Jesus, where he decided not to go and who he decided not to heal. I'm like, how do you know the will of God, you know? And it was, it wasn't just one thing. It was he opened the door, closed the door. I Paul one time just said, I felt compelled to. Right. Or I wanted to. Or, you know, Jesus was led by the Spirit. And so I think, you know, we want to seek to know the will of God through his word and through wise counsel and through circumstances and through, you know, prayer. Like, how does our prayer life line up? How do we keep praying? I think this is why Jesus told us keep knocking. Like, because the first time we knock and he doesn't answer us, like we got to decide, am I just going to stop asking? Or am I going to ask again? And the more we knock, I have found like we the longer he waits, when he finally comes to the door, our question would probably be refined from what it would have been originally when we started knocking.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

That's right. Well, I wrote that down in my jumbo note card. This Sunday, you said he kept refining my request until it lined up with the will of God.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Well, I said it better yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

It's really good. I mean, I that was it was powerful enough. Like I wrote, I thought that's right. Like that whole idea of persevering in prayer, and that, you know, for me, it was the question, what is God, what do you want? Yeah. You know, which is the will of God question. And that's that's what led me here. Like that, you know, when I surrendered to ministry and I was 16, yeah, it was because someone asked me that question. What does God want with your life?

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

And it opened up, it it took me out of just thinking about myself.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

And you know, I think a lot of people go, Well, here's what I want to do. Now, God, you just come along and bless it. I don't really care, but it's your will. I just want you to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

You know, and but I I think this whole idea is so powerful that in this one line, that by the will of God, this idea that we're confronted with is to always ask and answer the question, what does God want?

SPEAKER_01 23:41

And the and the beauty of it is what we ultimately want, what we actually want is his will. That's right. Like the deepest thing inside of us is a desire to do his will. Any other desire is a lesser desire. So our greatest fulfillment, because the Spirit of God lives in us, our greatest fulfillment will be doing his will. Anything outside of his will is a lesser fulfillment of our desires. And so Louis Giglo talked about this when I was in college. I mean, John Piper talks extensively about this, Christian hedonism. Like, really, the fulfillment of our greatest desires is just living in the middle of God's will. So the question that you got is God, what is your will for me in this situation? What do you want me to do? And we just live in submission of our will to his will.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

That's right. Don't settle for the shallow.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

That's right. Oh, well said. So uh then he says, and Timothy, our brother. Like uh, we'll roll through this pretty quick, but I love that. I mean, Timothy was here, and Timothy mattered as much as Paul mattered. Yeah. But they had different roles. They had a very different calling, they had a very different role, they had different giftings even, but they had equal importance, they had equal purpose, they're doing the same thing. And so, but Paul was showing us here, he's like, I'm not doing this alone. I have other people in, and and we start to see, you know, 2 Timothy 2, 2, like 2, 2, 2, to help us all remember it because we need to be living like this. Like, this is the way the mission moves forward, this is the way the gospel moves forward. Like Paul told Timothy, Timothy, the things you heard from me, and trust the reliable people who will be qualified to teach others. And the way the mission moves forward is that look, all of us, I'm gonna use my gifts to build up the church. I'm not gonna see myself as lesser by comparison, because comparison, it's brutal. Like when I get into comparison, I'm like, I should just quit. Let them have it. They have it covered. Yeah, you know, and so I mean, but what I have to realize is God doesn't need another. Timothy needed to realize God didn't need another Paul. He just needs another Timothy. Yeah. And I gotta I gotta be with my friends sometimes and go, God doesn't need another him or her. Yeah. Uh He he just wants me to be who He called me to be. Is it as fully surrendered and as fully engaged and fully committed as I can be, but that's what he wants.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Well, talk about that, the the stay, the stace, the stage and the pay, the spaces. The gifts of the stage and the spaces.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Well, when we when we do our workshops, our travel somewhere we talk a lot about ecclesiology, right? Um, I I will often say spiritual gifts are primarily meant for smaller spaces, not stages. And so a lot of people think, oh, I don't have the spiritual gift to be on the stage. Spiritual gifts were primarily meant for smaller spaces, not for stages. And so, like spiritual gifts were meant to work in a house church of 20 people. Like, where how does your spiritual gift work itself out there? Yeah. And so when we start thinking it has to be on some platform somewhere or running some program somewhere, that's when we get it mixed up. But Paul was like writing to a little bitty church, and they all had a gifting and a calling to serve one another and build up the body. And so, you know, Timothy had to start working that out. And then I love in verse two to God's holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers in Christ. And we won't spend too long on this, but it's important to mention holy people. Like this is not a common community, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:10

You know, talk about that for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Well, I mean, we get it, right? Where we all live. What we read about in the Bible, what they what they encountered is not what we encounter. The church is very different, it's very different here than it is in most places in the world. And it's easy for us to treat this uh too commonly. And uh, you know, I I I wrote, when we treat church as common, we lose our awe, our fear, our reverence for it. We can get too casual about this idea that God initiated. And we need to be careful and caring and cautious about this place. So God's holy people, and I love that Paul was writing to a local body of believers. He was like, hey, this is a local church. He would write a lot about the universal church, meaning the church all around the world and of all time, somebody who died yesterday, who's gonna live after me. If Jesus tarries, like, you know, he's he writes a lot about that, like the big church will all be together in heaven, but he's also writing here to a local church. And a local church just it just matters. Yeah, it just matters, and so you should be in a local body. We should care for our local body, be committed to our local body. And so, yeah, and then Paul goes, Grace and peace to you from God our Father. As we're you know, wrapping these two verses up. I I love that Paul just says, I want you to have grace, and I want you to have peace. And what our father gives you is grace, and what our father gives you is peace. I mean, this is a great introduction. Paul's like, Yeah, grace and peace, man. And so good. I I just think this is the direction that we need to be walking in. When it comes to our relationship with God, we need we we if we don't know what to pray about our own life, I think we could pray, God, help me understand grace more. Help me receive it, live in it, enjoy it, help me understand grace, and help me know how to walk in your peace. Yeah. You know, I mean, this is what Jesus is like, I'm gonna give you my peace. And I'm peace with us and God, peace with each other, peace within ourselves. So I think we just need to be walking and giving and receiving grace and peace.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

I think that, you know, I was struck by, of course, that's extremely pastorial, you know, and it's also one of our core values is to be simple here. And I think when you say, you know, I wrote it down, you know, we're gonna give out grace and we're gonna go after peace in every situation. Yeah. And I think that that's a directive to our church, that's a directive to any Christfaller, is to do these two things is to give out grace because we've received it so much, and to go after peace in every situation. Yeah. And to help people be live holy lives and faithful lives.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Yeah, I mean, you know, are we are we bringing more grace into a situation? Are we bringing more peace into a situation? That's what we need to be looking at, and that's what we need to be caring about. And you know, that's why I said about the community. I said this is primarily a place to help each other be holy and to do holy work. Yeah. You know, to God's holy people, this is primarily a place to help each other be holy, and every one of us needs to grow in our holiness. That's right. So we're here to help each other do that. That's the goal. And then we're here to do holy work together.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Just give more grace and give more peace. Right. And seek from the Lord. I want to know and enjoy your grace, and I want to enjoy your peace. So with God, God help me understand and enjoy grace and peace. And I want to do the work, I want to give more of it. That's hard work.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

And when I give more peace, that's hard work. But this is this is what Paul is introducing his letter with. He's like, I want to give grace and peace to you, God. Right. So I'm coming to you, local church, with grace and peace. And uh I I just think that's a great way to live. Good introduction. I'm excited about getting to this book together. Anything to wrap up with, Dave?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

No, I just I love the simplicity of living with grace and peace. I think it's a great directive for every Christian in the city to make that their goal and living faithfully.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I mean, it's good to have a couple of words that just guide us. Yeah. Grace, am I giving it? Am I enjoying it, knowing it, and then peace. So thanks, Dave. Thanks for the conversation. Absolutely. So I'm excited to keep doing it. I am too. Yeah, by the grace of God, we will. That's right. Hey, thanks for watching this. I appreciate you spending some time. If it's helpful to you, like it, share it, subscribe to it. Other people will be able to see it more if you do that. If it's not helpful to you, then stop wasting your time. Dave and I'll keep doing it though, because we like it. And uh, I'm really glad you're watching. I hope you have a great week, and I hope to see you soon.