SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_00: That was a weak good morning.
SPEAKER_00: See how it's gonna go today.
SPEAKER_00: By God's providence, I got to witness what I was gonna speak on today.
SPEAKER_00: Miss Anna Rutledge uh got engaged uh last night, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: Look, here, y'all are y'all are playing right into my whole sermon today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh one of our students saw her coming in and quickly yelled out a scream and a yell and ran over there and celebrated uh the news of her engagement.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was I asked Anna about two minutes before I came up here uh if I could share that story.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but I was making the point that we are always looking for reasons and things to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We celebrate engagements, we celebrate weddings, we celebrate holidays, uh anniversaries, uh birthdays, we have one for our child coming up in two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: So we've been trying to figure out how to celebrate that.
SPEAKER_00: Um we're people who want to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: I was the probably the biggest celebrations that get me are uh when soldiers return home.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I actually don't really have any family in the military, but uh, for whatever reason, when I uh see you know families united from uh returning back um from a tour, it it always gets to me.
SPEAKER_00: And um I was reading an article on old videos that I went back and found on YouTube of the POWs from the Vietnam War that got to come home.
SPEAKER_00: And so they had this video, and you gotta think about it, you have uh these husbands, these fathers, these sons, who some of them have been POWs for years, and families, right, had probably zero information or uh knew the condition, health, or even if their loved ones were alive.
SPEAKER_00: And then you imagine, right, they get a phone call.
SPEAKER_00: Your husband's alive, and we have him.
SPEAKER_00: Your son is alive, we have him.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Your father is alive and we have him, and he's they're gonna be home in two weeks, right?
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine the news of that phone call and the over amount of joy and rejoicing and reason to celebrate, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so then you got to see them two weeks later, right?
SPEAKER_00: They fly them out to the base, uh, and you get to see them reunited.
SPEAKER_00: And and that's kind of the picture that comes to my mind when I think of why we gather on Sunday mornings, right?
SPEAKER_00: So just straight up, in a sense, this is a sermon on not just you need to come to church because you're supposed to, but the real reasons of why we're here to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: We've been heard the news, the phone call of the gospel, right?
SPEAKER_00: That you have now been bought, purchased, you're a new person.
SPEAKER_00: And hearing that news, living out that news week in and week out, getting together to celebrate that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're doing on Sunday mornings is celebration.
SPEAKER_00: So I want us to look at today, right, and how Paul uses his letter to Colossians through kind of the prayer, right, for their uh need to celebrate, but also the promises of why they celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: So flip over with me to Colossians 1, and we'll read 3 through 14.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed the whole world is bearing fruit and increasing it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God and truth.
SPEAKER_00: Just as you learned it from Epapharis, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
SPEAKER_00: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we pray this morning for any distractions, for anything that might point us away from you, Father, that we could lay those aside, that we could spend the next 20 minutes looking at you, thinking of you, being thankful of you, finding reasons to celebrate you and to glorify you.
SPEAKER_00: Help us do that through your spirit, and it's in your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right, students, confession time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh when is the last time you told your parents I don't want to go to church?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like it, it's boring.
SPEAKER_00: Why do we have to go?
SPEAKER_00: I'm speaking on experience.
SPEAKER_00: Um why do you say that?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you want to come here?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing, your parents say that too.
SPEAKER_00: They don't say it audibly, right?
SPEAKER_00: But they think it.
SPEAKER_00: They say it with their actions sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: But it it really kind of reveals, right, maybe our heart's issue of how we view church, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's early, you gotta get dressed up, I gotta sit here now and listen to some guy talk.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But it it's actually really missing the heart of do you have any reasons to want to come here worth celebrating?
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel being here, right, is worth celebrating your identity, your purpose, your value?
SPEAKER_00: Because I know we think it's big church, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's for the adults.
SPEAKER_00: But the promise is, right, for you students, it just applies to you as it does your parents.
SPEAKER_00: Of needing the, you know what, it's not that we come to church because we have to, or we're supposed to.
SPEAKER_00: It's we come to church because it's an opportunity to celebrate the things that we find joy in our life.
SPEAKER_00: But and here's the thing about celebration, right?
SPEAKER_00: I can't, I could spend all day, all day up here giving you reasons of why you should celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't just tell someone to celebrate something, right?
SPEAKER_00: They have to genuinely want to celebrate it.
SPEAKER_00: That only happens when you find joy in it of the thing that you were celebrating, right?
SPEAKER_00: You think about weddings.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've got a wedding invitation on your refrigerator and it's from a coworker that you don't really know that well, and you're like, I mean, right, you've had that discussion.
SPEAKER_00: Should we go?
SPEAKER_00: Is it worth going, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because you don't know them that well, right?
SPEAKER_00: But then you have other ones where you know the people very well and you're excited, right?
SPEAKER_00: You've marked it on your calendar, you have made plans to go and be a part of that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because you know them.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we want to do here this morning, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to sit here and tell you all of the reasons why you need to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to ask in your heart, do you genuinely celebrate the promises of the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: And that is the motivation of why you want to be here on Sunday mornings.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you see the point of corporate worship.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: you can't do that, right, just on your own.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just will up enough.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm really gonna focus on loving the Lord and trying my hardest to enjoy him.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't fully work like that because we've all tried it.
SPEAKER_00: We all wanna love the Lord more, we all want to do more.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: The first kind of step in it is this prayer of I want to know you more.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Paul kind of starts off with.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna jump to verse nine.
SPEAKER_00: And so from the day we have heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
SPEAKER_00: There is a difference between knowing about someone and knowing that person.
SPEAKER_00: We're Presbyterians, we're really good at knowing about God, right?
SPEAKER_00: We have gotten the theology down, but that is not the same as you knowing God personally.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he's praying here.
SPEAKER_00: That you would be filled, right, with the knowledge of his will and all the spiritual wisdom and understanding.
SPEAKER_00: And how does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Like what does that actually look like?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what the source of Jesus' joy was.
SPEAKER_00: His understanding of the Father's will.
SPEAKER_00: I know him so well.
SPEAKER_00: I know how he thinks, how he acts, what he likes.
SPEAKER_00: And those things are my joy.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't his possessions, right?
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Jesus' earthly accomplishments, right?
SPEAKER_00: You remember when he goes back to his hometown in Matthew 13 and he start, he starts preaching, and they're like, Aren't you the carpenter's son?
SPEAKER_00: Like, who are you?
SPEAKER_00: Like, he wasn't so special on earth that people are like, oh my gosh, look, look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, his own hometown, they're like, dude, you're not you're not special.
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't those things that brought Jesus this joy, it wasn't his earthly accomplishments from other people's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: It was his intimate knowledge of God the Father's will.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And we're able to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller puts it this way, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you're indifferent to someone, their happiness is at the expense of your happiness.
SPEAKER_00: But if you love someone, their happiness is your happiness.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: There's a big distinction there.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul's praying for them, what Jesus modeled for us, was his happiness, his joy, his things to celebrate came because of his intimate knowledge and understanding and experiences of who God was.
SPEAKER_00: And it happened through obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read to you real quick from Ephesians 3, 17 and 19, because I think Paul fleshes this out well, right?
SPEAKER_00: That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_00: That fullness of God is at the top of 17.
SPEAKER_00: Christ dwelling in you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Christ dwelling in you, his joy, what made him tick, what motivated him, be the same fullness in you that drives you for joy, that drives you for to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's experiencing God in an intimate way through obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus modeled for us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Paul's saying.
SPEAKER_00: Like now Christ dwells in you, right?
SPEAKER_00: That obedience that he had, right, that's been imputated to you, the righteousness that you now you have, the spirit that he had, that Paul had, right?
SPEAKER_00: The same spirit who were you, little, you look at Paul's life, you're like, man, it was brutal.
SPEAKER_00: Why would he have had any reason for joy?
SPEAKER_00: Because he had the spirit of Christ dwelling in him.
SPEAKER_00: I think we could all say Jesus' life, right, wasn't easy.
SPEAKER_00: But what does it say for the joy set before him, right?
SPEAKER_00: He endured the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The joy, right?
SPEAKER_00: The spirit in him was what enabled him to have that joy.
SPEAKER_00: That same spirit's in you.
SPEAKER_00: That same spirit pushes you to say, I want you to be obedient to me, because it's how you experience me.
SPEAKER_00: It's the fuel for your joy and to celebrate who I am, not just what I am, but how you've experienced who I am.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why he goes on, right, to verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him.
SPEAKER_00: Right, when I when I spoke on the Ten Commandments a few weeks back, right, it I was trying to not just tell you not to commit not to commit adultery, not to murder, not to steal, right?
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to incorporate the reasons he's told you not to do these things is because of who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to commit adultery anymore because who you are in Christ is faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to murder anymore because who you are in Christ, right, is forgiving and loving.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to steal, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because who you are is generous.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And so when he's asking you, hey, to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing them, he's saying, like, be who you are now.
SPEAKER_00: Celebrate who you are.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you celebrate just the simple moments of obedience, like prayer?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you just celebrate the fact that you prayed is direct evidence of God's grace and mercy in your life to put it on your heart to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Or when you give, celebrating that.
SPEAKER_00: Your generosity came because the Lord inside you is working in you.
SPEAKER_00: That's worth celebrating.
SPEAKER_00: When you're kind to someone, that's worth celebrating.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think we do that very often.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I know we've had the conversation on our part.
SPEAKER_00: We need to do better in our family of celebrating our children in the sense when they do those little acts of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Because in a sense, it's like, well, you you just you should know that.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not going to celebrate you for doing something that you know you should do.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what it's saying here.
SPEAKER_00: We should be people who are willing to celebrate the simple moments of obedience in life because that is you experiencing Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's worth celebrating.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And when we read this, like what's fully pleasing to him.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Again, going back to what Christ, Christ knew what was pleasing to him.
SPEAKER_00: And what pleased him pleased Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what sanctification is for us, right?
SPEAKER_00: You continually wanting to be pleased in life with the same things that please the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want.
SPEAKER_00: We we want to quit being distracted and pleased by the simple, fleeting things of life, right?
SPEAKER_00: By the false, sinful promises, right?
SPEAKER_00: That say, like, this will give you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want.
SPEAKER_00: We just wish that wasn't so attractive to us.
SPEAKER_00: What we really want is like, I want to be pleased with what pleases the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so we just celebrate that, those little moments when it happens.
SPEAKER_00: But here's ultimately why you should, right, this should motivate you.
SPEAKER_00: Because it would be very discouraging if I said to you, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Every week you come here, I'm gonna tell you things that you need to do better so God will be pleased with you.
SPEAKER_00: That would be discouraging.
SPEAKER_00: That every week, like, oh gosh, I don't want to go to Kaaba Park because every week they tell me to be better, and I'm not better.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing good enough, and he keeps telling me I need to be better so Jesus will be pleased with me, or God will be pleased with me.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00: Because now Christ dwells in you, right?
SPEAKER_00: What we read earlier in Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: What did God the Father say to Jesus at his baptism?
SPEAKER_00: Here is my beloved son, whom I am pleased.
SPEAKER_00: And you are hidden in Christ now.
SPEAKER_00: He's already pleased with you.
SPEAKER_00: You can't walk out of here thinking he's not pleased with you and you need to work harder.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, that's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to know that he is pleased with you because of he's pleased with Christ and what he's accomplished on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: And that's really important.
SPEAKER_00: Because now you're going out and experiencing obedience and that motivation, right, to serve and to love, not because I have to do it to earn his acceptance, but you're doing it because you realize it pleases him, and you get joy in things that please him.
SPEAKER_00: We've been given that in Christ.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And he continues on to the next part, for bearing fruit, right?
SPEAKER_00: Fully pleasing him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't what we want in life for it to be meaningful, to be purposeful, for you to have a reason to celebrate?
SPEAKER_00: Aren't we always looking for those things?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: One of the promises, right, in John 15 is that he has appointed you to bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: He elected you, he died for you, so that you could go and bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Because your life has meaning now, it has purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants you to be able to celebrate in the ways in which your life has purpose through the ways you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, how you love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But again, I think sometimes we get distracted and we and we discount maybe the things that count as bearing fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Because I said, hey, right now, how are you bearing fruit in your life?
SPEAKER_00: You might be like, oh gosh, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Do not ask me.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not true, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're just not looking hard enough.
SPEAKER_00: You're not being mindful of the ways in which the Spirit is working in your life, even though you're not aware of it.
SPEAKER_00: And again, that's the problem.
SPEAKER_00: If you can't think of any ways in which your life is bearing fruit, then yeah, what reasons do you have to come here to celebrate what the Lord is doing in your life?
SPEAKER_00: But if you start celebrating even just the smallest victories, the smallest moments of obedience, right, you start to acknowledge that you do indeed feel pleasure and joy in the things that please the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Those are true.
SPEAKER_00: But you might say, well, that's all great.
SPEAKER_00: But recently life's been really hard.
SPEAKER_00: We're suffering, we're hurting, things have happened in our lives that we don't understand and are confusing.
SPEAKER_00: It's frustrating.
SPEAKER_00: Anger.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: You want me to come here on Sunday mornings when I'm hurting and just put a smile on my face and lie?
SPEAKER_00: No, that's that's what he continues now in this next part, verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing: I think we all agree with this.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to suffer, we don't like going through trials.
SPEAKER_00: But you also realize it's in those moments of suffering and trials and hardships that the Lord shows up the most.
SPEAKER_00: Or at least you are aware the Lord has showed up.
SPEAKER_00: He's always there, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's not like he's not somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: He's always in your life, he's always fully committed to your life at all moments.
SPEAKER_00: But it's when we suffer, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we really need him and we're really keen on him and we're really like mindful of him that you really get to see all the ways in which he has sustained you through that suffering.
SPEAKER_00: So again, I'm not saying you come in here smiling and laughing when you're really hurting, but there is a little bit of celebration that you get to have deep down inside because you know that this suffering is not for nothing.
SPEAKER_00: That it is meant to draw you to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It is to sanctify you.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 12, 9 through 10, he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
SPEAKER_00: For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
SPEAKER_00: For when I am weak, then I am strong.
SPEAKER_00: Why would he say that?
SPEAKER_00: Being content.
SPEAKER_00: Because he realized in those moments is when he gets to understand the power of Christ as one who's actually sustaining him.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, be real honest.
SPEAKER_00: How often are you mindful of Christ sustaining you when things are going really well?
SPEAKER_00: And you're just cruising through life because it's comfortable and easy.
SPEAKER_00: He's content with it.
SPEAKER_00: Because even though it's hard, again, he gets pleased by the things that please the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And as the Lord, like, I'm going to sustain you through this.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another aspect of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not punishment for you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might be like, well, I did this way back when, or I said this, or we haven't done this, and the Lord's punishing us.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
SPEAKER_00: He's not punishing you for something you did.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually why we should celebrate this, is because it is evidence that he is allowing you to suffer and treating you like his own child.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You start looking at suffering not as punishment, but as affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: You're treating me and allowing me to experience the same things that your own son Christ went through.
SPEAKER_00: Because you want me to experience what he experienced so that our relationship will grow closer.
SPEAKER_00: It's just like people, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think of like the band of brothers, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or people who go through SEAL training, who endure hardships together.
SPEAKER_00: Their bond and relationships grow much closer.
SPEAKER_00: So it is the same with suffering and why he allows us to go through that.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I want you to be closer to my son and the spirit in my son who's sustained his joy, I want you to experience that.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to have more joy.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he does it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we can celebrate it.
SPEAKER_00: And then the promises, verse 12, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: You've been qualified to the inheritance of lights.
SPEAKER_00: The glaring, radiant glory, right, of his goodness and pleasure and joy is the inheritance in which you get to stand in front of.
SPEAKER_00: You have been qualified.
SPEAKER_00: And here's an important part of that.
SPEAKER_00: Moses, you would have said, when he was on earth, like, okay, he's pretty up there in faith.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't, in the moment of his sinful state on earth, was not qualified for the inheritance of seeing God in his full glory.
SPEAKER_00: But you are.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ, one day you're going to stand and get to see God face to face, and it's not going to kill you.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're qualified to see it.
SPEAKER_00: You should celebrate that.
SPEAKER_00: The times where you feel like I'm not good enough, I'm not doing well enough, you can be reminded, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not good enough.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is good enough.
SPEAKER_00: He paid for that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm qualified.
SPEAKER_00: If I die at this moment, I will spend eternity in the presence of a perfect holy God.
SPEAKER_00: In our Bible study on heaven, I kind of told the women I would probably use this for my sermon, but I mean, it if we don't have heaven to look forward to, right?
SPEAKER_00: To the hope laid before you, which we kind of read uh quickly through in verse 5, then why come here at all?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Because we look forward to a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: And we plan our schedule around looking forward to a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: Why is it then sometimes we overlook the biggest future plans that we have?
SPEAKER_00: The biggest trip you are going on.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And having your life be changed and dictated by the ways in which I'm preparing to go there.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I shared the story.
SPEAKER_00: My neighbor was asking them, you know, hey, y'all got any trips finishing out the summer?
SPEAKER_00: And they were like, well, you know, we don't have any, but I need to plan one because I need something to look forward to.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's a little moment of saying, I need to look forward to something to celebrate, something worth it.
SPEAKER_00: And he's just promised you that you've already qualified for what's worth it.
SPEAKER_00: It's worth it to live your life, to serve others, to live open-handed, to be generous, because you have everything you need.
SPEAKER_00: All right, then he goes on to say, well, he's delivered you from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son.
SPEAKER_00: This one's tough.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And I'll just use my own personal example of sometimes feeling like, well, I don't feel like he has fully delivered me from the domain of darkness because I still struggle with sin.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I feel like, especially as the summer has gone on, right?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: School's back, that's the reason to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: But my temper and my lack of patience really waned, right?
SPEAKER_00: I was real quick-tempered, quick to get angry, quick to lose patience.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, I pray that I'll have more patience.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that I'll be gentler.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not working.
SPEAKER_00: It's not working, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so maybe many of you are like that.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, John, I've I've prayed for the Lord to remove this thorn from me.
SPEAKER_00: I've prayed to quit struggling with this sin.
SPEAKER_00: I've prayed to do this, and it's not working.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing has changed.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like I've been delivered from the domain of darkness when I ask him to help let me have something over that and it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've had that thought.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: like you cling to the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Romans 6.14, for sin will have no dominion over you, since you were not under law but of grace.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the reality.
SPEAKER_00: Your sin has been paid for.
SPEAKER_00: It cannot condemn you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be brought up to you in your final day of court and judgment in front of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's been erased, blotted out.
SPEAKER_00: That crime has been paid for and they have moved on.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And again, it's like again, we we feel this guilt of like, yeah, I do these things, and I got it, but that's okay to feel that.
SPEAKER_00: Not the guilt of like you're condemned, but to say, I am a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: I carry around the 500 denarii debt, not the 50, right?
SPEAKER_00: In the Luke 7, the woman forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: In that parable, he's like, who's more thankful?
SPEAKER_00: The one who was forgiven of 500 or 50.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be the 50 people so bad because it doesn't feel as bad.
SPEAKER_00: But you're gonna have more reasons to celebrate when you realize I'm the 500.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be, but that's the reality, and the Lord's forgiven me of that debt.
SPEAKER_00: That's worth celebrating.
SPEAKER_00: To be transferred into the kingdom, that kingdom, right, to finish this out.
SPEAKER_00: Is of redemption and the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the cost it was for your life.
SPEAKER_00: Who here has paid more for your life than Christ?
SPEAKER_00: You think of all of the stuff that you pay for emotionally, physically, financially, for your children, it does not compare to what Christ has paid for you.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the transfer needed.
SPEAKER_00: The cost needed was his life.
SPEAKER_00: And you have it.
SPEAKER_00: You have that righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: The forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: Is that probably not the greatest feeling to celebrate is being forgiven?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: When I mentioned Luke 7 and the sinful woman, what does she do?
SPEAKER_00: She goes to the Pharisees' house.
SPEAKER_00: This is a prostitute that everybody knows who she is and what she does.
SPEAKER_00: And she goes to the very house of the people that you cannot even imagine how they probably treated this woman, right?
SPEAKER_00: And she goes to the house with her alabaster of oil and she anoints.
SPEAKER_00: What does he tell her?
SPEAKER_00: Your sins are forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Go in peace.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine the stomach-churning anxiety that woman had walking into that house?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, legitimately, she probably was fearing like they might just stone me or kill me for coming into the house of these Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: And what did she get?
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Go in peace.
SPEAKER_00: You no longer have to walk around with the shame of what people think of you.
SPEAKER_00: You have the peace that I have forgiven you fully.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to bring that stuff up when I think of you anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Think about how freeing that would be.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: For you to feel like you are no longer, right?
SPEAKER_00: The things you have done to hurt people, they don't keep bringing them up to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's worth celebrating.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like there's times we've experienced that.
SPEAKER_00: And it's glorious.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the promise that we need to live out every day for you to say, what's it going to take for me today to thank God for forgiving me?
SPEAKER_00: And that I can go in peace and serve Him and love Him, not because I'm trying to please Him, because He's already pleased in me.
SPEAKER_00: It's who I am now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the person who loves the things that the person I love loves.
SPEAKER_00: It brings me happiness.
SPEAKER_00: So you need to ask yourself, how much joy do you get from hearing these promises?
SPEAKER_00: How much joy do you really get in thinking about your inheritance and your life in heaven?
SPEAKER_00: Do you really think it's worth celebrating?
SPEAKER_00: I want us to come here and worship corporately on Sundays, not out of obligation, but out of a genuine heart to participate in a celebration.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing, friends: a church is not a funeral, it's a wedding.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's alive.
SPEAKER_00: We should come here and celebrate because he is alive.
SPEAKER_00: The very one who dictates your eternal life is alive.
SPEAKER_00: And let's come here to celebrate that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I'll be the first to confess that I'll come up here on Sunday mornings and it's out of duty.
SPEAKER_00: It's out of a job requirement.
SPEAKER_00: And how sad is that?
SPEAKER_00: And how much do I sell myself short of the joy in celebrating you when I miss that?
SPEAKER_00: I pray we would be a congregation that is joyful, that finds reasons to celebrate even amidst the suffering and the pain.
SPEAKER_00: That it's our hope in you, that it's our inheritance in you.
SPEAKER_00: That it's the promises of being in glory with you.
SPEAKER_00: Father, help us of the things of this world that pull us away from coming here and worshiping you on Sunday mornings, that we find more important, that we find worth celebrating more.
SPEAKER_00: I pray you would lessen those.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you and your spirit alone would lay it upon our heart the honor and privilege and joy it is to corporately gather and celebrate the endless, infinite ways that you love us.
SPEAKER_00: And it's in your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.