SPEAKER_01: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_02: The word of the Lord from Luke chapter 10.
SPEAKER_02: So then behold, a lawyer stood up and he put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said to him, What is written in the law?
SPEAKER_02: How do you read it?
SPEAKER_02: And he answered, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor is yourself.
SPEAKER_02: And he said to him, You've answered correctly.
SPEAKER_02: Do this, then you will live.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Father, that is our desire.
SPEAKER_02: That's the cry of our heart, whether we have words for it or not, is to worship you with our minds and our souls and our effort.
SPEAKER_02: God, it is tired work trying to live for ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: And so, Father, I pray that you are that your Holy Spirit just brings a spirit of rest, resting in the fact that you have gone out before, resting in the fact that we are your friend, that as believers in Christ, you have given us all that we need.
SPEAKER_02: God make us people that trust that and live in light of that.
SPEAKER_02: We praise things your name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_02: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Wade, and uh I'm a Cowboys fan.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Um sorry.
SPEAKER_02: Uh thought it was confession time.
SPEAKER_02: My name is uh Wade Collier, and uh I'm glad to be with you this morning.
SPEAKER_02: As always, um I'm honored and humbled with the opportunity to open God's word with you when given the opportunity.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Neil, our lead pastor, is away.
SPEAKER_02: He and Marcy had a great opportunity to get away this weekend um for rest, and and all that is well deserved.
SPEAKER_02: And so this morning, um I get the honor of opening God's word with you.
SPEAKER_02: Um and as I was preparing over the last few weeks, um I was just drawn to a very um similar conversation that I've had multiple times over the last two years.
SPEAKER_02: Um many times I've had that conversation at this church with folks that are sitting in this room, and although the conversations vary a little bit, they are similar in theme, and they all begin um with with a very um I guess similar question, and that is, hey, what's next for you?
SPEAKER_02: Or what are you called to?
SPEAKER_02: And let me let me speak to that as that's a really good question.
SPEAKER_02: Um it's a hard one to answer for many of us, um, but it's a really good question all the same.
SPEAKER_02: And so um I I recently had a very similar conversation with someone, and um we were talking, and I got in my truck after that lunch, and I was getting uh getting ready to drive away and just kind of reflecting on the conversation like you do, and um I thought they seemed pretty satisfied with my answer to that question of what's next for you, and and that's great.
SPEAKER_02: But if I was honest with myself, I was like, I don't think I'm really impressed with my answer to that question.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I'm really satisfied with the answer to that question.
SPEAKER_02: And it's not that um I was dishonest, it wasn't that that I was being misleading.
SPEAKER_02: It's just when I went back to reflect on the answer to that question, it just felt uh just felt flat.
SPEAKER_02: Um and and here's what I mean by flat.
SPEAKER_02: Let's say that you walked up to me after the service and you're like, hey Wade, uh we're we're gonna jump in the car and we're going to Schlitterbahn.
SPEAKER_02: And because I'm the biggest nine-year-old you've ever met in your life, I am amped.
SPEAKER_02: Let's go, right?
SPEAKER_02: And we get in your car, and then I soon realize that you have driven us to Galveston.
SPEAKER_02: You didn't lie to me.
SPEAKER_02: You didn't mislead me.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the sign says Schlitterbon, but it's not really Schlitterbahn, right?
SPEAKER_02: There's not an old surly German woman who's putting my wristband on way too tight, right?
SPEAKER_02: There's not three parks in one in Galveston.
SPEAKER_02: I don't get to go to Pat's place and eat lunch on my way out of town like I do in New Brombles.
SPEAKER_02: So you didn't lie to me, you didn't mislead me.
SPEAKER_02: There is a Schlitterbarn, Schlitterbarn, nope, Schlitterbahn park in Galveston, but it's just flat, right?
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's it's it's not it's it's not the real deal.
SPEAKER_02: And so I bring all that up to say, if we were to set a microphone up right here, um right in front of the stage, and we lined up like this was a town hall meeting, and everybody answered that question that I mentioned before, though, what are you called to?
SPEAKER_02: What is your calling?
SPEAKER_02: The thing I want you to think about is how confident would you be in your answer?
SPEAKER_02: I am called to this.
SPEAKER_02: My calling is this.
SPEAKER_02: And if your answer is I'm 100% confident, let me hear this from me now.
SPEAKER_02: This is not a sermon where I'm just gonna pile coals of doubt onto your head.
SPEAKER_02: If you are 100% awesome, right?
SPEAKER_02: But but here's here's here's the question is I'm talking about the day in, day out, as long as you're vertical.
SPEAKER_02: What is your calling?
SPEAKER_02: It includes your vocation, it includes where you live.
SPEAKER_02: But I want us to be careful when we talk about calling and what you're called to, that we don't limit it by just vocation, by just this, or it's just that.
SPEAKER_02: It is everything that we do, it is our breath day in and day out, as long as we're vertical.
SPEAKER_02: And so that's what we're gonna look at this morning.
SPEAKER_02: So if you would turn with me to Colossians chapter three.
SPEAKER_02: Colossians chapter three.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't have a Bible, um there's some black hardcover pew Bibles around you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh most of what we're going to read, and I'll talk about it is going to be on the screens as well.
SPEAKER_02: Colossians chapter three, beginning in verse one.
SPEAKER_02: It says, If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_02: Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
SPEAKER_02: For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
SPEAKER_02: When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
SPEAKER_02: Put to death therefore what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desires, and covetness, which is idolatry.
SPEAKER_02: On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
SPEAKER_02: In these you too once walked, when you were living in them, but now, but now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
SPEAKER_02: Here there is not here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, scythian, slave, free.
SPEAKER_02: But Christ is all and in all.
SPEAKER_02: Put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.
SPEAKER_02: And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.
SPEAKER_02: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts.
SPEAKER_02: And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father, through him.
SPEAKER_02: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: As we jump into this, just an introductory statement of sorts, I think this passage is an incredible scripture to build the foundation of what our calling is.
SPEAKER_02: It's a great foundation to build it on, and here's the reason I say that is so often when we describe our Christian lives and we describe what we're called to, it is oftentimes, we oftentimes define it by the things that we don't do.
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02: We oftentimes define our Christianity by the things that we avoid, how we're different from other people.
SPEAKER_02: But in contrast to that way of thinking, this passage calls us to what we should do.
SPEAKER_02: As we just read, some of what we should do is to kill some thinking, to kill some habits, some sins in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: But what it's doing is it's taking this legalistic default in our flesh of going, well, I'm better because I don't do this, and I'm different because I don't do this, and it begins to reorient it and it puts this kingdom mindset of the Holy Spirit within us.
SPEAKER_02: And the reason I know this is Paul is writing this letter of Colossians in large part to cast down this pervasive bad theology that will begin to leak into these small churches in and around this area.
SPEAKER_02: There's this great author, great, started a phenomenal seminary called Fuller Seminary.
SPEAKER_02: His name is Everett Harrison, and he has a great book on Colossians.
SPEAKER_02: And he says this, it's gonna be on the screen behind me.
SPEAKER_02: He says this the most dangerous heresies the church is called on to combat from time to time are not those which openly and blatantly assail the person of our Lord, but rather those which subtly detract from his dignity while giving the appearance of honoring him.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the reason I put that, how do I put it on the screen?
SPEAKER_02: Here's the reason I read that, is because if we are answering this question of what is your calling with a list of things that we don't or shouldn't do, then what we're doing is we are detracting from the dignity of the Lord while attempting to give the appearance of honoring him.
SPEAKER_02: We are reflecting so much on the things that set us apart and so much on the things that we don't do that we've missed it.
SPEAKER_02: So let's walk this out.
SPEAKER_02: Let's walk this out.
SPEAKER_02: If we're sitting here right now and we're honest, and maybe for the first time, or maybe for the first time in a long time, we go, you know what?
SPEAKER_02: When I talk about my faith, I talk a lot about the things that I don't do.
SPEAKER_02: I talk a lot about the things that I abstain from.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't really talk so much about what Christ has freed me up to do.
SPEAKER_02: I don't talk a lot about what Christ has equipped me to do.
SPEAKER_02: This this morning, we get to begin to change the trajectory of that.
SPEAKER_02: We get to read, believe, and enact God's word.
SPEAKER_02: This this this whole passage, all these 17 verses provide this really deep well of calling and what God has called and equipped us for.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll reference um several verses from the latter three fourths.
SPEAKER_02: But what I want us to do this morning is to really drill down on the first four as we answer the question of what am I called to?
SPEAKER_02: What is my calling?
SPEAKER_02: What am I called to?
SPEAKER_02: Here's the first thing for you note takers.
SPEAKER_02: The first thing that you were called to is to keep seeking.
SPEAKER_02: The first thing that we are called to is to keep seeking.
SPEAKER_02: Look back again with me at verses one through four.
SPEAKER_02: It says, If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_02: Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
SPEAKER_02: For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ.
SPEAKER_02: When Christ, who is in your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.
SPEAKER_02: So as we read this, we see that Paul is telling us as Christians that we're to do two things.
SPEAKER_02: Verse one tells us to seek things that are above, and verse two tells us to set our mind on things that are above, not things that are on earth.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe in your Bible, maybe in your translation, it says, set your affections on things that are above.
SPEAKER_02: Now hear this.
SPEAKER_02: When I say and when the Bible says that we're called to keep seeking, we need to make sure that what we're seeking, what we're setting our minds on, what we're setting our affections on is Christ and Christ alone.
SPEAKER_02: That what we're setting our minds on, what we're keeping on towards, what we're setting our affections on is Christ and Christ alone.
SPEAKER_02: And you might be sitting there and you're thinking, duh, Wade, it's kind of simple.
SPEAKER_02: I get it.
SPEAKER_02: It's a given.
SPEAKER_02: Two thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_02: One, that's rude, and I don't appreciate you talking to me that way or your tone.
SPEAKER_02: And number two, is it really a given?
SPEAKER_02: Is it really a given that the things that we seek out that we set our minds and our emotions on, is it really a given that it's of Christ?
SPEAKER_02: That when we establish our calling, that it's really of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: I've been just kind of bathing in and overwhelmed in this calling, and what does that look like?
SPEAKER_02: And is it limited and is it different for different areas of our life?
SPEAKER_02: And just kept looking and reading and um and I started to think, what is what do other worldviews think about calling?
SPEAKER_02: And how are people that have um you know slightly to the right or slightly to the left or you know, a complete 180 from my worldview, how how are they approaching the answer of calling?
SPEAKER_02: And so um the Google Interweb search machine cranked out um a serious number of pointers when I typed in different questions on how to establish your calling, and I spent way more time than I care to admit here this morning reading through them.
SPEAKER_02: Um and and instead of picking a list that was just really easy for us to mock and it's low-hanging fruit, what I did was I just read through multiples and I saw a theme.
SPEAKER_02: I saw a theme of a lot of pointers from a different worldview of how you answer the question of what is my calling?
SPEAKER_02: What am I called to?
SPEAKER_02: What should I seek?
SPEAKER_02: And so I've asked the folks behind us to put these three on the screen.
SPEAKER_02: And and before we read these, if you just take a cursory glance, is we we could easily find these as a three-part sermon in a lot of churches.
SPEAKER_02: Because they kind of sound noble and they they sound idealistic, um, but when we really dig down into it, it's it's a sad state of affairs that we could see this at a church because we're in danger of a big sea church um of becoming more of a pep rally than an authentic biblical community.
SPEAKER_02: So let's be careful as we're talking about calling and what we're called to the way that we approach that.
SPEAKER_02: So here's some here's some pointers that I found on the internet, and that's always a safe place, uh, to establish your calling.
SPEAKER_02: The first one, shop around.
SPEAKER_02: Unless you try on the outfit, you'll never know if it fits.
SPEAKER_02: Do the same with vocations, avocations, hobbies, and skills.
SPEAKER_02: You'll need to sample every flavor to know what your true favorite taste is.
SPEAKER_02: Number two, find a problem to solve.
SPEAKER_02: Being the solution makes your work feel meaningful.
SPEAKER_02: Having an issue to work against also gives you a villain to play against and makes you the hero.
SPEAKER_02: Burn your plans.
SPEAKER_02: Your life will not go according to plan.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Nobody's ever has.
SPEAKER_02: Don't worry if you get off track.
SPEAKER_02: The track was imaginary anyway.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: You have to laugh to keep yourself from crying.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: That's one of those situations that this is the guiding true north, true north moral compass for folks.
SPEAKER_02: These came from reputable magazines and reputably source, reputable sources and news agencies of man, I just don't know what to do with my life.
SPEAKER_02: Let me get online and look.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I gotta taste everything.
SPEAKER_02: I gotta be non-committal.
SPEAKER_02: I gotta do this, I gotta do these things.
SPEAKER_02: And I could stand up here and put on my judgy pants and say a lot of things.
SPEAKER_02: I got lots of pairs of judgy pants.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you guess nobody else.
SPEAKER_02: Liars.
SPEAKER_02: All right, so we could do that, but all that's all that's a whole lot of emotion in me, and that's a whole lot of words to just make this one observation.
SPEAKER_02: There's a whole lot of seeking me and setting my mind and affections on me involved in this view of how to find your calling.
SPEAKER_02: It's a whole lot of me-centric.
SPEAKER_02: But then when I look at Colossians 3 and I look at verses 1 through 4, I see a very drastically different focal point of where my calling is to be found.
SPEAKER_02: As Paul writes these four verses, seven times he points to Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Seven times in four verses.
SPEAKER_02: He says that we're raised up with Christ.
SPEAKER_02: He says he says we are to seek where Christ is, that our lives are hidden in Christ, to be revealed with him, that Christ, who is our life, that our identification is in Christ, and his resurrection, and his life, and his death.
SPEAKER_02: And so, church, what we what we're doing, right, is we're taking our tent spikes and we're putting them in the ground that what we're seeking is Christ, right?
SPEAKER_02: Hello?
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: That we're putting the tent stakes down that what we're seeking is Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Need to wake you guys up.
SPEAKER_02: So let's take a poll.
SPEAKER_02: If you are under the age of 25, raise your hand and leave them up.
SPEAKER_02: Raise them high.
SPEAKER_02: Some of y'all are lying, but anyway, raise your hands up.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Alright, put your down.
SPEAKER_02: If you're between the ages of 26 and 55, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_02: Hold them up.
SPEAKER_02: Alright, put them down.
SPEAKER_02: If you're 56 and older, raise them proud if that Arphritic shoulder will allow you to get it up.
SPEAKER_02: Put them down before you pass out.
SPEAKER_02: Alright.
SPEAKER_02: I'll be available in the parking lot for any discussions or suggestions.
SPEAKER_02: So what we've done is we've we've we've included everyone in the group.
SPEAKER_02: Alright?
SPEAKER_02: So whatever group you in, we're in, under 25, 26, 55, 56 and over, everybody do me a favor and look back at verse 1 again.
SPEAKER_02: This is for all of us.
SPEAKER_02: If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_02: Now just hang with me.
SPEAKER_02: Keep your eyes on verse 1.
SPEAKER_02: I know this is going to feel like I'm belaboring a point.
SPEAKER_02: But look down at that verse, and what is that word that's between the word Christ and the word the?
SPEAKER_02: What?
unknown: Seek.
SPEAKER_02: Seek, right?
SPEAKER_02: Pay close attention.
SPEAKER_02: Look at it again.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't say seek once you get into college.
SPEAKER_02: Look, it doesn't say seek once you're out of college.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't say seek once you've landed a spouse or once you've had kids.
SPEAKER_02: Twenty years ago, I thought that 40 was so old, right?
SPEAKER_02: And I was convinced that by the time I reached this decrepit age, I would have everything together and have all the answers.
SPEAKER_02: But I read this and it says that as I'm looking down the barrel of 40, I am still called to seek because I have no idea what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't say stop seeking once you're an empty nester.
SPEAKER_02: Read.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't say that you're off the hook for seeking once your 401k is fully funded and you can retire.
SPEAKER_02: It says seek.
SPEAKER_02: Seek now, seek next week, seek next year, and the next year, and the next year, and the next year, until you are the most Jesus-filled, gray-haired, elderly person the world has ever seen.
SPEAKER_02: But that means that we have to start right now.
SPEAKER_02: You hear that?
SPEAKER_02: To begin seeking means we have to right now for the first time, or for the first time in a long time, or for those of you that are in here and you've been running this race well for a long time, that you keep seeking.
SPEAKER_02: So we get it, Wade.
SPEAKER_02: We're seeking.
SPEAKER_02: How?
SPEAKER_02: Glad you asked.
SPEAKER_02: That's the second point.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 2 again.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, amen.
SPEAKER_02: We're called to seek and we're called to set.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 2.
SPEAKER_02: Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.
SPEAKER_02: Paul instructs us here that our minds are not to be on things that are on the earth.
SPEAKER_02: I mentioned earlier that we need to be very careful, church, and be very careful is not to identify ourselves by what we don't do.
SPEAKER_02: And so what verse 5 through 10 do is they put some handles on this.
SPEAKER_02: I think it's really easy sometimes to stand behind a pulpit and give these grand ideas, and I think sometimes proclamation is where it is.
SPEAKER_02: I think when we're talking about something like calling, there's proclamation, and there's also, let's say, hey, let's put some handles on this, like it's a giant sippy cup, right?
SPEAKER_02: Let's put some handles on this, and let's grab a hold of this and let's see what verses five and ten do, as it helps us to not identify ourselves by what we don't do.
SPEAKER_02: It says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetness, which is idolatry.
SPEAKER_02: On account of these, the wrath of God is coming.
SPEAKER_02: In these you too once walked when you were living in them.
SPEAKER_02: But now you must put them all away.
SPEAKER_02: Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator.
SPEAKER_02: You read that, and you're like, man, that's a lot.
SPEAKER_02: And it feels like a lot because it is a lot.
SPEAKER_02: But if we read it in the context of verse two, this idolatry that Paul talks about, the sexual immorality, the anger, the slander, they're dead.
SPEAKER_02: If we read it in light of verse two, these are dead.
SPEAKER_02: If we're a new creation as a believer and a follower of Christ, all of this is dead.
SPEAKER_02: It's gone.
SPEAKER_02: It's gone in us.
SPEAKER_02: If we believe that, church, if we truly believe it, then all of these things aren't even within reach of us anymore.
SPEAKER_02: Because we should be so consumed by this calling, this calling to seek Christ, this calling to set our minds on things of Christ that we don't even consider the things of the world, much less identify ourselves by the fact that we don't indulge in them.
SPEAKER_02: Because we don't have time to talk about the dead things, because we are setting our minds on life.
SPEAKER_02: You must not only seek heaven, you must also think heaven.
SPEAKER_02: That's good.
SPEAKER_02: I wish I'd thought of that.
SPEAKER_02: That's good.
SPEAKER_02: But I'll be honest with you, I prefer the great theologian from Tennessee named Johnny Cash who's saying this.
SPEAKER_02: No earthly good, you are no earthly good.
SPEAKER_02: You're so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good.
SPEAKER_02: What Johnny Cash, what Joseph Lightfoot are saying, and I don't have time to preach this because I'm trying to beat Wade Burgess's short sermon record, is there's a term, and this term is sanctification.
SPEAKER_02: And sanctification has this process.
SPEAKER_02: And what this means is that God is continually making us holy, and he invites us to be a part of that process.
SPEAKER_02: He invites us to be a part of that process by seeking and setting our minds on him.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_02: This is a sanctification process.
SPEAKER_02: It says, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
SPEAKER_02: I told you when we have this charge like this to pursue calling, there's proclamation and there's putting handles on it, but then I don't do my job if there's not some warning.
SPEAKER_02: If there's not some pastoral warning in this, and it's this.
SPEAKER_02: If we miss the sanctification process, if we miss it because we are not continually seeking the setting of our minds, the the seeking and the calling of what God is calling us to do, we're in danger of being like those that Jesus and Isaiah talk about in Matthew 13.
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to turn there, it's going to be on the screens behind me, but this is Matthew 13, 15.
SPEAKER_02: It says, You will indeed hear, but never understand, and you will indeed see, but never perceive.
SPEAKER_02: For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, I would heal them.
SPEAKER_02: And this is why the seek and set verses of one and two of Colossians three, they don't have qualifiers on them, and they don't have expiration dates on them.
SPEAKER_02: Because if we live like they do, then we're like these whose hearts have grown dull.
SPEAKER_02: It says that their ears could barely hear, they close their eyes to what Christ is doing.
SPEAKER_02: But then there's the good news.
SPEAKER_02: There's the good news of the sanctification process, there's the good news of the continual calling, because it says, this time and every time, Jesus says that he will heal them and he will heal us.
SPEAKER_02: Which leads us to our third and final path.
SPEAKER_02: You still with me?
SPEAKER_02: Here's the third point to finding our calling, and that is to hide.
SPEAKER_02: That is to hide.
SPEAKER_02: Look back at verse 3.
SPEAKER_02: It says, For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ.
SPEAKER_02: You hear hide and you're like, what is that?
SPEAKER_02: Look what it says.
SPEAKER_02: Your life is hidden with Christ in God.
SPEAKER_02: As a Christian, my life before Christ, we've established that's dead.
SPEAKER_02: That's gone.
SPEAKER_02: My life now as a Christian, it says it's to be hidden in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: What does it mean to be hidden in Christ?
SPEAKER_02: If you're a note taker, this is gonna be a good time to snap a picture of the screen as we put these up here.
SPEAKER_02: Um I wanted to spend just a little bit of time of unpacking hidden, and this is the reason.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I shared this with the previous service.
SPEAKER_02: Kind of my process of writing a sermon is I just write and write and write and write and write and write and write and write.
SPEAKER_02: And then usually the night before I go, and you can be thankful for this, about three-fourths of it goes in the trash, right?
SPEAKER_02: And then what's left is the sermon for Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_02: And this was a piece of the sermon that I thought was not gonna be part of it.
SPEAKER_02: And then as I was praying and praying for you and praying for me and praying for you, I just felt very clear the Lord said, hey, this is this is the truth that this church needs to hear of what being hidden in Christ means.
SPEAKER_02: And so I've unpacked it into a few points and given you some some some uh some scripture references as well.
SPEAKER_02: This is what it means to be hidden with Christ.
SPEAKER_02: It means that grace covers us completely.
SPEAKER_02: To understand what that means, here's what it means: it means that his love covers a multitude of our sins, our weaknesses, our flaws, and our mistakes.
SPEAKER_02: It means that God delights in mercy.
SPEAKER_02: It means it doesn't mean rather that he protects me from all the consequences of my sin, because he's a good father.
SPEAKER_02: And a good father allows his children to face the consequences.
SPEAKER_02: But hear this this is what grace means.
SPEAKER_02: When I make a wrong decision, when I sin, it means that his love and his mercy and his kindness and his blood and his righteousness and his grace rush to cover me.
SPEAKER_02: Being hidden in Christ also means that God chose to call us friend.
SPEAKER_02: Friendship can be defined as knowing the heart of another and sharing one's heart with another.
SPEAKER_02: We often refer to Jesus as our friend because we know that he wants what's best for us.
SPEAKER_02: But here's my question for you this morning.
SPEAKER_02: As we talk about God calling us his friend, we confide in him because we trust him.
SPEAKER_02: But have you ever considered that Jesus confides in his people?
SPEAKER_02: He calls you his friend.
SPEAKER_02: He confides in you and he calls you.
SPEAKER_02: It also means that we have forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02: Um, in his autobiography, Charles Spurgeon talks about his struggle with his sin and God's forgiveness, and he says these amazing things that.
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I just picked two of them.
SPEAKER_02: Um he says a couple things about his sin.
SPEAKER_02: He says this there was not a day in which I did not commit such gross, such outrageous sins against God that often and often I have wished I had never been born.
SPEAKER_02: He says this about his sin.
SPEAKER_02: I seem to be all rottenness, a dunghill of corruption, nothing better but something a great deal worse.
SPEAKER_02: And because he has such an understanding of his depravity, he's not being self-deprecating, he's not beating himself.
SPEAKER_02: What he's doing is he's saying, I am so in need of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02: So he says things like this.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Let not your sense of sin make you think little of God.
SPEAKER_02: You are a great sinner, but he is a greater Savior.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Do not say that you have matched Christ or overmatched him.
SPEAKER_02: Come, Goliath sinner, the son of David, conquer thee or save thee yet.
SPEAKER_02: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
SPEAKER_02: Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
SPEAKER_02: Being hidden in Christ means that God provides for all of our needs.
SPEAKER_02: One of God's names is Jehovah Jirah, which means God will provide.
SPEAKER_02: There's no need so small that God doesn't know about it, and there's nothing too big that He can't provide for it.
SPEAKER_02: Being hidden in Christ means that we have a peace that passes all understanding.
SPEAKER_02: We've talked about this kind of juxtaposition of the world and what this looks like and then what it looks like to answer God's calling.
SPEAKER_02: The peace from the world looks completely different because it depends on your circumstances, right?
SPEAKER_02: If things are going good, then you feel peace.
SPEAKER_02: If things go haywire and go off the rails, or you put it in the ditch, then there's no peace.
SPEAKER_02: But Scripture says that God's supernatural peace surpasses all natural understanding.
SPEAKER_02: That means you put it in the ditch, are you upset about it?
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02: Things have gone off the rails and you feel out of control?
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02: But then there's this peace that surpasses all understanding.
SPEAKER_02: And people are like, that is a crazy person.
SPEAKER_02: Their life is gone off the rails, and yet there is so much peace about them.
SPEAKER_02: It's because God's peace surpasses all understanding.
SPEAKER_02: In this hidden in Christ life, in this continual fulfilling of the calling, what does it look like?
SPEAKER_02: What does it look like?
SPEAKER_02: Well, we talked earlier that it's not a life defined by what we don't do or who we're not, but it's a life defined by who we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Look back at Colossians 3 as we finish.
SPEAKER_02: And let's read 12 through 14.
SPEAKER_02: This is the handles for the hidden life.
SPEAKER_02: This is the handles for being hidden in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Put on then, verse 12 says, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you.
SPEAKER_02: So you must also forgive.
SPEAKER_02: And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
SPEAKER_02: How beautiful would this be?
SPEAKER_02: You're at a company cocktail mixer, you're at a job fair, and you're making small talk, and if you're like me, you're about to fall asleep and your knees are gonna rebuckle because if somebody asks me the same question one more time, I might choke them until they pass out, right?
SPEAKER_02: But then someone comes and they say, Hey, you're doing this.
SPEAKER_02: What do you feel like your calling is?
SPEAKER_02: What if verses 12 through 14 was your answer?
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Hey, what's your calling?
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, Man, I am so glad that you asked.
SPEAKER_02: My calling is to seek, it's to set, it's to hide.
SPEAKER_02: And I can see by the look on your face and the fact that you're trying to slowly back away from me right now that I'm kind of freaking you out and you want to bail on this conversation.
SPEAKER_02: But let me tell you what that means.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you what it means to seek, to set, to hide.
SPEAKER_02: It means that every day, no matter how I feel, I ask God to jam-pack my heart with compassion.
SPEAKER_02: And this compassion makes me kind, right?
SPEAKER_02: And it makes me humble and it fills me with patience and it calls me to freely offer forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02: No matter how right I think I am, I offer forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02: No matter how wrong I believe their political opinions to be, I offer forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02: And I know that that sounds crazy, but so is the fact that Christ forgives me no matter how wrong I am.
SPEAKER_02: And like a warm tortilla you wrap around an overflowing breakfast taco, all of these callings that come with seeking and setting and hiding life are just wrapped up in love.
SPEAKER_02: Because above all this, church, the calling on our life is a love affair of the heart.
SPEAKER_02: It cannot be lived primarily as a set of principles, as a set of ethics.
SPEAKER_02: It cannot be managed with steps and programs, it cannot be lived exclusively as a moral code leading to righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: It's this that the truth of the call of the gospel is intended us, is intended to free us to love God and love others with our whole heart.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: As we finish, um, this is this is what uh invitation to time looks like.
SPEAKER_02: The word is preached at this church, and then we believe that um there needs to be a little bit of time to process that.
SPEAKER_02: Um, especially when there's a hyperactive ADD guy yelling at you and slamming on the pulpit.
SPEAKER_02: Um maybe just some time to say, man, God, what's got my name on it this morning?
SPEAKER_02: Is it that I I define my Christianity and my walk and my calling a lot by what I don't do, and I define myself about how radical I am?
SPEAKER_02: Or is my calling and my life and my walk about who you are and what that what my life looks like in light of that?
SPEAKER_02: So Clyde's gonna play, and we just want to give you some time to think on that.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, when you were asked, what does it mean to follow you?
SPEAKER_02: You said to trust you with all of our minds, all of our thoughts, all of our emotions, all of our understanding, all of our calling.
SPEAKER_02: God, that's what we desire.
SPEAKER_02: We proclaim it and we say together, Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Uh my friend Don's gonna come with some announcements.
SPEAKER_00: We want to say thank you to Wade for doing a great job today, and it's good to have him back in the pulpit.
SPEAKER_00: Uh just a couple of announcements.
SPEAKER_00: Uh women's Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: If you're prep planning on participating, those uh beginning July the 3rd, uh, you need to sign up for child care by this Tuesday.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and you can do that online.
SPEAKER_00: Camp in the City begins tomorrow and goes through Friday.
SPEAKER_00: That's first through fourth graders, and you need to be praying for that group.
SPEAKER_00: It will be crazy around here uh from nine till four every day.
SPEAKER_00: And then the preschoolers will begin Tuesday morning at nine o'clock, and they will go through Thursday morning.
SPEAKER_00: So hopefully your children are signed up for that.
SPEAKER_00: But if not, please be praying for that group of kids as they're here.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing is down on the front of the stage, out in the uh atrium area, we have a group that leaves for Romania on Thursday at lunch, and we want you to be praying for those people.
SPEAKER_00: One of the really important things we do as a church is not just gather here, but to go and tell other people about Christ and what he means in our life.
SPEAKER_00: And we have a long-term relationship with the people in Romania, and I got the privilege last year of being in Romania, just seeing the work with the children, uh doing worship services, visiting houses, uh, just lots of activities that we have, twelve people who are committed to doing that.
SPEAKER_00: So please, after the service, come up and take a uh prayer card and keep that somewhere where you can pray for them each and every day.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you again for being here, and Wade's gonna share a blessing with us.
SPEAKER_02: Just because sometimes I think it's okay to end on a laugh, Wade Burgess did the announcements in the first service.
SPEAKER_02: And uh he was talking about Romania, and he said, um, because we're a sending church.
SPEAKER_02: And I had uh a man come up to me after the service and he goes, Hey, you might want to tell Wade to enunciate.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_02: He goes, Well, he said, We're because we're a sinning church.
SPEAKER_02: And I thought, uh, you're just picking on the guy, right?
SPEAKER_02: And then my six-year-old who's in the first service kind of goes, Dad, what does it mean that we're a sinning church?
SPEAKER_02: So um do me a favor, stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_02: And put your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_02: Your sin is great, but your savior's savior is greater.
SPEAKER_02: And his call is greater than anything you can craft or imagine.
SPEAKER_02: Listen and follow.
SPEAKER_02: In the name of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.