Speaker 1: 0:02

what a beautiful way our shepherd cares for us and provides for us exactly what we need, and I'm grateful that Ian sensed the presence of the Spirit and was willing to come and share with us this word, which is very meaningful. Let's just thank the Lord for that. You know, in my household I don't know how it is in your household, but in my household I have a toddler who gets worked up about a great many things. When he begins to scream or yell or cry, we rush to find out what earth-shattering news we are about to discover, only to find that he is missing his hot wheel that we just got for him the day before. We cannot find his hot wheel. Or he looks at it and says the food that you have given me is not the food that I wanted. It was not. I don't want this. I want my puffs, I want my veggie straws, I do not want the meal that you just cooked for me. Or there's just a whining about going to bed. All these different issues matter so much to a toddler.

Speaker 1: 1:30

I also live in a household with a teenager, pre-teenager, almost teenager, and he too, very similarly to the toddler, has issues, things that bother him, things that concern him. They're a little bit more sophisticated, but still not earth shattering. Can I play Nintendo, can I? Our toddler brother just came in and broke my Lego set, or there's so many different things that become primary issues to these two young ones, and part of the reason that these things bother them so much and get them so worked up is because they are still young, they're still immature. They don't know what it's like to be able to have to grapple with or work through problems of the world that are much greater that perhaps we, as their parents are working through ourselves. But God, in his grace and his goodness, has given a person a voice to be able to speak in to their lives and be able to help them work through these particular situations and figure out what really matters.

Speaker 1: 2:47

It's often that I will walk in and their mother, my wife, will be telling them something and helping them understand in that moment what really matters. She is a voice that speaks to them and helps them to understand that what they are concerned about, what they are worked up about, perhaps isn't as big of a deal as they think it is, and even more so than that. It's actually quite often that I'll walk in and hear their mother talking to them and telling them the same thing, the same thing that I heard her telling them last time, the same thing over and, over and over again. It's not a surprise to me when I walk in and I hear her talking to them, because the same thing that she wants them to know, that she wants them to learn, that she needs them to understand, is the thing that matters. You know, as people grow and as they mature, we need these voices to speak into our lives. We need these voices to help us to understand what truly matters in life and, just like a young toddler or a young teenager have their mother speak into their life and speak the truth that they need to hear and speak the truth that they need to hear, we also find that churches need a voice speaking into them and although our church is a church made up of the combination of three churches who have been around since the 50s, I would dare say that our church is actually a young church.

Speaker 1: 4:25

We are a young church and when it comes to even days like this where I wondered, you know, at 1045, which is 15 minutes after our normal stated start time and nobody's in here, I'm thinking where is everybody? What's going to happen? And I'm looking and trying to figure out, like what? Why is it? What is it about the rhythms or the uh, the things about that we're doing, that people are missing, and, quite honestly, it's just that we are still a young church and we're still trying to figure out, uh, how we ought to live, what really matters to us, what really is important, and so we need a voice to speak into our life. And, in similar ways, this is where we find the Church of Colossae. The Church of Colossae is a young church. They're a church that is new to the gospel, new to understanding who Christ is, what the gospel is and what we find.

Speaker 1: 5:18

As Royce introduced this series to us in the book of Colossians, he reminded us, or he told us, that there are issues in this church that are starting to spread them out, to cause division. There are issues that are going on, and Paul comes in like a faithful mother and he speaks into their life, their reality, their church, and helps them to understand what is important. This message that we are going to receive today from this text is a message for Colossae, that Paul intended for them to read and understand, and it is a message for us. It is a message that we need to anchor our mind and our hope and our heart in. So I invite you to turn with me to Colossians 1. Colossians 1, we are going to read from Colossians 1, verse 24, through chapter 2 and verse 5.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Colossians 1, verse 24, through Colossians 2, verse 5. Will you follow along with me as I read Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's affliction for the sake of his body. That is the church of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints, to God. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery which is Christ. In you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those that lay at a sea and for those who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love to reach all the riches of the full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery that is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments, for, though I am absent in the body, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. This is the word of the Lord.

Speaker 1: 8:37

Paul is addressing this church, and he wants to make certain, very certain, that there is one thing that ought to matter to them more than anything, and that is what we are going to look at today. I want to present to you the big idea for our text this morning, and that is this A healthy, maturing church must be devoted to discovering all that Christ is as revealed in all the word of God for everyone, everywhere. A healthy, maturing church must be devoted to discovering all that Christ is as revealed in all the word of God for everyone, everywhere, revealed in all the word of God for everyone, everywhere. That is what Paul wants the Colossian church to understand, and that is what we need to understand today. Now, before we jump into this, I've got three points that we're going to look at today.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Before we do this, I just want to speak to kind of the nature of this particular portion of the text and I want to point out a couple things. Number one as we find at the end of this text, that Paul has actually never seen this church face to face, they've never met him. They don't know who he is, and there's something special about meeting somebody versus not meeting somebody. I randomly I know this sounds, I think I've said this in here, so it's not too embarrassing if you've heard it before but I met this couple on Instagram in Puerto Rico and I was on my way to fly to my cousin's wedding in the Dominican Republic and I decided to take a 24-hour layover in Puerto Rico and I decided, instead of spending money on a campsite, I thought that I would I mean on a hotel, I would stay at a campsite, but I didn't know where to camp.

Speaker 1: 10:25

So this couple, randomly, before I had gone on this trip, they posted on their Instagram we have this new property that we're turning into a resort. Does anybody want to come and take photos before photos for me? Well, I was like, yeah, I'll take, I'll come, I'm going to be there for 24 hours, I'll take photos. Well, it ended up that I ended up camping on their property right on the edge of the rainforest, overlooking the Caribbean Sea, which was phenomenal right. But I had never met these people, they had never met me. We interacted, we met at this seafood restaurant down on the harbor and had a great time. They ended up being great folks and I hope they found me to be a great person too.

Speaker 1: 11:07

But meeting somebody face-to-face who you haven't seen before, it changes things. It gives you a full impression. Paul is dealing with people. He's writing to people that he's never met face-to-face, and so I think that Paul, especially in this section, is trying to give us a little bit more of a personal. He's trying to communicate to them in a more personal way in order for them to understand his heart, understand who he is, what he really feels about them. He just got done laying down some heavy doctrine things that they needed to know and hear about Christ, but now he's also communicating to them about what they need to understand and what they need to take away from that. And he actually delivers this portion of the text in a very personal way. This whole section is couched inside of a personal testimony of who he is and what God has called him to be. Personal testimony of who he is and what God has called him to be. Now I want to back up a little bit because I want to get us a running head start as we jump into this.

Speaker 1: 12:12

We go back to chapter 1, verse 13. We are reminded that God delivered us. He writes to them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of his son, this powerful work that God has done, delivering those that are his from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of his son. And then later, in verse 21 and 22, he says that God has reconciled alienated and hostile and even evil people to himself. This is the work that he's doing, and he's done this through the body of Christ. Christ's own flesh was torn and he suffered death. This is how he achieved the reconciliation of hostile, alienated and evil people. And why? For what purpose? In verse 22, we see this. For what purpose? In verse 22, we see this? To present these people, these formerly hostile and alienated people, to present them blameless and above reproach before God. He wants them to be holy.

Speaker 1: 13:19

And now Paul is brought into this plan. He's talked about it at this larger, higher level, cosmic level, and he is now talking about what is his role. How does he enter into this picture? And he says now Paul is brought into the plan here by the stewardship that he was given by God. God specifically chose him and made him a steward, a caretaker of his church. That's one of the reasons why he's writing here. He made him a minister. That word minister is in the Greek. It's the same word where we get the word deacon from or diakonos, a servant of the church by God's divine gifting to the church.

Speaker 1: 14:10

And Paul as the servant of God, as the steward of his church, he is participating in the suffering of Christ. Paul talks about this suffering in a very unique way. When we go through suffering, oftentimes it's what we pray that God would relieve us from and release us from. When we go through hard times, when we go through difficulties, it is something that we long to be freed from. But Paul has a completely different perspective here. He says that he rejoices in his suffering for your sake and he is partaking in Christ's affliction. You know, I think that Paul has to ask himself. I think that we need to ask it as we look at Paul and what he says here. We need to ask with Paul is the suffering worth it? Is the suffering worth it? And I think Paul helps us understand that.

Speaker 1: 15:18

I was talking with Ian about this and since we have enough Philadelphia Eagle fans in here, he reminded me of something that happened in 1995. There's Ricky Waters. He was on the field and the Eagles were actually not doing very well Two minutes left in the game and there was a pass thrown downfield and you see Ricky Waters going for this pass and he's reaching out and the defender is coming straight for him, straight at him, and Ricky Waters has his hands out here and at the last minute he decides to pull his hands in and not catch the ball. And you would think, wait a minute, what's wrong with that? And that's what everybody else was thinking too. Why did he not catch the ball? Like I said, he alligator armed it right, he pulled his arms in. Why did he do that? Well, afterwards he was being interviewed for this and he says for who or for what? I'm not going to trip up there and get knocked out. He says it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it for me to go out there, catch that ball and get hammered, especially when we're down that far.

Speaker 1: 16:32

And you look at Paul, and Paul is in this moment where he's looking at, he's looking at the stewardship that God has given to him and I'm sure that he had to have asked himself is it worth it? Is it worth it for me to go through the suffering that it's going to demand for me to be a minister of the gospel? And you know what Paul answers yes, it's worth it. It's not just worth it to kind of give it half-heartedly. He actually doubles down and says it's worth it. He's putting all of his eggs in that one basket. It is worth it to be teamed up with Christ. I am putting everything in him. Whatever happens to Christ, let it happen to me. Whatever it is that Christ has to suffer, whatever it has to be, I have to suffer for Christ's namesake. Let it happen to me. Whatever it is that Christ has to suffer, whatever has to be, I have to suffer for Christ's namesake. Let it happen to me, you know, being a minister or a servant of God according to this stewardship that God has given is a tough reality.

Speaker 1: 17:40

What we see here is Christ came to earth, he suffered and died on the cross for the sins of the world and then, by the power of God the resurrection power of God he was raised from the dead and that inaugurated a kingdom of God here on this earth. But the problem is, is that didn't do away with it? That didn't eradicate the world and the curse and its problem quite yet. So now you have two kingdoms side by side. You had the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of the rulers of the darkness of this world that had been here for thousands of years, and now you have Christ coming in and establishing a new presence. A new king is in town, a new kingdom, and there is bound to be hostility, there is bound to be conflict, there is bound to be problems, and those problems are not just going to land on Christ the king, they're going to land on anybody who claims the name of Christ.

Speaker 1: 18:43

Paul has already understood and preached what has happened to Jesus. He was beaten, his flesh was torn apart, he was crucified on the cross and the problem is is that's not the end of it? There's plenty of hostility to go around All of those who are wanting to get rid of Christ and get rid of his message. They are willing to get rid of them all. Paul knows what he's walking into. But Paul says I'm willing to participate in the afflictions of Christ because of what Christ has done, because it's worth it. And I want us just to understand.

Speaker 1: 19:24

You know, I went to a funeral on Thursday and I want us just to understand. You know, I went to a funeral on Thursday and there was a man, a gentleman that I've known. I've been able to meet him several times. Every time I've met him, he meant a lot to me, he impacted me. But as I sit there and listen to the testimonies of people that were they were speaking about his life, I heard the things that he did, about his life. I heard the things that he did and then I heard the kind of attitude, the kind of posture that he had, the way he had, the way that he lived his life around people. And you know, I was inspired. I was inspired by the things that he did, but I was even more inspired and encouraged to live my life in a way that reflects some of these same postures, some of these same ways of interacting, the kind of love that he showed to his neighbor.

Speaker 1: 20:18

You know, I think Paul wants us to. He wants some of his attitude of living life for Christ because it's worth it. He wants it to rub off on us. He wants us to understand here that he is willing to put himself out for the ministry that God has called him to, and he wants us to believe that following Christ is worth it. And so, as we work through the rest of this text, I want us to have that in our mind. Matter of fact, I'm going to put different points in here because of the way that Paul writes this text. I'm going to put what I'm calling in here value checks. This is a way that we can check the value of what's going on right. One of the ways that we check the value of what God has done for us and given to us is how Paul responds. If he's willing to sacrifice everything and put everything into that one basket, it must be worth a lot, it must be of high value. So giving ourselves for the work of Christ is something that we ought to be encouraged to think about.

Speaker 1: 21:26

Now I've got three things that I want to point out in this text and hopefully we'll work through these pretty quickly. They're pretty straightforward for us here in this text. But there's three things that I want us. Two of them are primarily observation and one, you might say. The last one is a little bit more of a diagnosis, in which we'll jump in and make some application on that. But the first one is this. Actually, I'll just read them here for you and then we'll jump into them. The first one is Scripture in its entirety is where God reveals the mystery of the ages. Scripture in its entirety is where God reveals to us the mystery of the ages. Secondly, christ alone is the hope of glory for everyone. Christ alone is the hope of glory for everyone. Christ alone is the hope of glory for everyone. And thirdly, faithfully proclaiming and teaching Christ to everyone produces maturity in the church. So let's look first at this one Scripture in its entirety is where God reveals the mystery of the ages.

Speaker 1: 22:30

What is the means by which Paul is going to do this job as being the steward of the church in the need of growing and maturity? Well, he says here that he does it in verse 25, by making the word of God fully known. Making the word of God fully known. You know there are divisions that were taking place, and Pastor Royce already mentioned them. He's actually going to jump into them a little bit more next week when he preaches our next text. But there are divisions, and these are issues that are not primary issues. They're actually issues that really don't have much weight. They don't matter as much when it comes down to what ought to truly matter in the church. What ought to truly matter in the church, and so Paul is saying, the means by which we understand what we ought to know and what we ought to anchor our mind and our heart in, is in the word of God fully known. He says later, in verse 28, that Christ is proclaimed from the word taught with all wisdom, and so Paul is putting forth that the word of God is a place where we ought to anchor and focus our attention. And how important is that? Again, a value check. Paul says in verse 29, how does he do it? What is the manner in which he does this? Well, he toils and struggles with all the energy that powerfully works in him that Christ has given to him. Paul is pouring himself out, all the energy that God gives to him. He is using this to teach them the full word of God. Now, what is the full word of God? You might say. You know it's funny.

Speaker 1: 24:39

I went away to Africa in January and we were getting ready to start our discipleship class on Wednesday nights and originally we had talked about having Wednesday nights be a class on the book of Romans, or first Corinthians or maybe even a shorter book, because Daniel had already taught those books right, and those are powerful books. I mean, if you want to be anchored in the gospel, I mean Romans, man, I don't know that you can get a book that just like contains so much that you need to know as a believer. Well, I said to Daniel and Royce, I said to them you guys figure it out. I'm going away to Africa, you guys figure out what we're going to do for our Wednesday night discipleship class and just figure it out and tell me when I get back. So I get back from Africa and I'm assuming we're doing Romans. I mean we are locked in on Romans, right? Well, I get the message from Royce and he says we're doing Revelation. And I was like what you got to be kidding me?

Speaker 1: 25:38

Revelation, like the only people that do Revelation are people that have, like you know they're left behind series people or they're people that like are focused on all the stories and all the conspiracies of like that you can come up with revelation. Like we just don't do revelation. Revelation is just something that you kind of only do when you run out of anything else to do. Right, you don't just like start with that, you don't lead with that. And I was like we can't do revelation. And even in the midst of that we were just said you know, I said there's a lot of people sign up. Yeah, because why? Yeah, because they want to come and they want to be told. You know that Kirk Cameron did the right thing in the Left Behind series. You know they want to figure out that their way and their version of the end times is right.

Speaker 1: 26:26

Well, the truth is is that Revelation is part of the Word of God. It's something that we ought to understand and know. It's important for us to understand. But here's the thing is that the Word of God as a whole, to be fully known, is where we find everything that God wants us to know about Christ. It's where we find everything. And the book of Revelation I mean the text that we read this morning and the text that we've been reading the last few Sundays out of Revelation are just proclaiming Christ. They're proclaiming all that he is and we're seeing the vision of worshipers around the throne praising him. Glory and honor and majesty and dominion. Be with you forever and ever.

Speaker 1: 27:09

Revelation is the story of Christ. All of Scripture is the story of Christ. You can find this stated in so many different places, but I think one of the places in the Scripture that sticks out the most to me is in Luke, chapter 24. After Christ has died and after it's been told that he has risen again, there's two disciples that are walking on the road to Emmaus and Jesus comes and walks next to them. They don't really recognize, for whatever reason. They don't really recognize who he is. But they start talking about the events that just happened and like, didn't you hear? Jesus was crucified, right? And they're talking about it. And Jesus says to them well, didn't you know that that's what the scriptures actually took? The scriptures were expecting this. This is something that was already planned. And then he goes on to say Luke goes on to say and, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. All of the scriptures, from beginning to end, are the story of Jesus.

Speaker 1: 28:16

There's a story of Christ and the only way that we're going to fully understand Christ is by understanding and studying, devoting ourselves to the scriptures as a whole. This is one of the reasons why we do the liturgy the way that we do. If you haven't been here for a while or if you're new to our church, you might not have heard it explained as much, but we follow a lectionary and the lectionary's intention is that, over the course of actually three years, rationaries' intention is that, over the course of actually three years, you end up reading, through the scripture readings and the passages that are selected, you end up reading most of the scriptures, most of the Christian scriptures, and it's intended to coincide with the story of Christ, the story of the gospel. We follow the arc of the gospel. We don't get an opportunity necessarily to preach the entire Bible, but we as a church will, over the course of three years, will read most of the scriptures, texts for us, and it is through them that we want to discover and understand Christ. We also change our preaching patterns.

Speaker 1: 29:26

Right now we're reading, we're preaching out of the book of Colossians? Why? Because from the period of Easter to Pentecost is this moment in time where Christ has been risen and now the church we're anticipating the birth of the church what Christ is doing in that period of time is forming, and so this is a time when we want to understand what it means to live the resurrected life right. And after Pentecost, which is June 8th, we celebrate Pentecost we're going to dive into a series on the book of Acts which talks about the church. Why? It's because we want our church to be able to understand Christ from every portion of the scriptures. We're going to be preaching out of Psalms this summer and then after that, before we get to Advent, we're going to be preaching out of Exodus again. This is so that we as a church can understand the word of God fully and understand Christ in it all. So Paul here wants them to understand that Scripture is entirely where it's the source, where God reveals the mystery of the ages.

Speaker 1: 30:39

The second thing that we want to see this morning is that Christ alone is the hope of glory for everyone. What is Paul committed to teaching and preaching from the scriptures? I've kind of already answered that. What does he have? Does he want to settle all the debates and all the issues, all the problems that are out there, the things that people are creating division between believers and in the church. Is that what he wants them to understand by preaching all the scriptures? No, paul proclaims one thing, one person, and that is Christ. Paul is preaching Christ and Christ alone is the hope of glory for everyone. In Paul's words he talks about this.

Speaker 1: 31:31

He says it twice in this passage that it has been a mystery up until now. God has been revealing himself through his people and through his word. He has been giving his story, giving the plan, giving his promises of redemption, and it's been kind of hidden to the point where, when Christ shows up to his own, his own did not receive him right. They rejected him because it was kind of still a mystery. But now that Christ has died and now that he has risen again and the Spirit of God is doing a work and saving people, now the mystery is clear to us All. That was all that was a little bit foggy. For us is now clear why the mystery is revealed in Christ and in Christ alone. So what is it that's so significant about Christ? Well, daniel preached this text, but I just want to read what Paul just got done talking about.

Speaker 1: 32:41

In verse 15, he dives into a description of who Christ is and he wants them to be reminded and be assured that Christ is something bigger and above and beyond and before all that has ever been. He says he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, firstborn of all creation, for by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones and dimensions, rulers, authorities. All things were created through him and for him. So he is the image of the invisible God and he is the creator of all things. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him. Listen to this, for in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. God is so big and so great, so powerful, that humans cannot even enter into his presence, but somehow God, the Godhead, was pleased to dwell in Jesus. Jesus was the place where we, where God has come to meet with us, we can meet with him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace through the blood of the cross. This is the Christ. This is who Paul is proclaiming and this is who he wants the Colossian believers to focus their heart, their attention, their understanding in Christ.

Speaker 1: 34:38

And the other part of this and this is part of the dilemma with the issues that are coming up in the church here is that the issues that were coming up that they were fighting about and I'll just say them now, but Pastor Royce is going to preach more on this next week they were about circumcision, they were about new moons, they were about Sabbaths, they were about special experiences that people had, seeing angels and visions. You know, the problem with all of these things, all of these issues that people are fighting about, is that they cause divisions and they create a hierarchy of people. Well, I'm circumcised, you're not. I've seen angels and you haven't. I've had them talk to me and you haven't. And all of a sudden, there are divisions that are created within the church of God, which should have everyone who is a part of it be on an equal plane before God. And yet these issues are causing them to have these fights and divisions. These issues are causing them to have these fights and divisions.

Speaker 1: 35:50

And so Paul doubles down here and he says this Christ, the Christ that I preach, the thing that matters the most, it's for everyone. He says, yes, look at the text here, verse 26,. The mystery hidden for ages and generations, now revealed to the saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery which is Christ, in you, the hope of glory. And he says this. Him we proclaim in you the hope of glory. He says this. Him we proclaim warning everyone, not just the Jews, not just the people who have had special experiences. Him we proclaim warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom, why? That we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Speaker 1: 36:47

The gospel comes in. The gospel of Christ comes in and does away with all the distinctions that divide, and the gospel is available for all. When we preach the whole word of God and when we preach Christ in here, what it ought to do to us is it ought to remove any of the distinctions that we might be bringing with us. That's one of the things that we love about the table of the Lord when everybody comes down here together, when we come down to receive it. You could be a CEO of a company, you could be a multimillionaire. You could be a CEO of a company. You could be a multimillionaire, you could be a young school kid. But we're all coming down to receive the same thing together. It neutralizes all the things that maybe distinguish us in the society and in the culture in which we live. So, and what do we say? We proclaim Christ as long as we take this table. We proclaim Christ's death until he comes right. So, together, by participating in this, we are proclaiming Christ to one another by taking it together until he comes. And there is nothing that sets us apart. And Paul wants the believers here to understand that I am devoted I am devoted even to the point of suffering to preaching the whole gospel, which helps us to understand the riches of Christ, and this is available and accessible to everyone without exception, and he wants them to set their mind and their hope in this. Everything begins and ends with Christ and it flows out of Christ. If we have Christ, if Christ is in us, then we have everything that we need. No matter who you are, we have everything that we need. Lastly, faithfully proclaiming and teaching Christ to everyone produces maturity in the church. This is kind of more of just a diagnosis, even based on the last two things, the first two points that were mentioned here.

Speaker 1: 39:02

There are churches that focus a lot of attention on a lot of different things. Churches that focus a lot of attention on a lot of different things. There are churches that put a lot of stock and a lot of value in certain things. There are certainly churches that have it all together. When I was in Indiana a couple weeks ago, I went to a church of 2,500 people and they put out an announcement for volunteers. We need about 250 volunteers for our children's ministry this summer and I was like I need 250 volunteers to come to my church. You know, we go to a place like that and they've just got this. You know their kids' nursery area was bigger than our chapel, right, it was like twice the size of our chapel, right. When you have a ministry that big, you've got to have things dialed in and make sure everything's functioning well so that everything flows well, and that's great.

Speaker 1: 39:55

Sometimes for organization, those things are needed, but the reality is that sometimes churches can get so caught up in all the bells and whistles of the organization that they have created, that they can focus more on these things and we can get caught up with saying, oh, I like this and I like that, and I don't know. I always come there and who knows who's going to show up on Sunday. I'm not so sure about that. You know I love CS Lewis. I've referenced this before. I've never really read it before, but he wrote a book called the Screwtape Letters, and in the Screwtape Letters, if you're unfamiliar with it, it's about a demon who has a nephew.

Speaker 1: 40:34

That's also a demon, but the nephew needs to be trained. He needs to know how to do demon work, needs to be trained. He needs to know how to do demon work. He needs to know how to trip up humans so that they don't follow the enemy. They don't follow Christ, right, and so his work is to try to trip this person up. And each of the letters in this book is a letter from the uncle, his mentor, to the young demon, his nephew, to learn how to trip up a person so that they don't follow the enemy, who is Christ.

Speaker 1: 41:09

And one of the things that he says in there he says don't let him go to a church. He says what's the one thing that we want to do is prevent him from going to church. Well then this person's patient, the person that he's trying to tempt, ends up in church, right, and he says to them. He says to them Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of church going, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that, quote-unquote, suits him until he can become a taster and a connoisseur of churches. He's basically saying, if you get him to go to church, then make sure you have him visit a bunch of churches, because then he'll find something at that church that he really likes and something he doesn't like at the other church, and vice versa, and he'll become a connoisseur and he'll start talking about all these issues that separate and divide and distinguish these churches. That's how you're going to get them. And so he says, and this older demon says I've done my research.

Speaker 1: 42:09

He said I found two churches that are close to him. One church has a pastor that you can't even tell if he even believes in the faith at all. He's like he's so wishy-washy, he's so malleable, he's like even his parishioners don't even know what he really believes. He said, but this other church, this guy, he always all of his sermons are preached out of hatred. Whatever he hates he preaches about. And so he said I've got these great, great other churches for him to visit. If you can get him in those churches, he'll start struggling with all these other issues.

Speaker 1: 42:39

And then later on he says this but there is one good point which both of these churches have in common they are both party churches, not, like you know, get out and party. It's like they have like parties, you know, like the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, they have parties in that there are things that they are focused on. I think I warned you before that if your patient can't be kept out of the church, he ought to at least be violently attached to some party within it. I don't mean on really doctrinal issues About those. The more lukewarm he is the better, and it isn't the doctrine on which we chiefly depend for our producing malice.

Speaker 1: 43:24

So he's basically saying get him in a church where doctrine isn't a big deal but where he gets caught up with like what did they serve? I can't believe that we started serving bagels instead of donuts. You got to be kidding me. I came here for the donuts and I found bagels. I can't believe that we don't have a person playing the keyboard. There's a keyboard on the stage up here. I can't believe that we actually aren't using wine in our communion set and we're just using grape juice, like those little things we can all get worked up about. Right, we need to get him caught up in one of those things.

Speaker 1: 43:59

And so he talks about. He says doctrine, don't let him get caught up in the doctrine, because things and so he talks about. He says doctrine, don't let him get caught up in the doctrine, because that's not going to help our efforts. And he says, without a variety of usage within the church might have been a positive hotbed of charity and humility. Basically, he says we have worked really, really hard to create issues in the church that people latch on to. Otherwise it's going to become a hotbed of charity and humility and we don't want that.

Speaker 1: 44:29

Well, paul here is saying listen, you guys, I've heard about you. He said you guys have been rooted, you're rooted in the faith. He said this from the beginning You're rooted in the faith. There's already testimony of the fruit that you are bearing. But now these issues that you guys are all caught up in, they're starting to cause problems and you're getting off track from what really matters, and that is Christ.

Speaker 1: 45:00

Now, here at Redeemer, we work really, really hard to make Christ central. We at Redeemer want everything we need to do to help you, as his body, focus on Christ, to love Christ more. There are things that we have to do organizationally. There are things that come up within our church body that we have to deal with, that we have to talk about. There are issues that get us distracted and even discouraged from the work of Christ, from the work of Christ, and we have to understand that that's just part of living as part of the kingdom of God, as citizens of the kingdom of God in a hostile world, in a world that has not yet been reconciled fully to God, we are going to deal with problems and pain and suffering. But if we allow these things, these issues that come about, to get us distracted, to steal our affections, to cause us to be divisive with one another, if we allow those things to overwhelm us and we don't focus on Christ Paul uses the word in this passage.

Speaker 1: 46:28

He says I say this in verse 4 in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments there might be good things that people bring up. There might be problems that people bring up that we do need to address and it's hard to figure out how a beeline from Christ goes directly to addressing that issue. But if we allow those issues to fill us, to saturate us, to distract us, it will delude us from the purity and the saturation of Christ within us. It will take away the power of Christ in us. It'll take away the shimmer and the glimmer hope of glory. Paul uses language here that helps us to understand Christ as the riches, as the hope of glory. He wants them to understand him, christ, as the treasure, and that's why I love the hymn. We're not going to sing it today, but that's why I love the hymn that says Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Speaker 1: 47:58

As a church, as individuals, if we can focus our attention on Christ, if our eyes are focused on Him, are drawn to Him, it changes what matters to us, it changes our value system. We go from thinking I don't know if it's even worth it. I tried following Christ, I tried reading His Word, I tried doing this, but I don't know, is it worth it? And in the end, god wants His church to be so devoted and so committed to Him that we grow up like a tree that needs maturing and we go from a tree like if you go out to the park in Niles. Here they've got those small trees that are growing up and they've got those posts on either side and they have tethers around them trying to keep them from being pushed over. A young, immature tree can be pushed over easily, but there's going to be a day when that tree's not going to need those posts and it's going to be so anchored and so healthy and so mature that it's going to be able to stand with the power that it gets from what God has given to it. And that's what we need to be. We need to be a church that is so devoted and so focused on Christ.

Speaker 1: 49:24

And what does he say? That that's going to look like? What does maturity look like here? Well, maturity, it looks like this. It says that your heart Verse 2. May be encouraged, being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance, of understanding the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ. What are we hoping for what do we want to see happen in the church?

Speaker 1: 49:57

What does maturity look like? It's that we are encouraged, that together, our hearts are knit together not around issues, not around problems, but around in the love of Christ. We learn to love one another, and love is not easy. Love is not easy. If you've been in any close relationship with anybody, if you've been married, you know that love is hard. You have to work hard at it and you've got to sacrifice and you've got to be willing to even suffer in some cases, because things just don't come easy. But if you're committed to that love and to pursuing that love in Christ, we will mature and grow. And so maturing is encouragement, heart knits together and the full assurance.

Speaker 1: 50:46

I can be like Paul in saying that I am. I have full assurance of the understanding and knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ. I have no reason to be swayed one way or the other. I'm committed to Christ. I am assured that he is who he says he is. I am assured that everything that he has done is everything that I need. We are assured that the gospel is true. And so we come back to our statement in the beginning. I just want to leave us with this, and that is Paul wants us to know that a healthy, maturing church must be devoted to discovering all that Christ is, as revealed in all the word of God for everyone, everywhere. Are you committed to Christ? Are you focused on Christ? Does he matter more to you than anything else? As a church body? This is how we ought to be shaped. This is how we ought to live.

Speaker 1: 51:56

The writer of Hebrews says that we ought to consider how we ought to stir one another up toward love and good works. We need to be aware of one another. We need to focus each other's attention on Christ. We need to focus our attention on Christ and we need to stir one another up to love and good works. Lord, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for the testimony of Paul that he has given to us here. I'm grateful that Paul talks very plainly about his own heart, his own desire regarding the stewardship, regarding the ministry that he has been given. God, and I pray that you would help us, no matter what the issues are that may trouble us, that may distract us, that may concern us, god, I pray that you would help us to keep our eyes focused on you that we would be committed to understanding and knowing your word, that you would matter more to us than anything else, and that we would grow and mature as your body here in this Dakota community, for your glory. We ask this in Christ's name.