The Worlds Okayest Pastor

Fog Machines Don’t Make Disciples, Mondays Do

• Jason Cline

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What if Sundays were the starting line, not the finish? We take a hard, hopeful look at how faith moves beyond the sanctuary into homes, workplaces, and the public square, anchored by Paul’s call in Colossians 3 to set our minds above and live a new life below. The thread is simple: show up with the body, grow up in maturity, and get up to act with compassion, humility, and courage.

We begin by grounding change in the supremacy of Christ from Colossians 1—creator, sustainer, and head of the church—because real transformation can’t thrive on trends or vague spirituality. From there we unpack Paul’s practical list: put to death the old patterns that fracture souls and communities, then put on the character of Jesus. That means shedding anger, malice, and deceit, and clothing ourselves in kindness, patience, forgiveness, and love that binds everything together. It’s not behavior polish; it’s a Spirit-led life that lets the peace of Christ rule and the word of Christ dwell richly among us.

We then bring it close to home. The household code reframes leadership as love and mutual edification—husbands without harshness, wives with trust, parents who nurture without embittering, children who learn obedience that grows wisdom. Work becomes worship done unto the Lord. From there, we step into public witness with a story of Mr. Rogers quietly defying segregation by sharing a small pool with Officer Clemmons, showing how simple, faithful acts can speak louder than slogans. And we share a local moment—a hungry boy who saw a light on and found a meal—because availability might be the most underrated ministry of all.

If you’re ready to move from come and see to go and rescue, this conversation will meet you with clarity, challenge, and hope. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review telling us one “get up” step you’ll take this week.

SPEAKER_00:

God, thank you for this day. Thank you for this time and really just thank you for this opportunity. I pray as always that you protect those who are listening, who might listen to it later. It's always attached to people. That's the reality, God. The word of God is convicting and it challenges us, but but but it meets us where we are. And sometimes that's hard. It can be difficult, especially more difficult texts, God. But I pray that we just we understand that those who are here, that it's it's your word, God. It's it's pushing us to be more like you. And and growth is never easy. Never was. So protect the hearts, protect the people, protect the uh everyone here. God is always be with them and be with the words that are coming out of my mouth. God protect them as well. Silence the words that don't need to be said, and God amplify the ones that do. Thank you so much for who you are. Thank you for everything that you do. It's in your son that we pray.

unknown:

Amen.

SPEAKER_00:

So, like I was saying last week, um, something that stuck out to me when Jesse was preaching, and and I kind of uh I mean, it like hit me like a ton of bricks. And and one of the things he said, he said, let Jesus touch your exile. And if you were paying attention last week, he was talking about this idea of being displaced. And he talked about it a couple of different ways. We see that in scripture, but but one of the things that I've always found fascinating is the Exodus as a whole, it is such it's an old testament visual representation of God saving humanity. And so we jump ahead into the New Testament and and we see that Jesus comes and doesn't necessarily walk, you know, walk through a sea, the Red Sea, but but but he dies and he he gives up his life and he sacrifices, and and so we experience the same kind of saving, right? And so when you look at it and you study it, uh there's a lot of um there's a lot of scholars that attach the the walking through the Red Sea to the same uh kind of symbolism that we see through baptism, that this walking through the water, coming into salvation, right? Coming uh and then receiving, being set free. And so when Jesse said, let Jesus touch your exile, it stuck with me because the reality is Jesus is the only one who can take an exile and make it work for our good. He does it all throughout scripture. We see it all the time that that God overcomes things that the world doesn't think they're capable of. That's who God is. He comes into our life, he he comes into our mess and he transforms us. That's that's the point. So over the last couple weeks, we we've been talking about this idea. Uh the title of this series is Beyond 52. And it's it's so easy to get into this kind of monotonous routine when it comes to going to church. We show up, we sing a couple worship songs, we take communion, we hear a guy preach, and then as soon as the message is over, we stand up and walk out that door, and we'll see you again next week. That's easy. What's hard about being a Christian is what do we do Monday through Saturday? And and so we've been talking about this idea that so if I had to summarize week one, it the idea is show up. Church, coming to church is a necessary thing. The gathering together of believers. There's there's something about this this body that's important. Not only because Jesus created it, but there's something about coming together and worshiping together, praying together, and and realizing that we're not alone in this fight. They say the average person. So the average person who claims to follow Jesus today goes to church one and a half times a month. I don't know what the half is. That's the part that's got me stuck. Like, who goes to church for half the service and then just bounces out of there like, well, I can't be here anymore? Like, I don't know what that number is, but but the average person goes to church one and a half times a month. And that's across denominations. But but the Bible tells us to gather together. In Hebrews, it says, don't forsake the gathering. This idea of the early church, they they met together regularly. That was a necessary part of their community. So one of the biggest ways that we see our transformation is by showing up. We have to show up. Week two was grow up. We cannot settle for immaturity in the body of Christ. We can't. If you are here, if you are getting plugged in, you are maturing. At least you should be. I think about this with my own kids. I've got, you know, Everett's 10 now. Everett's kind of reached a new place in his life where one of the conversations where we we come to is, you know, he could possibly be staying home by himself sometimes for like little trips. We're having this conversation with him. And there's an expectation that he gets to that point where he's able to take care of himself and he provides for himself because he has to grow up. We expect our kids to grow up. If we're believers, we should expect that we have to grow up. We have to mature in our faith.

SPEAKER_01:

We we have to continue to seek God. And then today's message is get up.

SPEAKER_00:

We gotta show up, we gotta grow up, we gotta get up and do something with it. It's not enough to just sit around in church for an hour and a half, two hours on a Sunday morning to leave this place and never consider God until next Sunday. It's not enough to just go to work on Monday and act like we don't know who Jesus is or go to school. There's an expectation that as we mature in our faith, that we become part of the solution. We gather, we're growing, now we move. You and I have to go into this world and show them there's a better way to live. There's a better way to give. There's a better way to love. We are called to be a light on a hill. We are the image bearers of Jesus. We are living stone citizens of heaven. We are supposed to live in such a way that the world sees Christ in us. Sunday morning is just the start. Sunday morning is where we come and we get refreshed. We hold each other accountable. We fill our cups so that we can step into the world and overflow into people's lives. And so, Paul, we're going to be in Colossians chapter 3 today. Paul is going to deal with this in the church in Colossians. I always love when we go through the letters of Paul because a lot of times we read the letters of Paul and we can think of people outside the church who need to hear that message. And absolutely they should. But you realize in context, he's writing to people in the church. He's addressing those who have chosen to follow Jesus. He has some harsh words sometimes. If you've ever read the letter to the Corinthians, he wasn't happy the first time. But Colossians is it's a little more dynamic than that. So I'll just give you some background history. Colossians is written by Paul. Uh it's accompanied with Timothy. Timothy was one of his. Paul never technically visited this church, but but he had heard about it and the work that was being done there. Uh Colossians was uh in it's located in Asia Minor, where the church is in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. It's about a hundred miles east of Ephesus, which you should recognize that name because Paul writes to the Ephesians. So Paul writes his letters for a couple things. One, he he he deals with Jewish legalism, he's dealing with uh pagan and spiritual practices that have found themselves in the church. Uh he's dealing with mystical and aesthetic elements that have found again, found themselves in the church. So they're they're being the influence of the culture around them, and Paul is kind of putting a stop to it. And even he deals with angelic worship or fascination with spiritual powers. So there's this culture that they're kind of they they want all of the exciting things, but they're not really living out their faith. They're worshiping angels. It's weird. They're not worshiping Jesus, right? So just really quick run through. Uh Colossians 1, 1 through 14 is greeting and thanksgiving. Uh uh Colossians 1, 15 through 23, he actually talks about the supremacy of Christ. Um, so talking about that, he's the image of the invisible God, the creator, sustainer of all things, the head of the church, the firstborn from the dead. Um chapter 1, 24, uh through chapter 2, verses 5. Uh Paul talks about uh the present every believer. So his goal is to help these people come to maturity to learn and grow in their faith. Uh Colossians 2, 6 to 23, uh he deals with false teachers, being making sure that they're not stuck on legalism or or or angel worship or this secret knowledge that prophets claim to have. Uh he even uh combats human tradition over Christ. He says, Don't all don't allow these things to confuse you. Instead, he he focuses on Jesus being raised to life with him, being circumcised in your heart and not outward physically. Uh, and he's setting them free. He's reminding them who they are. And then we'll jump to chapter four, because we're going to be talking about chapter three, but but he actually ends with like a typical Paul, a final kind of thought, and then a greeting. But Colossians 1, chapter 15 through 23, and it's important. Before we get to three, this is important. Paul writes one of the greatest, scripturally, one of the greatest theological understandings of who Jesus is. Starting in verse 15, he says, The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of our all creation. For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning in the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Again, this is Colossians 1, 15 to 23. So for those of you who are reading along, we will get to chapter 3, I promise. Said once you were alienated from God, and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish, and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel, this is the gospel that you heard, and has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. So he he starts off by reminding them the gospel of Jesus is that you have been set free, and this same gospel I am a servant of. And that's important because transformation outside the gospel doesn't make sense. I know. We live in a culture that talks about transforming ourselves. And I think that to an extent, you and I can probably have some transformation of ourselves. But it's limited. Al, you made me think of that when you said Happy New Year's. Right? New Year's resolutions. Like the average New Year's resolutions is broken by February 1st. We have this desire to be different, to be better, to change, to grow. But the truth is, it's only by following Jesus, it's only by allowing the Spirit to work in us that we actually experience true transformation. That's the point of where Paul is headed. He reminds them that Jesus has saved you. He's died for you. And so he reminds them of the gospel, and then he gets to Colossians 3, 1 through 17. He says, Since then, you've been raised, raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above. Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, uh, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual morality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived, but now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices, and have put on a new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. Here there is no Gentile, nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all. Therefore, as God's chosen people holy and dearly loved, close yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive, as the Lord forgave you. And over all of these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you are called to peace and be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly, as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father. Through him. So Paul looks at this church. He says, Listen, everything that you were, be done with. We don't live that way anymore. We're called to be different. We're called to give up sexual morality, to watch what we say. We're called to rise above our anger and our malice. No gossiping, no slander. Instead, we're we're called to be people of compassion, kindness, humility, forgiveness. That's what we're called. That's what should when people look at the body of believers, that's what they should see. It's not about being perfect, but it's about pursuing holiness. Our goal is to be like Jesus. And and listen, that is a man, that is a high bar. But but just because it's a high bar doesn't mean it's impossible. That's the point of the spirit. It pushes us to be more like Jesus, and it starts in the gathering of other believers. Paul says, listen, treat each other with respect and love and grace and mercy. Don't slander, don't tear each other down, build each other up. This is where we get to practice being like Jesus first.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's hard. Listen, being part of a church is hard.

SPEAKER_00:

I talked about this a couple weeks ago. Sometimes we don't even like each other. Because we we come here with different ideas and different backgrounds, and we're all in different places in our faith walk. But but that's the point. That's what makes the church so beautiful, is as we come together from all these different places, we are called to rise above ourselves and to be like Jesus. That's how we model it first. This is where we practice. This is where we we strive to get it right. Because you and I, we have the same goal. And that goal is to see Jesus glorified. That that's the point. Right? And so and so Paul says, listen, give up all of those things and instead live your life the way Jesus intended. Chapter 3 of Colossians uh gives a ton of practical instruction for living as a Christian. Paul starts by reminding his audience, that's us, that the reason we do any of this is because we have been raised with Christ. Don't don't misunderstand. Paul knows we can't do it ourselves, but with Jesus it's possible.

SPEAKER_01:

You cannot claim to follow Christ and choose to look nothing like him.

SPEAKER_00:

That's one of the deepest problems that I see. And listen, understand where I'm coming from. I hope you do. We call ourselves a Christian nation, but yet we often look less like Jesus than anyone else. That's the problem when we get lumped into this idea that we are Christian by birth. We tell ourselves that because we're we're in the church and we go one and a half times a month that there were followers of Jesus. We call ourselves Christians, but you can call yourself a Christian and still look nothing like Christ. They did a study in 2023. Uh they polled, I think it was like six or seven hundred thousand uh people. 62% of people in this country claim to be Christian.

SPEAKER_01:

25% of that same group goes to church regularly. Now, listen, I'm not a mathematician, but that doesn't add up.

SPEAKER_00:

Because we we've a lot we've decided that being a Christian is our own thing. We don't need each other, we don't need people. We follow Jesus, but we look nothing like him. Instead, it's about us. Again, it's easy to say that you follow Jesus because you went the church one time. It's easy to say that you follow Jesus because at some point you were somewhere and you raised your hand and someone asked you if you want to follow him. It's easy to say you followed Jesus because you got baptized or you grew up with a godly grandmother. It's easy to claim that, but but what Paul here is saying is how you live it out is actually a reflection of whether or not you really follow Christ. That that that's at the heart of this this text is it's not just enough to claim it, you have to live it. You have to be Jesus to those around you. We we talk about this or people have this conversation all the time. And and I love the shirt, and it's kind of not a shirt, it's probably a couple other things, but it says Jesus plus nothing is everything. Listen, I understand, I completely agree with that statement to an extent, because it's only Jesus who saves me. It's only the death of Jesus. That's it. I can't save myself. But I think it misses something. Because once we've been saved, once we've given our life to Jesus, there's an expectation of transformation. We are supposed to grow, we are supposed to mature, we are supposed to get from point A to point B. That's the plan. We can't just sit here and act like we don't have a part to play. I see people all the time, they give their life to Jesus and then nothing changes. I think some of that's because they're trying to do it on their own. I think some of that's because they're not participating. But but if we truly follow Jesus, if we claim to be a Christian, the natural outpouring of our life is obedience and transformation. We strive to be different. And here's the thing: the Holy Spirit in us is what helps us get there. We can't do it on our own. Paul understands this. It's the Spirit in us that pushes us to be more like Him. So the first place we practice what it is to follow Jesus is here. You and I together. What comes next is your home. Paul talks about this. He actually jumps ahead a little bit, but he talks about uh how to live in the home. We'll call it the household code, if you will. He wraps it up, he says, Colossians 3, 18 to 25. It says, Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. Slaves obey your earthly masters in everything, and do it, not only when their eye is on you, and decur their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters. Since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward, it is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism. So Paul says, Listen, go home, and here's where we get this a little confused, because people, men, will say, Well, my wife is supposed to submit to me. I think that's biblical. However, there's a caveat here. Paul says, Don't be mean to your wife. Love her. Don't be harsh with her. In Ephesians, he says to love your wife like Jesus loves the church. There's supposed to be this mutual edification in our home, in our relationships, that we build each other up. And if we're both striving to be like Jesus, we're working in tandem together. And then parents will say, the Bible says my chairs, my kids should obey me. 100% agree with that. But it also says, don't embitter your children. Don't mistreat them. Don't be harsh with them. Don't discourage them. Edify them. Again, we go from here to our homes and we live it out. We take our growth here and we grow in our homes. The way we love our wife, the way we, the, the men, the way we lead our family. I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but I'll tell you this now. As a man, you're called to lead your household, not just in finances, but spiritually. God expects you to lift up your wife and raise your kids to follow him. That's the expectation. And why is it? It's not about submission for submission's sake, but you should be able to submit to your husband because you trust him. Because he's leading you the way he's supposed to be leading you. And children, obey your parents. But parents, take care of your kids. Right? So Paul says, this is how you're supposed to live. This is what your household should look like. Those things work in tandem. We come together, we are encouraged, we are edified, we are built up in our gathering so that we can go home and live out our faith. Because if you if you've ever, if you've been a Christian for very long, you know as well as I do, the hardest place sometimes to be like Jesus is in your home. But that is the expectation that we are supposed to have. We are supposed to live differently. And then we take it to the world. We're supposed to live in such a way that the world around us notices. Mr. Rogers. You know he's from Pittsburgh? We're all starting. Do you know that he's uh an ordained Presbyterian minister? He's a man who is driven by his faith. In 1969, on an episode of Mr. Rogers, he he met with a man. Uh there's a gentleman on the show named Officer Clemens. I don't know if you guys remember Officer Clemens. Officer Clemens was a black man. So in 1969, uh so just to give you an idea, prior to that, 1968, uh Martin Luther King had been murdered. Uh so there's a ton of political unrest. There's a ton of racism still kind of running rampant. Uh so one of the biggest things was segregation. It listen, it's weird to think that it wasn't that long ago that that existed. Um, but in 1969, there was still a ton of segregation. It hadn't quite gotten away from it yet. And one of the biggest uh challenges was uh black kids were not allowed in pools with white kids because they were deemed dirty or filthy or whatever. So there's an episode of Mr. Rogers where Officer Clemens shows up to his house and they're both outside in their backyard, and Mr. Rogers has a pool in front of him, a little plastic pool, and he fills it up with water, and he invites Officer Clemens to sit down and put his foot his feet in the same water that he did. In a time culturally, when it was unacceptable. He was asked about that years later, and one of his responses was he's like, my faith would not let me see this man as anything other than a creation of God. Talking about Officer Clemens. He said he saw an opportunity to set a tone for the life and the kind of person he wanted to be, that he did something, and that picture was was it was huge. The fallout. Listen, if social media would have existed back then, it would have caused divisiveness. They recreated the picture in 1993. They did it together, they were both much older then. But but Mr. Rogers was a man who convicted by his faith, took an opportunity in a stage, and he and he made a stance, and he he decided that he wasn't going to be like everyone else. He was gonna be like Jesus. And and so that that picture changed the landscape. There's a story that. Betty White told one time uh there's a man. Uh I don't know about the details because I've only read a couple times, but um, basically there was a black man on her show, and people were against it, and they almost ruined her career because of it. But but she stood strong and and she and she said, It doesn't matter. I don't care what the world thinks. I'm gonna right because this this is what happens when we look like Jesus. Sometimes we do things that the world doesn't quite understand. We look different, we we act different, we love different. That's what makes grace so scandalous. Grace doesn't fit in a box. Jesus came and he sat with sinful people all the time. He lived a life that the culture at the time could not comprehend. They crucified him for it. He healed the blind, set free the adulterous woman. Jesus, by his very nature, is counter-cultural. He doesn't go with the flow. He's never needed to. And you and I, this is what we are called to do. Not to be like everyone else, but to be set apart, to look like Jesus. We show up, we grow up, and we get up. That's what we do. The world needs to see that something we have. The world needs to see that what we have is everything they need. I was reading a post or a blog a couple days ago. And the gentleman writing was talking about the the church has this kind of come and see mentality. Come and see what we're doing, come and see who we are, come come and look at we got the best bands and the newest worship and the greatest lights and our fog machine, and and we have coffee every Sunday. And listen, those things aren't inherently bad, but he said the culture of the church has shifted to where it's we expect you to come to us. And as he writes, he says, Listen, the goal of the church was never to be a place where people come and see. The goal of the church is to create people who go and rescue. That's the idea. That we take what we gather together, we we edify each other, we lift each other up, and then we go into the world and we try to help people that need it. We are part of the greatest divine rescue mission that's ever existed. You and I, for whatever reason, God chose us to be part of the plan. To go into the world to bring hope, to show them what God can do with someone who's a sinner just like me, to model for them that there's a better way to live, to show them that our homes are different, our marriages are stronger, our children are different. It's not about being perfect, but it's about showing them that if you choose to follow God, if you choose to call yourself a Christian, your life will be changed forever. It's never about being perfect. It's about showing the world that even broken people can be mended. You and I are on a rescue mission. This world is in desperate need of you and I to get up and do something. Statistics tell us that people aren't coming to church anymore. I'm not worried about that. Because if you won't come to me, I'll come to you. That's that's what Jesus did. He did more outside the temple than he ever did in. But the temple was still important. He still had to be lifted up, he still had to be built up, he he still had to, that's why we're here. We we do all of this so that when we walk out of this place on Monday morning, we are ready to be part of the mission. One of my favorite things that's happened in the last week or so, the women's night. They had a game night a couple weeks ago. And my mom was telling me about it. You know, because obviously I don't go to the women's game night. I might sing like I have a false out of voice, but uh I don't go. So my mom was telling me about it, and she said, uh, she said there's this little boy that showed up. And I was like, what? She's like, this little boy showed up to the church, and they were downstairs. And uh so he walks in, and the first thing he says is, hey, where's uh where's that Brenda and Dottie lady at? And my mom's like, they're not here. And uh he's like, Well, I saw the light on and I was hungry. So I stopped in. And so he sat down with them and they fed him, and they sent him on his way. But here's why is why that is important. He saw that our light was on, and he knew that he could find and he could find what he needed here. That's the church. That's why we do what we do. Not to make us bigger, better, stronger, but to be the kind of people that in a community, when they need something, they find it here. Who knows what's gonna come of that young man? Who knows what his life is gonna be? Who knows what God's gonna do with him? We don't. What I do know though, is we're part of that story. That's the kind of church we should be. When people come here, they should find what they need. That's what changes cultures. That's what changes people. That's what it is to live a Christ filled lifestyle. Let's pray.