Seated. You may be seated. Amen. Welcome again, everyone. We're so glad you're here with us today. Thank you, Smyrna Campus, that we have that connection with you there. We love you guys. Glad you're connected there at the Smyrna Campus and everybody connecting with us online. It's great to have that connection with you as well.
Well, it's Groundhog Day again. For those of you that don't know, I have kind of a fun sense of humor, and that's what I do. One of my favorite comedy movies of all time is Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. Now, it's a little bit older movie, and I usually now just catch it on television, the edited version, which is, I think, even better. But we love having fun and celebrating fun things, and Groundhog Day is nothing really to a groundhog going out to see its shadow, but it's just fun to have fun with a rodent predicting the weather. We'll see how it goes. Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong. I'm predicting that whatever happens, happens, so we'll be fine.
Well, today we are beginning a brand new series of messages. I'm glad you're here for the very first one or connecting online for the very first one in this series. And I love doing this kind of series. In this series, we're going to go straight through the book of Colossians verse by verse. And I love that kind of study, that we can get into it, we can dig a little deeper, we can study together. We'll do devotions each week like we've been doing with all of our series, where if we have your email address, we send out a five-day devotional every week that you can follow along with, that goes along with the sermon series that we're doing. And then on Wednesdays, we have a podcast that we do live at noon, and then it's posted, you can listen to it any time after that. And we talk about the series during that time as well. So you can really become a student of the book of Colossians as we go through this series together.
So I want you to get your Bibles open to that book in the New Testament, the New Testament epistle that Paul wrote to the Colossian church. And you can pull it up on your smartphone or tablet, however you do your Bible reading. We'll also put these verses up on screen for you as well.
The book of Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul while he was under house arrest in Rome. He was waiting trial. They were putting him on trial because he was stirring up people, preaching the gospel. It was they thought something that was a threat to the peace of the places he would go and do the preaching and teaching that he would do. And so they had him under house arrest, so he couldn't travel around and keep doing the kind of thing that he was doing. But while he was there, he could still have guests. He could still have visitors come to see him. I don't know how many of you have done like prison visits and things like that. A good bit of that over the years, and let me tell you, whether it's house arrest or actually in jail or prison, you love seeing visitors. You love having people come see you.
And Paul has had someone come and visit with him, Epaphras, who has come back with a report of things that were going on in the church at Colossi. Now, there was a connection between those two churches. Paul had never actually been there, but he was somewhat responsible for this church being started because Paul helped start the church in Ephesus. And he had spent a lot of time there. And if you read all the context and all the mentions of Epaphras and the church at Ephesus and the church at Colossi, we see that there was a connection there because Epaphras probably came from the church in Ephesus and went to help start the church there, the Colossian church. And so he had training from Paul already. He had guidance and experience with Paul and his teaching and how the church at Ephesus operated. So he took that with him over to this other town, this river town, Colossi, where he helped with leading that church.
And now he's come. He knows Paul is under house arrest, so he travels to see Paul and he brings with him a message from or a report from the church there that he's working with now. And he says there's some good news and there's some bad news. As we read through this letter, you're going to see it as we go through the study. There's some good news. There's a lot of good things happening at the church at Colossi. There's a lot of good people doing a lot of good things. And I'm sure Paul loved hearing that report about all the good things. And he mentions that in the letter.
But there's something happening, this brewing within the church that concerned Epaphras and concerned Paul. And that is that there was some false teaching creeping in. Some false teachers had begun to try to work their way in to influence the church there in a negative way. And the main thing that they were doing was they were kind of undermining the authority and the supremacy of Jesus Christ as the supreme ruler of all things and who should have all authority in all matters of the church.
And so the theme really of the book of Colossians is the supremacy of Christ. How he is above all things. How he has all authority. How he has the right to rule and to reign over the church. And when we say the church, what are we talking about? All of us. We are the church. So if he has the authority from the Father to reign and rule over the church, then that means we need to understand he has all authority over us individually, who make up the church. He reigns supreme over every one of us who would claim to be Christ followers in our lives. Which means he holds that position in our lives. And Paul wrote this book to make sure that the church had a clear view of who Jesus is.
In fact, the book of Colossians gives us the most concentrated teaching on the theology of Christ of any book in the Bible. And that's why I really wanted us to go through verse by verse and do this study together. Because if we could grasp this concept and understanding of who Christ is, it transformed the people then into a powerfully effective church, and a powerfully effective church for the kingdom of God. It will transform us at Lakeshore to be an even greater, stronger, more powerful influence for the kingdom of God in our culture today when we really can wrestle with this idea that Christ reigns supreme in us and corporately together over the whole church.
There was a woman who brought a very limp duck into a veterinary office and asked a veterinarian to check on her duck. They laid the duck up on the table. It was just limp, just laying there. The veterinarian took out his stethoscope and he listened to the duck, put it on his chest and listened for just a few seconds. And he shook his head. He said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. Your duck is dead." She said, "Dead? I can't believe it. How could you jump to that conclusion so quickly that he's dead? Maybe he's just in a coma. Maybe he's not really dead." And the veterinarian just kind of rolled his eyes. "Okay. Okay." So he left the room there and he came back in with a Labrador Retriever. This dog got right up on his high legs, put his paws up on the examination table and sniffed that duck from head to toe, looked at the veterinarian and shook his head, got back down, and the veterinarian walked him out. He came back in with a cat. The cat hops up on the examination table, goes over to the duck, sniffs the duck from head to toe, just kind of rubs itself all over the duck, looks up at the veterinarian, shakes his head and meows, and walks out.
The veterinarian looked at the lady and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely 100% certifiably a dead duck." So then he went over to his computer and he printed out something and handed it to the lady, and it was a bill, and the bill was for $850. The woman said, "I can't believe this. I've got this terrible news that my duck is dead, and here you are charging me $850 just to tell me that it's dead." He said, "Well, if you'd listen to my opinion to start with, it wouldn't have been that much. But when you add in the lab report and the cat scan, that's what really ran the bill up."
Well, I love that we're starting out today in this first part of the first chapter of Colossians because in just verses 1 through 14, we're going to be looking at today, we see that Paul immediately, in response to the report of the church and what's going on there, gives us seven clear characteristics of what an alive church looks like. And I think we can all learn from that, right? Corporately as a church, we can see does our church look like this? But remember what makes up the church, everyone. So what do we look like, right? We make up the church. Do we fit these characteristics individually and corporately of an alive church? And what that needs to look like?
So I want to start with just the introduction here. Colossians 1 verse 1. It says, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother." Now, I love how Paul introduces himself. He immediately says, "an apostle of Christ Jesus." He says, "by the will of God." You see, the Apostle Paul was not one of the original Apostles. And so there were people that questioned his authority at first when he went out to establish churches and lead the church as an apostle. And so he had to constantly remind them, "Well, it's by the will of God." Remember, he had that experience on the road to Damascus. He saw the risen Lord. That was one of the qualifications for being an apostle was you had to be an eyewitness to the resurrection to be an apostle. And so Paul had that experience, and he's making sure they understand he's got that authority.
And Timothy was, remember, someone he was mentoring, another servant in the faith that he worked closely with. But he says this is to God's holy people in Colossi, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. So how does he refer to the people at that church? As his what? Brothers and sisters? Right away, he wants to establish, "We're all family here." I've never been there in person, but I have a connection with you in Christ, and in Christ, we are connected in such a way that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.
So Paul was really a proponent of the unity of the body of Christ. No matter what region you were in, what country you were in, what town you were in, we're all really one family, one huge large family. Now, there are individual parts of that family in those local congregations that we connect to, but corporately, we're all one family. So he says to my brothers and sisters there, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, "Grace and peace to you from God our Father." So that's a typical greeting of that day, grace and peace to you from God the Father. Among the Brotherhood, among the brothers and sisters in Christ, that was the way they often greeted each other, grace and peace, and who's the author of grace and peace? It's God the Father, so he could do that in the name of God the Father.
But I want to see seven characteristics that he begins to talk about then starting in that very next verse, verse 3. Let's look at verses 3 and 4. "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you because we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God's people." One of the key characteristics of an alive church is a compelling faith. And he's saying, "I've heard about your faith. I've gotten that report about the faith that you're living by, displaying, acting on in your life."
Now, when we talk about faith scripturally, we need to understand a lot of people use the word faith. You know, do you belong to the faith or something like that? And they may not use it exactly the way it's used every time in scripture. In this case, he's talking about a belief in something that you believe in to the point that it not only is something you can attest to the truth of it, but you actually apply it to your life; you live by it. That's what it means to have this kind of faith. Remember, James talked about it this way: faith without action is what? It's dead, right? It's a faith that produces the action that God calls for. That's the only kind of faith that's a saving faith in scripture. You can believe things without having this kind of faith where you're willing to act on it, put your trust in it enough to live by it.
So you can believe information without having a saving faith, and a lot of people, I think, have responded that way in churches. Yes, I believe, and now they think they're walking by faith when they're not coming under the authority of Jesus and his teaching. That's not saving faith. Saving faith will produce obedient action to that which is taught in the one you put your faith in. So here, it's not a blind faith either; it's a faith that is based on evidence and testimony.
That's why I love here at Lakeshore. If you want to test this compelling faith thing, in order to have a compelling faith, you have to be part of a church that, if our church is going to be a church that walks by faith and lives by faith, it has to be a teaching church. You have to know what God teaches in order to act in faith in the Word of God. So I love that we are part of a church family locally here that's very much a teaching part of the family of God. Now, other churches are too, other congregations in other towns and cities, and that's the key. But you could go to some churches and hear very little scripture, even after being there for a while. It's more philosophy. It's more faith. It's more other approaches to recommendations for how you might want to live your life. But it's not clear teaching of God's Word.
And sometimes it's God's Word being taught, withholding some back or adding some to it instead of just letting it speak for itself. And what Paul is saying here to this church is that he's heard of your faith in Christ Jesus. It's directed in the right way. It comes from their knowledge and their understanding of Jesus Christ and what He taught, the example that He set. That's why as a teaching church, we do a lot of different things here to help you know God's Word. Because your faith, in order for it to be yours, genuinely yours, it can't rest on what everybody else says it ought to be. It's got to rest on what you see clearly is in the Word of God.
So when you hear teaching, even from Pastor Randy, the Bible makes it clear we're supposed to put everything to the test. Well, what is the standard we test it by? God's Word. Any teaching that you hear, if it doesn't line up with the Word of God, it can't be from God. Here's what we know about God: He doesn't contradict Himself, ever. So all the teaching needs to line up correctly with what God's Word actually says.
So we do things here like life groups where the Bible is being studied. We have a class starting today, a doctrine class. That's an excellent class to get the basics of what the Bible says. We have children's programming where they're being taught lessons every week. We've got youth classes where they're being taught God's Word. We've got those devotionals that we send out and recommend other things like the YouVersion Bible app. We've got the podcast that I talked about. We've got a welcome lunch where we talk about who we are as a church, what we believe and why we believe it. We do all those things every Sunday when you come. Whether it's me teaching or somebody else, you're going to hear teaching directly from God's Word.
Because the Bible says in Romans 10:17 that faith comes from hearing the message. That's where faith comes from. And the message is heard through the Word about Christ. You want a stronger faith? You've got to be in the Word more. Your faith is not going to get stronger without you personally getting into the Word. So if our church is going to be a church that they could say, "I've heard about your wonderful faith" as a church, that means individuals that make up the church, what are they doing? They're spending time in the Word. They're learning what God's Word says about Jesus, what Jesus teaches about life. They're learning how that Word applies to everyday life so they can live it out. And they're coming under the authority of that Word. That is a church that is one that could be bragged on for its faith. When that kind of thing is happening at a church, it's an alive church.
Well, the second thing we see here that he talks about that's a mark of this church, still the last part there, verse 4, I already read it. He says, "because we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the what? The love that you have for all God's people." Another identifying mark of an alive church is a compassionate love for each other within the church. When we talk about this concept of love, again, we have to understand how the Bible uses the word and what particular word that it uses for how this love is supposed to be understood and lived out. Because the word that's used here, this love that they have for one another, is an agape love, which means it's seeking what's best for the other person. It means that you don't put yourself above others. You think of others ahead of yourself.
And the way the world often uses the word love and applies the word love, it's a different brand of love than what we're talking about here. This brand of love is the way God loves us. He's saying, "I want you to love each other the way God loves you." And I'm so thankful God loves us in a better way than the way we often define love. Because the way God loves us is we don't have to earn it. It doesn't go away every time we mess up. It's not in question because we haven't done everything exactly right all the time. God's love never changes. There'll never be a time where He loves you any more than He loves you right now. There'll never be a time where He loves you any less than He loves you right now. He says, "I want you to love each other that way." That will cause you to stand out as a church if you love each other like that. Because you don't see that out there in the world, that kind of love.
And one reason you don't see it is it requires divine power to love like that. So you can't love like this without the Holy Spirit's presence and power and provision for your life. That's why this kind of love is reserved for Christ followers. It's only available to us because we know that love from God, and the presence of God in our lives enables us to love like God loves. His Spirit gives us that ability to love like that. In John 13, Jesus talked about it in verse 34. He said, "A new command I give you: love one another." Now, here's the thing that's amazing. Jesus says it's a new command, but that command was already out for a long time. So why is it now a new command as Jesus gives it? It's because He's going to define it in a way that had not been defined before. He says, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." The way that I loved you, Jesus said. That's what makes this commandment new.
See, the world had not seen this love before, had not experienced this love the way Jesus loved before. Jesus loved us so much, He put us ahead of Himself so much that he went and died for us on the cross. And the Bible says it this way: it's not unusual that someone might die for a friend, give their life up for somebody they love or care about. But he said, "Here's what defines Jesus' love: while we were his enemies, he died for us." You see, it's a whole new definition of what it means to love one another. So he's saying an alive church will grow into loving each other the way Jesus loves us. It's an identifying mark.
But I want you to understand something. We have misunderstood this a lot, I think, and the culture is really trying to define this for us or redefine it for us. What he talks about here, he's talking to the church, and he's telling us within the body of Christ to love each other this way. Catch that, please. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have a certain kind of love and care for everybody; of course, we should. But he's saying within the church family, there should be another level or degree of love for each other that sets us apart from the rest of the world out there. The love we have for each other as brothers and sisters in Christ should be that high level of love, the way Christ loves us.
Paul said it this way over in Galatians 6: "As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people." That's a good thing, right? If you love them, you care about them, you want to do good for everybody. But here's what he said: "especially to those who belong to the family of believers." See, there's a special relationship there that you cannot have with people who aren't part of the family of believers, but that you are supposed to have within the church family for each other. I know it's hard for people to grasp, but here's what he's saying: there should be something about belonging to the family of God that you can't get out there.
Without belonging to the family of God, one of those things you get in the family of God that you can't get outside the family of God is the way we love each other within the family of God that should set us apart from the rest of the world. Years ago, there was an old credit card commercial, and it was, I think, American Express. I don't remember; I'm not endorsing any credit cards. But here's what it said: "Membership has its privileges." Remember that? Some of you are shaking your head, but some of you are like, "He's an old guy; I don't know what he's talking about." What it meant was belonging to this family, so to speak, of people who have these cards have benefits as a result of being part of this family, right?
Well, being part of the family of God, the church, the body of Christ has benefits that you cannot get outside the body of Christ. Of course, salvation is the biggest one, no doubt about that. But he's also saying here's another one: it's the way you should love each other within this family, the way you care for each other, the way you sacrifice for each other within this family. We talked about this before. All of us have family members that aren't quite what we think they ought to be, don't do what we think they ought to do all the time. But within this family, we have the ability to love each other in this family. What are we still supposed to do? Love each other. You know how we know we're supposed to do that? Because that's how Christ loves us, even when we don't get it right all the time, even when we don't do everything the way we're supposed to do it all the time. He still loves us.
So in the family of God, one of the worst things that could happen—and Satan loves to use this—is to get division to creep in, to get people to backbite and talk about each other and tear each other down that are part of the family of God. That has no place ever in this family because that's not loving the way Christ loves. We don't need to be tearing anybody down in our own family. We need to be holding each other accountable, yes, but encouraging each other, bringing correction and instruction to each other, helping each other live out the calling God has for our lives. And what he's saying there is this will be an identifying mark. He says, "Everyone in John 13, remember, by this everyone will know that you're my disciples by the love that you have for the world." No, that's not what he says. How are they going to know we are his disciples? By the love we have for who? For each other in the family of God. That's how the world is going to know we're really disciples of Jesus Christ.
See, the reason that's so important is because we want people who are outside the body of Christ to know that there's so many more benefits, that life is so much better, that there's such an advantage to being part of the body of Christ that they want to have what we have, and they can see that by the way we love one another in the body of Christ.
Well, the third mark that he says here, the third characteristic of an alive church is, he says in verse 5, it's a confident hope. Look at this: "the faith in life is a confident hope." Look at that spring from what? "The hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you've already heard in the true message of the gospel." This confident hope, this anticipation of good things. And the word hope here, again, is an interesting word. It's not like we often use it in the English language where, "Boy, I sure hope the weather is good today. I sure hope it doesn't rain." It's more than that. It's a confident assurance that what you are hoping for and believing in is going to be a reality. You've already accepted it; it's a done deal. And that's what gives you the hope to move forward. It's not something that you just wishful thinking about; it's something that you can feel certain about, and it gives this anticipation of good things.
Here's what it does for us: this hope brings contentment and endurance in our present tense life, even when things aren't going well, because we know something better on the other side we can claim. It's already a done deal; it's an assurance in our lives. You can endure almost anything, can't you, when you know the good on the other side of it that's waiting for you? And that's the hope he wants us to have in Christ. An alive church will be a church that lives with that hope.
I'm reminded of a little boy that loved to read those western novels for young men, and the dad got him a whole set, and he liked to read them. And at night, when they sent him to bed, they would give him a few minutes to read before he would go to sleep. And every night he would read in one of those western novels. And one night, the dad's passing by his bedroom, and he should have already been asleep, but he notices there's a light glowing underneath the blanket. So he knows what's going on; the guy is in there reading. And so he sticks his head in the door, and he hears his son saying this: "You're gonna get it." Another few minutes later, "You're gonna get it." A few moments later, "You're gonna get it." And so the dad can't help himself. He said, "Son, you're supposed to be asleep. What are you doing?" He says, "I'm still reading that. I'm sorry; I was in an exciting time in the book, and I couldn't help but keep reading." He said, "Okay, but why do you keep saying you're gonna get it?" He said, "Well, Dad, when I started reading this book, this villain kept getting the best of this cowboy hero in the book over and over again. The villain kept winning over and over. And then I couldn't help it, Dad, I gotta confess, I couldn't help it, Dad, I gotta confess, I couldn't help it, Dad, I gotta confess, I couldn't to the end of the story, and I read how it all turned out. And in the end, the cowboy gets the villain. So even when things were going bad, I knew he was gonna get it. He was gonna get it in the end."
Have you read the end? Do you know how it turns out? Do you know that even when things aren't going the way you want them to, even when it seems hopeless sometimes, you can still have a confident hope because it's a done deal, it's an accomplished thing. Jesus has died on the cross; he has risen again. He's conquered sin in the grave, and he's given you that assurance when you come to know him as your Lord and Savior. You can live with that confident hope, and an alive church will never be a discouraged church when we understand the hope that we have in Christ.
Well, the fourth thing is this, as a characteristic of an alive church, and that's changed lives. Look at verse 6. He says, "The message of the gospel that's come to you in the same way the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace." I love that phrase; it's bearing fruit in your church. What does that look like when the gospel that they heard is actually bearing fruit? How does the gospel actually bear fruit in your church? To bear fruit means to produce what it's intended to produce, right? If you have an orange tree that you planted and you've been taking care of, what's your hope from that orange tree? It's going to produce what? Oranges.
So what is the fruit he says in the church that he wants the message of the gospel to produce? And he's saying it's obvious the lives that are being changed there for the better because of the gospel. The teaching of the gospel, the presentation of the gospel is producing the fruit that God wants it to produce. Lives are being changed. It's a powerful testimony that this church is alive and that the gospel is really being taught the way it's supposed to be and accepted the way it's supposed to be because you can see the fruit that's being produced from it.
And the fruit of the gospel is lives changed by the power of the gospel, lives transformed from being dead in sin to being alive in Christ. That's the fruit of the gospel. And as you learn more of the teaching of Jesus and you apply that teaching, it transforms your life. It transforms my life into something more like what God wants it to be, and it's better than it was before. When you can see that change, it's a sign that that's an alive church. That church is living and active and powerful and doing and bearing fruit the way God wants the church to bear fruit.
So when you see a church where a life is alive and active and lives are being impacted, that's how you measure if it's really producing the fruit that God wants the church to produce. You know how we judge churches most of the time in our world today? How many people go there? We're going to measure the church by the attendance, and if it's got a lot of people coming, it must be an alive church; it must be a great church. That's not the mark Jesus looks for. The mark is how many lives are being changed for the better to conform more to the teachings in God's Word.
Here's what I've learned as a pastor over the years: you can fill up a room by telling people what they want to hear. You can attract a lot of people by keeping them happy as much as possible and tickling their ears with a message that makes them feel good about themselves, no matter what's going on in their lives. And sadly, that's happened at a lot of places that are filling buildings week in and week out. And I'm not here to judge any of them; God's the judge. But here's what I know: we have a responsibility to teach the true message of the gospel because that's the only power that can change lives. So we better be sure that's what we're teaching because the way God is going to hold us accountable is, did we produce the fruit that he wanted us to produce in the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Were lives being transformed and changed? And we're going to be able to teach the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in a powerful way through the living, active Word of God, changing their lives.
And so it's a powerful testimony of an alive church that lives are actually being transformed through the teaching of that church, not through the entertainment, not through the programming, through the teaching of the Word of God. That's what transforms lives. I can assure you this: you can run every program that churches are running all over the country to get a lot of people to come to church and to them, but if the Word of God is not being proclaimed in a powerful and effective way, it's not producing the fruit that God wants the church to produce. And the only thing that will make that happen is the Word of God being taught clearly out of love and concern for the people so that it can do the work God has designed it to do.
Well, there's another mark he talks about here in verses 7 and 8, and that is the committed leaders that should be in a church. Look at verse 7. He's talking about truly understanding God's grace, right? Hearing the gospel and understanding God's grace. He said, "You learned it from Epiphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and who also told us of your love in the Spirit." You got to hear more about Epiphras through the rest of the letter, but it's clear that Epiphras was a leader in the church and the Colossian church who changed the world for the better and the better and the better and championed those people. He wanted only what was best for them. He was committed to his calling from God as a leader of the church to care for them in such a way that he wanted to be sure not only that they heard the truth but they understood it and they understood God's grace and God's plan for their lives.
And he invested himself in that, and he was so invested in it that when he had a concern about what was going on there, he went to get help and advice from the Apostle Paul, whom he obviously respected very much and wanted to get his input on what needed to happen there at that church. He was a leader who cared for the people who made up that church family so much so that he wanted to be sure he handled rightly the teaching of God's Word and that he presented it in the right way and that it produced the fruit that God wanted produced in the church and that the people's lives were blessed and that they were also protected. He's going to talk about later from the false teaching that was creeping into that church.
Here's what I want you to know about good leadership in a church: it will always care more about you knowing the truth and following the truth than keeping you happy, always. That's just good leadership because that means they love you more than they love your praise. They love you more than they love being told, "Everything's good; you don't need to, you know, you just keep saying those good things; we like that." They love you enough to tell you the truth. They love you enough to rejoice with you when you rejoice and weep with you when you weep. They love you enough to tell you and hold you accountable when you're getting off track. They also love you enough to brag on you and encourage you when you're on track and going the direction you need to go. That's just good leadership.
And I'm so thankful that here at Lakeshore we have leaders that are solidly committed to being those kinds of leaders. I serve on an elder team with our other guys, Mike and Hugh and Jeff and Dean, and I can tell you how day after day and week after week their hearts go out to God on your behalf in prayer for you. I could tell you that this team cares about you hearing the truth and knowing the truth. I could tell you about our staff, our paid staff and volunteer staff that work so hard and sacrifice to teach and to lead you and your children and your families and how they want nothing more than God's will and God's best for you in your life. Not every church has leaders like that, friends. We're so blessed to have the leadership that we have here at Lakeshore.
And I know the sacrifices that these men and women make, and I know the investment they make of their time and their talents and their energies to make sure this is a healthy, alive church the way God has called it to be, that is producing the kind of fruit that God wants produced in the church. Even when they have to take criticism for it, even when they have to have people sometimes upset with what's happening and how it's happening and why those decisions were made that they may not understand, they're still putting the care of this family ahead of everything else for themselves. Friends, that's rare leadership. And I'm so thankful I'm part of a leadership team like that at a local church because I can tell you the truth. I've served a few other churches before coming here where that was not the case. And it showed in the fact that the churches weren't producing the fruit that God wants the church to produce.
Doesn't mean they weren't having big attendances; they were sometimes, but they weren't producing the fruit that God wants produced in the church. So committed leaders are a key to an alive church, and I'm thankful that we have committed leaders here at Lakeshore. Another part of this characteristic of a live church is the constant prayers that are going up. Look at verse 9. He says, "For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we've not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might." Wow. It says, "so that," here's the result of it, "so that you may have great endurance and patience."
We'll stop there for a moment. The constant prayers of God's people for each other help the church stay alive and active and functioning and accomplishing all that God wants the church to accomplish. Look at the things he's praying for here. This is the way we need to pray for each other. He prayed that they would have a knowledge of God's will, that they would have wisdom and understanding, that they could live a life worthy of the calling they've received from God, that they could bear the fruit that God wanted them to have, that they could walk in strength and endurance and have patience to hold on to the very end.
Now, here's the thing. We often pray for that for ourselves, those kinds of things. But how often have you prayed for your brother or sister to have those things? See, that's the way we need to pray for each other if we're going to be an alive church. We need to be praying that instead of seeing someone struggling and saying, "I'll pray for you," and then forgetting about it, we actually pray these prayers for each other. It's really easy to say, "Praying for you," especially on Facebook or some other social media. You could put the little praying hands on there. Some of you even picked out the ones that look at your skin tone, right? It's the right skin tone for you, right? I want you to know a yellow person is praying for you. I only use yellow hands. I don't try to get into—there's not one that matches my skin tone, so I just use the yellow hands.
Now, here's the thing. It's real easy to pop that up on Facebook or Instagram, but do you actually stop and pray these things for your brothers and sisters in Christ? Is it a regular part of your prayer life to lift up the body of Christ, the church, in this way? You see, when you love the church the way God wants you to love it, you'll pray these prayers for the people that make up the church. That's the way you pray for your church family.
So there's committed leaders and there's constant prayers. But the last one, oh, this is really the motivating factor behind all of it, starting with verse 12. Listen, he says, "And giving joyful thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light, for he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. He brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." One of the most wonderful identifying marks of an alive church is continued appreciation for what God's done for us as his people, for all that he's done for us in Christ.
We have such an appreciation for that, such an appreciation for the sacrifice that he's made, for the investment that he's made in us, for the continual provision that he gives to us, for how he rescued from darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his Son that he loves. And he's given us redemption. He's given us forgiveness of sins. And in response to that, we give joyful thanks in such a way that it becomes a joy to serve him in light of what he's done for us. We don't have to be begged to come to church. We don't have to be arm-twisted into serving. We don't have to be guilted into giving. Why? Because we understand what God has done for us. We understand how undeserving we are. We understand how privileged we are to have the blessings that we have as a part of the family of God, the church.
And we don't tear down the church, and we don't complain about it. Instead, it's a joy to be actively involved in supporting God's plan for his church. And I can tell you this, pastor, and every pastor in the world, we love to have a congregation full of people that you don't have to arm-twist or guilt into doing anything; they just do it because of their love for Jesus, their appreciation for what God has done for them in Christ. We've got men and women like that here at Lakeshore. I mean, so many of these marks in a real-life church, I see them here. I see them in this church family. I see individuals that are helping us be this kind of church within the church family.
But friends, we want to invite everybody into this with us because the more people we have doing these things, not only will it bless us individually, it will bless the church corporately. And if the church is blessed and strong and active and doing the things that God wants us to do, here's what's going to happen: more and more fruit is going to be produced for the kingdom of God through this church. More and more lives are going to be changed. More and more people are going to be brought out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son, Jesus Christ, into the light of Jesus and his salvation. Is it that why the church exists? Is it that really what it's supposed to be all about? Is it more people being called out of darkness into the light of God?
Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that in this letter that Paul wrote to this church, we see these characteristics of things he could talk about that were good things happening at that church. It wasn't a live church; there were so many good things going on there, so many people that were meeting these characteristics so that the church itself had these characteristics as a whole corporately. I thank you that here at Lakeshore we've got so many men and women that are allowing you to be at work in their lives to be this kind of church because we are the church. I pray for those that are not yet connected to or part of the church that they would recognize the value of what you've done for them and will gladly, of their own choosing, decide, "I want to come to you, Jesus, and surrender to you and follow you, and I want to serve you in a way that brings honor and glory to you, to live a life worthy of what you've called me to."
Father, I pray that even today that decision can be made for those that are looking for life to be transformed to something better because it's only found in Jesus as a part of his church. So we ask these things in his name and by his power. Amen.
If you're here today and you have a decision you need to make, maybe to surrender to Jesus for the first time, maybe to connect with and become a part of the church family, whatever the decision is, as we stand and sing, we invite you to come. If you're listening online, message us if you have a decision you need to make; we'll follow up with you there.
You are God, and you are good. You are God, and you are good. You are God, and you are good. You are God, and you are good. You are God, and you are good. You are God, and you are good.
To bring even good things out of this. And so we ask for your care for her and wisdom for the medical team moving forward, that we could see you at work through it all and that you receive the honor, the praise, the glory through our lives that you are so worthy to receive. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you, thank you.
This time, Paul is gonna come and lead us in a time around the Lord's table. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. We want to thank you for being here today on Groundhog Day. I don't know what the groundhog saw this morning. I don't know if he saw a shadow or not, but the weather's going to do whatever the weather's going to do. So let's just adjust to whatever happens there and have fun with things like Groundhog Day.
If you are here for the very first time, we would love for you to stop by the information counter before you leave. We've got a gift we want to give you. If you'd like to worship through the giving of offerings, we have offering boxes available, one in the back of the auditorium, one in the hallways you exit, mounted on posts there. You can drop your offering in the top slot there. You can also give online at lakeshorechristian.com, click on the gift tab there, or you can also scan the QR code in your bulletin shell, and it will take you to that page, and you can mail in offerings to the church office. And either way you do it, it's still an act of worship, and it's a way to show God that you're putting him first in your life, and it supports the work and ministry of the church, the kingdom of God that you're part of.
We're thankful for all those who faithfully support the work that we're doing financially, and it enables us to carry out the good work God prepared in advance for us to do. I just have to make a comment, Paul, I can't believe you just bragged on 80s rock when obviously 70s rock rules, man. I don't know. I'm just saying, you know, I saw a meme the other day of what it's going to be like in nursing homes in about 10-15 years with all these old rockers in the nursing home. You know, it's going to be interesting to see that.
All right, thank you again. I'm going to ask Jeremy to come at this time. He's going to close us out with our announcements and lead us in prayer as we close out. Thanks, Jeremy.
on Feb 02, 2025
