Wait. No reason to wait. No reason to wait. No reason to wait. No reason to wait.
Welcome again, everyone! We're so glad you're here with us today. Welcome, Smyrna campus! Love you guys. Glad you're connected there. Everybody else that's connecting with us online, we're so happy to have that connection with you as well.
Well, there's some big game happening today. Anybody know anything about it? Ah, the Super Bowl is today. I don't care about who wins; it doesn't matter to me with the two teams that are there. But some of you, I know, are fans of one team or the other, or you're pulling for one team or the other.
It reminded me of this really intense football fan whose team made it to the conference championship game, and they had a home game. He spent a lot of money just to get any ticket that he could get to the game. He spent a bunch, but he ended up just getting the ticket way up in the upper deck. You know, he was sitting way up there, so he took his binoculars with him so he could at least see a little bit of the game.
He was sitting way up there, and he could barely see anything from where he was. He noticed, as he was looking through his binoculars, that about three rows up from the field, right at the 50-yard line, there was an empty seat. He was intrigued by it, and he noticed that by the time the second quarter started, it was still empty. Curiosity got the best of him, so he kind of snuck down to the lower level there and went down to where the seat was.
He asked the guy sitting there, "Is anybody sitting in this seat?" He said, "No, have a seat." So he sat down right there at the 50-yard line to watch the game. He got to thinking about it: you know, why in the world, for a big game like this, as expensive as the tickets were, would a seat be empty?
So he asked the guy next to him, "Do you know whose seat this was?" He said, "Yeah, I do. It was my wife's. She passed away." He thought, "Oh, that's so sad. I'm so sorry." He said, "But let me ask you, wasn't there another friend or family member you wanted to give the ticket to?" He said, "No, I don't think so."
He said, "Well, I thought about it, but they're all at the funeral."
Some of you are that big a fan, and I am not, but I know some people are. We love the fact that we can talk about fun things like that that are important too, in a lot of ways.
But what we're talking about in this series that we are now in, Colossians, is more important than anything else. We're talking about in this series that we are now in, Colossians, going straight through. We started in chapter one, verse one, last week. If you missed that, you could go back and catch it on our YouTube channel.
Today, we're going to pick up where we left off, still in chapter one. But we want to lead into that by talking about a question that Jesus asked that, in my view, is the most important question that you could ever ask. It's found in Matthew chapter 16, beginning with verse 13. If you want to look at Matthew's account of that, then we'll get to Colossians. You can open up and hold that ready.
In Matthew 16, beginning with verse 13, it says, "When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say the Son of Man is?'" Isn't that the most important question? Who is Jesus really?
That's exactly what the letter is about because there were false teachers coming in, saying things about Jesus that weren't true. Paul writes this letter to make sure he corrects the truth here about who Jesus really is.
Well, when Jesus asked that question of his disciples, they replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." But what about you? He asked, "Who do you say I am?" That's the question I want us to look at today. Who do you say Jesus is? If you're connecting online, who do you say Jesus is today?
Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." In that answer, Peter is saying "Messiah," which means everything that that word means: the promised one, the anointed one, the one who would come and save and deliver his people. All of that is in the term "Messiah."
So Jesus says to Peter, "You've answered rightly. Well done!" You know, it's a great thing that you said. In fact, it's upon that confession that I'm going to build my church. He goes on to talk about how important that answer is that Peter gave.
Now, Peter, I'm sure, didn't fully comprehend everything involved in his answer, but he did recognize who Jesus really was. He had seen the evidence and the testimony. He had experienced life with Jesus up to that point. He had seen the miracles; he had heard the teaching. He had come to that conclusion that that's who Jesus is.
Now, the reason I think that's the most important question to answer in your life and in my life is this: three reasons, really. One is our salvation depends on this answer. If he's really who the Bible says he is, then he is the source of our salvation. The Bible reveals that he's the only source of our salvation. If the Bible's true, if it's true that he's the source of our salvation, telling us who Jesus really is and what Jesus has really done, and we want to be saved, we have to come to that understanding that that's who Jesus is—he's our Savior.
It's also important for another reason. If we're going to have any absolute standard of right and wrong, we have to have an authoritative source for what's right and what's wrong. If Jesus really is who the Bible claims him to be, if he really did conquer sin and death and the grave and rose to live again, then he has a position of authority like no other person, no other teacher, no other philosopher has ever had. None of the others have done what Jesus did if the Bible's true and its revelation about Jesus.
So he alone stands above all the others with the kind of authority we need to find out what's right about marriage, what's wrong about our understanding of that, what's right about money, what's right about career choices, what's right about family choices. We needed a source of authority on those things, and if Jesus is who the Bible says he is, he has every right to be in that position of authority to help us determine right and wrong in those situations.
Our world is just in flux right now, just totally lost and scrambling to figure out what's right and what's wrong anymore. There is no real source that they feel like they can go to to determine right and wrong. We believe it's Jesus if we answer the question the way Peter did.
Well, there's a third reason, and that is that Jesus would also be then the one who has the authority to determine false doctrine. You see, this book is written—this letter of Colossians is being written because there's some false teaching being introduced to the church about Jesus and about the church.
So how do you know what's right and what's not right, what's false and what's true? There has to be some standard that you look to to determine what's false when it comes to belief and doctrine. I love what John said in 1 John 4, beginning with verse 1. He said this: "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world."
When John wrote that letter, it's very early in the life of Christianity, and the teaching of the church is just getting started. Already he says false prophets are here; they're already at work. So how are they going to judge what's false and what's true? He says, "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God."
See, that was the false teaching—that Jesus wasn't really who he was claiming to be as God come in the flesh. You see, if he's God in the flesh, he has all authority. He says, "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world."
Friends, it's time to wake up and realize we don't need to be looking for the antichrist; he's been here the whole time. He's been at work, filling our hearts and minds with lies and deceptions about Jesus and who Jesus really is and what right he has to have authority in our lives.
Let's quit sitting back looking for the antichrist. The antichrist has been working the whole time. Here's what you need to know about the word that's translated "antichrist." It's where we get the English word "antifreeze." Do you know how antifreeze works? It has to get into the water that you want to keep from freezing. So it comes in and gets alongside to do its work.
The work of antichrist appears to be coming alongside Christ, getting into and infiltrating that which is of Christ to do the work that it wants to do against Christ. And see, that's why false doctrine in the church is so dangerous. It is the work of antichrist when false doctrine comes into the church.
So there needs to be this standard that we can stand on and count on and judge things by. The real crux of the standard is: what are they saying about Jesus? What are they teaching about who Jesus is? Are they saying that he has that authority and that he has that truth that he claimed to have? Because then everything else will line up the way it needs to.
When you establish that about Jesus, you come under his authority; you submit to his rule in your life. Then it lines up everything else in the life and doctrine and belief of your life and the life of the church.
Here's the thing: we overcomplicate things so many times, even in the church. Remember, given enough time and opportunity, what can we do? We can mess it up. We human beings have the ability to do that, and we even do that within the church. We overcomplicate things.
What a lot of people do who are Christ followers is they try to do things that are not right, and they try to do things that are right, and they try to do things that are not right, and they really are. But what's surprising is that here comes this says to the church that the truth is the way that you will be.
Apply it; you will not promise to follow whatope team OR depends upon what evening. Come and see you in the morning with me, and don't blame yourself or yourself for watching the broadcast that people are off and on, and the law is brought on by Walham. I reward you and let you be in the glory.
Will explain to the people behind it, right? Real thing. What can you spot? Anything that's not supposed to be there? Anything that's out of the ordinary? Anything that would cause you to say, "That's not the way that's supposed to be?"
I know the original; I know what it's supposed to be like. So in the church, the key is going to be to find out the truth about Jesus. Let that be the standard by which you judge everything else. You don't have to know what everybody else teaches. When you hear their teaching that doesn't line up with that, that you know to be true about Jesus, you've already exposed the false doctrine.
You don't have to know every detail. If you know they're not teaching the truth about Jesus, other things might sound good, and the language they use might sound good, but if they're not saying the truth about Jesus, it can't be true doctrine.
In Galatians 1, Paul wrote to that church in verse 6, "I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all." He said, "Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ."
Listen to this warning: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse." Then he adds this: "As we've already said, so I'll say it again: if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God's curse."
You think this is a serious deal for the church, for us individually as Christ followers? Absolutely. There's a lot of false teaching out there, and at the crux of the false teaching is to undermine the authority of Jesus Christ himself. Because if we can undermine his authority, we don't have to be held accountable to his teaching. We can pick and choose what we want to believe, how we want to live. We're the ones really ruling, not Jesus.
But if Jesus is who the Bible says he is, he's not just our Savior; he's also our Lord. He's our ruler. He's the one who has all authority in all things over our lives.
So with that backdrop, I want us to get to this core teaching here in Colossians chapter 1, beginning with verse 15. Because in verses 15 through 23, we have the most concise teaching on the theology of Christ, on who he is and how to define him and recognize him as the Bible reveals him to be. It is an amazing, powerful few verses of teaching doctrinally for all of us individually and for the church corporately.
In this group of scriptures we're going to be looking at today, we're going to see that Jesus is Lord over three primary categories that really cover everything for us as Christ followers, and he reveals that in these verses.
Okay, so let's get to this core teaching here in Colossians. Let's pick up with verse 15.
The Son, talking about Jesus, of course, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over 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.
We'll stop there for a minute. We'll look at the next few verses here too. He is the Lord of all creation. Everything that exists today, he is the ruler over all of it. He says he's the image of the invisible God. When we read in it, it says no man has seen God. Now, Moses got a glimpse of God as he passed by. He got a glimpse of the backside of God in his glory, and his face glowed so brightly he had to cover it up when he came down off the mountain. It had that powerful of an impact. Nobody has actually seen God face to face.
It reminds me of a little kindergarten girl that was drawing a picture in class, and the teacher said, "What are you drawing?" She said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." The teacher said, "Well, nobody has ever seen God. They don't know what he looks like." She said, "Well, give me a few minutes, and they will."
We have ideas of what God looks like, but if you really want to know who God is and what he's all about, he says Jesus is who you look to. He is the image of the invisible God, of the God that no one has seen. He wanted us to know him so badly that he was willing to come here and put on flesh so that we could get to know him, know what he's like, know what he's all about.
Does God love us? Well, look to Jesus. Do you think God loves you when you see what Jesus did for you? Does God care about truth? Listen to Jesus' teaching. He said, "I am the way and the truth and the life." It matters to him. Does God care about our eternal destination? Absolutely. He paid for our sin in our place so that we could be with him forever. Does God want to be in relationship with you? Yes, he made that possible through the cross.
So that's what God's like. We have all these different ideas about God, and we want to make God the way we want. I hear people use this terminology in our culture all the time: "My God would never do that." I got news for you: you are his creation; he's not yours. You don't get to create your own God the way you want God to be. He's already God. He's already in the position of rule and authority. You don't get to make him over the way you want him to be and act the way you want him to act.
We are the ones who answer to him; he doesn't answer to us. He's God. So let's stop pretending like we can control that with God. Even when we don't like what God says, we don't have the authority to change it, to manipulate it, to make him something other than who he really is.
Now, the good news is, when we look to Jesus to learn about God, I don't see anything I want to change. The more I get to know Jesus, the more I love the God of the Bible, the more I appreciate the God of the Bible.
He's the image of the invisible God, and he says this terminology is a little bit hard for sometimes. Okay, he's the firstborn over all creation, and we get hung up on the firstborn thing. Sometimes the way we use the word, but in Scripture, "firstborn" is used a lot, but it's not used most of the time in birth order. Right? It said on one passage it says David was the firstborn son of Jesse, but he wasn't; there were older brothers.
What it means is that he was the preeminent one who was chosen above the others for a particular purpose. So Jesus is the firstborn over all creation, and the way that word's being used here is he was already there existing when creation occurred. He was already in existence.
We get confused on that because we think Jesus started with the baby in the manger, but the Scripture is clear that Jesus has been there the whole time because he is God. Listen to what John said in his gospel, John chapter 1, beginning with verse 1: "In the beginning was the Word." Okay? Now, later on, he's going to tell us more about the Word. "In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing has been made that has been made."
Then in verse 14, if you drop down to it, it says, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." That's the incarnation; that's the birth of Jesus as the baby in the manger. But Jesus was already there creating everything when it was created, and then he came into the flesh.
We've seen his glory, he says, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. So he not only was there at creation; he was the creative agent who made it happen. It's Jesus who created all that exists as God. He was the creator.
Now, our minds have a hard time understanding the incarnation and the Trinity because we're not God, and we don't have anything that's like that because there's only one God. So there's nothing to compare that. We try to use a lot of different illustrations, right? Like an egg has a shell and the white part and the yolk, right? It's three in one. Well, that's kind of a simplified version of three in one. I don't think that adequately describes God and the Trinity.
We say, like, human beings are body, soul, and spirit, and that's true. We're made in the image of God, and there's kind of a Trinity to our existence, but it's not quite like God either. God is higher and greater and beyond any of those things. We're not God, but we're created in the image of God. There is only one God, so there's no direct comparison to God and the Trinity.
We say, like, human beings are body, soul, and spirit, and that's true. We're God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That's a unique existence that we don't know anywhere else in all of creation. But that's part of what makes him God and us not God is that existence that he has as three in one.
So he became flesh, and he dwelt among us, and he created everything that has been created. The disciples were saying, John was saying, "We've seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father." They saw the glory of God in Jesus. They could see the connection there when they saw Jesus and listened to Jesus and experienced the power of Jesus and the miracles that he did. They saw that this was God at work as they saw Jesus at work, and so they were able to make that connection as best as we could understand it with our human limitations.
But notice he says something else about him here: "In him all things were created," right? In heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, all those things have been created. But it says, "And in him all things hold together." Friends, I think that's something that we miss a lot of times in the teaching of Scripture and the theology of Christ. He's the one who holds all things together, which means, listen, follow me. If we get away from him, what happens to all things in our lives? They begin to fall apart.
Say he's the source that holds it together for us. The more our lives are going to get more chaotic. And the more a people group gets away from God, the more chaotic life is going to be for that people group. The more a nation gets away from God, what's going to be in its place then? Chaos. Things are going to start falling apart as we get away from God.
You see, there's been a real push in our country to get God out of everything. And what do you see happening all around us? Things are falling apart. All around us. The further we get from God, the more things fall apart.
Why are there so many school shootings? What about the terrible weather? What about the plane crashes? What about this? What about that? Right? You see all this catastrophic stuff happening. And the more we get away from God, the more things keep falling apart all around us.
Now, I'm not saying God made those things. I'm saying there's a natural consequence to withdrawing from God and getting God out of those parts of your life that you're not going to welcome God into. And it doesn't mean when you're close to God you don't have any hard things to deal with. It means you don't fall apart in the middle of it.
Your life doesn't fall apart in the middle of it because you've got the glue of God's presence and power and provision holding things together. But when you don't have that, what happens when bad things happen? Everything just begins to get more chaotic, and it falls apart.
But in Christ, all things are held together as God designed them to be because he's God. He knows how to hold these things together. He knows how to hold my life together for me even when I'm struggling to keep it together.
And so if I can hold on to him in the midst of the chaos, I can hold it together. You've probably heard the old saying, "If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs, you just don't fully understand the situation." You heard that?
But here's a better saying: "If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs, you probably know Jesus well." You remember the Bible says that when you go to him in prayer, he can grant you a peace? You remember the translation says that transcends or that passes all understanding?
You see, people who don't know Jesus don't understand how that works. How you can hold it together when it's so hard, and what you're dealing with is so hard. But when you're walking closely with Jesus and he knows he's got you in his hands and he's walking with you through that dark valley, you can hold it together because he's holding you through that valley.
That's why you can have peace, and your life can still be together even when you're going through those things. So he holds all things together because things fall apart without him. And I think we better realize that if you want to just keep letting them take God out of everything, you have to understand there are consequences that come with that.
Friends, we are suffering some of those consequences in our nation right now because we have allowed God to be removed from so many parts of our life as a country. Now, as if it's offensive to have God in those places in those ways.
And the church used to be a lot more bold to speak up about those things and stand for those things. When I say the church, I'm not just talking about Lakeshore; I'm talking about overall in our country. The church used to be a lot more bold to speak up.
Now, I don't mean speak up in anger. I'm not saying this needs to be a fight that breaks out. I'm saying there needs to be a confidence of boldness in our face to not let them take God out of those parts of our lives. We do it because we love God, but also because we love people, and we know people will suffer terrible consequences if they get away from God. We don't want that to happen to anybody.
And so there's a boldness in our love for God and for each other that causes us to be able to not just sit back and let them take away God in our culture and our society.
Well, he's Lord of all creation, and he's clear about that in those verses that we just read. Let's pick up with verse 18. We see another area where he is Lord.
And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
So the second area that he is Lord over is he's Lord of the church. And I love the description that he uses here. He is, again, he uses that term. He's the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning, and he says the firstborn from among the dead so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
Remember, the theme for this whole series is the supremacy of Christ. That idea of supremacy means, again, firstborn, the preeminence above all the others. Now, Jesus is the head of the church.
The Bible could not be any more clear than it is that Jesus is the head of the church. The reason I say that is because, again, we human beings could do what? We could mess up anything.
One of the first major mess-ups we had is we started saying what became the Catholic Church, that who's the head of the church? The Pope. The Pope is the head of the church. Nowhere in Scripture does it teach that. Not in a single line. Anywhere in Scripture does it teach that the Pope is the head of the church. What it does teach is who is the head of the church? Jesus Christ is the head of the church.
Now, this is not trying to condemn any other group because we've done some of the same kind of things in the Protestant side of the church, not just the Catholic side. In the Protestant side of the church, we formed these denominations and denominational headquarters, and we started taking votes on things and positions that we were going to have and things like that.
So instead of the Pope being the head of the church, we decided that there were denominational leaders that would be the head of the church. But then, you know, us cool, non-denominational people come along, right? We'll get our act together. We know how to do this thing.
So we say, "No, no, no. We're not going to have a denominational headquarters. We're not going to let a denomination tell us what to believe." And instead of letting them control the church, you know who started controlling the church? We did.
The members of the church started deciding for themselves what their church should be like and should teach and should practice. The members ought to have that control. We're the ones giving the money. We're the ones showing up and supporting and doing all the work. So we should get to decide for the church what the church is supposed to be like.
We went from bad to worse. We went from bad to worse, people. Do you think a bunch of flawed sinners has any right to rule over the church? No.
And there were some pastors that rose up to say, "You know, I'm the head of this church, and I'll run this church," right? So they had their egos just get totally out of control. And they started saying, "I rule. I make all the decisions here," right? Some people think I do that at Lakeshore. I know. I've heard the stories. I've heard the comments.
You haven't been in our leadership team meetings. They don't listen to me sometimes. I've got some good ideas, and they don't always think they're good ideas. I don't run it. I'm not supposed to run it. Jesus is the head of the church.
So anybody that's in a leadership role in the church needs to make sure that anything we're doing is coming under the clear teaching of who? Jesus. He's the one who runs this thing, not anybody else. Jesus. Jesus is the Lord of the church.
In chapter 2, he went on to say in verses 9 and 10, he kind of repeated this so we would get it. "For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. And in Christ, you've been brought to fullness. He's the head over every power and authority." That would include the church and everything else.
Jesus Christ is the head, the ruler of the church. Now, let's drill down a little bit because we have a tendency to think of groups and denominations and things like that. Remember, if he's the head of the church, who makes up the church? We do. So what does that make him? The head over us as followers of Jesus Christ.
He's not just head over the church corporately; he's head over the church individually. Individually too. We're going to talk about more of that in just a minute. But I just wanted you to catch that connection with us not being able to claim authority to decide what our church ought to be doing or saying or teaching.
Jesus says, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." He didn't say, "I want you to build yours the way you want."
But sadly, in the American church, especially, it's not just in America; it's other places too, but more so in the American church. What we have started doing is if I don't like that one, I'll go start one the way I like it and do it the way we want to over there.
It's really hard to hear God's directives for the church when you've already made up your mind what you want him to say, how you want it to be done. Your preferences are taking priority over what God's word has already said about those things.
Especially in a culture that's trying to convince the church to adopt the belief system of the culture. How can you say homosexuality is wrong? How can you say all these genders is not really God's plan? What authority do you have? You're right. I don't. And I don't want that job.
You shouldn't want it either. There's somebody, though, who is going to judge, and he's already taught us in his word that we're going to be judged by what he teaches in his word. That's where the judgment standard is going to be. What has God already said about those things?
You know what it says about Jesus as God? He's the same yesterday, today, and how long? Forever. He's not changing. Culture might change. The influence and the pressure the culture's putting on the church might change to do different things and teach different things in different ways, but Jesus and his truth does not change just because the culture has changed and tried to convince you to go along with what they're saying now.
And that's hard. It is hard because the church wants to reach as many people as we can, and sometimes we get caught up in so badly wanting to have crowds and have people come and support and be involved. It's hard. It's hard. It's easy to compromise in certain areas that you know people might be upset by if you teach those things and say exactly what the Scripture really says about those things.
And I've seen leaders, pastors all over the world who have compromised clear teachings of Scripture. And I've got to tell you, I know that pressure as your pastor. I know it full well. I know when I teach certain things, I'm going to get some emails that week. I'm going to get some phone calls, some text messages.
And it would be easy for me to let that get to me to the point that it's easier just either not to say anything at all or change what you say about those things. But I've been entrusted to teach the whole counsel of God, not to change it, not to adapt it to culture, simply to teach it.
And what I've always tried to do, and I want you to pray for me as your pastor and other leaders here at Lakeshore who teach as well, I want you to pray for us that because we love you so much, we're not going to teach you something that we don't believe to be true. We're not going to say something or leave something out just because it makes you feel better not to hear those things.
And I want you to pray that our leaders will have the strength and the courage, the boldness to hold fast to the truth of God's word. Because it's going to get harder, friends, before it gets easier to do that in a culture that keeps kicking God out of every part of our culture.
I understand the world trying to kick God out, but when the church starts doing that, that's when we have failed as a church. That's when we have ceased to be the church that God calls us to be.
So whenever someone is mad at me or arguing with me about some of those things, first of all, I try not to be argumentative, but I always, always, and I want you to hold me to it and every teacher to this, just point people to Scripture. Just point people to the word of God.
Here's what God's word says. Here's book, here's chapter, here's verse. And then I always ask them, "Would you read that back to me? And tell me what that says?"
Now you can take that approach too when you're talking to somebody who disagrees with you over some of those issues. Now you have to know where it is in Scripture. You got to be able to find it, but there's a lot of great tools out there to help you with that.
So you can find those things, and you can always call or email or text us here at the church. We'll try to help you if you've got some questions like that that you're talking to somebody about.
And to do it out of love with the right spirit and the right attitude, but say, "Here's what God's word says. I'm going to hold on to that. I'm just going to teach that. And you have to deal with that the way you choose to deal with that. But I have to deal with that and my accountability to God to tell you what God's word really says about that."
So he's Lord over the church. At least that's the position that he's in, whether we acknowledge it or not.
The third area that we see beginning in verse 21, let's pick up there. "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 that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
The third category is he's Lord over the church. He's Lord of you and me individually, personally, and he's also Lord of everybody who's not here today and outside the church and who rejects God altogether. He's Lord of those people too. They don't acknowledge it; they're not going to admit it. They're not going to, in many cases, ever surrender to it, sadly, but he's still Lord over them.
He's Lord over me and you. But there is a qualifier there that I want you to get. You see, as Lord over us, even when we were his enemies, he says, because of our evil behavior, he took the initiative. He came to us to reconcile us by Christ's physical body through death so that we could be holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.
In other words, he is the one who came to rescue us from our sin. Many times, people haven't even recognized their sin, haven't even acknowledged that they are sinners, haven't considered themselves sinners, and God still came to reconcile them.
But he puts a qualifier on the reconciliation. Look at verse 23: "If you continue in your faith and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel." There's only one source of reconciliation. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. You reject that, there's nowhere else to go to be reconciled to God. There is no other option for reconciliation.
And I know in our culture, here's the pressure they're going to put on you. That's so opposed to your truth. As if truth can exist in contradiction with itself. Here's a problem: either something's true or it's not. If it's not true, it's false. It's a lie.
So if truth even exists at all, there has to be a standard of truth. Or there is no truth at all. So you can't say "my truth" either because truth doesn't exist without a standard of truth.
But if there is a standard of truth, and it's a standard that is standing on facts and information and evidence, then anything that doesn't lie, anything that doesn't line up with that can't be true also. It can't be. Truth doesn't work like that.
Anything that doesn't line up with the truth is not true, whether you want to believe that about it or not. And just because a lot of people say, "Well, this is also true," it doesn't make it so. Either it's true or it's not true.
And what this gospel is saying is, is God reveals that he's saying it's true, that Jesus was God in the flesh, that he bled and died on the cross, that he rose again, and that the good news of the gospel is there for your salvation, and that God chose to give us that chance and that opportunity to be reconciled to him, and he provided that way and no other way.
And if that's true, then everybody, everybody in the world needs to hear about it. Everybody in the world needs to know about it. Everybody in the world needs to be given the opportunity to accept or reject the offer that God is making.
And that's exactly why God put the church on earth. It's so that we could be the voice of that message of truth to a world that needs to hear it. So if the church compromises that, we're putting everybody in jeopardy. We're putting everybody in jeopardy for all eternity because there's no other way for them to be saved.
That's why I love that we have a church family where the leadership all the way down through the church family, even when it's uncomfortable and hard to hear, they proclaim the truth and want the leaders to proclaim the truth. Not every church is like that.
And I'm so grateful to be pastor of this church with that approach. And I'm so grateful to be pastor of this church with that approach to the teaching and the preaching of the good news of the gospel.
But even within a church like this, there'll be people that, when it starts rubbing them the wrong way, are still going to get upset. I have, over the years as a pastor, I've sat in one meeting with some church members that were upset.
And I want you to hear what they said to me in the meeting: "When we come to church, we don't want to be made to feel bad. We want to be made to feel good when we leave."
And I said, "I understand you want to feel good. I want to feel good too. The only way for me to feel good is to love you enough to tell you the truth about those things. I can't feel good about it if I don't."
But here's what I want you to know: if you really want to feel good, here's how you feel the best you've ever felt. It's when you totally surrender to the truth of God, and you don't fight it anymore. That's the best feeling in the world.
To know that you're walking smack dab in the middle of God's will for your life, that's the sweet spot. It's better than any other way you can live your life. It's to surrender to that authority and let Jesus be Lord of all parts of your life.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you. We thank you that you care enough about us to tell us the truth. Because you know falsehoods, lies hurt people. They deceive people. They take people down paths that lead to pain and destruction.
Thank you for telling us the truth about things. Help us not to be so egotistical that we think we know better than you what's right or true or good or bad. But that we know that as God, you created all things. You rule over all things. You know exactly how all things work. You know what will bless and what will curse. And you love us enough to tell us the truth about it.
I pray for those who need to take that step of surrender today, whether they're listening online or they're in one of our services in person. I pray, Father, that today they would get the crust of the hardness of their heart torn apart, torn away to allow you to come in and rule and reign over their hearts and minds. And they would walk today in obedience to you.
It's our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
We're going to stand and sing. We're going to offer you a time of invitation where you could come right up front while we're singing if you have a decision you need to make today. Let's stand and sing together.
Everybody have a seat, please. We've got some praises and prayer requests here that we want to share real quickly. Here, Sherrilyn, come on up. She had asked for a prayer. Come right up here. Let's see if I can get this ready for you. There you go. She had asked for a prayer before. They had done some tests. Felt like it showed that she had had a major heart attack. But tell them what your last test showed.
Amen. Thank you, Sherrilyn. Appreciate you sharing that. Penny, come on up. Penny also comes with prayer requests as well. Step up to the mic there. You've been praying for her brother, right?
Yes. My brother. Yes. Well, continue. Tell us his name again.
Praying for Mike as well. Okay. Jeremy, come on up. He had one too. All right. Step right up there, man. Jeremy's really bashful. Go ahead.
And Mel, come on up.
Amen. Mel's a longtime member here who recently was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Yes. And you got surgery scheduled for Friday. Valentine's Day. What a beautiful way to spend Valentine's Day. But he's praying, of course. He wants us to be praying for the medical team, everybody involved with this, for his family and their concern, and that his hand would be at work for healing through this time with the work of the surgery and other treatment that they'll be doing.
So we want to be praying for Mel. Remember this Friday especially to lift us up. Let's pray today for all these things. Thank God for the good things and pray for his help with these challenges that we face.
Father, we just thank you that we can boldly approach your throne of grace through Jesus, not because of who we are, but because of who he is and what he's done for us. You invite us into your presence to pour out our hearts to you when we have these needs so that we can find the help we need. You promised to give it when we ask you for it.
So we praise you for the good things we've already shared, answers to prayers that we've already seen. We know you to be a God who hears and answers prayer in a way that's best for your children. So we lift up Mel. We lift up these other requests to you, Father. We know that you've gone ahead of all of these things, and you've prepared a way for your glory to be revealed, for your healing hand to be at work.
And we pray that we would be able to not only see it, but we would then respond by giving you all the praise and the glory in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you.
At this time, Dr. Ed is going to come and lead us in a time of communion around the Lord's table here.
I want to thank you again for being here with us today. We love having this time of assembling together. If you'd like to continue worshiping through the giving of an offering, we have offering boxes available. There's one in the back of the auditorium mounted on a post there. There's one in the hallway. As you exit the auditorium, you can just drop your offering in those boxes.
You can also give online at lakeshorechristian.com or scan the QR code in your bulletin shell. And then, of course, you can mail in your offerings to the church office. Either way you do it, it's an act of worship, and it's a way to support the work and the ministry of the church.
Also, if you're a first-time guest with us today, be sure to stop by the information counter on your way out. We've got a gift bag we'd love to give you, more information about our church, and a nice little gift in there for you. We want you to get that before you go. We hope you'll come back and see us again.
This time, Jeremy's going to come up and close us out with some announcements and a word of prayer.
on Feb 09, 2025
