It's great to be here this morning.
It's a privilege. Always to preach the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. It is especially an honor and a
privilege to do that on the Lord's day where we're called to
remember the one who called us out of Darkness Into His
Marvelous Light. There was a powerful piece of
evidence that was given almost 2,000 years ago as to God's
commitment to us and how much he loved us.
And that was he sent his son to die for us.
And we're here this morning to show forth to the world.
That Jesus died. And although that's a great
Paradox. It is a paradox in this way, it
was bad for him, it was great for us and that is something we
need never ever forget. Darkness is one of those things
that we spent a lot of time dealing with believe it or not.
It doesn't matter where you go darkness is one of those things.
Where sometimes you find, fear. I know that in three little
girls where I live. There are night lights and we
don't just have Night Lights. We have multiplicity of not
lights. Just in case one of the Night
Lights goes down because darkness is not a good thing for
going to bed at night. We've got little pink, flamingos
that light up. We got princesses that light up.
We've got Onna and Elsa on the ceiling that will light up.
We got lots of ways that we can bring just a little bit of light
into a room, so that some girls can go to sleep.
Darkness is something I've always been afraid of, you know,
that moment whenever you're riding your bicycle at night and
you're a little boy and you think I'm going to I'm going to
stay as long as I can. And wherever I am and you come
up a road and you see a stump and all the sudden that thing is
turning into a bear. It's not really, but the
darkness just has a way of making everything just looked
like it's coming after you. Well, darkness is one of those
things that Satan doesn't tell you about Satan does not tell
you about how things how things really end.
He doesn't tell you the in-game ago.
He just simply tells you to experience the physical good
stuff and fun. I say good stuff, the physical
enjoyment, the instant, fleshly gratification of, whatever sin
Going through. But what he doesn't tell you, is
it ends in a place literally of outer darkness when Jesus came.
He described it like this light has come into the world but men
loved Darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
Have you ever been asleep? Really, really asleep.
And you found a little girl that found your 1000 Lumen or however
much it is one of them like cannons and they come right up
to your face and go and shine that light and you just have
this physical Physical reaction of just, it is a physical
reaction. When you were asleep, you're in
darkness. But all the sudden you've got
this light cannon, that's now in your face, and you have this
reaction to it. Sometimes, that's how people
react to the Lord. He is such bright light.
He doesn't allow you to stay asleep.
He's going to make you run away. His light is going to shine on
you. It's going to shine, but the
reality many times is that people run away from it.
You look at this guy and this image and all the Darkness of
the room, our enemy. We don't know how dark that is,
but I can promise you, if you use your imagination, you can
see some faces that are lurking in the shadows, many of which
may be, are looking to see what this guy is going to do.
And I do not understand for the life of me, The Human Condition
that many times misery loves company.
And you find people that are dwelling in darkness and they
find reasons to justify that Darkness over and over and over
again. Will God rescues us from
darkness? And we're going to go through
the book of Colossians chapter 1 this morning in about 30
minutes, look at the land of around that Paul was writing as
he wrote to these people. Sometimes we don't know or look
at the geography, but it's pretty neat to think about that.
You look at hieropolis and colossi and laodicea over here
as Ephesus. That's kind of a other region
that were the Tri-Cities and Ephesus that Paul spent time
working establishing congregations in Acts 18 and
also Acts 19. It was all about water.
If you look at these cities, most of them are on waterways.
They had to do that to get things back and forth together.
But again when you look at the colossian letter, here's what
the Bible says, Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of
God and Timothy our brother to the Saints and faithful brethren
in Christ who are in colossi Grace.
You and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. We give thanks to God in the
father of our Lord. Jesus Christ.
Praying. Always for you since we heard of
your faith in Jesus Christ, and of your love for all the saints,
because the Hope which is laid up for up, for you in heaven of
which you heard before, in a word of the truth of the Gospel,
which has come to you as it is now in all the world and is
bringing forth fruit as it is also among you since the day,
you heard and knew the gray. S of God in truth as you also
learn from epaphras. Our dear fellow servant who is a
faithful minister of Christ on your behalf who also declared to
us your love in the spirit. A lot of things in here.
First of all, when you get to the Bible and you need to
understand how it works, it goes like this, the Old Testament
from Genesis to Malachi that was getting us to the point of how
the Messiah, the Son of God was going to come into the world.
He had to jump through all those Hoops, every one of those, every
one of those pages. Just is an amazing page because
it points toward and looking forward to Jesus coming into the
world. But then, in Matthew, Mark,
Luke. And John.
That's about telling us. He did come into the world, he
is the Messiah and you read the book of Acts and how the church
was established. And that's when the gospel
began. It was beginning to be preached
to all the world and that's what's happening right here.
But then, as churches began to be established in cities, like
colossi or Bakersfield California.
There were problems. Is that would creep up.
And so, he writes to the Saints, he writes to the church, those
that are in colossi. He says, to those who were in
colossi, those that he calls literally faithful Brethren.
And then he says, I've heard your faith in Christ Jesus and
of your love for all the saints. In other words, there ought to
be things that you hear about of congregation, there ought to be
ways that you could go into a place or not, even go into a
place. And you can say, okay, tell me
about the church at plans Road. In Bakersfield.
Tell me about the church in Strong Arkansas or at Park in
Farmville. Louisiana.
Tell me about that church. You could have never been there
before. And what you read about today is
a real live Church. They don't have superheroes,
they had normal people just like you but there was something
about him that was unique and that was that they were pretty
on the ball. There were some problems, there
were some teaching that they had to get but they were pretty much
on the ball and one of the things that ought to
characterize all churches of Jesus.
Christ is your love for all the saints, that's demonstrated.
And then he says, because of the Hope, which is laid up for you
in heaven of which you heard before, in a word of the truth
of the Gospel which is come to you.
This is very, very important stuff.
The Bible describes, this is fruit whenever you preach the
gospel. It produces fruit.
You know what God wants? He wants fruit, he wants fruit
from us. He as being a child of God, in
other words when you preach the gospel to people, there's going
to be fruit in the form of people that are saved.
And he also wants fruit out of us.
As individuals and collectively as the congregation.
And he places a great deal of emphasis upon truth.
You heard a new the grace of God in truth.
And then he also tells us there's some people that work
among you. You know, we prayed for Frankie
this morning, he should always do that.
You should pray for the, you should pray for the people that
are working. That's so serious.
In such a big deal. This guy was a heavy hitter, his
name was epaphras and it also tells us that whenever you're
trying to be, all you can be and a congregation is being all you
can be, you can do that. And you need to do that.
But there's always going to be a way that I submit to Chris and
Chris submits to Terry and Terry some it's different.
There's going to be teaching that we all need and were
members one of another, when we sing songs, the Bible says that
we teach and admonish and we encourage one another, that's no
small ball thing. Don't take that for granted,
don't take your voice. For granted, don't take what you
say for. Granted, absolutely, very
important to always be a people that have the word of God and a
song on. Lips because it has power and
God designed it to be something that would constantly fuel Us in
the body of Jesus Christ. Verse 9 says, for this reason.
We also since the day, we heard it, do not cease to pray for
you. And to ask that, you be filled
with all knowledge of his will. In all wisdom, and spiritual
understanding, who do you pray for?
I just talked about praying for Frankie.
Hey, Frankie would tell you this.
Pray for one another, pray for each other.
When you notice, are you perceive that somebody's having
a bad moment? Somebody is going through stuff.
Somebody is really light as kicking their teeth in right,
then you pray for them. I promise you of all the things
I know about God. There are some times, just like
a perfect, father would be there are times when his children are
crying out to him. He moves Heaven and Earth to
make it change. I don't know how he does all
that to him, be the glory for whatever he does.
But I know this you and your mouth on your knees with a heart
that is a pleading and begging the father for your brothers and
sisters in Christ wherever they are all over the world, you're
making a the greatest difference you could ever make.
And it has to do directly with what's coming out of your mouth
and who you're talking to, we're dealing with the god, that is
infinitely powerful, and he wanted us to be filled with the
knowledge of his will. In all wisdom and spiritual
understanding that we may walk worthy of the Lord, fully
pleasing him being fruitful in every good work and increasing
in the knowledge of God. There should never be a time
where I say, yeah, I know what I need to know.
I'm just going to show up and it's all going to be good.
Don't do that. Please don't do that.
We're leaking vessels. You know what I've learned about
people? I've known I've known men and
women that were super, super strong.
But then they got to a point in their life, just kind of again,
I use this illustration a lot because it's true.
Life's coming at you fast. Wife's going to do, it's very
best through the God of this world.
That is Satan to kick your teeth in and he's gonna do everything
he can to make you stop. Feeling yourself up.
And what God is basically saying is this every time you get a
chance, fill yourself up. You're feeling down, you're
feeling. You're feeling like literally
your half-empty you're drained, fill yourself up.
Those are the moments where you need to lean in more than ever
before. And God's plan is that he has a
plan strengthened with all might according to his glorious power
for all patience and long-suffering with joy.
Giving thanks to the father who has qualified US to be partakers
of the inheritance of the Saints.
In light, listen, he has delivered us from the power of
darkness and can fade conveyed us into the kingdom of the son
of his love in whom we have Redemption through his blood,
the Forgiveness of sins. Has anybody told you that
Darkness has power? Sure it does Darkness has power.
He said he he took us out. He has greater power.
He's delivered us from the power of Darkness.
Are you here this morning and you don't feel that you don't
have to just feel something about that?
You can know it. You can know that you've been
delivered from the power of darkness and none of us know,
preacher of the Gospel. What everyone, anybody to come
to an assembly of God's people and leave not knowing what it
is. It is to leave the power of
Darkness. You can this morning but it's
not me. It's going to do it.
It's no man in this group that's going to do that or no woman.
But God can do it. This is whether or not you want
that. That's the most difficult thing
that ever ever existed. The Bible says, whom we have
Redemption through his blood. The Forgiveness of sins.
You got sand in your life. You see this right here.
You see this table? This table was set almost 2,000
years ago by the son of God. This table is very, very
meaningful if you're here, and you've never seen it uncovered
before you're going to see it uncovered in just a few minutes.
After I finished preaching, it's a table.
That's representative of exactly what the Apostle.
Paul by inspiration of the holy spirit said, we have Redemption
through his blood. We're fixing to have communion
of the blood of Jesus Christ. We constantly remember, and we
announce it, we tell the world basically.
He did this for us. Every time we partake of that
loaf, that that is his body that was just shredded for us.
Not physically broken, not a bone was broken, but broken in
the sense of what all they did to his body.
Every time we drink of that cup, we're telling the world and
we're telling ourselves that blood is, the only thing that
saved us. He's your only hope.
He's all that you have and he's reminding.
The colossian church about this. I want to tell you about the
desperate situation that were in here because it's just words
sometimes. Until sometimes you take a page
out of History, this page out of history boschwitz and Dachau and
several of these prison camps. These are men and women lines in
Nazi Germany. The prison lines that Hitler
would have whenever he wrote Mein Kampf, one of the things
you need to know about Hitler is that he was a man who believed
in Darwinism. He did not believe in God.
He did everything he could to run from God.
He would preach a superior and a master race of Germans
basically. And if you know anything about
the Olympics about 1939, when Jesse Owens and American blew
out all the Germans, every one of the snowflakes lost compared
to this guy, it was amazing. It was Awesome.
It was also awesome. That whenever you talk about
Hitler, he would talk about how it was great to be a German.
He wasn't even, German wasn't born in Germany, but that's what
he would preach. And he would preach this, this
doctrine of hate. And so what he did is he
convinced everybody that the real mess up problems of World
War One. And the treaties that Germany
had to sign, they were really the fault of a lot of different
people and he would pin it on several different groups of
people. But one of them was he pinned it
on the Jews. And he would go long and he
would dehumanize the Jews in mind.
Copy told the world exactly what he was going to do.
He would have all of his SS guard read.
Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man that was in 1871.
And 1859 he got the real problem with what he put out about,
basically the strong survive and preached.
The doctrine of Darwinism that we might know now is the theory
of evolution. But in 1871 he preached this
Doctrine and put it in writing and it had all of his guys that
were close to him as SS guard reader.
And it basically goes like this, we should make sure that we
breed human beings, the strong with the strong and get rid of
all the week. If there's any weakness, if
there's any sickness in your family, want you to stop.
And think about that, his whole philosophy was, let's let him
die. In fact, let's encourage it.
Lets get rid of them. He viewed this group of people
the Jews as needed to be exterminated, it wasn't just
them. Wasn't just Jews.
There were Gypsies and others that he wanted to destroy.
But the Jews were a major selection and he would draw rat
noses for Jews, and he would call them all kinds of names.
The point of it, is, you have to dehumanize somebody in order to
kill him. You can't go up to him and say,
hey, you you human being, I'm going to kill you and I feel
nothing about it, but you can kill a rat.
Phil Phil. All right, about fact, if you
feel pretty good about killing rat, You've never known
desperate in your life. To the kind of desperate.
These people were feeling. They were told they were going
to certain places. There were going to go certain
here. They're in Ian and they would
literally put them in cattle cars on railroads and they would
take them toward these death camps.
And they would separate them out.
And I want you to think about how much you have to take out a
Min for those men, not to come across that line and get their
wives, but there was also another line for children.
It's what I'm not telling you about as well.
It was separate all these people out.
And they would put them in these death camps.
Today, you can go to museums and you can find piles of shoes.
Piles and piles and piles of shoes.
Now, these are not shoes that people just got worn out and
didn't want to wear anymore. These are shoes of these.
These people right here, let me tell you what these are.
Those are wedding rings. Those are people that took rings
off their hands. And then the museum today, you
can see wedding rings. There are other boxes of teeth.
There's everything you can imagine every atrocity known to
man. If you were fixing to have a
baby, you were a science experiment for the Nazis.
They didn't care about you, remember.
They think about you, not even as a human being.
They think of you as nothing but less than an atom, will not even
a good animal. And they pile these Jews in
these debt Chambers, these gas Chambers and you see the walls
and you see the columns across the top and they were barely
lit. And they literally would
completely take their clothes off of them and they thought
they were getting a shower. Then they would turn the gas on.
We've never been in a desperate situation like that.
You see this right here? You see those marks on the
walls? Those remarks from human hands.
That called way past their fingernails into the very bone
itself. Trying to figure out a way to
get out of those moments and they're still there staining,
the walls and those literally. Now museums Of one of the worst
periods of human history. Of one of the worst examples of
people that decided that another group of people were not
valuable anymore and not only not valuable anymore that they
needed to be exterminated and anywhere from 6 to 12 million,
Jews died. But I'm going to tell you what
this represents this represents people that wanted to get out of
there and they tried every which way they could, they could to
get out of there and they couldn't get out of there.
There's a guy one time. That was giving advice pretty
popular, guy to families and marriages and a guy stood up in
the in the group and he was talking about his, his family
and he wanted some advice in the way this guy works, is you just
stand up and you're going to own it, you're going to own your
problem and you're going to tell me what your problem is and I'm
going to give you advice in this guy's there.
Any tells this guy he can tell this guy's really not into it.
You know, sometimes you talk to people.
They just kind of halfway want to fix it.
They don't really want to fix it.
They just kind of halfway want to fix.
Well, this guy stands up and he says got a problem with my wife,
not looking too good. He's kind of cavalier about how
he's explaining this to this guy.
And this guy says, hey, you know, let me just say this, is
there anything you're not willing to do and the guy
sitting there and you can tell his calculating like, okay?
This is where I have to make a full commitment and you can tell
you didn't really want to is like you know what, this is
going to work. Well then the guy gets a little
defensive when somebody tells you, oh, you this thing going to
work sometimes. Then you say, oh no, it's gonna
work, it's gonna work. Like okay, it's gonna work.
He said, I know you're missing. My point until you want your
marriage to work. As bad as you want to breathe.
It said, Let me Give an example of this.
I'll tell you guys a story from Pat Riley, from the Lakers days.
They said Pat Riley used to go in and try to motivate and Pat
Riley's a tremendous motivator always has been.
He goes into the locker room and he has a bucket.
One of those guys has a bucket of water that they've got their
ankle in you know they didn't have all the fancy stuff they
have now and weren't hooked up to everything.
You just stick a bad ankle in a bucket eyes.
He goes in before the game and sticks his head in the bucket of
ice. For a long time, I'm not talking
about a little time. They said we started getting
worried about him. We start thinking what in the
world. And finally, he came up for air,
and it's point to his players was, and this is the same point.
This motivational van was making to this, this bad husband, he
said until you want it to work until you want it.
As bad as you want to breathe, it won't work.
There's a lot of Truth in that. Do you want to be saved as bad
as you want to breathe? Be like, well, I don't know.
Well, I'm going to tell you about how bad you want to
breathe fight or flight will take over you.
Let somebody shove your head under water.
It's going to take about two seconds for you.
Realize you can fight off a bear.
I was the littlest brother. I was but little baby brother.
I know what it is for brothers Savannah's here.
My niece, my older brother knew what it was to hold my head
under water. I knew what it was to fight off
a brother, eight years older than me to come up there and he
was about to kill me but it He's one of those fun things, right?
Wasn't fun for me. Sometimes, I had it coming.
I was the aggravating little brother.
But until you want it, as bad as you want to breathe.
Until you want it. As bad as you want to breathe.
You don't want it. It's going to take that.
We've got to be a people that know what it is to recognize the
situation we're in. And we've got a want to get out
of this moments, and we got to do everything we can to one out
so bad. There's nothing we won't do.
There's no wall. We won't try to climb out of.
Do you know the power of our God?
Here's what the Bible says. These people knew that.
Whenever one of their, they would start trying to hold their
breath as this gas and they would see people dropping.
They would hold it as long as they could.
As they literally, Claude, the walls But they were all dying.
Here's what Paul said. But God, who is rich in Mercy
because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we
were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ and
raised us up together and made us sit together in the Heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. That in the ages to come.
He might show the exceeding Riches of his grace, in his
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Here's the difference, we had this coming, we had this coming,
we deserve to die. Jesus did not die.
Earth to die, but he died. Anyway, God, commendeth his love
toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for
the ungodly. Verse 15 says he Jesus is the
image of the invisible. God, the firstborn over all
creation for by him are all things created that are in
heaven. And that are on earth, visible
and invisible, whether Thrones, or dominions, or principalities
or Powers. All things were, you were
created through him. And for him, he is before all
things and in him all things consist and he is the head of Of
the body, the church. Who is the beginning, the
firstborn from the dead. That in all things, he might
have the preeminence. He's making an authority
argument there. The holy spirit is he's
basically saying, who are you going to surrender your life to
who is it? That is now in charge of your
life and that somebody is the one that spoke the world into
existence. That's who you want in charge of
your life. That's who you want leading you
You want the one that saw? What you cannot do for yourself
and he did it for you. You want him, you want him in
charge? You want the one that has always
been? In charge of your life.
The Bible says in verse 19 for it pleased, the father that in
him, all the fullness should dwell and by him to reconcile
all things to himself by him, whether things on earth or
things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his
cross. And you, who once were alienated
and enemies in your mind by Wicked Works yet.
Now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh, through
death, to present you, holy and blameless and above reproach in
his sight. If indeed you continue in the
faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the
hope of the Gospel. gospel, which you heard, which you
preached it to every creature under Heaven of, which I Paul
became a minister You know who had to make the way for you.
Jesus. Those hands.
Those hands had to be nailed that body had to be physically
abused. Paul said a rather Jesus said in
Luke chapter 24. He said everything in the law,
everything in the profits, and everything.
In the psalm says, the Christ had to suffer.
My sins made him suffer. Why?
Because God is just God's just. If you ever wondered how it is
that inside all of us, there's this thing where we want
somebody to get what's coming to.
I have it real strong, the force runs strong in me on that one.
Somebody gets what's coming to him, you know, the word.
I really kind of that. That's a real problem for me.
It's great to say this person that hurts a little kid.
This person that does this, this person that does that, they
ought not to, they ought to get what's coming to him.
Do you know where I need to start saying that in the mirror
every single morning? But Jesus got what was coming to
me. And he got, what was coming to
you? No one off to have to beg you,
to come to worship. Every Lord's day to sing,
praises to Jesus, to God, to the spirit, that literally made all
of this happen. They weave together.
A plan, that was only reserved in their mind and today you're
here to celebrate a death that dot was died for you.
You're here to talk about and listen to and watch a service, a
memorial that announces to the world that Jesus died, and
literally in his flesh. Something amazing happen for our
benefit verse 24. Says, I now rejoice in my
sufferings for you and fill up in my flesh.
What is lacking in the afflictions of Christ?
For the sake of his body, which is the Church of which I became
a minister according to the stewardship from God, which was
given to me for you to fulfill the word of God, the mystery,
which has been hidden from ages from Generations but now has
been revealed to his Saints to them.
God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory.
Free of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in,
you the hope of glory. Mystery.
We like Mysteries, I don't know if you ever remember there used
to be a show where William Shatner before he started making
silly commercials used to have this show called Unsolved
Mysteries. When I was little preteen that
came on I have never drawn the shades at night, more and
locked. My bedroom door.
More than listening to Unsolved Mysteries.
Because you just would think that whoever done the deed that
still out there lurking around that they're still looking for,
it happened in your neighborhood and the guy was seen last in
your neighborhood. That's how it kind of affected
me. I want you to take that same
consideration. and understand that the mystery, The mystery
was revealed and is being revealed to you today at your
address and your ears and your heart.
And the goal is for everybody in the whole world to understand
this mystery. Listen to what the Apostle Paul
said in Ephesians 3, how that by Revelation, that's the Bible he
made known to me. The mystery is I've written
already by which when you read you may understand my knowledge
in the mystery of Christ. Which in other Ages was not made
known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed by the
spirit to his Apostles, and Prophets that the Gentiles.
That's all Us should be fellow heirs with the Jews.
In other words, and of the same body, there's just one and
partakers of his promise in Christ, through the gospel of
which I became a minister according to the gift of the
grace of God, given to me by the effective working of his power.
You want to know why I said that, he said that, because this
is a guy that it is very best to destroy the church.
And now he's writing about God's plan, really, to allow him to be
in it. To me, who I'm lit, Who Am less
than the least of all the saints.
This Grace was given that I should preach among the
Gentiles. The unsearchable Riches of
Christ and to make all men. See What is the Fellowship of
the mystery? Which from the beginning of the
ages has been hidden in God who created all things through,
Jesus Christ to the intent. That now, the manifold wisdom of
God, by me, they'd known by the church, to the principalities
and powers in The Heavenly places.
According to the Eternal purpose, which he accomplished
and Jesus Christ, Our Lord So, let me go back and just break
down one or two things very quickly.
We understand the mystery now. It used to be a mystery.
Now, it's been revealed. What's the mystery Well, I doubt
there's anybody in here. Maybe after Services.
You can come tell me if you're a natural born Jew and you got a
lineage for your just Jewish by birth most of us in here.
Can't say that most of us in here are Gentiles what God did
is he changed everything in Jesus Christ.
It used to be about the Jews and the bloodline that would bring
Jesus into the world. And what God did to help us
understand how powerful Jesus is the son of God, he said, look,
it used to be a bloodline that was back to Abraham were These
Jews would say I've got Abraham's blood in my veins.
When Jesus came along, the Bible says that we have the power to
become a part of the family of God.
He said we are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of us as have been baptized into Christ, have put
on Christ, therefore there is neither Jew nor Greek.
There is neither Jew nor Greek Bond or free male nor female.
But Year all one in Jesus Christ and if you be in Christ, then
are you Abraham's seed and heirs?
According Cording to the promise.
In other words, God made a way for us to sit here in this
assembly and be able to be just like everybody else as his
children. And we need to thank Jesus for
that because our Our savior. Died.
So we can sit at the same table. He sits at He made it available.
He made it available, not just that the Bible describes, this
Fellowship of the mystery that used to be hidden and he said
that now God's purpose, his manifold wisdom is made known by
the church. What is the church?
The church just simply means Ecclesia in the original.
It just is the called out what are we called out?
If were called out of Darkness into light, Is it my plan is in
the thing. I'm going to show to the world
is I'm going to bring people out of their sins and I don't care
what they look like and what their background is and I don't
care what race they are. I Don't Care What ethnicity are.
I don't care. Okay, who they are?
Because there's somebody that tore apart all the differences,
that separate ethnicities, and races and languages.
And that somebody was Jesus Christ.
That somebody was Jesus Christ, not only that he said the Angels
found out about it. He said the principalities and
powers in The Heavenly places found out about it.
You know who that is anxious. Angels God kept it in his mind.
When the Bible says, there was a mystery, it was a mystery in
heaven for the angels to they didn't know about it.
Do you know that the Angels long to look into these things?
Lots of people long to look into these things and now you get to
know the manifold are multifaceted.
Wisdom of God, that you are God's plan.
You right here in these pews are the manifold wisdom of God.
You're the mystery revealed. God can take people, no matter
who you are and where you are and put you in one body.
And strip away, all the genetic predispositions, that we may
have and grow in us one group. One savior can do that.
And that was Jesus. He can take you from your
background, he can take you from your sins.
He can take you from all of this and he can accomplish all of it
because that's his eternal purpose that he accomplished in
Jesus Christ. Our Lord verse 28 says him.
We preach warning. Every man and teaching every man
in all wisdom that we may present every man, perfect in
Jesus Christ, that means complete to this end.
I also labor striving according to his working, which works in
me mythili. All Paul did all of his life is
he wanted to bring men to Jesus. He even tried to make a deal,
the Holy Spirit. Wouldn't let him go there but he
did let him explain it. The Holy Spirit gave him the
words to say it like this? I would give my life.
Basically, I would trade places with all the Jews if I could.
I wish that my brethren, my Jews, my family, my people.
Would come to know Jesus like I do.
God won't let you make that trade.
It won't let that happen. That's not yours to make.
It's not yours to make its each Soul at a time and what Paul did
is, sometimes he did it individually, sometimes he would
go in and he would reason with people whatever it was.
Sometimes he would have large groups of people.
Sometimes he was in jail, and he would convert Caesars household,
amazing. His goal was to bring men to
present them and get them ready to meet Jesus.
Do you know what we're trying to do this morning, we're trying to
get everybody ready to meet Jesus.
If I told you that after Services, Jesus was outside the
door, Or he was here, he was here right now.
You tell me what would be on your heart and mind.
Tell me what you be wanting to do.
I'm gonna tell you what Paul was trying to do.
He said that we may present every man perfect in Jesus
Christ. He said I'm doing this with all
that I have. And God works in me to do this.
It's not me. It's not Frankie, it's not any
other preacher of the Gospel. It's God working.
It's his power. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For it, is the power of God unto
salvation, to all, who believe to the Jew first and also to the
Greek, you may have come here this morning and thought you
were just going to attend a service and you were going to
feel good about attending to worship service and you should
attend feel good about attending to worship service.
That's great but maybe just maybe you're not ready.
Maybe just maybe though you're ready.
Now, to recognize that Jesus Christ is all you need and he's
the one that's going to fill you up.
He can fill you up. if you're low and you're down and out and
you don't have any more strength to go, there is somebody that
can work in, you mightily in a way and with functions that I
don't fully comprehend But I know this.
That there is a possibility for us to live a Victorious Life in
the midst of circumstances. That are hard to even talk
about. And the reality of being able to
live, that life is Christ in you the hope of glory.
Is Christ in you. If Christ is in you, you have an
Earnest expectation. You have a hope of one day,
being with him in glory. If you have been drained by sin
and sin, by the way, will drain you send will drain Jesus right
out of your life. Sin will drain you and make you
feel like the Lord's, not doing anything for you.
And the church is not doing anything for you and I just I
need to be somewhere else. I need to do something else.
That's not the Lord doing that that's in doing that.
Stop letting the devil drink out of your drink.
Sometimes the devil's drinking with a big straw faster than the
Lord, God Almighty is piling in. And that's just kind of how it
works. He will drain you dry.
He'll leave you hopeless. He'll leave you away from God.
He'll lead you with all kinds of guilt and stain that you don't
feel like you can get off. What I want to tell you is this
that vessel that you feel like this morning will never be able
to be full again, there is a God in heaven, that can put all
those broken pieces back together again, and fill you up.
That's the power of the Gospel. That's the power of the god that
we serve and that is the power of a Christ that we're here to
celebrate and remember this morning.
And there is one other being in the godhead three that must
never be ignored. He is the one that has inspired
the Apostle Paul to write to this church.
And he is one that the father and the son, both took issue
with anyone that would grieve or frustrate.
And there is no greater grief, that you will ever give the holy
spirit of God. Then when he has convicted you
of what you need to do, and you resist him and walk away.
If you're here this morning and, you know, you need to make a
change in your life that change is between you and God and we
want to help you with it. In fact, we're that's how it's
going to work. You see?
The Bible says that when you want to be saved, you have to
come to the Lord. You have to, he said, go into
all the world and preach the gospel to Every Creature, he who
believes and is baptized shall be saved.
Why would he say that in Matthew 28?
He said, go and make disciples of all Nations, baptizing them,
in the name of the father, in the name, of the son, in the
name of the Holy Spirit, listen in the name of the father, in
the name of the son, and the name of the holy spirit is the
only kind of baptism you ever need to be a part of and it is
for the remission of your sins. You see the father and the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, are the only ones that can justify your
sins and your mistakes and You may go to some man that tells
you you've been absolved from sin that man lied to you.
I can show you the words of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit directly revealed. I can show it to you in
scripture right now. You want it, here goes John
8:24, the Son of God says he that if you don't believe that I
am he you will die in your sins. The Son of God said in Luke 13
and 3. I tell you nay but unless you
repent you will all likewise perish.
The Son of God said, whosoever therefore, shall confess me
before men. I will confess him before my
father but if you don't confess me before men I will not confess
you before my father. Jesus, the son of God said, go
and preach the gospel to Every Creature, he who believes and is
baptized shall be saved. He that does not believe shall
be damned. Jesus is the one that said in
John 3 and 5 except a man be born of water and of the spirit,
he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
That happened in Acts 2:38, they cried out, recognizing their
lost condition men and Brethren, what shall we do?
The Holy Spirit, inspired the Apostle, Paul the Holy Spirit,
literally had fallen upon these men and they began to speak by
the power of the Holy Spirit and they said repent.
Baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of your sins and ye shall receive the gift of the
holy spirit for the promise, is to you and to your children and
to those that are fought off far off.
And to as many as the Lord, Our God shall call, then they that
gladly received their word were baptized and that same day were
added unto them about 3,000. Souls verse 47 says the Lord
added to the church daily such as were being saved.
Have you been saved? That's the plan because I just
showed you from the Son of God from the Holy Spirit.
And from God, the Father Will you surrender to that plan?
Will you come this morning and confess your faith that you
believe? Jesus Christ is the son of God.
It's the most important thing that'll ever cross your lips.
You will have the assistance of someone that will help you in
surrendering to being baptized into the death, burial and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. And you arise to walk in newness
of life and all your old life is done away with all the things
that you felt guilty about and you're ashamed of, and you wish
nobody else could know about those things.
Nobody else is going to know about.
This is an offer from the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. We thank you for listening to
our podcast, put on by the Church of Christ at 22:15 plans.
Road in Bakersfield, if you would like any additional
information or you would like to receive a free Bible
correspondence, course by mail. Please email us at info at True
Church of Christ Bakersfield.com.
Our service times are on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and
Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. Please make plans to join us.
We would love for you to be our honored guest.