Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
I'm going to invite your attention to Colossians chapter
#3 this morning. If you don't know where that is
in the Word of God, go to the back portion of your Bible.
It's near the rear of the New Testament, the book of
Colossians. You have Galatians, Ephesians,
Philippians, and Colossians in that short little span there.
Colossians chapter #3 And the title of the message this
morning is Obviously This Christ is All to go along with our
theme for 2026. You know, we've had 11 different
themes over the years we've been here at Liberty.
I actually had to go through my notes to be able to find them
all again because it's amazing to me how much of A focus they
are for a year. But then after a while they kind
of fade to the back of your mind as a new theme takes its place.
2014, our very first one was Triumph in Christ.
And to be honest with you, just the fact that the church was
established and still open after a year was a triumph.
Triumph in Christ first 2015 was walk worthy 2016 that ye may
grow 2017 be found faithful then launch out and who is on the
winning side. 2020 diligently seek him 2021 he is worthy 2022
set at liberty 2023 one word forward and then verse #20 or
year 2024 and 2025 add to your faith.
And I really feel like each of these came at just the right
time and just the right season for us as a church.
I particularly think of 2020 and 2021 and 2022 going into 2020
could never have imagined that diligently seek him would have
been so important when people were seeking answers from all
different places when we didn't even know what the questions
were, let alone the answers. In 2020.
I was so glad to be able to have that mind focused on the fact
that the Lord was the one that we were to diligently seek.
And I think a 2022 set at liberty, a time of
tumultuousness at our church in many ways.
And the fact that those who the Lord had left remained here set
at liberty. I could never have imagined how
that would have all worked together.
And then to see how the Lord has grown this church and to see how
the Lord has blessed this church in so many ways has pleased me
more than I can possibly say to you.
You know, the, the process of choosing a theme is not a
mysterious one. It's not that I have some sort
of special revelation or anything like that.
It's just simply through prayer and through my own Bible reading
that I see a phrase or I see words that just kind of seem to
jump out at me and arrest my attention.
And it just seems like the Lord's leadership is such that
this would be something for us to be able to focus on.
And maybe you'd ask this question, you know, Pastor, why
are we spending a year on Christ is all?
Why would we spend an entire year just thinking about the
fact that Christ is all those 3 little words?
Why would we do that? How could we do such a thing?
Well, I think it's important because my fear is not just for
you, but really for my own life as well.
I feel like a lot of us are very fond of Christ, but we can't say
that Christ is all. I'm not making an accusation.
You're all looking at me like I'm trying to hurt your
feelings. All right?
I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings this morning, but I'm
just saying this that I feel like a lot of us are very fond
of Christ. I think a lot of us feel that
he's very important to us. But to say that he is all like
the scripture says, it's something I think many of us are
not prepared to be able to say. For many, Christ is just part of
who they are as a complex creature.
You know, we're many components that make up who we are, aren't
we? You know, I think of the fact we
live in the Boston area and that kind of is part of our DNA a
little bit. Whether you were born in this
area and you say you park the car in Harvard Yard, but the
other way, you know, and you've lived in this area or like for a
transplant like I am in this area, I feel like especially
when you go to different parts of the country, it's part of who
you are. It's a curiosity that people
have when you go different places.
And so that's part of our identity.
You know, being a parent or being a spouse, that's part of
your identity and it's who you are loving coffee is a part of
your identity, at least here at Liberty Baptist Church.
Amen. Like coffee lovers, you know,
people love to coffee, they love the pets, they love dogs, they
love cats. Yes, people even love cats.
Amen. I love cats.
I know that. We got a few in here, all right.
Everyone else, not so much, all right?
That's okay. It's all part of who we are.
It's part of who we are as people.
But unfortunately, I think for many Christians, Christ is part
of their identity, like a small room in a larger house, but it's
not their actual identity, like the foundation upon which the
whole house stands. And that's who we are to be as
believers, that Christ isn't just a small part of the larger
whole, but that truly Christ is our everything, because Christ
is everything. Jesus put it this way in Matthew
7 verses 24 and 25. Therefore, whosoever here at
these sayings of mine, and do with them, I will liken him unto
a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded
upon the rock. Jesus Christ is that rock that
we found our life upon. Paul put it this way in
Philippians chapter 1, verses 20 and 20.
One, according to my earnest expectation and my hope that in
nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness as
always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether
it be by life or by death. For me to live is Christ, he
says, and to die is gain. Paul's not being ambiguous there
whatsoever. He's saying that in his life,
whether he lives or he dies, Christ is all to him.
This morning I want us to consider why Christ is all.
Then over the Sunday mornings to come this year, we're going to
look at the different characteristics of Christ.
Why is he all? Who is he?
Do we understand not just the fact that he lived and he
ministered and he died and he resurrected, but who he was in
his earthly ministry and who He is today and how that impacts
each and every one of us in our spiritual lives as well, these
characteristics of Christ. There's so many more, more than
you likely realize, and with so many characteristics of Christ,
there's no doubt that Christ should be all in our lives.
Would you stand please for the reading of God's Word?
We're in Colossians chapter #3 if you'd stand please for the
reading of God's Word. We're to read from verse #1 to
verse #11 and we'll only be really looking at verse #11
today, but we'll be looking at the whole text next week as
well. So I think we should start from
the beginning where it says this.
If he then be risen with Christ, Seek those things which are
above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection on things above, and not on things on the
earth, for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also
appear with Him in glory. Mortify therefore your members,
which are upon the earth, fornication, unclean in
ordinance, affection, evil, concupiscence and covetousness.
This which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of
God cometh on the children of disobedience, into which He also
walked sometime when He lived in them.
But now you also put off all thieves, anger, wrath, malice,
blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Lie not to one another, seeing that she had put off the old man
with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in
knowledge after the image of him that created him.
Now look at verse 11. Where there is neither Greek nor
Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian,
Cynthian, bond nor free. But Christ is all and in all.
And that last phrase there is what I really want us to focus
on today. But Christ is all and in all.
You may be seated as we pray together.
Heavenly Father, I do thank you for this morning and I thank you
for all that we're here today. My heart's desire is that there
are those who may be unsaved that need to know what it means
to be saved. Not what religion says or not
what a man's opinion is, but what does the Word of God say
about the gospel? I pray that those people would
come to a saving faith today. And you, I do pray for those who
are part of our church, that each and every one of us not
need to just be fond of Christ Lord, but that He is our all, as
He is all and in all. Lord, help us all to be able to
receive from your Word through Your Holy Spirit that which we
need today. Help me to deliver it in a way
that's understandable, that is honest to the Scriptures, a Lord
that magnifies you above all else.
And I do ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
Colossians 311 is one of the more powerful and believe it or
not, beloved verses that you'll find in all of scripture.
It was the favorite. I didn't know this until
recently. It was the favorite verse of Sir
Isaac Newton. The Puritan writers use the
verse to confront nominal Christianity, meaning this may
be Christianity in name only, insisting that Christ must be
the believers defining reality, not merely some added devotion.
Matthew Henry, the great commentator, said the verse
teaches that Christianity does not improve the old man, but
rather replaces the old man. And Charles Spurgeon, perhaps
one of the greatest preachers of all time, that great Baptist
preacher of the 1800s in London, preached on this text at least
four different times to thousands upon thousands at the
Metropolitan Tabernacle. Now, as we look at our theme
text this morning, there are two points I want to set out to
prove to you in the next few minutes.
I think the first one won't be too hard for us to be able to
look at. The second one might need some
convincing, but these two things that I want us to see this
morning are this first of all #1 mankind has always been divided.
And #2 Christ is the answer to all division.
I think #1 we can all agree this morning, no matter where you are
or where you've come from, that, number one, mankind has always
been divided. Does anyone want to argue with
that today? I would imagine that wouldn't be
the case. We are the United States of
America, but in many ways we are the divided States of America,
aren't we, that we live in division?
But I would say that division is not something that just appeared
in the last 15 or 20 years. In fact, I think people
sometimes seem to think that it just recently arrived on the
scene. But division has been something
that man has been doing well pretty much since man has been
on this earth. It's always been about division,
dividing from one another. Verse #11 talks to that and
points to that where it says there is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Cynthian, bond or
three. Now, that might not sound too
much like something that we would understand today, but as
Paul is writing this letter, this letter to the Colossians,
that means it was to the city of Coloss in Greece.
As he's writing of this letter to the people of Colossus.
They would have understood exactly what Paul was talking
about when he name checked these different groups and these
different ways of living. In fact, one commentary says
Colossus had once been a significant city, but by the 1st
century it had declined in prominence, overshadowed by
nearby Laodicea and Harapolis. It's population was ethnically
and religiously diverse, including native Phrygians.
Greeks influenced the by Hellenistic culture and a
substantial Jewish community. This mixture created a setting
where ideas from Judaism, Greek philosophy, and local folk
beliefs all came together. And so these people of Colossus
would have understood who these groups were and how Paul was
trying to say there's neither this nor this.
There's neither this nor this or these other groups as well.
And so as he begins the verse, he gives some of those contrasts
and he starts with this. There is neither Greek nor Jew
and some other places in the word of God.
Well, you see that word Greek, it's also used for Gentile.
And so Gentile or Greek would really be a non Jew and then the
Jew would be, well the Jew. So you have the first set of
contrasts. You have the Greeks, the non
Jews, but then also the Jews as well.
This is talking about ethnic identity, immutable traits.
These are people from this group.
But then there are people from this group, but then it mentions
others as well. The other contrast of
circumcision or uncircumcision. Now at first we might think of
that being, well, the same as Jews and Greeks, because we
understand that the Jews were given the sign of circumcision
in the Old Testament. It was part of their covenant
relationship with the Lord. It was a sign of that which God
had promised them. And so immediately we might
think it's just a restating of that, which was just said in the
contrast before between Jews or Greeks.
But I actually believe it was something deeper than that
because circumcision was a sign for those not only who were
ethnically Jews, but those who also became Jews as well, those
who became part of the covenant relationship of the Jews.
And so we'd almost look at it deeper than that and say when it
talks about the circumcised and uncircumcised, it's talking
about people of different religious beliefs, not just the
immutable traits that were born with.
But it says, you know, there's this tension between Jews and
Greek geeks, but there's also this tension of those who
believe in the Lord, but also those who don't believe in the
Lord. There's that natural tension
that's there as well. And then he mentions these other
groups, the Barbarians. We're familiar with that term
Barbarians today. And what you're probably
imagining in your head right now is exactly what it was.
It was those who were outside of the Roman Empire.
I didn't realize this till I studied it out, But the term
barbarian was for them an onomatopoeia.
That word kind of means a word that sounds like what it is.
And for them, they were looking at those who are outside the
Roman Empire, whose languages they didn't understand, and they
would often think that that sounded like they were talking
like bar, bar, bar bar. That's what it sounded like
their unknown language to them. And so they called them
Barbarians. They were people who weren't
part of the Roman Empire. They didn't know him.
And they said, well, we'll call them Barbarians.
And Cynthians, listen to this. We're even worse than
Barbarians. They were even Wilder in the
sensitivities of the Roman Empire.
They were savages in many ways. They were crude, they were
coarse, they were boorish. They were savages, they were
nomads. They were warlike people who
invaded the Fertile Crescent in the 7th century before Christ.
The Synthians were notorious for their savagery.
And then it goes on to say there's bond and free talking
about those who are part of the slave market and the slave trade
during that time, which in many places in the Roman Empire could
have been up to a order in some places of those who were living
or more were slaves that were held as slave labor.
And so there's all of these different groups here.
And many of those groups were at odds with one another.
Jews and Greeks, circumcised and uncircumcised in many ways, all
of them against the Barbarians and the Synthians were against
everybody. And then Bond and Free, it seems
like could there be any unity? Could it be anything that they
have in common? No, it seems like more than
anything, it was just vision. They were divided, They were in
these different camps, and in many ways it felt like they had
nothing in common with one another at all.
But here we are 2000 years later, and don't you feel like
there's a lot of similarities to where we are today?
Again, we live in a divided nation, which is in the midst of
a divided world. See, we as mankind with all of
our advancements. And we've had a lot of
advancements technologically speaking, haven't we?
But with all of our advancements, we still get into
the age-old debates of being divided by all of these
different things. Mankind is divided by race.
Mankind is divided by color, mankind is divided by language.
Mankind is divided by social classes, particularly in other
nations where some of the social stratas are still held to today.
And you can't leave the caste system of which you were born
into. Those are still around today for
billions upon this planet. Mankind is divided by economic
classes. Mankind is divided by education,
where you're college educated, where you're part of a trade.
Did you graduate high school? Did you get a GED?
We break up into all these different camps and we even
break into smaller camps, and a lot of them aren't even
important, but it seems like we try to break ourselves into
smaller groups than that. There's the Ford people against
the Chevy people, there's the Duncan people against the
Starbucks people. There's the iPhone people
against everyone else, the Android.
There's Coke and Pepsi. There's early birds and night
owls and by the way, early birds.
I just want to know how you do it.
That's all I want to know. Early birds, night owls, aisle
seat against window seat, Pats against chargers.
Wait, no, that's tonight. Never mind.
We're divided into all of these different groups, and some of
them important and some of them meaningless.
But it's like we're always dividing and trying to find our
group and define our niche, and this is what mankind does.
And if it was just to find people with common belief so
that then we could reach out to other people, that would be one
thing. But mankind divides, and in the
division we find that they can get pretty heated, get pretty
difficult, and we live in a world that bears witness to
that. Mankind is divided by belief
system. We find that all throughout the
word of God. You can go all the way back to
the first family. No, not Adam and Eve, but their
sons, Cain and Abel, they divided.
One died over the issue of whether offering should be made
with fruits and vegetables or the blood of animal sacrifices.
God commanded Abraham divided with his family and moved to a
promised land of which he didn't know where it was, but he just
trusted the Lord to go and divided from his family.
In the old world, Samuel is a young man divided from the
leadership of Israel who we're not doing right, and decided he
would do right in a time of great wickedness of Israel.
Ruth divided from her people in Moab when Moab was not serving
the Lord, but yet she decided to go back with Naomi to Bethlehem,
Judah. And she said in Ruth chapter
one, verse 16 For whither thou goest I will go, and where thou
largest I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people
and thy God, my God. Daniel and his friends divided
from the leadership of Babylon, and we're willing to put their
lives on the line against the false gods and the false
leadership of Babylon. But this division of belief is
still true today. There's Christians, there's
Jews, there's Muslims that make up 4 million or rather 4
billionth of the world's population today, not to mention
over 4000 religions worldwide at the best estimate of many.
There's different national beliefs.
There's right and left, Conservative and Liberal,
freedom and socialism, red state and blue state.
Do I really need to convince you how divided we are today?
I think if there's anything today, you'd probably say
pastor, it's overkill. Pastor.
I understand, Pastor, we live in a divided world.
But yes, it's always been a divided world.
The problem has always been division.
Mankind keeps dividing. The camps keep getting smaller
and the camps keep getting more vicious every day.
So let me ask you this. With all that division, are you
unsettled? Are you afraid?
Are you concerned for? Yourself, your kids, your
grandkids. Are you like me that there were
times this week that you just as your normal habit of life, you
click online or on your phone to check the news and maybe you
said, oh, I don't know that I want to look at it because I
don't know what I'm going to see.
I felt that this week. Have you felt that this week?
Do you have that concern? Mankind is divided in your
heart. Are you asking yourself the
question, Maybe? Is there an answer to all of
this? Is there an answer to the
madness that's around us? Is there an answer to the
divisiveness? Is there an answer to the
problems? Is there an answer to sin
itself, the very root cause, the very root problem of mankind?
Could there be an answer? Well, as I told you a few
moments ago, listen, mankind has always been divided.
That's clear in verse #11 Greek, Jew, circumcision,
uncircumcision, barbarian, sentient, bond, or free.
And you could put any of the groups that I just mentioned in
there and update it for today. I'm not talking about changing
the Word of God, but I'm saying the same problems exist today
day that existed back then. But here's the answer that
Christ is the answer to all division.
If you get nothing else from today, understand this that in a
world that is divided, Christ has always been the answer to
all division. Don't miss the 1st 4 words of
this verse. Look again at verse #11 it says
where there is neither, meaning this there's an answer to that
division. So there's a place where there
is neither Jew or Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision,
barbarian, sentient bond nor free.
Where there is neither means there's an answer to all of
that. And that word but three simple
letters. BUT the conjunction and many
times the most blessed word that you'll find in all of the word
of God. Say, why is that?
Because upon that small word hinges a great change where
there's division. But there is an answer.
But it's not just an answer, it's a very specific answer.
The specific answer is this Jesus Christ.
Why? Because Christ is all and in
all. The answer has always been Jesus
Christ. There's two phrases right there
that we can look at it, and I can tell you that in the short
time I have, there's no way I can treat these as well as I
would like to because there's so much there in such a small short
phrase. Christ is all and in all.
But first we see that Christ is all meaning this.
He is everything that matters. Christ is everything that
matters in this life when it comes to salvation.
He is everything that matters. There is no other name given
upon man, given under heaven whereby man must be saved, but
in the name of Jesus Christ. He is everything that matters.
He is your identity. We're not Bostonians and we're
not Americans and we're not all of these other things first, or
coffee lovers or cat lovers. Apparently not many of those
today. We all those things when our
true identity comes from Christ, he first and foremost, you say,
so I'm not supposed to identify with anything else.
Well, of course you are. You can't.
We live here and this is where we are and this is the nation
we're in. And by the way, I'm so glad to
be an American. I'm thankful to be able to live
in the United States of America, even with all of its flaws and
all of its difficulties. I'm so thankful that we are
placed here for such a time as this.
But I will say this, that even with all of those identities,
Christ is the primary identity. And as we identify with him,
listen, he makes us better, better and all of those other
things you say, well, identify as a parent.
That's that's who I am. Well, identifying with Christ
will make you a better parent. Well, I'm a spouse.
That's wonderful. Christ will make you a better
spouse. 1 of Bostonian. I can't promise you Christ will
make you a better driver. All right.
I can't promise you I can get upset in traffic.
All right, That's a that's that's between you and the Lord.
All right, But I do know this. Listen, He is our identity.
Christ is all. He's our righteousness.
Our righteousness doesn't come within ourselves.
We're sinners. We do wrong.
We see that in the very division of which it bounds around us.
We see that we're sinners. But in Christ we are righteous.
We have righteousness through Him.
In salvation, in Christ, there is wisdom.
Wisdom of the world is fool's gold.
It seems like it will lead you a certain direction, but that
direction often times is right off a Cliff.
But the wisdom of the Lord, the wisdom of the Lord is what we
need. Christ is all when it comes to
wisdom. Christ is all when it comes to
purpose. Christ is all when it comes to
hope. Christ alone is the source, the
sum, and the substance of the Christian life.
Now the other side of that is this.
Not only is He everything to us, listen, He is also everything
that matters to me. Christ is all meaning this, that
that he should be everything in my life, but also this he is
lacking nothing. That's why we can say Christ is
all. That's one of the things I want
us to look at over the next several weeks.
Some of these characteristics, consider some of these that Lord
willing, we're going to look at that.
Christ is healer, Christ is teacher, Christ is
compassionate, Christ is meek, Christ is omnipotent, He is
servant, He is holy, He is savior, forgiving, prophet,
eternal, gracious, light, the door, shepherd, life, truthful,
divine, loving, omniscient, peaceful, glorious, judge,
bread, just, sovereign, Redeemer, Lord, humble, creator,
wise, patient, victorious, merciful, sinless, obedient,
priest, righteous, faithful, and king.
That makes me tired. Just saying it all don't make me
say it again, But those all come from New Testament verses that
tell us who He is. Christ is all.
He's not just all to you, but He is all, sufficient and lacking
nothing. Christ is all.
What else in this world can you think of that is
all-encompassing and all powerful like Christ?
Christ is all. But it also says this, that it's
not just that Christ is all, but Christ is in all.
Those are the last words of the verse, and in all meaning Christ
is in all. You realize that when you accept
Jesus Christ as your savior that he dwells within you the spirit
of Christ. Colossians 127 says Christ in
you the the hope of glory. Because of this, Galatians 327
through 29 says for as many of you have been baptized into
Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek,
nor bond, nor free. Does that sound familiar to
anyone? We have Christ within us.
There's neither Jew nor Creek, nor bond, nor free.
There's neither male nor female. You're one in Christ Jesus.
Meaning what? Where there was division, now
there's unity. What mankind cannot accomplish,
only God can accomplish. If you be Christ's, then ye are
Abraham's seed and errors according to the promise,
because He is in all. He is the only truly unifying
factor that you can find in this world that you can always rely
on. Oh, there's other unifying
factors. I understand that, but they
don't work 100% of the time. Oh, there's some good programs
out there. There's some good thoughts out
there, there are some philosophies out there that
might steer you in the right direction, but if it comes from
man, listen, it won't work 100% of the time.
But I will tell you this, there's only one who is always
the unifying factor and that is Jesus Christ.
He can heal the vision of this world, but listen, most
importantly, He can heal the division of your broken heart as
well. He can heal the division of the
world, and it starts with each having their hearts healed from
the division that comes by sin and brokenness.
He can unify a marriage. Christ is in all.
He can bring unity to a marriage.
He can bring unity to a family. Believe it or not, He can bring
unity to a church. Imagine that.
A group of people. Thank you, Ralph.
All right, imagine that's how I feel too about it, brother.
You know, listen, a bunch of us being together, if we all have
Christ, we should be the most united group that you can find
anywhere. But it seems like that's not
often the case, is it? I'm not talking about liberty,
but I'm just talking about churches in general.
It makes you wonder if that's the case in the church isn't
truly united, then that means that Christ isn't all to the
church because people are serving their own selfishness,
their own thoughts, your own sin.
But where there is not unity, that means that Christ is not
all to unify a nation. Say where's the hope for
America? I say to you the hope for
America's in Jesus Christ for Psalm chapter 33 verse 12.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom
he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
Say, Pastor, you trying to make this a Christian nation?
Have you ever heard of the separation of church and state?
Well, I have heard the separation of church and state.
That was written by Thomas Jefferson, not in the
Declaration of Independence of the Constitution of the United
States, but he wrote about it to a bunch of Baptists in
Connecticut because they were worried about there being a
state church, as there already had been in the colonies turning
into States and as there was in Europe from which they were
trying to escape. Do I want this to be a Christian
nation? Here's what I want.
I want everyone to be a Christian and then this will be
a Christian nation. That seems to be the simplest
way to do it, to be able to just share our faith with as many
people as possible to tell how much Jesus can be a unifying
factor in a broken heart. And Jesus can unify hearts.
He can unify families, He can unify churches, He can unify a
nation. Listen when we humble ourselves
and realize that when mankind gets involved, we divide.
But when Jesus Christ truly is all and in all, he brings unity
that nothing else could bring. Truly, Christ breaks barriers
and Christ saves sinners. I don't try to say that in a way
that sounds flippant. Christ breaks barriers.
Sometimes people say something like that and they're trying to
say that sin is OK, that sin is not a big deal.
That's not what I'm talking about.
The barrier between Jew and Greek was broken down by Jesus
Christ. The barrier between circumcision
and uncircumcision was broken down by Jesus Christ.
Barrier, barbarian, sentient bond and free broken by Jesus
Christ. Why can I look around today and
see there's all different shades of color, people that know
different languages, people that come from different backgrounds?
Why can I look at this room and look like, then look and think
that it looks more like a group of the United Nations?
I don't want to be like the United Nations, but but why do I
see that? Because where the world couldn't
understand that we could be one in Christ and speak different
languages and be of different races and know that we're all of
one blood. And by the way, we all go back
to the same ancestors. You can go back to the book of
Genesis. You'll find out we're all
related. What do you need today if you
don't know where you'll spend eternity, if you're unsure where
you would spend your life after this life is over, and yes, I
said that correctly, where you'd spend the next life after this
life is over. I want to implore you, make
Christ all in your life. Understand that you're a Sinner.
Only Christ can save you. We're going to have some folks
there get baptized today. They came to a place where they
understood that they're sinners, that only Jesus Christ can save
them, and they called upon Christ to save them.
This isn't a process that you take care of when you're a baby,
when your parents take care of it with you.
This isn't a process that you do because you join a church.
It's not a process that you do because you have to listen to
the pastor preach 100 hours and then you know you're going to
heaven. Somebody say, wow, is that is,
is that easy? That sounds pretty hard actually
to me, all things considered. No, it's not about what feat you
could accomplish. It's about what Jesus
accomplished on the cross. That's why He is all and in all.
If you're a believer today, you know Jesus Christ, your Savior.
Are you fond of Him? Amen.
Or is He more? It's good to be fond of Him.
That's a good place to start. But is He all and in all, you
say? But you mean then Jesus, He
would be everything. Now you're getting it, but
there'll be nothing left. No, the things that would be
left would be things that would honor him and the things that
your responsibilities in your life you would do better because
you would be honoring the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.
No, Christ being all would not make you a worse parent and make
you a better parent. A worse spouse would make you a
better spouse. You say you've said that already
pastor. I just don't think people
understand it or believe it. Yes, it'll make you better when
Christ is all. Thought a lot of thought about
marriage on my mind, not just because it was on our
anniversary a few weeks ago, but because two weddings and 13
months for our family. That's a it's a lot.
It's a lot in the pocketbook because they're girls.
So it's a lot on everything. And listen, I'm I'm so thankful.
I'm so thankful for Carter, who just married Bethany back in
May. I'm thankful for Casey, who's
about to marry Kaylee here in June.
I'm thankful for them, but it makes me think about our own
wedding as well, Diane and mine. And you know, it's amazing.
All I've said this before, all the preparation, the time,
expense and all that and you get ready, it all leads up to like
30 minutes and you're done and you're like, that's it.
Like we need to do that again. Like that went by way too fast
for all the money and all the time and all the stuff that
happened. That's incredible.
I mean, it goes by so very, very fast.
But I think about wedding relations or marriage
relationships, I think about the wedding and there's usually two
different ways of looking at it. There are some that that wedding
day, they spend extravagant amounts of money on it and for
them, that's maybe the very best day of the marriage.
I'm not judging anyone. I'm not saying I'm just using
this as a way of illustration. For some, that may be the very
best day. It is the peak, it is the
pinnacle. And then after that it kind of
tapers off. It's a sad reality.
It is a reality in some situations.
There are others. And I feel this way in my own
relationship, but I feel like the wedding was modest and it
was, it was wonderful. And by the way, I'm not saying
that the the success of your marriage is based on how much
money you spent on it. Please be clear.
Let me be clear about that. But it was modest and we were so
in love. And I, I thought then I couldn't
love her any more than I love her right now.
But you know, 22 years later, and for some, that's a lot.
And for some of you are like, yeah, your kids, you know, I
know. But 22 years, I think I know I
love her more now than I did 22 years ago.
I couldn't even I couldn't even explain it.
I can't even I don't even understood it.
I just the longer we're together, the more I love her.
By the way, I'm not just saying that because she's in here
because I don't think she's in here right now.
So I mean, don't tell her I said any of that.
OK, no, but I feel like as by way of comparison, and I know
this may be a difficult comparison to make because as we
consider our relationship with Christ, human relationships
aren't always perfect because both people are not perfect.
Our relationship with Christ is different because we're not
perfect, but he is. But follow the illustration for
a second. If the best day of your
Christian life was the day you got saved and that was it, then
you've missed out what Christ has in store for you.
Was it an amazing day? It was a life changing day.
They became a new creature. Old things passed away, all
things become new. You were seated in heavenly
places. You you became a believer,
adopted into the very family of God.
It was a great day. But can I tell you this?
You ought to love Him more after years than when you fairly first
met Him. And if the day that was the
greatest, most lovingest day of your relationship was a day you
got saved, then just kind of tapered off.
Christ is not all. What's the process?
It ought to be the other marriage where as time goes on,
it just keeps getting better and better, sweeter and sweeter.
Oh sure, there's rough patches here and there, there's
difficulties, there's ups and downs.
And by the way, when there's ups and downs in our relationship,
mine with the Lord, it's not his fault.
He's faithful, he's true, He's good, I'm the one that can
stray. But is he your all in your daily
life as he is? And if he is, every day I'll get
a little sweeter than the one before.
And that when the time comes that he calls us to glory,
whether that's through death or whether through Jesus coming
back, it'll just be another progression, another step of
that getting to fellowship with him for all eternity.
Listen, He's going to be our all for eternity city might as well
be our all now. Christ is all.
Is he all for you today? Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.