Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.citygracechurch.com/sermons/93714/stable-and-steadfast/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] All right, on to the sermon. Well, if you don't know me, my name is Jesse. So glad that you're here with us. We're continuing on in our Colossians series. If you have a Bible, you can go ahead and open it to Colossians chapter one.

[0:11] We're gonna be reading from verses 21 to 23 today. And if you don't have it, that's okay. We also have verses on the screen as well. And here's where we're at in this letter. Paul has written a lot of things encouraging the believers so far, saying that he's praying for them, encouraging them in their faith.

[0:30] Testifying that their faith has rung out beyond them. And they are bearing good witness in what they are doing. But also, he has just finished one of the great statements on who Jesus is.

[0:41] And he says, Jesus is the Supreme Lord, the preeminent one, King over all. And he's also our sufficient Savior as well. And now he shifts to how we experience this salvation in our life, these truths of the gospel in our lives.

[0:59] And that's where you and I, the rubber hits the road for us. We have to ask ourselves the question, is the gospel enough? Is the good news about Jesus Christ and all that he has revealed in it, is that enough for me?

[1:10] Or is there more to move beyond? Is Jesus enough? Or is there something else to add to it that I need somehow? And so we're gonna look at it in these verses today. It says this.

[1:21] And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. In order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

[1:49] This is God's word. Now there are two important perspectives from which we must understand the good news of the gospel, which is salvation in Jesus.

[2:02] Perspective number one is God's perspective. Okay? His sovereignty over his determined plan to save and redeem people, and indeed all of creation, from the curse of sin and death.

[2:16] And then there's another perspective. There's our perspective. Man's perspective. How we experience this salvation from the time we initially hear the gospel and receive it and believe in it, and also how we live in it, how it works in us and transforms us and changes us, and how we remain in it.

[2:33] And for our time, the rest of our time today, that's what we're gonna look at. We're gonna expound these scriptures that we just read to consider these two perspectives, both God and ours. And there's a reason we need both.

[2:45] Because if you only sit in God's perspective, you end up in place, unhelpful places like hyper-Calvinism or easy-believe-ism. And it goes something like this. Well, hyper-Calvinism says God elects some to salvation.

[2:58] Those whom he has chosen from before the foundations of the world, he will definitely save, and nothing can make them unsaved. And so if that's true, then God's purpose is gonna bear out regardless of what I do and don't do.

[3:12] That's, I don't really need to preach the gospel because you know what? God will surely save those who he's chosen. He really doesn't need my help. Right? There's that kind of perspective in which Paul says, yeah, but Paul makes this argument in Romans.

[3:25] How are they gonna believe unless they hear? And how are they gonna hear unless somebody tells them? And then the other part of this dangerous perspective of only sitting in God's perspective is I don't need to confess and repent of sin or love my neighbor or put God first or strive to become more like Jesus.

[3:45] It's this easy-believe-ism of like, all you gotta do is say the sinner's prayer and walk down the aisle and then you're good to go the rest of your life. That's all you gotta. You had that one moment. That's all you gotta do.

[3:56] I'm written in the land's book of life. I can live however I want now. I got my fire insurance. But the apostle James pushes back against that error with this argument that's summed up in the phrase, faith without works is dead.

[4:09] And Paul even said, he wrote this, talking about the grace of God. You know, the grace of God is greater than sin. And he's like, but we don't go on sinning so that we can glorify God's grace, right?

[4:21] That's not what we do. He's like, by no means should we be doing that. Now, maybe you are not a big fan of Calvin in the first place and you maybe think he ruined Christianity and you might be fist pumping inwardly right now, like go get him Jesse.

[4:36] But I would say, don't throw stones before you read them for yourself. Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion is a, I would say, a glorious work on the nature of God and his attributes and also his salvation.

[4:47] And I would say his critics, unfortunately have misrepresented him and misinterpreted him without really knowing all the things that he said. They just go little snippets and assume that they know everything that Calvin is on about.

[5:03] And often those critics are people that sit too much in man's perspective. They don't like this idea of salvation and God's sovereignty. But when you do that, when you sit too long in man's perspective, what you end up doing is put too much emphasis on your responsibilities and works and you end up diminishing God's sovereignty.

[5:22] And it goes something like this. You start to believe a subtle version of salvation that begins in grace, but is somehow sustained or maybe even improved by your works. Sure, we begin and understand the gospel that Jesus died for us and I believe in him and that saves me from my sins and we need all that and that's really good.

[5:41] But you know what? It's really, I have to actually put in my own effort to keep myself in the fold and be able to get to heaven. We start to believe that there is a bit of righteousness that God needs from me that's dependent on me to earn and to keep.

[5:58] And so we begin in that way to slide into a soft belief of works righteousness, even though we might deny that we're actually doing that. And we attend church and we give and we serve, we maybe even evangelize because we think those things are necessary for us to get to heaven.

[6:14] So how do we avoid these unhelpful extremes? Well, we lean into God's sovereignty, God's beautiful, big sovereignty and salvation. We look at that and we start there and we say it from his perspective and we're just like, oh my goodness, the more we look at that, the more we understand it from his perspective, it's glorious and beautiful.

[6:33] So we lean into that, but we recognize within this sovereignty of God's redemptive plan, he has ordained in that that we have certain responsibilities as well. We do.

[6:44] I've heard it put this way from a guy named R.T. Kendall. To understand the gospel in this salvation, salvation in Jesus, we see from the best we can, we see these two lofty peaks poking out of the clouds, right?

[6:57] One is God's sovereignty, one is man's responsibility and they're side by side. And from best we can tell is they look separate to one another and they stand apart from each other and they even seem to be against each other.

[7:11] But somewhere in that clouded mystery that we can't tell, those two mountains are actually united. They come together, but it's in places that we can't fully understand and that we can't fully see.

[7:23] And Paul helps us today get a little bit into this mystery by giving us an order to things. And the order of salvation really matters to understanding salvation in Jesus Christ.

[7:33] And he says this in Colossians 121, and you, Colossians believers, you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled.

[7:46] And here we see God's sovereignty on display. Jesus finds us, we don't find him. Right? Remember that old song, I Found Jesus? Like, hey, I understand why you're singing that and probably it seems that way, but really, from God's perspective, that's not how this works.

[8:04] You didn't find Jesus, Jesus found you. Just how can you know? Well, look at how Paul unpackages this. And this is one of many scriptures. He says, you were once alienated.

[8:15] And that means you were shut out of fellowship. You had no intimacy with God. You were estranged from him. To unpack that fully, Paul is saying, you thought you knew who God was?

[8:26] You had no idea. You thought you knew how to get to God. You had no idea. Or, you were so darkened in your understanding, you didn't even know God existed. Or you rejected him outright.

[8:39] And okay, we were alienated, but that alienation isn't like, oh, we just didn't care about God. It says, no, we were hostile in mind toward him. Paul is saying, hey, unbelief is never apathy.

[8:51] It's never indifference toward God. It either comes out as antagonism or arrogance. That's how we display it. Right? It's a way of thinking and behaving toward God, whom we actually would prefer.

[9:06] It's just really inconvenient that he exists. So let's be hostile toward him. And hostile minds toward God lead to evil deeds. Romans 1 explains kind of this slippery slope of unbelief to hostile mind to evil deeds in this way.

[9:21] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.

[9:35] For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made so they are without excuse.

[9:47] God gave it, God created this thing and part of the creation that is all around us, both in this earth and into the universe is there to glorify in a very general revelation.

[9:58] You know what? There is something, there is a creator out there who has divine power to make all of these things, who has ultimate wisdom to set in laws, to set in motion the laws of nature that govern these things.

[10:10] He's a God of perfect wisdom. He is glorious. He is powerful. You cannot deny that. God has revealed himself in a general way. But man rejected that.

[10:21] Although they knew God, it says in verse 21, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and that their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images representing mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

[10:39] Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped him and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

[10:55] Amen. Paul is saying here, just like he said in Colossians, man, you were alienated. You were hostile in mind. To reject Jesus as savior and Lord is an apathy toward him.

[11:08] And before faith, that's where all of us were, hostile in mind towards Jesus. We have either a hostile antagonism. God is dead. He never existed or he's unjust.

[11:19] I look around the world. Things aren't working out well. There's death. There's famine. People are hurting each other. God doesn't seem to care or even step in. What kind of loving God will allow that to happen? And there's ways to look into that from God's perspective to understand how those things work out for sure.

[11:36] You can read the book of Job. That's really helpful. So there's hostile antagonism. There's also hostile arrogance. Like I don't need to worship God as he wants me to. Like man, he's so narcissistic.

[11:48] Look, I mean, he just like wants only my worship to him all the time in the ways that he demands. How dare he? I'm gonna worship God in my way. That's just hostile arrogance. That's coming to God and saying, you're not gonna tell me what to do.

[12:01] I'm gonna tell you how I'm gonna relate to you. The creature rejects his creator. The creature is telling the creator what's up. And you might say, yeah, that doesn't sound right.

[12:12] No, it's not right. And that hostility, it leads to evil deeds. Just a few verses down, Paul goes on to say, because they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

[12:25] And so they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They were all full of envy and murder and strife. They had FOMO.

[12:36] They had strife. They had deceit. They didn't get along. They lied to one another to take advantage of one another. They were malicious toward one another. And not only with their actions, with their words, they were gossips and slanders.

[12:50] They were haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.

[13:04] And such we once were. And such we once were. Such Jesse Kinzer was. Alienated, hostile, doing evil deeds.

[13:15] God wants us to know. Jesus wants us to know. Sin and belief are serious to him. They don't lead to good things.

[13:28] We are actively hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, and satisfied with being alienated for God. We, you and I, we are born into a world that pulls in that direction.

[13:39] It naturally goes in that direction. The ways of this world, the way it is set up, its value structures, all of that is pulling us, not toward worshiping God, and worshiping him as we should, but pulling away from that, and diminishing that.

[13:52] And then we are born with our own hearts that have that same virus that's out there in the world, in our hearts, affecting us. Our hearts want to bend worship back to us.

[14:02] We want to make life all about us. We're desperate to do that. But, so then the question is, who could save themselves?

[14:14] If that's what's going on all around us and inside of us, who could save themselves? We can't red pill ourselves out of this problem so that we just pop it one day and wake up and realize, apart from God, like, oh, I figured this out.

[14:27] This all makes sense now. I know, I see the truth of Jesus. I see the truth of the gospel. We can't do without him. Jesus had to come to us, and he did. He came, he lived and died and rose again so we could be reconciled to him.

[14:40] We didn't find Jesus, he found us. Jesus' disciples, he called them, he went to them. They weren't seeking him out and saying like, oh, that's the dude over there. He's got it.

[14:50] No, he had to come, he had to reveal himself to him as the promised Messiah and then he said to them, if you believe in me, come and follow me. He called them. He came to them. Right? God makes the first move.

[15:04] We respond to it but God makes the first move. How does this happen today? Well, this still happens, Jesus coming to us, this still happens through the preaching of the gospel. Through the preaching of the gospel, Jesus comes to people.

[15:17] Jesus finds us right where we are at. We don't find him. And without the hearing of the gospel, we wouldn't even know where to look or that there is a problem. Again, it's not like somewhere along the way, all the clever people start to figure this, slowly figure this out.

[15:32] You know what? The clouds in the sky kind of point to something bigger than me. That universe is so vast out there. I bet you there's a big God and his name is Jesus. Like nobody in the jungles of Africa or in the jungles in South America are sitting there thinking about that.

[15:48] They need somebody to come tell them about this good news of Jesus Christ. Your neighbors across the street may be in the same predicament. They may have grown up and again, we're becoming a more secularized culture in America, right?

[16:01] More and more people don't have never heard the name of Jesus or don't know about him or the thing they do know about him is totally wrong. They need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[16:11] Our coworkers need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's why we as the church must be sharing that good news with those who don't believe.

[16:21] That's our responsibility because Jesus is in heaven on the throne and what does he call his church? His body. We get to make the invisible God visible here on earth.

[16:36] We are his body. That is a marvelous calling and responsibility and privilege that you and I have as followers of Jesus that we get to do. And Jesus left us with that great mandate.

[16:48] He says, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, all ethnos, all peoples. It's for everybody.

[16:59] The gospel is meant to be proclaimed to everything under heaven. So Paul says in Colossians, to the ends of the earth and through you and me, through his church, you know what?

[17:11] Jesus still seeks and saves the lost. And that's a great motivation. It should be at least for us to be sharing the good news of Jesus with those who don't believe in him. But here's the thing.

[17:22] What exactly is this good news that we're sharing? What are we saying? And yes, it's that Jesus finds us, but also Jesus alone is the one who makes us holy and blameless.

[17:35] You and I cannot justify ourselves to God. Nor can we make ourselves as holy as God needs us to be. We can't be holy as God is holy.

[17:49] But Jesus can and does. Here's how. Colossians 1.22. He did it by reconciling us in his body of flesh when he suffered and died in our place.

[18:03] From the moment sin entered the world, atonement was necessary for us to live before God. In the Old Testament, how that worked out is you had innocent, blameless, spotless lambs who had to die.

[18:15] They were sacrificed to atone for the sins of God's people. But these sacrifices, they anticipated the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who's that once and for all sacrifice on the cross, removes our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

[18:34] Why did he do that? He did that to present you, like Paul's writing to the Colossian believers, you Colossian believers, he did that to present you, city grace believer, he did that to present you, holy and blameless and above reproach before him.

[18:51] That verb to present here is a Greek word that was actually used in the legal system there and it's legal language for bringing another before the court. So if you wanna understand, again, from God's salvation perspective as Sovereign Pan looking down what he wanted to do with Jesus on the cross atoning for us, he's saying that there is a divine court of the almighty eternal God that is happening and you and I are going to be brought into that, we're gonna be brought before him and we're gonna be measured for our holiness.

[19:28] Are we fit for eternal life? And in Jesus, and only in Jesus, are we considered righteous, just, blameless, above reproach and without a hint of guilt or condemnation.

[19:41] So if we trust what the Bible says, through faith in Jesus, we are united with Jesus and we actually are in him, think of yourself as robed in Jesus, in Jesus, behind him, him surrounding you, kind of like in a Jesus bubble so when the Father looks at you, the almighty judge looks at you and you think like, oh my goodness, I'm fully exposed here.

[20:05] All my thoughts, all my evil deeds, all that gross stuff I think about all the time that nobody knows about, that God knows about, man, I ain't getting into heaven but because you're in Jesus, he's looking at you and he doesn't see all of that, he sees the righteousness of his son and he sees the holiness of his son because you are hidden in him by faith in Jesus Christ.

[20:26] In theological terms, this is called justification. In scripture, it says, the just live by faith. We are justified by faith. That is how it happens and again, this justification before the throne of God is done for us, not by us.

[20:42] We don't get to earn our justification. We can't work our way into being justified. This is God's glorious sovereignty in our salvation. Here's our responsibility.

[20:54] We stand firm in it. We don't drift from this and being like, yeah, but maybe there's a little bit I could do. Standing firm on what God has done for us keeps us stable.

[21:11] In my late teens and early 20s, every once in a while when I got bored listening to K-Rock and I grew up in SoCal, but I would listen to talk radio shows, some of the Christian talk shows sometimes.

[21:26] And man, there was this constant theme that I would hear. People would call in and they were always nervous that they lost their salvation. Like, whoever the guy was on, you know, running the radio show, they were just like, please tell me I'm okay.

[21:40] Am I holy enough? Did this sin disqualify me? Is that sin unforgivable? Am I doing enough to please God? See, when you lose sight of what God has done for you and you put all the focus on what, on yourself and what you've done, you lose stability.

[22:00] on what are you standing? Are you standing on Christ, the solid rock? As the song goes, any other thing you stand on is gonna be shifting sand.

[22:11] It's gonna be unstable. It's gonna be, you're always gonna feel your teeter-tottering. And too often, we live with low-grade guilt and shame because we've forgotten or don't fully embrace that in Jesus, we are justified and declared holy.

[22:27] If you struggle with believing that in Jesus, every sin can be forgiven and washed away, if you struggle to believe that in Jesus, his righteousness covers you and his holiness covers you, you will be left trying to earn something you can never earn and you'll never shake a sense of spiritual imposter syndrome.

[22:49] If you go and look online what imposter syndrome is, but it's this internal experience of persistent self-doubt. believing you are not what others perceive you to be and have a fear of being found out.

[23:04] And there's kind of a cycle that people with imposter syndrome go through. It typically involves like, hey, I'm gonna prove myself. I'm gonna do something to show people that I'm legit, that I belong here.

[23:16] And they start to do this task and because they're putting so much pressure on this task going so well to prove themselves, they start to pick up anxiety and fear and often that leads to just over-preparation or they begin to over-work, right?

[23:29] They begin to over-function because I gotta prove myself here, I gotta show everyone I can do this thing. Or they look at it and they're just like, man, I bit off more than I can chew here, I don't think I can pull this off and so we procrastinate, we kick the can down the road, they're like, maybe I'll get to it in a little bit, maybe I'll get to it in a little bit, not now.

[23:45] And let's say that we do go through with that task and it kind of pulls, like we pull it off, right, to our measure of success and we're just like, dude, it hit all the expectations I was expecting and people give us a pat on the back and say, good job, Jesse, for doing that thing.

[23:59] And then we get this, oh, this temporary relief of success, this temporary, oh, okay, cool, I belong here. But that's short-lived because we just gotta prove ourselves again and the cycle repeats itself.

[24:11] That happens spiritually. We're little unsure of our salvation, we're just like, ooh, I don't know, I'm not sure. So we attempt to do something for Jesus. I'm gonna prove myself to Jesus.

[24:23] I'm gonna do this thing to show him that I belong. And then we start to realize what we're getting into. We're like, man, if this doesn't go well, oh my goodness, this is a lot on the line here.

[24:33] And we begin to start to feel nervous and anxious and begin to maybe even feel a little dismay and wondering like, oh my goodness, how am I gonna pull this off? And fear begins to grow in us. And then we begin to work harder or we just start procrastinating.

[24:47] And maybe we do succeed and we feel that temporary relief, but it's short-lived. The confidence of our position before God and his love in us, it wears off and we're just like right back to, oh, we gotta prove ourselves again.

[25:01] I gotta make sure I show God that I'm keeping all the rules, I'm doing all the things. We go through these cycles of, oh, I'm doing good. No, shoot, I messed up. Oh, shoot, I didn't read my Bible enough.

[25:13] Oh, shoot, I got mad or I had that dirty thought about somebody. Oh, shoot, and then we're up and down and up and down. We're all over the place. We're unstable. Why? Because we're putting so much pressure on ourselves to earn something that we can never earn.

[25:26] We think it is up to us. So what is the remedy? It's resting in Jesus's atonement and knowing that that is your righteousness.

[25:37] It's resting in Jesus's holiness and knowing that that is your holiness. That's what you hold fast to. That's what you rejoice in. And you don't try to add to it. You don't try to add to what Jesus has done.

[25:49] Friends, that thing, that's our responsibility. That's it. It's looking at the gospel saying, oh my goodness, this thing is more glorious and magnificent and wonderful than I could ever dare to believe.

[26:01] And it's saying, I'm not gonna add one iota to this. I'm gonna believe in that. And that's continuing in the faith, stable and steadfast. And that is the way that you and I are called to live in Jesus.

[26:14] There is no other way. We have to look back. We have to see this is what Jesus has done for us. He has reconciled us in his body of flesh. He did that, not us.

[26:26] But also, we have to continue in that gospel like Paul says here. So as important it is to look back at what Jesus has done, we have to look forward with the hope of the gospel before us.

[26:38] The promises that we have before us. Because if imposter syndrome doesn't get you, the suffering and seductions of this life will try to take you out. So keep your hope dead set on the fullness that will be ours in Jesus.

[26:54] In Jesus right now, you lack nothing with regard to holiness and righteousness. You have all you need in him. And also in Jesus, there are future blessings and glory that are incomparable to anything that we are going to experience now.

[27:08] But we also have to realize that hey, as much as we live and enjoy the salvation and all that it has to offer us and the fullness of it, like there's more to come.

[27:20] Because this life's tough. This life is not easy. Jesus told a parable to explain salvation and how it works out in our lives very clearly.

[27:33] The parable of the sower. And he said this, the sower went out to sow seed and it fell on various kinds of ground and the seed represented the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ. So the seed is the gospel and it's sown out and the ground are different kinds of hearts.

[27:47] And it says, the seed that fell on rocky ground, rocky hearts, showed some signs of life. So it looks like, man, that person was saved and this little root sprung up, this little bit of life sprung up.

[28:00] And it even endured for a while, but having no root, shriveled up under the heat of the sun. What's the heat of the sun? It's the suffering and the trial that come our way. Those suffering and those trials, they create dismay and they create doubt.

[28:17] So Jesus is saying here, will you endure in faith? You don't have to have perfect faith, but will you endure in faith? Other seed also sprang up and showed signs of life, but weeds grew up around it and choked it out.

[28:31] And this is what he said about that ground that had the weeds that came and choked out that plant. Those weeds represent the seductions of life, the beauty, the wealth, the sexual fulfillment, all the vanities and pleasures that we can afford ourselves.

[28:47] Those things that say, hey, come and partake of me. These will bring you goodness and glory and beauty and they try to shine themselves brighter than the glory of the gospel and they call us like seductive sirens.

[29:02] What will we choose to live toward? The temporal promises that pleasures can bring us are the eternal promises of the hope of the gospel. Because of the gospel and faith in Jesus and living in that truth, you know, we get to live in a foretaste of the fullness of the life of heaven that is to come.

[29:27] We do. We already get that now. But friends, it is a foretaste. It is not the full feast. And it can be tempting to think that we can bring the fullness of the life of heaven into right now.

[29:39] Everything that's happening in heaven, we just make it fully here on earth. Many zealous, sincere, earnest folks have wandered into this error. And here's the thing about heretics. They are sincere, but they're just sincerely wrong.

[29:53] Now, I want us to realize we never want to be ignorant of God's promises for us. But we must also avoid thinking that all of his promises can be fulfilled in this life.

[30:04] Now, for sure, there are some promises that are ours and they're beautiful and they're wonderful and they're yes and amen in Jesus Christ. We can know that we're justified. We can live in that. The holiness of Christ is ours.

[30:16] We can live in that. We get the gift of the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God living and moving and speaking with us, guiding with us, leading us on in Christ. We can know the Father's love. We can know what that is.

[30:26] And how deep it is. Those are beautiful things and beautiful promises that we can live in. We can know the peace of God that passes all understanding. And that's just a taste. There's many more that we get to enjoy the promises in this life.

[30:38] But some promises await us in the future when Jesus comes to complete God's redemptive plan as he comes and brings the new heavens and the new earth and the fullness of the life of heaven will be manifest at that point.

[30:50] And we can't shift from that. We can't shift from the hope that awaits us. And that word shift that Paul uses here is a word, it's a Greek word that means to be dissuaded from. You and I, we cannot be dissuaded from this hope of the gospel, the gospel that we believe in now, what Jesus has done and the gospel of the future promises that is ahead of us.

[31:09] We can't be dissuaded from those things. And there's gonna be false gospels that come our way that make false promises that we can enjoy the full heavenly feast now. In my 20s, I heard this, there were some sincere believers somewhere, I forget what they were, but they were claiming that by faith they could have painless childbirth.

[31:27] Like, look, if there is no pain and suffering in heaven and that's the life of heaven and God has broken that in now, then truly, if we have enough faith, then we won't have any pain in childbirth.

[31:37] Well, good luck with that. And there are people who say you can live in sinless perfection in this life. And they sure act like it.

[31:51] They will tell you and try to convince you that they have never committed a sin since they came to Jesus or actually in the last few years or whatever it is. And, you know, if you call them out on anything, they've got a great excuse.

[32:04] Well, that wasn't me being angry. I was just speaking passionately. Those weren't me using mean words. I was just giving it to you honestly. Or, you know, looking isn't really lusting. I mean, those are just natural desires God gives every man.

[32:17] I'm just doing the thing God put in me to do. See, when you try to make excuses for your sin because you need to achieve sinless perfection, when you try to say, okay, we can achieve the life that is to come here and now, we get the full feast, it just creates a new set of problems.

[32:39] And although we get a taste of the life that is to come, suffering and sinful seductions will persist. And don't be persuaded by any gospel that tells you otherwise.

[32:50] So stand firm, stable in the sovereignty of Jesus' salvation. He found you. He justifies you. He has broken sin's power over you, and in that power, and in his power that he has given to you by the Holy Spirit and his presence, you can overcome that sin that's got you all entangled right now.

[33:14] He alone can present you as righteous and holy, blameless, above reproach, beyond any accusation of condemnation.

[33:25] Jesus did all the heavy lifting. He did all the heavy lifting. Our responsibility is to remain steadfast to the hope of the gospel and what Jesus has done and that the future fullness is yet to come.

[33:40] Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Amen? As the band comes up and we look to respond, I want to say to all of us in the room, whether you're a follower of Jesus or not yet a follower of Jesus, we all have a chance right now to come to Jesus today.

[34:00] The gospel has been preached. The good news of who Jesus is and salvation in him has come to you and you get to respond. You get to respond.

[34:13] Some of us who are believers already, we're gonna take communion in a moment and give thanks and remember his amazing salvation, but if you're not yet a follower of Jesus, before you come to the communion table, you have to come to Jesus and just come as you are.

[34:28] You don't have to get your life together. Man, Jesus came to the broken and the weary. He found us just as we are. He didn't wait for the world to get better. He stepped into a world full of sin and suffering and sorrow.

[34:41] He finds us. He moves to the broken. He moves to the weak. He moves to the needy. And he comes to those who have unbelief and he says, come and believe in me and if that's you today, lay down your unbelief.

[34:55] See Jesus for who he is. Put your faith in him and your hostility and alienation from God and be reconciled to him. Trust in him as Lord and Savior and you will be forgiven and there's gonna be a prayer on the screen to help you with that.

[35:09] If you're gonna pray, if you wanna come to Jesus and just say, okay, how do I respond here? That is a great way to respond. Now for those of us who are already followers of Jesus, we're gonna come to the communion table and you know, as we come today, Jesus has come to us in the gospel.

[35:27] We get to respond and come to him and we get to partake of him and these elements, his body broken, his blood shed for us. You know, the Hebrew writer, I forget what chapter it is, but he said, man, we enter into, we enter into the holy places by a new and living way and it talks about, it's actually the veil that was there in the holy place that kept us out, that was torn and is no more.

[35:52] There's a new veil and it's called the body of Christ, his flesh. And so it's in him that we have access. It's in him that we can go into that holy place, his holiness, his righteousness for us and we get to come to him.

[36:06] We get to come to God. The cup that we drink, the blood that was shed for us, it's for the forgiveness of sins. The penalty and the power of sin is broken over you. It's done away with.

[36:18] So we get to come and we get to take communion and come with great thanksgiving what our amazing Savior has done for us. Amen. Pray with me. Lord, we come to you right now.

[36:33] Lord, we, I pray that we are amazed and just marvel at this good news of the gospel. this salvation that the writer of Hebrews says, oh, it's to our peril that we would drift away from it, that we wouldn't set our eyes on it.

[36:54] Lord, help us to appreciate this. It isn't the starting point of life in you and then we move on to bigger and better things. This is the all in all. This is everything that we need to know. Everything about you, Jesus Christ, and all that you have done.

[37:08] Help us to rest in you. Help us to trust in what you have done for us. Help us, Lord. And it's so easy to drift from that. Pray that in your name.

[37:20]  Amen. Amen.