Christ Hits the Center Every Time
First B Jackson
2017-03-05

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Fellowship and faith campaign for the kitchen remodel and fellowship hall remodel. I'll start out with the slide first on the first service I I forgot what I was here for. So anyway, updated numbers for giving. We have says 175 there. The actual giving as of the end of February was a $177,149.64 right in there.

So just wanna say thank you so much for all of you that participated in that. There's been a 111 different donors to this project. Things are rolling along very nicely. We're in the final stages of selecting appliances and cabinets and planning to order those very soon and still planning on our April 1, early April start for that. Monday nights will not be hindered in any way.

We're gonna partition off the end of the kitchen and we'll be able to continue there and it'll be amazing. So I think that's really all I have. Just thank you again so much for your generous contributions to this campaign. I think it's gonna be a powerful part of our ministry in this body.

So, thanks again. Thank you, Matt. The baby bottle campaign for Turning Point is just a reminder. If you took home one of those empty bottles and you're filling it, you can fill it and bring it on back in and we will turn those over back to Turning Point for their annual our annual fundraiser. I'm chairman of the board.

It's our, not there. It's our. Youth retreat. Renzy.

Alright. Today is the deadline to sign up for the Camp Bethel retreat next weekend. The connect retreat with a few other churches here in Wyoming. So middle school, high school kids, parents of those, if you are wanting to send your child on this trip, let me know today. I have to let them know by five today of my numbers.

So before five would be perfect. I'm gonna send a text out to everybody real quick here. Probably while you're preaching.

Okay. I'll be back. Renzi. I'm gonna assume you're reading your Bible on your phone. Yes.

No. I'm not. Alright. And there's one more message. Renzi is irreplaceable and y'all know that, but his time here is coming to an end in mid June.

Carl is going to make an announcement it looks like.

Yeah, exactly. That's happening. He is going. He's got big shoes to fill. And so we're in the process of actively seeking for that person to fill the role as youth and family pastor.

And it's looking like that's what it's shaping up to be, youth and family pastor instead of youth and tech as it's a huge role to fill concentrating on youth and family. So would you please be praying for us? That's my my question.

Thank you very much. Yep. And all the rest of announcements should be in your bulletins. There's plenty of information in there. If you haven't picked one up, you you can on your way out and you'll know what's going on.

That's the longest announcements we've done in a long time. Would you stand up and greet one another and we'll bring you back together with a peppy song? Will go never fear only trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other Amen. We've go ahead and sit down. I already started you now.

Go ahead and sit down. He played that exactly like it was supposed to be played. With, you know what muscle memory is? Y'all know what muscle memory is. They say that if you do something repetitively like a pitcher for a ball team, you do the same thing.

You know, practice makes perfect is not exactly right. Perfect practice makes perfect. To do things the right way over and over and over instills it in your mind. My vocal cords learn that song different than this music says it goes. And I speed it up every time by at least two beats.

But I love it. Trusting and obeying. Thank you very much for what you do. I learned from YouTube. You learned from YouTube.

Oh my goodness. That's like studying on Wikipedia. Yeah. Thank you very much for what you do. We're gonna skip that song because I went long in the first service.

Thank you. So thank you very much, Bob. Bob was very methodically leading me, and I still couldn't do it right because of muscle memory. The vocal cords are muscles. I'm gonna invite the frontline team forward right now.

And would you pray with me? Matt mentioned the cap capital campaign and the family fellowship faith campaign. And y'all have done amazing things right there. That's good and that's going to serve this community. This offering serves not just this community but this state, this missionaries here and beyond and so, I just want to say thank you for what you do right here in this general given general fund and thank you lord for what you do with this general fund.

I see the list when we come to the time where we're studying budgets and we see what's been spent and what we think we might do the next year and we're studying the wave and looking for the wave that you would have us ride, lord. I pray that you would use everything that goes into this offering to do your kingdom's work, to advance the gospel, to glorify God, to glorify the name of Jesus. Would you, lord, take the gospel where it has never been before. Would you use these faithful obedient servants who give and the funds that they give, would you multiply and do your kingdom's work. In Jesus name, lord, we ask for your blessing on the gift and the giver.

Amen. This morning or up to Colossians three one through 11. Now, last week, when Sammy was being baptized, I I ended the service with three one through four because it's just kind of that taken off point. It's about the the being buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life. To me, I love that and I always think of that during baptism.

So, I ended there last week. We're going to start with it again. I barely gave it a chance last week. We're going to start with three one through four and then get up to verse 11. This one is one of those that's a little bit heavy because it is about a list of vices, a list of sins and if you consider that this was written to Christians as it was written to Christians, a lot of times, Christians take the vice list, look at the world, and see that and then decry the world for all of these sins.

Well, yeah, but it's written to us about the sin in our own life. And so getting that to go, the right way is what that first part is about. This first part right here. It's gonna point us toward the table, toward coming together as one. I wanna say something before I start.

I've used this for the last two weeks, this little diagram. Dogmatic, we can be too dogmatic and be outside of Christian orthodoxy. In doing that, being too dogmatic, we can be too existential or experience based and be outside of Christian Orthodoxy that way. Or we can be too supernaturalistic or naturalistic. Now I'm not gonna go through it all again as far as I did for the last two weeks.

But the reason that I put it up there, last week in both services, I said, so if you know that you pull to this side, then find somebody over here and y'all pull one another back towards the center of the target Jesus hits the center every time. Jesus hits the center and we are the body of Christ and so we balance one another. So, if you find somebody that is not like you that's across from you, then go to em and y'all all pull each other to the middle. And it sounded like this great impassioned thought, and it was good in theory. And then in actual practice afterwards, I got several calls this week that said, so and so said that I was dogmatic.

Or so and so thought I was too supernaturalistic I'm not saying you're too much that way. This is orthodoxy right here. There's a you're hitting the target. Yeah, that's great but I was just meaning pull us to get, you know, towards the center and without Christ, we can't hit the center of the tarp. We're not going to hit orthodoxy on our own but as we get closer and closer to Christ and we see in someone else, something that we admire as a great Christian quality, knowing the Bible is not the same thing as being dogmatic.

Do you get what I'm saying? Feeling the presence of God is not the same thing as being barking like a dog and going crazy, right? So, when when somebody comes to you and says, I think you're dogmatic. I don't think that they mean it in a bad way. They're looking at this.

They're looking at this and going, you're not like me, and I wanna be more like you. Does that make sense? It's a compliment. That was meant to be a compliment. So I got that from three different sets of people this week, who are all friends and love each other, but they see in something someone else acquire a a characteristic they want to acquire more of.

And so it's good. In the first service, I said, somebody says you're dogmatic, you probably are. You may be but you may just know the Bible really well and that's what they're thinking about. Okay. So, retraction over.

That's the that's it. We hit all over the the map there but Christ hit the absolute center in his life and walk and all of Corinthian all of Colossians is about the preeminence of Christ about him and about living in him but actually living it out on this Earth. Supernatural power of God, all of the fullness of deity dwelt in him bodily, supernaturalistic, naturalistic, dogma, all that was written about him, all that pointed towards him and was experienced in the New Testament. Christ hits the center of that mark, okay? And that, I want to start here.

Now, y'all know the way that we have been going for the last four years, four and a half years almost. It will be five years in June that we've been here. And through these almost five years, we've gone through the life of Jesus in the book of John, and then life of the early church, the book of Acts, and we've gone forward in our study through the epistles in the order that we believe that they were written. So I sometimes will say, it's like we're doing a very, very, very, very long court case, and these are facts that are already entered into evidence. Okay?

This is true. Romans six seven, we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We're no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. Praise God.

That's true. It's a fact. It's entered into evidence already. I'm going to build off of that today. Galatians, we've been through already too.

02/20. I have been crucified with Christ, Paul says. That's a long Greek verb, and it means have been crucified in tandem. Or I like, I have been co crucified. The type of verb that that is is something that happened in the past that continues to have effect into eternity future.

Does that make sense? It's something that's a done deal, has already happened, and it has recurring effects throughout eternity. So having been crucified in tandem or having been co crucified with Christ changes things. Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, the walking around man, the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. It continues in the next verse to say, and I do not set aside the grace of God.

Being crucified with Christ is a gracious act of God. He took our penalty. He took our punishment. I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. Do you get that?

So, this is where we're starting. These are facts already entered into evidence in today's deliberation that you have to do is listen to the evidence today. Now, I'm gonna go through the list of vices. I told you it could be a little bit heavy. The list of vices in the New Testament, they are written, each one of them, every one of them was written to Christians.

So thinking, if you're a Christian and you're sitting out there, this list was written to me. The works of the flesh in Galatians, just three chapters later after the crucified with Christ, He gives the theological just like Paul always does. A theological truth and then he talks about how to live that out. The works of the flesh. I remember when I put this up here the first time when we were in Galatians.

The work this the works of the flesh are these, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, bits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like, or and things like these. So that is a not all inclusive list. It's a general list, but there are a lot of things up there. Christian, do you have any things in your life that is on that list? You might be able to skip a couple of them.

Go, well, I don't struggle right there. Maybe because you hadn't had opportunity or maybe that your struggle is further down the list but we struggle there. This was written to Christians. If you go on, first Corinthians also written to Christians. Sexual immorality, adultery, homosexual activity, idolatry, thievery, greed, drunkenness, reviling, and swindling.

If you add to that Ephesians four and five, you get lying, evil talking, fornication, obscene, silly, vulgar talk, empty words, disobedience. If you add to that, we can keep on adding. If you if you add to that, second Timothy, Romans, and another one from second Timothy, you get all of those and it just stacks up. But look at this. This list over here, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control is steady.

There are some other lists of the of the good things in life but they look a whole lot like this list right here. It's the fruit of the spirit in our life. I'm going to come back to that in a minute. The ones that were up there were up to today's text. Actually, I'll go back to that for a minute.

Sexual immorality, usually it's the start of the list. Impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness which is idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying, foolish, quarrelsome, quarreling over ignorant controversies, All manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slander, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of new way to do evil, inventors of new ways to do evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. And then the last, from second Timothy there is, and see if you understand this. This is actually what it says. But understand this, in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

Do you believe that we are in the last days? Okay. Listen to this list and decide for yourselves. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without any self control, brutal, not loving the good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Some of these may even have the appearance of godliness, but they completely deny its power power.

The natural is this. Without the supernatural, the natural is this list, And we see it all around us. Actually, the very end of that says avoid such. So I'm gonna go forward from there. Each one of those passages that has a list of vices gives a grave warning because it's written to Christians.

If you have been crucified with Christ, then I warn you just as I warned you before that those who do, who are practicing, who continually, it's a present tense thing, who are doing such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's a grave warning, especially in a list of things that we are capable of. So Colossians, I'm gonna bring you back to right here. Colossians three one through four. If then you have been raised with Christ because that's the starting place for your Christianity.

Have you been raised with Christ? Have you identified with him in his death? Have you been co crucified? If then, you have been raised with Christ, salvation first, then, sanctification. Seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Look for those qualities that you saw in Christ. He was he was meek and mild and gentle and truthful and though he did have anger, he did not sin. He is seated at the right hand of God. Seek those things which Christ had. The humility.

I think of though being in very nature, God did not see equality with God as something to be grasped. He presented the truth of scripture and he presented the true way to live it out and people rejected it. He never beat anyone up to say, I'm right. He didn't consider equality with God, rightness, being right. Something to be grasped.

He presented it. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. Set your mind on things above. The supernatural does play into our natural life. Now, don't be so heavenly minded, you're of no earthly good whatsoever.

For you have died, your life is hidden with Christ and God. I had somebody come up after the first service and said, I really fouled things up this week. I really did not it didn't go well. And when going further, she said, I said something that I shouldn't have said, and when I said it, I knew it was wrong, and there was nothing I could do to bring it back, to rein it back in. She wasn't with believers.

She was with unbelievers, and she feels like she ruined any chance. I said, well, go and your life is hidden with Christ and God and that conviction that you feel is something they may not ever feel But when you know that you've been wrong and you can go back to them and say, listen, I was wrong. That that spilled out of my mouth. I'm ashamed of. I grieve the loss of relationship.

I grieve the loss of trust. And can you forgive me? I'm sorry. That's the best thing that we can hope for instead of saying, well, theologically, I was right. Actually, theologically, she was right.

But if you're fighting with somebody that does not know God, equality with God is not something to be grasped. The humility to go back and apologize, I think is a good thing. You have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Other people may not ever see that your life is hidden with Christ and God and does they do not know exactly what it is to be walking in your shoes. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Looking forward to that future hope incorruptible is important, and it's something that is acts as a grounding for this moral instruction that Paul is about to give. Don't ever confuse Christianity and morality. Does that make sense? Don't ever confuse Christianity and morality. All human beings are tempted to sin.

We continue to be tempted to sin. We have the power not to be slaves to that sin, but don't confuse morality with Christianity. So here we go. The old humanity, and this is what Paul is talking about in five through nine a. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.

Sexual immorality, that is first in the list most of the times that we've given a list of vices. It is the one that is the most natural, I guess. It's the one that is the greatest temptation for a lot of people. So Paul always leads off with that. It has such damaging effects.

He almost always leads off with sexual immorality. Do I need to explain it any further than that? Anything outside of a godly marriage. Impurity. Don't need to explain that.

It's just not pure. Being not pure. Passion. Now, every conference I've ever been to at some point during the week, whether it's a Christian conference or a safety conference or any kind of conference, you go and

they go, what's your passion? I want you

to get in touch with what your passion is. This is an overwhelming preoccupation with something. This what it means here. Probably those first two: impurity, sexual immorality, but it could be these next few too: evil desire and covetousness, wanting what belongs to someone else, which is idolatry. Actually, this is the list sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, and it's written to Christians.

And it's saying that all of these things equal to idolatry if they take the place of God. So it is a I forgot the word right there it's a distortion of a gift God has given sexual immorality, purity, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness. All idolatry, they've taken the place of God and then in verse six, he says, on account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. Now, I was looking up a survey. I've I've started school again.

I've started I've gone back to school. And I've started looking at I've got a whole lot more resources now available to me. And I was reading this, survey. And it's a 1993. I couldn't find an updated one.

So think about this. This is twenty six years ago. Twenty twenty four years ago. Sorry. Twenty four years ago, God is, and they had a list of things.

Loving or forgiving. Forgiving 97% of Christians. These are people who claim Christ and were church goers. It was the teaching church moving education to center stage is the name of the survey. God is forgiving.

97% of the people believe that. I don't understand why it's not a 100% because I think you gotta ask for God's forgiveness to be a Christian in the first place. But 97% affirm that God was forgiving. 96% affirm that God is loving. Again, I think that ought to be a 100 judging.

This was twenty four years ago. I guarantee you the numbers are worse now. God is judging. Only 37% believe that to be the case. And if you ask, does God punish those who do wrong?

Only 19% believe that he does. The wrath of God is a, concept that is disappearing from our Christian teaching and Christian practice. In a lot of ways, I think, God does punish those who do wrong. God also forgives those who do wrong. But it's at Christ's expense.

God does punish wrong. I I have said many times before that everyone in this room will either be condemned because of what they have done or they'll be forgiven because of who they have trust. God does punish those who do wrong. On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. Now the wrath of God, the way that you think of it, a lot of times in cartoons or in cartoon strips, it's God with lightning bolts, and he's just waiting for somebody to do something wrong so that he can immediately zap them.

Smite, you know, boom right now. Immediately. I I don't think that that's the concept that Paul is bringing out. Actually, in Romans, he says, that for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God. They became futile in their thinking, their foolish hearts were darkened.

He says, like Psalm 19, he says that what can be known about God is plain because God has shown it. His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since creation of the world and the things that have been made so that they are without excuse. Claiming to be wise, they became as fools, exchanged the glory of immortal God for images result resemble in mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. And therefore, and this is the scary part about the wrath of God. Therefore, God gave them up.

God gave them over in their lusts of their hearts to impurity. Then the next paragraph it says, for this reason, God gave them up. God gave them over to what it is that they wanted. And then in the next paragraph, he starts off again, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind or a reprobate mind to do that which ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

And that's where the list of vices I read earlier starts. God gave them over to their own desires. That's the wrath of God that we see now. It doesn't have to be hell. It's the hellish experience of having rejected what you know of God.

That's that's the wrath of God. On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming and these to you too once walked when you were living in them. For every one of these list of vices that I have, there's a warning. I warn you as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. That was the Galatians one.

In Colossians, it's this, in in these, you once walked. In Corinthians, as such were some of you in the past, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. Because of these things there, sorry. In each one of these it's got a warning, but it also has the flip side of the coin. He says this again, he reiterates, these are more general categories, but it's the same type thing.

Now, you must put them all away. Anger. Of all the list of things that you've done, that you think of as sin, is anger at the top of your list? Anger, your own wrath. This is not God's wrath.

This is your own wrath. Malice, slander, obscene talk. If you look at anger, you know what anger is? I don't have to explain that when we all get angry. Wrath is acting on that anger.

Righteous or no? Okay? Righteous anger or not, acting on that wrath. Malice. Malice is wishing ill of someone, hoping some bad thing will befall them.

I said in the first service, I hope that guy follows up that platform up there because he's making me really angry. Right? Malice is wishing something ill on someone else. And then slander is speaking poorly about someone else. It's basically the news.

If you look at the news, it's basically that. Slander is always saying something ugly about the other, okay? And then obscene talk is just filthy words. Filthy words that come out of our mouth, it says. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.

So the do not lie to one another is the last one of the the sins in this list. We all know what that is. I have a very, very good friend who's a missionary down in Mexico, he's raising his kids. He said, pretty much anything that they did wrong would get a spanking, you know, a pop on the fanny, when they were little kids except for lying. And he said it's three times because lying lying just distorts everything.

Adlai Stevenson, y'all probably know who he is. He said it was an ever a lie was an ever present help in times of trouble. No. Lies just beget more lies. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have have put off the old self with its practices.

You probably heard preachers going and on about this putting off and putting on. It's not put off, like don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today. It's put off like take off take off the old self with its practices. So the new humanity, this is the switch point where he changes it from the old way, the old man, the flesh, to the spirit. The new humanity, very practically speaking, is this.

Nine b starts off, seeing that you have put off the old self. Actually, I showed up this morning, had a sweater on, and as a visual aid this morning and because it's about 90 degrees in here, I took the sweater off. I took off, put off that old sweater, put off that old self with its practices and put on the new self which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator. The renewing of the mind is a concept that Paul is writing and he's appealing to their sense of reason. He wants for them to renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator, putting on the new self.

Here, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free. But Christ is all and in all. The preeminence of Christ he comes back to, and it points us to this. Denominationally speaking, we're from a lot of different denominational backgrounds in this room, and we hit different places of the target. And if it weren't for Jesus, we wouldn't even be hitting the target at all.

But he is the one that pulls us to the center, and today we celebrate this remembrance of him. He must be all in all. And if we look at that, the Holy Spirit will convict us of our sin, convince us of Christ's righteousness, and illuminate the scripture. So here, there's not Greek or Jew, Baptist or Methodist, circumcised, uncircumcised, wild man, barbarian, Scythian, it doesn't matter where you're from, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all no matter your socioeconomic background, no matter your particular sinful bent because we all have a sinful bent in the old man. Christ is all and in all.

So I'm gonna invite the frontline team to come back up, and we're gonna go into a time of communion right now. And I think that the thing that I was the most convicted about this week is is thinking about these lists were written to Christians. And I think that what we're known for as Christians often is decrying the other. Often we decry what's being done in the world, and we do that because it's it's wrong. It is wrong.

We have to see that it's not the way that it should be. But I think Paul is pointing for self evaluation and looking at ourselves. And we always need to be self evaluating when we come to the table of Christ, recognizing the perfect life that he lived and the pure blood, innocent blood that he spilled. But God, would you right now, lord, impress upon us our own sin that we need to give over to you. Would you forgive us, lord?

And would you impress upon us your righteousness, that available righteousness that you've imputed to our account and we can walk in? Would you impress that upon us, lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit? Would you give us verses to hold on to like these that point us to practice that which we preach? In Jesus' name, Lord, would you bless this little cracker as we distribute these for each person who would take it, Lord, that they would do so conscientiously, and for each one who must let it pass. I pray that another Christian in this room may lead them into your loving and gentle way.

Amen.

Thank you.

On the same night that he was betrayed, Jesus took bread after supper. After he gave thanks, he broke it and he said, this is my body that is given for you. Take this and eat and do it in remembrance of me. Thank you, Jesus, that you did walk a perfect life. Though tempted to sin in all the same ways that we are, you were without sin, and you had a perfect spotless account that you could offer to any of us who believe.

I thank you, Lord, for the blood of the new covenant. And so, Lord, we ask your blessing right now on this cup, this little representation, this grape juice that represents your blood which was given for sin and so lord, as we take this list very seriously today, would you allow us, lord, the kind of introspection that lets us see and confess. In Jesus' name, Lord, would you bless this cup as we distribute it for every soul present. Amen. Take this and drink, he said, and do it as often as you will in remembrance of me.

Praise God. I was just thinking about, if you've been baptized last week, this table is for you. You're baptized eighty years ago in a foreign country as an infant, and you believe in Jesus, this table is for you. Republican, Democrat, doesn't matter. This table is for you.

Praise God for the new covenant. It's not by works. It's by grace. Praise God. Would you stand and join with us in song?

It was so much fun in the first service. I changed the last song in this one. Do you believe that there's power in the blood? Okay. Then sing it like you mean it.

Lewis Ellis Jones wrote this in 1899. It's still just as true today as it was then. I'm having the same trouble with my with your strap, Dale. But, Florine played so violently for that first service, wanted to hear it again. Alright.

Ready? Alright. Amen. Amen. Alright.

Now, by common confession, I'll say this, great is the mystery of godliness. It's still a mystery for us who believe it. Don't expect for the world to understand it. Great is the mystery of godliness. He who is revealed in the flesh, that's Jesus, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory.

May we live it out. May we proclaim him. May our lives do great testimony to his efficacy. In Jesus name, amen.